On Using The Noctis [or not]

In a recent discussion with Penny [thank you for helping to keep Our Eve stocked and readable], the subject of the Noctis was brought up. Penny and I [and the boys too] have popped a couple Noctises [Nocti? Noctae? Noctices?] in wormholes since ORE began shipping the blueprints for manufacture and have seen a few different fits. This has raised several questions about the usage of and consequently the fitting for a Noctis. In view of my own usage, the Noctis – I would have to say that the answer to the first question is a resounding, “Maybe” and the second question has an even more amorphous answer.

On the one hand, a pilot could try and fit his salvage ship to survive. Plates and resists for protection and rigs to round out its ability to tank. This seems like a fairly tenuous position as the ship is quite fragile and will not be able to mount a very effective escape with such a high armor burden. The other option might be to generate as much speed as possible though it will be impossible to outrun all but the most inexperienced pilots.

Still a third option might be to use a cloak in a high slot to help “hide” for a moment to possibly confuse and confound a potential attacker. This can work for some ships, but the Noctis is still a big target that will be hard to miss when it does uncloak. Another problem with the cloak is the amount of time it adds to the job that the ship is supposed to be performing. Every decloak will engender a delay in targeting and the fitting of the cloak will increase the amount of time necessary to target the wrecks themselves. This can be mitigated to some extent by the application of Sensor Boosters and Signal Amplifiers. This is akin to ships fitting Ancillary Current Router rigs on Caldari ships so that anything “proper” will fit.

Penny is of the opinion that the best way to protect a Noctis is to let it do its job as quickly as possible. The less time that it spends in open space, the less time its pilot will spend updating his clone. This is true to a large extent and I believe that the fitting is only a small part of it. I would suggest that with the added bonuses to salvagers [and especially if you fit Salvage Tackle] that the onus for efficiency will fall on the tractors. Thus in general, a five-three split of tractors and salvagers will likely serve you better. This should hold true for high-sec as well as wormhole clean-up. I would suggest against a cloak as it is going to decrease the speed at which you get the wrecks locked and consequently the speed at which to process the trash floating around in space.

For the mids slots I would lean toward a microwarp drive for its ability to burn toward a gate or wormhole. It is going to make little or no difference in salvation of the ship should sneaky seeds of Satan show up to snatch your scow from you. It will however potentially get you to your destination in a more timely manner. A Sensor Booster [SeBo] is going to help get the wrecks locked more quickly and generally enable you to spend more time frantically mashing F1-F8 to clean the mess that was left floating behind. The other alternative is a Capacitor Recharger but will largely be a matter of choice.

Finally in the low slots do we come to the bones of contention. Cargo, Speed, Armor – which direction should you head? From the beginning I would suggest against a plate. It will do more harm that good to try and slap on a plate that eats up your powergrid, offers only limited improvement in tank and slows down your ability to turn, accelerate and go fast. Resists are a great option and will generally help bolster your tank so that your fleet-mates can arrive on grid in time to see you explode save you. I would avoid the expanded cargoholds unless you are working in High Security Space and you need the 3-4k m3 to store the level 4 mission loot you are collecting. Speed then is a great option to help you get close to the wrecks that are just outside your 68-80km tractor range or align when local/dscan spikes.

Your rigs are likely to just be Salvage Tackle and possibly a Low Friction Nozzlejoint or CCC if you have poor cap skills.

As I write this I am hearing and seeing a lot of negative commentary to the discussion of ship fitting in general and industrial ships in particular. Not everyone understands why they are told to fit a ship certain ways, and many more will believe whatever it is they want about ship fitting in denial of and with disregard for any suggested fittings. For those of you looking to shoot the Noctis, the best advice is just get in and apply alpha as it will go down very quickly. For those of you trying to survive, your best bet is to keep your eyes open and stay out of harms way.

This is in response to a post by ASTRAL DOMINIX. His Harbinger fit will have a hard time running any level 4′s alone. The incoming damage is often at or above 400 dps and medium rep and resists alone aren’t going to get it. I agree with some of the commenters that the Drake can be a great mission boat, but after having run several hundred level 4′s in it and later in a Raven, I learned one very important fact: I can blitz multiple level 3 in a gank fit drake faster than I can run a level 4 [in a Drake].

I’m not going to suggest that you switch to running in a Drake unless you have a specific desire to become a full-time mission runner, and even then I would probably just suggest that you skip the drake and head straight to training for a Raven. I love the utility of these mid-sized ships and prefer to be in a battlecruiser hull if I can.

For example:

• Average Level 4: 5-10 million
  • Payout: 300,000-500,000
  • Bonus: 300,000-500,000
  • Bounties: 1.5-4 million
• Average Level 3: 1.5-3 million
  • Payout: 100,000-200,000
  • Bonus: 100,000-200,000
  • Bounties: 700,000-1,000,000

Then if you fit a drake to run the level 3′s in say, 10-15 minutes each, you can really clean up. It is fairly easy to blitz them for about 10-15 million per hour.

Obligatory Drake Fitting:

[Drake, LVL 3 Blitz Drake]

Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Shield Power Relay II
Photon Scattering Field II
Heat Dissipation Field II
M51 Iterative Shield Regenerator
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I, Scourge Heavy Missile
‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I, Scourge Heavy Missile
‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I, Scourge Heavy Missile
‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I, Scourge Heavy Missile
‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I, Scourge Heavy Missile
‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I, Scourge Heavy Missile
‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I, Scourge Heavy Missile

Medium Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Medium Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I

Hobgoblin I x5

Fitting Comments:

1. It’s a tight fit CPU-wise. You may end up needing to drop back to named modules for the tank to free up a little more.

2. The shield resits are interchangeable depending on what you are hunting [fit for Sansha].

3. The ‘Arbalest’ heavy missile launchers are expensive [16 million!], but can usually be resold for the same amount when you move up to a bigger/better ship.

4. Tech 2 Launchers are perhaps a bit to tight to fit here. ‘Malkuth’ are used to cut down on CPU requirements.

5. The dual-rigor catalyst rigs are key. They are the equivalent of having two target painters built into every missile you fire.

It’s been a busy last couple of days. I have been perpetually thwarted by every attempt to undock. First it was a family emergency that required more than my passing attention to the information being fed down the hardwiring. Then there was a business trip to meet with a potential client for ongoing mineral sales. He was wanting to buy consistent quantities of certain minerals on a guaranteed schedule at or above market rates. The problem turned out to be the client’s backers were slightly less than reputable or even honest. It wasn’t shaping up to be a good time.

I managed to get back into the Lou Ferrigno and get several million units of Veldspar, Scordite and Kernite mined. Now that I have the standings with those Tash-Murkon Family posers, I can refine for more than I can sell the ore for. I don’t have the manufacturing skills yet to produce much with it, so I go for the profit. As I was making trips back and forth to the station, I would check the available mission ops for something interesting. The next to last trip in I noticed they were offering a chance to retrieve some minerals for war and knew the area would offer some Gneiss as well. I’m all for working through kind of ore I can get, so I pulled my records on the area and saw some battleship sized baddies.

I have been putting this off for some time, but I finally broke down and fired up heavy missile training. I hoped this would help it go a bit more smoothly. I checked my training times to make sure I could get it finished before the mission offer went away. Knowing that it was going to work, I flew off to make the last couple of jumps on the last sales trip. I’ll have to let you know how the heavies work out in real world practice. I might miss the missile-per-second firing rate of my seven little assault launchers.

I couldn’t resist the title now that I have for the moment completed my mission grind. I now have enough standing with the local corp to refine my ore at 100% before taking it to market. For weeks I’ve just been sitting on my rock collection while I ground through mission after horrible mission to get enough standings. An unexpected bonus is that I have enough LP to pick up one of the specialized social skills from the LP store [nothing else of interest to a non-Amaarian pilot]. Now that I have my 6.7 standings, I’m refining on every trip out. The next major hurdle is getting it to the right market.

Speaking of refining, I’m finishing up Refinery Efficiency V so that I can start training Scrapmetal Processing and Ice Processing. Of course this also necessitates training Hydromagnetic Physics and Metallurgy. It really bothers me that inefficiency would take so much from the modules and fittings that I want to refine.

I was relaxing in my favorite pod, sipping on some nutri-goo after a very long and successful set of Blockade missions. It’s almost kind of sad how easily these traders let their private jumpgates get stuffed up. So I had cleaned out all the Sansha scum and was relaxing while perusing the nearly 200 m3 salvage I had cleared. It has been a good day.

The music was softly playing in the background and I closed my eyes for moment. Only for a moment and the moment’s gone. But so was my connection. The universe-wide, pod system shutdown caught me while I was dozing. I had missed my latest skill training completion and was so angry with myself I screamed. Unfortunately I then had to explain to my family on the other side of the coms why I was screaming and it wasn’t at them. There’s another couple of hours of training I’ve lost.

Someday I’ll write a book, “All The Things I Could Have Trained”!