On Learning That EVE Mirrors National Geographic

They hunt and kill each other. Some of them are sneaky and just blend into their surroundings until the right type of prey happen to come by. Others sprint from place to place picking off their prey as they can. Some always roam in packs and overwhelm their victims by sheer force of numbers. Still others use high specialised attack roles and come at the prey from multiple vectors attempting to confuse and separate. And lastly there are those that are just bigger and leap at the prey, scattering the herd and smashing the victim into dinner.

Tigers? Cheetahs? Dingos? Wolves? Killer Whales?

Capsuleers

The Stealth Bombers, Covert Ops, Force Recon and to a lesser extent Black Ops ships are sneaking around behind you even now. They are lining up for the perfect shot and jam and will patiently wait for you to be ready to die. They pick and choose their battles learning which ships pose the biggest threats to them and which will be easy picking.

The Interceptors and to some extent Destroyers and Tech 1 frigates are the speedy, chase it down and kill it ships. Their pilots are used to moving fast and striking hard, then moving on again. Sitting still they tend to twitch and start to rock back and forth in their pods. Several faction ships also fall into this role.

Frigate and cruiser blobs are like swarms of locust, descending to devour their prey and attempting to cut a wide swath of destruction through enemy forces.

Force Recons, Electronic Attack Frigates, Assault Frigates, Heavy Assault Ships, Interdictors and Heavy Interdictors combine their effective and impressive array of abilities to engage other groups of pilots, even when out numbered can come away with impressive kills. They disorient, confuse and distract their targets all while bringing great amounts of damage to bear.

Though the Orca bears its name, the battleships of EVE represent her true killer whales. They drop in on a ship, open their arsenals and pick through their remains. The can fight in packs or solo and can be a real force to behold.

This isn’t the be-all, end-all list of animal kingdom comparisons. What others have you noticed?

On Reviewing The Ships That Make It All Possible

I saw Rixx Javix post about what he has in his hangar and naming conventions and thought it was a wonderful idea to review what I had as well. I’m late the party, but likely not the last. I absolutely love naming ships for practical as well as aesthetic reasons. I also have to admit that I’m going to play a little bit loose with the term “hangar” as I live out in unknown space where things are not as well defined and most all of my ships are in a Ship Maintenance Array. Living out of an SMA, reduces the number of spurious hulls we have on hand, but I usually have duplicate hulls already purchased in k-space.

Click on ships to see their descriptions

Buzzard

Manticore

Maller

Drake

Nighthawk

Scorpion

Guardian

Hulk

Charon

Orca

And that sums up the list of ships I keep. I used to have a lot more, but now I tend to limit them to what I’m using currently and a couple of backup hulls kept in Jita.

On Killing and Being Killed In A Wormhole

If you are going to fly in a wormhole, you are going to die. A lot. For a good summary of how that can happen, check out miningzen’s wonderful post on the subject. The reality is that you are going die everywhere you fly. Like the somewhat over generalised statement, “There are two types of capsuleers: Those that have been killed and; Those that are soon going to be.” Until Incarna, you are safe in the stations, otherwise, you are likely to have a deep and meaningful relationship with the subroutines that automate the transfer of consciousness into your next clone. As an impartial and biased observer, I can fully admit that I am very good at the whole dying game. As an industrial backgrounded character, my Osprey cruiser was as ineffective at resisting incoming damage as it was at chipping veldspar off of floating rocks. Very.

Flashing forward quickly to the present – I wake up in my pod [AT THE POS - I'M NOT DEAD YET] and am greeted with the news that my corpmates have recently stalked down and liquidated a salvage Hurricane and a Brutix in a nearby class one system. It seems that WHEN. pilots have finally shed any residual carebearistic tendencies and are fully blooded now. Well, with the exception of myself. Remember the part where I die a lot – usually first and before being able to contribute towards a successful attack? I was determined to not let that happen again. Ok, determined not to let that happen, every time.

A couple days before, our good buddies sometimes allies, Revival of the Talocan Empire had managed to screw up their settings for the fourth or fifth time and shot my Drake into tiny, tiny little pieces. Probably could have avoided any real hostilities if I had just idled in the tower, but I was incensed. The cheeky bastards bombed my tower! So I threw wads of flaming isk at them in protest. I had managed to bring a new ship into the tower and was considering how to refit for PVP even though I was well aware the the Core Defence Field Purger rigs that it still had on it were less than ideal for combat against other capsuleers.

In the aftermath of the ‘Cane/Brutix killing and clean up operation, one of our pilots noticed an odd dance of sorts going on. It seems that a couple of stealth bombers from the system’s current occupants were trying to harass a Nighthawk that was out running combat sites. They would warp in, drop a bomb and fly away all the while not doing a very good job at being stealth in either their approach, bombing or running away. At one point, the Nighthawk and a helper managed to catch one of them and quickly pop them. At this same time, a couple of our real friends pop up in chat and ask if we have anything they can shoot at. Bingo.

An ad hoc fleet goes up, and are met at the high sec side of the wormhole. I quickly jump into Shhhhh, a corp-mate’s Manticore class stealth bomber and after loading the bookmarks am off at all speed to meet them. Two wormholes later, I am able to warp within 100 km of them and maintain my cloak the whole way. I begin motoring in toward them and looking for the best position to provide a drop point for our fleet. They finish up the site and start idling while a friendly Pilgrim and destroyer show up and begin looting and salvaging. Noticing that the fleet’s incoming wormhole is out of range of the directional scan, we call the fleet to jump through into the system and make ready to pounce. I managed to fly under their formation and come up, directly underneath them. Each of them is about 4-5 km from me. My heart is pounding and I’m absolutely sure they will launch drones or twitch and decloak me. Just as we say ‘GO’ they finish and warp away! Huh?

A combination of the locals trying to be aggressive and them finding another site to run, they had moved on. Quickly warping to the next anomaly on the list doesn’t show them and the fleet is sent off to a out of range planet to reform. The other stealth bomber has them and warping to him at 70 km manages to preserve my cloak but put me 105 km from them. I begin the crawl toward them and at 60 km the other SB is in perfect position to have the fleet engage. The fleet warps in, bubbles up and open fires. I drop cloak and start unloading torps as fast as I can, trying to burn toward them. The Pilgrim was just on the edge of the bubble and manages to get away, but the Nighthawk is right in the middle and soon goes up in a small but very satisfying ball of flame. Switching targets to the Prophecy, I am suddenly relieved of my ship and decide that it’s time to get into something a bit more secure than my pod. Before I am able to even reach the wormhole headed back to our tower, the comms light up with the news that the large, brick-like, Amarrian battlecruiser has also gone down.

So I managed to finally get a kill, and a Nighthawk at that. I am very grateful to all of our friends for their help and for flying with us. I still managed to lose a ship in combat, but at least I was able to contribute to a successful outcome. We salvaged the rest of their wrecks and were able to come out a head after replacing the two stealth bombers we lost.

Addendum: It was all a short-lived lie. Three days later I managed to find a Sacrilege, Vagabond, Devoter and a Jaguar waiting for me at a new wormhole. It was one of my shorter engagements. A few days later I ignored a yawn at the tower and flew off to support a couple corp-mates at a wormhole camp. I think I fell asleep mid-warp [it was +120 AU] and woke up in a new clone somewhere else. Apparently we had been ambushed from behind as third group of participants had found another hole into the same system and decided we looked tasty. Well, I did. Fortunately the others were able to get out of harms way.

On Using Battleships In Wormhole Operations

Full disclosure: I don’t typically fly a battleship. I am predisposed to a battlecruiser or cruiser sized hull. Having said that, we use a lot of battleships in our wormhole operations and they are essential to have if you are going to try and harvest or live in a class 4 or higher wormhole system. They can serve nearly every possible function from combat to mining to logistics with the right fitting and pilot. Having said that, some battleships tend to perform better in wormholes than others.

Amarr

Armageddon: Generally not as much damage as it’s brethren, but a very tankable, fairly easy to fly battleships for wormhole operations.

Apocalypse: Middle of the road – without a damage bonus pilots would likely be better served in either the ‘baddon or the ‘geddon.

Abaddon: The king of the DPS. Paired with a remote battery like the Guardian, it can seriously bring the hurt. It tends to be something of a lame duck with regard to capacitor.

Caldari

Scorpion: THE electronic warfare boat for running w’hole sites in a remote repair gang. It can run in either an armor or shield gang and still keep the Sleepers tied up in knots.

Raven: With a fair bit of rigging and some plate, it can make an ok torpedo boat for killing things, but would benefit from a shield gang to really dish out DPS.

Rokh: Not particularly good at Sleeper PVE combat. Could be useful for some PVP given the right skill set. Typical w’hole pvp doesn’t involve a lot of sniping.

Gallente

Dominix: The workhorse/mule/ox of w’holes, the Dominix brings its intrinsic flexibility to the wormhole in spades. The ship can be used for RR, neut/nos’ing, DPS, gas mining, just about everything in a pinch.

Hyperion: Bringing the largest base armor amount for Gallente and a 5% bonus to damage per level, the Hype should be able to really dish out some DPS by bringing 8 turrets to bear. If you are running a RR gang, the ‘thron might be a slightly better bet.

Megathron: For killing Sleepers it works well and doubles as a very good PVP boat.

Minmatar

Typhoon: After years of training, the Typhoon brings some of the best combination of tank, DPS and alpha strikes known to New Eden. Serious. Train. More.

Tempest: A great ship to bring to bear against the Sleepers. It only requires the large projectiles for decent damage and can fit into either a shield or armor gang with relative ease.

Maelstrom: Ever so slightly favouring shields, the Maelstrom is another effective way to throw hurt at the sleepers.

Again, I stress that my own lack of experience in flying battleships may let some of the finer nuances of using them against sleepers in wormholes escape me. If you use one currently in a wormhole and care to comment, please let me know. I’m more than happy to redact posts to reflect the changing reality of EVE.

On Flying Battlecruisers In Wormholes

The battlecruisers mark the real level of entry into effectively working in a wormhole. They are extremely versatile, usually sport a decent tank and quite capable of handling the first two classes of wormholes alone and the middle two in groups. They can fill nearly any role and provide a decent amount of bang for your buck. They will usually fit cruiser sized weapons and couple that with nearly the tank of a battleship. The Tech 2 variants called Command Ships have even more tank and greater fire-power potential, but a much higher cost.

Amarr

Prophecy: The Golden Eagle. The Space Brick. Very, very hard tank. Limited damage. A remote-repair fleet of Prophecies can be a nightmare to face down.

Harbinger: Often the better choice for Amarr battlecruisers due in large part to the damage bonus. It’s much easier to tank enemies when they are dead.

Caldari

Ferox: Suffering from the same issues as the rest of the Caldari gun platforms, it can be difficult to fit everything you need on the Ferox to be effective. The tank is substantial but the DPS will be lacking. When utilized correctly in a PVP encounter, it is a phenomenal sniper dealing up to 180 DPS at 150 km.

Drake: The mission runners’ friend makes a fairly easy transition into wormhole space. It also tends to lag behind the other battlecruisers in damage dealt over time [DPS] though if fit with Heavy Assault Missiles it can wreak havoc at about 20 km.

Gallente

Myrmidon: The battlecruiser drone boat suffers a little bit in PVE from the Sleepers predilection for moving their aggro toward drones. It can fit a wicked tough buffer tank and throw a lot of drones at the problem. It makes for a great all around utility ship due to it’s inherent flexibility.

Brutix: Designed to bring pain. Often to both parties in any given conflict. Some of the most face-melting DPS comes from this ship fit to gank.

Minmatar

Cyclone: Can be an effective ship, but as with any Mimatar ship, it will be the pilot who determines how good it can be. This ship rewards the well skilled pilot with a frightening ability to kill things.

Hurricane: The Cyclone’s big bad brother likes to get in and mix it up. He throws projectile slugs around with a careless abandon that can make short work of enemies.

I apologise to all the Minmatar pilots out there because I don’t have experience flying and fitting their BC’s. I am relying on the words of one of my corp-mates as well as the general consensus of those that I’ve talked to before. To make up for some of this seeming anti-Minmatar sentiment, I dedicated the post title to their most common fittings. As always, I will probably miss something so feel free to offer other opinions.

On Being A Cruiser Pilot And Surviving In Wormholes

The best thing going for cruiser sized boats, is their natural low cost and ability to be easily replaced. Cruisers begin to really develop as utility ships in wormholes. While generally not robust enough for Sleeper combat, they can shine in several other venues. This is also where people begin to have very strong opinions about what is good and not good, which seems odd because the number of possible ships decreases from frigates to cruisers. Finally, I’ve excluded the Tech 2 cruisers from this list for a couple of reasons: 1) I’m just tired; B) They cover such specific roles already; III) I haven’t flown or closely associated with people who fly enough of them regularly.

Amarr

Omen: When you want to bring some damage, an Omen isn’t a bad choice.

Maller: The tankiest of the cruisers, it makes the best cruiser platform for mining gases. It’s not bad for bait either.

Arbitrator: A great anti-frigate/anti-interceptor ship. A very poor wormhole survival rate.

Augoror: A great portable battery but another dismal failure in wormhole operations.

Caldari

Moa: At least you could mine gas with it.

Caracal: To flimsy to really be much use for anything beyond a Class 1 fleet. Uniform resists on Sleepers negate it’s largest advantage of multiple damage types.

Osprey: If you have young miners that want to get involved in the effort of clearing out a large gravimetric site, they could use an Osprey, but you are likely better off having them haul ore.

Blackbird: Generally it isn’t strong enough to survive in a wormhole. It’s not bad for PVP-ewar on the cheap.

Gallente

Thorax: Another good gas miner. Also good for throwing some gank DPS at an intruder.

Vexor: The penchant for Sleepers to take a dislike to drones reduces a lot of the functionality of this ship.

Exequror: Another good gas miner for pilots who don’t have Gas Mining V.

Celestis: Not that useful

Mimatar

Bellicose: You generally don’t see this ship in wormholes.

Rupture: Good gas miner and great to have as an inexpensive damage dealer.

Scythe: Not used as much as other ships. Could be due to a lack of Minnie Miners.

Stabber: Kill People. Kill Them Now!

Summary

Cruisers allow for a slightly higher level of participation in wormhole activities, up-to and including PVP. The basic resource collection done in a wormhole can be accomplished in a cruiser and still be able to get away if need be. They have been deployed en masse as cheap fleet attack forces as well.

On Flying Frigates In Wormholes

There is very little I want to say about the backgrounds of any particular race flying around in New Eden. They all have issues and a primary reason for being out here in a wormhole is putting all of that background in the background. We have all agreed to check our baggage at the last station we undocked from and acknowledge that out here, we can’t afford to be bickering about belief, conflicting over capitalism, seethe over servitude or advertise autonomy. Out in the wormhole, every pilot from every race is closer to their clone and a long way from any government or authority.

I preface the post with all of that to say that no single race’s ships are inherently better, just different. Out here in the wormhole it comes down to answering the question, “Does it get the job done?” With regard to frigate-sized ships, I am going to take a quick run through some of them and point out some of their strengths as they pertain to living out in a wormhole.

Amarr:

Magnate: As the basic astrometrics frig, this is a great backup for scanning, or running around helping to clean up after a radar or magnetometric sight. With the addition of sized rigs, it can easily be rigged with gravity capacitors to boost scan strength allowing even fairly low level pilots the ability to scan down wormholes and most signatures.

Crucifier: Makes a good disposable tackler for PVP. Emphasis on disposable as they will melt quickly.

Executioner: Well, it’s faster than a shuttle, slightly sturdier. Very good for running away.

Inquisitor: Just don’t fly this in a wormhole. Please.

Tormentor: Cheap. Leave it at home. Better, refine it an build something else.

Punisher: Good PVP frigate to throw on the bulwark of invading gankers. Not good for much else.

Anathema: Great Tech 2 scanning ship.

Caldari

Heron: Good backup scanning machine. Rigged, it can make short work of finding sites if and when you can’t be in a Buzzard.

Condor: At least it can fly away from trouble quickly.

Bantam: Good intro miner, lousy wormhole ship. Reprocess or blow up and salvage it.

Merlin: Can be an evil, nasty tackler for PVP.

Griffin: Why are you undocking in this?

Kestrel: Makes a good hacking/analysing/salvage frigate.

Buzzard: Caldari covops scanning for the win. [Ninja Edit]

Gallente

Atron: See Condor above. Run away.

Imicus: Like the Caldari Heron and the Amarr Magnate and the Minmatar Probe, this is your backup for scanning when things go south. Or when you don’t have covops skills on an alt you left parked in the system before you all got run out by Evil Overkill Corp.

Tristan: Not bad for some PVP damage, but likely need bigger ships.

Incursus: Itty-bitty blaster boat beats boys! Thanks for the heads up Owen.

Maulus: Insure, blow-up, salvage.

Navitas: See Above.

Helios: When you absolutely must scan. Scan in this. It is a sweet covops ride.

Minmatar

Probe: Scan. Scan. Scan. Scan. Somewhere is some action.

Breacher: Seriously?

Burst: At least the killmails will be funny.

Rifter: PVP the living daylights out of things with this. Rinse and repeat. Rather like scanning only you use more ammo.

Slasher: Fly. And Fly. And Fly. Right on back to the station for something else to fly.

Vigil: At least you can fly quickly to get something else to fly.

Cheetah: Our serious scanning swag swears by this animal. His scanning prowess definitely doesn’t hurt either. Seriously, Minnie Pilots Rejoice – This ship scans very well.

Summary

Frigates are fairly limited in their usage. They will pretty much insta-pop to everything that they run into in a wormhole with the exception of other players in PVP encounters. Assault frigates can last longer, but I ran out of space to cover all of those. Perhaps we’ll get back to that another day.

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.