Ship Setups - Blockade Runners, by Casiella Truza

This guest post comes to us from Casiella Truza, who writes the blog Ecliptic Rift and can be found tormenting the Tweet Fleet at @casiella.


Think industrial pilots and traders don't get to have any white-knuckle fun?

Think again. We operate in the shadows of giants, in the spaces they cannot see nor follow. You might think that waxing poetic about a transport ship sounds slightly insane, and while you might have a point, the fact remains that the blockade runner presents pilots with tremendous fun and opportunities for profit.

This ship class gets bonuses to shield boosting or armor repair, depending on the racial type. But that bonus doesn't mean much in most cases, because this ship can equip covert ops cloaking devices, meaning it can warp cloaked.

In low-sec, a blockade runner pilot is nearly uncatchable at stargates. Once you've jumped through and see a gate camp, just choose your destination, issue the "warp to" command, and cloak immediately. If you do it right, only the Local comms window and perhaps a flash on the overview will signal your presence to the enemy. Your most vulnerable period will come when leaving a station, so if you get caught, keep moving, stay within docking range, and engage your shield booster or armor repairer.

Null sec might give you a little more trouble if you run into a warp disruption bubble, but even then you should generally survive if you keep your wits about you. Zoom out, find the closest point on the surface of the bubble, and align to it, then immediately engage your afterburner and cloak. You might reach the edge of the bubble before the enemy can decloak you, in which case you should align to the celestial nearest your heading and warp. Other typical nullsec navigation tricks may work better for you. Comment below and share your ideas!

Blockade runner pilots typically belong to one of two schools of thought. The first, and the one to which I belong, assumes that you use the ship to move small, valuable cargo (though not so small as to fit in a covops frigate). In this case, your ability to slip through gate camps or other hostile fleets matters most. You'll want nanofiber internal structures in your low slots, which will increase your agility but lower your structural integrity. (Protip: if structure HP matters for a hauler, you've already lost.) Inertial stabilizers can shave about half a second off of your align time, but they also increase your signature radius. With no rigs, I have 4063 m3 of space in my Prowler, or 5373 m3 with a couple of Medium Cargohold Optimization rigs. I also have an EFT align time of 5.8 seconds (5.2 if I use inertial stabilizers). If you feel like an opportunist and can fit it properly, you might throw a salvager in your spare high slot.

[Prowler, Quick]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

10MN Afterburner II
Medium Shield Booster II
Invulnerability Field II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

The other school of thought wants to increase cargo space no matter what. Replace the lows with Expanded Cargoholds, and you can substantially increase your cargo capacity to 6604 m3 (or 8734 m3 with rigs). Then again, your align time increases to 7.9 seconds, and those two full seconds can mean the difference between a successful run or crying about Tech II insurance payouts.

Have fun space trucking!

The opinions shared here are those of its author and not necessarily mine. /CrazyKinux

Ship Setups - A Mission Running Dominix, by Shinzann

This is a guest post by Shinzann from Adventures in Mission Running. You can follow him @R_Javorsky.

Original can be found at The Ancient Gaming Noob

The Dominix is one of the old warhorses dating back to the Gallente-Caldari War. While no longer regarded as the king of the hill, it is by no means obsolete. Its formidable hulk and powerful weapons batteries means that anyone not in the largest and latest battleships will regret ever locking horns with it.

Gallente Battleship Skill Bonus: 5% bonus to Large Hybrid Turret damage and 10% bonus to drone hitpoints and damage per skill level.

With the right skills, a Dominix truly can be a warhorse of a ship. Shield-tanking, armour tanking. Blaster, railguns or drones. Quite a few possibilities exist for kitting out a ship like this. Personally I prefer the active armour tanking drone boat set up. I can tank almost every level 4 mission I run across in Tranquility, all I need to do is swap out a couple hardeners and some drones and I'm good to go.


Original can be found at EVE Journal
The setup I use? It looks a little something like this:

[High Slots]

425mm Railgun II

Neutron Blaster Cannon II

Large Remote Armor Repair System II

Republic Fleet Large Proton Smartbomb

2x Drone Link Augmentor I

[Middle Slots]
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
4x Cap Recharger II

[Low Slots]
Large Armor Repairer II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Mission Specific Hardener II
Mission Specific Hardener II
Damage Control II
Amarr Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

[Rigs]
Large Anti-Explosive Pump I
Large Anti-EM Pump I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

[Drone Bay]
5 Mission Specific Tech 2 sentry drones
5 Mission Specific Tech 2 heavy drones
5 Mission Specific Tech 2 medium drones

The railgun and blaster are there purely to draw aggro and to supplement the damage from the drones. The sentries are to snipe further away targets, the heavies for cruisers and battleships that get closer, while the mediums are for smaller targets that get too close. The smartbomb can also be used for small, close in targets as well. During normal operation with just the armour mods active, the setup is cap stable.

As long as you don't bite off more than you can chew, or forget to turn on the armour mods, the Dominix is a very sturdy boat.

The opinions shared here are those of its author and not necessarily mine. /CrazyKinux

Ship Setups - Crusiers: All Purpose Uglies, by the Gaming Griefer

This is a guest post by the Gaming Griefer. You can follow him @JohnBatDell.

The cruiser class in EVE online is nothing if it isn't the most versatile. It was precisely this versatility which attracted me enough to make a priority of training every racial cruiser skill to V, and has kept my interest over all other ship classes save Assault Ships and Pirate Frigates. A competent cruiser pilot is a welcome addition to any roaming gang, if gang roams are your thing. They aren't mine. I was born in the year of the tiger, so I choose to hunt like one: alone.

As I mentioned, cruisers are my third choice. With to the upcoming changes slated for December 1st, anything I write about the pirate frigates would either be obsolete or theory-craft, and I don't really feel like parting with my favorite AF fits. Nevertheless, I've been fairly successful over my EVE career in cruisers, and if you manage to find me on Battleclinic, you'll see that cruisers are by far my favorite prey. Cruisers it is, then.

Before going into specific ship fits, there are a few things I'd like to prepare you for. The first thing is that I prefer an afterburner + warp scrambler combination over a microwarp drive and disrupter on almost everything. I use close range weaponry, and fitting a MWD is completely antithetical to close in fighting.

Ship Setups - Electronic Attack Ships: Hyena, Sentinel, & Kitsune, by Manasi

This is a guest post written by Manasi the Mule of A Mule in EVE.


Skills needs

These are frigates level 5 skills, so on your way to fly interceptors EAS is not a terrible skill to get. Also needed are electronic upgrades to level 5 as well. Aside from that, the skills needed are really for the modules you might fit on these little guys. With a limited number of slots you’re going to have to be careful with both power grid (in the future referred to a ‘grid’) and CPU. Note at the time of this writing I am not able to fly the Keres so it was not included

Slot Layout

• Hyena 3/4/3
• Sentinel 3/4/3
• Kitsune 2/5/3

The one thing to know about EAS (Electronic Attack Ships) is that they are very specialized at what they are intended to be good at. How useful that is to you can be debated…

• For the Sentinel, that is energy vampire and & energy neutralizing. They also tracking disrupt!
• For the Hyena, that is long range webbing and target painting, with some speed thrown in.
• For the Kitsune, they specialize in electronic counter measures. (Referred to as ‘jamming’)

Pro's

Sensor strength

Something to point out is all of these ships have good sensor strengths in this order:

1. Kitsune ~ Gravimetric strength 24… same as the Rokh and Scorpion
2. Sentinel ~ Radar Strength 21…. only 1 point less than the Abaddon
3. Hyena ~ Ladar Strength 21…..Same as the Maelstrom

So their sensor strength is on par with battleships even though they are only frigates.

Speed and Agility

Inertial modifiers and base speeds

• Hyena 340 m/s 2.75 inertial modifier
• Sentinel 324 m/s 2.97 Inertial modifier
• Kitsune 315 m/s and a 2.7 inertial modifier

The Hyena is fastest, but not by a terrible amount and ALL of these will align to warp incredibly quickly. All these ships are given the ability to ‘get out of dodge’ really quickly. They will warp within a second or two of each other, somewhere between 4.6 S for the Hyena, to 5.84 S on the Kitsune.

Benefits

The benefits that EAS ships can bring are numerous. The Kitsune is light and fast and can keep up with small fast fleets that need some ECM support. Realize you will be ‘primaried’ first in a Kitsune for a reason. If other ships cannot lock they will become angry at you. The Sentinel can help you eat up interceptors. Just watch out for the other jammers. The Hyena can help stop people for exiting a bubble with their longer range web.

Cons

Durability

These ships will not last long nor, if they are engaged, will they survive very long, the notable exceptions to this are: The Kitsune and the Sentinel. If the Kitsune can lock fast enough she may survive the fight. The Sentinel has a better chance as tracking disruptors can reduce the tracking speed of turret weapons, allowing you to escape, and sometimes the speed to lock as well.

Lack of weaponry

The primary attack of these ships is the electronic measures they provide to the fleet. These are not damage dealers or solo ships. The majority of their ‘grid’ and CPU is to get them in, do their job, and get out (speed). There is absolutely no ‘tank’ what so ever…if you are targeted first, bail out.

Use

These ships are good for specialized purposes. Let’s look at the Kitsune for example. It is a very fast locker (with a Sensor booster II and scan res script) and can be an effective anti-jammer role. Example: mixed fleet fighting in a system starts getting jammed by a falcon...Bring in the Kitsune and lock up the falcon…if you get the lock/jam first then your buddies are free to fire. Probably to most widely used EAS frigate in game. If the Kitsune is on the ‘field’ first they will be killed….immediately

The Sentinel is a different breed; she gets bonuses to neutralizing and draining cap. This ship is highly effective versus the interceptor class of ships. No capacitor, no MWD…no MWD the interceptor goes boom. This ship needs help in killing the interceptors and the Hyena’s (if fitted with painters) can help in that role. The tracking disruptors allow this ship to close in on anything except missile boats.

The Hyena is not seen very often. The webbing bonus is nice so I have seen them used in gate camps trying to stop folks leaving a bubble. They just die too fast and too easily. I have seen a few used in small fleets and gate camps to good use.

Builds

Kitsune

Slot	Module
LOW	'Hypnos' Signal Distortion Amplifier I
	'Hypnos' Signal Distortion Amplifier I
MID	1MN Afterburner II
	BZ-5 Neutralizing Spatial Destabilizer ECM
	Enfeebling Phase Inversion ECM I
	'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
	Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
HIGH	'Arbalest' Standard Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile
	'Arbalest' Standard Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile
	125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Carbonized Lead S
RIGS	Small Signal Disruption Amplifier I
	Small Signal Disruption Amplifier I

Highlights:

• 10.76 Sensor strength
• 1.1 Second lock time on a Falcon hull
• 1010.13 M/s
• Cap stable

Sentinel

Slot	Module
LOW	Capacitor Power Relay II
	Inertia Stabilizers II
	Overdrive Injector System II
MID	Tracking Disruptor II, Tracking Speed Disruption
	Tracking Disruptor II, Tracking Speed Disruption
	Cap Recharger II
	1MN MicroWarpdrive II
HIGH	Small Nosferatu II
	Small Energy Neutralizer II
	Medium Pulse Laser II
RIGS	Small Egress Port Maximizer I
	Small Egress Port Maximizer I

Highlights:

• 3105.43 M/s
• Nos Range 19200
• Nuet range 18900
• CAP stable with max skills
• Lock time 1.8 Seconds on a Zealot

Hyena

Slot	Module
LOW	Power Diagnostic System II
	Overdrive Injector System II
	Inertia Stabilizers II
MID	Stasis Webifier II
	Stasis Webifier II
	Stasis Webifier II
	1MN MicroWarpdrive II
HIGH	280mm Howitzer Artillery II
	280mm Howitzer Artillery II
	Salvager I
RIGS	Small Auxiliary Thrusters I
	Small Projectile Ambit Extension I

Highlights:

• 3518.27 M/s
• 36.67 DPS EMP S 19K range
• Can web at 20 KM
• Locks interceptor at 2.99 Seconds
• Cap stable

Analysis

Looking at these three builds several things comes to mind:

• Each ship has something specialized that they are very good at. Wither you can USE that bonus depends on what you need the ship to do.
• Gate camp bring the hyena
• Anti-interceptor bring the Sentinel
• Anti- jammer bring the Kitsune

The sentinel can probably be used most offensively. Tracking disruption speed on those that target you plus your high velocity means guns won’t be able to track you well. Missile ships are your problem. 108 GJ of neutralizing per every 6 seconds will shut down an interceptor to be sure. So go after the interceptors neutralize them down and you and your friends eat them up. Your still very fragile though so don’t forget that speed is your defense.

The Kitsune is the most fragile and the slowest but using Bernoulli formula (thanks to Grismar’s EvE wiki for this)

C = J/S * 100%

C=10.76/28 * 100% or a 38% chance with a single Jammer to jam a falcon

Where J is the jamming strength of your jammer, S the sensor strength of the target ship and C the jamming chance in %. The chance to jam a target with multiple jammers is a simple deduction of Bernoulli's formula:

C = (1-(1-J/S)^n)*100%

c = (1-(1-10.76/28)^3 or 76.658 % with a full rack of BZ-5’s

This gives you a fairly decent chance to jam a falcon…you must remember you’re their #1 problem so you will be eliminated

Hyena of the three EAS I am familiar with this one may have been seen the most use probably at a gate camp setup. Yes a Rapier can do the job better, and you may survive better in it CAN be done. 20KM web means you can do a tight orbit around the gate and still be able to lock them down and web them. If you substitute a Warp Disruptor you might be able to do both ‘pointing and webbing’ roles in a small gang but remember you ARE very fragile.

The last word

The Kitsune, Sentinel, and Hyena, with the exception of the Kitsune, are underutilized. They are not terribly expensive, and they can do the job their bigger brothers can do with a bit more speed. Sadly many are not used, as they are quite fragile, most pilots do not wish to die a horrible death, without providing a good benefit to their friends. The Hyena, at gate camps can provide some effective webbing potential. The Sentinel can be used to break some really nasty shield tankers, and can be especially potent against interceptors... but missile fire can eliminate them. The Kitsune is a highly effective anti- falcon/anti rook ship, but tends to get ‘primaried’ and die very fast.

If you like these ships and their abilities combined with a bit more toughness look to the T2 cruisers: The Hyena is replaced with the Rapier, The Kitsune with the Falcon/Rook, and lastly the Sentinel is replaced with the Pilgrim. Bring your wallet with you as these ships are NOT cheap!

The opinions shared here are those of its author and not necessarily mine. /CrazyKinux

Ship Setups - The Stealth Bombers, by Hallan Turrek

This is a guest post by Hallan Turrek from A Merry Life and a Short One.

One of the four beasts said, Come and see.

Revelations - Chapter 6, Verse 1

Introduction

Welcome to the second installment of CrazyKinux's Ship Fitting series. Last week, Kirith Kodachi covered PvE fittings for Rifters and Breachers. This week I'd like to do the first of what will probably be many PvP fitting posts. I'll be covering Stealth Bombers.

Most people are unsure as to the role of stealth bombers in a gang. What you have is a highly mobile and cloaked piece of artillery, for better or worse. You can hit at range and hit hard. You can warp cloaked and sit in a safe cloaked. You decide when to engage and when not to engage. As long as you use it wisely, you will very rarely die.

Ship Setups - The Minmatar Breacher & Rifter, by Kirith Kodachi

This is a guest post by Kirith Kodachi from Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah. You can follow him @kirithkodachi.

Minmatar ships tend to be odd birds. Besides the use of projectile weaponry, they tend to be all over the map in terms of other major systems. Some make use of missiles, others add in drones. Some are natural armour tankers, others better with shields, and some can go either way depending on the setup.

The downside of this is that you need a lot of varied skills trained well in order to handle the Minmatar lineup; the upside is that once you have those skills you have access to a flexible and powerful fleet.

I'm going to look at two Tech 1 Minmatar Frigates, the Rifter and the Breacher, and discuss some basic setups.

The Breacher

Often overlooked, the Breacher is one of the few Minmatar ships dedicated to missiles and as such can be thought of as a Minmatar version of the Caldari Kestrel. While it only has four missile launcher hardpoints, it is a lot faster with smaller signature radius and higher scan resolution for faster locking. Taking advantage of those strengths is easy.

Lows
Ballistic Control System II
Overdrive Injector System II

Mids
1MN Afterburner II
Small Shield Extender II

Highs
3 x Standard Missile Launcher II

This fast little ship can harry opponents up to 40 km away and fly over 1100 m/s without overheating and without the huge signature increase from a MWD. Not a bad setup for level 1 mission running should you want to avoid getting too close to the NPCs.

It takes a lot of practice to balance the capacitor using modules and make sure you don't run dry at the wrong moment, but once that skill is mastered you can take on a lot of ship types and be confident of coming out on top. The numerous named modules is to save on CPU.

The Rifter

The Rifter is actually decent at level 1 missions and frigate belt ratting as well. While the armour tank will work adequately in that scenario, the Rifter is one of those ships that can choose to shield tank in a pinch.
Lows

2 x Gyrostabilizer II
Overdrive Injector System II

Mids

Small Shield Booster II
1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 200

Highs

3 x 200mm AutoCannon II
Rocket Launcher II

You're going over 1200 m/s and the shield booster can keep you alive in those situations where you bit off more than you can chew. Your DPS is surprising with the Gyrostabilizers and big 200mm calibre weapons. Fly in, orbit tight, kill target, hit the next one. If things get too hot, boot it out of there with your afterburner and shield booster blazing.

Now, there is a world of options between the first and second setups. Passive armour tanks, bigger guns, energy neutralizers, afterburner versus MWD, the list is damn near endless. Hence why the Rifter is well liked by pod pilots.

The opinions shared here are those of its author and not necessarily mine. /CrazyKinux

Ship Setups - The Series

If there's one aspect of EVE Online that many players enjoy, it is playing around with the various ship modules to come up with the best ship setup (or loadout as it's also known) for a particular task. Whether mining, hauling, PvP or PvE combat, every ship of every race has the potential to play vital roles as long as it has the right set of modules.

In an effort to share the wealth of knowledge that the EVE Blogging Community has acquired, I've decided to start a new series of posts: Ship Setups. These posts will all be guest posts written by other bloggers, some part of the EVE Blog Pack , some not. The idea is to provide a friendly platform for discussion, where bloggers and readers can share their insight on the Art & Science of ship fittings.

I'll be using this post to list all future Ship Setup posts — by race and class. So be prepared to test out a few new setups, or to challenge the authors.

1. Breacher and Rifter (Frigates) by Kirith Kodachi
2. The Stealth Bombers , by Hallan Turrek
3. Electronic Attack Ships: Hyena, Sentinel, & Kitsune , by Manasi
4. Cruisers: All Purpose Uglies – Vexor, Rupture, Arbitrator & Moa , by the Gaming Griefer
5. A Mission Running Dominix , by Shinzann
6. Blockade Runners , by Casiella Truza

Many more to come!

Thought I'd add the ship setups I've written in the past as well to have everything in one spot!

1. Vexor set-up for both Solo and Gang PVP
2. Myrmidon Ship Setup
3. A Vexor set-up for security missions
4. A Daredevil set-up for agent missions

The Elitist:

• Good Ship Fittings
• Experimental Fittings

[Latest Update: March 9th, 2010]