Ships & Modules

Obviously it can do a lot of things with that many bonuses, but most of them are just redundant. So what's left to make this ship useful? What can it do that you can't do with standard ships? For example:

As an armor tanking blaster ship the Gnosis is completely redundant. The Brutix is faster, has more dps, tanks better, and is cheap and available in unlimited numbers. The only advantage the Gnosis has is a spare mid or two for ewar. Is it worth it? Probably not. Even though the Gnosis has the option to use this kind of setup it doesn't offer enough to justify using an expensive unique ship.

As a shield tanking blaster ship the Gnosis is decent. It's more agile than the Ferox and has more dps (though mostly because of the drones), and is obviously better than the mediocre-at-best Eagle. On the other hand the margin of superiority isn't that much better, and it would be hard to justify the price.

As a laser ship it's what the Harbinger wishes it could be. The Gnosis has the same lows, but the mid slots to finally fit MWD/cap booster/tackle and still have slots left over. And with the drones compensating for the lost turret dps the overall firepower is better. Cost is the only real drawback here.



So, what makes the Gnosis unique? Which setups fit into the second and third categories and have potential, and which are in the first-category garbage pile? Note that I'm NOT necessarily talking about which is the most powerful, you can argue that lasers are weak overall and there's no need for a laser ship, but it's still a viable answer to this question.

It's got a pretty clear role bonus. Exploration.

Also expecting a free ship to be miles better than the standard BC's is a bit far fetched. TBH it's nice that it's usable.

One thing that it does have going for it that other BC's don't have is the cargohold. All the Navy Cap 800's you could possibly need. Align time is pretty damn decent, if the ship itself is slow and the scan rez is pretty hot.

Shield tanked it pulls out some good numbers all things considered DPS wise, damage mods of choice with a couple of drone stabs and it packs a fair punch, and offers good flexibility.

Strengths
-Many possibilities, enemies dont know what to expect
-Good buffer tank, you can fit over 70k EHP shield or armor tank with many spare low or mid
-Its low mass is awesome, with a 4.2s align time its definitely the most agile BC

Weaknesses
-Bad cap recharge rate, makes lasers and neuts hard to maintain without cap boosters
-Bad shield recharge rate, together with lackluster cap this makes it a horrible pve ship, expect many noobs to lose theirs soon
-Speed, its base speed is goddamn awful but its low mass makes it come up to Drake speed with MWD fits

Most cheaper ships don't have the scan probe bonus, so the Gnosis shines at exploration for a lower price than a Tech3 cruiser (for now).

EDIT: It also has a wildcard advantage in PvP. Since you can fit it so many different ways, people won't know exactly what they're up against just from seeing a Gnosis on dscan.

Gate camping, armor-tanked, HAM boat. Use the lows for tank and a ballistic control. Use the mids for sensor boosts, 2 web, a scram, and an med. You'll want a few of these circling the gate with some long point interceptors to catch smaller items. Add in a guardian chain for reps and you could have an interesting missile based, armor tanked fleet.

Why armor based missiles... So all the drake pilots can finally join an armor fleet.


Another use would be to get some miners into PvP faster. Solo and small group miners tend to have tolerable drone skills. If they have learned anything, they have some tanking skills too. They would have to train up one turret type and weapon support skills, and could then make a decent contribution without training ship skills.

Kill PL Redeemers... https://www.pandemic-legion.com/killboard

-Liang

Ed: Wait, I removed the actual kill link. But, go peruse the latest kills. ;-)

It's very slightly superior to the Myrm if you want to fit a heavy armor tank and lots of ewar. Debatable if it's worth an extra slot for 3x the price though.

It can also double as a field command ship without needing the command ship skill. Would make a decent booster for mining ops defense to augment an orca's boosts as well as providing pretty decent drone and missile coverage.

At risk of sounding like a complete moron(I always do ) I'm going to say this thing has a shitton of potential as a dual prop TD fit ship. It's not particularly fast, but it's agility is just absurd. I'm looking at a fitting right now with an align time of 2.9 seconds...
What in the actual boop? I'll be honest, I'm usually flying frigs so my knowledge here is a bit lackluster, but we're looking at a battlecruiser with the agility of a destroyer, and if utilized properly it actually can become more agile than a dessie.

I don't know if I want to risk taking one out, but seriously, there has to be some fittings which can abuse that agility. I've never seen anything like this.

Call me crazy but with all that cargo space it's almost like a mini golem just with the bonuses to drones over cruise / torp and no shield boost / painters this ship could make an excellent support/salvage ship for an alt that typically has less SP with non maxed out skills. Strap on a MWD salvagers a respectable tank some medium drones and salvage drones and your looking at a ship that can salvage tank and even offer DPS to LV4's potentially higher as long as its flown in conjunction with a flag ship (you could also fit it with scanning probes if needed for what your doing, a drone link augmenter would be nessicary for salvaging and dps, and i would probably active tank this no reason you couldn't fit some guns).

Would be a hassle to fly but at times the Noctis can be to. Depending on the numbers and loss of tractor range with the extra dps it could be on par profitability wise or even exceed the Noctis due to faster missions more rewards and you don't miss out on any of the salvage just some of the loot due to the loss of tractors but with the MWD you can still loot high value wrecks. It would be a combat variant to the Noctis with less skill requirements.

I guess even in the end this isn't truly unique but if it works as a salvager, tank, dps support boat and it's successful at all 3 then it kinda is