Ships & Modules

Hello everyone,

Lots of questions here.

Tl;DR below

First, I'd like to note that I have no intention of flying capitals in the near future as I have only been training skills and not actually playing for the past ~1.5-2 years and do not intend to turn into a funny kill mail. I want to figure out if there are any applications for capitals that I'd be interested in before even looking at them.

I reached the point where I have trained all T2 guns, missiles, all guns/missile support, frig,cruiser,bs to V along with a bunch of T2 ships to V as well and now have difficulties figuring out what would be useful to train. I couldn't decide a few weeks back so now I'm finishing Advanced Spaceship Command V in 2 days so other than opening freighters it also allows me to train for caps.

Have never been a fan of the idea of participating in large scale fleet fights nor doing L5s in a carrier. I might consider ratting in a carrier.

So what else could I do with capitals? Perhaps some WH living corps use those? For the record my knowledge of WHs is close to 0. I am aware of cap escalations, but no idea if that's common. If so is it both dread and carrier? Should I even be thinking about capital sized weapons? I checked that it will take me around 6 months to fly a carrier(with racial carrier and fighters to V) which is probably sufficient time for me to ease back into the game. Also how relevant is Jump Drive Ops V? If I don't do large fleet battles and sit in a WH I wouldn't risk of being a burden due to being slower, right?

Finally what about the rorqual? That looks to be just an extra month of training. Probably not as fun as other capitals, but I suppose it could be a valuable thing for a corp?


TL;DR - Want to know if to train capitals if I don't want to be in a blob

Capitals are used in solo/small gang situations all the time.

Carriers are used with sentry drones on station undocks to great effect. You undock, agress, shoot ****, generally you have enough time to de-agress and dock up. Its fun. Triage carriers cynoed into small pvp sotuations, also good fun, if you know for certain that enemy doesnt have a capital on standby - wormhole dudes roaming in null dont, for example.

In wormholes capitals are used all the time, not just for PvE, but for PvP. Due to mass restrictions on holes, its a 1-2 capital ships per fight affair. Dreads with webbing lokis, triage carriers, DPS carriers, capital cap traps, evictions, happens all the time.

Bottom line is this.

If in lowsec/nullsec, dont listen to your ******** alliance/corp leaders, if you want to play with a capital, play with it. If your leadership doesnt allow you to do what you want with your stuff, you should reconsider your membership.

if in wormholes, capitals are your bread and butter, along with t3's. I use my carrier and dread for pvp a lot.

I know a lot of people that use caps for DED complexes. A dread can blap the station bosses in 2 or 3 hits easy, then have your alt scoop the loot.

That's about it though. It's mostly just so you can put "cap pilot" on your resume.

So there are a few uses for capital ships... but I'll focus on carriers are I'm more familiar and proficient in them.

NOTE: all these tactics do require cooperation with others. They are not good for "solo" pilots.


The "Pick-up Truck": as mentioned before, having a carrier is great if you have a lot of stuff... specifically ships. Load them up into your carrier (note: the ships must not have anything but ammo, scripts, or cap boosters in them), undock, and have a buddy or alt light a cynosaural field in another system... then jump.
You can carry 2 battleships... or 3 to 4 battlecruisers... or 5 to 6 cruisers... or about 10 to 12 frigates... or some combination of the above in one go.
You also have a Fleet Hanger which is basically a "special" cargohold in addition to your normal one that can hold about 10k m3 worth of stuff.

Triage Support: this is the primary specialty of the carrier and simply requires a Triage Module and Strontium Clathrates to work.
Think of Triage Mode as a Logistics Ship on steroids and them some. Your local tank is increased 3 fold, your remote repairs doubled, and you become immune to most forms of Electronic Warfare. In return you give up mobility (you can't move, jump, dock, etc.), cannot receive remote assistance to yourself (no one can rep you), and you cannot use any drones.
Given that you have no offensive power in this mode it shouldn't take a genius to imagine that you NEED allied support in the form of damage dealing ships. Have them knock out anyone using Energy Neutralizers (since your only real concern is not having enough capacitor power) and then mop up the rest before someone higher up on the food chain shows up (and drops on you with Dreadnoughts or Supercarriers).

When used right a Triage Carrier can greatly increase the staying power of your allies and turn the tide in a battle.


Pantheon/"Slowcat" Setup: basically you utilize the repping abilities of the carrier without the Triage Mode. This strategy requires a minimum of 2 carriers (yourself and a partner) to work and increases by orders of magnitude with more.
Fit for resistances and capacitor recharge rate in the lows and most of the mids... a remote ECCM (mid slot) for each carrier you are supporting... and the high-slots should be a minimum of 2 energy transfers with the rest being remote repairs.
The benefit of this mode is that you are somewhat mobile (you can disengage and warp off) and maintain some offensive power (you can launch and use your drones). The pitfall is that you are dependent on others to survive (as they are to you) and if they die, so will you.

I USE CAPS WHEN I AM YELLING