Missions & Complexes

Can anyone tell me if there are preferences in most fleets to armor vs shield fit megathrons? I had a buddy I was going to try and run incursions with and he goes shield fit and that was the direction I was headed, but that doesnt seem like its going to happen in the near future. So, anyone have any suggestions?

Incursion fleets tend to be formed so all the ships rely on one basic tank mode ... usually shield or armor. That's just an efficiency issue, so you only need one type of logistic support for tank.

Fleet Commanders then tend to choose DPS ships with decent (but not necessarily uber ... except an anchor) tanks, of that type, that are able to deliver lots of damage at the necessary range(s). They will also seek a number of logistics ships, transferring the appropriate shield or armor tank. Also, depending on the types of incursions being run, they may also choose additional secondary specialty skills such as webbers and boosters.

So if you can tank a mega well with either shield or armor, and if that mega provides decent DPS at the ranges needed, then you should offer your services to fleet commanders running that types of fleet.

Whether or not you get fleet invites is going to largely depend on whether the fleet commanders see your mega as being more useful than the machariels, vargurs, tengus, nightmares, maelstroms, webber lokis, and vindicators (etc) on offer.

Having said that, the mega doesn't give you an awful lot of midslot latitude ... so you have limited ability to fit shield mods and ancilliary items such as Webbers etc. So while a mega may be able to decently shield tank, a shield tanking mega is not likely to be able to offer incursion fleet commanders the sort of flexibility and DPS-delivery that other, more shield suited, ships can.

Advice - from a non-expert - stick to armor if you must fly a mega for incursions, and direct your skill training towards ships that are more popular for incursions. Incursion logistics is relatively easy to train for, even to maximal skill levels, and logis are **always** being sought for incursion fleets.

Take a look at this site for Incursion and ship fitting informations:
http://incursions.nexsoft.de/

The shield public channel (BTL) is essentially "elitist carebear dipshits online" - so you'll almost never get a fleet invite with a T1 battleship. You'll need to make that Mega a Vindicator.

The armor channel is a little better, and you'll see many more fleets with T1 battleships running sites.

The shield guys also have a giant case of EFTitus, can can't look past paper-DPS figures for ships that have fuckall chance of ever getting it on the target. You're much better off with a lower DPS figure (say, 2 Mag stabs instead of 3) and a mid rack full of webs and TCs than you are with having a stacking penalty party in your low slots.

Your first comment reminded me of this picture:

http://742.photobucket.com/albums/xx63/loselopez/drake.jpg

No seriously, if you want to run with an inefficient group of T1 battleships as a form of "welfare organization" that cares to let people in crap ships skim some isk off vanguards, start your own fleets. Nobody prevents you from forming a fleet with your own rules.

If "we" (as in incursion communities) are too elitist for you, form your own community. I'd be more than happy to see you in our sites, helping us completing sites faster (or doing those boring slow more dangerous OTAs and NMCs for "us")

Sig bloomer wastes 2 valuable mids, not just one, as you'll need an extra hardner to undo the self-inflicted gimp.

T2 guns are not mandatory, nor even desirable for tach snipers, some megapulse/blaster vgs. Between grid and cap issues, t2 tachs aren't usable in anything other than Bhaalgorn, and to a lesser extent NM. Some 8 turret megapulse boats run into cap problems. Wasting slots, especially valuable mids, on cap mods, disqualify you from non-fail fleets. So faction, or even meta4 are used. Scorch is never needed, nor tracking penalty desirable for vg. Navy multi only. T2 ACs are desirable, but using RF ammo, not t2 (lolz). Fitting t2 guns just to prove you can use them is why noobs save and advertise with someone else's t2 gun fits, usually failfits. It's pathetic.

Once the lightshow starts, it'll be obvious who's doing the dps by counting wrecks with corp tags. It's the Mach/Vindi, not the Scorch users.

Standard armor fits for my fleets are:

1600mm plate, DCU II, enough EANM/hardeners/rigs to make 70% res across the board. and as many damage mods as you can phisically fit. as well as tracking computers and webs in the mid's

the 1600mm can be dropped if you have a high-grade slave set.

You are looking for over 100K effective HP (enough buffer for logi's to get reps on you is all.

cruisers can go for a bit less, lower signature radius means less damage taken from the banshee torps.

LSE's belong on passive tanks because the more shield the more you generate with recharge a LSE without an assend full of shield recharge mods is fail they also only work with particular ships that have fast recharge, Ferox Class/Drake for caldari. Raven with LSEs will soon be a salvagable lump of metal.