Ships & Modules

So with the changes to all missile skills, implants, and rigs affecting all sub-cap missiles, it seems that Stealth Bombers are going to be a whole lot more useful in a few weeks. Right now their DPS is laughable at most ships below BC's due to the 450m explosion radius of torps. By my calculations, you can reduce that to about 203m with level 5 guided missile skill, a 6% implant, and two Rigor Catalyst II rigs on your bomber. With a standard crash booster, you're looking at 162m!!! Welcome to the full force of torpedos against cruiser sized targets (assuming they are moving slowly...). Small ships who are smart can still speed-tank well against the bomber, unless we see some brave bomber pilots fitting webs :-X One TP should effectively replace the gain of the booster for those of you who don't partake in the smuggling of contraband goods. Should see some amazing alpha damage combined with a bomb launcher (which keeps its 400m explosion radius).

Am I missing something?

If only they had precision torps too...

T2 rigs and a 6% implant in a bomber which will be virtually untanked.

Your DPS had better be good, and you'll want to stay away from ships with a drone bay, launchers or good tracking.

The same is true currently, just with fewer ships that make viable targets. Those numbers are expensive to obtain but just for comparison. Two T1 rigs instead and like a 3% implant are cheap and can still get you a very good explosion radius. Just level 5 guided missile skill with get your radius from 450 to 337.5. That's already nearly full damage on a shield tanked BC, or one with a TP or two against it.

It may be an expensive fit but if it gets the job done, you're paying for a tactical advantage. There's a post floating around somewhere about a guy who flew 200m isk+ purifier fits with navy BCUs who has hundreds of solo kills against BS's, something like 800 dps. He definitely got his money's worth. I've solo'd a handful of cruisers in a bomber with a little bit of luck and a crash booster. Now, it'll require a bit less luck and give me a bigger list of targets that I'm not terrified of uncloaking against.

A Nemesis with cloak and three T2 launchers runs about 40 million ISK. That doesn't count ammo, rigs, or mid- or low-slot mods.

There's not much difference in pure gank among them - the Hound and Purifier have three low slots for Ballistic Controls, but they don't have the CPU to fit three T2 BC's. (The Hound can fit one T2 and two T1's, giving it a whopping four DPS advantage over the other three.) Currently, with perfect skills, Rages will reach 54km, and perfect skills, Warhead Calefaction and Bay Loading Accelerator rigs, and two BC II's will give 648 theoretical DPS to that bomber's bonused torpedo damage type (755 DPS if you overheat).

Except Rage's have a 650m explosion radius... Meaning they are worthless except against battleships that are being painted. Even with these new changes, they will only be down in the realm of 260+. Also, it's very hard to fit T2 launchers on bombers. I think arbys are most popular.

I've never tried PvP with a stealth bomber, but this is my prototype fit I'll be using to test it out with. It uses a SeBo with Javelins for 90km max range. I'm not sure how well that will work out though, so I'll probably end up switching that out for a second TP.

It uses a 10MN AB for keeping range on short guns or getting under larger guns. The DPS is a bit lower to allow for the fitting and it doesn't use a good cloak, but I think the cloak might come in handy if something scary yellow boxes me. It has no tackle so it's not really useful for solo engagements. I think it could be quite decent in small gangs, being so small and fast and being able to apply DPS from that range.

[Purifier, 10MN]
Micro Auxiliary Power Core II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

10MN Afterburner II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Sensor Booster II, Targeting Range Script

Torpedo Launcher II, Mjolnir Javelin Torpedo
Torpedo Launcher II, Mjolnir Javelin Torpedo
Torpedo Launcher II, Mjolnir Javelin Torpedo
Improved Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Warhead Rigor Catalyst I

Bomber's max effective range solo is 28km.

Don't do it.

it!