Ships & Modules

As the title states, I'm trying to make a scout, tackle, and scan ship. Want to be Minmitar, unless there is a really strong reason not to.

Looking at:
Claw
Stiletto
Cheetah

or even
Hound
Loki
Svipul
but probably not.

If someone could tell me what the absolute best is, or give me a comparative analysis, that would be great!

That's kind of what I was thinking, but what if I put some core stabilizers on the CovOps?

Or what about Loki? It has the interdictor immunity and the cloaks, but it is (I think) rather slow. But it's also bigger and has some combat capabilities.

Also, I really hope they give Cepters the same treatment they gave Caps with EWAR resistance instead of immunities.

That would serve the same purpose. Why Proteus over Loki? Is there a "top" Strategic Cruiser?

Ok, so how would something like this work?
[Loki Stealth+Tackle]
Co-Processor II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II

50MN Digital Booster Microwarpdrive
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
'Delineative' Warp Scrambler
Caldari Navy Medium Shield Booster
Medium Shield Extender II

Expanded Probe Launcher II, Core Scanner Probe I
Republic Fleet 280mm Howitzer Artillery, EMP S
Republic Fleet 280mm Howitzer Artillery, EMP S
Republic Fleet 280mm Howitzer Artillery, EMP S
Republic Fleet 280mm Howitzer Artillery, EMP S
Covert Cynosural Field Generator I
'Smokescreen' Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Loki Defensive - Adaptive Shielding
Loki Electronics - Tactical Targeting Network
Loki Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Loki Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Loki Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier

Combat recons are surpisingly strong in lowsec for that sort of thing, especially if you hunt people doing deds, all cloakies and ceptors show up on scan, so if they are smart they spam dscan and see any of those within 1 au they bail out, combat recons can get you a kill vs those.

But yeah, generally speaking ceptors are the best tacklers/scouts.

Hello OP,

You need to define "what" you are scouting for AND trying to catch. Are you moving fast (Inty/AF/Dessie fleet)? Slower (cruiser+)? Mission Runners, anom whores, randoms on gates?

Having done the above for years might I suggest:

Cheetah-Cloak/Probes/Speed mods and here is the critical part.......long point and a damp with scan res scripting. If you are tackling anything small with a Cheetah generally you are asking for a rather quick and pointless doom....industrial stuff being the exception. On the other hand snaring the average BC/BS with long point and scan res gives you loads of time for your pals to arrive and take over.

Stiletto-Best fleet inty in game (Crow a strong second). Speed mods to taste long point (can do two if you have excellent skills) and fly loops around bigger targets. Long point+painter is fun.....long paint plus little shield buffer is helpful.

Another alternative NOT mentioned in thread is the awesome Interdictor. Fast, furious, bubbles....everyone in your fleet will appreciate you (until they lose pods to your bubbles...**** happens ).

Pro scouts:

-Don't fuss about DPS. Whatever your whoremod gets you on the mail.
-Don't really care about getting on the KM. Thats secondary to being the eyes of the fleet.
-Can fly manual.
-Can fly and pin targets creatively.
-Move FAST.
-Scan and probe fast.

For every covops kill I have ever been on....there are probably 5x that many where I don't appear on the mail....but you bet your boots I was there .

I was lucky and learned the dark arts of EvE covops and scouting from Dr Drac way WAY back in the day. Find someone who can show you how and have fun!

Stacking two Engine Thermal Rigs II on a Cheetah with triple nanos allows it to move around 60-70km in a single overheated propmod cycle starting from 0m/s immediately after cloaking.
It's still going to take longer than a ceptor, but you can definitely get out of bubble fields without decloaking again.

That being said MWD Cheetah have poor cap levels and if you Warp Drive skills aren't good you will typically run out of Capacitor during long warps.

Also Warp Speed rigs aren't too great. I'm not sure if the Warp Speed acceleration is the same as subwarp, but it takes around 5-10s to reach max Warp Speed and then another 5-10s to decelerate. You only reach max warp speed on very long warps and it will mostly only matter during these. You might want to consider a T1 Warp Optimisation rig to reduce the cap cost if your skills are poor.

That a dictor, it does dictor things. It doesnt really do well as tackle or as a scout.

You have answered your own question .

If you like cloaks....fly a covops and practice mwd-cloak tricks and manual piloting.
I cannot remember ever losing a covops to running gates ahead of a gang.

The way I learned to scout was inty followed by covops. Less stuff to think about with an inty (probing, cloaking, blah blah) so you can concentrate on just locating targets for your pals.

Don't ever be risk adverse....EvE rewards those who can flip the switch into aggressive violent rapid action mode. Be the aggressor and 99/100 times you will win...or at least dictate...the engagement.

Here is a sample of how it works from last night:

-I nipped into some crappy backwater Tenerifis space via WH.
-Spotted a Mach and had him pinned to deadspace within a couple AU of a planet.
-Got backup and gave our covops dude a precise location to drop combats (I was in a bomber...sue me).
-Covops got the hit first try. Sadly the Mach ran (~local~) but we bagged his nitiwit pal in a Proteus instead.

tl; dr.......practice baby practice. There have never been many good scouts in Eve. You will always have a quality home if you get good

**edit**Contrary to another opinion I quite happily scout in a dictor. But don't try it until you have inty/covops down pat....dictors are a different ball game.

As with all things, Tengu.

Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but a Tengu can be fit for Hunter Killer Cloaky Scouty role and behaves like a tanky, nullified Cov Ops frigate. The stupid things align pretty easily at sub 4 seconds (so 4 ticks and you're off) all while ignoring bubbles and possessing a pretty substantial tank. Sure it costs you 600 or 700 mil and a skill injector worth of SP when you lose it, but it's one crazy good ship to carry a cov cyno around.

Another b4tsh1t crazy idea is the hull-tanked prospect.