Ships & Modules

Not sure what "do here" references to.

For incursions:

Offgrid boosters are:
Vulture/Tengu for shield boosted fleets
Damnation/Legion for armour fleets
Claymore/Loki for either
Orca for either.
Absolution is the only ongrid command ship in armour fleets.
I have no idea if the any on grid command ship flies with the best shield Incursion fleets, since I don't fly shield Incursions.

Now, for PvP, different story:
As others have said, you can go with almost any, depending on the fleet setup, BUT, most people don't fly the Astarte/Eos, or the Nighthawk.
The EWAR boosts from the EOS are just not used that often, which is a pity. The Astarte is a huge damage dealer, but has the typical blaster deficiencies.
The Nighthawk is slightly better than a Drake, but not really enough to justify the cost in PvP.

Damnation is a terrifying booster, Absolution can run with the fleet with an excellent tank and good short range DPS, but is slow.
Vulture, like the Damnation, is a great ongrid booster, has a big big tank, but DPS is light. Still, a shield fleet will love you.
Claymore been discussed.
Sleipnir, man, that is a scary boat. In a shield fleet set up as a buffer boat, it brings serious DPS to the field, but not really great as a boosting boat.

Now, in a truly scary shield only fleet, you have a Vulture in the FC position, Claymore in WC position, with a liberal dose of logi's and Sleipnir's scattered within the squads.

Shouldn't somebody offer advice on this statement too?

Why ANYONE would fly a Legion over a Damnation in an armor-tanked fleet is simply beyond me. You can easily use a loki for nano/shield fleet boosting, since it is fast and hard to hit, and gives bonuses to being fast and hard to hit. Armor fleets are the antithesis of this. They are meant to stay on the field and simply outlast the enemy with massive EHP and logi. Having a Legion as the fleet booster is a liability because you are relying on him to get off the field before the fleet realizes what a juicy target the ONLY legion burning like a madman out of the bubble is.

Staying on the field with the rest of your fleet and having as much tank as possible is by far a better tradeoff than the negligible increase in boosting the Legion provides. The Damnation, assuming you have Command Ships/Armored Warfare Specialist/Warfare Link Specialist V and the mindlink, can push 450k EHP. Using the money you saved by NOT buying a Legion, you can invest in a set of T2 trimarks and LG Slaves for over 500k EHP. Regular slaves will push your tank to almost 700k EHP. Instead of making a mad dash to wipe your legion off the field as he tries to make a break for it, the fleet has to accept your presence on the field, because you have the tank of a carrier with logi to prop you up. Plus, staying on the field means more time you will be spending keeping your bonuses up.

This is my preferred Damnation setup:

[Damnation, Armor Commander-double plate]
Damage Control II
Centus C-Type Armor EM Hardener
Centus C-Type Armor Thermic Hardener
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

Phased Muon ECCM Caster I
Phased Muon ECCM Caster I
Small Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 200
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive

Armored Warfare Link - Damage Control II
Armored Warfare Link - Passive Defense II
Armored Warfare Link - Rapid Repair II
Assault Missile Launcher II, Sabretooth Fury Light Missile
Assault Missile Launcher II, Sabretooth Fury Light Missile
Assault Missile Launcher II, Sabretooth Fury Light Missile
Assault Missile Launcher II, Sabretooth Fury Light Missile

Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II

Warrior II x5


With the skills, the slaves, and the mindlink, you net 692 EHP. ECCM for logi-love, and cap booster for cap boostin' (It's not really needed, but at 836 m/s, you will be running the MWD a lot more). DPS, though negligible, is still more than what a Legion would put out by not being on the field. Use your launchers and drones to pick off tackle or something, I don't know. You have almost 700k EHP. do whatever the **** you want.

Regarding the question of tossing a single gang link on a field CS, yes this can be done...to varying degrees of success.

For Astarte's you need to drop in an RCU and/or a ACR rig to fit the link...and pre-Crucible it meant Electrons or Ions...but nowadays you'd probably get Ions on there. You would only do this if you were in an armour BC gang situation, you couldn't fly an Abso, and/or you knew 100% you'd be facing Because of Falcon. Then you'd use the sensor integrity link. Only one.

The Abso manages to fit pulses and a link with respectable buffer using one RCU. You would have to um and aah over the flavour of link you'd use, but it would be an effecive small gang booster for people who lack two accounts and a T3 booster alt, and who wanted 700-ish DPS to go with a buff to the logis.

The Sleipnir can fit a link and 220's with a decent tank, all for the cost of 1 RCU. It is probably the most able to do this of all the field command ships and still remain viable. The cost is a gun (DPS) and a gyro or TE. But, the benefit is very much worthwhile as you'd get 15% extra point range, or MWD speed. With only one link to choose from, not much point using the sig reduction link.

Nighthawk...forget it. You basically already need a RCU to make this an acceptable ship, so plumping for a gang link would leave your tank seriously deficient, or your DPS gimped. Plus you basically need 2 RCU's to get anything good out of this. Definitely not recommended.

As for doing this cheap, I have had great success rolling an RCU'd arty cyclone with a skirmish warfare link (and 2 x standard launchers to fill the slots). Usually I go for the rabid deployment link so everyone goes faster than a greyhound with a chilli up its arse. You'd also have great success with the Ferox and Prophecy because you hardly get primaried and hardly anyone suspects these ships of being the FC's or fleet boosters'. Brutix, you don't have the spare utility in your role to pull this off and you'd be at 2km melting face and being primaried.

You can also do a gang link quite easily on a cane, drake and myrm, with the Myrm being the standout choice here so you can drop your drones and fade into the background to preserve your bonus-spewing for as long as possible.

Well - if you're low on SP and isk or not fighting idiots wrongly assessing their gangs abiltiy to break an on-grid fleet CS tank, there isn't any reason to fly one.

- Claymores are not that bad, but slow the gangs you'd typically use them with down. Use a Loki for better bonus and agility.

- The Damnations EFT may help against being alpha'd by an unexperienced FC though - I'd rather use a Legion alt to boost the gang from off-grid for the better bonus and keep a fake-Damnation on the field to soak up enemy dps - they're cheap after all.

- Vulture? use a Tengu for it's just better in every way.

EOS? Who wants those boni anyway?

Field CS are motsly crap except for the sleip, unless you're cheap and had CS V anyway - wouldn't recommend anyone to train the skill nowadays...

edit: of yourse you may be 'OMGWTFAWESUMSAUCEOFWIN' in an incursion gang, but then, who cares?

Most typical null sec fleets will generally run some sort of command ship, and usually the FC is in them. Why you say? Because when you have 10+ logi, who in gods name would primary a command ship when every logi either has them targeted already, or on their watchlist. More so now than before because you can no longer doomsday command ships and to remove them. Personally I haven't seen any T3 boosters, partially because TEST may not use them.

As for the actual command ships that are used:

Damnation: AHAC fleets, armor fleets, this thing is a god damned brick and the best armor command ship

Vulture: Shield Fleets, same reason as the damnation, only with shield

Claymore: For a skirmish wing so that the huggins / rapiers have 100km overloaded webs (If you aren't using a faction web you are a scrub), as well as general tackle in general for the boost to point and web range. Also used in fast moving fleets

Command Ships never used in large scale 0.0 warfare: Everything that's not a damnation, vulture, or claymore. No seriously, they suck, don't use them, they don't bring anything special to the table that a T2 cruiser couldn't, or a real command ship could do better.

Just my take on command ships in a 0.0 fleet situation.

No one said it was bad. The Tengu just does everything better. Much better, actually.

I personally think it's bullshit that T3's are superior to FC hulls.