Ships & Modules

I flew an Ishtar in L4's for about 18 months. It was very quick and much more fun to fly than a BS.

There are plenty of fit suggestions here so I'll not bother on that score. But you did ask about tactics.

I used a 'tar for HS exploration for a while too, until I realised that it's native dps (sentries) isn't the best match for HS complexes. The mechanics are just wrong. Sentries are ideal when you have a large number of ranged rats to kill, and there's no real urgency to be elsewhere (eg. another gate 40km away).

But HS Exploration is about speed, speed, speed. Find the plex quicker than anyone else, and run it it minutes.

Your primary focus is the triggers; nothing else. Kill whatever needs killing to unlock the next pocket. Get to the final target asap, loot and move on.

Take the Sansha Vigil as an example. A lot of players will spend half an hour killing everything in sight, which is basically ratting not exploring. In reality, there are 4 targets. The Security tower, the Overseer (unlocks gate) then in the next pocket, the stasis tower, the Overseer/faction rat. Kill, bookmark wreck, warp away, site despawns, return to bookmark and loot. This takes about 2 minutes.

With that in mind, your tactics with the Ishtar don't involve sentries. Dropping & orbiting them is just too fiddly, you can't align, you have to stay in place when you need to be motoring on. The new 3/10 "Frigfest" plexes have about 30 rats in each of 4 pockets and 40km between gates. They drop very nice loot, so run them when you find them. But you need to be moving & firing, so use Hammers and Hobs.

There are a handful of occasions when sentries are useful where you are in Sansha space (Mul-Zatah Monastery is one) so take a rack with you. But most of the time you'll need meds and railguns.

Also do not fit an MWD. The new 3/10's don't allow its use between pockets. Use a Shadow or RF AB, it's plenty.

There is another drawback - the Ishtar is very short on CPU so you'll have real trouble trying to fit an expanded probe launcher - which is a de facto standard for hs exploration, since it allows you to use deep space probes which filter a LOT of crap out.

Also don't bother with an Analyzer. The hs mag sites are and will always be totally crap and not worth your time. Fit a Codebreaker, and ODL's & Drone Nav comps. You want your meds & lights to be as quick and accurate as possible.

Many thanks for all the replies.

I had a look at all the fitting suggestions and interesting posts. Some of them gave me some good ideas. Others I am not so sure of if it will work for me.

I tried the jetcan tactic and circling the can at 500m. This works fine for deploy / redeploy Sentries but the speed is rather slow and I am not sure if it speed tanks so well (For sure better than just floating around).
Bibosikus post made me think about using Med and Heavy Drones instead of Sentries. Which is a little bit stupid, if you have a Drone Boat with enough Bandwith and Storage, to fit a full deck of Sentries. But the comments made sense. So this is why I picked for my Fitting no more Omni’s and Sentry Damage Rigs, but instead I use a Drone Navigation Computer (MWD Speed for Drones).

For Scanning, Hacking, Analyzing etc I use an ALT so no need to fit these modules on.

As I mentioned before I am a Domi pilot who loves his Dual Rep / Cap stable Domi. So I aimed for a similar setup on my Ishtar and came up with the following fitting:

High Slots:
• 200mm Railgun I (Aggro gun)
• Prototype Cloaking Device I (For Low sec)
• Small Tractor Beam I
• Salvager I

Mid Slots:
• 10MN Afterburner II
• Large Capacitor Battery II
• Drone Navigation Computer II
• Cap Recharger II
• Cap Recharger II

Low Slots:
• Medium Armor Repairer II
• Medium Armor Repairer II
• True Sansha Armor EM Hardener
• True Sansha Armor EM Hardener
• True Sansha Armor Thermic Hardener

Rig Slots:
• Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
• Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Various Drones from Light, Mediumand Heavy and a Set of Sniper Sentries.

This gives me with my skills and implants a total Tank of 603 DPS against Sansha (Against Guristas it is some incredible 1700 dps!), a 600 m/s Speed and I can put out approx. 475 DPS damage with my Heavies. And it is Cap stable.

I ran a “Sansha Watch” with the Escalation “Nation on the Rise” yesterday and it was a piece of cake.
I think I will have a lot of fun with the Ishtar in the future.

Wish you all a Happy New Year.
Fly Safe

In general, rep+resist for pve, buffer for pvp. You don't need much buffer even for lvl4's so the plate isn't needed. You'd be better served with a resist module. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the dual prop tip, I've been competing with T3s in Guristas hisec sites, and now win those Tengus and Legions with this fit:

[Ishtar, Guristas harvester]

Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M
Salvager I /OFFLINE
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M
Small Tractor Beam I
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Void M

Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
10MN Afterburner II
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon Microwarpdrive
Cap Recharger II
Codebreaker I

Domination Medium Armor Repairer
Damage Control II
Coreli A-Type Adaptive Nano Plating
Dark Blood Energized Thermic Membrane
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Medium Sentry Damage Augmentor I
Medium Sentry Damage Augmentor I


Garde II x5
Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Garde II x1
Hobgoblin II x2

Tank mods could probably be optimized, I used what I had in the hangar, but as it holds up perfectly well I haven't bothered.

Nice ship!

Hi,

before judging my smart-thinking abilities in the context of fitting an Ishtar for the purpose explicitly specified in the OP, I'd like to point you to the following list of facts:

1) Your speed/sig tanking fit has more sig and less speed than mine

2) My fit does 134dps, or 22%, more damage, which is actually the second key component after MWD speed (which your fit also does not have) that allows me to win the contested sites. (this is with a clean all V's. Being a Gallente pilot, I'm hardwired for medium hybrids and do 26% more damage)

3) That paper damage is also applied better, because both guns and drones have better tracking

4) I have no PG issues, it sits at 85,9% even without my PG-4 implant (hint, CPU is the bottleneck on an Ishtar)

5) The sites are over before my cap, even with an online MWD

6) My fit outdamages yours at all ranges, and it has also more real range (you have a module that extends the naturally long drone control range even further beyond your maximum targeting range)

7) The guns spew more of the best damage type for the NPCs it's designed to be used against.

But hey, somebody had to post an overtanked, slow, expensive low-dps fit with an unnecessary fitting mod, useless highslot module and an empty slot. I'm glad it was you and not me.

Ishtar has very low base armor. Med repper + plate is a very good idea for many nullsec combat sites. Depending on the site I would use no plate, 800 plate, or a 1600 plate. Having a plate lets you do things like kill stasis/neut towers and other special targets without worrying about incoming damage. It also lets you attempt riskier sites more safely. Some people like to dual rep their ishtar which has its advantages, but I prefer the versatility I get being able to fit a plate and run sentry damage rigs and fit drone tracking links.

as for hisec explo. you really don't need more than 1 rep and a few hardeners.

Your fit will certainly work better in null ratting, no doubt about that, as my fit simply can't tank that much- but the topic was about hisec exploration and anoms, with dramatically different requirements.

So Jester has updated his "endgame PVE Ishtar" fit in today's post: http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2012/01/fotw-endgame-pve-ishtars.html

Ishtar sucks in pvp. armortar sucks, and shield Gila is way better. the Gila overshadows it completely. i fly the Gila, it's a beast