Ships & Modules

What is the best part of using Golem? Micromanaging three target painters, 10-second reloads every time you find out that rat is too far to hit for ANY damage or having crap DPS against cruisers? Or maybe it's counting torpedoes so you don't end up sending them into space when target goes *pop*?

Easier tank, 4th heatsink, more tracking for tachs, far easier fitting. The applied dps difference between NM and Paladin is bigger than seen on paper.

Btw, if you crosstrain something from Amar, make it a Vargur.

edit: misread

Keep in mind guys the OP is running havens and sanctums not L4s. So he shouldn't have to worry about tracking too much as most ships will be BSs. And since he is planning to fight Bloods which nos/neut he will want to stay at range and snipe them so even less worry about tracking. The few frigs and cruisers that spawn are easily killed at range and if for some reason they make it close drones can clean them up pretty quick.

The Paladin fit I posted works well as long as you don't screw up triggers, let yourself get nos/neut, get tackled, etc. I don't fly a Nightmare since the Paladin is cheaper and I don't want to haul cap charges around but I would fly something like this.

[Nightmare]

[lows]
IN Heat Sink
IN Heat Sink
IN Heat Sink
IN Heat Sink
Tracking Enhancer II

[med]
Heavy Cap Booster II cap 800
Shield Boost Amplifier II
Pith A-Type XLSB
Pith A-Type photon
Pith A-Type Heat
Tracking Computer II
Cap Recharger II

[high]
Tach Beam II IN Multi Freq
Tach Beam II IN Multi Freq
Tach Beam II IN Multi Freq
Tach Beam II IN Multi Freq
Improved cloak device II
Drone Link augmentor

[rigs]
CCC II
CCC
CCC

Implants:
PG8
AX-2
CC8
CX-2
G2-Epsilon

Using All level 5 in EFT:

1077dps/7189 volley (guns only)
783 dps tank (Bloods)

Paladin fit I linked
1009dps/6943 volley (guns only)
791 dps tank (Bloods)

Sure on paper NM does more DPS but also costs a lot more and the additional 246 volley probably won't help kill things (BSs) any faster since your guns would have to cycle anyway. But if you constantly had stuff orbiting close the extra tracking would help apply more DPS. The NM also has to use a cap booster so you will have to buy/make/loot them and hope you don't run out. This isn't a problem on the Paladin.

In blood havens and sanctums frigs and cruisers are killed at range and the BS orbit around 30km so again tracking shouldn't be a problem for either ship. Also you should loot/salvage wrecks in a noctis and only if the other anoms are taken. Running anoms efficiently can easily net 60mil+ ISK/hr and salvaging could slow that down depending on how many armor plates you get..

Both ships will run anoms easily and sure I could get on EFT and pimp fit each ship with officer mods and the difference might be greater but if DPS is all you are worried about you might as well skill for a Thanatos.

Easier tanks does not make it faster - it makes it easier. That said you'll end up with two setups with an equivalent amount of tank but the nightmare has a tad more buffer, which I guess means it's both easier and sufficient.

Both ships have four heat sinks. One has longer range, other has better tracking.

The difference in the respective ship's engagement range is staggering. A triple-TE shield-tanked Paladin will get the same optimal and falloff as a Nightmare, but its tracking is only 0.0217 rad/s. With a TE and tracking-scripted TC, a Nightmare will get 0.0337 rad/s.

That's a 55% improvement. Practically speaking, the Nightmare will hit targets at 25km like the Paladin does at 39km. It's like having a perfectly skilled rapier putting a faction target painter on everything you shoot.

If you don't think that's significant, then I really don't know what to tell you.

Sorry it took awhile to get back to you. I was building a rocket with my design team

As for the faction LAR the centus and corpus are exactly the same so get whichever one is cheaper. Last I checked the X-types were 300mil more expensive than A-types and only give you about 60dps tank more so that's something to think about.

As for the carrier a Thanatos will make running anoms very easy. Half the time I never get below shields before finishing the anom however there are a few issues you may run into.

1. Using fighters will require travel time before DPS is applied so if spawns are far away or ships are really spread out you could be waiting 30+sec before the fighters even start firing. And if one of them gets aggro it may die before you can recall it. Fighting bloods you will want to use Templars only.

2. Carriers are slow to align for warp (the fastest is about 20sec) so if reds jump in system you might be in trouble.

3. Unless you have cynos/JBs moving systems could be a problem.

4. Skills. Training for a carrier will take awhile and fighters 5 is a must if you really want to kill stuff fast. Also you will need target painters for your fighters to kill the elite cruisers/frigs unless you recall them and switch to mediums.

Some people claim a sentry thanny is awesome but you will only get 700-800dps and you can get more than that out of a NM/Paladin. A sentry thanny would be good for AFKing anoms but anyone who AFKs in a carrier deserves to be popped.

As for using sentries on my paladin fit you can do that however using 3 sentries will take up the whole drone bay and if the "oh ****" moment happens and you get webbed/scrammed you will most likely die. Plus you get more DPS with 5 hammerheads and can move around freely (helps with tanking).

Another trick I use is drone tanking. You might ask why but Bloods use lasers and BSs 50+km away almost never hit drones. The trick is to recall your drones to orbit you before a new spawn (most likely the spawn will be out of your drone control range anyway). This will cause some drones to get aggro. Then you can kill the "drone aggroed" enemy ships without getting aggro yourself. This helps with tank and cap a lot as sometimes I have 6 BS spawn and only 3-4 are actually shooting me. And its no problem to kill the "drone aggroed" ships before they cause any damage to your drones. Once the "drone aggroed" ships are dead you can send your drones to attack the remaining BSs and repeat the process.

Sorry for the late reply, the new forums have a way of eating posts that get to long.

First off, rats spawn in a given pattern every single time. So the first time you run a mission or site you might get crippled by this. on the other hand, the difference isn't that big for TC's where you have to wait out the cycle before you can switch scripts.

Technically you can split your launchers into two groups and use 2 TP's with each group, if that's enough to kill your target. 2 TP's will still push full damage on most cruisers. However, there's a good solution to avoiding missions and sites with half of them being cruisers - don't run level 3's. And if you do want to run crappy missions, there are much better ships for it.



That's what I said? A nightmare outdamages a paladin, however....
1) TE's are more effective than TC's when unscripted or scripted for optimal range. They're only less efficient when nothing but tracking matters.
2) You're using a 4-slot tank, that's noticably more than near enough any other marauder, and if you waste more mids than that on a nightmares tank, the paladin will soon be gankier again.
3) The ship is not low on cap, stop expecting ships to be cap stable while not using an injector. The point is that salvagers allow you to pull mission objectives faster(which drastically improves your mission times) and it allows you a sideincome from loot and salvage which the nightmare does not. So the real question would be if the nightmares added income from the 37.5% extra tracking outweighs the sideincome from loot and salvage. My data says no.
In the case of sanctums, the tractor beams add extra dps through being able to pull cap boosters from wrecks as you're running. The alternative would be to either warp back to a pos or station and stocking up on new cap boosters every time it runs out - or sacrifice damage output for cap modules.

When facing npc tds use optimal script to increase your falloff range - npc tds do not affect your falloff. Tracking is rarely issue when fighting td cruisers, because they rarely spawn in their orbit range - so they approach you with minimal angular.

And in some missions every single time they spawn too far away - Blockade and The Assault for example. TC cycle is ten seconds long, but with two of them most of the time you'll have one available in 5 seconds and/or one or both already loaded with required script already while switching INMFQ to Scorch is instant. I.e. switching from target at 20-25 km to 60km while using pulse lasers and two TCs is instant since I've already have two optimal range scripts loaded and won't need additional tracking.


Technically you don't have four TPs on a solo Golem, so one group will have two TPs, and other will have two TPs that will be available as Soon (tm) as cycle ends. When Paladin uses ungrouped guns against approaching cruisers the only limit is time required to lock onto new batch of targets. And yeah, you definitely have to fit a smartbombing active-shieldtanked Noctis and say that any mission it can't do fast is crap. Oh well, here goes Blockade - crappy mission.

Also, forget about full damage from Golem's torp against mobile cruisers - it's won't happen. With only two TPs and faction torps you'll lose more than 50% of you damage and it's a fact, not speculation.


"That's what I said? A nightmare outdamages a paladin, however...."
...however this claim works only if one fits Paladin like you did.


1) BS. If target is at range where you need all TCs to be scripted for optimal then TE's +10% to tracking is insignificant. When target is close enough to free at least one TC for tracking script TEs become inferior, but if you like them so much then Nighmare can use TE or two to augment or replace TC. Oh, and don't forget about stacking penalty.

2) What the hell did I just read? It looks like word salad.


First of all you've obviously missed my fit - I know how to use cap booster, in fact I've used to run pulse tank without cap booster on Maelstrom, CNR and Golem. Medium t1 meta cap booster on your ship is a crutch, and not even a good one.

Tractors are indeed useful for mission objective retrieval, but Nightmare can fit one as well and there are very few missions when you'll be out of 20km range from the can. Also I'm returning your "don't run crappy missions" argument.

Side income from salvaging with two tractors and single salvager? You've got to be kidding me. Five extra minutes spent in mission or anomaly due to crap tracking are a waste, and any salvage or loot you'll get this way won't cover the opportunity cost.


Wow. Just wow. Paladin cargo bay is big enough for 34-35 cap booster 800s, plus those loaded in booster and it's still not enough? Blood Blockade takes only 12-15 charges and I used MWD a lot. Dude, looks like it's not tractors you have to use, but proper ship.