Missions & Complexes

There seems to be a drastic disparity between the number of armor and shield incursion groups and fleets. Any particular reason for this? I know that shields have generally been considered 'better' at PvE and mission running since as long as I can remember, but having not run incursions myself I am trying to understand why there is such an overwhelming difference between the two.

I can only make some assumptions here, but it might help to clarify some of those questions about Shield vs. Armour. DarthNefarius is a long time FC for armour and he can probably give some better ideas as to the disparity between the two camps.

I think originally when Incursions were introduced the sheer incoming DPS tended to make armour the best bet, with large buffers, and the majority of large fleet manoeuvres being a standard operation for armour fleets. I would assume that PVP experience told everyone that armour was the way to go when dealing with this level of PVE. For instance the first incursions I ran the FC told me to get my fit to 150k EHP or he wouldn’t accept me in fleet. So I am making some assumptions here based on that experience, I could be way off-base but it seems to make sense to me.

After the trail and error phase of learning incursions was over, and the spawns, DPS, and influence bar was mapped by the armour groups, shields felt more confident in accessing sites with a solid baseline to prepare from. Certain advantages are evident in shield fleets, for instance the reps landing at the beginning of the cycle from logistics means that there is no delay from the logis in shield vs a 4.5 to 5 second delay from an armour logi.

Additionally a Shield ship is easier to set up with high DPS and Alphas (nothing but damage mods in the lows) allowing them to remove the most dangerous rats quickly and remove stress from the logistics squad. The introduction of affordable(heh) Deadspace Invuls helped even more with Shield tanks dropping to one rig and one mid slot for tank and everything else for Gank (damage projection, tracking, scan res).

Essentially a very expensive shield Mach can have one mid slot for tank, one rig slot for tank (EM-rig), and 20 remaining slots for Gank (1000dps artillery boat for me). As long as you bring the best logis you can find in the game you can fly these glass cannons and be relatively safe.

But armour is still the preferred group to fly with if you’re doing as low sec Incursion, as the need to switch from PVE to PVP mid site is almost always a certainty.

Edit: Darth is a USTZ player, he will probably be on to get some more exact information posted in a couple hours.

That Vindi looks good for VG shield fleets. Paste the fit into some of the more popular shield channels and adjust as required. ISN would of course want a lot more shiny on it, especially in the lows and possibly even T2 rigs.

Evelle; 7'62 SKS is right, that fit will be fine for Incursions. higher end groups like ISN will want Faction damage mods, and fitting T2 rigs gets problematic with calibration, I would suggest T2 EM rig but you wouldn't be able to fit the two Hybrid rigs (calibration again). With an OGB I am seeing 65/68/76/80 resists the LSE should give you just enough buffer (especially with the miniscule shield on a Vindi) to let the logis save you, but there will be some rather scary times when it feels like they might not make it in time.

I sent you a mail with some fits I have seen used recently hope that helps.

But you should have no problem getting into a fleet with that ship, deadspace Invul when you can afford it will fix the low resits holes , and getting it right is more a trail and error thing from that point.

Armour or Shield?

Well from my perspective, I see about a 5 to1 preference for shield. Pirate faction hulls and T2 weapons minimum is a standard with ISN, (Who I fly with) I know The Ditanian Fleet is pretty good at making any armour hull work, sometimes it just takes a little more ISK. And TVP is still managing to make anything and everything work.

But if you have an deep pocket then a Nightmare, Mach, Vindi, Basi or Scimitar. As long as you also have the skills to use them you should find it easy enough. I can’t say exactly what will get you into a fleet, but I can tell you that having the right turrets (T2) and an ability to modify as requested will probably make it easy to find a spot.

With a smaller budget but a similar desire then any well fitted BS and some simple questions in the chat channels should narrow down your search for an appropriate fleet.

The reps at the beginning is the major component and tell me how can an armour ship tank with its mids giving it more lo's to fit DPS mods?? In contests the mids help the contestor & the contesteee ( webs help both sides ) giving armour ships no advantage except with TC's & the stacking TC's really is horribad there

The OP forgot to mention that most incursion participants have shiny ships and are noob-unfriendly. If you are new to Eve and not yet flying a Battleship with T2 weapons, don't waste your time.

If you bothered to even read the OP's post, then you will find that this is a information topic, for new players on how to get information and who / which channels to contact, for them to find groups there match their playstyle and attitude.

Thanks for your reply. I understand why some fleets are strict from a few standpoints. The fact, however, that some fleets are more inclusive points up to the possibility that this strictness is based on collecting ISK and LP time-efficiently. The strict fleets *could* include a few less perfectly equipped pilots - they just dont want to spend the extra 30 seconds that person adds to the time it takes for the fleet to complete the swarms.

What is the real difference between a Meta 4 weapon and T2 weapon? Not much.

What is the difference between the 55-70% resists you get with Meta 3 and 4 modules and the T2 modules? Not much.

What is the difference between DPS with T2 ammo and Faction ammo? a few percentage points = not much.

What is the difference between the effect of a pilot who has the skills for T2 equipment and ammo and one who has the skills for Meta 3/4 equipment? Again, marginal.

All these differences add up I suppose, but that's where leadership, if it is real leadership, makes up the difference.

What is the real difference between the strict exclusionary incursion fleets and the inclusive incursion fleets? Much. Attitude / Sociability. The general difference between the two basic categories of human beings : those who have a general regard for others, and those who don't.

It is understood that incursions are difficult and the risks are great (in some cases you cant warp out if the swarm is starting to blow ships up). But for high-sec space Vanguard level missions, the general attitude of exclusive incursion fleets cannot be based on some sort of technical necessity. Imo, and I am 3 months old and not know what I'm talking about = but I can do level 4 security missions alone without much problem. Can't see how my inclusion in a good fleet is really that big of a problem for others. If I don't contribute sufficiently, then don't include me in the next mission. And I'm speaking in the interest of the rest of the Eve Community that encounters these exclusivity attitudes and gets turned off by them.