Ships & Modules

Thanks for all the replies so far. I'm still torn between Amarr and Minmatar, though, mostly because of DSTs.

If i went Amarr, this is probably what i'd take for high sec(going with Diego's idea without crazy bling):

[Impel, mjd, mwd + cloack]
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Thermic Membrane II
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II
Internal Force Field Array I

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Medium Micro Jump Drive

Improved Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II

Seems like it has all it needs for a fairly secure high sec transportation. Dropping MJD and RCUs for inertia stabs makes warp outs faster:

[Impel, mwd + cloack]
800mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Thermic Membrane II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Damage Control II

10MN Microwarpdrive II
[empty med slot]

Improved Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II


Mastodon can fit a much beefier tank with Invulnerability Fields while also being potentially more agile, but MJD does not fit at all then :( I also share doubts about viability of overheating in gank situations, so fiddling with Invulns isn't very alluring.

Currently i have some doubts about the viability of a maximum possible tank on the DST in high sec, since gankers would just bring more ships to shoot a sitting duck, while the mwd-cloack-trick and mjd allow to avoid possible gank scenarios entirely.

Tbh, the more i look at the fitttings above, the more i like them. If no one can provide a comparable fitting for other races, i might indeed just go with Amarr.

You can't autopilot with active hardeners (well you can but they are pointless if you do). Auto-piloting around hi-sec is and has been one of the main uses of these ships, sad as it is I easily see twice as many of them cruising around when I am scanning gates since changes.

This is what I currently uses, I think you can do better but can't figure out how.

[Mastodon, MWD]
Damage Control II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Inertia Stabilizers II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Improved Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

The native flat resist profile makes specific hardeners a difficult choice or you can put 2 large shield extenders if you use 2 reactor controls.

You probably need to play test if that fitting is agile enough for mwd + cloak with your implants and skills, because I can't really give a good advise about it(the char that does fly it got a 5% speed, 5% agility, 5% zor mwd speed and the required skills at 5). Both the FN plate(less mass what increases mwd speed, that does require the faction RCUs or Implants for the extra power grid) as well as the CN cloak(less speed penalty during cloaking) are on my hull to help with the mwd cloak movement and mwd + cloak bounce after a mjd jump(what also needs 2 Interia stabs on my fitting if I really want to do it relay able). The difference of 200 m/s cloaked with 22.3s align(with all implants with the skills of the pilot) vs your 150m/s with 23.7s to align(the numbers are without implants, all skills to 5) appears rather huge to me. The reason for this is that you need to reach 75%(112m/s on my hull) of the speed to enter warp after the 10s cloak cycle, what can be difficult with align times over 20s.

Also the A type anti thermic plating is like 2 million and produces nearly the same result as the T2 Thermic Membrane, allowing you to use the cheaper T2 DCU and save some ISK on the fitting.




Well it is doable at the price of a lot of tank or at a very high price tag(something close to 1.5B all things included, to solve the CPU issues mostly) with a better tank, assuming you want to keep the warp speed or tank rigs(there are a lot of options if you are willing to do compromises there). With astronautics rigging 5 or other rigs that don't reduce CPU the T2 DCU also fits.

[Mastodon, Reasonable]
Internal Force Field Array I
Reactor Control Unit II
Power Diagnostic System II
Co-Processor II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Caldari Navy Medium Shield Extender
Medium Micro Jump Drive

Caldari Navy Cloaking Device
Core Probe Launcher II, Core Scanner Probe I /OFFLINE

Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

Edit: I really hope the shield DSTs get a small fitting boost(both CPU and power grid, from what I seen in EFT I guess 10-15 points each would already make a huge difference) to make them more flexible with the fitting options and balance out the higher CPU use of shield modules to armor mods(where you even have decent zero cpu tanking options).

ripard's advice is outdated, but still very true: http://jestertrek.blogspot.de/2013/06/fit-of-week-blockade-runners.html

in HS you're biggest risk is being alphaed by a tornado, or ganked by the code. for (1), use nano's, a cloak and well placed bookmarks around busy stations. Avoid shield extenders and inertia stabs because they decrease your lock time. for (2), do not autopilot, and avoid aufay, set them to red in your contacts.

The reason I like minmatar is because their transport ships get ganked the least in HS according to the losses on killboard stats.

Any ship that can accelerate its tank would be the ultimate bait ship. Which is why we can't actually do it.

Damage per second per second. It's a unit of acceleration of damage.

This is a bit misguided. Istabs while make you been targeted faster, they reduce your align time by many times the loss in lock time.

Say you fit 3 x meta 4 istabs to a mastodon, that reduces lock time by say a cruiser by merely 0.1sec while reducing your align time by 7-8 sec. A large shield extender will reduce lock time by the same amount most of the times, 0.1 sec.

The loss is negligible and considering the fact that we can only reduce align time so much in trasnsports it doesn't really matter if your transport can align in 10sec or in 10.2sec (because you use istabs\extenders), if there is a gank you are going to get locked in both cases. Someone will use istabs more for reducing travel time and less for actually escaping a gank. They do increase your chances to avoid one though by spending less time in alignment.

You can use nanos but only if speed is a factor (sometimes it isn't) and you don't mind the penalty in EHP, otherwise istabs, assuming you have the free lows.

For BRs, I think its a bit pointless to make this kind of argument, mainly because of the cloak. In HS, someone should always warp to 0km distance when he wants to dock to a popular station, and be cloaked while in warp. That way the "sniper" has near zero room to react because if you land at 0km distance you will manually insta-dock. If it lands you at 2km, you need more or less 4sec to reach auto-dock distance. You can reduce that time with an afterburner. There isn't much time for the ganker to do anything. Most likely he will completely ignore you (or not even see you since you suddenly de-cloaked at land-in) because you are a BR and there would be many more (and easier) targets around that popular station to choose from. In contrast, align time is very important when you undock from that popular station, no matter what ship you are in.

0.1sec is an accurate value, even for a T1 cruiser with 3 x scripted Sensor boosters.

I believe they exist to reduce alignment time what else? The benefits of reducing alignment time are obvious, especially in ships with high alignment times, like transports. Someone that travels great distances in hisec with a Transport could potentially save a respectable amount of time (and reduce risk of getting ganked as a side effect) with a few istabs. I'm by no way suggesting to use only istabs in the lows or that istabs should be always used. I'm only saying that they are valid modules to use to any ship in any space.