Ships & Modules

TL;DR:
I cannot fly an Ishtar, so I cannot test this by myself. Is it really helpful to orbit your own sentry to reduce incoming damage? I made some deduction on some theory I know, but I don't know if I'm correct about them.
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I cannot fly an Ishtar, so I have no way of simply testing it myself, so that's why I started this thread:

I've seen people talking about using an Ishtar to do Level 4 missions. One thing really confuses me; some people said things like:
I don't think that would work as intended. They claim that if you orbit your own sentries, you will out run enemies turrets, hence escape the firepower from big, slow turrets, and that is called "speed tanking."

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I know roughly what speed tanking is, and that is why I don't agree their strategy will work. Speed tanking is about having a higher ANGULAR velocity than the enemy's turrets (and in some really, really fast ships, having a higher subwarp velocity than a missile's explosive velocity, but that is not of concern of this thread). As a result, when I'm orbiting my own sentries, depending on my enemies' distance with me, there are 2 totally different results:

1. the enemy ship is close to me, and my angular velocity is higher than the enemy's turret's angular velocity, so it can't hit me;
2. the enemy ship is far from me, but I'm still in his first falloff of course, and my angular velocity (given that my subwarp speed remains the same) is so little compared to his turret's angular velocity, thus he can hit me; and often his big battleship will annihilate my small ship (or in this case, my Ishtar).

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Why do I think orbiting my own sentries is a useless idea?

If the enemy ships are far from me, orbiting my own sentries will make little or no difference in terms of angular velocity. Thus no damage is mitigated that way, and it was not "speed tanking" at all. It doesn't harm me though; it's just doesn't do anything. If I am out of enemy turrets' first falloff, then that can be called "range/distance tanking", although it's a bad name because I'm not really tanking anything.

If the enemy ships are near, then it's time to get the hell away because it will be hard, if not impossible, for sentries to track ships that are too close. If I still choose to stay, at least go orbit the enemy battleship(s), not my own sentries. And chances are, if enemy battleships are close to me, so are enemy small ship swarms, which can be more deadly sometimes!

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What are you people's thoughts about this? Help, corrections, and actual experience appreciated!

Ishtars have a crazy tank for a cruiser, set up at sentry fall off, and shoot in order of fastest rats first as they come towards you.

Orbiting your sentries allows you to recall them and is effectivly better than just sitting there if there is long range damage coming your way.

Ishtar =/= gila

Ishtar moving at 600m/s takes less missile damage than one sitting still.

For missions/sites with Serpentis and Angels, they like to come and hug you which means you will be having loads of speed. Their weaponry is also better at tracking but horrible for range.

Missions/sites for mercenaries, caldari, guristas are full of missiles.

So your entire assumption is based on what....theory? REALLY? Thats cute
Yes orbiting your sentries with AB on IS useful (Ishtar, Navy Vexor) since it does indeed mitigate some damage. you can easily test this yourself as some others have already mentioned get a Navy Vexor and do a level 3 even vs cruisers it reduces the damage a bit.
Granted it is useless in a Domi since that one is not fast enough and too sluggish to maintain a high enough orbit velocity. (AB is too slow and MWD is just lolworthy to use)


Most drone ships use tracking links, if the enemy gets closer, despite the 30 secs cycle time you can swap scripts which will allow you to track a lot better. Despite that if the rats get too close and I am not speaking of frig sized rats which you can easily pop by temporary swapping to a flight of light drones and then switch back to sentries if the larger sized rats got too close than you have done something wrong in your targeting management anyways.

TL:DR
If you have no real clue what you are talking about instead of theory crafting test it out yourself FIRST. Plenty of option to do so.

Alternatively, you can drop a jetcan, drop sentries, then orbit jetcan.