Warfare & Tactics

Hello fellow capsuleers, I seek your advise.

I have 4 x Curse in the oven and in 2 days they will be delivered and I would like to solo PVP in them, I have never flown a curse before and seek decent (not faction/deadspace) fits and also some advise on how I should fly them, and probably advise on how not to fly them too)

Any advise is grratfully received.

Thanks D

I suspect you may be right on the lossmails, I will set up 4 arbies initially to get a feel for it, that is a good idea.

I've flown the Pilgrim extensively [1] - but not the Arbitrator at all, and the Curse just a little - and I just love, love, love that ship. There are some significant commonalities between the three ships, so my Pilgrim-based experience is not entirely irrelevant to your question. The Curse is usually slower and tankier than the Pilgrim, but I've also seen some nasty fast Curses out there.

This series of ships offers eve a major public-good. They are cytotoxic and very effective in an anti-cancer role ... they're superb at killing Svipuls! All the same, as in any PvP, it's critical to carefully choose your targets when flying any of this line of ships. More on good / indifferent / bad target choices later.

The Curse's bonuses and strengths, which is what you will be wanting to play to, are:
- D-scan invisibility;
- Drone hitpoints and damage;
- Weapon Disruption effectiveness;
- Neut' / Nos' effectiveness and range.

Given their module setup and bonuses these ships, Curse and Pilgrim, are fairly adaptable and offer:
- Decent drone-based damage delivery, running a 5-mediums flight of drones;
- Phenomenal neuting power and range to disable targets;
- Ok, but not awesome, tanking potential;
- Faster shield or slower tankier armor fitting options;
- Tracking Disruption option for armor fit.

Shield fit gives you speed but less tank, and reduces the capacity for TD use.
Armor provides more tank, is slower, but lets you brings TDs into play.

Fitting options, in general terms -
Highslots: Energy Neutralizers, cloak for Pilgrim.
Midslots: Tackle and propulsion modules (I use MWD but have toyed with the idea of an AB-fit), Tracking Disruptors for armor tanked setups, Shield tank, Cap booster.
Lowslots: Armor tank, speed / manoeuvrability mods for shield tankers, DCU-always, drone damage mods.
Rigslots: Tank assistance rigs.
Drones: Depending on what you're doing and what you like. In my Pilgrim I usually carry 5 Hammerhead IIs, 5 Infiltrator IIs, 5 Warrior IIs, and 5 EC-300s. The Hammerheads are the workhorses, and the ones I lose most often. The warriors are great for little things and have managed to kill ships that have escaped tackle, before they get into warp. The ECs seem like a good idea although I don’t think I've used them at all. I can usually escape any 1 , 2, or 3 enemies so when I am actually caught it's usually a larger gang and a flight of ECs is of little use there.

Fight style
I use a shield-tanked kiter fit (plenty of killboard losses if you want to check my fit), but I have also played with the armor fit TD option. My view, certainly not shared by all, is that the added utility of the TDs is inadequate benefit against the downside of the ship being slower.
My approach is to tackle, neut-to-oblivion, and then apply death-by-drones. Capacitor management can be an issue.
These ships have superb escapability when you start getting outnumbered, up to a point. One neut cycle turns 'ceptors off and leaves them wallowing in your wake. Similarly heavier tackle lose their hold on you when they run out of cap. The shield-tanked setup also moves at a reasonable speed so can pull some distance away from hostiles.

Tough targets. The main major target-type challenges for the solo Arbitrator / Curse / Pilgrim are:
- Bonused Drone and Missile ships. They keep on delivering their DPS when neuted to oblivion.
- MJD fit ships. No amount of pointing and neuting stops these beggars from jumping away, but they do make nice targets when they're not MJD fit.
- Anything that can out-neut you. You are critically dependent on your own cap. If a Stratios can get close they're very much in this category.
- Fast things that can hold you from outside of your neut range. I've avoided garmurs and orthruses partly for this reason.

Intermediate difficulty targets:
- Projectile bonused ships. Even neuted and immobilized these guys can apply damage to your drones and to your ship. Sometimes it's a DPS race, and sometimes just a few km of extra range seems to make a difference to their effective damage output. Killing your drones is also an effective defence, especially when they have friends on their way and want to stall. I managed to kill one particularly tenacious Svipul with my last surviving Warrior - he had killed all my Hammerheads and Infiltrators and four of my Warriors by then.
- Active capacitor ships. If your target is able to boost their capacitor, especially at crucial times, they can make your life difficult. A good pilot in such a ship is a joy to fight, they're slippery and nasty and very hard to pin down. Sometimes it's a stand-off between who has the most cap boosters available. Sometimes they just pop a booster and use that surge to get a MWD cycle off and pull range on you. Sometimes they do that to re-establish a scram or web on you.
- Non-bonused drones. A non-bonused flight of mediums or smalls is usually fine ... but once your target starts throwing Praetor IIs at you, or similar, you might want to get out of there.

Juicy targets:
- Hybrid and Laser bonused ships. They lose their DPS output when you've neuted them.
- Non-MJD non-drone/missile BCs and BSs. If you screw-up, as I have, they can kill you fairly easily but it's a joy to tackle and kill BCs and BSs in your cruiser.
- Small and defenseless things. Yeah, I know, but they *are* juicy targets.

I still prefer the Pilgrim over the Curse, but many people prefer the Curse.

Thanks Tung, this toon is new, it will be my main flying it, Ill admit I pisted under this alt as I didnt want to get flamed lol, I have done PVP but I am not that great at it, Ill have a play and get a fit together and see where it takes me, the isk isnt really a concern but dont really want deadpace faction stuff as it will die, thanks for the suggestions though

Arbitrators fly nothing like the Curse.

For solo, you're looking at blinging a couple of things so that you can hold maximum range and still do enough damage to actually kill something. Tracking disruptors aren't incredibly useful always, but it's worth carrying a depot with one in cargo just in case. Ensure you train Recon to V before you bother getting in the ship or you're just going to die. Make sure to abuse faction large cap batteries so you can be cap stable with MWD/Neuts/Invuln/whatever.

If you're just starting out, it's best to fly the Curse with a gang and get experience with picking fights, judging ranges, and getting used to the very precise positioning required to not die instantly in your Recon. You can also get away with a much cheaper fitting with more utility this way.

G*d bless.

Mine is a Pilgrim, not a Curse. The Pilgrim, being a Force Recon ship, is built to use a covops cloak. Where the Curse, along with all the Combat Recons, has its DS invisibility, the Pilgrim, and it's genre, has the covops cloak.

I'm not sure how well my fitting approach will cross-over tot he Curse, but the general principles should be similar enough ... subject to how you're wanting to fly it.

The Stratios is also an awesome fun ship. It's a much better brawler than the Pilgrim but not as good a kiter - although the kiting variant is also awesome when flown by experts.

A kiter Stratios needs to operate in the 10 - 15km range zone if the neuts are to be used. A kiter Pilgrim works well in the 20 - 30km zone. A kiter Stratios has a similar tank to a kiter Pilgrim, but must operate at reduced distance to be fully effective.

A good Stratios is also much more expensive to setup than a good Pilgrim. Being bad at eve I have lost both and being a stingy beggar I much prefer to lose the occasional Pilgrim.

Stratios pros v Pilgrim:
- Ability to better tank;
- Higher drone-based DPS output;
- Better brawler.

Stratios cons v Pilgrim:
- Absence of neut bonuses, thereby reducing neut effectiveness and range.

OK, ill stick an MWD on and a small NOS and see where that leaves me. Thanks.

OK, on recon IV at the minute, I’ll slot that skill in next.but again lots of nice, good advise that makes sense to me, thanks

been a while since ive flown a curse solo. They arent as good as they use to be solo and even then they were limited in solo. Really for them to shine they need to be in a fleet with at least a tackle and DPS boat.

I run an ab fit with long point 1 disruptor shield buffer( you could use ancillary booster as well) 3 med neuts 2 med NOS. I hunted bigger targets with it, active tank ratting BCs and BS and of course various cruisers. Killed quite a few ratting caracals in mine in low sec back in the day.