f13.net

Being an Amarr drone fan is a complicated prospect - few of their ships are very droney.  So once I got my skills up in cruisers and medium energy turrets and turned my sights on battleships, the Armageddon was a foregone conclusion, being the only Amarr battleship with a decent drone capacity.

Now I have an Armageddon.  I'm working up my Battleship, Large Energy Turret, and Heavy Drone skills, and figure that in another couple of days I'll have 'em up to a decent fighting level.

However, I have no clue whatsoever about battleship combat.  I know from flying my Geddon back to my home system that the thing turns like a dead whale, even with Evasive Maneuvering and Starship Command at level 4.  And I know that sticking five heavy drones in there is a given.  Everything else is up in the air.

So, can anyone used to fighting battleships clue me in about what I should be aiming for as far as range on my guns, tankability, and any common pitfalls to try to avoid?  My fitting skills are maxed, and I have weapon upgrades 5 and advanced weapon upgrades 3, so I can stick just about anything into the ship without a hassle; EFT shows that I can load her up with Mega Pulse Laser IIs and still have enough grid for other miscellaneous gear like a large armor repper and a drone range booster.

This is with an eye towards PvE more than PvP, but if anyone has any grand wisdom to share about PvP, I'd be happy to listen to that, too.

I use a Domi in PvE so I can offer a bit of insight.

T2 Heavy drones are sex. Ogre IIs for preference as most rats are weak to Thermal.
Guns. If you're drone boating, you want range and power. T2 drones will kill small stuff instantly if you have reasonable skills so you needn't worry about shooting at anything smaller than Battlecruisers. On the missions where you have multiple 1.2 million isk BS spawns and stations to explode, you'll be glad of some big guns. Mine are usable out to about 110 Km (5xGallente Navy 350mm rails) and they make a big difference to mission completion time.
As you've noticed you aren't very manoeuvrable. Mostly you'll either be stationary and sniping at stuff that's at the limit of your drone range (which should be at least 70km) or aligned and kiting. It's rare that you'll be getting in close to mix it up or setting orbit distances. Fly so you don't need to change direction very often and the fact that you can't ceases being a problem.

FWIW here's my Domi fitting. Swap Rails for lasers and it should be an ok 'Geddon setup too - you can have more drone link augmenters and you'll probably want to swap the active midslot sensor booster for a passive lowslot one.

5x Gallente 350mm rails
Drone Link Augmenter

Gallente Navy AB
Medium Cap Booster II
Cap Recharger II
Drone Navigation Computer
Gallente Navy Sensor Booster

Gallente Navy LAR
Gallente Navy Adaptive Nano Membrane
Regenerative Nano Membrane II
DCU II
2x Rat Specific Hardeners (Navy mods).
Gallente Navy

My Dominix setup for ratting (I have less advanced support skills):

Lows (armor tank)

Damage Control II
1600mm plate (crystalline carbonide)
Large Armor Repairer (one of the cheaper named ones)
Named armor hardeners (n-type - same resists same fitting reqs as T1, less cap usage)

(instead of going with an EANM I and 2 hardeners I just put 4 hardeners in there, sometimes they shoot off-spec missiles, but 2 hardeners should be sufficient; you could use the remaining lows for Cap Power Relays to improve your recharge rate).

Medium:
Sensor Booster I with faster lock time script
Drone Navigation Computer (to make heavy drones hit medium or small targets more easily)
Cap Recharger x 2

High:
2x Drone Link Augmentor (probably just 1 is good enough, 60 km range with just 1, 80 with 2).
2x salvagers
2x tractor beams

I didn't use weapons in the high slots because the dominix bonuses are to drone DPS so they do enough damage on their own, and I'm lazy and didn't want to switch ships all the time.  You probably want to put long range lasers on your Armageddon, whatever size fits after the tank modules are in.

For drones, I have a set of 5 heavy thermal ones (my NPCs are vulnerable to thermal), 5 heavy Explosive ones cause they are the fastest to intercept, and 5 light Explosive (I forget their names) cause they're also the fastest interceptors, just in case.  I can't use T2 drones yet, so I must make do with T1's.

I usually go in, stop the ship, wait for everything to aggress, then launch drones and tell them to go after each target (focused fire, no auto-attack).  I've set up folders for each group of drones, and just launch them by the folder.

Your biggest problem with the Armageddon will be managing the cap. You will curse the 3 mids.

I would use T2 pulses simply because the range of scorch will mean less time running your LAR. Complimentary to that, have at least 2 heat sinks in the lows. The Arma is a great gank ship. Rest of the lows; LAR, DCU, hardners to suit and plate if you can fit. You may need to put a PDU or RCU for fitting. Mids at least 2 cap rechargers.

My personal experience has been the arma can't sustain a long fight, trying to run a LAR and 6 guns is painful. YMMV.

With an Armageddon, nobody would put baby in a corner!

From what I've read, the Armageddon improves drastically with T2 guns and ammo. Every fitting I've seen is wildly cap unstable, and there's not much you can do about it except make the fight end quick.

Sentry drones are also a good compliment if you're fitting it for a sniper setup, you may want to try them out.

I looked over Bhodi's ship list and came to the following conclusion: "I should not PvP as a Gallente". :)

I don't get regenerative plating.  Doe s it regenerate?  Or is it simply a bonus to armor HP?

Bonus to HP -- but without all that mass associated with armor plate.

Gallente tech 1 ships are very solid compared to other races' tech 1 ships. Some of their tech 2 ships fall slightly behind (Gallente interceptors and HAC's are subpar, but their command ships and Force Recons are excellent,) but they are the most cost effective race to train because of how affordable their ships are and how powerful they are relative to the other races.

You get the Thorax, Vexor, and Celestis, three terrific cruisers.
The Arazu is, along with the Rapier, a contestant for the title of best solo recon.
All the Gallente capital ships are excellent -- Thanatos, Moros, Nyx, Erebus.

You will really enjoy your first erebus :awesome_for_real:

For fleet combat you have the Megathron for sniping and the Oneiros is absolutely critical for repairing the sniper fleet.  And the Keres is a good E-War frig, despite being inferior to the Caldari.  Plus, once you've mastered the skillset for Gallente, you're very close to being able to effectively pilot the sweet Caldari railgun ships like the Eagle and Rokh, or the Amarr recon ships that are essentially Vexors w/long-range neuting and t2 resists.

I second sentry drones for sniping battleships.  Be aligned and just inside your sentries' optimal range to absolutely hammer the rats.  Furthermore, you will absolutely want a DCU for missioning and as failsafe for ratting in place of 1 of those 4 armor hardeners.  There is no stacking penalty for a DCU, it adds resists to shields for extra buffer, the 60% hull resist is a lifesaver, and if you're using active hardeners then you can already use the T2 variant.

My whole skillset is in drones, practically. I'm doing guns next (I'm spending a day or so getting a broad range of missile skills so I can train them later without having to get the skill books), but I'm really not sure where to go.

I'll have Cruisers V in less than three weeks. I really need to spend the time for Sentry Drones V. My gunnery skills are mediocre, and I'm really not sure what I want to do next or where to go. The Arazu looks fun, I can still fly a mean Vexor, and I suppose I could work towards a command or logistics ship. I'm only doing some missiles skills so I can fit out a stealth bomber if I ever feel the need to.

I guess I need to pick a new goal. :)

I hear heavy interdictors are awesome.  <hint hint>

Three weeks past Cruisers V, from the skills I think I need. Now paying for it, that's a different situation. I haven't priced one yet. I'm rather flush -- for me--  at the moment, but I'm about to drop 25% of my net wealth on a new Domi to make ratting faster. I also need to replace my Helios.

Still, the corp really could use one for ops. Can you MWD in a bubble?

I'll foot the bill for the HIC book when you're ready, so no worries there.

No MWD in a bubble.

And remember the corp will pay for insurance, though we prefer to pay for it *after* you pop, but hey if you are short on cash..

MWD works in everything except deadspace. Half the reason you fit a MWD on all combat ships is so that you can burn out of bubbles, both generated and anchored.

Edit: (If that's what you meant)

I don't know if that is what Viin ment, but a HIC cannot use an MWD while having the bubble active. But others can MWD inside there.

I've got a brand new fitted Onyx HIC that I've just learned to fly at Kheram, and am obviously itching to having it blown up, so I'll try to make it to some op soonish.

Well, it's mostly just the hull, unless the skillbook is north of 50 million itself. Once Cruisers V is done, I just neeed Propulsion Jamming 4 and 5, Graviton Physics from nada to 4, and HI to 3 or 4. Oh, and weapons upgrades 5 -- which I was going to get anyways, and I already have the AWU book stored somewhere....

Cruisers V is going to open a lot of doors -- the Arazu too. Hence the need for a faster ratting ship for Providence than a Myrmidion. (I might refit the Myrmidion for PvP work).

Well, here's what I'm looking at so far:

Low:

Large Armor Repper II
Power Diagnostic System II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Co-Processor II
Damage Control II
Signal Amplifier II
Two armor hardener IIs

Med:

Cap Recharger II
Drone Navigation Computer
Omnidirectional Tracking Link

High:

Drone Link Augmentor


The trick comes in deciding which lasers to mount in the high slots.  If I stick in pulses, I won't have crap for range, so it's looking like beams are mandatory.  According to EFT, I can fit 7 dual heavy beams, 6 mega beams, or 5 tachyon beams.  (These are all basic T1 lasers for the sake of comparison; I'm sure in reality I could find relatively cheap named T1s with easier fitting, and T2s are going to take a good bit of skill training before I can even consider using 'em.)

Make a post here or ask in game if you want a specific large laser, people who rat sansha's are drowning in those things

For clarity, you can MWD in a bubble.  In fleet ops, the whole point of sticking MWDs on the big stuff is so you can burn out of a bubble before their tacklers get a warpin or their titan DDs the fleet.

What are the going rates on faction lasers?  I've never dealt with faction equipment before, given its lack of presence on the markets, but if it'll let me squeeze in an extra mega or tachyon, it's worth considering.

Not faction -- named T1 stuff. I've got oodles. I tend to box them up, pay someone else to cart them to empire, and sell them in lots of 20.

Mega Pulse Amodal Laser 1 and stuff like that. Every Sansha BS rat seems to drop at least one large laser, with a good percentage of them named T1.

They're also very good at dropping large neuts, nos, smartbombs and 1600mm plate.

Oho, gotcha.  When he mentioned it dropping from Sanshas, I'd assumed he meant Sansha-faction equipment.  Durr.  Only now does it occur to me that their faction gear probably has to be purchased with LP.

Gallente HACs are bad?

The Ishtar can be a nasty nano-cruiser if you spend a hundred million ISK in rigs and gear. But in the end, it's like a really fast Dominux, at three times the price and with a cruiser's tank.

I admit, though, I'm sort of really liking the Phobos (Heavy dictor). 25% armor resist bonus across the board and a huge bonus to medium hybrid range and power? I've been toying with fittings there for a fun game called "How Long Can I Live". If it had a drone bay, it'd be awesome. :)

Edited to add -- Hee. Resists of 88/80/90/75 (EM,Therm, Kin, Explosive), runs a Medium Armor Rep 2, a Tracking Computer, the Warp Disruption field generator, and 5 250mm Rail II's cap stable. That's....awesome, really.

Whats a hundred million isk for pwnage anyways? :) My polyed ish is a nasty bish.

After playing in EFT instead of working for a while, it looks like my best bet is six Mega Modal Laser Is or Mega Modulated Energy Beam Is, which leave enough CPU free to ditch the co-processor for a Heat Sink II.  I can't use any of the other Mega lasers without having to drop the heat sink and hurting the DPS.

So if anyone has six of those flavors of guns laying around, just lemme know what you want for 'em.

In the meanwhile, that leaves me with an empty high slot that's looking all forlorn.  If I use Modulated turrets, I'll have 27 CPU and 1,016 grid free along with that slot; can anyone think of anything fabulous to put there?

Salvager?  Drone Link Aug or Cloaks need a bit more CPU than you have to spare.  I think you might be able to fit a Medium Nos in there (or be just short).

If you are ratting a salvager would make you a lot of extra isk.

More of a missioner than a ratter; I was gonna use a dedicated salvage boat with tons more speed for that.  But it certainly couldn't hurt to be able to salvage in a pinch...

It will be pretty useless in a mission with a dedicated salvager on standby.
You'll probably be better off dps wise with a fitting mod instead of the heatsink and another gun/launcher

Hey, what's the salvage rig do? I have a dedicated salvager, the blueprints for that rig, and the parts -- is it worth fitting?

I was under the impression that Salvage, plus all the rigs and associated skills, mostly just reduced salvage cycle time. Do any of them increase the odds of getting 'better' or 'more' salvage?

Faster is better, less time salvaging is more time missioning, etc.

Kitsune: Do you already have Weapon Upgrades 5? Bumping that another point if its not will give you a hefty decrease in CPU on a battleship.

Not as far as I know, as Nerf said, they only make salvaging faster.
I think it was Ianc who said that the survey skill also reduces the cycle time on a salvager. You can salvage any wreck in game with salvaging IV, I don't know if V would give you more salvage. I'm pretty sure that the type of salvage you get is random, the amount is based on the size of the wreck. T2 wrecks are a lot harder to salvage, with my salvaging IV they take about 10 cycles of a single salvager on average.

I thought that too, but EFT is adamant that I have more DPS with a Heat Sink II than I'd get with swapping the heatsink out for a co-processor to make room for an extra turret.


Yep, Weapon Upgrades 5, Advanced Weapon Upgrades 3.

So are you short one gun with the lowest CPU req guns, or with the standard t1?  I'd also drop the low sensor amp, signal amps really don't help that much, another t2 heatsink (or maybe co-proc and another gun) would be better imho.

Salvaging rigs aren't worth it IMHO. They do reduce the average time to salvage a wreck but the improvement is marginal and the costs are high so the value isn't there for me. My salvage Catalyst is fitted with cap recharge rigs so I can keep all four salvagers and all four tractors running constantly and still be cap stable.

Nothing AFAIK increases your chance of getting loot. It's a random roll made at the point where your salvager is successful. You can be successful and still not get anything however, 'success' simply means that your salvager has collapsed the wave function of the wreck and determined whether or not it has anything in it. The only things you can affect are increasing your chance of 'success' (as previously defined) or decreasing the cycle time on the salvager. Salvagers count as scanners so Survey skill will reduce the cycle time, as will salvage rigs. Salvage skill increases the chance of resolution.

There's a list of types of salvage that each ship drops.  For instance, I have never gotten an alloyed tritanium bar while salvaging sansha wrecks.

In order to fit a seventh mega modulated energy turret, I'd need to throw in a rig for my grid capacity in addition to keeping the co-processor.  I have the skills for a grid rig trained, but to this point I've never used rigging on any of my ships.  Didn't seem to make much sense to stick a 15+ mil rig on a 6 mil cruiser, somehow.

However, sticking a 15mil rig on a 100mil Battleship that you're not going to loose anytime soon because it's a mission boat makes slightly more sense.

Basicly rigs are like cybernetic implants, but for your ship and not your brain.

I rig all my missioning ships -- and my ratting Myrmidion is rigged (it used to be my missioning BC) and I've got rigs for my ratting Domi (but I made them myself). I wouldn't rig a PvP ship though, not until I have a LOT more cash or I'm just dripping salvage parts.

I'll probably rig my salvaging destroyer, simply because I can. :)

Rigging, yet another skill that I need to take time out of my l33t DPS training to work on.

Sentry Damage Augmentor I (http://www.eve-online.com/itemdatabase/EN/shipmodifications/dronerigs/25920.asp).  I think 10% Damage for ~15mil and 3d training is pretty in-line with l33t DPS training :oh_i_see:.

Hmm. Combining that with the optimal range rig would make Gardes useful for ratting.  They'd be doing more damage than Ogres without having to deal with the awful travel times.  I may have just been converted.

http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/salvaging.php (IGB safe)

Wish I'd seen that one. I'm running a Cap Control Circuit and dual drone speed augmentors (or possible speed/damage augmentors) on my Domi. Ogres are slow.

Throw a couple of Omni links in the mids while you're at it and they may even be able to track frigs...

Geddon is happiest with passive armor tank and heat sinks. The Amarr philosophy is that everyone is going to die, but the other guy might as well go first.

Nothing sucks worse than being the metaphorical halfling when faced with the metaphorical dragon blob from the old halfling-dragon principle, "When you find yourself in the company of a halfling and an ill-tempered dragon, remember, you do not have to outrun the dragon, you just have to outrun the halfling." That said, a geddon provides great midrange fire support for a small squad that is prepared to accommodate its brickiness and lack of reps.

It makes a cost-effective sniper as well, though your ability to solopwn stuff is very limited. I've been harassed by a sniper geddon while flying a Rupture and a Rifter and he just couldn't take me out.

I've started cross-training up in Gallente ships and hybrid turrets, as their ships are fairly pleasant-looking while usually carrying a set of nice drone bonuses.  At least, they aren't godawful-hideous like Minmatar and Caldari stuff.  Not that I'm in any position to run out and buy a Dominix so soon after getting myself set up in a Geddon, but once I get the disposable cash to add more ships to my stable I'll grab a couple of Gallente ships for the heck of it.

If your drone skills are already up to speed and you just need to get the ship command skills then the Vexxor and the Myrmidon are skill point friendly but very effective choices. You can't drop five heavies out of a Myrmidon unfortunately but 5 Ogre IIs will make short work of anything smaller than a BS. If you take Gallente Cruiser to 5 then an Ishtar is just sex.

tbh, as far as I can see there is no good reason for anyone pveing not to train Gallente and Drones. But do you really need hybrid turrets? Most of the time you're only using the guns to attract aggro, so you might as well use the lasers you're already trained for? Unless you've really beaten drone training to death? And I'd imagine you can cancel out the Drone ship hybrid bonus by spending the time you would have spent on hybrid training on even more laser training?

Anyway, being able to salvage and kill at the same time because the drones just do their shit without micromanagement is full of win.

Beyond that, the Myrmidon doesn't get gun bonuses anyway, so the only reason NOT to use your lasers on it would be cap stability.