Sunday 4 January 2009

Cap Warfare Ships - That "WTF Just Happened" Feeling

Gotta love huge Battleship slugfests - where everyone has all effects turned off in order to atleast stand a chance of activating some modules before running headfirst into the lag wall.
It's times like this when I like to turn my attention to the more subtle aspects of combat, such as draining some unfortunate SOB's cap dry nearly instantly.

Certainly, the ultimate Neut Boat is the Bhaalgorn, able to drain , but with its extreme price tag it's highly unlikely many pilots are able to field them on a regular basis (Enemy FC's reaction tends to be "Zomg! Bhaalgorn, PRIMARY NAO!1!"). Then there's the Curse, with regular and not so regular fitting, with 75km neut range, but for putting the lights out on enemy battleships, the most common workhorse is still the Armageddon.


Playing around in EFT and checking out other people's setups, I've come to think this is optimal:

[Armageddon, Fleet Neut Boat]
4x 1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Armor Explosive Hardener II

Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
2x Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800

8x Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

3x Trimark Armor Pump I

Bouncer II x5
So, let's see why it's good at what it does: first of all, thanks to the 8 Meta 4 Heavy Neuts (which have the same attributes as their T2 counterparts, but less fitting requirements) it's able to drain 4800 cap each cycle at 25km, which means that any battleship not receiving cap injections will have to pretty much submit to its power. Then there's the formidable buffer tank of aproximately 180k effective hitpoints (4x 1600 tungsten, 3x with damage types evenly distributed), which means it'll take a while to shut you down.

Then, in the mid slots we have 2x Medium and 1x Heavy Capacitor Boosters, ideally chock full with 800 charges, as is your cargohold. This ensures that you yourself don't run out of juice while operating the power-hungry neuts. Not all need to be active all the time, you can micro-manage them as needed.

As a mainly Gallente pilot, I also try to make the most use of any drone space I can get, so loading a flight of heavy or sentry drones (I picked Bouncer II's because I just love perverting the Empire's mighty ship with Minmatar accessories, hehe...) means that you'll also be able to do some, if not very much, damage in return, about 200-300 dps worth, depending on skills.

Variations to the above setup can be made easily. For instance, you can replace one medium capacitor booster with an ECCM - Radar II mod, to decrease the chances of getting jammed, and also if you so wish, replace 1-2 Neuts with Nosferatus, to decrease your dependency on 800 charges for those prolonged fights. This, however, means losing some cap erasing capability.

Since the Geddon only has 3 mid slots, it's not feasable to fit a warp disruptor or web, but this is a fleet vessel, where most likely there will be dedicated tacklers.

As always, comments are welcome. See you in space :)

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