EVE Online: My Procyon Foundry #2: The Gank Side

This time up on the Forge, I will put up proposed fits for existing and upcoming ships that I am aiming to do just one thing with them: Maximize Damage! I think they would suffer greatly in other areas, but put them together in a group and they will add a healthy amount of DPS on the enemy.

5. Sookie, Megathron-class Gallente Tech 1 Battleship

High Slot:
7x Neutron Blaster Cannon II (7x Anode Mega Neutron Particle Cannon I -lower end)
1x Large 'Solace' I Remote Bulwark Reconstruction

Mid Slot:
1x 100MN Microwarpdrive II
1x Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
1x Langour Drive Disruptor I
1x Cap Recharger II

Low Slot:
3x 1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
1x Damage Control II
1x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
2x Magnetic Field stabilizer II

Rigs:
3x Trimark Armor Pump I

Drones:
5x Ogre II (Ogre I - lower end)

Notes: Sookie brings the meaning to the term gank. With potential of over 1000DPS using tech 1 Anti Matter ammo, the initial concept relies largely as a solo gank ship, designed for quick duels. However pressed into fleets requiring Remote repping, we get the above fit. The issue is largely about cap and fitting, the added Remote armor rep quite a strain that cap would not last as long unless using very strict cap usage management. A more enduring fit could perhaps lessen the DPS in favour of a better endurance fit by reducing the calibre of guns.

6. Unnamed Deimos-class Gallente Tech 2 Heavy Assault Cruiser

High Slot:
5x Heavy Neutron Blaster II
1x Small Nosferatu II

Mid Slot:
1x Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
1x X5 Protoype I Engine Enervator
1x Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Low Slot:
1x Magnetic Stabilizer II
1x Power Diagnostic System II
1x Medium Armor Repair II
1x Armor Explosive Hardener II
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

Rigs:
2x Capacitor Control Circuit I

Drones:
5x Hammerhead II

Note: A more adaptible vessel, being cruiser class, I stil eschew tank in favor of DPS, though again lowering gun calibre could perhaps gain enough to fit a better tank. But as far as going solo, I at least can be satisifed with being relatively cap stable with this fit without the MWD on. DPS goes can over 500 easily, which is good for cruiser class vessels I suppose. The lighter weight for firepower could perhaps make it feasible for wormhole exploration.

7. Unnamed Astarte-class Gallente Tech 2 Command Ship

High Slot:
7x Heavy Neutron Blaster II

Mid Slot:
1x Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
1x Stasis Webifier II
1x Warp Scrambler II
1x Medium Capacitor Booster II (CapBooster 400 Charges)

Low Slot:
1x Amarr Navy Medium Armor Repair
1x Armor Explosive Hardener II
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
2x Magnetic Stabilizer II

Rigs:
1x Auxuliary Nano Pump I
1x Capacitor Control Circuit I

Drones:
5x Hammerhead II

Note: Essentially this is an enlarged Deimos, with relatively better cap balance and slightly higher tank with a whopping 800+ DPS, which is as high as some battleships would go for close combat. As with almost every ship of this section, this is about gank gank gank and gank and I suffer a bit on the tank, though still I opted for faction repper out of lack in powergrid and to boost the defense a little. Also lighter than battleships so I guess we can wormhole it, but this is quite specialized for being point and others repping it. The biggest problem here is even with that, it's hard to fit any good buffer due to its limited powergrid, even lowering gun calibre to Heavy Ion Blasters would only allow it to fit 800mm plates.

8. Cossette, Maelstrom-class Minmatar Tech I Battleship

High Slot:
8x Repeating Artillery II

Mid Slot:
1x X-Large Shield Booster II
2x Invulnerability Field II
1x 100MN Microwarprive II
1x Warp Scrambler II
1x Heavy Capacitor Booster II (Cap Booster 800 charges)

Low Slot:
4x Gyrostabilizer II
1x Co Processor II


Rigs:
2x Capacitor Control Circuit I
1x Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I

Drones:
3x Hammerhead II
2x Berserker SW-900

Note:
Yes, Cossette was feature last time as a mission runner, and even this will not be the last time she will be featured. She is so versatile after all. This is largely based on battleclinic fit, but modified slightly for Cossette's existing fit, and its about the only shield tanked gank I can get. Cap is not stable, so it will run dry eventually, though while it lasts, it offers the best tank of any ship in this section. Autocannons can't match Blasters I guess, and with these guns we get just about 800+ DPS with EMP L, but we can bolster that with faction rounds, or T2 rounds (Hail L can get us that lovely 1000+DPS). No room for remote rep so it is either solo or absolute point. But I do like this fit more than others :P

EVE Online: My Procyon Foundry #1: Mission Runners

Deep in some obscure sector of space, there lies the Procyon Foundry, where the Great Raccoon labors to build his awesome ships!

(Translation: I just need to dump my EVE Online mission runner fits and maybe a few other combat ships I am working on the builds at the moment, here for easier access to those who keep asking even after I logged off from the game)

Note that right now I have Engineering, Electronics, Weapons upgrade, Advanced weapons upgrade all at level 5, and will eventually pump up Shield Upgrades to 5 as well. For today, I will list my top mission runner vessels plus a bonus of a proposed auxiliary L4 mission runner that I have in mind to eventually get.

1. Mirabelle, Hurricane class Minmatar Tech 1 Battlecruiser

High Slot:
6x 650mm Artillery Cannon II
2x Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay

Mid Slot:
1x Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners
1x Invulnerability Field II
2x Large Shield Extender II

Low Slot:
2x Gyrostabilizer II
4x Shield Power Relay II

Rigs:
3x Core Defence Field Purger II

Drones:
3x Medium Scout Drones (any)

Notes: Mirabelle is my first truly successful fit. A passive tanking ship, it has great balance of defense, firepower and speed. Thus far, all I lack is Shield Upgrades V which lowers powergrid use for the Shield Extenders, which in turn allows T2 Afterburners and faster speed. The basis of this passive tank is in the recharge rate, the primary difference of this style of tanking from the more popular Drake-passive tank fit. That aside, I'm considering stocking up and using T2 ammos for this ship to see how viable it can be in comparison to my other ships. Fully fitted to my optimum specs, she can fly as fast as 500+m/s and with Quake rounds, achieve a max possible DPS of 500+.

2. Cossette, Maelstrom-class Minmatar Tech I Battleship

High Slot:
8x 1200mm Artillery Cannon II

Mid Slot:
1x X-Large Shield Booster II
1x Shield Boost Amplifier II
2x Invulnerability Field II
2x Cap Recharger II

Low Slot:
3x Gyrostabilizer II
1x Capacitor Flux Coil II
1x Beta Reactor Control: Capacitor Power Relay I

Rigs:
3x Capacitor Control Circuit I

Drones:
4x Heavy Combat Drones

Note: Shortly after an aborted (but still in possession) purchase of a Rokh Battleship, I bought and fitted this ship for the sole purpose of mission running. I can't see why shield tanking nay-sayers still complain about shield tank; this ship boasts an excellent active shield tank, along with its awesome 8 guns (the only Minmatar ship that has such). Whilst technically complete, I will bring to attention that a deadspace shield booster can reduce cap usage AND powergrid, even to the point of enabling it to up-gun the ship to the bigger 1400mm guns. But with the advent of Sonja replacing her as the prime mission runner, she could be relegated to other tasks.

3. Sonja, Machariel-class Angel Cartel Tech I Battleship

High Slot:
6x 1200mm Artillery Cannon II
2x Caldari Navy Cruise Missile Launcher

Mid Slot:
2x Invulnerability Field II
3x Large Shield Extender II

Low Slot:
2x Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
5x Shield Power Relay II

Rigs:
3x Core Defence Field Purger I

Drones:
5x Medium Scout drones
5x Light Scout drones

Note: Based on earlier Mirabelle-style fit, this seemed to me as just about the most viable ship for a passive tank in the battleship class, though I'm sure other people can come up with other interesting ideas. A 900 million+ ISK faction battleship thus deserves faction modules, and here I have fitted the more affordable faction mods for phase I. In Phase II, the rigs will be upgraded to Tech II, and the Invulnerability Fields to Caldary Navy faction mods. This allows either the defense rating to soar as high as 898 (from 600+) or to remove a shield power relay and replace with a 3rd faction gyrostabilizer, increases both dps and defense still (though will remain still in the 600 defense rating margin)

4. Unnamed Apocalypse-class, Amarr Navy Issue Battleship

High Slot:
8x Mega Pulse Laser II

Mid Slot:
4x Cap Recharger II

Low Slot:
2x Amarr Navy Heatsink
2x Amarr Navy Large Armor Repair
3x Amarr Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
1x Beta Reactor Control: Capacitor Power Relay I

Rigs:
2x Capacitor Control Circuit I
1x Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Drones:
5x Medium Scout drones
5x Light Scout drones

Notes: I always had a thing for the Apoc. To me, the Apoc conveys one of the best hulls for a majestic laser weapon platform. That said, this is quite a heck of an expensive fit; 100mil + for each of those reppers, 80 mil+ for those heatsinks. But should anything render Sonja unavailable (God forbid) this is a solid, balanced ship. It has a balanced 5oo+defense (598 at max skill, a bit less than Sonja's impressive tank though) and a 500+ DPS turrets only, using T1 Multifrequency L(higher than Sonja, but perhaps somewhat restricted by its limited damage type). Add T2 Hammerheads, we can boost that to above 700. And it is DEFINITELY cap stable. The added bonus of no ammo (T1 crystal) means that its an excellent fallback ship should we ever need to run missions to earn extra cash and all. And YES, it uses pulse which even using multifrequency crystals will give it a weapon range of some 20+km.

EVE Online: Machariel class Battleship

By far my most expensive purchase in EVE Online. Behold! The Angel Cartel Pirate faction Battleship, Machariel! It's worth over 900 million ISK and with the final fit I intend for it its gonna cost more than twice that amount eventually.

In keeping with the tradition of Claire Danes- namesakes, I named this ship Sonja Jones, after yet another Claire Danes character from the movie, Me and Orson Welles.

That said, this beauty is the largest battleship-class in the game, and also the fastest in terms of base speed. The huge expense of low slots (7 in total), plus the moderately capable 5 mid slots, is used up for a passive shield tank setup, the kind of defense that doesn't use that much cap, though converting from an active tanking ship like the Maelstrom to this does take a little getting use to.

6 guns and 2 missile setup, capable though not as optimum as the 8 guns of my previous ship, nevertheless I intend to round it all up with faction items!

Shield Techs: For Better of Worse

Whilst not directly a "Ship" post, it is related in general to the Starship mythology/fiction.

Shield's are almost synonymous to starships as many fictions that have starships, uses shields as a means of defense. Some prefer the term energy barriers, or voids and other terms that may offer 'cooler' sounding terminology than simply "Shields".

Shields affect people and their ships in different manner and availability depending on the source-fiction.

EVE Online:
In EVE shields are the first line of defense or HP (hitpoints) for any ship, starbase structure, drones and such subjects. Shields are usually (but not exclusively) resistant to damage types that are inversed to that of armor. Depleted shields can be replenished automatically at stations at no cost at all, compared to armor, and in flight it passively regenerates on its own, unlike armor.

However a number of people do not prefer shield "tanking", and after further study, i can see why. Consider the armor repair variant of the capitol class modules versus the shield counterpart. A capitol shield booster boosts only 7200HP compared to 9600 of the armor variant. Add a second module, the Shield Boost Amplifier II (tech 2 modules are most commonly used modules in EVE being cheaper and easily replaced but relatively sturdy enough for most combats) and you get a 36% increase, that is 9792 HP. Armor repair modules do not have boost amplifiers, but you can put a second repair module that doubles the 9600 repair amount. And all through that, I found out that the armor repair modules (double rep setup) still uses less capacitor that the single Capitol class Shield Booster.

So why Shield Tank? Perhaps the one strong point of it is that while's it's Cap-intensive, it is not powergrid intensive. Armor repair modules uses up much more powergrid than shield modules, thus leading me to conclude that ranged combat with bigger, more powergrid intensive guns can make use of shields, whilst the deadly knife fights of close combatants can use the extra powergrid to make use of the armor's strong repping ability. Also shields are usable by smaller-less-capacitor intensive ships which make use of the shield's passive regeneration ability (though it by no means can supplant active boosting/tanking in terms of survivability).

Star Trek:
Energy Field bubbles that protect the ship, the one thing that make's it so "geeky" is that the shield's are not always overwhelmed by force alone, but also by "frequencies", as star trek ships uses all manner of frequencies in their mythos that a smaller ship can pierce through the bigger one's defenses simply by knowing the shield frequency of the latter.

That said, since such information is not always available, force is still a usable method to eventually deplete the shields. But pioneering the shield tech, Star Trek ships also divide their shields to quadrants; based on areas, much like a tank that has weaker armor at sides and rear, but with the ability to reinforce any side as necessary by flowing additional power to specified shield quadrants.

Star trek ships almost exclusively use shields for protection, as thus far from what I've seen, mostly, they have crap for armor.

Star Wars:
Star Wars ships employ shields as a second skin of sorts. Whilst also divided into sections and can reinforce as necesary like it's Star Trek variant, the shields of the Star Wars universe are not overly evident on ships, and as such, for Empire most especially, their units still field relative strong armor.

While there are shield bubbles, most ships have shields that are distance away from their immediate hulls, so it largely follows the contours of the ship rather than forming a spherical bubble.

In short, I'd say that the Star Wars universe gives shield as a first line of defense out of several, instead of strongly putting their eggs onto that one basket.

Legacy:
In our fiction, Shields are something exclusive to a higher civilization and the standard ones still rely fully on armor.

I'd protest early on, but I think it's better off we're making things more 'grounded'; and keeping such abundantly reused idea as something more of a unique idea that few can obtain.

It also enables us to further armor tech, the improvisation of solid defenses that has been slightly lacking in a large collection of sci-fi fiction. I take the cue from Babylon 5, where the impressive Victory-class Destroyers use special alloys as armor that deflects most of the incoming fire rather than absorb.

Finally, the end:

There's lots of other shield tech references out there, and many creative niches used in fiction to make shields ever more unique, but I'll leave that out for now, you can try looking on your own, but for the avid enthusiast, check this out:

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Shields/Shield2.html

Interesting argument on shields (if somewhat tech-nerdy) with some scientific considerations to it.

Larsatay: Weaver class Missile Cruiser

Another quick update.

Among the least common race from our development side is the reptilian Larsatay. the galaxy's rogues and crooks. An extremely vain species that prefers underhanded methods that direct confrontation, the Larsatay are notorious, untrustworthy pirates in all but name.

The Houses of Lar employ a great many types of vessels in their ad-hoc navy, as each House sought to have better vessels than their brethren of the other noble Houses. But when war threatened the collective resources of the major houses were pooled to create a standardized Fleet vessel capable of destrying large capitol ships of the other races.

The Weaver is a heavy cruiser with enormous missile banks and smoothed curved surfaces on its hull designed more to deflects enemy fire than absorb. Despite its intention as a fleet vessel, the size, protection and to some extent the cruise speed is not at par with ships of the other races. What it does have is an extremely efficient warp drive system, powerful forward scanners and extreme missile fire range that it can almost always obliterate larger targets before the enemy can close in and return fire.

Larsatay designers have always opted for a more organic look as a matter of aesthetics and reflection of the Larsatay's preference of what they call 'exotic designs'.

Being nearest to the Tortun system, speculations have mentioned that the Larsatay had been influenced also to obtain a design for their war ship that would break the solid sturfy Tortun wall of ships, said to be the best in defensive fleet warfare.

Procyons: The Monolith Project

I know I seem to be neglecting the other races, but so far the Procyons have got it right and closest to finalization in terms of design, so I can't help but follow through with it.

I always thought that there was a deficiency in Procyon Fleet in the War of Ignorance, as their staple capitol ship is the venerated Sol'Karis Battlecruiser. By definition alone we know that ship, as a capitol ship, lacks protection, sacrificing the said aspect for better handling and speed. In light that the New Procyons exhibit a more darker, egoistic and slight aloofness compared to the Old Procyons, the Codenamed: Monolith Project came from the Emperor himself, blessed be the honored Ernz Ara'Kun and his descendents, that takes designs back to the very root of Procyon shipbuilding, namely the vertical orientation and maximum forward firing capabilities.

Massive cannons, 30 x 3750mm Capitol Mass Drivers mounted in 10 triple turrets, with 3 large Torpedo Launchers and a triple forward Tachyon Beam systems, coupled with a myriad other secondary armaments. Heavy armor plating, enough material to build squadrons of frigates, has been placed to cover all core areas. Speed, a prized attribute in Procyon Fleet vessels have been somewhat sacrificed in this vessel, a testament to the authority of the Emperor, and the vast ego of the new Procyon government.

Cenayans: The Legacy

The namesake of the Legacy-fiction concepts is actually a renegade ship that is rumored to be the creation of the long-gone race, Cenayans; formerly the guradian race of the Council of Six and by far the most advanced of all known races, prior to or after the arrival of the humans.

Shown here is the first of all the Legacy sketches, the first ship designed for this fiction.

Aside from my personalized race, the Procyons, color schemes have yet to be decided on other races and furthermore I felt it very nostalgic to post the image as is, seeing as it is the first of all my sketches.

The design is inspired from a host of sources, but most of all from ships in the Stargate series, as well as some Galactic civilization series and Homeworld 2. The key design feature is that a large number of weapons are concealed and the surfaces are largely smooth. This gives us that high-tech feel to it as well as emphasis on its agility and speed. Cenayans are an elagant race, unlike the haphazardness of Procyon or Fadrun design, or the bulk feel of Terran and Tortuns. Perhaps the closest to mimick the Cenayan aesthetics are the Larsatay, but even so, Larsatay smoothness exhibits a sense of vanity and organic feel, whilst the Cenayans are about simple elegance.