Reason: Add PvE tactics to this article; further language revision would add to legibility
Dreadnoughts, commonly called "dreads", are the main DPS ships of any capital fleet, with only the much more expensive Supercarrier and Titan class ships capable of outperforming them. Dreads can fit a "siege module", allowing them to greatly increase their DPS, local repairs, and EWAR resistance. In exchange for running the siege module, dreads cannot receive remote repairs and are unable to move (they can still be pushed or booshed by other ships, and if they had speed before activating the module, they will continue to drift). The Angel dreadnought, the Sarathiel, is an exception, which can move at a fraction of its normal speed during siege due to a hull bonus.
Each of the empires has one Tech 1 dreadnought, a Faction dread, and a Tech 2 "lancer" dread, which is capable of firing a Disruptive Lance. The Ships are as follows:
T1 Hulls:
T2 Hulls (Lancer Dreadnoughts):
Faction Hulls:
Following the general theme of the factions, the Revelation, Revelation Navy Issue, Phoenix, and Phoenix Navy Issue have bonuses to resistances. The Moros, Moros Navy Issue, Naglfar and Naglfar Fleet Issue, on the other hand, have a bonuses to local repairs. All of them have a bonus to their intended weapon system. Faction dreadnoughts also have an additional bonus to some form of electronic warfare. Faction dreads receive a 50% larger damage bonus per level of the racial dreadnought skill compared to tech 1 dreadnoughts. BPCs for the empire faction dreads can be bought from the Faction Warfare loyalty point stores.
Besides the hulls above, the following non-empire faction hulls exist:
The blueprint copy for the Vehement can be bought with Serpentis LP. The blueprint copy for the Chemosh can drop from a Blood Raider Sotiyo. The BPC for the Caiman can be bought from the special insurgency LP store in Zarzakh or from the pirate FOB in insurgency systems. Blueprint copies for the Zirnitra can be bought with Interstellar Navigation Logs from the Triglavian loyalty point stores in Pochven. These acquisition methods make these dreadnoughts, except for the Zirnitra, very rare and expensive. As dreadnoughts cannot receive remote repairs while in siege, faction dreadnoughts generally have only niche uses besides being collector's items.
The Siege Module
The single most significant module on any dreadnought is the Siege Module. The siege module exists in T1 and T2 variants and has the following effects when activated:
- +700% turret damage (Tech II: +840%)
- +165% missile damage (Tech II: +200%)
- -80% cycle time to XL Cruise and Torpedo Launchers
- +150% Torpedo velocity bonus
- 60% Remote Sensor Dampener resistance (Tech II: 70%)
- 80% remote assistance impedance (remote Sensor and Tracking boosters)
- 60% Weapon Disruption resistance (Tech II: 70%)
- Immunity to ECM
- +100% shield booster/armor repairer amount
- -50% shield booster/armor repairer duration
- 10x ship mass
- -100% maximum velocity
- Cannot receive remote repairs or capacitor transmission
The siege module converts the dreadnought from a mobile ship into a massive stationary weapons platform. The siege module's cycle time is 5 minutes, and it consumes 250 - (level of 
Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration * 25) Strontium Clathrates ("stront") to activate or reactivate.
In general, dreadnoughts cannot meaningfully engage in combat without an active siege module. While in siege, the dreadnought cannot warp, jump, voluntarily move in any way, or receive remote repairs from allies, but in exchange receives near immunity to electronic warfare, enormous bonuses to local repairs, and a staggering bonus to weapons damage. While the dreadnought cannot voluntarily move while in siege, if the dreadnought was moving when it entered siege, or if it is bumped while in siege, it will move uncontrollably in a straight line and slowly decelerate.
Activating a siege module does not give the ship a Weapons Timer, meaning that a dreadnought can still refit itself at a Mobile Depot while in siege.
| A long, long time ago... |
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In the April 2019 patch the base damage of High-Angle Weapon turrets was reduced, and the Siege Module was given a bonus specifically to them. See Patch Notes For April 2019 Release and Spring Balance Update Incoming!. The intent was to maintain the same overall DPS for dreadnoughts while reducing the damage of high-angle Titans. On 27 February 2020, the damage changes to High-Angle Weapons and the Siege Module were reverted, and high-angle weapons were instead restricted to only being usable by dreadnoughts. There was no dev blog article associated with this change. |
Lancer Dreadnoughts
Lancer Dreadnoughts are Tech 2 dreadnoughts with the added ability to fit a Disruptive Lance. These mini-doomsdays deal one-third the damage of Titan lances and disable docking, jumping, tethering, stargate use, and warping within their area of effect. They also reduce incoming remote repairs by 50% for all affected ships. The Disruptive Lance can only be activated when the Lancer's siege module is active. Similar to Titan lances, the disruptive lance deals 10,000 energy neutralization to all nearby ships when activated. Activating the lance will make the dreadnought unable to jump, dock, tether, or cloak for 5 minutes. Unlike Titan lances, disruptive lances can be used in low-sec. Lancer Dreadnoughts with a Disruptive Lance fitted cannot activate cloaking devices. The skill Disruptive Lance Operation is needed to operate disruptive lances and reduces capacitor usage by 5% per level. Every lancer has a 10% bonus to lance damage and a 20% bonus to lance range tied to the Lancer Dreadnoughts skill.
Lancers are very niche ships. They deal significantly less damage with their primary weapon systems than normal dreads. They are commonly used in Lowsec to catch the otherwise elusive Jump Freighters. This typically happens When a Lancer dread fires its disruptive lance at a gate leading into hisec. If the jump freighter gets caught in the lance, it will be unable to jump the gate due to the lance's effects. Lancers also see rare uses in nullsec to apply their logistics disruption effects to enemy fleets.
Dreadnought PvP tactics
This section aims to explain the most common PvP uses of dreadnoughts. It does not aim to be exhaustive, as EVE players always find new niche applications. While dreadnoughts are also used in PvE, especially in high class C5/C6 wormhole space, PvE tactics are not discussed here.
Besides the siege module, the use of dreads is heavily defined by their weapon systems. For each empire faction dread, three different types of turrets or missile launchers exist. Short-range, long-range, and high angle weapons (HAW). The short- and long-range weapons have such poor application that they cannot efficiently deal damage to sub capital ships. HAWs, on the other hand, have much better application which is nearly or as good as their battleship counterparts.
HAW dreads
HAW dreads are used to fight subcapitals. You usually fit a local tank to HAW dreads. Such a local tank can typically tank around 10k EHP/s but can go up to as much as 30k EHP/s. Of course, the exact amount varies with the fit. Armor dreadnoughts (Revelation and Moros) must mostly choose between DPS and tank. Shield dreadnoughts (Phoenix and Naglfar) must mostly choose between tank, tackle (warp disruptor), and application (web, grappler, target painter). The typical DPS of a HAW dread is between 2k and 3k with short range ammunition but can exceed that.
The usage of HAW dreads is highly varied: Changing a sub capital fight, Quick Response Fleets (QRF) in your own space or solo roaming. Thus, dread fittings vary a lot depending on their use-case.
Even a medium sized sub capital fleet will have trouble breaking the tank of a dread and tanking the DPS of one or several HAW dreads in sub capital fleet is especially difficult. Due to the siege module's near EWAR immunity, options to dispose of HAW dreads are limited. The easiest way to kill HAW dreads is with other capitals, for example capital-gun fitted dreads which apply much greater DPS than HAW dreads. Another common way to counter HAW dreads is to apply heavy energy neutralisation, which limits the HAW dread's ability to tank.
Anti capital dreads and dread bombs
Anti-capital dreads are usually buffer fitted. As dreads cannot receive repairs while sieges, the aim is to survive as long as possible and then either extract before dying or buying other ships additional time to kill the enemy fleet. A common tactic is to fit an Emergency Hull Energizer, which increases the hull resist significantly for 16.5 seconds. Thus, buying valuable extra time.
Every big nullsec alliance usually has recommended fits for this case and might require people to use a certain hull. Even if you are not in such an alliance, you can easily find out those fits if you search for dread losses on ZKillboard.
The guns are usually short-range to achieve high DPS which is usually at about 10k per dread. Revelations are popular as they can easily switch ammunition, and the Scorch ammunition makes it possible to deal high damage even at big ranges. However, the Revelation (Navy Issue) is locked into EM/thermal damage. Naglfars can choose their damage type but have a bit less tank than the Revelation. The Moros has the highest damage on paper, but their range is comparatively low. Anti-capital dreads can be used in various contexts: Dropping on other capitals, dropping on subcap fleets with FAX support or dropping in large numbers (dreadbomb) to kill supercarriers or titans.
Dreadbombs have historically not traded favourably against supercapital fleets, as they lack the critical mass to be effective.[1] This means that dreadbombs are deployed either against a single vulnerable target in the hope to extract before help arrives (or dropping enough dreads to kill the target before rescue but not enough to exceed the target's value) or when a super fight is already in progress. This probably also triggered the changes to remote reps[2] and the limitation to FAX cap boosters which reduced the overall repair amount especially for FAXs in big fleets. In large supercapital fights, such as M2-XFE[3], dreadnoughts have not traded well when a critical mass of super-capitals are on grid.
After super-capitals have become significantly more expensive due to major industry changes introduced in early 2021[4], Titans and Supers have become less viable to use as a counter to dreadbombs. Therefore, bigger dreadbombs are the usual counter to dreadbombs. A common escalation path is an initial Battleship fleet being countered by HAW dreads, the HAW dreads being countered by anti-cap dreads and all sites of the fight then committing to maximum dreadbombs.
The advent of faction dreadnoughts and the DPS king Zirnitra have made dreadbombs much more tanky and damaging than in the past. This new dominance of faction dreads was one of the stated reasons for doubling Titan Doomsday damage in the Equinox expansion. [5]
Structure bashing
The high DPS of a dreadnought means that for structures that do not have a damage cap (i.e. not the newer Upwell structures), it can be worth dropping enough dreadnoughts to take down the structure in a single siege cycle. However, this means that their owners need to be sure they can defend them against a counter drop.
For structures with damage caps, dreadnoughts are a bad idea. They will be stuck for long enough that a response fleet with tackle can easily reach the structure and the siege module immobilizes them so that they cannot get away from the response fleet. Carriers are much better for this purpose for several other reasons too: they do not require ammunition or strontium clathrates to be effective and they engage from beyond the range of the structure's anti-capital weapons.
Vindicator-supported Capgun dreads
This is a rare but deadly strategy used in Class 5 and Class 6 Wormhole engagements. In most cases, this is done using two Naglfars fitted with anti-capital Hexa-2500mm Repeating Cannons, and one Apostle (or other Force Auxiliary), supported by one or more Vindicators, Lokis, and Huginns. The objective of this composition is to use the Vindicator's webs to completely immobilize enemy cruisers and battleships, then target paint them with the Huginn and quickly eliminate them with the anti-capital weapons of the Naglfars (which, while they ordinarily cannot hit subcapitals, have little trouble hitting stationary targets). The Loki and Huginn together can apply webs to enemies outside of Vindicator range, and the Force Auxiliary is in charge of keeping the support ships alive under enemy fire. Variations of this strategy are employed both by independent roamers and by high-class wormhole groups in major engagements with one another.
References
- ^ Video: Jin'talks - Why Dreadbombs Don't Work (against Superfleets) (October 2017).
- ^ Devblog: Spring Balance Update Incoming! (March 2019)
- ^ https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/the-massacre-of-m2-xfe
- ^ https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/a-significant-update-to-industry
- ^ Expansion notes: Equinox June 2024