User:Olly Wakwako/sandbox/Incursion Fitting Principles

Overview

Incursion fleets rely rely on good resists, sufficient buffer, command bursts and active logistics. There are simply too many enemies to be able to fit a strong enough local tank, not to mention that by sacrificing a small portion of your fleet to bring in logistics instead of more damage dealers, the rest of the damage dealers can fit more offensive modules and your fleet will perform better.

Once you have a good enough tank, the rest of your spare slots should be used to augment your (and the fleet's) damage potential. While being undertanked is obviously dangerous, being overtanked is not only wasteful, but can present a a different kind of danger if done at the cost of offensive capability.

See Preparing for Incursions for more information about what skills we ask that members of the EVE University Incursion Community have trained. While other communities might have similar requirements, this is just what we recommend.

Fitting Principles

The EVE University Incursion community suggests fits based on a set of principles which are designed to allow us to run the sites safely and efficiently. These princples act as guidelines that are followed in every fit we suggest to our community.

	Armour Tank The EVE University Incursion Community uses an armour-tanked doctrine to run sites. We aim for all of our damage-dealing ships to have 67% Armour resists in every damage type, and to have around 10,000 armour hitpoints before any command bursts are applied.
	Rigs Our suggested fits are designed with rigs that are compatible with the suggested fits of public armour headquarters communities. This allows our members to join in with content that the Univeristy cannot provide without having to buy a separate ship or spend excess ISK on rerigging their ships.
	Utility Modules In general, we prefer that utility midslots are occupied with a mix of primarily Tracking Computers and Sensor Boosters. Beyond these, Target Painters can be useful, as well as Stasis Webifiers.
	Drones Drones will not be called upon in every fleet, as they are of marginal benefit. However, they can get fleets out of sticky situations on occasion, so we ask that every ship be fitted with at least a set of Acolytes and a set of Armour Maintainance Bots for use in emergencies.
	Turrets We do not accept ships that use missiles as their primary weapon system. This is due to the flight time of missiles leading to DPS being wasted on missiles which are in flight to targets which have already been killed.
	Damage Control All of our fits make use of a Damage Control, as this both provides an okay bump in armour resistance, but vitally provides significant hull resistance, which could be the difference between a ship living or dying in an emergency.
	Hyperspatial Rig A significant amount of time in fleet is spent in warp between sites. We include this rig as it is compatible with headquarters fits on ships where that applies, and by having it on all of our ships it allows the entire fleet to warp faster, thus making the fleet more efficient.

Why these principles?

Shield vs armour doctrines

Incursions can be done with both shield and armour doctrines. Previously the EVE University Incursion Community has used a shield doctrine, however we now use an armour doctrine. There are pros and cons to both:

• Shield tanking modules are less skill dependant compared to armour, as passive armour modules require the armour compensation skills. However, there is no multispectrum passive shield amplifier, so shield tanking relies on capacitor, and can be turned off if a ship is sufficiently neuted. This aspect is most prevalent in Assault and Headquarters sites, where neut pressure is much more of a concern owing to the Otouni Mesen, which carries a capital-sized neutralizer, as well as the requirement of those sites to equip propulsion modules which are exceedingly capacitor hungry on their own.
• Remote shield boosters apply their repairs at the start of a cycle, which can allow logistics to be applied sooner in the case of sudden aggro switches, however amour repairs tend to cycle faster, and have some buffer in their shields, meaning this benefit is somewhat negated.
• In the event that a ships tank were to break, shield ships have more buffer than armour ships - a shield ship can bleed both armour and hull, whereas an armour tanked ship would only be bleeding hull.
• Shield tanking modules occupy the midslots of a ship, which could otherwise be used by modules such as tracking computers and sensor boosters (which are more effective and flexible as compared to their lowslot counterparts), as well as other utility modules such as stasis webifiers and target painters. Armour tanking modules instead take up lowslots.

In the EVE University Incursion Community we run armour doctrine because of a mix of these reasons, as well as the fact that the majority of the public incursion communities now run armour doctrine fleets, meaning Unistas who wish to explore the incursions content that the University cannot provide are best positioned to do so.

Sansha Incursion Rats

The Sansha incursion rats deal damage in two ways, lasers (EM and thermal) and torpedoes (kinetic and explosive). As such, they hit across all four resist types. While you can sometimes compensate for a low kinetic resist by having a higher explosive resist, or get away with lower resists due to having a small signature and high speed, generally you don't have the luxury of having resist holes in incursions.

Just as they do damage across the board, the Sansha incursion rats have omni tanks as well. The only notable exception is the Lirsautton Parichaya, it's a little weaker against thermal damage and stronger against explosive damage. So contrary to missions where Amarr and Gallente weapons are somewhat limited due to their set damage types, these weapons are not hampered by resists in incursions.

The incursion rats also do a wide variety of Electronic Warfare, including ECM, target painting, stasis webifying, warp disrupting, and energy neutralizing. You can find out more statistics about the Sansha incursion rats on the Sansha's Manual page.

Applied DPS

One of the most important aspects to realize is that whatever DPS (damage per second) your favourite third party fitting tool tells you that you have, or whatever the fitting window ingame tells you, is worth nothing if you cannot apply that damage. Hence the term "applied DPS" as opposed to "paper DPS" which is basically just your potential damage.

One notable example of this is the use of missiles. Because of missile flight time, it is possible to fire missiles at a target, but have that target die before those missiles apply their damage. This is effectively lost DPS, and would be a common situation in any fleet involving ships with missile-based weapon systems. As such, we do not allow missile ships in our fleets, as they do not do anywhere near close to their paper DPS consistently throughout the fleet.

Your velocity, your target's velocity, approach vectors, your gun's signature resolution, your target's ship signature, locking speed, locking range, your weapon's optimal and falloff range and tracking all play a vital part in how much of your damage you'll be able to apply on your enemy. See turret damage or the gunnery guide for a more comprehensive introduction to the factors determining how much damage you'll end up doing when you undock and leave your theoretical bubble. Practically this means that utility modules (in particular the bonused stasis webifiers of a Vindicator) often make or break fleets.

Utility modules

Utility modules refer to modules you fit that doesn't directly give you a higher dps in your favourite third party fitting program or on your fitting screen ingame. Instead they act as force multipliers of sorts making up for weaknesses or capitalize on strengths for increased efficiency. There are also modules that has no impact on your offensive capabilities, but are invaluable when things go wrong.

Utility medium slots	Utility high slots
Sensor Booster II Federation Navy Stasis Webifier Tracking Computer II Republic Fleet Target Painter	Large Remote Armour Repairer I Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II Auto Targeting System I Drone Link Augmentor I

While the exact fits vary between communities as well as fleet compositions, there are a few common grounds for using utility mids. In vanguards, the sensor boosters allow you to lock up the much smaller frigates more quickly, webs are used to help apply damage to enemies that come close, while painters and tracking computers help apply damage at range. The same can be said for assaults and headquarters, although the need for sensor boosters rapidly diminish as you move on from vanguards, as there are fewer frigates in assaults and headquarter sites, reducing the need for sensor boosters.

Utility highs are selected based on individual ship needs. It is common for ships to include an Auto Targeting System in a utility highslot to give access to more locked targets, potentially allowing a ship to lock all of the Sansha in a wave up at the same time, removing the need to continually lock rats as the wave progresses. Outside of this, it is good practice to include Remote Armour Repairers for use in emergencies where the logistics pilot in a fleet may have disconnected. Outside of Vanguards, Remote Capacitor Transmitters can be useful, as these can help ships being targetted by Sansha such as the Deltole Tegmentum or Otouni Mesen, which provide significant capacitor neutralization pressure.

Drones

Though we tend not to use them, drones can be a tremendous asset on a fleet that is weak in terms of DPS, if you pick the right ones and use them intelligently. The sum of all the drones in fleet can easily amount to the equivalent of adding an extra pilot or two on grid, so it's not something to treat lightly. See utilizing drones for tactical information on how to make the most of drones.

When selecting drones you need to factor in how to get the best mix of microwarpdrive and orbital speeds, as well as tracking and optimal range for the type of fleet and sites you run - generally smaller sites have more frigates, which need fast, well tracking drones. Amarr drones generally provide the best mix for most situations except for headquarter sites where slower drones, but with higher focused DPS, are useful for taking down large ships. See drones for more statistics about drone attributes.

Below are the drones we recommend within our community:

Recommended drones/site	Light drones	Medium drones	Heavy drones	Sentry drones
Vanguard sites	Acolyte II	Not recommended	Not recommended	Garde II
Assault sites	Acolyte II	Infiltrator II	Not recommended	Curator II
Headquarter sites	Hobgoblin II	Hammerhead II	Ogre II	Not recommended

Aside from damage drones, logistics drones are vital to the safety of a fleet. In the case that the logistics pilot disconnects, the fleet is at significant risk due to the diminished remotre repairs available. In such as case, the fleet relies on the repping power of the logibooster, on the utility reps of ships which have them, and on the logistics drones that every member of the fleet carries. To this end, we suggest that every ship be equipped with at least a set of Armour Maintainance Bots. Additionally, if a pilot wishes, they could bring a set of Hull Maintainance Bots to repair any hull scratches that might occur in sticky situations.

Rigging choice

"It’s all relative, you might say."

It's very easy to dismiss the importance of the rig selection when buying a new ship. While it's usually not something a new pilot needs to worry about when getting any of the minimum fits posted on the wiki, it's extremely important for people looking to get a new ship as it heavily influences your options in terms of flexibility and utility slots (which is everything in incursions). Don't spend too much ISK on a temporary setup, either go for a cheap "good enough" setup while you're saving up for your ideal setup, or just wait until you can afford the whole setup you want in the end.

Defense Rigs It is common for fits to have one or a combination of an Explosive, Thermal, or Kinetic armour resistance rig. It is also common for some fits to utilize a trimark armour pump rig, especially for those ships with less raw armour HP such as the Praxis. This can help eek out enough armour HP to avoid the need for a plate in the lowslots.

Offence Rigs Going for damage means that you're limited somewhat due to the high calibration cost of rigs such as Burst Aerators. Alternatively, Hyperspatial Velocity Optimization rigs offer the benefit of allowing your ship to warp faster, which is particularly advantageous in a situation where every fleet member is capable of the same, minimising the time the fleet spends in warp thus improving fleet efficiency.

In general we recommend rigging your ship such that it is compatible with the public headquarters communities. This allows you to utilize the same hull for fleets run by those communities as well as the EVE University Incursion Community. With this flexibiltiy we hope to encourage people to explore more of the content as the barrier to entry is lowered.

Determining a proper tank

There are a few easy ways to determine whether a tank is OK or not. You can judge your tank by many means, but for Incursions the best way to measure your tank is to look at effective armour hit points (EAHP), as opposed to damage per second repaired (DPS-tank) or the generic effective hit points (EHP). This is because a lot of ships have significant shield and hull hit points, so the effective hit points value can be quite misleading on a battleship with a damage control for example, as the EHP-value skyrockets compared to a ship without a damage control fitted, but very little of it applies to the actual EAHP.

While the above mentioned effective armour hit points is a good measure, it is not always practical to use on the fly. For one it doesn't really tell you if the ship has any glaring resist holes, so for practical reasons we tend to speak in more general terms -- Armour hit points and resists. It's much easier to just ask the pilot "How many raw armour hit points do you have?" and "What are your resists?". It's very easy for people to check this ingame and it tells us enough to judge whether or not the fit is ok.

Guidelines

Values listed here are approximate based on our tank guidlines, and inferred from the basic fits of armour headquarters groups. Though Warp To Me does publish their tank requirements (67% omni shield resists and 12,000 raw shield HP}, others do not.

Below are some rough guidelines for what a proper tank might be for a battleship (there isn't much variation to speak of for logistics). Since we focus mainly on low skilled, kitchen sink setups we're going with a relatively high recommended level for our community. The values below are of raw armour hit points and paired average resists (EM/thermal and kinetic/explosive), values before boosts for easy comparison.

	Vanguards (33k+ effective armour hit points) 67% resists and at least 10,000 raw armour hit points.
	Assaults (50k+ effective armour hit points) 70% resists and at least 15,000 raw armour hit points.
	Headquarters 75k+ effective armour hit points 70% resists and 20,000 raw armour hit points.

In vanguards it is somewhat common for FCs to allow (sometimes significantly) lower resists in fleets with sufficient DPS. This is a concept known as DPS tanking. Though it can be precarious and depend on all members of the fleet flying their ships effectively, having 4 or 5 Marauders in a fleet means that a significant portion of the Sanshas DPS never applies because the ships die before the get into range to apply significantly. With that said, remember that resists are far more important than raw armour hit points, as higher resists has the secondary benefit of increasing the efficiency of remote repairs. Below is a graph illustrating how damage changes with scaling resists.

Resists		Actual damage taken
61% resists		18% more damage (39% damage taken)
64% resists		9% more damage (36% damage taken)
67% resists		Baseline Damage (33% damage taken)
70% resists		9% less damage (30% damage taken)
73% resists		18% less damage (27% damage taken)
76% resists		27% less damage (24% damage taken)
79% resists		36% less damage (21% damage taken)

Stacking penalties and ongrid boosts

A ship with fewer modules or rigs stacking will also benefit more from boosts, thus not suffering quite as much as they might initially seem to. Thus, the way in which a ship obtains the required resist profile to be allowed into a fleet run by the EVE University Incursion Community is important - using a large number of cheap multispectrum energized membranes (see the Praxis fit in ~~link~~) leads to the ongrid boosts being much less effective, causing the incoming damage to be increased as compared to a similarly tanked ship with fewer, but higher quality tank modules.

With that said, it is worth noting that the reverse is true - if the ongrid boosts were to no longer be present, a ship with fewer tank modules would be taking relatively more damage as compared to a normal situation. This can sometimes become important to consider in ships fit with an expensive A-Type energized membrane, which would likely be accepted onto a fleet (at the FC's discretion) but which might be under the tank guidelines of the community.

Applying the Guidelines - a practical example

This section serves as a guide on how to apply the fitting principles in a way that could generate a suitable fit for any suitable hull. In this example, we will work towards a fit for a pilot who has been flying the Starter Nightmare fit, and wants to work towards a more advanced fit to more effectively contribute to fleets, but does not have excessive isk to buy the most expensive fancy modules.