Ship Class Tactical Overview: Difference between revisions

The rifter is one of the best combat T1 frigs, and by most people even considered THE best. In a dogfighting fit with ACs, ab, web and scram, it can take on most other frigs and even some larger targets and win (watch out for the taranis and all the AF's though). Punisher and Incursus are the Amarr and Gallente equivalents, but they don't quite reach the level of the Rifter.

These are the primary tacklers in anything but 0.0 (where dictors and hics take over). They have the highest scan resolution of any class, and only Vigils (Minmatar EW frig) can match their speed. Their main purpose is tackling, and that's what they do best, but many interceptors can also be refit to be effective combat ships in an interceptor only gang. Their firepower and tank will be low compared to other types of ships, but they have the advantage of very high speed (even when tank & gank fitted) and awesome agility.

They can warp cloaked, used as scouts and for probing stuff down. Can also be used for tackling stuff it has scouted/probed out, but that's only for experienced people that know what they can and can't hold long enough for help to arrive, and what targets are worth the risk.

Super high dps/alpha frigates that can warp cloaked and doesn't have a sensor recalibration delay after decloaking. In 0.0, they can also launch bombs (basically a large, higher damage smartbomb). They have trouble hitting small targets with their torpedoes though.

These very alot from race to race. Basically, they are frigate sized version of the combat recons that will be described below.

High tank, usually high dps frigates. If you get tackled by one of theese, you're generally not going anywhere, they're a pain to get rid of when properly fitted. The disadvantage compared to interceptors is that they're slower, and usually sacrifice their MWD and fit an AB instead to be able to survive longer after getting the target tackled.

Can have many roles, from mining and logistics (osprey, auguror, scythe, exequror) and EW (blackbird, bellicose, arbitrator, celestis) to pure dps (the rest basically).

Theese come in 2 cathegories, combat recons and force recons. Force recons can fit a covert ops cloak and therefore warp cloaked, while the combat recon is generally better suited for the actual combat part, either trough stronger tank, higher dps or simply better range for their EW.

Their main purpose is EW, but what they use vary from race to race.

Sensor dampening and warp disruptor/scrambler range bonus. Recon 5 give 18km scram range and 48km disruptor range without overheating (for T2 mods). Just like with minmatar, there's no big difference between the cloaky arazu and the lachesis.

Extremely versatile and powerful ships. They combine high speed and agility with either high dps and decent tank when in a close range setup, or very long range where only sniper battleships will be able to fire back, while still offering good dps and ok buffer when in a LR setup.

With the exception of some T3 cruiser setups, theese will have batter tank then any other cruiser, and match that of most battleships. Their dps is extremely low, but their role is tackling.  

If you see a hic in empire that seem to have its bubble up, don't worry though, it's just a graphical bug caused by loading the grid after the point was activated, it doesn't create an actual bubble. Theese are the only ships that can tackle super caps in low sec (well, in high sec too I guess, but super caps can't go there, and it has never been possible to get one in there afaik).

Each race do it a bit differently here, but overall, theese ships are supposed to increase the survivability of the fleet in 1 way or another.  

Gallente and Amarr repair armour, Caldari and Minmatar repair shields.  

=== T3 Cruisers: Strategic Cruisers ===  

HACs are way better for that role though, with better dps and range, so experience pilots usually do not have a reason to use a LR fit on it since most of them can also fly hacs, and therefore only use the BCs for close range stuff. They also have the ability to fit a single warfare link, which can give extra bonuses to your gang. I'll describe this more closely in the next section.

Armour/Shield links:

You can't get heavier then this and still stay in sub capital ships, although there are ofcourse variotions. Great buffer tanks, very high dps when close range fitted for close range fitted ones, the best range in the game, while still maintaining good dps when long range fitted (usually apoc, mega, maelstrom/tempest and rokh, however, mega and mael/tempest can also be close range fitted and still perform better/as well as the other BS of their race). One notable exception here: The caldari scorpion, which is the only T1 EW BS, and use ecm. The weakness here is low speed and agility combined with slow lock speed and bad tracking, so it's hard to force an opponent in smaller ships to engage if the odds are in your favour, or to actually kill them since you'll be missing alot if you do get a fight.

Theese are basically PVE only ships. Decent dps and good local tank, but in PVP you generally want a buffer tank instead, and marauders have very low sensor strength, making them easy to jam. However, the paladin and kronos can be situationally useful if you really need a target webbed down as much as possible, and don't mind using a ship worth over half a bill that's not insurable since they both get a 50% bonus to web strength, so a T2 web reduce the targets speed by 90%. I've only seen this used by one person, and that was on the Tama station since it's a kickout to prevent people from getting back in dock range, and that was with carrier support just in case.

Theese are the bi brothers of the recon ships, however, while they do get bonus to how fast they more while cloaked (which actually means that they'll move faster when cloaked then when not cloaked with the BO skill at a decent level), but they cost about 700m or so before fittings, so they're not really worth the risk of bringing it into combat. Despite that though, they do have a very useful role to play in PVP: the covert jump bridge. Covert cyno fields can now be lit even in cyno jammed 0.0 systems and doesn't appear as a beacon in the entire system like a normal cyno, and a black ops can then lock on to that field and create a bridge to it, which then allows other cov ops ships (aka any ship that get a bonus to cloaking, except T3 cruiser with the cloaking sub) to right click the BO and click jump to the system the bridge was set up to, so it basically become a 1 way stargate.