RR Prophecies

The Remote Repairing Prophecies (or "RR Prophecies") doctrine is one of the niche doctrines using somewhat unorthodox fittings and operating procedures that is actually an effective doctrine geared towards small to medium sized fleets.

The RR principle

Conventionally, logistic ships are used in fleets to provide repairing power in order for your damage dealing ships to stay on grid longer than the enemies. The logistic ships are specially molded for this role by giving them role bonuses on the range of their remote repairing modules, so they can stay out of harms way, while providing repping power to the fleet. Coupled to that, they also have racial bonuses towards the repair amount and capacitor usage, making them the prime "healers" of Eve Online.

So why is it necessary to do it differently? First of all, every logistic cruiser is a pilot, who could be dealing damage instead. Second, fleets with a logistics wing is strong and therefore doesn't look engageable from the opponent's perspective. It is large and the opponent has to have a way to break logistics reps or they could get destroyed without killing anything. A small fleet without logistic support looks more promising. However, remote repairs are an immense force multiplier difficult to say no to and RR doctrines aim to unite damage dealing ships and logistics into one ship.

However, this "marriage parfait" has its drawbacks: for one, by combining logistics with damage dealing, one raises the piloting pressure where mistakes can happen easily, such as friendly fire. Secondly, using RR modules on a non-logistic ship means the optimal range of the modules doesn't get a bonus and is in se quite short. This necessitates flying in close formation and any out of position pilots will find themselves unable to receive reps. Moreover, trying to make a jack of all trades ship, you sacrifice some effectiveness.

To do all this, one requires an appropriate ship with spare high-slots, since RR modules are high slot only.

The Prophecy

If one takes a look at the Prophecy, the Amarrian battlecruiser, it's bonuses are:

Amarr Battlecruiser bonuses (per skill level):
10% bonus to Drone hitpoints and damage
4% bonus to all armor resistances
Role Bonus:
• Can use one Command Burst module
12.5% bonus to Drone microwarp velocity
50% bonus to Command Burst area of effect range

Take note that the racial bonus is to drone damage and HP, a weapon system that doesn't use high-slots and it has 4% armor resistance per level. The former attribute means that the 7 high-slots can be used for utility without gimping the effectiveness, while the latter raises resistances, which are beneficial for effective repairing power. The Prophecy has a legendary armor tank and equally infamous slow speed. The drones make up for the slow speed of the ship, together with the 12.5% drone MWD bonus, reaching your targets while you stay balled up.

Moreover, the Prophecy is able to fit command bursts. This means the repping capability of the whole fleet can be augmented just by one boosting Prophecy.

The fitting

There are many ways to fit an RR Prophecy, however, there are many things one has to take into the consideration, such as the range, repair amount, the capacitor usage, tank, propulsion, DPS and E-war.

Remote Repair modules

For the RR modules, one might be tempted to use large armor repairers for their range and repair amount. However, they take up a lot of fitting resources and most of all, they have huge capacitor usage.

Medium sized RR modules use less capacitor and fitting, one can fit more to off-set the smaller repair amount and fit remote capacitor transfer modules do take care of capacitor issues. However, this again compounds with the already increased piloting pressure by having to maintain a capacitor chain, which is easily disrupted by e.g. a lucky ECM jam.

One has to take into account that armor repairers apply their rep HP at the end of the cycle. This means a ship can die before reps land. Large and medium RR modules have a lengthy cycle time. To solve this issue, one can use deadspace small RR modules. Surprisingly, those have a greater range than the medium modules, less capacitor usage, less fitting constrains, very short cycle time offset by only a smaller repping power and a greater ISK cost. Because they use less fitting and cap, one can fit entire high-slot rack with repping modules, compensating the inherently lower HP repair of small sized modules while also reducing the delay between broadcast for reps and reps actually landing. The small deadspace reppers are the preferred RR modules for this doctrine.

Capacitor usage

To offset the lack of RR module capacitor usage bonus, one needs to reduce the cap pressure. The obvious choice is to fit a medium electrochemical cap booster to inject cap. The medium remote repair augmentor rig reduces the cap drain of all RR modules by a whopping 20% while lowering the already abysmal speed. The prop choice matters, and one should stick to the adagio of "Always fit restrained MWD's unless told otherwise". The restrained MWD uses less cap, has less of total capacitor penalty and doesn't bloom the signature that much.

Propulsion

The prophecy is known to be a very slow boat to balance it's tank. It can be fit with either AB, MWD or a MJD. Based on hands-on experience, MWD works best in two ways. First and foremost, because of RR short range, one has to stay balled up. This poses a problem after jumping a gate, where the fleet will be scattered sometimes as far as 30+km from each other. In this situation AB provides too little of a speed boost to be meaningful and MJD is out of the question.

Considering the large cap penalty of the MWD, one might still be tempted to use an afterburner. However, because of the small bonus, you will be burning for longer with AB and waste more cap than you'd have burning into position with an MWD. Also, the MWD is only on for small amounts of time, to get into range and to get the fleet into drone control range. Fit a restrained 50MN MWD.

Tank and damage output

For effective remote repairs, high resistances are key. The Prophecy is excellent platform for this because of it's racial bonus. One might be tempted to go for max resists while ignoring buffer. Buffer is very important on RR doctrine ships because of the delay between broadcasting for reps (b4r) and the reps effectively healing the target. This is again exacerbated by the pilot having to split the attention between damage application, module, capacitor and target management. Fit at least one 1600mm plate. The trimark armor pumps raise the buffer while hurting the speed. The explosive membrane patches the explosive resistance hole of the Prophecy.

For damage, fit drone damage amplifiers. The Prophecies DPS is anemic, so you might want to trade tank for more DPS. For the drone composition, use the max DPS lay-out (2x heavy, 2x medium and 1x light drone) as the default squadron and have them grouped after the undock. A flight of light drones is recommended for far away and kitey targets. Having a flight of EC-300 might be useful in niche situations.

For damage application one has to consider two things: drone tracking and drone speed. It takes time for the drones to reach their targets. The Prophecy already comes with 12.5% drone MWD speed bonus. One can augment this attribute by fitting a drone navigation computer in a midslot. In order to improve damage application, one can improve drone tracking with an omnidirectional tracking link with the tracking speed scipts. This will help engaging smaller targets with max dps drone flight.

E-war

Out of the four available mid-slots, two are mandatory for propulsion and capacitor management. Third one is often used for drone damage application. Fourth one can also be used for damage application or mostly for e-war. Depending on your fleet composition, this can either be a tackle module or an e-war module. For tackle modules, having a web and a scram mix is useful. The scram shouldn't be thought of as an anti-boosh tool, since the prophecies lock times are slower than an MJFG and you should be balled up and impervious to boosh attempts. One might opt to fit a sensor dampener to combat long range opponents or to mess with the enemy logistics. If your fleet has dedicated support (tacklers and e-war), go for full application fit (speed+tracking), otherwise it's up to FCs discretion.

Command bursts

Since Prophecies can use command bursts, it's worthwhile to have one or two boosting ships. By replacing two reppers with two armor command bursts and replacing the Medium Remote Repair Augmentor with a Command Processor I, one can dramatically improve fleet survivability by running armor resists and repair command charges. Make sure the booster is well protected by placing him/her on the watchlist and pre-lock at all times.

Tactics

Fleet composition

A usual RR fleet should be composed of a scout, long range webs and tackle and a booster. That's it. Using logistic ships or ECM ships means you lose your engageable profile. Scouts are self explanatory. For support, a hyena really shines together with a Keres. Webs stop people from crashing gates and the target painter improves damage application. Keres can either be fit for damps or for fast locking. Your support wing also dictates your mid-slot configuration. It's always beneficial to at least have one Prophecy with the command bursts.

Command structure

The usual command structure of FC and 2IC is enough, although one might want to designate a dedicated anchor. This is to again relieve the FC from piloting load by relegating positioning to the anchor. Depending on the amount of prophecies in the fleet, one can designate a vanguard as well as the vanguard field FC.

Preparations

When first undocking, make sure your fleet has a watchlist set up in order of importance: Instalocker>Anchor>Booster>FC>Support>Prophecies>Rest. When undocked, have the fleet "map" their drones into correct groups by launching, recalling and manually shifting. The module lay-out is important: have a group of three small reppers and a group of two. The reason for this splitting of repairers is to counter-act enemy use of target switching.

Positioning

After taking a gate, immediately anchor up and pre-lock people on the watchlist. After taking a warp, always start pre-locking after landing. This way you counteract the slow lock-times and you'll be ready to give out reps. The anchor is responsible for giving commands concerning prop-mod usage, but always have the fleet anchored. Obviously stay within drone control range.

Repairing

When someone broadcasts for reps, apply the first three reppers, if the target is not holding, apply one more and so on. When the target stabilizes, start decycling reps one by one, monitoring the targets health. While you are repairing and maneuvering, you are burning the most amounts of cap: remind the fleet to check their capacitor. Capped out Prophecy is useless.

Engaging enemies

One needs to be aware of the drawbacks of this doctrine: low speed, low DPS, high cap pressure and high pilot load. Engage enemies accordingly. Primary neuting ships first. Keep your anchor and booster alive as long as possible. Don't burn after targets. This doctrine has an amazing staying power, disengage with EC-300 is you must, but keep the fleet together.

In the heat of the battle it is very common that fleetmates will attack instead of repair and vice versa. Pay attention, call it out, make no drama. By practicing with these doctrines, friendly fire will become a thing of the past.