Strategic Cruisers: Difference between revisions

Every subsystem has an associated skill. If you lose a T3 ship, you will lose one level of your highest racial subsystem skill (if they're all at the same level, the game will pick one at random).

The defensive subsystems give your ship its base cargohold capacity, armor hit points, shield hit points, shield recharge rate, signature radius, and armor and shield resistances. They generally give low and/or high-power slots as well.  These modules also offer a bonus to a defensive aspect of your ship (resistances, HP, command bonuses, repair effectiveness, etc) based on the module.

The electronics subsystems give your ship its base CPU, targeting range, scan resolution, and sensor strength.  They also generally give you medium-power slots.  The bonuses provided by these modules include the attributes the modules grant your ship.

The engineering subsystems give your ship its base powergrid, capacitor, and capacitor recharge time.  They often give you high and/or low power slots, as well as turret and/or missile hardpoints. The bonuses provided by these modules include the attributes the modules grant your ship.

The offensive subsystems give your ship its primary weapon slots, whether missile or turret.  They always give high slots, and on occasion medium and/or low slots as well.  The bonuses provided by these modules include weapon rates of fire, weapon optimal and falloff ranges, drone control and drone bays, and cloaking ability.

The propulsion subsystems give your ship its base in agility and speed. They may give you low slots, but not all of them do.  The bonuses provided by these modules include speed or agility bonuses, afterburner bonuses, reduction in microwarp drive penalties, and even the ability to be immune to warp disruption [[Bubble|bubbles]].

Now let's see how those capabilities work out in in-game uses for T3s:

T3s can combine a tough tank with (relatively) high speeds and small signature radii, plus the ability to deal decent damage. This makes them capable of taking on L4 missions. They may not complete L4s as fast as well-fitted and well-flown battleships, but their agility and difficulty to probe makes them suited to mission-running in dangerous low- or null-sec space.

T3s can combine the ability to quickly and accurately probe things down with the tank and DPS required to do many quite tough exploration sites solo.

Fitted for covops-style cloaking and probing, a T3 can be an effective PvP scout, with enough of a tank to tackle a target and (hopefully) survive long enough for help to arrive. Cloak-fitted T3s can dispatch weaker targets solo.

T3s can mount fairly ridiculous buffer tanks, pushing over 300,000 effective hitpoints with the right subsystems, skills and implants. In this configuration, they make great (if expensive) bait.

With their 5% bonus to racial warfare links, T3s can give a gang very substantial bonuses.

Fitted with an interdiction nullifier subsystem, warp core stabilisers, and a covert ops cloak, a T3 can cheerfully stroll through most camps. This is useful for scouting, travelling through dangerous nullsec or moving small, high-value items which don't justify a jump freighter through nullsec.

It's a bit boring compared to some of the other potential uses, but a T3 can just slot into a PvP gang as a tougher, more expensive HAC which can overheat for longer.