Incursion fitting principles

Fitting principles

Incursion fleets rely on good resists and buffer supported by a 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 damage potential. While there's such a thing as under-tanked, being over-tanked is not only wasteful in incursions but even dangerous if done at the cost of offense.

See Preparing for Incursions for more information about what skills are needed.

Omni damage

The Sansha incursion rats deal two types of damages, lasers (EM and thermal) and torpedoes (kinetic and explosive). As such, they hit across all four resist types and all incursion fits must reflect that. In general we use a rather erroneous term "70% resists across the board" when we tell people what their resists should be. It is important to know that there is more to it than that.

First of all, it's more of an average resist per type of damage so you can often compensate one resist for the other. The Basilisk for example can leave a reasonable hole in its EM resist thanks to their high thermal resist and still stand up to the damage inflicted by lasers. It also means that most ships can have a slightly lower kinetic resist as long as their explosive resist is equally higher, averaging a solid 70% resist-profile for the damage inflicted by torpedoes.

Second, smaller ships take less damage from torpedoes than larger ships, especially if they are also faster. As such, logistics and strategic cruisers can often get away with slightly lower resists for kinetic and explosive, whereas battleships (especially those with huge signatures) would be better off pushing their kinetic and explosive resists a little bit higher to compensate for taking more damage from torpedoes.

The reason we still use the erroneous "70% resists across the board" term is that if you have 70% resists in all categories, you're good and there's no risk of anyone getting it wrong thinking you can combine a low EM resist with a high explosive resist.

Resist profiles

A lot of ships share a standard resist profile, so they share the same resist holes and have the same issues and weaknesses. Understanding what innate weaknesses a ship has is key to knowing how to best raise it to the desired high average resists mentioned above.

Below is a list of different resist profiles for various ship classes as well as a few specific ships with deviating profiles. The last column lists the obvious weaknesses of the class/hull, which will help you determine how to best achieve the desired resist profile. It also helps new waitlist managers as it tells them what to look for.

Ship	Base resist profile	Comments
Regular/faction battleships	0%20%40%50%	An EM hole and a weak thermal resist.
Resist bonused battleships	20%36%52%60%	Weak EM and thermal resists, but no resist holes.
Vargur	25%30%40%50%	Slightly lower EM and thermal resists, but no resist holes.
Scimitar	75%60%40%50%	No resist holes.
Basilisk	0%80%70%50%	An EM hole.
Legion	0%20%70%87,5%	An EM hole and weak thermal resists.
Loki (resist bonus)	80%60%52%60%	No resist holes.
Proteus	0%60%85%50%	An EM hole.
Tengu	0%80%70%50%	An EM hole.
Tengu (resist bonused)	20%84%76%60%	Weak EM resists.

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.

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 for a more comprehensive introduction to the factors determining how much damage you'll end up doing when you undock and leave your bubble.

Practically this means that utility modules often make or break fleets.

Utility modules

First of all, when the term "utility slots" is used it means the slots you have left over once you've fitted your tank and your weapons. So if your ship has five midslots and four are needed for your tank, then the fifth slot is your one utility midslot. If you ship has eight highslots and seven turrets, you have one utility highslot.

Second, the term "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.

Logistics will almost always carry the same utility midslots, so this section is aimed at damage dealers.

Midslot options

	In Vanguards, a battleship needs a sensor booster to be able to lock enemy frigates in any kind of timely fashion. For assaults, it is usually a matter of targeting range. Command ships or strategic cruisers can usually get away without a sensor booster. Being able to lock fast is also necessary in order to quickly lock up a logistics to apply repair drones in an emergency.
	Stasis webifiers slow down the target, dramatically increasing the chance to land good hits and thus increase applied dps. Webs are always better than tracking computers for shooting smaller targets, assuming the target will come into web range. The Federation Navy Stasis Webifier or True Sansha Stasis Webifier is needed for the extra range as regular webs fall short, literally.
	Tracking computers can be scripted for additional range or tracking, or both to a lesser degree. If you primarily engage targets outside web-range, tracking computers become more important, as they'll be able to improve your range and/or your tracking. Remember that this module use scripts, so be sure to bring Tracking Speed Scripts and Optimal Range Scripts.
	Target painters increase the signature of the target, making it easier to lock and shoot. Target painters would not be your first choice, but assuming the other needs are met, you sometimes reach a point where additional webs won't be needed and then the target painter would actually be of more use than another web.
	The microwarpdrive is used primarily in headquarter sites but can also be used in assaults. In those sites you need the extra speed to either fly to a specific position or to continuously move into new optimal positions for each wave. The Nightmare has the option to use an afterburner, due to its ship bonus to afterburner speeds.

For vanguards, we make sure we have at least one sensor booster and one web. If we have room for more midslots we primarily go for a second web first before looking into other modules. Once you've made sure that you have a solid base, you can start looking at other modules to help fleet efficiency.

For assaults and up, once you've ensured that you have the locking range needed (potentially requires you to use a sensor booster) and fitted any required propulsion modules, it's mostly about having a decent amount of webs and painters in the fleet, then let people fill up empty slots with tracking computers to improve their applied damage through better tracking or range.

Each of these modules listed above have their pros and cons, see Anatomy of Incursions for more information on how you can change these modules around for different tactics based on your fleet composition. Have a few of each readily available, that way you'll be able to quickly refit if your fleet commander asks you to.

When in doubt, just follow the recommended fits on the Vanguard and Assault fitting pages.

Highslot options

	Large S95a Remote Shield Booster or Large Remote Shield Booster II modules repairs the friendly target's shields. Having a few extra remote shield boosters for emergencies are invaluable. When the fleet doesn't have any Basilisks, it makes more sense to use remote shield boosters in your spare highs, as there won't be much need for utility cap.
	Large 'Regard' Capacitor Transmitters or Large Capacitor Transmitter II consumes cap in order to send it to a friendly target. It creates more cap than it consumes, so giving each other cap like this creates both recipients more cap. It's a favoured module for when you have Basilisks in your fleet, so members can act as emergency cap buddies.

When you're limited to just one utility highslot, pick the most important one. So a capacitor transmitter if you run with Basilisks and a remote shield booster if you run with Scimitars. Should you have the luxury of having more than one utility highslot, just bring both.

Drones

Drones can be a tremendous asset, if you pick the right ones and use them intelligently. Below is a breakdown on the raw statistics of drones, without taking skills into account. Most of the skills will affect all drones equally, so their relative strengths and weaknesses will remain the same (with the exception of the Gecko's lack of benefit from drone specialization).

So when you read this, keep in mind that the following skills will modify these values:

• Drone Sharpshooting (+5% optional range per level)
• Drone Navigation (+5% increase in microwarpspeed per level)
• Drone Interfacing (+10% damage increase per level)
• <size> Drone Operation  (+5% damage increase per level)
• <racial> Drone Specialization  (+2% damage increase per level)

Light combat drones

Drones	Weapon range	Tracking	Damage	Orbit speed	MWD speed
Acolyte II	2,400 + 2,000 m	2,988 rad/sec	33,6 HP	996 m/sec	4,620 m/sec
Hobgoblin II	2,100 + 2,000 m	2,178 rad/sec	38,4 HP	660 m/sec	3,360 m/sec
Hornet II	2,400 + 2,000 m	2,448 rad/sec	36,0 HP	894 m/sec	3,780 m/sec
Warrior II	2,100 + 2,000 m	3,240 rad/sec	31,2 HP	900 m/sec	5,040 m/sec

The Warrior II and Acolyte II drones stand out when we focus on the most important aspects like speed and tracking, the applied dps. The Acolyte II drones come out slightly ahead because of their potential to do even more damage to a webbed down target than the Warrior II drones, while simultaneously being "fast enough" and having "good enough" tracking.

As such, our recommended drones for vanguards are the Acolyte II drones.

Medium combat drones

Drones	Weapon range	Tracking	Damage	Orbit speed	MWD speed
Infiltrator II	4,800 + 3,000 m	0,960 rad/sec	53,76 HP	630 m/sec	2,760 m/sec
Hammerhead II	4,200 + 3,000 m	0,696 rad/sec	61,44 HP	528 m/sec	2,016 m/sec
Vespa II	4,800 + 3,000 m	0,780 rad/sec	57,60 HP	564 m/sec	2,268 m/sec
Valkyrie II	4,200 + 3,000 m	1,044 rad/sec	49,92 HP	660 m/sec	3,000 m/sec

Similar to light combat drones, the Amarr and Minmatar drones stand out yet again with a good combination of speed and tracking, so both Valkyrie II and Infiltrator II drones are good for assaults and up, where you're shooting mostly battleships and cruisers. And again the Amarr Infiltrator II drones pull out ahead with a nice mix resulting in a slightly better applied dps, just like their smaller brethren the Acolyte II drones.

So our recommended drones for assaults are the Infiltrator II drones.

Heavy drones

Drones	Weapon range	Tracking	Damage	Orbit speed	MWD speed
Praetor II	4,800 + 5,000 m	0,756 rad/sec	107,52 HP	384 m/sec	1,656 m/sec
Ogre II	4,200 + 5,000 m	0,540 rad/sec	122,88 HP	300 m/sec	1,200 m/sec
Wasp II	4,800 + 5,000 m	0,642 rad/sec	115,20 HP	336 m/sec	1,350 m/sec
Berserker II	4,200 + 5,000 m	0,852 rad/sec	99,84 HP	420 m/sec	1,800 m/sec
Gecko	4,800 + 5,000 m	0,850 rad/sec	131,20 HP	400 m/sec	1,820 m/sec

Heavy drones are mostly used in headquarter sites for brawlers, who move into position and literally try to jump the enemy where they spawn. They can also be used for bashing towers or the mothership in The Kundalini Manifest site.

There's no clearcut winner for heavy drones, but in general you could say the Gecko is a solid option if you need mobility and the Ogre II if you're looking to push out the most damage with max skills. The lower your skills are, the more favourable the Gecko becomes overall, seeing as it gives you a solid performance even with mediocre skills.

Sentry drones

Drones	Weapon range	Tracking	Damage
Curator II	42,000 + 12,000 m	0,0276 rad/sec	102,4 HP
Garde II	24,000 + 18,000 m	0,0360 rad/sec	108,8 HP
Warden II	60,000 + 42,000 m	0,0120 rad/sec	89,6 HP
Bouncer II	42,000 + 48,000 m	0,0192 rad/sec	96,0 HP

Sentry drones can be very useful if you sit still in the same position for a prolonged period of time and shoot mostly webbed down cruisers and battleships. Given the amount of elite frigates in vanguards and the amount of moving in assaults and headquarters, they remain very situational.

As to which drone to use, they follow a very simple formula. The more range they get, the less damage and tracking they have, so you often find yourself choosing sentry drones based on how much range you need, only going as far as you need to in order to preserve damage and tracking. This makes the Caldari and Minmatar sentry drones less than ideal due to excessive range at the cost of damage and tracking.

Our recommendation is to pick either Garde II or Curator II depending on how much range is needed, if sentry drones are an option.

Vanguard setups

Below is a standard setup for your tank in our fleets. These fits are probably considered overtanked by many public communities and they are in fact overtanked for the most part. There are several reasons for it, mainly it is for safety, to give us a larger buffer and more leeway to save ships if things go wrong. We are not as concerned about pushing for efficiency above safety.

We also recommend fits that are flexible in terms of being able to do vanguards, assaults and even headquarter sites with the same ship. So some seemingly superfluous rigs are there to enable the ships to just swap out a few midslots and go from vanguards to headquarter sites.

Standard battleship setups

The main goal of these fits are to remain as cheap as possible while still being safe enough to run with minimal skills and rigged in a way that they can easily refit for vanguards as well as assaults and headquarter sites. Staying as cheap as possible is also useful for times of war.

Slots	Regular ships	Resist-bonused ships	Navy / Fleet Issue
	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Freed up mid slot	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Freed up mid slot
	Damage Control II	Freed up low slot	Damage Control II
	Core Defense Field Extender I Core Defense Field Extender I Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Core Defense Field Extender I Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Core Defense Field Extender I Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Resists	69,5%70,0%72,8%77,4%	64,0%71,2%73,9%78,3%	65,2%70,0%72,8%77,4%
	72,8%74,5%76,9%80,8%	69,4%75,5%77,8%81,5%	69,2%74,5%76,9%80,8%
	43,1%44,0%40,0%50,0%	41,2%53,0%49,6%58,0%	35,0%44,0%40,0%50,0%

Regular ships

This fit is intentionally overtanked. It's supposed to be a fit you can run even before you get all your support skills to V, before you've maxed out skills like Shield Management and gotten a decent buffer on your ship. The amplifier isn't quite as effective as the active hardener, but good enough and serves to give some cap relief.

Resist-bonused ships

Ships with resist bonuses like the Rokh, especially if they also have good base shield hit points, can use a different setup to free up a midslot. The resists given are based on a generic 4% resist bonus per level, assuming a ship level of IV. If your skills are low, just leave the damage control on or simply fit your ship like you would a regular ship.

Navy / Fleet Issue

Navy and Fleet Issue ships have much higher base stats than regular ships, so they rarely need the extender rigs to boost their shield hp buffer. Some will still have one, for more flexibility when doing assault and headquarter sites. This variant could be adopted to normal ships as well, unless they have very low base hit points.

Advanced battleship setups

There are several ways to improve your fits, especially with some of the more efficient but costly deadspace modules and tech two rigs. Below are just examples of three common ways to upgrade your tank to free up more slots for additional offensive modules to increase your applied damage.

While it's possible to use these setups on ordinary tech one hulls it makes little sense to put several hundreds of millions, if not billions, worth of deadspace modules and rigs on anything but the efficient pirate faction battleships. Just remember that your best initial upgrade option is still investing in your favourite pirate faction battleship, even if it's just with any of the regular setups with tech one rigs.

Slots	Weighted resists	Balanced resists	All-out offense
	Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Freed up mid slot	Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier Freed up mid slot	Pithum A-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Freed up mid slot Freed up mid slot
	Freed up low slot	Damage Control II	Damage Control II
	Core Defense Field Extender II Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II Freed up rig slot	Core Defense Field Extender II Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II Freed up rig slot	Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I Burst Aerator II Unusable rig slot
Resists	65,8%64,9%73,7%78,1%	72,6%71,1%68,8%74,0%	65,6%62,8%72,1%76,8%
	71,8%71,8%78,9%82,4%	75,6%75,0%73,1%77,6%	71,7%69,4%77,0%80,9%
	35,0%20,0%40,0%50,0%	51,6%48,0%40,0%50,0%	30,0%20,0%40,0%50,0%

Weighted resists

This variant is mostly suited for vanguard and assault sites where the threat of neuting is small and the incoming damage is slightly skewed towards more torpedoes, thus kinetic and explosive resists are slightly more important. The anti-EM rig ensures that in the case of being completely neuted out, you still have at least some EM-resists even if both invulnerability fields gets shut down. Buffing the tank for this kind of setup usually involves a mix of using a second deadspace hardener or a damage control (or even both).

Balanced resists

For sites where heavy neuting is common, like in headquarter and mothership sites, a more balanced setup might be favoured. The damage control module also adds some additional buffer to your armour and structure in case the higher alpha punches through your shields before reps land. The combination of the anti-thermal rig and EM amplifier allows for a high, balanced, resist profile even when completely neuted out. Buffing the tank is as simple as adding a second invulnerability field.

All-out offense

Most commonly used for vanguard sites, this all out offensive setup sacrifices tank for even more gank and utility. While upping your resists for assault and headquarter sites is as simple as adding a second invulnerability field, you'll still be extremely vulnerable to neuting and have a considerably lower buffer due to not having room for a core defense field extender rig.

Assault and Headquarter setups

The significantly higher alpha in assault sites warrants adding a shield extender to your ship. Most ships simply swap out one of their webs for the large shield extender. For headquarter and mothership sites the need to move is also greater, which is why most of these sites requires you to fit a propulsion module as well. While the microwarpdrive is harder to fit and more of a drain on your capacitor, it's always preferred over the afterburner due to the repeated need to quickly travel significant distances.

Interchangeable fits

As mentioned above, our fits are mostly interchangeable so that we can shift focus from vanguards to assaults or higher by changing a few modules. So here are the major differences in what you need added to your fits as you move up the site sizes.

Slots	Assault sites	Headquarter / Mothership sites
	Large Shield Extender II	Large Shield Extender II Prototype 100MN Microwarpdrive I
	Damage Control II	Damage Control II

Recommended implants

Consider having a clone dedicated for doing incursions during peace, with suitable implants, as well as a cheaper clone you can use during war. That way you won't have to risk the expensive implants during war.

There are plenty of implants that are useful for incursion runners, with effects ranging from damage projection (tracking, damage or rate of fire) to fitting/support related effects (increased capacitor, powergrid or CPU).

While one shouldn't run around with a head full of expensive implants during war, there are some rather cheap +3% implants you could use even while at war. A set of 4% implants from the CONCORD Loyalty Point store might also be worth considering, they go for 37,5M ISK and 37,5k CONCORD LP each. When the cost of your clone isn't an issue there are +6% implant variants of these implants that greatly increase your efficiency, but costs 250M ISK and 250k CONCORD LP each and requires Cybernetics V.

Gunnery implants

There are several implants improving damage, rate of fire, tracking. Below are implants that help you regardless which ship you fly as they benefit all turret ships.

Eifyr and Co. 'Gunslinger' Motion Prediction MR-703 (slot 7, +3% turret tracking speed)

Inherent Implants 'Lancer' Gunnery RF-903 (slot 9, +3% rate of fire)

Inherent Implants 'Gunslinger' Surgical Strike SS-903 (slot 9, +3% turret damage)

For Battleships and large guns, the next implant is split across each racial weapon system.

Eifyr and Co. 'Gunslinger' Large Projectile Turret LP-1003 (slot 10, +3% to large projectile weapons)

Inherent Implants 'Lancer' Large Energy Turret LE-1003 (slot 10, +3% to large energy weapons)

Zainou 'Deadeye' Large Hybrid Turret LH-1003 (slot 10, +3% to large hybrid weapons)

For those flying strategic cruisers as their preferred ships, there's an implant for slot 8.

Eifyr and Co. 'Gunslinger' Medium Projectile Turret MP-803 (slot 8, +3% to medium projectiles)

Inherent Implants 'Lancer' Medium Energy Turret ME-803 (slot 8, +3% to medium energy weapons)

Genolution implants

These implants are special and come in limited supply, also potentially too costly to risk having in your head during wartime.

For people without +4 or +5 attribute implants, the Genolution implants can be quite useful.

Genolution Core Augmentation CA-1 (slot 1, increases powergrid and capacitor)

Genolution Core Augmentation CA-2 (slot 4, increases CPU and capacitor)

Genolution Core Augmentation CA-3 (slot 3, increases velocity and shield capacity)

Genolution Core Augmentation CA-4 (slot 2, increases agility and armour hit points)

Capacitor implants

For the less used slots 6 and 8 you haven't got much worthwhile to use in terms of increasing your damage. For those slots you could increase your capacitor if you're flying logistics or a ship with cap-hungry turrets.

Inherent Implants 'Squire' Energy Systems Operation EO-603 (slot 6, decreases capacitor recharge)

Inherent Implants 'Squire' Energy Management EM-803 (slot 8, increases capacitor capacity)

Projectile based ships

These ships have no need for capacitor implants in slot 6 and 8, so you could look for other options. Perhaps the most common ones would be the engineering implant to free up more powergrid for artillery or microwarpdrives for the larger sites and locking range.

For slot 6 you got quite a few options of implants:

Inherent Implants 'Squire' Engineering EG-603 (slot 6, increases your powergrid)

Zainou 'Gypsy' Electronics EE-603 (slot 6, increases your CPU)

Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Acceleration Control AC-603 (slot 6, increases your AB/MWD speed increase)

For slot 8 there's very few implants that help with incursions:

Zainou 'Gypsy' Long Range Targeting LT-803 (slot 8, increases locking range)

Mindlink implants

For the boosters, slot 10 is taken up by the mindlink implants.

Republic Fleet Warfare Mindlink (slot 10, +15% shield hp, +15% agility and +25% bonus to siege/skirmish command bonus)

Imperial Navy Warfare Mindlink (slot 10, +15% armour hp, +15% targeting range and +25% bonus to armour/information command bonus)