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 offence.

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.

Shield vs armour doctrines

Incursions can be done with both armour and shield doctrines, but there is a certain game design bias towards shield ships and fits.

• Shield tanking modules are less skill-dependant compared to armour, since the passive armour modules require high armour compensation skills to function effectively.
• Armour tanking modules have much stronger passive resists, allowing them to ensure high resists despite being neuted out. This is more of a benefit for headquarter sites as there are more neuting capable ships there, unlike vanguards where the neuting risk can be removed reliably.
• Remote shield booster modules apply their repairs at the beginning of the cycle, while remote armour repairers apply their repairs at the end of the cycle. This makes it easier to manage sudden aggro-shifts with shield logistics.

In the EVE University Incursion Community we run almost exclusively shield fleets due to the fact that it's slightly faster to train the shield skills.

Omni damage and resists

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.

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.

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 often make or break fleets.

We always use faction ammunition in incursions for the added damage compared to regular tech one ammunition. Certain tech two ammunition is used for specific ships or roles, like Null L for blaster boats or Scorch L for pulse lasers, but most of the time you'll be using faction ammunition since it does not suffer the tracking or range penalties most short range tech two ammunitions do.

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	Utility drones
Sensor Booster II Federation Navy Stasis Webifier Tracking Computer II Republic Fleet Target Painter	Large S95a Remote Shield Booster Large 'Regard' Capacitor Transmitters Auto Targeting System I Drone Link Augmentor I	Heavy Shield Maintenance Bot I Medium Shield Maintenance Bot I Light Shield Maintenance Bot I Light Armor Maintenance Bot 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. They are sometimes only needed on dronebunnies or to push your locking range.

Utility highs are selected based on individual ship needs or what type of logistics you have. A fleet with scimitars will often focus on remote shield boosters on battleships with utility highs for emergencies, unless individual ships require a cap chain in order to have enough cap (like certain nightmare fits). A fleet with basilisks might need a few spare remote capacitor transmitters amongst their damage dealers, in case one of the basilisks disconnects and they need someone else to establish a cap chain with. The auto targeting module (extra locks) and drone link augmentor (to push drone control range far enough to reach enemies where they spawn) are rare options, but used in case you don't need more remote shield boosters or remote capacitor transmitters.

As for utility drones, you have the choice of replacing some of your damage dealing drones with maintenance bots, or carry both, for emergencies.

Supporting short or long range setups

The priority for certain utility modules change depending on your setup. If you're fighting mostly within web range, webs themselves end up giving you far more applied damage than tracking computers do. On top of that, they benefit everyone who's shooting that target and not just you. But if you're engaging primarily at range, outside web range, a web is utterly useless and you benefit more from a target painter or local tracking computers to improve your damage application. While sensor boosters are critical in vanguards, they are less important in assaults and headquarters.

Below are some examples of how you could change your midslots depending on your fleet composition for vanguards.

Short range		Long range
Flexible	Dedicated webber	Flexible	Alpha doctrine
Sensor Booster II Federation Navy Stasis Webifier Federation Navy Stasis Webifier Tracking Computer II	Sensor Booster II Federation Navy Stasis Webifier Federation Navy Stasis Webifier Federation Navy Stasis Webifier	Sensor Booster II Federation Navy Stasis Webifier Republic Fleet Target Painter Tracking Computer II	Sensor Booster II Sensor Booster II Tracking Computer II Tracking Computer II

Standard loadout for the EVE University Incursion Community

In the EVE University Incursion Community we focus primarily on the ability to get rid of warp disrupt capable ships, which are mostly frigates. That means we require a Sensor Booster II on all battleships, to both improve locking times on frigates, but also to allow them to lock up the logistics in case of an emergency. Since we cater to low skilled pilots and people new to incursions, we also focus a lot on having at least one Federation Navy Stasis Webifier on all the damage dealers in fleet, to ensure that we have more than enough webs to go around.

Additional utility midslots are recommended to be filled like this:

• Maelstroms and Rokhs fit a Republic Fleet Target Painter or a second Federation Navy Stasis Webifier.
• Nightmares and Machariels fit a Republic Fleet Target Painter and fill out the rest with Tracking Computers.
• Vindicators fit more Federation Navy Stasis Webifiers and perhaps a Tracking Computer.

When in doubt, just follow the recommended fits on the Vanguard and Assault fitting pages or ask your fleet commander for advice. See Anatomy of Incursions for more information on how you can change these modules around for different tactics based on your fleet composition.

Drones

Drones can be a tremendous asset, 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.

Drone choice

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

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.

For examples of these setups, see the advanced fits section below.

Electromagnetic or thermal rig

In general the electromagnetic rig will free up more midslots, but tends to require fancier deadspace modules to compensate for the overall lower resists. The thermal rig gives you a stronger and more flexible tank without having to rely on the high-end deadspace modules, at the cost of not being able to free up as many midslots.

Defence or offence

Going for offence means that you're limited to a single tech one resist rig in combination to your burst rig, due to the high calibration cost of the tech two damage rig (a tech one burst rig wouldn't work due to stacking penalties). Choosing a more defensive setup will allow you to fit a tech two resist rig as well as making full use of the other two rigs. The offensive rigs are usually much cheaper than the defensive ones, but since the offensive setup usually has to up the quality of their deadspace modules to get a comparable resist profile, they're often forced to use higher tiered deadspace mods.

Flexibility vs efficiency vs cost

Given the different needs for tank and utility modules between the different type of sites, most incursion communities go for the most efficient rig setup for the kind of sites they are running. A community running vanguards exclusively often have different setups than those who run headquarters only. Communities that push for high-end fits with expensive deadspace modules usually have different rig selections too, since those stronger modules opens up for a few more options.

Going for the most efficient setup is of course always going to be the strongest way to do it, but sometimes you have to be practical. In our case, within our community, we factor in flexibility and cost a lot more. We want our members to be able to use the same ship for any type of site without having to resort to spending billions on faction and deadspace modules. That doesn't stop people who want to from doing it, but it does mean that some of our recommended fits will differ quite a lot from that of public communities.

See fit progression for an example of how your efficiency and flexibility is increased (with additional midslots) going from the cheapest setup to more costly ones.

Determining a proper tank

There are a few easy ways to determine whether a tank is ok or not. Below are some key aspects that help when you're testing your ship in your favourite third-party fitting tool or if you've taken on the role of waitlist manager and need to quickly gauge whether the fit someone x up with is ok or not.

Resist holes

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. Plugging a hole is usually a simple matter of adding a resist rig or a combination of a rig and a shield amplifier, then up the resists in general by using one or two invulnerability fields.

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.
Scimitar	75%60%40%50%	No resist holes.
Basilisk	0%80%70%50%	An EM hole.

Effective shield hit points

You can judge your tank by many means, but for Incursions the best way to measure your tank is to look at effective shield hit points (ESHP), 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 armour 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 ESHP. You also need to factor in things like speed and signature, because a smaller ship that is orbiting will be a lot harder to hit than a large, stationary ship. So don't casually compare a ship's effective shield hit points against another without taking that into your consideration.

Shield hit points and resists

While the above mentioned effective shield 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 -- Shield hit points and resists. It's much easier to just ask the pilot "How many raw shield hit points do you have?" and "What are your resists if you undock and turn on all your modules?". 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

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 shield hit points and paired average resists (EM/thermal and kinetic/explosive), values before boosts for easy comparison.

	Vanguards (33k+ effective shield hit points) 70% resists and at least 10,000 raw shield hit points.
	Assaults (40k+ effective shield hit points) 70% resists and at least 12,000 raw shield hit points.
	Headquarters (52k+ effective shield hit points + 100k effective hit points in total) 73% resists and at least 14,000 raw shield hit points.

Naturally lower shield hit points is doable if you adjust your resists accordingly. In vanguards and assaults it's also possible to drop a little lower in really good fleets. Just remember that resists are far more important than raw shield 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		30% more damage (39% damage taken)
64% resists		20% more damage (36% damage taken)
67% resists		10% more damage (33% damage taken)
70% resists		Baseline damage (30% damage taken)
73% resists		10% less damage (27% damage taken)
76% resists		20% less damage (24% damage taken)
79% resists		30% less damage (21% damage taken)

Stacking penalties and offgrid 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. This of course means they also have more to lose if boosts go down, which is worth noting.

Further down this page you'll see examples of this with the advanced setups. If you pay attention to the normal resist profiles vs the resist profile with command bursts you'll see that the electromagnetic rig setup for vanguards for example has a deceptively low EM/thermal resist, averaging around 62% instead of the recommended 70%. This would suggest nearly +30% more damage taken from turret damage, as your resists are almost 9% lower (see the graph above). But due to less stacking penalties that setup ends up having roughly ~68% average EM/thermal resists after boosts which is fairly close to the 72% of our recommended fits and will eventually only take +10% more damage from turrets, while taking torpedoes just fine.

This is then further compensated by pirate faction hulls (which this expensive setup should be used on) who overall have much lower signatures. The signature difference is at the very least 22% between the highest signature pirate faction hull (Vindicator) and the lowest signature regular battleship (Maelstrom), thus pirate faction hulls take reduced damage from missiles thanks to their much lower signature. The Nightmare and Machariel have even smaller signatures, meaning they take even less damage.

Upgrade priorities

The EVE University Incursion Community doesn't require unistas to use fancy hulls and modules or put expensive implants into your head due to the constant threat of war. Pilots who take the necessary precautions are of course allowed to, but should do so of their own free will being aware of the risk.

There are a lot of ways to spend ISK on your incursion character in order to improve your performance, be that buying a pirate faction battleship, getting faction and deadspace modules or injecting implants into your head. Some of these options are more effective than others, so before you start "throwing ISK at the problem" with wild abandon ... take a moment to consider your options.

Buying a pirate faction battleship

In almost all cases, upgrading your hull should be your first goal if you're looking to invest more ISK. Generally speaking for hisec, while faction and deadspace modules are great, pirate faction hulls often give superior bonuses without inflating the value of droppable modules fit to your ship. In the case of Incursions specifically, the matter comes down to the pirate faction battleships having two damage bonuses and powerful role bonuses (instead of having an offensive and a defensive bonus), plus much better overall ship stats such as align time.

Below is a list of some of the differences (relevant to incursions) for a Vindicator compared to a Hyperion and a Machariel compared to a Maelstrom. The same kind of vast improvement is found when upgrading to a Nightmare as well, even though it doesn't have a direct tech one ship to compare it to.

Improvements	Hyperion » Vindicator	Maelstrom » Machariel
Effective turrets	+22,2% more damage	+9,4% more damage
Tracking speed	+37,5% more tracking	Similar
Turret falloff	Similar	+50% more falloff
Capacitor recharge	+14,3% capacitor recharge	+4,7% capacitor recharge
Shield hit points	+16,7% more shield hp	+16,5% more shield hp
Signature	17,5% smaller signature	23,9% smaller signature
Targeting range	20,8% longer lock range	Similar
Drone capacity	-25 m3 drone bay	+25 m3 drone bay
Scan resolution	-9,1% scan resolution	+38,9% scan resolution
Warp speed	Similar	+1 AU/s warp speed
Inertia	+29,7% more agile	+29,4% more agile

Faction and deadspace modules

First of all, remember that getting a pirate faction hull is always going to give you better applied damage (and often many other advantages) compared to spending ISK on faction and deadspace modules. With the exception of the Federation Navy Stasis Webifier and tech two weapons, it is recommended that you get a better hull long before you look into upgrading modules.

The best module to start upgrading is usually the Invulnerability Field, as it frees up additional mid-slots which can be used to further augment your applied damage. See fit progression for examples of how Pithum deadspace variants changes your fit.

After that there are still many ways to use faction or deadspace modules to vastly improve the efficiency of your incursion ship. Some of these modules are cheap and might not be too much of a concern, but others are worth quite a bit of ISK and a second thought is warranted if you consider getting them. The cost of improving your efficiency rises exponentially as well, so while the first round of upgrades might be very cost-efficient, taking it one step further will quickly put you in a position where you're literally throwing ISK away for minor improvements.

Consider the actual benefit you will get from upgrading a certain module. Getting a deadspace hardener is useful for most ships as it frees up a midslot (or two) and potentially a lowslot as well. But a faction tracking computer or a sensor booster might make sense for public fleets built to compete, but for our community that is hardly a worthwhile investment.

What do you get in return?

To put this into perspective you need to factor in stacking penalties. If you're just using one module to a given effect, it's easy to calculate and see the difference, but when you have more intricate combinations where things end up 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th in the stacking hierarchy, it might be a little harder to see what you get out of it.

Worthwhile investments

Here's a list of some modules that are worth upgrading. While some give a larger effect, they all contribute enough to warrant their cost. That said, just because the A-type is very efficient doesn't mean everyone should get one, as you can often get by with a B- or even a C-type for certain fits. At the same time, even though faction damage modules give a relatively small increase, they are often worth it because there is nothing better to use and every scrap of increased damage helps.

Module	Benefit
	1 x Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field is 35,42% stronger than an Adaptive Invulnerability Field II (top of the hierarchy ) 1 x Pithum B-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field is 45,83% stronger than an Adaptive Invulnerability Field II (top of the hierarchy ) 1 x Pithum A-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field is 46,875% stronger than an Adaptive Invulnerability Field II (top of the hierarchy )
	1 x Federation Navy Tracking Computer is 3,85% stronger than a Tracking Computer II. 2 x Federation Navy Tracking Computers are 7,43% stronger (top of the hierarchy ). 2 x Federation Navy Tracking Computers are 5,97% stronger (if you get a link ).
	1 x Serpentis Sensor Booster is 3,12% stronger than a Sensor Booster II. 2 x Serpentis Sensor Boosters are 6,07% stronger (top of the hierarchy ). 2 x Serpentis Sensor Boosters are 5,04% stronger (if you get a resebo ).
	1 x Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizer is 2,27% more effective compared to Magnetic Field Stabilizer II  4 x Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizers are 6,45% stronger (top of the hierarchy ). 4 x Federation Navy Magnetic Field Stabilizers are 4,36% stronger (if you have a T2 burst rig) ).

Module variants and price deviations

When you're shopping for faction or deadspace modules, check all equivalent variants for price deviations. For example, the Federation Navy Tracking Computer is identical in all but the name to the Shadow Serpentis Tracking Computer and their prices fluctuate over time, so use the Show Info and Compare-feature ingame to find potential alternatives and you might save millions.

Questionable investments

These modules fall into the category of "more ISK than sense", as they give very little or in some cases no actual improvement.

Module	Benefit
	1 x Republic Fleet Tracking Enhancer is only 0,46% stronger than a Tracking Enhancer II. 2 x Republic Fleet Tracking Enhancers are only 0,67% stronger (2nd and 3rd in the hierarchy ). 2 x Republic Fleet Tracking Enhancers are only 0,41% stronger (3rd and 4th in the hierarchy) ).

Injecting implants

There are plenty of hardwiring 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) and warp speed. The bonuses from implants do not suffer stacking penalties, thus even the +3% variants are quite potent and cheap enough to use even while at war due to the low risk of actually losing your pod.

The best hardwiring implants (apart from officer implants) come from the CONCORD Loyalty Point store and give a +6% bonus but require Cybernetics V. Implants are available for all skills and wallets however, ranging from the 1%, 3% and 5% implants of normal LP stores to the CONCORD specific 2%, 4% and 6% implants.

As with all things, do your research and see if it's cheaper to simply buy it off of the market instead of getting it yourself from the LP store. See hardwiring implants for a full list of available implants.

Suitable implants for times of war

Consider having a clone dedicated for doing incursions during peace as well as a cheaper clone you can use during war.

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.

Recommended implants

Given the focus on applied damage in incursions, most of our recommended implants will be in that group. The numbers after the - denotes the slot it uses. For example the Motion Prediction MR-703 implant occupies slot 7 and gives a 3% bonus. The bonus is omitted in this table as people will get different bonuses based on their skills and budget.

Gunnery implants	Capacitor implants
Motion Prediction MR-7 (turret tracking) Gunnery RF-9 (turret rate of fire) Large Projectile Turret LP-10 (damage) Large Energy Turret LE-10 (damage) Large Hybrid Turret LH-10 (damage)	Engineering EG-6  (powergrid) Acceleration Control AC-6  (AB/MWD speed) Capacitor Systems Operation EO-6 (capacitor recharge) Capacitor Management EM-8 (capacitor capacity) Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link [8]  (AB/MWD speed)

There are also some special implants like Inquest 'Eros' Stasis Webifier MR-807 that improves web range, which can sometimes be useful in vanguards to get that extra range on your webs.

Implant sets

Apart from hardwiring implants occupying slot 6 through 10, you can also use special implant sets using slot 1 through 6 (slot 1 through 5 being the usual attribute implant slots). The genolution set can be used to give various boosts to your ships capabilities while the ascendancy set (comes in mid- and high-grade variants) only has a niche use in communities flying special doctrines based on improved warp speed.

Genolution set (fitting/support)	Ascendancy set (warp speed)
Genolution Core Augmentation CA-1 [1] (pg, cap & perception) Genolution Core Augmentation CA-4 [2] (agility, armour & memory) Genolution Core Augmentation CA-3 [3] (velocity, shield & willpower) Genolution Core Augmentation CA-2 [4] (CPU, cap & intelligence)	Ascendancy Alpha [1] (warp speed & perception) Ascendancy Beta [2] (warp speed & memory) Ascendancy Gamma [3] (warp speed & willpower) Ascendancy Delta [4] (warp speed & intelligence) Ascendancy Epsilon [5] (warp speed & charisma) Ascendancy Omega [6]  (set bonus)

Battleship setups

Below are some examples of tank setups for battleships; both the setups we use for our minimum fits as well as some advanced ones for high-end ships. The sections show the variance between tanking features of the ship, notably midslots but also rigs or other in-built resistances.

In order to highlight the transition of each type of fit from vanguards to headquarters, each setup will not only show the vanguard fit in question, but also how it works if you take off some tank as well as what's needed to make that setup work for assaults and headquarters.

Minimum setup

This is the minimum skill setup that we use within our community for vanguard and assault fits. It is designed to be cheap and flexible enough to be useful in a variety of different sites. For assaults and headquarters, we often use a Large Shield Extender II to ensure that everyone has enough buffer, even with the minimum skills we require.

This assumes our minimum skills so the EM resist can be up to 2% higher with  EM Shield Compensation V instead of III.

Slots	Vanguard (less tank)	Vanguard	Assault	Headquarter
	Freed up mid slot Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II	Freed up mid slot Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II	Large Shield Extender II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II	Large Shield Extender II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier
	Freed up low slot	Damage Control II	Damage Control II	Damage Control II
	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II
	65,2%65,7%69,0%74,1%	69,5%70,0%72,8%77,4%	69,5%70,0%72,8%77,4%	71,9%72,1%72,8%77,4%
	67,3%67,8%72,8%77,3%	71,4%71,8%76,2%80,1%	71,4%71,8%76,2%80,1%	73,6%73,8%76,2%80,1%

Resist bonused ships

Ships like the  Rokh with resist bonuses can fit slightly different due to their higher base resistances.

This assumes our minimum skills so the various resist can go up by 1 - 3% higher with  Caldari Battleship V instead of III and additional EM resist can be gained by training  EM Shield Compensation V.

Slots	Vanguard (less tank)	Vanguard	Assault	Headquarter
	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II Freed up mid slot	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II Freed up mid slot	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II EM Ward Amplifier II
	Freed up low slot	Damage Control II	Damage Control II	Damage Control II
	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
	63,0%63,6%63,0%69,2%	67,6%68,1%67,7%73,0%	73,2%73,6%76,1%80,1%	73,2%73,6%76,1%80,1%
	67,6%68,1%70,0%75,0%	71,6%72,0%73,7%78,1%	74,8%75,2%79,0%82,5%	74,8%75,2%79,0%82,5%

Advanced fits

While there are several ways to fit high-end ships for incursions depending on your choice of rigs (see the rigging choice section above), here are some frequently used variants.

Calibration

Due to calibration point limits there are several combinations, but here are three common ones that capitalize on either offence, defence or warp speed.

Slots	Offensive	Defensive	Warp speed
	Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I Large Hybrid Burst Aerator II	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II Spare rig slot Spare rig slot	Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II Large Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II Spare rig slot
SUM	350/350 (0 points left)	75/350 (275 points left)	150/350 (200 points left)

Filling up the spare rig slots is a matter of figuring out what rig benefits you the most, based on the type of fleet compositions you run, what kind of ship you fly and if a rig can in some way help you free up a low- or midslot. If you need more range use a Locus Coordinator II rig (150 points), if you need more shield hit points use a Core Defense Field Extender II rig (75 points) and if you need more cap use either a Capacitor Control Circuit II rig (150 points) or a Discharge Elutriation II rig (150 points).

Just remember that any offensive rig you fit on your ship needs to be tech two, otherwise it'll end up at the end of stacking penalties and that will render it completely useless.

Thermal rig

The thermal rig setup is primarily a more defensive setup, used for even resists with the ability to really push the resists up. The downside of this setup is that you're forced to use two midslots and cannot drop down to one midslot for vanguards without taking some serious hits to your overall resists, even if you add a Damage Control II instead. Depending on what other rigs you use, you'll have enough calibration points to upgrade to a tech two anti-thermal rig further increasing your tank.

This assumes our minimum skills so the EM resist can be up to 2% higher with  EM Shield Compensation V instead of III.

Slots	Vanguard (much less tank)	Vanguard	Assault	Headquarter	Headquarter (alternative)
	Freed up mid slot Freed up mid slot Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier	Freed up mid slot Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier	Freed up mid slot Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier	Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier	Freed up mid slot Pithum A-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Pithum A-Type EM Ward Amplifier
	Damage Control II	Freed up low slot	Damage Control II	Damage Control II	Damage Control II
	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
	54,1%51,0%47,5%56,2%	66,0%64,9%64,4%70,3%	70,3%69,3%68,8%74,0%	75,4%74,5%77,0%80,8%	75,0%72,5%72,1%76,8%
	62,7%60,2%58,8%65,7%	70,2%69,2%71,1%75,9%	73,9%73,1%74,7%78,9%	76,9%76,1%79,8%83,2%	78,1%75,9%77,3%81,1%

Electromagnetic rig

The EM rig setup is primarily used to free up as many slots are possible, but requires you to spend considerably more ISK on deadspace hardeners and will still have slightly lower EM and thermal resists for vanguard fits compared to the others, but that is offset by the larger buffer, smaller signature of the pirate faction battleships this setup should be fitted to and the fact it takes less damage from missiles due to comparably higher kinetic and explosive resists.

Slots	Vanguard (less tank)	Vanguard	Assault	Headquarter
	Freed up mid slot Freed up mid slot Pithum B-Type Adaptive Invuln ...	Freed up mid slot Freed up mid slot Pithum B-Type Adaptive Invuln ...	Freed up mid slot Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Pithum B-Type Adaptive Invuln ...	Freed up mid slot Pithum B-Type Adaptive Invuln ... Pithum B-Type Adaptive Invuln ...
	Freed up low slot	Damage Control II	Damage Control II	Damage Control II
	Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I	Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
	58,4%55,0%66,3%71,9%	63,6%60,6%70,5%75,4%	69,8%70,9%78,2%81,8%	74,7%75,6%81,7%84,7%
	63,5%63,4%72,6%77,1%	68,1%68,0%76,0%80,0%	80,0%75,2%81,4%84,5%	76,3%78,6%83,9%86,6%

Strategic cruisers and command ships

While a lot of communities avoid strategic cruisers and command ships due to the fact that their damage output cannot match that of pirate faction battleships, we still allow them as they can easily match the efficiency of tech one battleships. As such, we welcome properly fit strategic cruisers and command ships in our community, as they are good enough for our purposes and we don't benefit from alienating people who prefer to fly smaller ships.

Just be sure to inform people that if they have plans to fly with public communities, they will most likely need to train into a proper battleship.

Different resist profiles

One of the biggest differences fitting strategic cruisers and command ships compared to battleships is that they have a different resist profile. They are also much smaller in signature, especially the strategic cruisers, so won't need the same raw buffer of shield hit points either. As such, the solution could range from anything between a thermal and EM hardener for the Legion to a mere anti-EM rig on the Tengu or an invulnerability field for the Sleipnir.

Ship	Base resist profile	Comments
Astarte / Proteus	0%60%85%50%	An EM hole.
Legion	0%20%70%87,5%	An EM hole and weak thermal resists.
Loki	80%60%52%60%	No resist holes.
Sleipnir	75%60%40%50%	No resist holes.
Tengu	20%84%76%60%	Weak EM resists.
Vulture	0%80%70%50%	An EM hole.