Battlecruisers

Battlecruisers are larger, slower and have more slots than cruisers, but they're smaller than battleships and fit the same medium-sized weapons that cruisers use. They occupy a position between cruisers and battleships analogous to destroyers' position between frigates and cruisers, although battlecruisers are much more versatile and widely-used than destroyers.

T1 Battlecruisers

In PvP Tech 1 battlecruisers represent a good balance between DPS, tanking, agility, speed and cost (they cost much less to lose than a battleship). Battlecruisers can be fitted for long or short range PvP combat. In large-scale alliance battles in nullsec they are often part of each side's 'support fleet', defending the main battleship fleet from attack.

In PvE Tech 1 battlecruisers are the standard tool for completing Level 3 combat missions. Several battlecruisers can mount passive shield tanks ideal for PvE combat; the Caldari Drake can mount an absolutely exceptional passive shield tank.

Battlecruisers also have the ability to fit a single warfare link, which can give extra bonuses to your gang. Warfare links will be described in more detail in the section below on command ships.

One battlecruiser from each of the four factions (the Oracle, Naga, Talos, and Tornado) is capable of mounting battleship-sized (i.e. large) weapons (as opposed to the medium-sized weapons normally mounted by battlecruisers). These battlecruisers can therefore deal almost as much damage as a battleship, but with a much weaker tank, and are often referred to as "tier 3" battlecruisers (not to be confused with Tech 3 Strategic Cruisers; the "tier" nomenclature is a relic of the way ships were designed before the tiericide).

Amarr

• Prophecy: Can tank better than some battleships. Usually bait. Low dps.
• Harbinger: High DPS, can tank well. Can be fast when it isn't loaded down with armor plates. Very cap-dependant, since it uses lasers.
• Oracle: Able to fit Battleship-sized lasers. Most often used as snipers fit for amazing alpha. A bit slower compared to the other Tier 3's.

Caldari

• Ferox: Hybrid turret gunboat. Not very popular.
• Drake: Amazing passive shield tank for PvE combat (with low dps). Alternatively, good PvP dps when fitted with Heavy Assault Missiles. Drakes are often bait in PvP.
• Naga: Battleship-sized hybrid turret platform, favoring railguns, forgoing the normally impressive tank of its brethren. Easiest battlecruiser to fit for sniper combat.

Gallente

• Brutix: Blaster gunboat, high point-blank dps, usually not well tanked. Sometimes mounts a PvP shield buffer tank for speed and to clear lowslots for damage mods.
• Myrmidon: Versatile drone boat. Usually mounts an active armor tank. Can also mount a passive shield tank.
• Talos: Blasterboat toting Battleship-grade guns. Next to no tank, making it very risky to fly into close quarters combat that blasters normally favor.

Minmatar

• Cyclone: Respectable dps, bonuses for active shield tanking.
• Hurricane: High dps and high speed. Can mount an active armor tank, buffer armor or shield tanks, or even a passive shield tank.
• Tornado: Minmatar's Battleship gun toter. Fastest of the Tier 3's, usually fit with high alpha artillery racks.

T2 Battlecruisers

Command Ships

In addition to being overall stronger versions of the original Tech 1 battlecruisers command ships get significant bonuses to the effectiveness of Warfare Link modules. Each race's bonus applies to two of the four link types.

• Amarr command ships (Absolution and Damnation) receive bonuses to Armor and Information links
• Caldari command ships (Nighthawk and Vulture) receive bonuses to Information and Siege links
• Gallente command ships (Astarte and Eos) receive bonuses to Armor and Skirmish links
• Minmatar command ships (Claymore and Sleipnir) receive bonuses to Siege and Skirmish links

The effects of the links are only passed on to fleet members if the pilot of the command ship is assigned an appropriate boosting role in a fleet and the leadership roles up to and including the level of the boosting role are filled by appropriately skilled pilots.

The bonuses granted by each of the available links (excluding mining links) are described below.

Armor/Siege links:

1. Armor/shield resist bonus (stacking penalized with resist mods on the ship)
2. Armor/shield repper (both local and remote) cycle time reduction
3. Armor/shield repper (both local and remote) cap use reduction (combine 2 and 3 to get RRs with lower cycle time, but same cap use/second as before)

Skirmish:

1. Increase speed mod of afterburners and MWDs, so you go faster with them activated.
2. Increase the range of warp disruptors/scramblers and webs. HIC points do not receive this bonus.
3. Lower signature radius of all ships in gang, making them harder to hit and lock.

Information:

1. Boost the strength of EW mods, like ecm and damps
2. Increase range of EW mods
3. Increase sensor strength (possibly stacking penalized with ECCM) and lock range

When used on an appropriately bonused ship flown by a properly skilled pilot who (optimally) has the appropriate warfare mindlink implanted warfare links are capable of acting as immense force multipliers that enable fleets to take and win fights that, without access to links, they would never be able to. The major hurdle to being able to benefit from this awesomeness is that getting the required skills to the appropriate levels in order to provide good fleet boosts takes several months of focused training in order to use the links, in addition to all the other skills required to be able to sit in and effectively fly a command ship in PvP.