User:Chris Halsky/Big in Japan

"Here's my comeback on the road again..."

In following guide (and "guide" is a big word - it won't be as detailed as similar guides) I will walk you through my idea of Gila viable for Alpha pilots.

The reason for this guide was lack of concrete information - we always say "Alphas can use Gila for T3", but I haven't seen any fit, guide or testing done to confirm that. It might be available somewhere, but instead of looking I decided to do this myself :) Fun!

Fit description

Fit is based on Povertila - most commonly used Gila for for Abyssal Deadspace. The fit claims that it can run up to T4s, but doesn't mention pilot skills - I assumed minimum SP spent (later section talks about it more), Alpha clone state and not perfect pilot skills. This forced me to modify the fit a bit.

Base

My fit is based on Povertila - you can check it out here: https://abysstracker.com/fit/557cf65f-d8f8-4f46-8205-bebc85c85539

Performance of this fit for Alpha pilots, even with max skills, is not the best. Due to lack of engineering skills the fit is not cap stable - which forces me to run Electrical weather exclusively. That's not bad 'per se', but is a limiting factor that I needed to take into account. I tried to modify this fit as little as possible though, because it means that all guides/strategies will be still valid.

Modifications

Gila: AlphaGila

EFT

[Gila, AlphaGila]
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Drone Link Augmentor I
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher

Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Dread Guristas Shield Boost Amplifier
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Republic Fleet Large Cap Battery
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster

Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
Medium Thermal Shield Reinforcer II

Imperial Navy Infiltrator x9

Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile x5
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Inherent Implants 'Squire' Capacitor Management EM-803 x1
Zainou 'Gypsy' CPU Management EE-603 x1

FITTING DIFFICULTY

EVE VERSION

2024.6.1

ALPHA CAN USE

YES

EFT

SKILLS

NOTES

RECOMMENDED SKILLS

NOTES

Due to fit working only in Electrical weather, and being Alpha-friendly by design, I made following changes:

• Shield Boost Amplifier - changed T2 (which Alphas cannot use) to Faction - increases price a bit, but improves our Tank, which is very good
• Rigs - since we're running Electricals, no need for CCC rigs. Instead we can get more tank
• NOS - I do not like NOS personally. It's not always working, and counting on it is risky. Swapped it to Drone Link Augmentor, which helps with poor Alpha drone range due to lack of skills
• Implants - two 3% Hardwirings: EE-603 is required (can be omitted if you have good skills), EM-803 helps a bit with capacitor. Not strictly required, but always handy
• Meta Launchers - I wanted to limit SP required to fly the fit, and Missiles are not your main DPS - downgrading to Meta is feasible

All this changes make the fit work with skills I have planned, and do not make it 'that' much more expensive :)

Skills

This skill plan is available to all pilots, regardless of clone state.

AlphaGila Skillplan

This skill list is aimed to provide minimum skills that make Gila viable in T3 Abyss. Do NOT downgrade these. Total SP needed for them is around 2.5M SP on top of new character - it is a lot, but well below 5M SP limit for Alphas, so creating new Alpha alt is also feasible.
Expand this box to view a Skill queue to use in-game

CPU Management V
Power Grid Management IV
Capacitor Management IV
Caldari Frigate III
Caldari Destroyer III
Caldari Cruiser IV
Shield Management IV
Shield Operation IV
Shield Compensation IV
Drones V
Medium Drone Operation IV
Drone Durability III
Drone Navigation III
Drone Sharpshooting III
Drone Interfacing III
Drone Avionics III
Gallente Frigate III
Gallente Destroyer III
Gallente Cruiser III
Shield Upgrades IV
Weapon Upgrades IV
Energy Grid Upgrades II
Missile Launcher Operation IV
Missile Projection II
Rapid Launch III
Target Navigation Prediction II
Warhead Upgrades II
Light Missiles IV
Guided Missile Precision II
Missile Bombardment III
Cybernetics II
Hull Upgrades IV
Tactical Shield Manipulation IV
Weapon Upgrades IV
Signature Analysis III
Navigation IV
Evasive Maneuvering III
Thermodynamics III

Strategy

That's a tough one. I have very limited experience, so I can't really give you good guide about flying Gila. For easy rooms approaching biocache and shooting stuff will work. For harder rooms (Battleships, lot of Neuts, hard Sansha/Angel room) you need to manually pilot around - most of the time you either want to get close (BSes) with decent transversal, or when enemies approach you (anything else really) you might delay going to cache to stay at distance for longer.

Another thing is cap management. Even with mroe Neuts the fit behaves well, but keep in mind to switch off your Boosters when they are not needed - after thinning out the wave you can switch off one, before jumping to next room switch the second one - that way your cap will have some time to recharge.

You can also check my runs on youtube - they might give you some ideas how to run these (and there are timestamps in description):
Part 1
Part 2

Snippets about difficult rooms

Amfion Bravais: CONCORD/EDENCOM room can definitely be scary the first few times! My strat for it is: take a moment to get your bearings, start burning in the opposite direction of the battleships (Marshalls/Thunderchildren) immediately. They only apply to ~65km. You can negate their threat pretty easily by sending your drones after them immediately while you pull range. They start damaged, so they falter quickly. While your drones do that work and you're outranging the battleships, you can use your missiles to crack away at the supporting frigates that reach you very quickly. Once you've cleared (enough of them to feel safe/all of) the battleships, you can burn in towards the cache/whatever remains, and use drones+missiles to mop up. EDENCOM/CONCORD room loses most of its teeth once the battleships are gone 🙂

Upgrades

With proper upgrades it is feasible to reach stats good enough to run T4s. It's expensive, much harder, and not 100% tested (yet), so do it at your own risk :)

Fit

First struggle for T4s is DPS. We need absolutely maximum that we can squeeze out of Alpha alt, which means:

• We drop Damage Control, and instead we use Drone Damage Amplifier
• All DDAs are replaced to Faction variant
• Additionally, we swap Meta Launchers to T2 - we really need Fury Missile, in order to beat high EHP rooms fast enough
• Since we got rid of Damage Control, Shield Boosters should be upgraded to Pithum B-type, to recover lost tanking abilities

Implants

We also need extra implants:

• Mid-grade Crystal, Alpha to Delta (minimum) or Epsilon (preferred)
• Slot 6 - CPU implant (???)
• 3% Hardwirings for missile weapons

Skills

You guessed it - we need maximum that we can get. In order of priority:

• T2 Launchers
• Drone support skills
• Launchers support skills
• Everything else