Capital ships
Capital ships -- Dreadnaughts, Carriers, Supercarriers ("Motherships"), Titans and Rorquals -- can't use gates, and Supercarriers and Titans can't even dock. Instead they use their own jump drives to travel around. In order to do this, they require fuel (racial isotopes: Helium for Amarr, Oxygen for Gallente and the Rorqual, Nitrogen for Caldari and Hydrogen for Minmatar) and a cynosural field to jump to. Jump Freighters and Black Ops battleships also require a cyno field to use their jump drives, but they can use gates as well, while Black Ops have the unique ability to lock onto a covert cyno field too.
Cynos cannot be lit in highsec, so capitals can't go there. It was, however, once possible to build capitals there, so there are still a few that never jumped out of the system they were built in. If they ever do jump out, they will never be able to return, and while they're in highsec they are not allowed to be used for anything that gives the owner any kind of advantage compared to someone that does not own a high sec capital ship; during wars, they're not even allowed to undock. If the pilot break these rules, he or she will recieve a temporary ban, and the capital ship will be moved to a station in a nearby low sec system.
Dreadnoughts
If you want pure dps, this used to be as good as it gets, but they have now been surpassed by supercarriers doing 8k dps (10k for the nyx) with max skills and a full flight of fighter bombers, and Titans which can reach similar dps numbers as dreads, but also get a super gun that does 3m damage/shot, but can only be fired once every 10 minutes. Dreads do amazing damage, and can reach almost 5k dps when in siege even in a long range fit. When not sieged though, they generally just match a BS. Their tracking though is extremely bad, so they can basically only hit other caps and POSs/outposts, unless the target isn't moving at all. The exception is the moros, which gets an awesome 50%/level bonus to drone damage and hitpoints, so the drones are lethal for any size of ships, but especially frigs. 5 T2 warriors with a 250% damage bonus before counting drone interfacing and stuff like that will kill any frig, except possibly for an AF (but that will die pretty fast too), in almost no time at all.
The effects of the siege mod (which only dreads can fit) when activated, are:
- -75% scan res
- +625% damage mod
- -50% tracking
- -60% explosion velocity
- -100% speed
- +100% shield boost/armor rep amount
- -50% shield booster/armor rep cycle time
- Can't recieve remote support
- Immunity to EW
- Max amount of targets lockable set to 2
Cycle time is 10 minutes and require 500 - (level of tactical weapon reconfiguration skill)*50 strontium clathrates (stront), during that time you can't move in any way, not even by warping/jumping out.
- Amarr : Revelation
- Caldari : Phoenix
- Gallente : Moros
- Minmatar : Naglfar
Carriers
These are giant logistics platforms. They have the ability to store 1.000.000 m3 of assembled ships in their ship maintenance bay so that people that lose their ship can quickly pick up a new one, and other ships from your corp (or fleet if you have configured your carrier for that) can use you to refit in space. They get a 50%/level range bonus to 2 of the following, varying depending on which racial carrier it is: Capital energy transfer, capital shield transporter and capital remote armor repairers. The amarr archon get cap transfer and armor rep, the gallente thanathos and minmatar nidhoggur get shield and armor and the caldari chimera get cap transfer and shield. In addition to that, all carriers get an additional 5%/level bonus to the following: the Chimera and Archon get a resist bonus (armor for Archon, shield for Chimera), the Nidhoggur get a capital remote rep amount bonus and the Thanatos get a fighter damage bonus. All carriers get the ability to control one extra drone in addition to the normal 5/level of racial carrier and the ability to use fighters (but not fighter bombers). They can't fit any guns or launchers at all, so the high slots are usually used for neuts, smartbombs (drone/small ship defense) and remote reps. However, just like dreads, carriers also get a special module that only they can fit (5 minute cycle): the triage module.
The effects of it are:
- -100% speed
- -100% amount of drones controllable
- +900% scan res
- +4 max targets
- +100% shield boost/armor rep amount (both local and remote)
- -50% shield booster/armor repper cycle time (both local and remote)
- +100% remote hull rep/cap transfer amount
- -50% remote hull rep/cap transer cycle time
- +9999900% EW cap use (all EW mods will therefore take more cap then the ship could ever get, making them impossible to use)
- Immune to EW
- Can't recieve remote support
- Can't jump out or warp away
The triage mod also use stront, just like the siege mod. The amount used per cycle is 250 - 25 * (level of tactical logistics reconfiguration). Carriers and supercarriers can also use warfare links, but just like with battlecruisers and field command ships, they don't get a ship bonus to strength.
Supercarriers
A larger carrier with the ability to use fighter bombers, greatly increasing their dps to roughly twice as much as a sieged dread with a full flight of bombers and max skills. It gets +3 drones/carrier level instead of 1, but it can't dock and it has shorter jump range (equivalent to a dread/jump freighter). However, it is no longer able to triage, but they're always immune to EW anyway due to being a super capital. They can only be tackled by dictors and HICs (well, and anchorable bubbles I guess, but that's not practical due to the anchoring time required before they activate combined with limited range).
Titans
Like supercarriers, they are immune to EW and can only be tackled by dictors and hics. They're all able to fit and activate the largest and most lethal gun in the game: a doomsday device, which does 2-3m damage depending on skills, but can only be fired once/10 minutes, cost 50k racial isotopes to activate, and prevents the titan from moving at all for 30 seconds and it can't use its jump drive for 10 minutes. Activating it takes 10 seconds, so you have some time to get out before the damage is applied, and the range of it is 250 km (aka the hard coded max lock range, nothing can do damage at longer range then that). Titans can also fit a jump bridge module, which works in a similar way to the cov ops jump bridge described above that the black ops use, but this one can bridge any type of ship, has longer range and can only lock on to normal cynos, not cov ops ones. They have bonuses to their racial capital weapons, and after dominion, most titans actually fit them and take part in capital fights. The doomsday device create a very effective counter against people playing docking games with capitals, the 3m damage it does is enough to kill any capital that is not either tanked specifically for that damage type (which is a stupid thing to do, unless you know that a specific titan is ready to jump in and DD someone and want to bait it) or fitted for max ehp. It is possible to tank a capital against every type of DD at once, but it requires completely gimping the fit, loosing damage and range mods on a dread, or the vital cap recharge on a carrier, combined with good leadership bonuses and preferably slave implants. Titans also have the ability to give out great leadership bonuses, even if they don't have any warfare links fitted (they are able to fit 1/titan skill level). Depending on the race of the titan, it gives out 7.5%/titan skill level to armor amount for gallente, shield amount for caldari, cap recharge for amarr and signature radius for minmatar.
Capital Industrial Ships: Rorqual
This ship is primarily intended for mining support with its huge tractor beam range and speed, ability to fit bonused mining leadership links and ability to compress ore. However, it does have a 50%/level range bonus to capital shield transfers, and a 20%/level drone damage bonus, so while it's not intended as a PVP ship, some people have been known to use it for that.
