Dreadnoughts

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See also: Capital Ships

Dreadnoughts ("dreads") are DPS machines, only surpassed as damage-dealers by Supercarriers and Titans. Only dreads can fit a siege module. Each empire faction has one dreadnought hull:

Following the general theme of the factions the Revelation and Phoenix have a bonus resists. The Moros and Naglfar on the other hand have a bonus to repairs. All of them have a bonus to their intented weapon system. Besides above hulls the following pirate faction hulls exist:

The blueprint copy for the Vehement can be bought with Serpentis LP. The blueprint copies for the Chemosh and Caiman can drop from the Sotiyos of the corresponding faction. This means they are relatively expensive and rare. As dreadnoughts cannot receive remote repairs while in siege they only have very niche use besides being collector items.

The Siege Module

The siege module exists in a T1 and T2 variant and has the following effects when activated:

  • 150% Torpedo velocity bonus
  • 80% bonus to XL Launcher rate of fire
  • 165% missile damage bonus (Tech II: 200%)
  • 700% turret damage bonus (Tech II: 840%)
  • -90% Rapid Torpedo Launcher Bonus
  • -100% maximum velocity
  • 2 x High Angle Turret Damage Bonus
  • 100% shield booster/armor repairer amount bonus
  • -50% shield booster/armor repairer duration
  • 60% sensor dampener resistance bonus (Tech II: 70%)
  • 80% remote assistance impedance
  • 60% weapon disruption resistance bonus (Tech II: 70%)
  • 100% remote repair impedance

The siege module's cycle time is 5 minutes, and it requires 250 - (level of Icon skillbook2.png Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration * 25) Strontium Clathrates ("stront"). While it's active the dread can't warp, jump, move in any way. With the siege module a dreadnought can reach almost five thousand DPS even in a long range fit.

Dreadnought Tactics

This section aims to explain some usages of dreadnoughts. It doesn’t aim to be exhaustive and couldn’t be as people always find new applications and some niche cases are not interesting enough. While dreadnoughts are used in PvE (especially in high class wormhole space), it shall not be discussed here.

Besides the siege module the use of dreads is heavily defined by their weapon systems. For each empire faction dread three different types of turrets/missile launcher exist. Short-range, long-range and high angle weapons (HAW). The short and long-range weapon’s application is so low that they cannot efficiently deal damage to sub capital ships. HAWs on the other hand have much better application which is nearly or as good as their battleship counterparts.

HAW Dreads

HAW dreads are used to fight sub capitals. You usually fit a local tank HAW dreads. Such a local tank can typically tank around 10k EHP/s but can go up to as much as 30k EHP/s. Of course, the exact amount varies with the fit. Armor dreadnoughts (Revelation and Moros) must mostly chose between DPS and tank. Shield dreadnoughts (Phoenix and Naglfar) must mostly chose between tank, tackle (warp disruptor) and application (web, grappler, target painter). The typical DPS of a HAW dread is between 2k and 3k with short range ammunition but can exceed that.

The usage of HAW dreads is widely varied. From changing a sub capital fight over QRFs in your own space to even solo roaming. Thus, the exact fits vary a lot, too.

The easiest way to kill HAW dreads are other capitals as it’s not especially difficult to apply more DPS than a dread can repair with a few capitals (exact number depends of course on the capitals and the dread’s fit). Even a medium sized sub capital fleet often has trouble to break the tank of a dread. At the same time, it is a challenge to tank the DPS of a HAW dread in sub capitals especially if it’s more than one. EWAR options are limited through the bonuses of the siege module as it makes a dread immune to ECM and gives resists towards damps and tracking disruption. The usually way to go is to apply energy neutralization which makes the dread tank less.

Anti capital dreads and dread bombs

Anti-capital dreads are usually buffer fitted. The idea is to either end siege and extract before you die or to buy other ships time to kill things. For that you usually fit an Emergency Hull Energizer which increases the hull resist a lot for 16.5 seconds. Thus, buying valuable extra time.

Every big nullsec alliance usually has recommended fits for this case and might require people to use a certain hull. Even if you are not in such an alliance, you can easily find out those fits if you search for dread losses on zkill.

The guns are usually short range to achieve high DPS which is usually at about 10k per dread. Revelations are popular as they can easily switch ammunition and the Scorch ammunition makes it possible to deal high damage even at big ranges. But Revelations are locked into EM/thermal damage. Naglfars can chose their damage but have a bit less tank than Revelations. Moros have the highest damage on paper, but their range is short in comparison with the others. Anti capital dreads can be used in various contexts. From a drop on a single carrier with only a single or few dreads. Over a drop on a FAX supporting a subcap fleet. To big dread bomb to kill super carriers or titans.

Until recently the opinion was, that a dread bomb doesn’t trade favorably against a super capital fleet.[1] This meant that dread bombs were deployed either against a single vulnerable target in the hope to extract before help arrives or when a super fight is already in progress. This probably also triggered the changes to remote reps[2] which reduced the overall repair amount especially for FAXs in big fleets. If pure dread fleets can trade favourable with super capital fleets after those changes remains to be seen.

Structure Bashing

The high DPS of the dreadnought means that they are good to bash things. If the structure is defended the dread is also vulnerable as the siege module pins it down. So, it’s usually used if you either don’t expect anyone to show up for the defense (for example for the first ref outside of the opponent’s time zone) or if you are confident that you can counter drop on anyone who might drop on you.

References