Pilot: Kalhystia
Rank: Guardian Captain
Division: Core Guardians
I had a look into the corporation restructuring tree and I must say that I am impressed, as there are finally opportunities for pilots who aren't active in PvP to evolve and be recognized.
However, I would really like to know more about the Coreli Capital Ship Program (CCSP, caps are good KEKEKE ), and I think that most of the corporation members would need more information about this ASAP.
This post is here to try to educate corporation members to the subtile arts of capital ships. I will give my own suggestions and ideas on the CCSP if I am not beaten by directors for doing that . Of course, this is only theory, and my true weakness remains my lack of experience in PvP, even if I did to some skirmishes with the corporation. That is why you are free to debate my own arguments as long as it is constructive: I never said I was an expert, except in food maybe .
1/ Some random corporation stats
Here is a list of the people able to fly capital ships in the corporation in a few months (refer to my previous post, hope I forgot no one):
-> Maarud (Thanatos got skills, lack money)
-> Private Iron (Thanatos 1-3 months of skill training)
-> Callistus (Thanatos 1-3 months of skill training)
-> Spyder1226 = Hulemand? (Archon, currently in service) [CURRENTLY IN SERVICE]
-> Dire (Phoenix, nub training for AWU5) [CURRENTLY IN SERVICE]
-> Mang (1-2 months of training for Moros/Thanatos)
-> DarkVipa (I am confused, seems to have Nidhoggur)
-> Akane (Thanatos, got skills)
-> Joshua Floil33tain (Thanatos) [CURRENTLY IN SERVICE]
-> Kalhystia (75d for Thanatos, 60d for Moros to fly them correctly; else can fly both of them within 1 month).
1.A/ Capital ship pilot training plan:
From theses 10 pilots, 9 are going for Carrier if they don't have it already.
From theses 10 pilots, 1 is having a dread. 2 others may go for them (Mang and myself).
1.B/ Capital ship program estimated price:
Some will argue, but let's roughly estimate that the total price for either a carrier/dread + skills + modules is around 2-2.5b (you pay more for a dreadnought, but carrier skill + fighters are expensive).
Total cash required: 14-17,5B, as both Josh, Hulemand and Dire have their toys already .
We can see that even with BOB fees removed, there is no way the corporation is going to be able to pay for that.
I suggest that all capital pilots have to work for themselves to get their ships. Yes it sounds harsh, but ratting in fountain proved that it is perfectly possible to reach 2B (see Private Iron and the twisted Miyamoto twins) anytime soon and we aren't PvPing as much as we were in Curse.
A possibility would be that the corporation pays for the insurance, it costs like 200-300m per ship if I remember correctly. Refer to 4/ for more french conclusions.
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Feb 8 2007, 11:33 PM
IP: 87.237.32.254 | Post #2
Pilot: Kalhystia
Rank: Guardian Captain
Division: Core Guardians
2/ Carrier Guide
2.A/ Doc:
First, if you need information on carriers, refer to this excellent guide.
2.B/ Roles:
From the stats, we see that most of the pilots are going for carriers. Why so? Pretty obvious, carriers are having the best jump range of all the capital ships (except maybe motherships) and are able to move a large amount of goods. That is perfect for us since we are in Foutain, Serpentis Prime stays far away from empire. We need to quickly move our ressources to fuel our operations which wasn't the case in Curse as OSY was only 15-18 jumps from empire.
Furthermore, carriers are able to carry unpackaged ships in their Ship Maintenance Array. Basicly that means that you can carry a ship with its insurance and rigs, which isn't the case with dreadnoughts, even if they carry more (see below ).
In addition to that, carriers are versatile as support platform with their remote repairers, fighters and are able to fit gang modules or drone control unit for extra-damage. Thanatos is good at a POS or SS as a damage dealer (beware as you can be busted quick with the new probes), Archon and Chimera got mean tanks while Nidhoggur is a good remote repper.
Carriers act as a mini-station as you can refit your ship in space and store items within your own corporation hangar. Possible corporation thieves beware, if you leave the corporation while having corporate assets in your ship, they will be automatically be moved back to the member hangars.
Since the latest patch, you should have your fighters back in your dronebay if you CTD while having them deployed. Just don't forget our rule of conduct: we do not CTRL+Q to save ships, even capital ones.
Callistus and some experienced pilots may tell that I am wrong, but in theory, I don't see Carriers in front line, except in very favorable situations when you can have several carriers repairing themselves. Here are some arguments:
-> On the contrary of dreadnoughts, motherships and titans, carriers are vulnerable to EW. That means you can use an Arazu or 2-3 standard ships with dampeners against a carrier to reduce his range below 21km, which is large NOS range. Dampening a carrier will also prevent it to launch fighters at you if he is alone, else it will just assign fighters to support fleet (who the hell is stupid enough to fly carrier solo in PvP anyway?).
-> If fighters deal good damage, they are slow and seem to have tracking problems with small/medium targets. I wouldn't rely on them to hit anything smaller than a Battlecruiser. Furthermore, there is a bug while recalling them as they don't MWD back to the dronebay.
-> Carriers have less tanking capabilities than dreads as they don't have a siege mode, but I agree that 2 capital armor repairers aren't that bad .
-> Carriers have more high slots than dreads, meaning they can fit NOS leet setup but, again, if dampened they will make no use of it.
2.C/ Why having Carriers in corporation?
They are the cheapest (without skills) capital ships available and provide tremendous versatility. As old grumpy Josh told me during a rainy day while smoking on his armchair: « you know kid, the more carriers we have, the better it is for my daily orgasms ».
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Feb 8 2007, 11:33 PM
IP: 87.237.32.254 | Post #3
Pilot: Kalhystia
Rank: Guardian Captain
Division: Core Guardians
3/ Dreadnought Guide
3.A/ Doc:
I found no guides on dreadnoughts.
3.B/ Roles:
Dreadnoughts primary use stays obvious: POS spankage. To this purpose, they do have a Siege Module, which increases the damage of their XL turrets/missiles and turn them into tanking mofos. However by doing that you are not only unable to move for 10 minutes, but you can't hit a shit except structures or webbed capital ships, without to say that you consume fuel.
Never tried it, but I don't think it is a good idea to put your Siege Module into automatic control, except if you mind being unable to move forever.
Careful guys, I petitionned sometime ago to know if it was an exploit to dock while in Siege mode, and it seems GMs can kick you for doing that. You have been warned .
Some dreadnoughts, like the Phoenix and the Moros have been used in Fleet Support. The Phoenix stays horribly powerful against battleships when coupled with a Huginn for their webbing and target painting abilities.
Again people will protest, but I do believe that a Moros can seriously be nasty in a fleet due to its damage to drones. With a level 5 in dreadnoughts you receive a full +250% damage to them (it is like controlling 25 drones with a normal ship, as 100% is doubling).
Furthermore, unlike carriers you still have your drone skills counted. Basicly that means: if you are able to lock a small/medium target, it is toast (use one sensor booster in your mids). This baby also have 500m3 dronebay, and if you really want to tweak it, fit a good faction/officer web with XL blasters and kill battleships close range, or use XL railguns with sentry drones at long range.
The Revelation stays only good in POS warfare where it excels as it takes ages to bring the POS forcefield into reinforced mode, and using no ammo helps. I don't know about the Nagflar myself, it needs very good skills for its mixed capital missile/gun system but seems to deal good damage, at the expense at a poor tanking slot layout (5/5/6).
I stole a theory consisting to use dreadnoughts to move battleships. Yes, battleships . I don't think it can work with Nagflar or Phoenix, but you « only » need to fit a full rack of cargo expanders II in your Moros or Revelation low slots, have one cargo expander rig fitted and you should be able to break the 50.000m3 cargo capacity, allowing you to carry a Battleship packaged. The drawback is that you lose the battleship rigs and insurance by doing so.
The last role of a dreadnought is to kill other capital ships. If the target is webbed, you can go into Siege mode and pack nice DPS, even if you probably need your support gang to dry the carrier capacitor. Of course, as both Motherships and Titans are invulnerable to EW, I just prey Coreli will not face one anytime soon.
On a side note, I got a nice tactic to get rid of attacking dreadnoughts sieging your POS from one of my contacts: pack carriers in POS, form a good sized gang (10 at least) of cheap frigates, fit them with a full rack of small neutralizers. Assign fighters to frigates while they are orbiting the dreadnoughts and sucking them dry. It is not that long to do so with a large gang (as long as the support fleet don't kill you ), and you still lose nothing by dying. Not the same for the Dreadnought pilot who is using his capacitor for shooting, tanking the POS damage, and who won't be happy when not being able to run his modules anymore.
3.C/ Why having Dreadnoughts in corporation?
Except for POS warfare I don't think it is that good to stockpile dreadnoughts. They are only handy in a rare opportunities, which are still very dangerous if you do one step bad.
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Feb 8 2007, 11:34 PM
IP: 87.237.32.254 | Post #4
Pilot: Kalhystia
Rank: Guardian Captain
Division: Core Guardians
4/ My own conclusions with the CCSP
4.A/ Training plan
First, let's discuss our pilots training plan. I don't see anything wrong with having far more carriers than dreadnoughts to start with, as we need them badly to move our stuff (just ask how busy Hulemand was lately ). Having 9 carriers in corporation looks like a little oversized to me if we lose them. That should never happen if, as I said before, you don't put carriers into frontline and stay careful before jumping. Furthermore, if pilots pay for their own toy, the corporation wallet won't die in horrible pain when they do a mistake.
But as James told once, the corporation will have little direct control on the ships, and such expensive tools shouldn't be private to avoid putting them into un-needed risk. I think it is a good balance to have such ships owned by members, as long as they proved themselves to be trustworthy and willing to follow orders.
4.B/ Costs
The CCSP cost stays far too hefty for the corporation, thus favoring the private-owned solution again. Last time I checked the corporation wallet was around 1,3B, which isn't even enough to pay for one ship delivered with its trained pilot. Considering that taxes are set to 0%, it shouldn't be that hard for capital ship pilots to get their toys.
Just a note: as most capital pilots are going to be trained in 3 months, it would be maybe a good idea to create a large buy order to the same trusted capital ship producer to reduce costs (ffs we give the producer 7 carriers + fitting command, if the guy is a good trader you WILL have price reductions ).
4.C/ Time
The Capital Progam delay sounds a bit too slow for me, but we don't have choice. When I think a little more (yeah it does happen sometimes ) it is better not to rush this, as it is a major operation and extra-caution is needed. If everything goes nice, I would expect to have at least 6 carriers operationnal in 3 months.
4.D/ Command Relay
Concerning the chart provided in the Command Uplink, there are no positions for capital pilots, but I guess it will be an extra-title given to members. I expect most of the Carrier pilots to be in Core Logistics while Dreadnoughts will be in Core Guardians, but it should be left to the choice of the character, as we don't want him to change branch if he doesn't want to. I foresee Joshua or Callistus as Carrier commander as they do have a lot of experience. Dire could be the Dreadnought commander as he is an experimented veteran too, even if he is Caldari... no one is perfect .
In fact I find it smart not to have another Core branch for the capital pilots. Being a capital pilot should be an EXTRA role and not a permanent occupation, as no one flies his capital ship all the time. Furthermore, it will add more versatility as you can just pick any capable member from any of the Core Cells.
Last point. I strongly advise that each Capital Ship pilot stays a trusted member. From the chart, you automatically gain CL4 for this, and plundering fuel or fighters is the best way to have the poor corporation wallet take a diet.
4.E/ Last words
I am done Thank you for reading it all, I hope you enjoyed this guide as much as I enjoyed writting it. It is 5-6AM now and I will be tired at work tomorrow, but I think it was well worth it, right? RIGHT?!?
P.S: Sorry if my post "view" count is already at 38, had to read the post 3 times to fix typos and links.
T20 in Coreli
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