Trying out an Active Tank Cyclone

The Cyclone is definitely the poorer cousin of the Hurricane. Whereas the 'Cane is a pretty standard ship seen all over New Eden for PvP and PvE, the Cyclone is a rare beast. It has only a fraction of the DPS, less fitting room, fewer turrets, and lacks the double damage bonus of the 'Cane.

There are a couple of things going for the Cyclone however. It is the most maneuverable battle-cruiser in New Eden. It also has a 37.5% (at BC V) bonus to shield repping. This means that a Cyclone should be a beast of an active tank ship.

Active tanking is using either an armour repper or a shield booster to repair damage being done by an enemy. In essence it is converting capacitor to EHP. In small engagements it can make a huge difference. Time is both a friend and an enemy to an active tank fit. The longer the engagement the more EHP can be repaired. OTOH, the longer the engagement the sooner the ship is likely to run out of what little buffer it has or run out of boosters.

Active tanking is like performing a direct minus on the enemy dps. If you can rep 300EHP per second, and the enemy is doing 400 DPS, the real DPS of the enemy is only 100 DPS. If the enemy is doing 300 DPS the enemy is effectively shooting blanks. If the enemy is doing 1200 DPS (concentrated fire from an enemy game for example), then your tank is pretty much useless. As a result active tanking really shines in the 1v1 or a 1v2 situation where it has the chance to completely negate the enemy DPS.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a big difference between EFT DPS and real DPS. Although a 'Cane should be able to do 600 DPS, thanks to fighting in falloff, some tracking negatives, and less than perfect skills, it will more likely be doing about half of that, 400 DPS at the most. As a result the repping can in fact keep up, even though EFT would show otherwise.

The most popular active tank battle-cruiser is the Gallente Myrmaddon. The Myrm has a 37.5% bonus to armour repping. However there is a significant advantage to armour repping over shield boosting. A shield booster's shield modules have to share mid-slots with propulsion mods, e-war, and capacitor boosters. An armour repper can have pretty much the entire bottom rack dedicated to armour tanking (armour reppers, hardeners, damage control, EANM, etc). On the plus side there is something that a shield booster has that is not available to an armour repper. That is the X-Large module size.

I tried out two possible fits of Cyclones:
[Cyclone, single rep high DPS]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
F-aQ Phase Code Tracking Subroutines

X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
10MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800

Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion M
Compact 'Limos' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Hellfire Assault Missile
Compact 'Limos' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Hellfire Assault Missile
Compact 'Limos' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Hellfire Assault Missile

Medium Core Defence Capacitor Safeguard I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I


Warrior II x2
Valkyrie II x3


and

[Cyclone, Dual Boost]
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II

X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
10MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800

Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I
Medium Core Defence Operational Solidifier I


Valkyrie II x3
Warrior II x2


Both of these fits do about 400 DPS, have about 28,000 buffer tank, and have a repping power of around 350 EHP/450 EHP overheated. The HAM fit has a bit more DPS and can web as well as scram a target. The dual boost fit does less DPS, and can only scram, however it can sustain it's repper for a lot longer. With an afterburner instead of a MWD niether of these ships is a speed demon, instead the goal is to engage the enemy on 0.

So one evening I took these ships out one at a time. In the end it was disappointing. In both cases I came across the nemesis of the active tank ship, the energy neutralizer. The single boost ship engaged an Arazu. While doing great damage against the Arazu a Hurricane showed up and placed it's dual neuts on me along with it's DPS. It also had a friend of a Rifter and a Sabre so the damage incoming was quite high. I continued to tank them for a surprisingly long time, however in the end I couldn't keep up and went down without landing a kill :(.

Since the nuets so messed me up I tried the dual boost next. This could have gone well. Again I engaged a hurricane, and tanked it just fine.... until his BS friends showed up and sucked my cap dry :(. Down I went.

I am definitely going to try the active tank Cyclone again. I think I need to choose better targets however. I was determined to get into a fight to try the ship out so I entered fights that I should have avoided. As a result I basically fell for bait twice and paid for it.