Tournament Setups : Missile S.P.A.M.

This is a simple, very frequently used and surprisingly effective setup. It is built around Drakes and Tengus sporting a brutal shield tank and long-ranged missiles. Missiles are great in the tournament because tracking disruptor are ineffective against them, they can be swapped for FOF missiles if jammed, and they have great range with 100% hit rate. In past tournaments drakes and Tengus have been the most flown ships for this reason. Both these platforms provide huge tanks, are hard to jam, and easy to fly for many carebear centric corps.

Here is the setup being used in the opening match of AT-8


Here is the setup loosing to a high damage setup:



For my recommendation I go with a bit more purity of just drakes and tengus..As shown by the above match, the lighter ships just don't really add a lot to the whole operation. However the logistics is still a critical ship.

48 points - 3 Tengu (strategic cruiser)
39 points - 3 Drake (tier-2 battlecruiser)
12 points - 1 Basilisk (Logistics Cruiser)
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99 points - 7 ships

[Tengu, Spam]
Damage Control II
Reactor Control Unit II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Large Shield Extender II
Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

Tengu Defensive - Supplemental Screening
Tengu Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Tengu Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Tengu Offensive - Accelerated Ejection Bay
Tengu Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers

The Tengu is reasonably speedy and does about 500 DPS with 125 km range. With the gang links from the Drake it has 175k EHP! This is not going to go down quickly.

[Drake, Spam - gang link]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Internal Force Field Array I

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Prototype ECCM I Gravimetric Sensor Cluster

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Siege Warfare Link - Shield Harmonizing

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I


Hobgoblin II x5

The Drake is rightfully known as a brick. It does about 467 DPS albeit at a shorter range then the tengu (around 84 km) and uses drones for some of that damage. By placing a different Siege Warefare link on each Drake the whole gang will benefit from effective shield repping and higher resists

[Basilisk, Basilisk Bait]
or
[Basilisk, Single Rep]

I will discuss the options for logistics in a later post. However for this setup it makes a lot of sense to swap between a 'real' logistics setup and a 'bait' logistics setup.


How To Fly
The basic idea for this setup is to scatter. Ideally keep everyone within the 70km range of the logistics, however the tanks are so tough this is less of an issue then normal. Most short range high damage setups will then have further to fly between targets if they actually start to take out your ships. Try to encourage them to primary the Tengus before the Drakes, keeping the gang bonuses alive.

Focus your damage on the enemy logistics. The total damage from this setup is pretty good but sometimes an enemy logistics ship can tank your damage. If so it is most certainly because they have logistics drones helping them out. If it looks like this is the case then quickly switch to the logistics drones. Pilots who are shooting from a long range should not wait until the drone is dead before switching targets. Once most/all of the drones are down then switch back to the ship and take it out. Once the enemy logistics is down then go after other ships one at a time. Trying to go after tacklers is a good idea since anything to increase the amount of time it takes for the enemy to switch targets is a good thing.

Logistics options for this setup include either a standard Basilisk or one with a powerful active tank to act as a bait ship. Since the DPS ships have very good buffer tanks, logistics is not as important as in some other setups which depend on logistics to keep ships alive.

As mentioned this setup is pretty resistant to E-War. By going with only one race (Caldari) enemy ECM will be spread more thinly. Even so, most of these ships have a naturally high sensor strength so jamming will not come easily. Be sure to pack a couple of rounds of FOF missiles in case of an ECM heavy team. Sensor dampeners are somewhat effective and forcing the ships closer in, but again, these ships have naturally long target ranges so their effectiveness is relatively low. Tracking disruptors are naturally useless.

This setup is light on e-war. If this is a concern for the FC swapping the damage drones to ecm drones may be a good idea. A target painter fits into each Drake (barely with a 3% implant) boosting the primary's signature radius which is critical when trying to take down Scimatars or other small sig radius ships.

Probably the best thing about this setup is the relative ease of use. Unlike the Team Minmattar setup which requires some fancy mistake free flying to keep at optimal, these ship are pretty easy. Fire at the primary and try to keep within the arena bounds. This is an ideal setup for a Carebear alliance for that reason.


Preliminary Round Setup

Scaling this setup down for the 50 point/5 pilot preliminary rounds is a bit of a challenge. Considering the higher logistics ratio for this round, I just don't see these setups being able to actually kill anything. Three Drakes and a logi work out to 51 points so that won't work.

12 points - 1 Basilisk(logistics cruiser)
26 points - 2 Drakes (Tier-2 Battlecruiser)
10 points - 1 Ferox (Tier-1 Battlecruiser)
2 points - 1 cormerant (destroyer)
--------------------------------------------
50 points - 5 ships

To be honest this just isn't going to work all that well. Maybe some of the readers have some suggestions for the comments.