If at first you don't succeed, try, try again

So in my last post I talked about taking an active tanked Cyclone into battle. Results were a little disappointing. In two tries it got hit with neuts twice, making for two losses without even a single kill. For my next attempt I tried fitting the Cyclone with kiting in mind. This is what I came up with:



[Cyclone, Wannabe Vaga]
Tracking Enhancer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Large Shield Extender II
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Warp Disruptor II
DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I, Optimal Range Disruption
DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I, Optimal Range Disruption

425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Flameburst Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Flameburst Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Flameburst Light Missile

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Projectile Collision Accelerator I


Valkyrie II x3
Warrior II x2



My goal with this ship was to engage another battle-cruiser or cruiser, and hold them at 20km range or so while slowly pelting them with barrage. Using my superior speed and maneuverability I should be able to hold range on most targets larger than a frigate. Yes, my dps was crap, however with the 2x tracking disruptors I felt that I could potentially drop enemy damage down to 0. I also had a bunch of defender missiles in cargo so even a missile firing drake would find itself doing far less than the expected amount of damage.

After a few systems I found myself camped in a station in Curse by a Sleipnir, a Rifter and a Drake, with a Falcon cloaked on grid. After un-docking a few times, and re-docking once they locked me up and put on the hurt, I went to go make some dinner. When I came back they were still there. There was another agony gang operating about 10 jumps away. I dropped in their channel and they seemed busy with other, juicier targets. So I bought 4 stabs in station fitted them and warped off.

Problem was that I wanted a fight and was felt silly to be running away from one, even one that I had no chance of winning. I knew from earlier that the Rifter was fit with a warp scrambler, and had seen it top out at well over 2k per second. This would have killed my speed. With me being unable to move the Sleipnir would be able to put down enough damage that I would have been dead in a few seconds. And the Drake just added to it. The Falcon would have jammed me so I wouldn't even have been able to fight back. OTOH I could simply run away. I knew this, they knew this... so what was the next step.

The Sleipnir pilot convoyed me asking me to settle an argument with the rifter pilot about whether I had a rack of WCS or if they just failed at tackling. After a minute or so this turned into a request for a 1v1. First I wanted to try against the Drake pilot. He chickened out. So instead I offered against the Sleipnir. This would hardly be a fair fight. A Sleipnir is like a Cyclone... on steroids and bionic implants. After providing some assurances to the Sleipnir pilot that this was not a trap... he agreed.

I figured the fight would likely be over in seconds. I was wrong. It became a 6 minute long slug fest.As soon as I landed on him I pulled range out to 20 km. Then I targeted my guns and missiles onto him, but most importantly, also my tracking disruptors. His first volley tore into my shields but after that he was doing very little damage. His drones started to attack and I placed my drones onto him hoping to take them out.

Here is where I did a few mistakes. Rather than shoot my assault missiles at his ship I should have sent them after his drones as well. Also, since I had 3 medium drones, they could have still gone after his ship leaving my 2 warriors and my 3 assault missiles on his drones. Instead I kept my assault missiles plugging away at his shields while it took forever for his drones to die. Also while he was cycling his drones in and out as they started to take damage, I was not. This would have made it harder for him to take my drones out.

After several minutes of this my drones were gone, but he still had several drones in the air, now slowly being taken out by my missiles. Meanwhile my shields were failing under attack from his drones and the occasional hit from his guns. He was able to rep his shield whenever it went down, although his cap was running low and I was starting to get some traction against his armour. In the end it was not enough. A last burst of overheating as my armour quickly was ripped to shreds was not able to make enough of a difference. Once he hit my pathetic amount of structure I quickly died.

All in all I am very happy with how well things turned out. If I had better e-war skills, fit 2x TE instead of one and stocked  8x warrior IIs or ewar drones then things could have gone differently. As it was this was not a battle I was ever likely to win. GFs all around. Respect for honouring the 1v1 on both sides and my pod limped home.

For some reason I still love the cyclone despite having lost 3 of them without a kill. I will definitely be trying these out some more in the future.

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.