Searching for Answers

For not posting much lately, this blog is still gets quite a few daily hits. I’m always interested to see what my site stats are up to — mostly search keywords.

I’m going to look at three of the most common search phrases that lead to my blog and do my best to answer what it is the phrase is looking for.

Without further ado:

1. how long is the training for black ops in eve?

First off, if you’re even remotely interested about working out training times, EVEMON is a must have. It’s a great program for checking how long it takes to train for anything in the game, ships/skills/mods/prints.

Concerning getting into the ship and using the fits I’ve given in the past, I started with a fresh character to check the training time. With remapping your attributes and plugging in +5 implants, it will take ~200 days to train (aka 7 months). That’s quite a bit of training, but you probably have a lot of necessary support skills already trained up or nearly trained.

       2. black ops bridging in eve

Opening covert bridges is an essential part of being a Black Ops pilot. The whole idea behind bridging can be a bit confusing, so let’s walk through everything together.

First thing we need:

Jump Portal Generator – This takes up a high slot and is actually a “passive module”, which means that when you fit it, you don’t click on the module icon (Like a gun or MWD). It just exists — sort of like a shield extender or plate. (Remember, you need Astrometrics 5  to use this)

Once you’re in space, right click on your capacitor and you’ll notice a “Bridge To” option above “Set Name”:

Things to note about bridging and this image:

1. The first thing you will notice, if you belong to an alliance that has Cyno Generators in multiple systems, you’ll have the option to bridge to any of the Cyno Generators your alliance has. *I blacked out the specific systems next to the words, but each option will usually region.  They will be listed like “HED-GP (Cynosural Generator Array)“
2. When somebody in your gang lights a cyno, it will appear at the top of this list showing their name and the system the cyno is in. An example: “Phatstabley (Rancer)“
3. Cynos and Cyno Generators will show up in this list, regardless of them being in range. Always make sure that you are in range of your intended destination - more on this soon.
4. Notice how 3 spots above “Bridge To” is “Jump To” – Don’t mix these up.

Worst. News. Ever.

Next Step: Bridging and Fuel

Your hunter lights the cyno, you go to “Bridge To” and find the guy, you click on his name and a giant black cloud envelopes your ship. At this point the connection has been made between your Black Ops and the destination cyno.

• Everyone who plans on jumping through needs to get within 2,500 meter of you (just like a gate), they need to right-click on your ship and choose the option to jump to the destination system.
• Ships jumping through consume fuel from your fuel bay.
• Opening the portal doesn’t consume any fuel
• Your portal lasts 20 seconds
• You can only portal people as far as you can possibly jump. If you only have Jump Drive Calibration IV you can jump 4 Light Years and bridge only 4 light years.

As your fleet members jump through, your fuel in the fuel bay will be consumed depending on what kind of ships go through, how they’re fit, and your Jump Fuel Conservation Level. Generally speaking, from lowest consumption to highest – Bombers > Transports > Recons > T3**. (If you’re bridging bombers, you can move a lot of them on one load of fuel, but it’s best to be near a can if you’re different flavors of ships. (Make sure nobody is MWD’ing to get in range of you, MWDs make a ship’s mass practically explode and it will consume a lot more fuel if they jump through with they’re MWD on)

**T3′s can only go through if they have the covert subsystem fit to their ship.

(end of bridging question…that was long, sorry)

       3.  fuel bay black ops

Black Ops Battleships have a dedicated fuel bay that is 1,000 m3. You can fill your fuel bay with 6,666 of your racial isotopes. Make sure to fill your empty cargo hold space with isotopes. Your fuel bay is similar to a cargo hold, you can open it in space and add more isotopes. (Like bridging, right click on your capacitor and choose “Fuel Bay” to access it)

A smart idea concerning your fuel bay. If you’ll be jumping around, have everybody coming on your gang bring some of your racial isotopes with them in any extra cargo hold space they have. When you jump in to the destination, drop a can and have people dump their fuel into it – mobile refueling without the transport!

——————-

That’s it for now.

Poke Poke Poke

Sorry. I’ve been away and had some stuffz going on.

I’ll be back on ASAP with some new content. Thanks, Dalv. (More so for being the bane of my existence when I originally lived in old Providence.)

Bomber Gangs

Bomber gangs are a fun, low-barrier gang that utilize your Black Ops’ bridging ability. I would dare say the majority of your alliance/corp mates have the ability to fit and fly at least one of the stealth bombers.

I think of bomber drops sort of like bubble camps, either A) you’re doing it because you’re bored and don’t want to make 50 round-trip jumps to shoot stuff or B) You know of a specific target rich area that will reward you for your patience (maybe an evac in progress and you just wait for the haulers to hit the low-sec gate) Bomber drops are very similar, but usually produce better results. With dedication and some patience, you can usually haul yourself a really shiny or expensive kill with little overall effort.

Let’s look my favorite casual bomber gang comp from the ground up – The JB SURPRISE PARTAYYY! (And possibly CYNO GEN PARTAYYY!)

Gang Composition

Very straightforward here. The more bombers, the better you’ll do. Let’s look at a good set up:

1-2 Scouts – (Out of Alliance scouts will make this entire endeavor more fruitful)
20 Bombers
1 Black Ops
1 Transport Ship (Optional)
1 Return Cyno (or just bridge the fleet back using one of your Cyno Gens if you have them)

Obviously, you might not be able to get 20 guys to join up for a bomber gang. You either love these things or you hate them. (You very well may end up sitting and chatting it up on Comms for two hours before you score a good kill.) The more the merrier, but I probably wouldn’t take less than 12 bombers.

Fits

There are 2 rules for the JB Surprise Party fleet that can never, under any circumstance, be broken!

Rule #1: Afterburners only – NO MWDs

Rules #2: No Bomb Launchers – don’t even bring them, offline launchers are a waste of a slot.

Now that we have that in your head. You don’t need to worry about fits, per se. Just make sure fits are SAM fit: Siege Missile Launchers, Afterburner, Medium Shield Extender. To be honest, after those, the rest is just icing. You’d really like a nice mix of Target Painter, DPS mods, Long Points, Damps, etc. (You know that extra high slot you have from not fitting a bomb launcher? Fit a covert cyno if you are skilled up / otherwise fit an offline small remote armor rep for post battle fixes)

Scouts should be in a bomber. Recons/Cov Ops are useless here, since they have a targeting delay after decloaking. You’ll watch your prey warp away before you can get a point. 99.9% of the time the bomber will die because the POS will finally lock it and dispatch your stationary little ship.

You can fit your Black Ops for gas can work seeing as you won’t be engaging anything with it. Load up on cargo expanders and you can probably live without the transport ship.

Where to go

Pretty obvious here. Having an enemy jump-bridge map makes life super easy, but it’s not totally necessary. Check out Dotlan and specifically look for your enemies border systems. Typically, you’ll find JBs near nullsec-empire connections or near the edges of their region. Definitely look at your enemy’s home systems, too!

Knowing where JBs connect gives you the added bonus of being able to have scouts on both sides of the bridge. Knowing what is jumping through and what’s on the other side gives you time to ready your gang. 

Open your ingame map and change the Filter to “Active Cyno Fields”. Disregard the blue dots, these represent ship cyno’s that, unless you have intel, will probably be a waste of your time. (More on this in another post) The other Dots are active cyno generators. Go to those systems. More often than not, where you find a Cyno Gen, you find a JB. And hopefully twice as many targets.

What to do

Place the scout about 10km above or below the JB. (Make sure not to be within 7,200 meters of any JB or Cyno Gen as you may be decloaked by your target on jump in.)

20 bombers will easily do 6,000 raw DPS. So depending on your gang size, you might not want to bust your cover to kill and iteron mk. 5 passing through. Wait for tasty treats like Carriers/Rorqs/Jump Freighters/Freighters/Stupidly pimped faction Battleships

When you gang loads grid:

1) Immediately pull secondary points and begin orbiting your target with your AB on. — Your afterburner is utterly essential to your survival if the POS has small (and even medium) guns. I typically have members set orbits @ 10k before we enter.

2) Shoot

3) Loot

4) Cloak

4A – Targeted by the POS? warp off. Pointed by the POS? Keep orbiting with your AB on until it switches (overheat if you’re taking damage) Then warp off.

5) Somebody set a safe spot, and bring in the Black Ops to bridge home

Things to remember

1) When a ship jumps through a JB or Cyno beacon, it’s completely invulnerable to you until its session timer runs out. Make sure the scout has the “Velocity” column on his overview, the moment you see him move, decloak and point.

2) When the cyno is lit on the bomber, the POS will take about 20-30 seconds to lock and begin firing.

3) Don’t orbit your target, have an anchor pre-determined for everyone to orbit. If your orbiting the target when he dies, your ship will stop and you’ll get one-volleyed by the POS. (Typically, the anchor will orbit the JB/Cyno Gen, or handle keeping an orbit up when the target dies)

 

So there you have it. I wrote quite a bit, but these fleets are great when you just want to relax and get some hilarious kills. You may lose a bomber or two on the POS, but you’ll get a nice kill out of it.

People read this

Apparently, people have been visiting this blog. Shout out to VandV for highlighting my little space, I guess this means I should write more so I don’t lose all this interest.

A Guide to Flying Blacks Ops – Part 3

So maybe I lied about when I was going to get around to writing this. Sue me.

I’m not going to write a linear story of how to fly a Black Ops. Rather, I’m just going to point out some good tips to remember when using them.

Pre-Flight Checklist

1. Going gang or going solo?
   - Select your fit accordingly and if you’re running with a gang consider having reps/rep drones.
   - If you’re running the gang, ask for fittings to be linked in fleet. I’m not a fitting warrior, but if it’s my gang — your fits need to be acceptable. (Black Ops aren’t super easy to fit, people tend to take too many liberties sometimes or fit a ton of faction crap to make it seem ok)
2. Cynos/Fuel
   - Make sure you’ve got a fuel bay of fuel.
   - Consider bringing a Transport ship alt if you’ll be trekking.

The Waiting Game

1. Don’t sit in a POS
   - The only reason your Black Ops should ever go into a POS is to grab some fuel from a can you may have there. Don’t have your gang sitting on the Black Ops at a POS. The only time you ever decloak is to shoot/bridge/jump. Don’t give free intel away. Black Ops fleets and bomber drops get killed because they get baited after being seen. Don’t give easy intel.
2. Be wary of fleet member locations
   - You should always be aware of your fleet composition and the location of the members. If someone is not in your system or docked up somewhere and they’re not one of your scouts. They get booted. end of story.
3. Have a preset plan from your scouts. Don’t start your gang then fire up your map. Check Dotlan for 1hr/24hr jumps and ratting histories. Learn jumpbridge locations and routes. Camp them.
4. Don’t wait for fights to come to you. If a system is slow or people have docked up, move on and come back later. Camp a jumpbridge for 2 hours if you like, but if you don’t gank something awesome, don’t expect 20 bombers to show up to your next gang. (Edit: ENEMY POS + BLACK OPS = DEAD BLACK OPS — you bridge bombers on to a pos)

Shooting Stuff

1. Unless you have a solid plan or like expensive thrills — Black Ops are for ganking. Remember that the 600mil + ship you are flying is, for all intents and purposes, worse than its t1 counterpart. Don’t get into a fights unless you have a plan well laid out.
2. It’s better to cyno in close to your target than far away.
3. Best cyno ships = Rapier >= Arazu > Pilgrim > Falcon > Bombers > Covert Ops (Rapier/Arazu are a roll of the dice situational. Arazu can point 5 guys no problem at 75KM while the Rapier can point and web in the mid 30′s (using RF disruptor) — your choice)
4. So you found a target? Sweet, light the cyno and get your Black Ops in there to kill it.
   - Rule #1: Before doing anything – Black Ops should align to a celestial. Being able to GTFO is more important than ganking that t1 fit Apoc.
   - Rule #2: Rep your cyno/friends

…more to come when I become less lazy.

Belt Ratting Carriers

Black Ops Guide part three will be here later today or tonight.

In the meantime, a quick AAR on a nice gank last night for some peeps who asked how it went down.

I’ve been having some luck running up to Venal lately so I decided to do a little more solo stuff up there last night. I grabbed the Stabber fleet issue.

Checking the ingame map I saw 3 systems with activity. Figuring them to be bots, as usual, I figured I’d take a cursory glance and move on to northern Venal. On jump in I saw 3 familiar neuts. What I assume is one guy running three characters, I had run across him last week with one character cynoing in another one’s Thanatos. I checked dscan and saw an incursus, same shiptype he used as his cyno last time. I was out of dscan range of quite a bit of the system so I warped to a belt near the sun to get a better idea of what was going on.

As I came within dscan range of my destination, I noticed the Thanatos on scan as well as a small Amarr tower and some wrecks. Switching over to my ratting overview, I see 6 fighters and 5 Ogre I’s out. I quickly find out he’s at the Ice Belt?!?! Warping to the belt at zero, I land right on top of him. I scram him and begin putting DPS. I put out the call in Intel channel that I’ve got a Thanatos tackled at the Ice Belt and I need some DPS. Confirmations come from Alliance mates and blues that they’re on the way (mostly about 10 jumps out).

He wasn’t moving when I landed but quickly got some speed and sent his combo of Fighters/Ogres after me. Luckily, I’m dual-prop in the SFI, so I turn on the AB and get a nice tight orbit around him negating all of the damage from those drones. I leave my drones on the carrier and focus my guns/web on all of his drones. He smartens up when he’s lost about 4 fighters and all of his Ogres and deploys flight after flight of Hammerheads and Warriors.

He then brings in an alt in a bomber, and I quickly dispath him with my drones. (I never pointed the bomber, so he must have been getting desperate to apply every ounce of DPS he could).

Again, I lucked out with my fitting. This is the fit I use for Ahac gangs, so I’m 1600 plated. I’d need every ounce of armor and shield I could. I’m doing a solid job killing off his drones, but they are eating into me. I’m beginning to bleed structure after about 6 minutes of holding him down.

I don’t have friendlies on my drone overview, so I really didn’t notice help had arrive until a bubble went up around me. Some blues were the first on the scene as they had the least amount of  ground to cover to get to my location. Moments later they light a cyno and bring in 2 carriers and a dread.

With him firmly tackled, I needed to hit the MWD and get the hell out of dodge as I was now at 90% structure. I was able to kill off his remaining drones with mine as I sped away and was able to get back to zero in time for him to pop. Loot sucked.

So that’s it. A lot of writing for one ship, but it was a pretty heart pounding experience. I did not, by any means, want to give up this kill. For a bit I figured I’d need to bail out, but luck was surely on my side.

A Guide to Flying Blacks Ops – Part 2

If you haven’t yet, read part 1.

You’ve purchased your Black Ops of choice and are sitting in the hangar staring at a blank fitting screen. What to do? To be honest, other than the Sin, Black Ops are pretty simple to fit. You basically fit them like you would a gank BS, except for certain fitting limitations.

*You’re going to see a bit of faction/deadspace stuff on these fits. Absolutely feel free to downgrade to T2 if you’re not comfortable dropping more isk than you already have. Just remember: You’ve spent a lot of isk on a ship that needs all the help it can get, I highly recommend you don’t skimp on fittings. They don’t need to be super pimped, and none of these fits really are, but a little extra spent will go a long way in the field.

Let’s take a look at some setups: (All EFT ready)

Panther

[Panther, Gank PANTHER]
Damage Control II
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Tracking Enhancer
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Gist C-Type 100MN Microwarpdrive
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II

Dread Guristas Cloaking Device
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP L
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Large Core Defence Field Extender I
Large Core Defence Field Extender I

Ogre II x5
Vespa EC-600 x5

Nothing better than gank and tank. This bad boy can push out 1,000 DPS and ruin the day of an active tanker with the Dual Neuts.

Redeemer

[Redeemer, Gank Redeemer]
Damage Control II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Regenerative Plating II
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Dark Blood Heat Sink
Dark Blood Heat Sink

Cist C-Type 100MN MicroWarpdrive
Dread Guristas Warp Disruptor
Federation Navy Stasis Webifier
True Sansha Heavy Capacitor Booster, Navy Cap Booster 800

Dread Guristas Cloaking Device
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
Mega Pulse Laser II
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I

Berserker II x5

Over 900 DPS, and a solid tank. Issues here will be range, so make sure you’ve got a full range of ammo types in the hold. Ideally, your covert cyno will have the target pinned down so you won’t need to be racing all over the place to apply damage. You’ll want to hit your Booster as soon as you’ve begun applying DPS.

Widow

[Widow, Never Along]
Signal Distortion Amplifier II
Signal Distortion Amplifier II
Signal Distortion Amplifier II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
ECM – Spatial Destabilizer II
ECM – Phase Inverter II
ECM – Ion Field Projector II
ECM – White Noise Generator II
ECM – Multispectral Jammer II
ECM – Multispectral Jammer II

Dread Guristas Cloaking Device
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Cruise Missile Launcher II
Heavy Energy Neutralizer II
[Empty High Slot]

Large Particle Dispersion Projector I
Large Particle Dispersion Projector I

Vespa EC-600 x5

You’ll notice the Widow really isn’t gank fit. To be honest, I can’t fly the Widow and the only time I see the widow really shine is with more than one Black Ops or a whole gang of bombers/recons/T3′s. I went with an “armor” tank because I love having a ton of jams and a decent scan res.  Check out some BC fits if you’re looking to do solo work with it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Sin

[Sin, Lord and Savior]

Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Armor Explosive Hardener II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Domination 100MN MicroWarpdrive
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
True Sansha Heavy Capacitor Booster, Navy Cap Booster 800
True Sansha Heavy Capacitor Booster, Navy Cap Booster 800
ECCM – Magnetometric II
ECCM – Magnetometric II

Dread Guristas Cloaking Device
Large Energy Transfer Array II
Large ‘Solace’ I Remote Bulwark Reconstruction
Large ‘Solace’ I Remote Bulwark Reconstruction
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Drone Link Augmentor I
Covert Jump Portal Generator I

Large Trimark Armor Pump I
Large Trimark Armor Pump I

Hammerhead II x5
Ogre II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Warrior II x5
Vespa EC-600 x5
Hornet EC-300 x5
Medium Armor Maintenance Bot II x5
Medium Shield Maintenance Bot II x5

Mr. Sin here isn’t going to be holding anyone down, but that’s not the primary role in this case. On Jump in, you’ll probably be repping up your covert cyno from the barrage of damage he’s taking from your intended target. You can actually apply some decent DPS with the ogres out, with the Sin’s bonus you’re looking at around 400 DPS. Typically, I’m repping whoever is taking damage and keeping my eyes out for force multipliers at range (Falcon, Curse, etc) to throw drones on to get them off the field. After the fight, you can touch up the cap on other Black Ops to get them jump ready and you can be the bridge home. Jack of all trades right here.

———-

So there we are. Those are all fits you can start out with and keep for life. (Though, you may decide to go  Shield on the Widow) Hopefully you’re starting to connect the dots between what we saw when discussing the basics of each ship to how they are fit.

Have your own fit you like more or has worked well? Toss it up in a comment and let me know why you love it. I’d love to see some other interesting fits.

Stay tuned for Part 3: Flying my Black Ops (or maybe better termed as, Hotdropping people with my Black Ops)

A Guide to Flying Blacks Ops – Part 1

The guide is by no means completely definitive or final. I’ll make changes as I go; however, I’ve had a lot of people asking for more information. I will publish this in pieces, trying to go through it in the order in which you will. I’m going to answer as many questions as possible with this guide.

Part 1: Getting There

Black Ops are skill intensive. With a limited tactical role, there is no wonder why it’s one of the least used ship classes in the game. Don’t be dissuaded by all the posts on the eve-o forum about Black Ops needing love – they do, but they’re still fun and a great tactical advantage.

I’ll take you through as much as I can, in a chronological order. So let’s start with skills.

The Skills

Prerequisite Skills:

Racial BS V
Cloaking Level IV
Electronics Level V
Jump Drive Calibration Level IV
Jump Drive Operation Level V
Navigation Level V
Warp Drive Operation Level V
Navigation Level I
Science Level V
Spaceship Command Level V
Black Ops Level I

The first you thing you see? If you’re a carrier capable pilot, you’re already very close to flying your racial Black Ops. These are simply the skills that get you into the ship. I’m not going to get into the true “secondary” skills that are necessary (Drones, ECM skills, Large Projectiles, Engineering, Shield, Armor, etc. etc.) as they are fairly obvious. However, let’s look at the other skills that are pretty important, especially for gang work.

Additional Necessary Skills:

Jump Drive Calibration V – There’s no getting around this. It’s not like you and your carrier. You absolutely cannot live without JC5. The Black Ops already has crap for range, don’t hinder yourself anymore. It’s a long train, but very well worth it.

Astrometrics V – Without it, you can’t use the Covert Jump Portal – aka you can’t bridge gangs around. While you can rely on others to do the bridging, the ability to do them is necessary to be a well-rounded pilot.

Jump Fuel Conservation IV-V – JFC5 is great, but 4 will do if you’re just that lazy. The fuel bay is an issue with Black Ops, so the higher your skill, the less refueling you need to do.

Black Ops IV - Why only level 4? Again, 5 is great but 4 will suffice. The bonus is worth it on some of the ships to go for 5, but not always. If you have the time, train it.

————

The Ships

Ok, you’re trained up and ready to make your purchase. This decision will either be easy (You only have the skills to fly one) or tough (you can fly many). Which Black Ops to choose? Good Question. The 4 Black Ops ships can be broken up into 3 classes, DPS, Jamming and Other. Let’s take a look at each one and drill into their strength and weaknesses. I’ll start with the DPS class first:

DPS

Redeemer

 Amarr Battleship Skill Bonus:
~10% reduction in large energy turret capacitor use and5% bonus to large energy turret rate of fire per level

Black Ops Skill Bonus:
~7.5% bonus to large energy turret tracking and multiplies the cloaked velocity by 125% per level

Panther

Minmatar Battleship Skill Bonus:
~5% bonus to large projectile turret rate of fire and 5% bonus to large projectile turret damage per level

Black Ops Skill Bonus:
~5% bonus to velocity and multiplies the cloaked velocity by 125% per level

The Panther and the Redeemer as the two true “DPS” ships of the class. At the most simple level, the Panther is the easiest choice if you’re looking for straight forward, gank dps. The Panther has an 8/5/6 layout (5 turrets) while the Redeemer is 8/4/7 (6 turrets). Notice the Bonuses to the ship. To even get into these ships you need Racial BS 5, so you’ll get the maximum upgrade to those bonuses. Lazors love to eat your cap on Amarr BS, which is typically a big downfall. With a 10% reduction in Cap use on the guns per level, a lot of the problem is mitigated. Still though, you need to remember, when you jump to the cyno to fight, you’ll use 70% of your cap just to jump. Pray your in range with your cyno because you won’t have good enough cap to be MWD into range.

The Panther, while missing the 6th turret, gets two great bonuses to it’s Minnie BS bonus – 5% ROF and 5% Damage. Awesome! And firing capless guns to boot!

~~~~~~

Jamming

Widow

Caldari Battleship Skill Bonus:
~5% bonus to cruise and siege missile launcher rate of fire per level
~10% bonus to cruise missile and torpedo velocity per level

Black Ops Skill Bonus:
~30% bonus to ECM target jammer strength and multiplies the cloaked velocity by 125% per level

The Widow is probably the most straight forward of the Black Ops — it’s a spiffier looking version of the Scorpion. The ship is great for jamming out the enemy and applying some decent DPS. 7/8/4 (5 launchers) layout provides a decent option to go standard shield fit or for an armor fit with fleet jamming capabilities.

Skip the Kaikka’s Jammers, I know they look cool, but you really don’t need them.

~~~~~~

Other

Sin

Gallente Battleship Skill Bonus:
~5% bonus to large hybrid turret damage per level
~10% bonus to drone hit points and damage per skill level

Black Ops Skill Bonus:
~5% bonus to agility per level and multiplies the cloaked velocity by 125%

There has to be a black sheep, right? Sure 5% damage bonus on the maxed skill bonus sounds pretty sweet, right? Except it’s on a ship that A) uses LOLHYBRIDS and B) can’t fit enough guns to be useful because of LOLGRID. Sure, put a few 425mm Hybrids on there. Except when you’re jump into to somebody and they’re between 5k-20k, you’re guns are useless.

So BS sized guns are out on this one, just not enough grid to be useful and not take away other things. What to do? Sure, you can always use cruiser sized Medium Hybrids/Blasters – but with 7/6/6 (4 turrets) 4, unbonused, Heavy Neutrons or 250mm Rails, aren’t great. Drone bonus is nice, and couple with some blasters can make some interesting, yet unconventional, fits.

So what else could the Sin be useful for? It actually makes a great logistics platform and flying gas can for bridging. First and foremost, a logi Sin is pretty awesome. 400m3 drone bay (125m3 bandwith) gives you 5 Heavies out at once – and plenty of options for damage and RR drones. Be a lifesaver when you rep your mates and cap up other BO’s so they’re ready to jump on the fly.

Conclusion

As you can see, the ships have varying degrees of utility for each situation. They can all apply DPS, just some better than others. If you’re rolling solo, you need to be very careful. These are battleships that don’t really outclass their t1 equivalent in damage. Black Ops require selectivity. The surprise is on your side when you light that covert cyno, but if you’re alone, make sure you know you will win before clicking jump.

I’ll discuss solo and gang fits for each of the ships in the next installment and how to best use the utility of each ship.

~~~~~~

Stay tuned for part 2 on Sunday: Fitting your shiny new ship

New Theme and Bot Down

As much as I enjoyed the color palette of the old design, it won’t work for my upcoming pieces that will be image heavy.

The other day, I had the motivation to begin writing an inclusive guide to Black Ops. I’m currently working on it and will have it up ASAP. It’s going to cover everything from the skill tree to fly them all the way to tactics on the field. I’m hoping it becomes the one-stop shop for all questions about Black Ops.

Stay tuned.

Ninja Edit: Almost forgot! It wasn’t a Black Ops drop, but I finally got my man.  (I wrote about this guy, here) Too bad he wasn’t fit with anything nice.

This is a Black Ops Blog?

Looking over my recent posting history, you wouldn’t know it.

The grind of sov warfare doesn’t allow for much in the way of normal Black Ops roams. Our alliance tends to not use bombers during large fleet fights, mostly because we don’t really get fights any more. The local residents have all packed up and moved out.

Until we reset our temp-bff’s, I don’t see this changing much. With DRF and Raiden having taken over the adjacent systems, the only real black ops possibilities lie 5+ bridges from our new home. With everyone in cool-down mode, grinding sov/towers/stations, moving assets, etc – we’re not really in a position for a 20 man road trip.

Luckily, I write this thing more as a running diary of goings-on, rather than some instructional tape on how to competently use a specific class of ship. (ironic, right?)

I’m looking at a few more semi-passive income streams to help keep my wallet propped up. I’ve got the R64 moon humming now, so I’m excited at that great find. I never really thought I’d be able to scoop up a nice moon but lady luck shined on me and, barring anyone trying to shoot the thing, it should bring in ~1 billion a month in profit (after subtracting fuel costs).

I’ll run some Black Ops asap so I keep you all interested.