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Revision as of 21:21, 24 March 2011
Carriers
Key facts
Carriers are capital-class ships. They excel at fleet logistical support and can lend substantial fire-power to a fleet.
The term ‘carrier’ usually refers to the smaller of the carrier-class vessels for each race. The larger one is called a Supercarrier or SC (formerly known as motherships or ‘Mom’).
Carriers do not have turret or missile weapons, but they do have huge drone bays. Additionally they can control more drones simultaneously than normal vessels, and they are the only class of ships capable of using fighter drones. Supercarriers can additionally field fighter-bomber drones.
Although this can make carriers formidable attackers, their real strength is in their ability to mount capital-class remote shield transfers and capital-class remote armor repairers. Supercarriers, on the other hand, are fearsome anti-capital platforms when deploying fighter-bombers.
Practical Use
In relative terms a pilot skilled enough to fly a carrier might be able to inflict a comparable amount of damage when flying a battleship. This makes a carrier an expensive choice for an aggressive role.
The carrier is a valuable fleet ship because in addition to delivering the damage of a very good battleship, it can repair friendly vessels over a greater range and for a greater length of time than a very good logistics ship.
This ‘two in one’ performance level makes carriers highly desirable in any fleet.
Carriers can not use jump gates and must use their onboard jump drives to move between systems. This requires a fleet-member in the destination system to activate a cynosaural field.
Practically speaking this means carriers cannot travel to high-security space.
Carriers have the ability to transport fully assembled, fitted and even rigged ships. Additionally pilots may refit their ships in space, if they are close enough to a friendly carrier.
Despite a formidable tank, carriers can be destroyed by battle-ship fleets and are safest when spider-tanking with other carriers.
Features and abilities
A solo carrier can maximise its ability to repair itself and other ships, by using the ‘triage module’. This module can only be used by carrier-class vessels. While in ‘triage’ mode a carrier can repair at twice its usual rate, but can not receive any remote repair. Because solo carriers are considered vulnerable, fleet commanders may prefer to field multiple carriers without triage modules, but it should be noted that no other vessel can repair targets as quickly as a ‘triage’ enabled carrier.
Carriers can dock at stations, supercarriers cannot; supercarriers must remain in space at all times.
Flying a carrier requires many fully trained skills including racial battleship, logistics, drone interfacing and warp drive operation. Depending on a pilot’s background and existing specialties, other capital ships may be easier to train for, but none are so versatile in combat.
Because carrier pilots can assign drones (including fighters) to other pilots in their fleet – it is possible for carrier pilots to avoid the battlefield and allow pilots in less valuable ships to direct their damage.
Fighters and fighter-bombers are the only drones capable of warp. This means that carrier pilots can assign fighters (but not fighter-bombers) to comrades anywhere within the same system. The only limitation is that the assignee can only control as many fighters as he could normally control drones; so no more than five.
Carriers and especially supercarriers may field many more fighters, so may assign them to multiple pilots.
The fighter’s ability to use warp also means that if a target vessel escapes into warp – the fighters will follow it; this is another unique feature of carrier-combat.
Vulnerability
Like every ship, there is a world of difference between being able to undock, and being able to fly it well. Carriers excel in fleet operations, but they are very vulnerable if used casually for ratting or other solo tasks. This fact, coupled with the very heavy training load required to make the ship meet its combat potential, may lead the unwary to lose their new carriers in the course of fairly mundane tasks.
Types of Carriers
Carriers in general:
1. Price range is 700 million + for the carrier itself and another 230m for insurance (with about 730m payback). For T2 fittings and drones/fighters expect another 200-300m, for faction fittings expect another 500m+. On average, it's going to run you ABOUT 1.5 billion.
2. Battleships can easily bump a massive carrier away from a station.
3. The carrier 50% range increase bonus only applies to CAPITAL remote repair modules, NOT regular ones.
4. A carrier can do level 5 missions like a hot knife through butter. Assuming it can get into said mission.
5. EVERYONE WANTS A CAPITAL SHIP KILL MAIL. Remember that, EVERYONE wants one. FREAKIN EVERYONE! If your grandmother that doesn’t play Eve heard about their awesomeness, she’d want one too.
6. At Carrier level 3 a capital remote repair module has 37.5km range, at level 4 it is 45km.
7. The ability of a carrier to lock onto a target is VERY slow; most use a Sensor Booster II module with a scan script to speed it up.
8. The sensor strength of a carrier is a base of 80; a faction battleship by comparison is only 27.
9. Normal tanking ability of a carrier is 2000-6000 dps. Triage mode can boost that to 16,000+ dps perma. A personal best was tanking 26 ships at 3.45 million damage.
10. Capital modules have a volume of 4 to 5 thousand m3 each.
11. Carrier damage output is on par with a nicely fitted faction battleship.
12. Carriers have a million m3 of space to put ASSEMBLED ships inside it. For your convenience a Raven takes up about 486,000 m3. The only thing that can be in any stored ships cargo are charges.
13. Carriers have about 3850+ m3 of cargo space. 3000m3 of this is separated from the rest and is specifically for holding the carrier's jump fuel and cannot hold anything else.
14. Carriers have a CORPORATE HANGER BAY. When you open it, it looks just like the corporate hangar array display of a POS and looks the same as the hangar in a station where you have an office at. It is real buggy too.
15. As the pilot, you can turn on or off the ability to allow your fleet (all or none only) to access the Ship Maintenance Bay of your carrier.
16. If a fleeted ship is 1500 meters from you, they can swap out modules as if they were in a station.
17. You can dock a carrier at a station in low or null sec, it is the Titan and the Supercarrier that cannot dock in a station. All capital ships (supers too) can be stored in a Capital Ship Maintenance Bay.
18. Carriers can NOT fit any launchers or turret hardpoints as they have ZERO slots for them. Neuts, smartbombs, drone control units and remote reps are generally the best options for high slots.
19. If you are disconnected with fighters out, they will warp to you and return to your drone bay.
20. Items in your carrier's corporate hangar bay do NOT show up in kill mails.
21. You can open secure containers in your carriers's corporate hangar bay, but you may not remove items from it.
22. To scoop an unmanned ship in space the carrier needs to be 1500m from it. It will go into your ship maintenance bay.
23. Carriers CAN go through a wormhole, but only very large ones. Supercarriers and Titans are the ones that can NOT.
24. The only implants that affect capital modules are the implants that SPECIFICALLY say they do, otherwise capitals are affected by normal implants the same as a non capital ship is.
25. You will never get any capital ship into high sec via a wormhole, sorry.
26. Using a Carrier in a Class 4, 5 or 6 wormhole to do magnetic or radar sites WILL spawn 6 ADDITIONAL Sleeper Battleships. This is per entry, if you warp away and warp back you get 6 additional Sleeper Battleships, if you manage to warp away it's probably not a good idea to come back.
Cynosural Fields and Carriers:
1. A normal cyno generator makes a cyno field that EVERYONE in the system can instantly warp to. The ship making it can not move or dock for the 5-10 minutes that the field will be active. Be sure to turn it OFF before it recylcles or you will spend another 5-10 minutes if you have the liquid ozone in your cargo hold.
2. The ship generating a cyno field is NOT invulnerable. A good tactic to use is to make the cyno field with a throw away ship for low threat areas or use a tougher ship (carrier, battleships, etc.) if you think it will be a HOT landing.
3. If you are popped while generating a cyno field you can warp away in your pod.
4. Liquid Ozone is the fuel for making a cyno field and starts at 450 units with level 1 Cynosural Field Theory skill. It drops by 50 units with every level after level 1.
5. You must be in a fleet to activate a cyno field. You must also be in the fleet to jump TO a cyno field. If you joined AFTER it was created, the cyno field must be "re-broadcasted".
6. It takes about a month to be able to use the covert ops cyno generator. It does NOT appear on other player’s overview like the REGULAR cyno generator does.
7. Only a Black Ops battleship class ship can jump to a Covert Ops cyno. Capital ships can NOT use it.
8. Yes, Cyno fields are the ONLY way a capital ship can get out of a system, they will NOT be able to use a standard gate.
9. You can not start a regular cyno field while in high sec but you can jump to ANY regular cyno field FROM high sec.
10. You CAN NOT eject while the regular cyno is active.
11. Some ships (Force Recon for example) get bonuses to Liquid Ozone consumption and a reduced timer for their cyno field (5 minutes).
12. The capital ship lands in a 5km wide bubble around the cyno field. This means you could potentially "bounce" off a station and wind up away from the docking ring. Use your tactical overlay to verify you are at least 5km away from the station.
13. If your cyno ship gets popped while jumping ships are enroute they will land RANDOMLY in the cyno's system at a speed which will take minutes to decrease from.
14. You CAN NOT cloak with a cyno up.
15. You CAN NOT Cyno yourself within the same system (anymore).
16. You CAN self destruct while you have the Cyno field up.
17. A log off or disconnect with a Cyno up means your ship STAYS until the Cyno has run its course.
Jumping/Warping:
1. Capital ship navigation for jumping is accessed via the Shortcuts tab in the Esc menu. It will tell you a number of things like distance in light years, fuel consumption and what jamming fields are active. Some use external jump planners like this one here.
2. A good idea is to only jump to systems that have a station you can safely store your carrier in if you get into trouble upon arrival. Pop the cyno field right at the station.
3. A single warp scram can stop you from jumping AND warping.
4. They take about 6 seconds to jump plus the load time for the new system.
5. It takes about 30 seconds to go to warp.
6. The starting jump range is 6.5 light years.
7. The only skill that increases the jump range is the Jump Drive Calibration skill which takes about a month to start to train.
8. Jump Drive Operation reduces the amount of capacitor you need to jump by 5% per level. At level 3 you need 80% capacitor power to jump.
9. Jump Fuel Conservation reduces the amount of racial isotopes you need for any given length of jump.
10. You must be in a fleet to jump to a cyno field. You do NOT have to be in a fleet to jump to a Jump Beacon (0.0 only).
11. You can not jump a carrier into high sec. A capital ship in high sec means it was BUILT in a .5 system BEFORE they removed that ability.
12. Capital ships can use Jump Bridges provided there is enough Liquid Ozone.
Carrier Tactics:
1. Dock hugging is not just for carebears.
2. Cloaking will break your control over drones AND fighters.
3. If your fighters are set to follow an enemy through warp you can lose them if they warp to a hostile POS.
4. Carriers make your fleet much more powerful, but are weak by themselves.
5. Pay attention to cyno fields being generated that are not your own because it will be a Dreadnought which are designed to kill other capital ships as well as POSs.
6. Run away to fight another day but I doubt you will be able to.
7. Do not sit your carrier in the exit path of a station; move it so that an exiting ship can not ram it away from the stations docking range.
8. Keep a variety of fighters so that you can do your best to match damage types to enemy ships natural weaknesses.
9. Watching local is more important than ever, assume all of them will gang up against you (because they WILL).
10. Keeping aligned to a station is always a good idea if you can.
11. While you certainly have room for a lot of drones/fighters the current interface makes them difficult to use sometimes. Don't have anymore drones than you really really need!
12. Assign your fighters to ships that can not normally use drones. This maximizes the amount of drone/fighters your fleet can field.
13. Keeping a "cyno alt" account is common for capital ship pilots. Keep that alt in another system ready to drop a cyno field.
Fighters/Drones:
1. Compared to cruiser or larger ship types, Fighters do not fair well against frigates. You should carry light drones or webify a frigate.
2. All fighters do the SAME amount of damage and the SAME amount of effective hit points, they only vary in the amount of armor, shield and hull hit points they have but all have the same total amount of points.
3. They also vary in what type of damage they do and at what optimal range they do it at as well as their speeds.
4. Firbolgs seem to be a favorite because of its particular mix of those factors.
5. The ONLY skills that relates to fighters is the Fighters skill and the Carrier skill. Nothing else!
6. Drones (which are not FIGHTERS) do not get the 200% range bonus. Without another module or skill level, drones have whatever range you always have with them.
7. A full compliment of fighters will cost 180 million + depending on what fighter and what carrier you use.
8. You can set your fighters to follow a target if they warp out. A common tactic is for your enemy to warp to a POS where you automatically lose your fighters.
9. Fighters will NOT follow you through a jump, but they WILL follow you through a warp.
10. Fighters can be sluggish to respond to orders; I think this is a bug.
11. Fighters have a universal volume of 5,000 m3 each. Average cost is 12-15 million each.
12. As the carrier pilot you can Delegate your fighters to any number of ships in your fleet. This DOES count against THEIR drone control skill limit but NOT their bandwidth limit. The fighters will follow them through warp, but NOT a jump.
13. When you assign someone fighters it is YOUR Fighters skill that gets applied, so your assigned fighters do the same amount of damage as usual.
14. A fighter conroller may return their assigned fighters via the "return control" option. The fighers will immediatly warp to the owning carrier.
15. With Carrier skill at level 5 and Advanced Drone Interfacing at level 5 a carrier can have up to 15 fighters, a supercarrier will have 25.
16. Fighters can not be warp scrammed and when the controller "relinquishes control" they automatically return to the carrier.
17. You CAN NOT assign fighters to fleet mates in a .4 system.
18. Carrier pilots can not monitor their fighters health if their fighters are not on the same grid.
19. Assigning Fighters to pilots in a sleeper combat site spawns six additional sleeper battleships. Depending on the fleet in the site this can be a very bad idea.
Triage Mode:
1. You CAN NOT use drones or fighters while you are in triage mode.
2. You CAN NOT recieve ANY type of remote rep while in triage mode.
3. Triage mode eats Strontium Clathrates, 450 units at level 1, 50 less units per additional level.
4. Triage mode lasts for 5 minutes and can not be interupted.
5. Generally speaking you can tank 14000 to 21000 dps. Some carriers can be specifically fitted to do this in perma mode while others will last only minutes before the cap burns out.
6. Unless you have a very good plan, triage mode means you're going to die.
7. Your scan resolution jumps by 900%
8. You can NOT move, dock, warp or jump at all while in triage mode.
9. You gain the ability to target 4 more objects.
10. You x4 your ability to repair yourself and remote repair others. (-50% duration along with 100% repair bonus)
11. Your cap requirment for E-war modules while in triage mode makes them impossible to use.
Supercarriers
Key Facts
Supercarriers are Super Capital-class ships. These ships can only be built from a capital ship array inside of an alliance's sovereign territory. These massive ships are the second most costly ships in the game, behind the Titan-class Super Capital. The main differences between carriers and supercarriers is the ability to launch more fighter drones than a carrier can. A carrier can deploy one extra drone per carrier level, whereas a supercarrier can deploy three extra per carrier level. Supercarriers can also deploy the anti-capital ship fighter-bomber drones.
Supercarriers can also equip the Remote ECM Burst module. This module jams any ship within its area of effect.
