Been a while since I posted anything of substance, but with work and side projects EVE play time has been hard to come by. So much going on – new epic mission arches, new rigs, DUST 514, etc – but I’ll keep things a bit closer to home and talk about mission running.

Limited playtime means Furious hasn’t undocked to fight Minmatar capsuleer fleets in some time, but it does mean a renewed focus on building some ISKies in the service of the Amarr Ministry of War.

Daniella is my primary mission runner – she’s about maxed out on relevant skills and can fly level 4′s for corps across both Amarr and Caldari space. While she once was a classic, plain vanilla Raven pilot, she now exclusively flies her Nighthawk deep in secure Amarr space. I’ve expressed my love for the Nighthawk here before: not only is it beautiful, but its passive shield tank is awe-inspiring. A classic “warp in and forget” kind of tank, except in very rare missions.

However I wanted to speed up my missioning due to my limited playtime, get Furious back in the mix with his Amarr ships, and just play around with a two ship setup. Following my missioning mantra of 1) little to no faction ships or gear and 2) no marauders (too pricy to lose, in both cases), I set him up with an Abaddon armed with a decent tank, 8 mega pulse lasers, and pathetically small cap (5 minutes). Enough cap, though, to melt just about anything in a level 4 mission in short order.

My basic kill mission goes like this:
Daniella in the Nighthawk takes care of most of the aggro, leaving Furious’ Abaddon to function mainly as a massive golden blowtorch and no worry about his LAR2 eating up all his cap. Warp the Nighthawk in, piss off a few bad guys, draw all the DPS *and* all the tracking disruptors (against my heavy missiles…mwuhahaha), then warp the Abaddon in.

Daniella focuses on the small ships, working her way up to battlecruisers, while Furious starts in on the battleships. They meet somewhere in the middle. When the DPS is manageable and just a couple ships remain, Daniella warps home to grab my new favorite ship: the Salvage-Cane (Hurricane fit for mission looting).

Until this week, I was using a run of the mill Cormorant for mission loot and salvage cleanup. Never again, my Cormorant is permanently parked. The Salvage-Cane has the same highs (4x each of tractor beams and salvagers), but can fit both a MWD and Afterburner (for max flexibility running around while tractoring wrecks) and can hold over 2,000m3 of cargo, compared to the Cormorant’s 400m3 (or so). Brilliant, I love this thing.

Plus, the Hurricane is one of the best looking ships in the game IMO. It, along with the Abaddon, just looks like I always hoped combat spaceships would look. So even while just salvaging, it’s a hoot to fly around in.

The combo works out pretty well. I just tested it all out on a Sansha Blockade mission, with loads of DPS and gobs of ships, and with some window toggling it went incredibly fast.

More to share later on, as I consider taking the little gang out on the Amarr epic mission arch, hopefully posted about here in less rambling prose. Meantime, fly safe!

*Screen cap by CrazyKinux over on Flickr.

However, looking at how often I’m seeing Harbinger’s show up on the Amarr Militia Killboard (on both sides of the killmails), I’m getting inspired to get back to specializing in the class and hope I can afford them. Command ships, due to cost, I’ll save for PVE, which leaves me with the Harbinger on my main and the Hurricane on my alt for small gang and some solo PVP in lowsec.

Let’s start with the Harbinger.

There seem to be really only two base loadouts for the ship: the Focused Medium Pulse (FMP) + 1600mm Plate (example), and the Heavy Pulse (HP) + 800mm Plate (example).

HIGH SLOTS:
In both cases you load out the highs with the laser of your choice, Tech 2 preferrably, and fit Scorch M and Amarr Navy Multifrequency M crystals to cover most ranges. If you have an extra high slot and room to fit anything, popular choices tend to be medium NOS’ or Neutralizers. Tight fit though depending on the lows and mids.

LOW SLOTS:
A bit more room for variation here, but not much. For small gang action, and keeping with the current trend in PVP thinking to focus on a heavy armor hit point buffer vs. any kind of self-repair capability, don’t fit a Medium Armor Repairer (MAR). Fit an armor plate (800mm for the HP variation, 1600mm for the FMP), a couple resist modules (EANM or plain old Adaptive Nano Plating II), a Damage Control, and 2-3 damage modules such as Tracking Enhancers (especially if you’re expecting small ship opposition) and Heat Sinks. 3x Heat Sinks gives you a hell of a gank boat, but the tracking mod could be nice for the small ships.

MID SLOTS:
This is where people get creative. You can toss on the “holy trinity” of PVP mid-slot modules: Scrambler/Disruptor, Stasis Webifier, and Cap Injector, with room for an afterburner or microwarpdrive, which is my preferred fit as something of a traditionalist. However, especially in Factional Warfare, you’re likely to see a heavy dose of fast small frigate-sized ships buzzing around. I plan to just rely on my Web and a drone bay full of Warrior II light and fast drones to take care of the gnats. However if I know I’ll be in a gang, I might drop the Disruptor and try out something else.

Here are some of the variations I’ve seen pop up on killboards of late:

Disrupt/Scrambler Combo Fit
Fit both a longer range 1-point Warp Disruptor (snag your prey) and a short range 2-point Scrambler (snag + kill MWD’s to slow down small ships). Swap out the Cap Injector to make it fit. In light of recent gameplay changes which enable the 2-pt Scrams to disable MWD’s, this can be a very nice setup to deal with small ships at close ranges. Leaves you running tight on cap though, which scares me in PVP.

Target Painter Fit
Drop the Web, propulsion mod, or Injector and add a Target Painter. Sometimes pair with the dual Disruptor/Scrambler fit on a FMP setup (better tracking) for the ultimate frigate-killing BC. I never thought of Painters outside of using them on missile boats, but the signature radius bonus does appear to help with any weapon, so why not try this I guess? Interesting idea, I may give it a whirl.

Tracking Disruptor Fit
Drop the mod of your choice to fit a TD. Best if you know you’re going up against BC’s and BS’s.

My personal choice to start with will likely be the Heavy Pulse/800mm Plate basic loadout to better deal with cruisers and larger ships, 2x Heat Sinks and 1x Tracking Enhancer (small ship counter), and a mid slot setup of AB or MWD (still playing with the fitting), Web, Cap Injector, and try out the Target Painter idea for a while. Again, a drone bay full of Warrior II’s or a split of Warriors and light ECM drones. With the TP fit, I’ll let other ships in gang do the tackling in exchange for being able to deal out more damage against a wider range of ship classes. I may get smoked a lot, but should be fun seeing what happens.

What do you think? Any better suggestions for good Harbinger fits, or philosophies on the mid slot loadout?

My preferred setup, based on a smattering of experience and some good recommendations from friends – I need to get out and try this a bit more in combat before I swear to it though:

HIGH:
1x Medium Energy Neutralize
1x Standard Missile Launcher
2x Focused Medium Pulse Laser
I know you’re reading this thinking “don’t split weapon systems!” Normally I agree, but I happen to think the Arby works well set up like this.

MID:
1x 10mn Microwarp Drive (MWD)
1x Stasis Webifier
1x Warp Disruptor (20km)
1x Tracking Distruptor (TD) (with a Tracking Speed Script)

LOW:
1x Medium Armor Repairer (MAR)
1x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane (EANM)
1x 400mm Armor Plate
1x Reactor Control Unit (RCU) to make it all fit

DRONES:
5x Hammerheads
5x Vespa EC-600
5x Warriors
5x whatever lights

You can swap in T2 or nice named, but this is a throw-away cruiser so why bother?

Tactics:
Approach on MWD, kick in the TD if you’re facing a turret ship. Either orbit at 15km or so and pepper with your drones, lasers, and missiles OR switch to multifreq crystals and get in under web range and rely on your Neutralizer to cap the bad guy out before he can kill you in return. The Warrior’s are there in case you run up against any Interceptors or nano’d frigates – at least scare them out of scram range so you can flee. The Vespa’s are there to either a) break their scram and flee or b) just annoy the hell out of them. You lose a lot of DPS with ECM drones, but it could make for some entertaining combat. Plus you’re that much more of a help to your gang.

EDITED: in light of a very good comment that I got carried away with acronyms without spelling them out. Sorry about that!

Thought I’d share my current favorite Crusader (Amarr Interceptor) fitting:

HIGHS
4x Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Scorch S Crystals

MIDS:
1x 1MN Microwarp Drive II
1x Warp Disrupter II (24km Range)

LOWS:
2x Tracking Enhancer II
1x Overdrive Injector System II
1x Nanofiber Internal Structure II

RIGS / IMPLANTS:
None for me, as I’m likely to lose this thing a LOT. Two philosophies though – fit speed rigs (Ancillary Thrusters or the insanely pricey Polycarbs) or energy weapon rigs to extend your range. I just go with the modules = good enough.

Tactics:
Goes roughly 6 km/s with decent Navigation skills (Nav/Evasive to 5, others to 4), so not wildly fast by Nano standards but good enough for my PVP skill level. Set orbit to 10-12 km, which translates to an effective 13-15 km with the MWD on. 13-15 km is optimal for my lasers with the Scorch crystals, so I can do damage, scram, and sit beyond range of *most* Webbers.

Run far away from Minmatar Recons as they will Web you to death, and as my last post mentioned, pay attention to Stealth Bombers or any of a range of missile (esp. assault missile) mounting ships. Cerberus’ I hear are particularly nasty in an Inty-killer role.

EDITED: Completely forgot to include the scram in the 2nd mid slot. Oops. Thanks Spectre!