Friday, February 26, 2016

Logistical Nightmare

I'm coming up on a skill remap shortly to Perception & Willpower so I thought it would be prudent to examine the benefits of training Logistics Frigates to Level 5. It's near enough to a month of training and since level 5 in logistics cruisers is, for the most part, absolutely necessary, I had assumed the same could be said for the frigates.

In the Logistics Cruiser branch the benefits of the Tech II variant over their Tech I counterpart are obvious. The most striking difference is the ability of the Tech II cruisers to fit what are, essentially, oversized repair modules. The fact that you can make that cruiser capacitor stable with a partner makes the Guardians and Basilisks the go-to choice for armour and shield fleets with the solo variants in the Scimitar and Oneiros filling a more nuanced role. The addition of aggression timers for logistics cruisers has made their use far less common, but they're still very capable in their own right.

Now, in the frigate line, capacitor transferring isn't bonused, so you have a choice to make. You can gimp your fit and hope you never get neuted to make a cap stable frigate, or you can go with cap injection. Considering their cargo bays are quite large, I've chosen the latter. For the sake of the experiment I'm going to compare the Bantam to the Kirin. Teamed up with a few shield tanked Svipuls and Jackdaws pouring through a frigate sized wormhole, I can envision them being a force to be reckoned with. Moreover, the abundance of mid slots on both ships allows for cap injection and a decent tank, the same can't be said for the Minmatar line of logistics frigates.


The base stats don't look appreciably different, do they? The main difference between these two ships comes from the Logistics Frigate skill. At level 5 you are essentially boosting 50% more at a 50% capacitor reduction. So whilst the Bantam has three shield transporters, the Kirin effectively has four and a half. The capacitor bonus has little effect in the comparison with both cap injected fits I created having ample capacitor to keep all of their modules running.

[Bantam]

Damage Control II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core II

1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Small S95a Scoped Remote Shield Booster
Small S95a Scoped Remote Shield Booster
Small S95a Scoped Remote Shield Booster

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Small Core Defense Field Extender II
Small Core Defense Field Extender II

Hobgoblin II x1
Navy Cap Booster 400 x20

This setup sees the Bantam at 100% cap stability and a decent buffer tank of 8,881 Effective Hit Points. No shame in that from a Tech I Frigate. Importantly, it's ridiculously cheap to build and has a relatively low skill requirement.

[Kirin]

Damage Control II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core II

1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Medium Shield Extender II
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Small S95a Scoped Remote Shield Booster
Small S95a Scoped Remote Shield Booster
Small S95a Scoped Remote Shield Booster

Small Core Defense Field Extender II
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II

Hobgoblin II x1
Navy Cap Booster 400 x20

This setup sees the Kirin at 88% cap stability and a very impressive buffer tank of 18,827 Effective Hit Points. Moreover, a sensor strength of 19.2 versus the Tech I of 14.4 means that the ECM resistance is significantly improved.

When I first started toying with these fits I admit I wasn't all that impressed with the Kirin over the Bantam, but the more I consider it, the more I like what I see. Having effectively double the EHP of the Bantam and the improved sensor strength makes it enormously survivable as you can sustain a significant amount of damage until friendly shield reps land and anyone who has flown the Tech I logistics frigates in a fight will testify that they are just a bit too squishy, often getting primaried off the field before friendly reps could land. Moreover, for a Tech II frigate they're pretty damn cheap, selling for around 20 Million ISK in the hubs. Allow for another 15-20 Million in fitting and you're looking at roughly double the cost of a fit Bantam but getting a whole lot more survivability and combat effectiveness into the deal.

I'm interested to know what experiences you may have had but it certainly looks like Logistics Frigates V is on my horizon. Plus there's a sexy new skin on the way. =]



1 comment:

  1. I had been holding off on training the Logi frigs to 5 simply because of the time and I was too lazy to crunch the numbers. But looking at this it looks like I will have to reconsider. T1 Logi frigs are incredibly squishy especially if you consider that you will always be primary (well, most likely) so any increase in EHP is welcomed.

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