Dead as Disco

There's a lot of activity about with the changes to Tech III Strategic Cruisers coming next month and whilst I agree they were in need of some serious overhauls to make Recons and Heavy Assault Cruisers more relevant, I couldn't help but be more than a little concerned about my most beloved of Strategic Cruisers, Night Fever.

For the uninitiated, she is my Smart Bombing Proteus that has netted me literally of hundreds of explorer frigate and pod kills over the journey, not to mention some pretty funny close calls from those who would see her demise. Despite their best efforts, she still lives today, although not getting nearly as much use as she has in the past.

So it was with some trepidation that I logged into the Singularity Test Server to play around with fittings and make sure my cloaked disco machine could still be of service to Bob. The reality however, is that it just can't happen, at least not as I have had it in the past. With some wrangling it is possible to get five large faction smart bombs on but I have to live without interdiction nullification, a propulsion module and a medium capacitor booster. Regrettably, that is too much of a sacrifice to make it viable any longer.

As horrible as that news is, there are silver linings. In my NullSec days I used to rat with a medium shield boosted HAM Tengu that I still have to this day. It hasn't fired a shot in over two years but it was a joy to use with its high mobility and in excess of 900 DPS output. Tanked for a specific damage type, it could handle all but the most severe sites and it made me a truck load of ISK when I was using it. For exercise, I thought I'd just make sure that I could still use it as I had and the good news that yes, it was still very comfortable in that role and just as effective. What I didn't expect is that I could make it Covert Ops and Interdiction Nullified too. The downside was going to be damage application in that set up, however. There just weren't enough mid slots for a target painter to assist the HAMS in hitting their target, so I opted for a Heavy Missile variant, allowing me to fit a large booster and a capacitor battery for neut resistance. The end result is pretty impressive.

650 DPS
10% shield boost per cycle [3.2 secs]
560 metres per second
Cap stable!

Carry around a depot with specific hardeners for the enemies you're facing and you have yourself a ship that can effectively rat in hostile space with impunity. No bubble camp can stop you unless you fuck up quite badly.

I'm sure there's someone out there who will come up with a better variant, I only spent about ten minutes on this fit, but it was pretty easy to do, so I encourage you all to log into Singularity and play around with the new fits yourselves. There's even some logistics bonuses that are certainly going to add a whole new level of versatility to these ships. The possibilities look very promising.

Fly safe o7