The Demotion of Carriers

Recently its become a thing where carriers are going out with sub cap fleets for smaller scale operations, acting as extra muscle in fights. Sometimes the fights escalate into Dreadnoughts and FAX machines, but many times the carriers are mostly unsupported except for the usual Logistic cruisers and the rest of the fleet. I wanted to get in on the action so I took my Thanatos out in a GalMil fleet and while I didn't get to use my fighters I did apply some energy neutralizers to one lone Ferox caught out of position.

I find it very interesting stepping back and looking at this evolution of Carriers. They used to represent a massive jump in power and cost over battleships but now the jump is definitely a lot less severe. With the right fitting and rigs carriers approach heavily tanked battleships in align time and warp speed, and since they can use stargates they can travel with the sub caps and not slow the fleet down appreciably. In exchange, they provide long range heavy hitting firepower.

Indeed, even in space the models of the carriers are barely a few percentage points larger than the battleships they now find themselves in the company of. It feels like CCP took the backdoor to the Assault Carrier idea I've floated a couple times.

Carrier Testing and Learning

The radical changes to carriers means it feels like starting from scratch in how to use them and what all the skills enable/boost. This weekend during a quiet moment with the wife napping I launched onto SISI server and did some testings.

Setup

My skills were not up to speed with my Tranquility training but I quickly got them up to Fighters III which allowed me to install three squadrons of Firbolg Is in the launch tubes of my Thanatos carrier. The modules installed on the carrier that affect drone/fighter performance are:

2 x Fighter Support Unit Is - Bonus to Shield, Shield Recharge, Velocity, and Rate of Fire (stacking penalties apply)
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I - Improves fighter firing stats
2 x Drone Navigation Computer Is - Improves fighter speeds (stacking penalties)
Drone Damage Amplifier II - Fighter Damage Increase

In order to test the damage application of my three squadrons I fit up a shield buffer tanked Rokh battleships with the following:

3 x Large Shield Extender IIs
2 x Adaptive Invulnerability Field IIs
Damage Control II
3 x Large Core Field Extender II rigs

Movement

My first tests were about how fast the Firbolgs would move around the grid, both at normal velocity and MWD velocity. I found that the normal speed was about 1792 m/s and MWD speed was ~9700 m/s but the MWD only lasted about 20 seconds and had a 40 sec cooldown between activations. The end result was that my fighters were travelling about 250km/minute.

Damage

Once I engaged the target Rokh it was destroyed within 52 seconds and required 4 salvos of the Rockets to complete the job, leaving 4 more on the fighter squadrons.

My next test will be with better skills and Firbolg II fighters, and hopefully can involve some logi ships to see how the burst is.

New Direction

After the rousing fun of being part of a pair of triage carriers in Bring Me The Head of Kirith Kodachi 3 last month, I made a couple decisions.

First, I wanted to train up Tactical Logistics Reconfiguration V so I could fit the Triage Module II for even better repping goodness.

Then, I decided it was time to break from my long held Caldari Only tradition for capital ships:

Training Gallente Carrier skill to unlock the Thanatos, my next big purchase. I also need Capital Armour Repair Systems skill trained up so those both will take a while. After that, Gallente Dreadnought and Capital Hybrid weapons.

Perhaps BMTHOKK4 will need a new poster...

Don't worry about my old faithful Chimera, the good ship Ninveah. It will find service with my alt who is skilled up for Caldari carrier as well.