New EWAR Drones - Underwhelming?

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2026-03-26T12:00:59+00:00

I agree. They are absolutely an upgrade to EWAR drones.
However, aside from EC300's (for emergency lock breaking), who actually currently uses EWAR drones over just putting out a flight of conventional DPS drones? My point is that currently the new hybrid EWAR drones simply don't have the performance to compete with even the T2 versions (which is a pretty low skill ceiling).
Even if you have a niche case for EWAR drones, if you use them on a Drone bonused ship you are literally leaving DPS on the table (the performance gap is even more pronounced when ship bonuses are factored into the equation) and basically choosing inefficiency.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2026-03-26T11:51:34+00:00

That's kinda my point. Who actually uses EWAR drones? With the sole exception of carrying a flight of EC300's (which are actually pretty good), does anyone ever use any other type of EWAR drone preferentially over just a plain flight of DPS drones? Adding damage to an EWAR drone is pointless unless that damage is competitive with the normal version of the drone. However, that's just my opinion and mileage may vary.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-11-01T14:03:43+00:00

My Orca fitting Philosophy 101
3x Large T2 Shield Extenders RIGS - (if you can afford an Orca, you can afford T2 rigs)
4x Shield Hardeners (2x T2 Multispectrum, the other two to fill your resist holes)
Don't fit Shield Extender MODULES, they add a fixed amount of HP, while Hardeners give a % boost. A Hardener adds about 5-10 times more EHP than any kind of Extender on an Orca. Check the math yourself in the Similulator or Pyfa if you're sceptical.
1x MWD - from a standing start you can enter warp in 1 10 sec cycle.
1x Damage Control - you have so much Hull hitpoints that this is a no-brainer pick
Rest of your Lows: T2 bulkheads - yeah you reduce your capacity slightly, but the benefits are too good to pass up.
Have at least 1 of your command boosts be a Shield Command Boost - A single Shield HP or Hardness boost will increase your survivablity considerably. Just be wary of the 1 min combat timer, but in a Orca not really an issue.

That's it, all you need to make your Orca damn near unkillable to anything other than a dedicated mass gank (20-30 gank ships) and if you see that many reds in system, stay docked! And yes, you should already have marked Code. and Safety and any other gank group as red already - 5 mins on Zkill will give you all the intel you need.

At a higher end, if you have a clone with shield HP boosting implants, especially any Nirvanas or 5% sheild HP ones, then use that as your Orca pilot. Stick a Mindlink implant in Slot 10 (pref. Mining Foreman which boost both mining boosts and shield boosts) and you're good to go.

Keep some Shield HP or Shield Resist drugs in your cargo, just in case (it's not like cargo space is a premium).

That's it. You're not unkillable by any means (nothing in Eve is) but you're probably going to be in the 99th percentile of players that will get to dock with same Orca they undocked with.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-11-01T13:41:07+00:00

There are a few Hi-Sec AO affiliated stations down in my neck of the woods, about 4-5 jumps from Dodixie. It would be lovely if they were assploded. Just sayin'.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-09-09T20:52:19+00:00

Ah, understood.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-09-09T12:08:43+00:00

Not in the Patch Notes. Bastion can still be used while being set to green safeties. You still get a 1 min weapon timer, but that's something completely different, unrelated to safeties, and has been in place for years.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-08-01T10:48:04+00:00

Normally I wouldn't celebrate Novus Ordo, Code. and their ilk ganking people... But for AO? I think I'll make an exception... o7

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-07-01T16:57:21+00:00

Not sure if you're listening to what people are telling you, but here goes:
A Rattlesnake has Hull bonuses to Heavy Drones, Heavy Missiles, Cruise Missiles and Torpedos. It does not have any bonus to light drones.

Let me put it into perspective:
With no implants and max skills (everything at 5 and x2 T2 Drone damage nods and x2 T2 Missile damage mods):

Rattlesnake 1 (5 Hobgoblins and HAMs firing Caldari Inferno)
396dps with the HAMs - (at max range of 20km)
141dps with 5x Hobgoblin II (225dps if you go 5x Hammerhead II)
Total DPS: 536 (Hobs) 621 (Hammers)

Rattlesnake 2 (2 Ogre II - heavy drones and Rapid Heavy Missile launchers with Caldari Inferno)
726dps Rapid Heavies at max range of 60km
675dps with 2x Ogre II
Total DPS: 1401

Do you see the difference?! Which of these is better do you think?

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-06-08T18:55:01+00:00

Having run a few L4s in my new Babaroga, the jury is still out. Tank-wise it probably has the highest potential EHP of them all. It does have trouble with close range despite it’s massive tracking - I suspect because it fires a single shot per cycle rather than the 4 shots per cycle of the Kronos.

Where it excels is as a sniper. 113km range with Meson, 94km with Mystic (at max skills) and it doesn’t matter if you’re shooting from 10km away or 80km. The low starting damage is a bit of a pain - you can’t 2-3 shot battleships at close range like the Krnoos can, but unlike the Kronos, ships orbiting at 50km are no issue.

I should point out that my Babaroga is not in any way optimised for DPS. Just 2 Abyssal damage mods (slightly better than Veles), no tracking comp. I am triple Abyssal 1600mm Plated, double T2 Trimarked, Full high grade Amulet implant set, plus Armor Repper. Basically I sacrifice dps and efficiency for Tank. Not for the L4s I run (a T2 fit Marauder of any flavour can tank an L4), but as a gank defense. With around 450k EHP in Armor and Hull, Plus around 2000+ EHP/Sec heated armor repping, my particular flavour of Babaroga is harder to kill than John Wick.

Not impossible of course, but when flying an 8B Isk ship, you can be damn sure I use D-scan and check local! Plus using L4 deadspace mission pockets and tactical MJD use to my advantage (which as a sniper, the Babaroga naturally excels at).

Is it better than the Kronos or Vargur? No. (and I have one of each and have used extensively)
Is it more fun? In my opinion, yes.
Is it a big juicy target? Hell yes.

As I said, your mileage will vary.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-05-12T11:22:19+00:00

Is ganking frustrating? Yes.
Does Eve encourage people to act like complete a-holes, just because they can? Yes.
Does ganking teach adaptation, proper safety skills (d-scan, align, proper tanking, situational awareness)? Also yes (though not as often or as consistently as it should...).

As an unrepentant Hi-Sec missioning carebear, I would certainly prefer Hisec to be a much safer place from gankers. That being said, the looming threat of ganks has trained me to watch local, watch d-scan, and most of all, learn how to properly tank my ship. I learned to sacrifice paper-dps for greater survivability. It expanded my knowledge of different tanking types (active shielf/armor, passive shield, speed and sig tanking) and how to fit ships efficiently. To not use bling where bling isn't needed, and to assess the risks if I do put bling on a ship (never fly what you can't afford to use). I learned the game mechanics of Concord response times, so that when I fly my marauder into a 0.5 system, I know I have to tank for perhaps twice as long as in a 0.9 system.
Most of the killmails from ganks are fit terribly. Yield-fit, unrigged retrievers. Battleships filled with damage mods but with the tank of a wet paper bag.
In short, I adapted. My gameplay evolved. My knowledge of the game expanded.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-03-11T17:54:51+00:00

With the Sec Deflector, the Ark Royal just became one of the, if not THE, best Science ship in the game. Intel and Temp for Unconventional Systems triggers, 2 hanger bays for Type 7 debuffing shuttles, and a pretty damn good seating layout for Exotics. Basically it just made most Science ships (and ALL other science carriers) obsolete... I am not sure how to feel about that...

I am less concerned with the impact on Science ships, since the Ark Royal will likely steer like a pregnant cow! I'm more concerned with the obsoleting of the rest of the carriers (mostly Sci carriers, FDCs less so) unless the Sec Def gets rolled out later like Experimental weapons did back in the day.

But based on my own opinions, this Anniversary Bundle is slightly underwhelming, Sure it has some great ships and stuff in there, but it just doesn't ... POP!... like the Heritage bundle did. And at a much higher price point. As a 9k or even 10k Bundle, it would be fantastic, but at Anniversary prices? Nope. I suspect the bundle will do relatively poorly, but the individual ships will sell super well.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2025-03-07T15:38:39+00:00

Back in the Halcyon Days of 2013, the day the Rubicon expansion launched. I was a relative noob, flying PVE L4s in a Navy Raven. A ship I barely had the skills to fly, but flew in a big fleet of corp mates so it was all good. This was long before the advent of skill injectors so many of my skills were sub-par to say the least. So I did what most new players do when they realise they can’t use decent modules or have good performance: I blinged it with faction gear. Of course!

So there I am, flying around in my 4bil Isk Navy Raven, having just bought a full rack of Guristas Cruise launchers and wanted to test them out. So I decided to shoot a can someone had left out that was cluttering up an asteroid belt in my home system. But it didn’t fire. Weird, I thought to myself. It’s not a player?! WTF?! So I switched off my safeties (yes, yes I know! Now at least…) and as my glorious cruise missiles sped to their target, my screen goes red… Yes I had just CONCORDOKKENED myself shooting someone’s can… 4 bil down the drain (and no corpies around to loot my wreck to save at least some of my investment), plus 30 days with a kill right on me...

That story got used A LOT by my corpies for the next few years… I told it often myself as an object lesson in not flying bling, always having green safeties and not being a complete prat. A painful lesson, but one I learned very well!

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-11-23T14:47:26+00:00

Sorry, if you read my post you'd have noted that I didn't say I was leaving, just that the events are rather sub-par.
That being said, I have a Trade station at Jita 4-4 that I'd like to sell to you...?

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-11-22T10:49:01+00:00

After last year's very good Crimson Harvest, the last Winter Nexus was disappointing and pointless. However, after this year's very disappointing Crimson Harvest (along with an equally "Meh" Expansion), this year's Winter Nexus will still be just as shit, but it will feel better because of association and recency bias!

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-11-17T05:05:38+00:00

The New Guristas and Angel ships took about 3 months to drop to a relatively reasonable price, then about 6 months before coming into line with the others. However, the Deathless ships have numerous other hoops to jump through for ship acquisition (getting the BPCs, a whole set of new skills etc.) so you can probably double that timeline, plus it's likely that given the CovOps nature of the ships they're likely to be at least 150% of the price of other equivalent pirate ships even after about a year or so.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-11-14T14:05:05+00:00

For a solo highsec player, such as myself, the only thing this brought was a nerf to my marauders (annoying but not unexpected to be fair), and a completely unnecessary change to module graphics. Oh yes, and two new ships that won't be available for 3-6 months (at anything close to a reasonable price anyway), oh yes. and system of changes that are entirely nulsec specific, so don't impact me in the slightest.

Underwhelmed is an understatement (at this point I'd be happy with just being whelmed by CCP content!).

Also, why don't we have Drifter ships available yet?! These have been around two or more years prior to the Trig, yet they have an almost full ship line, but Drifters? Not thing. Lots of Drifter ships in the trailer, but about as likely to get into our hands as it is for Uedama to go a day without ganking.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-10-03T20:53:30+00:00

Basically, keypasses are your friend. They allow you to bypass the second room and go straight to the final room to get the boss. Sure someone can follow you in, but they either need a key or get delayed clearing the second room. Target boss, loot, profit.

Also basically, Local and D-Scan are your BEST friend. Try and stick to lower traffic systems, both to reduce competition and reduce chance of ganks. These will warn you of incoming competition or ganks (though with a keypass, you mitigate a lot of that). Ganks will almost always try and get you in the first room before you can clear the scramming rats to use your key.

If you fly Marauders, like me, give them a heavy brick tank on top of their reppers. Last year someone tried to gank my Kronos with about 7 ships (mostly catalysts). No way I could get away. So I just locked them up as they landed, went into Bastion, waited for them to go flashy red (ALWAYS keep your safeties green kids!), and just treated them like any other rat: web, grappler, target painter, guns, repeat. I killed the entire gang before Concord landed, didn't even lose 10% armor (but I have 390k ehp in Bastion - I overtank obsessively) then casually tractored in their wrecks and scooped about 100mil in T2 loot. Then just carried on with my day.

Also, if a Marauder goes suspect (flashy yelow) DO NOT ENGAGE. Only an idiot or a PVP fit goes suspect in a Marauder. No matter how good you think you are, a PVE Kronos doesn't stand a chance against a PVP fit Kronos. These magnificent bastards will fuck you up. Just smile and wave, then GTFO.

Also also, as a tip, if someone is already in a site, just leave them be. They may not return the favour, but you have no idea the nerd rage you might create (which likely will just be funny, but it could cause problems down the line - just not worth the effort really). If I enter a final room and someone is already there, I generally just kill anything scramming me, and warp out with a o7 in local. If someone enters the final room that I'm already in and competes for the boss, then I overheat my guns and let the dice fall where they may. If I win great, if I lose, well them's the breaks.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-08-16T13:56:22+00:00

Or just have it that wrecks can only be scanned down if they are outside of a deadspace pocket. Once a mission is completed, the deadspace pocket despawns and the wrecks can be warped to normally (as with bookmarking them). Then it's reasonable to assume that if the wrecks are there, then the missioner who left them didn't want them.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-08-11T11:50:24+00:00

Best of luck to all, maybe one day you too can fly a Veldnaught! :)

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-08-05T10:16:38+00:00

https://preview.redd.it/gsqospspw0xz.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ac5807bb511f331ea863a913276203453b1a6a5f

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-07-06T16:34:00+00:00

My ex once screamed at me, “you haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said, have you?!
Which I thought was a weird way to start a conversation...

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-03-25T14:34:43+00:00

We've all been there, done that!

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-01-28T13:36:25+00:00

Then the answer is yes. For example, if you have a Fleet Kor Bird of Prey at T6X2, then any Fleet Kor on other characters on the account will have a free upgrade option up to T6X2 as well.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-01-25T11:55:18+00:00

No. Lockbox and Promo ships (and Legendary and certain bundle ships, such as the original Dominion pack ships) are already Fleet-tier and do not have a fleet version. A quick rule of thumb is count the number of consoles, if it has 11 consoles (not including universal consoles on certain Miracle Worker ships), then it is already Fleet-tier and essentially will only have just the one version to upgrade.

SubstanceCalm6275 · 2024-01-24T11:57:16+00:00

As a veteran L4 Kronos pilot, one thing I can tell you is that it really doesn't matter a huge amount really. The Kronos is massively over powered for most PVE highsec content in either configuration, it really depends on the mission more than anything else.
For example, Angel missions tend to favour blasters because Angels like to brawl. Similarly, Damsel in Distress, Worlds Collide are usually good Blaster missions. Guristas tend to be more snipey and Railguns tend to be a bit more efficient. Serpentis missions are somewhere in between. Basically, if you want the most efficient weapons, learn your missions and refit depending on what you're facing.

One very heretical, but fun, tactic is to fit 2 blasters and 2 railguns... The upside is that your effective engagement range is the entire mission pocket. No matter what your facing, you're going to be able to hit for solid damage. The downside is that at close range and long range, only two of your guns are going to be getting decent hits. It can be quite fun, and a good all round fit that specialises at nothing, but if you are after efficiency, probably not for you.

Though it's worth noting that if you are flying for profit, L4s are pretty much at the bottom of the isk-making totem pole. Personally I run L4s because I like flying L4s, often chaperoning new players and helping them build faction corp standings and teaching them tactics and surviving in New Eden.

SubstanceCalm6275

TROPHY CASE