Saturday 18 May 2013

Incursion Guide Intro - Becoming a Guardian Pilot (Part 1)


In trying to recover my ISK last week, I spent a lot of time running Incursions as a Guardian Armour Logi. And in that time I noticed a lot of hopeful Guardian pilots not getting into fleets for what I thought were obvious reasons, namely their fit. So I started to have the idea of a fitting guide for Guardian pilots in Incursions. But there’s already lots of fits out there on the internet that people can find and use, so to make my guide helpful beyond the whole “fit this you derp”, I thought I’d go into some more detail about what logis have to do in fleets beyond simply repping things, little tips I’ve found that make things easier and in general, a more fleshed out guide than a simple “fitting guide”.

So I’m going to split this guide into several parts, both for ease of reading (for you guys) and ease of writing for me. This first part will mainly focus on why you should fly a Guardian (or any logi ship in incursions) and outline the skills you’ll need/want for a decent fit. I’m aiming to keep it concise but fairly detailed. Furthermore, this will mostly be based on armour Vanguard/Assault sites, as I’ve only ever run two HQ sites and don’t want to offer advice on them incase I get it seriously wrong. I don’t want my bad advice getting you guys killed after all!

On with the mini guide!

Part 1 of Seraph's Guardian Guide - Why and how

Ew, why logistics?
So why should you logi? I can think of three main reasons:
Sexayyyyy!

      Training time
Honestly, training for a logistics ship isn’t actually that skill intensive at all when you look at what you absolutely require. Time spent skilling for a Logi ship is much shorter than a comparable DPS or Sniper-fit battleship. However additional skills that are useful for fitting, or just make your life easier can add a few months to your plans.

     There is a relative lack of Logistics pilots
Logi pilots are often in high demand when it comes to Incursion fleets. DPS and snipers are a dime a dozen, but a decently fit and flown logi ship is always in demand. This makes it much easier for you (and much more likely) to get into fleets and start making dat cash.

      Logistics ships are relatively cheap
Your average Incursion fit Armour Mach is going to cost between 1.3  - 1.8bil if not more, depending on level of pimpage/implants etc. An Incursion Bhaalgorn can break 2bil if you splash out on X-Type Nosferatus, and people often do. By comparison, even a “pimp-fit” Logi boat is going to cost you around half a billion on the high end. This makes them much easier on the wallet to lose, and much more cost effective.

So logistics are cheap, quick to train for and in high demand. Why aren't there more of them?
It’s probably because a logi ship can’t really be applied to many other situations. With a blingy Mach lying around, you can fit it to do other things, like missions or ratting to make money. A logi ship can only be used for PvP, or Incursions, and neither of these activities you can do solo in that ship.

Also, while the skill training isn't that long compared to T2 guns on battleships and such, it still requires racial cruiser V, which is over two weeks of training. That alone probably puts most people off. I can tell you from experience (after doing it on three characters) it’s not that bad. Plus, it opens up other T2 cruisers, and the T3 strategic cruiser for your race. Which rock.

Since we’re already talking about skill training, this is probably a good time to talk about the skills you need to fly a Logistics ship.

Skills for flying a Logistic ship

Main skills
As I've already mentioned, you’ll need racial cruiser V (So Amarr Cruiser V for the Guardian) and obviously the Logistics skillbook along with its pre-requisites. Now some of you are probably looking at the Logistics V training time (almost a month) and wincing. Yeah it’s bad. It’s also worth it, and you can still fly in fleets with Logistics IV, you’re just sort of a second class citizen in the Logi world. Logistics IV is bearable in fleets, but honestly, Logistics V makes everyone’s lives easier. Especially your’s. Train it as soon as you can, but it’s not absolutely required. Also I’d like to point out that anything less than Logistics IV will not get you into fleets. There simply won’t be enough cap transfers to keep you stable. Logistics IV is the absolute minimum. Don't be lazy.

You’ll also need the skills for a T2 Tank of your racial type. So Caldari/Minmatar will require T2 shield skills, while the Guardian and Oneiros will need T2 armour skills e.g, Hull Upgrades V. For your reppers, you’ll want the same remote skill as your tanking type, i.e Remote Armour Repair Systems for a Guardian, or Shield Emission Systems for a Basilisk. Training these to IV is enough, although I’ve got them to V because I’m training for a Carrier. :Smug:

You’ll also need Energy Emissions Systems to IV in order to operate Cap transfers for the cap chain. Of course, this is only required if you’re flying a Basilisk or Guardian, since Scimitars and Oneiroses don’t use cap chains. Even so, it’s still a useful skill to train up for PvP, since it also affects energy neuts.

Secondary skills (but still important)
You’ll want some decent Navigation skills, i.e the ability to fit T2 Afterburners and supports to IV. This sounds boring, but it’s important for your tank. Logis survive on the basis of high speed and tiny sig combined with massive resists, so these skills will save your bacon! You might also want to look into the Armour Compensation skills, as these help raise your resists if you’re using passive hardeners (which some fits use). I’d only train these to III personally, IV is a little long train for what you get at almost a day and half long train, and V is only worth it for supercapital pilots in my opinion. Of course, if you’ve got the training time spare, then getting them to IV is great, but frankly there are other skills you could train in that time that would increase your effective tank more (like the aforementioned navigation skills).

Advanced Target Management III is also a very helpful skill, as it lets you lock ten targets, which is your entire fleet in a Vanguard site. This is extremely helpful because it means people don’t have to broadcast, since you can monitor who’s taking damage pretty easily. As a result people don’t tend to broadcast in Vanguard sites unless they’re new, or think you’ve missed the fact they’re getting hammered. Getting "ATM" higher than III is a waste of time, since Logistics ships can’t lock more than 10 targets on their base stats anyway.

Another useful skill is Sensor Linking IV, since it allows you to fit both T2 Tracking Links and T2 Remote Sensor Boosters. On Guardians and Oneiroses, these are frequently fitted in the midslots to allow their fleet to apply DPS more effectively and decrease run times, which means faster ISK. Fitting these is obviously in your best interests if possible!

Other good skills are obviously the two main capacitor skills, Capacitor Systems Operation and Capacitor Management, since capacitor is life for logis. I recommend these at V and IV respectively, though V for both is obviously preferable. Also, you can train for logistics drones, but frankly they’re not as useful as you might first think. Plus, every extra flight of light drones is a bonus in terms of the fleet’s overall DPS, so in the vast majority of situations, a flight of Hobgoblin IIs or Warrior IIs is a better choice. That’s not to say that a flight of light rep drones won’t make a difference on a fast falling ship of course, but in my opinion, you’ll be better off with damage drones in 90% of cases. And finally, an excellent skill to have is Thermodynamics, incase you need to overheat your reps for a few cycles to pull someone through a rough patch. And make sure you keep some nanite paste in your cargo to repair damaged reppers so you don't have to hold up the fleet while you dock and repair.


Anyway, now you've got your skills, you're going to need a ship, and some things to fit it with. We'll look at that in Part 2 - Fitting and Flying.


Good luck out there guys ;D


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