Forgetfulness can lead to Loss

A timely reminder happened today, the reminder was quite simple. Know your ship, know your fit and more importantly remember these things in the heat of battle.

It was tower day, I needed to empty my towers prior to filling them up with input materials. It doesn't take very long but it does require me to move between a couple of systems. 

So precautions are needed and revolve around having a scout, the hauler and "backup". The scout is a cloaky interceptor, but with some bite, and the "backup" is a combat ship who will remain a mystery as I didn't need to show it at the time and it's useful to have an Ace.

Average Day

I use an Impel to do my tower hauling as the Fleet Hanger provides at least twice the cargo capacity that T1 haulers have the reduction in "ferrying" is a trade of I'm happy to make. 

I'd successfully moved into system, emptied my towers, watched a 20 man gang pass through and was left with a couple of reds. My scout was already back in the home system and waiting just off the gate.

D-scan did not show anything so I warped to my gate to return home.

Battlestations

D-scan was still clear as I entered warp but as I landed on gate the "oh shit" moment happened. There was a Svipul there, and he was a red. 

He jumped, I jumped. 

There was no way he did not see an Impel landing on the gate, we both jumped.

He did not immediately appear, I held cloak.

Scout was switched to and made ready to decloak and provide "interference" and "backup" was warped to the gate.

Warp to bookmark, activate MWD. deactivate MWD and switch to Scout. Svipul appears on grid and I'm yellow boxed.

(combat) Warp scramble attempt from Svipul [ A.4.D] Tukuarikan Nells Bells to you!

At this point I was resigned to losing the ship. The cargo wasn't huge but combined with the ship it was a noticeable dent to the wallet. 

I switch to my scout and I can see both the Svipul and my Impel in the overview. Then there is only the Svipul, so I hold my decloaking and switch back to my hauler.

He's still alive, he has an Aggression timer but that's it, Impel still alive and no need for me to do the "pee vee pee" thing, today.

Wait. What Happened?

I'd done the right thing, using the warp/MWD trick but I had forgotten the Role bonus of the Impel:

2+ bonus to ship warp core strength

Warp scramblers have a strength of 2 and the Role bonus of the Impel means that you need two or more warp disruption modules to successfully "scram or point" the ship. The Svipul seems to have only had one scram so the +2 was reduced to 0 but because it wasn't negative, thus I was able to escape.

Of course I didn't recall this at the time and honestly it was only typing the details into chat with my CEO that I realised what had happened. I'm thankful I didn't have to call on my "pee vee pee" skills, I probably would have lost three ships but it's possible I may not have. Confidence in my skills is something I'm yet to develop.

"Backup" is still a secret and I didn't have to shoot anyone. I'm quite happy with that, but I'm certainly going to refresh my memory of the Role and Bonuses of each ship I fly. 

Blockade Running and Deep Space Transports get a much needed upgrade

I'll only be covering my reaction to the changes as I use both the Prorator and Impel of these classes, your mileage my vary if you use different ships.

Blockade Runners

I have used Blockade Runners, mainly the Prorator, many times when I'm either carrying high value cargo (rare these days) or moving through hostile space (usually distribution missions and/or moving low/medium value assets in null sec).

The changes mean the Prorator will now have the following stats:

Amarr Industrial Bonus per level:

+5% Cargo Capacity

+5% Velocity

Transport Ships Bonus per level:

+5% Warp Speed (was the useless tanking bonus)

-20% CPU requirements for Cloaking Devices

Note: Can fit covert ops cloaking devices and covert cynos. Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 5 seconds. 

Immune to cargo scanning.

Slot layout: 2(+1)H, 2M, 4L; 1 turret

Fittings: 150 PWG, 200(+5) CPU

Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 800(-255) / 2000(-109) / 2100(-150)

Base shield resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 0 / 20 / 70(+15) / 87.5(+12.5)

Base armor resistances (EM/Therm/Kin/Exp): 50 / 35 / 62.5(+18.75) / 80(+20)

Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 1375(+437.5) / 393(+112)s / 3.5

Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 170(+10) / 0.52(-0.03) / 10,750,000 / 7.75s

Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0

Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 35km / 240 / 2

Sensor strength: 14

Signature radius: 110(-5)

Cargo Hold: 2900(+400)m3

The covert ops cloak was the main reason I used one and combined with the mwd trick on gates meant I was 99% safe in moving what I had to. The only issue I had was the small cargo space meant I didn't use it as much as the Deep Space Transport (Impel) that I had when going only a couple of jumps.

However the upgrade sees a lot of changes and the totally useless bonus to tanking has been removed in favour of a bonus to warp speed. Combined with an extra base 400m3 of cargo space means with T1 rigs and cargo expanders in the lows should see my Prorator easily exceed 10,000m3 of cargo space.

In real game terms it means I'll get around 8,000m3 of space with two cargohold expanders and T1 rigs with nanofibres and/or inertia stabs in the other low slot. The upgrade to T2 resists is nice, not exactly useful as this thing has as much tank as a piece of paper but it evens up all T2 ships.

Full details on the changes can be found here.

Deep Space Transports

DST's are a class of vessel that, once T1 haulers were rebalanced, really lost their use. T2 rig fitted you'd be close to 40,000m3 of space but T1 haulers that had specialized bays made these look a little dated so it's nice to see them get a really big change with the introduction of the Fleet Hanger.

The bonus to Fleet Hanger capacity means people will finally have a reason to train Transport Ships beyond Level 2, even up to Level 5 (if you have the patience). I'm certainly going to be doing that on my characters that maintain my towers, it means I no longer have to risk the Freighter, using instead a Impel, to haul all my materials to/from towers as they'll fit nicely in a DST.

These changes for the Impel are as follows:

Amarr Industrial Bonus per level:

+7.5% Armor Repairer Effectiveness

+5% Velocity

Transport Ships Bonus per level:

+5% Fleet Hangar capacity

+4% Armor Resistances

Role Bonuses:

+2 Warp Core Strength

+100% bonus to the benefits of overheating Afterburners, Microwarpdrives, Local Repair Modules, and 

Resistance Modules

Note: Can fit Medium Micro Jump Drives

Slot layout: 2(+1)H, 2(+1)M, 7L; 2(+2) launchers

Fittings: 330(+80) PWG, 240(+65) CPU

Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 2000(-109) / 4300(+81) / 4500

Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 3500(+2250) / 875(+563)s / 4

Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 90(+10) / 1 / 19,500,000(+500,000) / 27.03s

Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0

Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 45km / 205 / 3(+1)

Sensor strength: 16

Signature radius: 160

Cargo Hold: 1000(-3000)m3

Fleet Hangar: 50000m3

Conclusion

I believe these changes are balanced and add new life to two classes that have been very much underused. I'm certainly going to invest in another couple of each ship as they now, with increased cargo holds/fleet hangers, can fill a gap in my logistics chain that I previously fixed with a freighter. The only other thing that would make DST's more interesting would be interdiction nullification (like Interceptors) that's been suggested before.

One thing that did make me laugh with the changes to DST's was a Impel fit that I saw that, utilising the Role bonus to overheating, used Deadspace/Officer modules and overheating to get all four resists above 99% and maintain them for at least two minutes with a cap booster!

There are those that are still complaining that Blockade Runners should have their cargo scanning immunity removed but it's a nice feature to have and means gankers don't have it all their own way finding targets. It's possible they won't get a thing from BR's.