For the most part, you do need to bling the hell out of the ships. Obviously blinging the DPS modules will make you more ISK/hr, but fitting enough tank and capacitor on a cruiser to handle the abyss generally takes a lot of bling.
It’s also common to use pirate implant sets (mainly Crystals and Asklepians, for shield and armor ships respectively). I think the new Rapture set might see some use in the abyss when it gets cheap enough to be realistically used. Theres also a new Cerberus fit that uses Hydras to not need any webs to apply well, and apparently does really well. I just hope you like spending 6b on that implant set lol.
I think one analogy I made awhile back still holds true, the abyss is about making a non-T3 cruiser have stats comparable to a battleship (aside from DPS, but high end abyssal cruiser DPS is well above that of nearly any other cruiser)
Im talking about T5s. Theres also T6s but theyre still largely broken balance wise. In the abyss you go through 3 rooms full of NPCs and loot caches. In T5s the DPS and ewar of some of the room types is insane for a cruiser to handle, so lots of bling is needed. In T5 most rooms will have a few hundred incoming DPS, and some can have like 50 GJ/s of neuting or more (you dont face tank that though, you have to clear neuts before they clear your cap). You can probably find a lot of videos on youtube of various abyss rooms and fits.
Here’s the Gila fit I was using before I stopped doing them as a result of the Abyssal Depths patch (it added some downright broken rooms and substantially raised the bar for tank and speed needed). It was used for T5 firestorms and worked very well.
Pithum A-Type Medium Shield Booster
Thukker Large Cap Battery
Thukker Large Cap Battery
10MN Analog Booster Afterburner
Gist X-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Gistum A-Type Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Light Missile
Drone Link Augmentor I
‘Undertaker’ Heavy Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Light Missile
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Thermal Shield Reinforcer II
Medium Core Defense Operational Solidifier II
‘Augmented’ Hammerhead x2
‘Augmented’ Hammerhead x1
Federation Navy Hammerhead x2
Federation Navy Hammerhead x1
Hammerhead II x2
Hammerhead II x2
I used to run them in a 400m vaga fit with like 15m worth of implants, it was quite affordable but it did die every now and then, this patch is bonkers thou and have stopped flying abyss all together.
The 3 man hawk, hawk nemesis seems to do well in t6 darks’s.
The guy is a total wanker and can’t handle anyone else’s differing opinion without breaking out the glossary.
I thought t5’s were scary and a little rich for my blood - I can’t imagine t6’s.
Also for those that aren’t aware – there is a test server you can go to. Practicing on test means you don’t actually take the risk on in the live setting.