I just took a Gila loss in a Fierce Firestorm. 4 leshaks (1 neuting) spawned at about 50km with help from 2 TP’ing frigates. I turned away and tried to AB away out of range from them while sending my 2 Hammerheads at the Neuting ship. They got it, but my cap was gone and I was running without my 2 adaptive invuls for about 30 seconds. I figured since they were all between 50 and 60km away, trying to transverse wasn’t going to actually allow for a high amount of angular velocity, so I guess my thought was to just try and stay out of range (without slamming into the edge of the abyss pocket).
Should I have instead burned straight at them and tried to stay super-close? Doesn’t seem like that would work since it was a cluster of 4 of them - if I’m orbiting one at 500m, seems like I’ll be right in the others’ optimal?
On a side note, I was running a lot of calms, agitateds, and fierces for awhile and man the loot at all three levels was worthless based on the level of risk. (Well, calm sites I could do in a caracal - that’s not risking a lot.) I gotta’ say I have no intention of continuing to run Abyssal space based on the 30 or so runs I’ve done - I’ll be lucky if I even break even on the Gila loss I just took. And no, it wasn’t a faction fit - 3 LSEs, 2 adaptive invuls, afterburner, 2 DDAs, and a DCII. (And rigs for shield recharge.)
Maybe I played it wrong, but the experience really turned me off to abyssal space. Did I get terrible RNG? Is 4 leshaks with one neuting an unlucky spawn for a fierce? I can’t even imagine to think how it would have went down if there was a deviant thing-a-ma-jig that kills drones and missiles.
Please post your fit and let us know if you have any skills under lvl 5. I farm T3s quite a bit, especially Dark and Firestorm because they’re cheap and I sell my Gamma and Exotic filaments. For T4s, I do Electric and Exotic, actually like exotic a lot better then Gamma. And for T5s Electric only, I guess its because I like to play active instead of passive fits, so that cap regen bonus is just huge deal for me.
To give you some tips off the top of my head, the spawn you describe is pretty common actually, I come across it quite often. The leshaks vary in flavors and often come in pairs, for example 2 tangling + 2 striking, 2 starving + 2 striking, 2 renewing + 2 striking. On a rare occasion you’ll get 4 starving or 4 striking.
So, off the top of my head. You need to have 90 HP/s on tank, ship only, that can be any combination of active + passive, but it needs to be a 90. Then you need either a blue pill, not the 25% one, but the one below it will do, or agency hardshell III + small bluepill, or something. Alternately, implants. So your total HP/s comes up well over 100. 105-110 is fine.
You need 1 large thukker battery or a cap booster. I prefer battery for 3s, cap booster not needed until 5s and its 1 less thing to screw around with and go wrong on.
1 EM Resistance Amp, at minimum a c-type, its for the EM hole. 1 Adaptive Invuln at least C or B type.
Your AB needs to be at least faction, so it gets a little bit more speed, you can use an implant to get more speed. For everything below a 5, you can also fit a tracking link computer or a drone speed rig T1 cause the T2 tekes up too much calibration. Fot T3s, you can fit both.
Your lows just go all 3 drone Amps, faction, not T2s. Not the DCII. Make sure you have at least the T1 drone link augmentor fit for extra drone range, and switch your missles to inferno, not scourge.
Basically, as soon as you pop in and it loads up, start up hardener, tracking link and AB, cut a bit diagonal while targetting whatever is nearest, your 7th target should be the loot cache.
Start your active tank the moment you receive 1st damage and launch vespas, not hammerheads. swing to close orbit 2500-5000 on the cache, take the frigates or whatever else with you and kill them en route. Launch a single missle at the cache, Hit loot on it.
The moment the small stuff is dead, recall the vespas, launch hammerheads and kill the leshaks, Renewing, Entangling, Starving, Striking, in that order. If they are super close to you, you can get closer for missiles. But if they’re far don’t bother, just go orbit the gate and let your drones kill them.
Make sure you take Vespas and Hammerheads with you, Vespas on small targets, Hammers on large.
Definetly get rid of the DC in your lows otherwise you just won’t have enough DPS, also, the fire, dark and electrical are more suited for the active fits, not the passive.
For rigs, if you stay with your passive fit then stay with them, if you go active, then 1 extender, 1 solidifier, or cap rig. The last one is whatever you want, like I said, I run drone speed because its necessary for the dark filaments and I use same ship for these.
As far as the income goes, yea, it sucks monkey arse. You are guaranteed around 40-50 mil per hour, but not more. Anything over that is pure RNG, might get it, or might not. Altogether, I have farmed boosters and skins on 4 toons and I will farm a bit more because building my own Vedmaks and Leshaks including all T2 weapons, ammo, etc. But pass that, same as you and everyone else, I will be returning to my regularly scheduled programming instead.
I run an active tank Cerberus and farm Fierce Darks. I find the best way to deal with 4 Leshaks, even if you get 3 starving, is to just get under their guns but this is a lot easier in Darks since you’re faster and their guns have worse range and tracking. The Cerberus also nukes them really quickly.
And yes, Abyssal space is not great in terms of risk vs reward, especially if you’re running a lot of implants unless you can more or less guarantee you won’t lose regardless of the spawn. I’m well over 100 Darks run so far, probably close to 200 even and I’ve gotten into armor only once and that was getting complacent with 4 blastgrips.
Interesting approach. I always tend to kill leshaks first cause they are spawned pre-damaged and if I waste the time on small targets, they will rep themselves and then it takes too much time to kill them.
I fit nosferatu in high slot of gila so if you manage to get to 12 km orbit of the leshaks, you can keep your invulnerability hardeners still working if you turn them on after nosferatu finish cycle. Passive gila like OP’s (3 faction LSE , 2 invul and a AB in mids, all purger T2 rigs) should be able to tank over 150 hp/s without any cap. Add implant and one faction shield power relay in low and you are well over 200 hp/s. With hardeners switched off.
It is not the starving leshaks spawn, what you should be afraid off. Cause you can suck Leshak’s cap to help your hardeners. It is the crazy 7-8 neuting Scylla Tyranos + karbidos tyranos spawn, what is death squad. Cause you can not suck cap from drifters Thats what killed my gila in one T4…
Don’t have it on hand but I can give you the general gist of it:
T2 HAMS (Rage Scourge for cruisers and up, Faction Scourge for Frigs)
Pith X-Type large shield booster (C-type works too but X-Type is pretty cheap)
Thucker or Republic cap battery
Missile Guidance Comp II with precision script
Fed navy Web
Shadow Serpentis 10nm AB
3 T2 or faction damage amps (not sure if I need faction ones because CPU)
T2 Powergrid module thingy
T2 Rigor rig
T2 EM shield resist rig
I only have a few 3% implants, cant remember exactly what but I think 2 of them was for my passive shield gila and 2 is missile application implants and 1 was a 3% AB speed boost. No crystal set or anything, just running normal +4s
I sometimes have to overheat the guidence comp when there is a lot of Trig ships and 4 ghosting frigates. Those really hit your application hard. That said I think it might be better to just kill the Veldmarks first to reduce the repping power and then take out the ghosting frigs. I don’t know if replacing the Web with a 2nd guidance comp might not be a better idea to deal with frigs but the speed boost in Darks is sizable and can help break range on Spark/Blastgrips. The only real dangers are wrecking hits from Drifter BS, Drone BCs like spark and blastgrips combined with webbing frigs and huge swarms of sparklances since your EM resits is only 35%. But there is really a small number of ships that do EM damage and usually easily kept at range or killed.
Only the renewing leshaks rep themselves fast. A lot of times it is actually the small ships that rep them, and if the yarent, they’re usually in close range while you’re still half way to the leshaks, so why not just kill them right there and then ?
The other leshaks go up very slow or not at all. Also, because this is T3 even the renewing ones rep so slow you do not have the time issue. The ones in T4 and 5 are faster, but T3 is not an issue, just prioritize it when it gets to killing them.
The other thing I forgot, the OP was running a fire filament where ships get extra armor HP and he was too low on DPS due to fit issues. He migth have made it in some other filament type. I gave him a specific tactic and strategy for T3 fire farm that I do literally while eating at the same time. No overheating or kiting necessary and you never run out of time, finish everything in about 12-14 minutes, 10 if you get lucky on spawns and don’t get battleships. I got DCed several times and was still able to get back in and get out juts fine.
Thats what killed my gila in one T4…