Im an experienced explorer and practically live in my cov ops.
However I find the frigate hull is not able to fully clear the more advanced sleeper sites and pops like a pinyata when hacking the covert labs nor am I able to run the Mindflood sites.
I have been gone from the game for a few years
I used to reship to a VNI for the combat based sites but its bit of a slog.
Sort of getting bored with the cov ops frigate as it has zero combat ability and is limited to what it can do, despite being ludicrously isk efficient and sepcilialized, I’m thinking about upgrading to a Loki or Startios for an exploration ship that can handle the Mindflood site rats, the sleeper sites environamental damage and some of the turrets etc. as well as be able to take the 10k dmg covert lab explosion…
I aim to focus/restrict my exploration to null until the ship pays for itself and Im comfortable and experienced flying the fit.
So, as I have been out of the game for years I’m not sure how to fit either a Loki or stratios (stratios being the budget ship I suppose) and how best to tank these. Also, I understand mobile depots are a thing But not sure how these work as they were not common when I played.
If anyone has a some tips and recommendations for fitting these Id appreciate it. I’m a cheap stingy beast so would like to keep to T2/cheapest options possible to dot he job.
The archive from the superior sleeper cache can go 6k DPS IIRC over 8s ; then that’s to be added to the constant DPS you take. I did ran the numbers a few years ago.
My loki was able to tank the triple massive waves with two heated PAT invul + PXTXLSB, AND open all the cans before the triple colossal hit. After the patch this won’t be possible, because it will lose literally 40% of its tank. It was 700hp/s and 90% resists IIRC (which was not enough to tank the triple colossal, also I already got grinded to armor once even when doing all the things correctly)
Of course with such a tank, all the other parts besides the explosion in the sentry are a walk in the park, you don’t even bother deactivating the damage in the first room and you can perma tank the 16 sentries in the duty room. I did not try the minefield, because to my knowledge it’s not worth it : the only real value is in the archive, like 80% of the isk
edit : my b, it’s 4k5 DPS over 9s for colossal, and you can have several massive/colossal at the same time.
Worst case you therefore take 13k5 DPS over 9s . Note that if you are fast enough, the double/triple colossal won’t hit, but you can still take triple massive for 9k DPS over 4 s, and/or colossal+massive (which is what grinded my armor). The colossal are no joke.
edit : just checked, loki is 770 hp/s and 89 resists so 7k EHP/s only. With patch it will reach 4k2 EHP/s which is not enough to tank a single colossal wave. (you also take constant damage from area and sentries so 5k tank is required to not die from a single colossal wave, not accounting for any massive that could also come and add 3k DPS).
I suppose rather then brute force it on pure tank, you would have to rely on the rejouvination batteries bieng utilized. They are suppsoed to work right ?
Crazy idea… But what about double tanking as an option? Its bit out there, but could potentialy work if you fit for max tank?
I don’t know your defnition of “even close” - my fit is tight on CPU, and has only 50MW left of pg… I can still fly my fit after dt - if I bling it out immensely - I am just no fan of flying 2.6B cruiser, may as well swap to marauder. Will be cheaper.
If you take the time to open them when a wave hits, you are losing time and the number of incoming wave increases more than the number of rejuvenation.
you have one battery every 2min, and they last only 1:30 . meanwhile you can take a colossal wave every 20 seconds. Guess what will happen if you take a colossal just after the last battery expires ? You die.
Unfortunately I can’t tell how much defense I lost. I took a SS of my pyfa fit but they haven’t updated yet so I can see the after number. I didn’t think to do the same for the in game fit.
Yea so comparing numbers for my fit in pyfa I lost 8% of EHP (21.4k down to 19.9k), which is probably debatable how important that number. my active rep power dropped 13% (1009EHP/s down to 888). This is just using a uniform incoming damage.
Am I right that a startios could handle the mindflood rats, covert explosion, and the sleeper sites mines/enviromental damage. (outside of the archive room collossals)
RE: the the the archive room waves - Plan is to stay in for 2-3 hacks and leave. Not sure if theres anything that can tank those.
Plan is to stick to my cov ops in my backyard and re-ship to something bigger for sites requiring tank/dps I.e. Superior/standard caches, and chain mindfloods/coverts.
How much would a loki be the better option?
And can someone recomend a budget startios/loki fit for my needs (by budget I mean T2 mods/low tier faction)
not the mines in the superior.
pre patch I reach hull when two mines popped at the same time. Now it would just go boom.
Then the loki can still tank one or two massive waves. 4200 ehp/s should be enough, considering you have a little bit of buffer and the waves don’t last that long. if three are together however it will eat your buffer.
For standard sleeper cache, before patch, stratios was actually faster and enough tank to do it optimal way :
hack the two closest relic on entrance.
hack the third, then at once lock and hack the security to disable the defense ; then hack the pristine and loot both cans, if failure loot the third can and go 4.
hack the security? sentry ? well whatever is data can and closest to you, then close the screen. Repeat until alarm raises.
approach the tractor(120 m away?) with MWD . The entrance will pop a structure that does like 1-2k DPS in a 30 km radius, increasing over time. By the time you reach the tractor, the structure there will have barely despawned.
hack the tractor, then hack and loot the six(seven?) relic cans that are tracted in. You can let your drones kill the sentry if you want.
you are done, you can do secret room at once. 4 more pristine cans.
The fastest way to do it with loki was exactly the same, except you tanked more DPS. But useless since you don’t need to tank more DPS, and the loki is slower than the stratios ; therefore slower run.
