The Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc in a Jackdaw? 🪙

[Syzygium]

Hate to say it, but both ships are bad.

The Arc doesn’t need any kind of tank, so literally any module pushing that is pure waste.

A Gnosis already has poor locking times against frigs (and 99% of all enemies you fight during the arc are frigs) and you cut it even in half with a completely unnessessary Cloaking Device. In addition, why Heavy Missiles that apply pretty bad on frigs anway? If anything, then RapidLights. In addition, ‘Integrated’ Drones are among the worst you can use, not even talking about that Drones in general are awful in this arc. If anything, use Republic Fleet Warriors if you lack the skills for Tech II Warriors. And last but not least, the Gnosis is awful slow for all missions where you have to loot something from a container or deliver something to a container.

The Jackdaw in itself can’t compete with turret ships, the delayed hit mechanic of missiles simply puts it at an disadvantage by default. And then all the bling bling is completely worthless, since the Arc can be done in a goddamn T1 Destroyer for 10M ISK. There is simply no tank at all needed to run the missions.

[Syzygium]

Did another run with a max-skilled Char in a Beam-Laser Pacifier (15 AU/s Warpspeed!).

Pacifier

[Pacifier, Sisters]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Damage Control II

5MN Microwarpdrive II
Sensor Booster II
Republic Fleet Small Shield Extender
Republic Fleet Small Shield Extender

Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S

Small Energy Collision Accelerator II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

Ammo: Standard S, Aurora S, Multifrequency S
Refit: Relic Analyzer II

Total Time: 2h 13min 38sec, so like 15min faster than in my noob-skilled Coercer Navy.

Was a Lazy-Fit (means no big refits during the mission, just warp’n’shoot, no drugs, no implants).
I can imagine saving a few minutes by flying with Inertias instead of HeatSinks during all the travel-parts. However, beating 2hrs will be really tough. Maybe with shortcutting through lowsec or using a clonejump to skip one of the largest travel parts.

[Rexxar_Santaro]

Ok. Let me explain it another way.

I didn’t expect that SoE Epic Arc would have this kind of advanced conversation. I didn’t plan to post more here, but I must respond. Imagine that someday a new player will google for a request “The Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc in a Jackdaw?” and they will learn that a “nano-fitted” Gnosis and Jackdaw is just bad for this Epic Arc. Not suboptimal 9/10 but bad like 3/10 or 2/10.

Almost all ships are usable for this Epic Arc as I mentioned above. Among them Destroyers and Angel ships are the best because they have good dps and “Dexterity”. Among them the T3 destroyers are the best. I chose Jackdaw as one with top locking and fire range and ability to choose damage type. The Dagan’s Gnosis is well tanky and has “low” Explosive resistance only. I used Corax also. Good locking speed, warp speed and range with 7 Javelin rocket launchers.

Locking speed is important, but this SoE Epic Arc isn’t like Combat anomaly farming or to steal Event sites. This Epic Arc, as learning intro, can be described next way:

• 50% is warping. Here and there around main hi-sec regions;
• 20% is hauling. This includes delivering people and cargo. A reason why frigates aren’t so good is due to that Caldari mission where you have to deliver a 240m3 cargo. You can ignore all NPC ships in these missions - no need to target or dps them. It requires these actions: warp in, fly to a cargo which is 30 - 50 km away, survive incoming damage, drop or take cargo, warp away.
• 10% is exploring. No need to kill ships on these missions. Even when you pursue the Rogue drone cruiser, you can use those Warp gates and no need to destroy those NPC crowds around.
• 20% is combat. I don’t know exactly, but there are around 10 - 13 missions where you have to destroy all frigates and drones (in packs of 5 and 10 units). Among them there are two missions where you have to destroy a BC (only), two or three missions where you have to destroy a cruiser (only) and one mission where you have to destroy a structure. All are positioned at 30 - 60 km range from warp in point. That BC (right?) with strong Neuts is a reason why you need a moderate tanking potency (passive or buffer). If your skills are low, ship dps is low, ship fire/locking range is short and you are unlucky and that ship will aggro your ship at landing moment very soon you have to warp away, dock, wait for a session timer, repair, undock, warp back. That NPC ship is a reason why Corax isn’t my top favorite ship for this purpose due to reasons explained in a sentence before.

I tried to make this post as short as possible but I can explain why I chose those modules for the fits…

[Barota_Gogiko]

@Syzygium

Total Time: 2h 13min 38sec

Impressive. I’ll try to clamp down on my next attempt. It’s hard for me to stay focused for that amount of time.

[Syzygium]

I did it chapter by chapter, just stop the time when arriving at the next starting point and you can resume later.

[Syzygium]

@Rexxar_Santaro

and they will learn that a “nano-fitted” Gnosis and Jackdaw is just bad for this Epic Arc. Not suboptimal 9/10 but bad like 3/10 or 2/10.

Thats because they are somewhere between bad and suboptimal. A Gnosis can be 5/10 and a Jackdaw can be 8/10 - just with your fits they are 2/10 at best. I have explained why.

@Rexxar_Santaro

where you have to deliver a 240m3 cargo

Get your facts straight, I have finished this arc twice in the last days and the max cargo you have to transport is a 150m³ box which fits perfectly into a Pacifier for example. If not, have a Cargo Expander II in the ship and refit just for this one transport mission. Way better than chosing a larger but slower ship for the entire arc.

@Rexxar_Santaro

Among them there are two missions where you have to destroy a BC (only), two or three missions where you have to destroy a cruiser (only) and one mission where you have to destroy a structure. All are positioned at 30 - 60 km range from warp in point. That BC (right?) with strong Neuts is a reason why you need a moderate tanking potency (passive or buffer). If your skills are low, ship dps is low, ship fire/locking range is short and you are unlucky and that ship will aggro your ship at landing moment very soon you have to warp away, dock, wait for a session timer, repair, undock, warp back. That NPC ship is a reason why Corax isn’t my top favorite ship for this purpose due to reasons explained in a sentence before.

I killed all that you mentioned with a trading char that has barely any combat skills in a T1 destroyer (Coercer) multiple times. I don’t know why people insist that there is some “difficulty” killing them. You definitely don’t need much tank or cap or whatever. My char had Mastery Level ONE on the Coercer, so barely any T2 modules or support skills and still did it without any issue. No warp out, no tanking issues whatsoever. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that you dont go closer than 10km to Dagan and hammer him with the highest damage ammo. I used Multifrequency on Beam Lasers and he melted like butter while not even hitting me.

So, lets conclude:

• The Gnosis is BAD because it’s way too slow for all the delivery and travel missions, it’s main damage source is drones which are bad for all the combat missions and fitting it with Heavy Missiles plain sucks when 99% of all opponents are frigs. Lets add that Cloaking Device is not needed once and cuts all your locking times in half. 2/10 at best
• The Jackdaw is not a bad ship for the arc, but a blinged factionfit is completely unnessessary. At best it doesn’t being you any benefits, at worst it will get you ganked. Keep it simple, keep it safe and use a fit that is all optimized for traveling and missile range/application, use ungrouped launchers and you are good. Not a single factionmod should be on that ship. Than it’s maybe a 8/10 because there are still better ones. But so it’s a 3/10 at best.

[Barota_Gogiko]

In retrospect, I didn’t need to spend 1.3b to run this Epic Arc. I’m sure if I reran it I would improve my time. The 8.69 AU/s was nice though.

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[Rexxar_Santaro]

As OP states there’s a request for an optimal T3 Destroyer able to blitz missions and one for fast running the entire Epic Arc and no different missions. Based on known EVE resources, like EVE-Survival, “blitz a mission” means an option to finish a mission without killing extra NPCs or any at all. For this they require higher DPS, higher tank, speed or a pass key. The Epic Arc contains different parts and is impossible to build a top fit for each mission based on min/max concept. As you mentioned, there’s an option to change modules before some missions. Should we consider this way as a fit for the entire Epic Arc? It’s obvious.

About that cargo you are right. I forgot that the cargo size is 150m3 and is also greater than the cargo bay of all frigates except exploration frigates. All MMO players are familiar with “Glass-Cannon” fits, setups, gear and know what it can do or not - it works until it does not. You did that with a rookie Alt, very well. I did that with a rookie Alt character and had some issues - non optimal experience. Just imagine how a new player who has no character skills and idea about the in-game mechanics and mission nuances, will do that, considering Signature, distance and speed tanking in a destroyer. It’s obvious.

Gnosis

The Gnosis fit is designed for new players without skilled characters and gaming experience. You can do this with 1M SP, with 500 000 SP even just fine.To find how BAD and slow Gnosis is we have to refer to the Pyfa app. Considering we need only Spaceship Command I to fly Gnosis and use his bonuses, let’s make an Alpha Clone with Amarr Destroyer I, Gallente and Minmatar Cruiser I and all other available basic combat skills learned to level 3. And let’s compare the best ships with the worst “rookie” ships like the BC, among the best are Cruiser and Destroyer. I don’t know how you fit the T1 Coercer but it should be a “glass-cannon” with Focused Modulated Energy Beam I one (then you go for align time or warp speed):

Note! Pyfa v2.59.2 has the wrong default Signature res. of 172 mm on Gnosis (it’s a BS value). Maybe a bug. Its in game default value is 300 mm and with the Scan Resolution III = 360 mm for Gnosis.

For Alpha Clone (Level 3 avg)

Misc	Gnosis	Cynabal	Coercer
Mass, t	10k	9k	1.6k
Align, s	2.98 → 3	3.04 → 4	4.14 → 5
Warp speed, au/s	5.5	7.85	6.34
Speed, m/s	1234	2178	1481
Max DPS	376 (any)	369 (any)	297 (Em, Therm)
Min DPS	117	81	124
Volley	1560	1020	622
Max DPS range, km	25	25	15
Min DPS range, km	56	56	39
Scan Res, mm	360	1100	966
Price, ISK	75M	224M	14M

It’s obvious.

Based on UNIWIKI, SoE Epic Arc has 210 warps and 105 jumps (safe) and 100 jumps (short) roughly calculated. If the ship alignment time is 4 sec you lose additional 210 seconds (3.5 mins) to Gnosis fit on warps only. If the ship alignment time is 5 sec you lose additional 420 seconds (7 mins) to Gnosis. If you do a safe path you do 5 additional jumps and that adds additional 4-6 minutes to the time progress. The Alpha clone Cynabal or Coercer loses from 8-10 minutes (best scenario) to 12-13 minutes (worst scenario) only on warps. Does Gnosis lose the proportional amount of time on overall target locking? I have no idea. The cloaking module is used to do the Cloak+MWD trick while traveling through Amamake - Siseide - Egghelende. Those gates are frequently camped with instalocker gankers and smartbombing “camps”. The ‘Integrated’ drones are used because they are cheaper, do 7% less dps than faction ones and they are used in 5 missions maybe. The tank is overkill and is used to survive the worst smartbombing camps and you can do all missions semi-AFK (no need to keep distance, orbit etcetera). Also when a new player flies through main hauling routes in low-sec in a Sunesis or Gnosis he focuses on himself too much attention. You can replace the Damage Control with a Signal Amplifier, but it will not make a big difference in the end. It’s obvious.

Principle 1. I don’t use Scan res. Booster modules on ship classes of BC and above. You have to trade a lot of valuable slots for a miniscule gain. The Scan res. modules are very effective for destroyers and frigates.

Jackdaw

Well, 320 dps between 0 and 47 km range, insta warp, very fast 2240 m/s, five launchers, one missile will 1 shot most frigates. It’s very hard to gank while it does instawarps from station/gate to safe spots, mission site and back. The fit is “tight” CPU 99.11% and PWG 98.6%. Therefore, a T2 fit is problematic. I prefer an active tank for most T3 destroyer fits - standard or ancillary. Can survive one Machariel smartbomber.

Principle 2. I don’t use Small Shield Boosters on Destroyers. Only Medium Shield Boosters or Ancillary ones.

Principle 3. I don’t use an Ancillary Shield Booster on any Capital ship fit. Only standart or buffer (reverse to principle 2).

You can do this Arc very fast or semi-AFK with Auto Targeting Missiles on the second window. It’s hard to neutralize. Without Cap you can destroy the target. For example, a new player will do Keep At optimal range or Orbit at optimal range that Kritsan Parthus. Therefore, he’ll neut in one or two rounds any “glass cannon” and if you have lasers or hybrid weapons you can’t do any damage anymore. To blitz the Chasing Shadows mission means: ignore his escort and do max dps to his ship. A Beam Confessor is super good also, but you must know what you are doing. If those frigates orbit the ship it will result in a lot of wasted time. Especially if you’ll get tackled by an elite frigate in the Burning Down the Hive mission.

These are a few reasons why I’m using those fits for characters with no combat skills or perfect skills respectively. The fits are based on two simple principles:

• “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”

• “The Tortoise and the Hare Fable” - Slow and steady wins the race!

PS. Why does the Jackdaw have a Core Probe Launcher?

[Syzygium]

sfenia? Is that you?

Not going to waste my time in a quotewar. Believe what you want, use a Gnosis if you want. I won’t recommend neither a cloak-buffer-Gnosis nor a multihundredmillion Jackdaw for an Arc that can be done in a sub 20M T1 destroyer - faster.

Have a nice day.

[Barota_Gogiko]

@Syzygium

Jackdaw for an Arc that can be done in a sub 20M T1 destroyer - faster.

Wait, you think you can run it faster than a Jackdaw in your T1 destroyer?

I’d like to wager on this…

[Syzygium]

@Barota_Gogiko

Wait, you think you can run it faster than a Jackdaw in your T1 destroyer?

Lets say I will be faster than the Gnosis (his fit) for sure and probably on par with the Jackdaw (his fit) plus/minus a few minutes that never ever justify to use a 200M T3 ship over a 20M T1 ship for the simple purpose of doing some beginner missions.
For the lulz I might test it in 3 months when the Arc is free for my PvE alt again. On the other hand, trying to beat the Pacifier’s time in an Interceptor (Crusader) might be more of a thrill actually.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

Just had a runner made it to the faction split in 2hr 5 min.

[Barota_Gogiko]

@Syzygium

never ever justify to use a 200M T3 shi

I spent 1.3B on the Cynabal.

@Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras

made it to the faction split in 2hr 5 min.

What ship?

[Syzygium]

@Barota_Gogiko

I spent 1.3B on the Cynabal.

Thats totally fine if you can afford it, anyone should use the ship and fit he likes the most. And it probably performs incredibly well, if fastest possible runtime for the sake of trying a record time is your goal then give it a go.

I personally would simply not use it as general recommendation. So while it would get a 10/10 in terms of performance from me, but only a 2/10 in “bang for the buck”, it simply falls outside of my top choices for that arc quite a bit. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad choice if you don’t need to care for cash.

[Uriel_the_Flame]

I’m pretty sure the highsec Safety. alliance welcomes and approves of his 1.3 Bil loot pinata.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

They used a cynabal. Idk the fit used

[andrei_haiducul]

Combat ceptors are best for this. I prefer the Claw:

[Claw, SOE Epic Arc]
Small Armor Repairer II
IFFA Compact Damage Control
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II

5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier

200mm AutoCannon II
200mm AutoCannon II
200mm AutoCannon II

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator II




Hail S x5000
Barrage S x5000
Expanded Cargohold II x2

It’s only 30M, it runs the arc in ~3 hours, and you can spend the rest of your money on an Ascendancy pod which would be very useful outside of this epic arc too.

[Barota_Gogiko]

@Syzygium

Coercer Navy Issue

Do you mind sharing your fit?

[Syzygium]

My Trade Alt used that one:

Coercer Navy Issue - NewbieSister'sArc

[Coercer Navy Issue, Sister Newbie]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Damage Control II

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Small ‘Wolf’ Shield Extender

Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Radio S
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Radio S
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Radio S
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Radio S
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Radio S
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Radio S
Auto Targeting System I

Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Small EM Shield Reinforcer II

In the first half or so you can fit 2x Inertial Stabilizers instead of 2x Heat Sink, since the only opponents are a few instapop frigs where you don’t need any DPS and faster aligntime is probably worth more. The small shield extender is only for convenience reasons because the char has basically no tanking skills at all. On a combat char you can switch that one out for a Sebo with scan resolution script and use T2 guns of course.

[Barota_Gogiko]

Thanks!