- What are Black Ops?
Simply put, Black Ops Battleships are Tech II versions of the Tech I (or standard) battleships. Compared to their counterparts, Black Ops battleships have less actual hitpoints but they gain the ability to jump to all cynosural fields and/or bring along a fleet of allies to the battlefield; they also have significant bonuses to cloaking, allowing them to move around more stealthily compared with ships of the same class. In other words, Black Ops are battleships that sacrifice tank for versatility and mobility. - Why would we use Black Ops?
Due to their ability to jump to cynos (as mentioned above), Black Ops can be thought of as rapid response ships, capable of conducting a lightning-fast raid on targets and extracting just as quickly. They are also a valuable defensive asset, their jump drives allowing them to leap to the aid of allies under attack. - How are Black Ops used?
The usual method of Blops-dropping is to have a hunter light a cyno, jump in a few Black Ops and bombers and destroy one (or a few) high-value targets like Krabbing Dreadnoughts or Supercarriers. These fleets usually scatter after the target is destroyed and do not stay on-grid for very long.
Defensively speaking, Black Ops are usually deployed along with FAXes and other capitals to try and save an ally under attack. In these situations BLOPs are fit slightly differently as part of the “ratting umbrella” favored by larger alliances.
Another niche use for BLOPs is as a solo hunter with a multiboxed cyno/tackle ship, or more mundanely as a simple bridging ship for logistics. - What are some of the characteristics of Black Ops?
While the 5 Black Ops each have their own unique quirks and weaknesses, they still share a few major similarities:
(1) Reduced tank: All of the BLOPs have significantly less hitpoints than T1 Battleships, though their corresponding T2 resist profiles help rectify this somewhat.
(2) Increased damage: The BLOPs all have increased damage output thanks to their bonuses, which corresponds to their main role as rapid damage dealer.
(3) Bonused cloaks: Black Ops have no targeting delay after cloaking, their cloak reactivation delay is reduced to 5 seconds, and they have a 650% bonus to ship max velocity when using cloaking devices. This gives them a better chance of infiltrating enemy lines and extracting after the finish.
There are currently 5 Black Ops hulls (not including the Python, an AT ship): One for each of the empires and the Marshal, CONCORD’s Black Ops. The four Empire Black Ops have a total of 19 slots, while the Marshal possesses 22.