[HOW2PLAY] Solo Roaming in Cruisers

[prometheus]

I get a fair whack of mails regarding my ship selection process and what determines what I would and would not roam around in.
Lately I've been flying my fair share of cruisers, and to me they are the most challenging.

So, below you will find a chart of stats that should help understand why I fly what I do, and how they stack up against each other.

PROMS CHART OF STATS FOR SOLO BRAWLING CRUISERS 07/04/12
	DEIMOS link	VIGILANT link	NAVY VEXOR link	SACRILEGE link	PHANTASM link	HUGINN link	ISHTAR link	GILA link
Buffer Tank (Uniform eHP/k)	Better (36.6*)	Best (40)	Good (32.5)	Better (37.2)	Good (34.9*)	Better (38)	Good (30*)	Better (39*)
Active Tank (Uniform Tanking Amount/Regen)	Better (175)	Poor (45)	Poor (45)	Best (192)	Poor (45*)	Poor (86*)	Best (182*)	Best (385*)
Damage (Faction + Implants)	Better (699)	Best (725)	Good (676)	Poor (512*)	Poor (532*)	Poor (502*)	Good (656)	Best (797)
Capacitor (Usability, Mobility, & Damage Application)	Best	Good	Better	Best	Good	Poor	Best*	Poor
Agility (Align to Warp)	Good (6.5)	Best (5.8)	Better (6.4)	Poor (7.6)	Better (6.4)	Better (6.4)	Good (6.6)	Best (5.9)
Speed (MWD Active)	Best (1545)	Better (1440)	Good (1276)	Better (1416)	Best (1521)	Best (1741)	Better (1444)	Best (1521)
Sensor Strength	Crap (15)	Best (39+)	Good (25)	Better (29+)	Poor (20)	Good (28)	Better (31+)	Poor (22)
Cost (After fit & Insurance Payout)	Best	Crap	Better	Poor*	Good	Poor	Good	Crap
** note ** heat, t2 ammo, or differing implants will greatly affect this stat

You'll notice that there aren't really any kiting ships, and there is a reason why I heavily favour brawling.
Not everyone will agree, but in my experience I've found that soloing in nano cruisers means you'll mostly be killing idiots & fast tackle.
If I want to exclusively kill frigates, I'll fly a frigate. If I'm flying a Cruiser, I expect to be able to kill other Cruisers and/or larger ships.
Brawling means that for the ships I DO engage, I can kill them as fast as possible before having to dip out. This is also why Gallente do this best

You'll also notice that there aren't any vanilla T1 Cruisers here. The reason isn't that they CAN'T, but because I typically don't.
Armor-fit Cruisers add up, and they aren't as well suited to soloing in 00 as their nemesis (the AF) is.

The same applies to some other fancier ships like the Muninn & Cerberus. They are capable as well, but not enough for me to feel like advocating them.


What I look for in a Cruiser and what I'll engage
These are my rules, and what I try to follow.
They are not gospel, so if you understand what I'm getting at, that's all that matters.

There are a few simple things really;
- tank more than 35k ehp
- not be reliant on cap boosters
- align faster than 7 seconds
- be faster than 1200m/s before heat
- be capable of dealing over 550dps

Now, these rules can be bent if the offending ships hugely exceed other requirements and/or perform quite well on average despite their handicap;

Damage + Tracking > Tank > Agility + Speed > Cap > Range

Since I'm after ships my own size or larger, damage takes precedence. However since smaller ships are more common, I need to be able to hit them.
If the damage is high enough to get around the weakness in the tank, we're cool.
If the damage and tank are high enough to get around the weakness in speed, we're cool too.

Cap is another thing though. I don't really like cap charges. I don't like having a great fight in the middle of 00 only to run out of cap at the end.
At the same time, I don't like having to rely on them in a fight. Injectors cycle slowly, and reload even slower.
This is why I like to run medium Nosferatu. They are quick and, when timed correctly, offer enough cap to power tackle/hardeners/weapons under a neut or two.
By extension, this is why plate/nos/rep is so nice to have. When you're capped out you get a good buffer to rely on, and when you aren't, you've got a nice repping tank!

Range is the least important thing. The reason being is that I'm looking to brawl. All of these ships work best at close range, so you're always looking to start a fight as close as you can.
If someone is kiting you, you're either outnumbered or (probably) not tackled. All of these ships are quick enough to shake most kiting Cruisers if not tank them outright. If a frigate catches you in a belt, well then you probably deserved to die :P

DEIMOS
This is/was my archetypal Cruiser hull to work from; the ship which all are measured. It was a great solo roamer prior to the Crucible expansion, and it got a nice little buff since then.
It does just about everything really well, with it's only real weakness being its terrible sensor strength. Popularity in ECM ships and ECM drones means that flying this ship is always a roll of the dice.
You can have a great fight easily ruined by a flight of ec300s, but you can also have great fights should you be lucky enough dodge the shit. Heck, it's also (arguably) the cheapest after insurance.

Feel free to engage any T1 Cruiser/HAC/Recon, T1 BC, or T1 BS with this badass (exception of Domi/Phoon). Being the highest damage HAC means you can easily pour out over 800dps when you need to.
The MWD bonus combined with the Nos means you can perma-rep if you aren't being neuted out, as well as being able to MWD without penalty when trying to pull range.

Cargo
Faction Antimatter, Void, Null*
Nanite Paste
Drop Booster

VIGILANT
In the public eye, this is the successor to Deimos. However, pitted against each other, the Deimos generally comes out on top thanks to the generous resist package.
Many people will hate on using the 4 guns, but the truth is, this ship isn't *that* good. Sure, the 90% web is awesome for dealing with frigates, but this ship has a dirty secret. The cap is awful.
Unlike the Deimos & Thorax, this ship doesn't get a capacitor bonus and is a ripe target for ships carrying neutralizers. Fortunately, the Crucible expansion reduced the Neutron Blaster cap usage to a level which can be handled by a well-timed medium nos.

The Vigilant has a couple big advantages that Deimos doesn't, and that isn't limited to the 90% web. For one, the agility is awesome and more than enough to catch fast cruisers with a well timed overload.
Most importantly though, the sensor strength is amazing. I'm generally pretty comfortable engaging under ECM drones and sometimes the jam boats (depending what's on the field). However, since this is expensive AND a pure buffer tank ship, I don't really recommend going after anything other than Cruiser sized hulls. Take on any Cruiser/HAC/Recon, but your mileage may vary against BCs and larger.

Cargo
Faction Antimatter, Void, Null*
Nanite Paste
Drop Booster

VEXOR NAVY ISSUE
As far as Gallente Blaster Cruisers go, this guy sits right between then Deimos & Vigilant. It's got some drawbacks, as well as some advantages.
I don't want to reiterate too much, because the stats kinda speak for themselves. The biggest difference is that more than half of your dps is in drones, so if you're combating neuts you're golden.
Like the above, feel free to take on any Cruiser/HAC/Recon, but be wary when coming up against a BC.

Cargo

Faction Antimatter, Void
Nanite Paste
Drop Booster

SACRILEGE
I like the Sacrilege and I don't care who knows it. It's a flawed ship, but based on the current pvp landscape, it can arguably take the biggest beating.
The damage output may seem pretty low from the outset, but you need to keep in mind that you should be doing the perfect damage type at all times.
Player skillset and knowledge is paramount for this guy, as it will often be the deciding factor in the fights.

The ship does have problems, and most notably is that it's fat. The agility is a turn off for most, and many will give up on the thing because of it.
You're best tool is that the ship appears weak. You want people to come to you, at which point you can perma tank under guns while being extremely hard to jam.
I would not recommend flying this ship if your skills are low though. You pretty much need to have HAC5 to make it worthwhile.

You should also be aware that Rage missiles are great, and will give you a significant bump in damage output against BCs & BSs.
You also need to carry Standard Crash. This drug is awesome, and will help you shake frigs that have you scrammed/webbed.
Feel free to engage whatever you can catch, but I'd avoid Myrmidons and Command Ships.

As a side note, T2 missile rigs are pretty goddamn expensive at the time of posting. I'm sure the Russians have/had something to do with that.
So, you probably won't want to be flying this unless you're rich or want to use the T1 rig (don't).

Cargo

Faction HAMs, Rage HAMs
Nanite Paste
Crash Booster

PHANTASM
This is an odd ship tbh. The damage isn't terribly high, and it's locked to em/thermal output. Like all laser boats, you need to rely on your range and quick ammo swaps.
Unlike other laser boats though, this one has awesome tracking AND doesn't drink cap too badly. There's not much to say other than make use of Scorch as you're vying for the tackle, and overload the shit out of your Nos. There is one taboo on this hull though, and that's the ec300s. You don't NEED to use them, however I like to hunt Cynabals and give those fuckers a taste of their own medicine.

Don't bother complaining about the mixed guns either. Unlike the Nightmare, the ship is pretty tight to fit. Since the Phantasm was nerfed some time ago, the dps/tank arrangement I use in the chart is the best overall, but it means you need to mix the guns. If CCP were to ever tweak the stats a bit, you would ideally want to run with 3 HPLs, but until then you're going to have to deal with it.

You may also wonder why I have the Phantasm here, and not the Navy Omen. The reason is simple; tracking.
The Navy Omen has such absolutely god awful tracking that it can barely hit Cruisers, never mind attempting to use Scorch or Conflagration.
I'd limit your engagements to Cruiser sized ships, and possibly really close range or EM-weak BCs.

Cargo

Faction Multifrequency, Scorch, Conflagration
Nanite Paste
Drop Booster

HUGINN
Surprise! Yea, this badboy is a tricky motherfucker. It's not the best by any means, but it's so far out of leftfield that nobody even considers this as being a ship capable of brawling.
Everyone knows the Gallente Recons can brawl, but nobody suspects the Huginn. It's got a pretty decent buffer tank, good speed, a sweet web, and when you mix the right ammo groups with some heat, you've got some serious pain exceeding 575dps. Be wary of frigates, and be quick to catch Cruisers! I'd be really careful about BCs, but you can do it simply because people don't generally suspect the damn thing to hurt so much. This ship doesn't really have awesome range, so I wouldn't bother with Barrage. I would bother with Hail though, no doubt.

Cargo

Faction EMP/PP/Fusion, Hail
Nanite Paste
Drop Booster, Crash Booster

ISHTAR
The only injected ship on this list. The reasoning is pretty simple though, so follow along. It's got a BC sized cargo, w/ good resists & a decent tank, ecm resistance, over 650dps, and damage variety.
The drone loadout I have above is entirely up to your choosing, but I have what I do for my own falcon hating reasons. Flying the Ishtar is pretty much identical to the Deimos, only with the added surprise factors of the blasters extra 180+ dps and ECCM. Feel free to go after anything, but just keep an eye on your cargo since you're going to be drinking cap if things get hairy.

Cargo

Faction Antimatter
Nanite Paste
Drop Booster, Exile Booster
Cap 800

GILA
This is a new ship on the list. Through the Inferno expansion, the Gila has transformed into a ship that better reflects it's Pirate origins & pricetag.
The two main changes that allow it to grace this list are the addition of Ancillary Shield Boosters, and Drone Damage Amplifiers. Thanks to these mods, of usable solo fits, the Gila has the highest tank, damage, and best damage application.
The ships buffer is quite good, and the addition of a shield booster (providing the equivalent of 2 LSEs) allows for the ship to be fairly tough. The small cargo isn't a large concern since you can carry a sufficient number of cap boosters, and a fair number of rockets (for drone work). Some people swear by nanoing the ship, but I find it hard to hold the target long enough to kill it. Others will argue that an XL booster is needed but I don't think it's a wise fitting and I'll explain why.

The Gila has stage presence, and (for some reason) a reputation of sorts. Even though the Gila has never been *that* amazing, it's always been uncommon enough to attract blobs. As such, this attraction is the ships undoing.
Fitting an XL booster will surely allow you to tank for a fair bit of time, but I would rather have a medium neut to shake frigates. As strong as your drones are, they can and will be shot at which will leave you defenseless.
Without dumping isk on faction items, fitting an XL booster will also cripple your damage output quite significantly. This is the biggest no-no because now you're paying faction ship prices for far less output (~615).
With that said, the Gila is flawed for solo work. While it does the job, like it's faction brethren the Vigilant, it's own rarity and status attract more attention than this ship can handle on its own.

Cargo

Faction/Rage Rockets (drones)
Nanite Paste
Blue Booster
Navy Cap 150

So that about sums it up. I hope this has shed some light on the methods to my madness
If you've got any more questions or whatever, lemme know.
I'll try to remember to update this as time progresses, otherwise just assume this is all still true
I'm aware that some ships are pretty expensive at the moment, but that is more than likely a result of all the bot/rmt bans that occurred recently.
Give it time, they'll come back down.

[Verybad]

The deimos isn't that cheap anymore, it's nudging 170m last I checked (a day ago).

I should've listened to White Tree and bought some when they were 90m but CCP buffing gallente seemed to good to be true.

[Daneel Trevize]

Good poast.

For which of your ships & fits would HAC5 and other skills not need to be maxed?

Btw, you charted the Vigilant as having Good cap...

[Mr Marram]

Good poast.

Btw, you charted the Vigilant as having Good cap...

Compared the the huginn and phantasm its awesome.

[W0lf Crendraven]

What about the armor cynabal or the dualprop sfi? Also vigilant cap is pretty bad, but it makes a neat solo pvp kiting ship (thanks to great dps good ranges, with a shield tank) which is more than able to kill non idiots and cruisers/bcs (no drakes though) (same with nanoishtar). And finally is there any (good) reason to fly any of these ships over a bc?

And what about the king of cruisers the tech3s?

All in all very nice though!

[prometheus]

A Vigilant with a medium nos has pretty good cap. The Phantasm doesn't have *awful* cap w/ a Nos either, but the Huginn is pretty crap.
The fits I use, and which the chart is based on, are at the top.

A shield Vigilant is fucking terrible, and serves very little purpose outside of a neat ship to fly around in linked gangs.
It is awful for soloing in, and if you do, you deserve to die.

As I said at the very top, Nano/Shield cruisers are generally shitty for soloing in unless you only want to kill tackle.
The second you try to engage others of equal size or large, the limitations of the ships shine through.
As such, I don't fly the Cynabal because it's a boring ship.

If you read the whole post, you should be able to see WHY the SFI isn't on the list.
When rep fit, the DPS is truly abysmal, and the cap/cargo situation is equally as awful as it's eHP.
The only way I can make it work to meet my requirements is a buffer fit with a SAR, at which point the Huginn does the same job way better.
I'm not saying the ship doesn't work at all, I'm saying it's less than ideal.

As for ships which don't really need great skills, I'd say;
Ishtar, Deimos, Vigilant, VNI. All of those still meet my requirements with skills @ 4.

[StevieTopSiders]

What about the armor cynabal or the dualprop sfi? Also vigilant cap is pretty bad, but it makes a neat solo pvp kiting ship (thanks to great dps good ranges, with a shield tank) which is more than able to kill non idiots and cruisers/bcs (no drakes though) (same with nanoishtar). And finally is there any (good) reason to fly any of these ships over a bc?

And what about the king of cruisers the tech3s?

All in all very nice though!

I, too, am interested in the answers to those questions.

[Loire]

A Vigilant with a medium nos has pretty good cap. The Phantasm doesn't have *awful* cap w/ a Nos either, but the Huginn is pretty crap.
The fits I use, and which the chart is based on, are at the top.

A shield Vigilant is fucking terrible, and serves very little purpose outside of a neat ship to fly around in linked gangs.
It is awful for soloing in, and if you do, you deserve to die.

As I said at the very top, Nano/Shield cruisers are generally shitty for soloing in unless you only want to kill tackle.
The second you try to engage others of equal size or large, the limitations of the ships shine through.
As such, I don't fly the Cynabal because it's a boring ship.

If you read the whole post, you should be able to see WHY the SFI isn't on the list.
When rep fit, the DPS is truly abysmal, and the cap/cargo situation is equally as awful as it's eHP.
The only way I can make it work to meet my requirements is a buffer fit with a SAR, at which point the Huginn does the same job way better.
I'm not saying the ship doesn't work at all, I'm saying it's less than ideal.

As for ships which don't really need great skills, I'd say;
Ishtar, Deimos, Vigilant, VNI. All of those still meet my requirements with skills @ 4.

Would it be a lot of work to do this exact thread for frigates as well?

[Malaes]

Would it be a lot of work to do this exact thread for frigates as well?

That would rock, as much as this one already does.

[Smuggo]

Good thread. Training hac 5 next and then gal cruiser so will try some of these out.

[prometheus]

And what about the king of cruisers the tech3s?

I don't fly Tech3 cruisers, and there are very few who actually solo in them, so I don't really have a good opinion in this context.

Would it be a lot of work to do this exact thread for frigates as well?

A retarded amount. Frigates are a little different because there are so many variations on how you can fit them and still solo effectively.
I might do it at some point, but not any time soon as it would take a crapload of work.

I'll probably do BC hulls next, but I may wait until Inferno

[Tyrus Tenebros]

And what about the king of cruisers the tech3s?

Tengu - 100mn AB should be pretty decent for soloing. The GTFO ability is pretty substantial, and the ship overall performs pretty well.

Legion - 100mn AB HAM Legion is the only viable solo fit I'm aware of, though the only successful uses of it are "solo" in the sense of using ganglinks. I believe Garmon has footage of this lying around somewhere (or at least lost a couple of them?)

Loki - You can do a supervagabond w/ the web subsystem and all that jazz and get good mileage out of it. It's not amazingly better than some other options though, given the cost/performance... cynabal is already p. good. Prom will probably disagree with the concept straight out due to his already explained reasoning behind avoiding kiting cruisers.

Proteus - Uber Active tanker, quite viable w/ legion boosts, as with all active tanking, much much worse when true-solo. Not substantially different than other active tankers, other than (possibly) rolling dual-prop to take advantage of sig tanking and being more expensive than a hyperion, astarte, or myrm.

Proteus - covert/probing/web/600dps. See my post in the proteus thread (the most recent one) for details. I still haven't been quite confidant enough to go on a true solo run with it, but its performance in small gangs has been pretty damn exemplary, given that you can both be using your bonus probes and rambo in a warp in on hostiles without being insanely worried that you'll die hilariously (as you would flying most other prob-fit ships). I've both used and not used the probes and fought with good effect against several opponents.

[prometheus]

The cost/performance ratio isn't very good for *true* soloing in T3s.
You can do it, but you need to factor in that you're in a T3 and will be getting WAY more attention than you can bargain for.

[Varcaus]

The cost/performance ratio isn't very good for *true* soloing in T3s.
You can do it, but you need to factor in that you're in a T3 and will be getting WAY more attention than you can bargain for.

Youll also need hg pirate implants tbh. Trying it without does not end well :/ (- the 100mn tengu with faction point)

[Tyrus Tenebros]

Youll also need hg pirate implants tbh. Trying it without does not end well :/ (- the 100mn tengu with faction point)

I'm not running HG implants on the proteus, though I'm considering taking it in for various faction upgrades since it appears that it is indeed an effective ship for solo and as an FC platform. If anything I'd plug in the sensor strength 'plants for the proteus but I'm way too space poor for that.

RE: the 100mn fits though, yes some pirate implants are nice.

The cost/performance ratio isn't very good for *true* soloing in T3s.
You can do it, but you need to factor in that you're in a T3 and will be getting WAY more attention than you can bargain for.

To a large extent I tend to agree with this sentiment, I was just throwing out some of the "more effective" fits that I've seen out there. With some pimping and careful handling they can produce some pretty good results.

[Varcaus]

Youll also need hg pirate implants tbh. Trying it without does not end well :/ (- the 100mn tengu with faction point)

I'm not running HG implants on the proteus, though I'm considering taking it in for various faction upgrades since it appears that it is indeed an effective ship for solo and as an FC platform. If anything I'd plug in the sensor strength 'plants for the proteus but I'm way too space poor for that.

RE: the 100mn fits though, yes some pirate implants are nice.

The cost/performance ratio isn't very good for *true* soloing in T3s.
You can do it, but you need to factor in that you're in a T3 and will be getting WAY more attention than you can bargain for.

To a large extent I tend to agree with this sentiment, I was just throwing out some of the "more effective" fits that I've seen out there. With some pimping and careful handling they can produce some pretty good results.

With T3 boosters im talking about things tend to get hairy fast with no implants.

[Tsubutai]

Curious as to what you make of the Gila for this sort of thing.

[prometheus]

Curious as to what you make of the Gila for this sort of thing.

I like it, but never have anywhere near enough success with it to advocate it.
TBH, 9/10 times I'd prefer the Ishtar over the Gila.
They do relatively the same job, but the passive tank & agility don't really suit a soloing drone boat that well.
In gangs w/ sentries or whatever, the Gila would be the better choice though.

[BuRniZZ]

Watched your latest vid, read this thread. 10/10 good sir. Excellent work. Looking forward to your take on BCs.

[xanral]

Excellent post, thanks prom.

My 2 cents on the Tengu. I've done some true soloing in the 100MN AB Tengu (no ganglinks, leadership, pirate implants, or scout, about 1.2 billion ISK ship) in WH and K-space but there have been very few fights in which I rack up a bunch of kills with it I couldn't also have handled with a hyperion at 0 or else a cheaper nano ship. In WH space I've had an easier time getting fights with it as it is a much less special hull there than K-space.