Golem, Tengu, Sleepers
13th January 2014 – 5.53 pmIs anything happening? I tend to ask that whenever I come on-line, whether someone else is around or not. The only difference is who answers. Today it is not me, but my glorious leader. 'Not yet. Scanned, not opened the wormhole.' And is it only the static wormhole in our system? 'Yep.' Should we ISK? 'Yep.' Okay, then. My non-standard use of use of an item as an activity doesn't faze Fin. But I suppose not much does.
So it's an evening to shoot Sleepers and generate profit. But how are we going to do it? Normally we fly in paired Tengus, each one fit to send shields and capacitor juice to the other. But with our Golem marauder now configured to survive our home anomalies, thanks to the bastion module, I would quite like further opportunities to use something other than a strategic cruiser.
Do we have a Tengu with a local repair module? 'It can be arranged.' Excellent, as that means we can fly that Tengu alongside the Golem, the marauder ripping apart the battleships, the strategic cruiser the frigates and cruisers. And, of course, being somewhat selfishly motivated, as Fin refits a Tengu I board the Golem. I'm pretty sure, though, that Fin doesn't mind. Bastion module, micro jump drive, and torpedoes are all a bit fiddly, compared with the ease of zooming an agile Tengu around at your whim.
And off we go, warping to the first anomaly. In essence, it's another experiment. We know that the Tengus can clear the anomalies, and we know that the Golem can too, albeit inefficiently; but how will this pairing work? Or, rather, how well will it work? As much as I like the feeling of sitting in progressively more expensive ships, both in ISK and skill training costs, flying the marauder will have to be at least as efficient as the paired Tengus for us to consider continuing this experiment.
All looks to be working well for the first anomaly. We were already adapting as we were in warp, Fin saying that 'I will be working from smaller ships to larger. You work down the other way'. This is a break from the standard procedure of concentrating fire on single targets. But with different weapon systems providing different benefits, it makes more sense to hit what we're best at hitting.
I have one site's worth of experience in the Golem, which I initially think lets me bounce around with the MJD more effectively. But in retrospect it is more Fin's presence that helps with that. Having her Tengu concentrate on the smaller ships lets me focus more on getting close to the bigger ones, a particular advantage in the third wave, when the frigates appear. I merely bounce one way, wait for the MJD to cool down, and bounce in again, closing the distance to the battleships.
At least, that's the plan. It's not always obvious which direction I should head when using the MJD, and the first site's bounces seem effortless compared to the frustrations in the second. I probably just get over-confident and assume that any general direction is good enough. It isn't, as I find out when a particularly wrong direction lands me over 150 km from my targets. That's not good, not with the MJD range of 100 km. But Fin saves me again, creating a wreck from a cruiser to give my warp drive a point of focus.
One mistake made with the MJD makes me pay more attention, and my bounces get better. Not great still, but better. This settling-in period, as I hope this is, doesn't really convince Fin that our home anomalies are suitable for a torpedo boat. She may be right, but personally I am quite enjoying the involvement and judgment required to make it work. On top of moving around, my target selection also becomes important, given the limited range of my launchers, even in bastion mode, and how the Sleepers all try to run away from me.
Another aspect of combat that's important is remembering that my shield booster doesn't get activated with the bastion module, not automatically. Thankfully, from my early flights with the Golem in class 3 w-space anomalies, I discovered that the ship's shield alarms can be configured to alert me to danger earlier than the default. And, also thankfully, the shield alarms work, and can be heard. So all continues to run smoothly. Sleepers are popped, and in a time comparable to flying the paired Tengus. Similar time, about double the ISK being flown. Now that's progress.
All in all, we wreak havoc in four anomalies, all without interruption. That's about all we have time for, but we can't quite leave it there. We swap combat boats for industrial, and each take a Noctis salvager out to sweep up the mess, rake in the profit. We bag some good salvage this time too, coming back with well over four hundred million ISK in loot. That's not a bad result for an evening of light drone slaughter.
8 Responses to “Golem, Tengu, Sleepers”
Nix the Torps, go with Cruise missiles. Since the buff they approach torpedo damage. Warp in, park, bastion, shoot everything without moving, profit.
Aww, but I like the idea of torpedoes. Then again, without the cool explosion now I don't suppose there's too much point in thinking they're the bee's knees.
It's also a bit boring to park-and-pew. But that seems to be the direction CCP are heading, for reasons I can't understand. Sit in a site, hit everything without moving, have a mobile tractor unit bring every wreck to you, use a utility high slot to salvage.
I can't see why these changes are being implemented, particularly given a design team that say they are trying to provoke interaction.
The Golem change may not be totally directed at PVE. It does allow Golems to attack a POS without worrying about all the ECM. A fleet of Torp Golems can level an ECM heavy tower in fairly short order, easily absorbing the small damage these towers can dish.
Back to PVE though, you are stuck in place with the bastion module, the sleepers are no. While it may be more interesting, it will cost you time to use torps.
Yeah, I'm definitely using more time than I should bouncing around trying to get and stay in range. T2 cruise missile skill is in training!
I have a kronos blaster fit sitting in our pos. It is much more engaging to use the MJD and a MWD to zip around and share the love up close. However, that lack of range can just make anoms painful to clear removing much of the fun that interaction brings with it.
I need to EFT/Pyfa a fit with torps. I've done it with Cruise Missiles and the damage projection is great. But how about using Javelin torps? It's mainly what I do with the Manticore, but the reason for that is being able to stay very far off the target.
What kind of torps did you use?
Never mind, I can read now...
Just yer basic kinetic torpedoes for the moment, Akely. We only really used them with stealth bombers before, so don't have a massive stock of anything at the tower.
Zooming around in a blaster Kronos sounds like a lot of fun, Baedrik. I don't suppose you have a fit you'd like to share, do you?