Domi-nating Sites

The best fleet for taking out w-space sites is usually made up of T2 and/or T3 cruisers, and/or any BS with logistic support. Unfortunately, T2, T3 cruisers and logistics takes a long time to train for, so how can someone without those particular ships get in a wormhole and take out sites?

For what its worth, you can't get any more bang for the buck then the Dominix.

Why the Dominix?

Well, it fills all the requirements; The ability to tank the damage; The ability to do the damage; And the ability to get trained for easily; And possibly the most important, the ability to do all sites ranging from C2 to C6 in one ship. (Remember, C1s are not listed for this ship due to wormhole restrictions)

First, the fit:

Sleeper Domi-nation

2x Large Remote Armor Repairer II

3x Large Energy Transfer Array II

1x Droid Link Augmentor

2x Omnidirectional Tracking Link I

3x (Empty) (see notes)

1x Armor Explosive Hardener II

1x Armor Kinetic Hardener II

1x Armor Thermic Hardener II

1x Armor EM Hardener II

1x Damage Control II

2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

1x Large Sentry Damage Augmentor I

2x Large Egress Port Maximizer I

5x Garde II

5x Bouncer II

25x Hobgoblin I

I can see you raising an eyebrow. The questions are coming, where is the damage? Armor tank, wtf? Stay with me here, have I ever led you astray? Well, recently?

First, lets start with the tank. Sleepers do lots of damage and its Omni damage, meaning all of your resists should be as high as possible. Is is possible to do a shield tank? Yes, but not advisable, as the slot layout is wrong.

What do I mean by wrong? Simply put, the advantage of shield tank is your tank in the mids, freeing up the lows for things like damage mods for the high slot guns. But with the damage sleepers can put out in higher sites, local tanks won't work, thus making you rely on remote repping or spider tanking. All of the remote reps, both shield and armor, are high slot mods so you can't rep AND do damage.

And this is where the Dominix shines.

Although tossing a rack of blasters or rails on this thing would increase the damage, the majority of damage is done through drones.

But Shadai, you said drones in a wormhole were bad.

I did indeed, a star for paying attention. Let's focus on the tank first.

This Dominix is not intended as a solo bird. They are designed and fitted to run in tandem, so bring a partner or your power of 2 account. With good armor tanking skills, this Dominix will have just under 8k armor with resists at 86% EM, 82% Kin, 82% Therm, and 76% Explosive; more then adequate for any sites C4 and under. C5 and C6 sites will require a bit more armor for buffer, dropping one of the EANMs and adding 1600mm Rolled Tungsten will do nicely, bringing the total armor up to just over 13k while dropping the resists a mere 2%. If you are nervous, drop the other EANM for more plate for more buffer.

With the energy transfers, the twin Dominix's will run the two armor reps cap stable for 950 dps. Not bad for type II modules. Obviously, target your partner's Domi and send him both armor reps and all three energy transfers and he will send you the same. This is good enough to tank all sites in a C3 and below. For C4, simply add a similarly set up Dominix or two. Increase as such for each difficulty you jump up. I find that the number of armor reps required by the bible is pretty much spot on for this type of ship setup. Plan accordingly. Running an even number of ships requires pilots to partner off, each pilot then is responsible for energy transfers to his partner, and reps to whatever ship is being targeted by the sleepers. If you have an odd number of pilots three of them will daisy chain the energy transfers, IE, Pilot A tranfers to B, B to C, C back to A.

Alright, so you can tank. What about damage? You said drones were bad.

Drones are bad, and generally get eaten by sleepers. However, Dominix drones are good. The difference is the bonuses the Dominix gets help the drones in w-space. Drones launching from a Dominix get two very important bonuses: and increase in HP and increase in damage. And this Dominix relies on a special kind of drone: Sentry Drones.

Sentry Drones are the best kind to use in a wormhole for a couple of reasons. First, damage is instant. There is no wait time for Ogres to get to target. Second, sentries deploy directly outside the hull, so if the sleepers start to target them, they can be recalled instantly. With the HP bonus the Domi grants drones, chances are the sleepers won't even penetrate the shields before you recall them back in. This is a big advantage over Ogres, as you would be lucky if one of them made it back to your ship before it died. Third, and of still relative minor importance, drones use no ammo, so there is no need to haul around supplies.

With a Large Sentry Damage Augmentor rig and omnidirectional tracking links, a set of Garde II's can hit any cruiser or battleship for over 400 dps on average. Better then average drone skills will have you over 450. This obviously takes care both sleeper cruisers and battleships. But what about the frigates?

While sentry drones will have problems hitting frigates, Hobgoblins have no problems. But why use Hobby I's and not II's? The answer is actually simpler then you might think. It's just more cost effective. Hobby I's do just 20 dps less then the T2 variety but cost thousands less. This makes them easy to replace. Hobbies are fast enough to do damage and get back in case they are targeted, however, sometimes not fast enough. Losing one T1 Hobby is not nearly as expensive as a T2 variant, but ultimately its your choice. With 25 of them in the hold, if you lose one you have 20 more where that came from.

No Hammerheads? Yep, don't put them on the ship. They are just a waste of space. Since your sentries can take out cruiser targets, and Hobbies are generally fast enough to get out to target and back in to safety if they get targeted, Hammers are generally useless. They aren't fast enough to save themselves and don't do enough damage to justify using them over sentries. Skip em.

So damage and tank. What about those mid-slots?

Essentially, this is the flavor-to-taste portion of the ship. If your cap skills aren't quite up to par, use some Cap Recharger II's to get your cap in line. Have good ECM skills? Throw in some race specific ECM mods to lock out a sleeper or two. Those work wonders against Sleepers that remote rep. Need a faster lock speed to save your friend's Domi? Toss in some Senor Boosters with Scan Resolution scripts. Want to fit for some PVP in case you get jumped? Fit a Warp Disruptor and Web. Want the ability to move? Throw on an AB or MWD. Be careful with the MWD, be sure that your cap skills can take the loss of cap and still stay stable. The point is your mid-slots provide your ship with great utility, why mess it up with tank? When you realize this you may never shield tank again.

In C2 and C3 sites, just warp two these Domi, park, deploy sentries and unleash hell. C4 sites will require a warp in point as some sites have sentries you will be out of range for. Same for C5 or C6. Without a warp point, be prepared to slowboat into range (unless you fit an AB or MWD, of course).

Speaking of range, the Drone Link Augmentor will extend your drone control range to over 65km, depending on your skills (Each level of Electronic Warfare Drone Interfacing adds 3km to that range). Your target must be in that range. And yes, I do realize how stupid that is. Nothing will make you feel dumber then trying to tell your sentries that are literally 1000m outside your ship to shoot the target 100 km out. Seriously CCP? Because the “target” isn't in the drone control range I can't tell my sentries (drones that, oh by the way, are IN my physical control range) that can shoot out to 90km to shoot him? It really makes your head hurt when you realize how stupid that is. Just goes to show you CCP isn't perfect. But I digress.

With good skills and the Omnidirectional tracking links the Garde II's will be within optimal at 41km out. Add 12km to that for falloff. Anything outside of that range but still in your control range switch to the Bouncers, which sport an optimal of 82km. Don't worry about those in falloff because.... ow my head hurts again. Generally, you won't use the hobbies on anything but frigs, and those will mostly be within 10km of you. Which means they will be fast to target, fast to return when targeted.

A quick note about Sleeper targeting. Sleepers will target drones, but generally I find when you have 4 or more ships they tend to leave them alone, unless there is just sleeper frigs left. When sleepers start targeting drones, they seem to ONLY target drones, so use this to your advantage. Don't just pull in the one sentry or hobbie that is being targeted. Pull them ALL in and have your partner do the same. There will be a moment of sleeper confusion, then they will go back to unloading on one of the Dominix's. When that happens, re-deploy drones and finish kicking their asses. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

All of this made possible by a ship that is easy to train for, easy to get into, and adaptive to whatever WH site you wish to do. All within the cool, cool price of under 130 mil. Not bad at all.