Basilisk: Dependable Like a Rock

For most wormhole corporations, shield tanking is the norm. What better way to abuse the dps and range of the Heavy Missile System which is easily the most unbalanced weapon system in the game? For some pvers, they don't even know what armor is, or even how to use it. This is usually reflected in the EVE Quarterly reports when they do race breakdown. Caldari is the most populous race every year, although I suspect its because everyone has a Caldari alt to watch the market at Jita.

But I digress.

Generally, shield tanking is performed by Caldari ships which for the most part are considered excellent for PVE. Proponents of shield tanking over armor besides gloating about the range and damage of the usual weapon systems also know that sleepers have no shields. This means when blowing them up in a system that penalizes armor but buffs shields (Pulsar) is a faster, safer way to that big payday. So it isn't hard to understand why it is the more popular way to Op in a wormhole.

Since everyone flies a Drake including your uncle's cousin's sister's best friend on his mother's side (and everyone in between) it makes the Basilisk a necessary component in shield tanking ops for wormholes class 3 or higher. And while some can get away with local tanking C3's by themselves, the changes to sleeper neuts have just about snuffed that fire from the galaxy, with a few notable (and expensive) variations.

Shield Tanking:  This guy is doing it right

Speaking of sleeper neuts, shield tanking fleets have been the ones that have felt the pinch the hardest. This is because the main shield tanking hardener, the all-encompassing Invulnerability Field, uses cap. There is no equivalent of the Adaptive Nano Plate for shield tanking. Meaning they need a slot for for each and every passive hardener they have to equip. This had generally discouraged the use of any and all T1 ships as it is no longer possible to put an effective tank without the use of Invulnerability Fields, with a few notable exceptions of course. Those exceptions being Drake and Ferox, both Caldari battlecruisers, and the Gila, a pirate faction cruiser. And the only thing that makes those viable is they get a shield resistance bonus based on a ship skill.

The remainder of the fleet with be using T2 resist profiles in order to cobble together a decent tank. Tengu, Loki, Nighthawk, Cerberus, Eagle, and Rook are all pretty popular choices here. A decent fit can be made of the Raven or Scorpion due to the sheer number of midslots but most wormhole corps don't like the thought of jumping battleships back and forth through wormholes.

For any C4 operations and above, a solid logistic ship will be needed. And although a Scimitar could be used, like the Guardian a Basilisk is by far the better choice due to energy transfers.

Basilisk: Shield Me!

4x Large S95a Partial Shield Transporter

2x Large 'Regard' I Power Projector

2x Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction

2x Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II

1x Explosion Dampening Amplifier II

1x Damage Control II

1x Power Diagnostic System II

1x Medium Ancillary Current Router I

1x Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

5x Light Shield Maintenance Bot II

Unfortunately, there is no way to “cheap out” the Basilisk like you can the Guardian. The fitting is pretty tight and requires good fitting skills. An argument could be made for dropping the Anti-EM rig and putting in another Ancillary Current Router which would give enough power to put in T2 shield extenders and 3 T2 Shield Transporters (4 will not fit no matter how you try to work it). That would lower the price considerably but I hate spending that many slots on fitting resources when I could get a little more resist to help with the incoming damage. You could then compensate for that by using meta 11 or faction resistance amplifiers but then that kinda negates the dropping the price thing you were shooting for in the first place.

Designed like the Guardian to work in pairs, the Basilisk has twin energy transfers. If the pilot has Logi 5, the Basilisk only needs one energy transfer to stay stable at 90+%. Once the sleepers start draining, the second transfer will be needed. For those pilots with only Logi 4 trained, they will need both transfers at all times, and run the risk of possibly being neuted out if there is enough sleeper battleships on the field.

The Shield Maintenance Bots are to be used on the partner Basilisk at all times, this is to “curb” the incoming damage at the initial switch and give the pilot time to switch shield transfers.

With all level 5 skills this Basilisk has a higher sig radius of 139 which is larger then medium weapons. This means medium and lower weapons will hit this ship full on, and there will not be glancing blows like there are for the Guardian which sports of low, low sig radius of 90. Therefore, maintaining transversal is pretty essential to the Basilisk pilot. This larger radius can be fixed by dropping one of the Shield Extenders, but I feel that drops its HP down to an unacceptable level for alpha striking battleships. As it stands now, this Basilisk has an EHP of 46k with 77 EM, 73 Kin, 82 Therm, and 75 Exp resists and 8674 shield hitpoints.

Unlike the Guardian, this ship has some weak points. Recall my Guardian fit. The midslots I used ECCM to help counter one of the two classic logistic weakpoints: ECM and Neuts. This ship has no such utility, meaning if the fleet gets jumped in the middle of a site it has no protection from ECM. Secondly, this ship has a higher sig radius which I just talked about. By upping the shield HP and resistances I've tried to cover this as best I can. Finally, it does not have room for a prop mod. Against sleepers it will not matter as much, but in a PVP situation it will not be able to get the speed it needs for a decent transversal.

Basically, unlike the Guardian that can flip offense/defense without switching mods, the Basilisk is pretty much a one trick pony. PVE for life. And as long as the fleet is well scouted it shouldn't be an issue. With the range and power of a traditional shield tanking fleet, the sleepers will cower before you.