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Black Ops Battleships

Asked by [ Editor ]

Ok Gents. I know the requirements for Black Ops Battleships (maybe worth covering them though for others sakes, as I can't see a Black Ops question anywhere), and I've seen the posts on the EVE Forums where they are slated as expensive Jump bridges with no combat capabilities.

My Characters have always specialised in Cruiser and below classes I can fly all the T2 Frigates and most of the T2 Cruisers also, but not even T1 battleships, I am coming to a break in my training in the next few weeks and need to decide what to do! I always liked the black ops roams and can often be found operating a Rapier.

So Several Questions in one can anyone who flys Black Ops Battleships give me the low down on flying these beasts, the Pro's and Con's, can they fight at all, am I missing something as I only see them from the other end of the cyno, which is best and are they worth it please?

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2 answers

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canhasgank [ Moderator ]

Since no one has answered your question yet, I'll post my thoughts on the subject.

Black Ops Battleships can fight, yes, but they tend not to. The main reason being that they are pretty expensive. The main use for BO seems to be to provide a covert fleet consisting of bombers and recons with a covert jump bridge. Only rarely would you take the BO through it's own bridge, and then usually you would immediately warp off and stay safe until the fight is over and the fleet is ready to bridge back to safety, at witch point you would light a new bridge and follow the fleet back to you starting location.

I've seen BO in battle. They are powerful ships in PvP, but they are also juicy targets and will tend to draw fire based on that.

If I was to take a BO into a fight it would have to be a well planned attack against a known enemy. Preferably as a part of some sort of spider tank with other BO, and/or with T3 logistics support. I've never seen this done however.

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5

matt_12 [ Editor ]

Ok, a bit more Research later, and as CanHasGank says my initial thoughts are pretty much accurate. They are just too expensive to risk, it's not that they can't fight but that they aren't worth risking (like mauraders).

If you are going to use one in combat, general consensus seems to be that the Widow is the way forward as it can hold a double Tech 2 rainbow ECM spread.

There is a corp I know of (that shall remain nameless) that fields 4 Black Ops battleships on operations.

1 jump boat, usually a Panther (unsure why and will try to find out)

1 Panther and 1 Redeemer both Armour tanked and heavy Gank (designed to take out Guardians or other logistics in Hac fleets)

1 Widow, this is the centre piece of the op, and shuts down the logistics, and then high profile targets such as Falcon's or High Damage such as Megathron's.

Brief description of a memorable engagement according to my friend as follows.

Hack gang of around 40 are spotted (not the only targets that night, but the BS are only deployed against high value fleets, high risk)

The hunter picks on a logistics member, points and opens cyno.

The Bridger opens a Bridge and around 20 Stealth bombers jump on the bridge along with 4 falcons, a rapier and 3 T3 Logistics.

The Hac fleet engages, primarying the falcons' and switching fire from the initial covert cyno pilot believe the risk is over.

Wrong, the next cycle once the Hac's are committed, the 3 Black ops battleships jump themselves to the cyno all at once. The Falcons continue to jam the Hac's while the widow jams 2 of the 3 guardians and a command ships.

The Battleships wipe out the shut down logistics in 2 jam cycles, while the stelth bombers anihilate the Hacs.

Once there Guardians are down the fleet basically scatters. End of engagement, 34 Black ops Vs 38 Hacs a Night Hawk and 3 guardians of them. About 7-8 Hac's and the night hawk escaped, for the loss of one stealth bomber and Tengu.

Talk about overwhelming force.

EDIT: Here is some interesting information for you, Enemy black ops battleships can see and warp to friendly covert cyno's I'm informed... This makes Black Ops battleships the only way to detect and counter a Covert bridge, useful for Jammed systems defence.

After a IM convo with the Redeemer pilot his input was this thing is Crazy hungry for Cap, jumping (even with excellent skills) sucks 75% of your cap leaving you with very little for your Pulse/Beam lasers, let alone armour rep... Heavy Navy Cap Boosters are a must for the Redeemer who is jumping into combat!!! instead he has had good success by actually being bait and opening a covert cyno himself to save cap, it is unexpected and expensive risk... however the Redeemer has best EHP of the Black Ops and as long as you have scouts to check force size you are more likely to get juicy targets come take a look at you. Nice tip, but this guy is insane and has more ISK then sense. :D

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canhasgank
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Sounds like an interesting engagement… Though why they would bring a Nighthawk along for an armor party is beyond me :P

matt_12
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I know, probably was gimped with targeting and armour warfare modules, while using it’s exceptional tanking abilities to survive, still it does seem like an odd choice considering the rest must have been armour tanked for the guardians :S Goes to show no one expects Black Ops battleships to be on a Covert Hotdrop so most fleets just aren’t ready for a battleship class DPS to be brought on the field in a Covert engagement… That said apparently the Falcon’s are on immediate standby should the Black ops be tackled they must break that lock…. don’t blame them either.

qorthas
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good answer. but about the part in italic; did you mean that any black ops ship can see any covert jump bridge in the system? because how is seeing friendly cov bridges the same as countering enemy cov bidges?

matt_12
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Hi Qorthas. A Black ops battleship (aparently) can see any covert cyno in system. I would need clarification from a black ops pilot exactly how this works. But basically from what I understand is that you can see them either in brackets or overview and warp to it! so if an enemy covert cyno goes up in system a friendly black ops BS can warp at 50 to the cyno. Then when he lands the rest of the fleet can warp to him then he can warp off. At the very least it is good intel that you are likely to see a local spike any time soon.

qorthas
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oh alright, thanks for clarifying :) wanna get myself a widow some time. just takes a lot of skill training to fly one.

matt_12
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My Pleasure… if you are going Black ops here is another couple of things that is good to know I have found out, in terms of Covert Bridge, Jump portal generation only needs to go to level 1 as you will see no additional benefit unless you are titan bridging. Bridging is exactly like jump drives, calibration and conservation give the same bonuses. Black Ops skill doesn’t improve jumping usage or capability and bridging is to do with the mass of your target rather than the sig radius, armour plates and active MWD’s are big no no’s unless you want to use all your fuel in the first bomber!

darinas
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So covert bridging shield-tankers is much more efficient than covert bridging armour tankers? Is this a general rule for all bridging (covert and otherwise), or just certain race BOs?

matt_12
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Hi Darina, had a quick look into it for you, the constants are different for all three bridges (Black Ops, Titan, POS) but the basic formula appears the same. (x – (x*0.1C))aM where x is jump cost of Primary ship, c is conservation skill level, a is constant consumption mass factor in case of black ops 0.00000018 in titan bridge it’s 0.000000001 and M is ship mass. This is simplified for POS bridges as 500 units per billion KG of mass…All those are per light year… So to answer your question absolutley Shield tank, no active modules for bridges is the best rule!!! hopefully helpful?

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