[Jester's Trek] Fit of the Week: ISKtar
Fit of the Week: ISKtar
Let's stick with a PvE ship for one more week and go with something that is beloved by a quarter of the galaxy or so, the not-so-humble "ISKtar":
[Ishtar, ISKtar]
Beta Reactor Control: Shield Power Relay I
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
100MN Afterburner II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Drone Link Augmentor II
Small 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Small 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Prototype Cloaking Device I /OFFLINE
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Ogre II x5
Wasp II x5
Vespa EC-600 x5
Variations on this boat can be found all over the north and northwest portion of the galaxy throughout Guristas and Serpentis space. It's the boat that the Goons tell their newer members to use for their mission- and scannable site-running purposes and is almost fiendishly good at it. Start with a very very basic shield tank: one Shield Power Relay in the low, two shield recharge rigs, and two Large Shield Extenders. The native shield resist of the Ishtar against kinetic damage is 85% before any bonuses at all, 60% against thermal. That gives this boat a 223 DPS tank against blasters and rails and even higher against Guristas kinetic missiles, mated to a quite small (217m) signature radius and high speed (about 1250m/s).
The basic idea: warp into the site or mission of choice and start up the afterburner. Keep a respectable distance from (a) the rats, and (b) the site warp-in. The combination is all the tank you need: nothing is going to be able to keep up with you long enough to be an issue. Then you start applying your own DPS.
That usually comes in the form of five tech2 Wasp heavy drones (faction or 'Integrated' if you don't have the skills for T2) which do upward of 750 DPS. Normally, heavy drones are ridiculously slow, but the Ishtar includes a substantial bonus to heavy drone speed which you can supplement with a pair of Drone Navigation Computers. End result? Wasps that fly at 2700m/s, easily sufficient to catch any rat in the game and apply their full damage. A single Drone Link Augmentor means that your striking distance will equal that of all but the most long range Guristas cruise missile throwers. Against them, just use your afterburner to close range a little bit.
That said, this ship has another name, the AFKtar. The reason is the obvious one: with drones set aggressive and your Ishtar orbiting the beacon at 50km or so, the drones will do all the work without much if any intervention from you. The drones themselves have a 125m signature, so rat battleships should remain focused on you and any cruisers that do decide to shoot the drones are not going to last long to do any real harm. In the unlikely event you return to the keyboard to a damaged drone or two, that's what the high slot reppers are for. The off-line cloak is included for systems without stations. If needed, just off-line the AB and on-line the cloak, or warp to a convenient mobile depot first and use its refitting service to do the same thing.
Against Serpentis rats, you can use Ogres. You sacrifice a little bit of speed (about 2400m/s) but pick up pretty significant DPS (up to 830).
A pair of these things dual-boxed and working in tandem will make mincemeat of virtually any site in the northern or northwestern part of space. Only the most difficult structure-based sites will require more DPS and/or tank than two of these ships provide.
The advantages of the ISKtar are somewhat limited to the north and northwest, though since they rely pretty heavily on the Ishtar's native kinetic and thermal resistances. The ship has a 0% EM resist so against Blood and Sansha, you'll have to do something else. The 50% base Angel resistance isn't too bad and Beserkers start reasonably fast. As a result, you can trade out one of the Drone Navigation Computers for an active explosive shield resistance module if you want to try this boat in the southeast part of New Eden.
If something hostile warps into your site, you're already starting 50km off the beacon. Use the AB speed to align off as you recall your drones and you'll be long gone before anything has a prayer of catching you. More often, though, Goons use the complete dearth of traffic through their space to rat in these far from the eyes of non-Goons...
Rat safe!
All Fits of the Week are intended as general guidelines only. You may not have the skills needed for this exact fit. If you do not, feel free to adjust the fit to suit to meet your skills, including using meta 3 guns and "best named" defenses and e-war. Ships can also be adjusted to use faction or dead-space modules depending on the budget of the pilot flying it. Each FOTW is intended as a general guide to introduce you to concepts that will help you fit and to fly that particular type of ship more aggressively and well.
Source: Fit of the Week: ISKtar