Welcome to the first edition of what will hopefully become a recurring series. Many thanks to TMC’s own Macky Avelli for the fantastic banner and thumbnail! Here I am going to present fits that I have either personally flown or theorycrafted. I hope that readers will be inspired not only to fly the occasional new ship, but also to experiment with fitting. Today we will look at one of my favorite solo ships: the Hyperion. Theta Squad, this one is for you.
Backstory
Back when GSF owned Deklien and the surrounding regions, I lived in JU-OWQ with Theta Squad. For those who may not know, Theta Squad is one of the best places in The Imperium to learn how to make money. As a lost little new KarmaFleet pilot, some of Theta’s members were kind enough to help me transition from High-Sec mission running to the nullsec lifestyle. Eventually, I made enough money that I could afford a PvP Battleship. Having been sad about giving up my Raven Navy Issue on moving to Deklien, I dove right in researching what would be a good choice for what I wanted. The Hyperion came up as a consistent mention, so I decided to give it a shot. As I have done with most of my ships, I picked a name from the Royal Navy order of battle at Jutland. I picked the most sutable choice for a solo ship, Valiant.
At the time, I could not use T2 guns, but I had all the parts shipped in from Jita and immediately starting bringing it to every informal operation that Theta did involving homeland defence. I’ve lost track of how many people asked on comms “Why is there a Hyperion on gate?” Some people found it funny, other did not. The only time it saw use as a “solo” ship in Deklien was killing a Myrmidon in 0V0R-R. I also took the fit on several Low-Sec adventures prior to the start of the war. It’s been long enough since I first undocked a Hyperion that I now have T2 guns with the following fit.
It has been awhile since I’ve been able to be in anything close to a winnable engagement with my Hyperion, it has been able to take out the occasional Faction Warfare farmer who was not paying attention.
Technical Details
For the purpose of analysis, I’m going to break down my decisions by slot class. To refresh, the Hyperion has two bonuses. 10% to Large Hybrid Turret damage and 7.5% to Armor Repairer amount per level of Gallente Battleship. The Hyperion is built for dishing out punishment and saying in the fight for a long time.
High Slots (7, Six Turret Hardpoints, One Launcher Hardpoint): The bonus to damage on the Hyperion steered me into Blasters over Railguns. Without an application bonus, I was going to need to close range to be able to apply a web, so the huge range on railguns would mostly be wasted. Due to the requirements of the rest of the fit, I settled on Ion Blasters after failing to get Neutrons to fit. Due to the bonuses of Tech 2 Blaster ammo, Tech 2 guns are preferred. Tech 1 guns can be used, but will not be as effective engaging at longer ranges. For the utility high, I chose a Large Energy Neutralizer. This provides an element of cap-warfare that small ships have a harder time countering. While other possibilities exist for the utility slot, such as a smartbomb, the neut is applicable across the widest variety of circumstances.
Mid Slots (5): Most of my midslot choices were greatly influenced by the close-range nature of blasters. Beyond a ~12km sphere, there is little this ship can do to effectively apply damage on its own. For that reason, I opted to focus the fit on achieving maximum application within that sphere. The Warp Scrambler (Scram) and Heavy Stasis Grappler (Grappler) fall into this category. The choice to go with both a Micro-Warp Drive (MWD) and a Micro-Jump Drive (MJD) is derived from this. Since both of those can be shut off by a scram, it does not make a large difference if they are shut off if the ship is optimised for fighting in that range. The MWD is for closing distances quickly while the MJD is for repositioning and escape. The final mid slot is for a Heavy Capacitor Booster. As the low slots will show, this is a cap hungry fit.
Low Slots(7): With the bonus to armor repairers, the Hyperion is a ship designed for active tanking. For this fit, I chose to go dual-rep. This allows me to run the regular repairer to cover most damage, while the Ancillary can be used during times of high incoming DPS to help keep the ship alive. Because of the cap hungry nature of multiple reps, two Energized Adaptive Nano Membranes (ENAM) and a Damage Control provide the resists. The capless resist enables the HP to serve as a small buffer without relying on the cap to keep it going. The remaining two low slots are filled with Magnetic Field Stabilizers to increase damage output.
Rig Slots (3): I devoted all of the rig slots to improving the tank, as this ship will likely fight outnumbered. The first Rig slot is dedicated to plugging the Explosive hole in the armor resists. Using this rig as opposed to a low slot means there is no obvious hole in the resist profile. The second slot is used to further increase the effectiveness of each armor repairer with an Auxiliary Nano Pump. The last rig slot is for a Nanobot Accelerator, decreasing the cycle time of the armor repairers.
Bling: The Tech 2 fit includes a little bling. This is done due to the increased fitting requirements of T2 blasters over the T1 versions. The Shadow Serpentis Armor Repairer and EANMs are reasonably priced upgrades that offer reduced fitting requirements. The Caldari Navy Warp Scrambler is more expensive, but I chose it over a Compact Damage Control and 1% CPU implant as the additional 1km base range improves the ability of the fit rather than sacrificing some of the resist profile. Outside of these default mods, the fit could be improved by upgrading the Repairer and EANMs to upgraded faction variants. The Anti-Explosive Pump could also be upgraded to T2. From here upgrading becomes much more expensive, either due to flat cost of modules or implants, or the cost effectiveness of an improved module..
Use Cases
This fit is meant to make the Hyperion a solo ship, though it should work in small gangs as well. Anything within Scram/Grapple range is in trouble. I have had the most success getting in close and letting fly with blasters and drones. Focus on targets within the Scram/Grapple envelope and don’t forget you have an MJD to get away. Most ships that comes in to scram you will be vulnerable to getting caught by the Scram/Grapple combination and shredded by your blasters. Large Faction Warfare complexes are a good place to use this, as you will sometime run into other battleships. The occasional smaller ship that thinks he can take you will end up with a rude surprise.
In my experience, there have been three main scenarios where this fit fares poorly outside of just getting blobbed. First is against ECM Jammers. Due to the nature of battleship lock times against small ships, having a lock broken means any target within your engagement envelope might get away. Depending on what you are fighting, this can either be an inconvenience or disaster. Second is against heavy cap warfare. Relying on both an active tank and weapons that require cap means that your capacitor is already strained and a large amount of energy neutralizer pressure can knock you out quickly. Fighting Blood Raider ships or Amarr recons might not be your best bet. Finally, ships with extended point ranges tend to be difficult to fight. While the extended range on a Warp Disruptor is not that worrisome, extended Warp Scrambler range is potentially deadly. Ships such as Interceptors and the Garmur can shut down your MWD and MJD while staying out of your scram range, cutting off your ability to maneuver. Here ECM drones are your best shot if you are having trouble applying damage. Heavy Interdiction Cruisers present a similar threat.
I have had some fun fights with this fit, and a lot of the issues I have had seem to be more attributable to pilot error rather than a fundamental flaw in the fit. I hope I’ve inspired a few of you to try this out. Have any suggestions on the fit? Do you have a favorite ship you want me to experiment with? Shout out in the comments with your questions and ideas. See you in space, and don’t forget to bring some ammo.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com.
