Eve Masterclass - The Triage Module

In response to my late post last night about my carrier skills to complete, Alex asked what about the Triage module? My quick response was that I've heard the module is not that good but I figured I should put some effort into it and do a detailed analysis of the module and its pros and cons.

Basics

Carriers are the ultimate support ships. Their remote repair and energy transfer abilities are magnitudes greater than the best non-capital tech II versions. Take for example Shield Transporters:

- a Large Shield Transporter II has an 85.3 points repaired per second rate at a range of 8.4 km and an energy-to-shield transfer ratio of 1.83*.

- a Capital Shield Transporter has a 300 points repaired per second rate at a range of 45 km and an energy-to-shield transfer ratio of 1.67*.

These logistic abilities allow a single carrier to be a force to be reckoned with, but multiple carriers working in conjunction with each other are often only defeated by massively overwhelming numbers. Add to those capital logistic modules the ability to mount warfare links, large waves of drones and fighters, ship maintenance arrays, and the large numbers of defences they boast and you can quickly see why carrier pilots are so sought after in corporations and alliances.

Module Functionality

The Triage module is classed as a Siege Module and can be used only by Carriers and Motherships. It is a high slot module so doesn't take from tank or cap recharge, and it requires Strontium fuel to run at the rate of 500 per cycle (reduced by Tactical Logistics Reconfiguration skill) but it doesn't use any capacitor energy.

When active, the amount of armour, hull, and shields repaired (both remote and local) and energy transfered is doubled per cycle, and the duration of the cycle is halved. That means our Capital Shield Transporter from the example above would get 1200 shield points repaired per second instead of just (!) 300.

But there is more! You can lock up to 4 more targets than normal, and you are immune to enemy remote effects like EWAR and warp scrambling.

So in essence you become like a fortress in space with 400% better defenses, 400% better logistics abilities, and immune to enemy remote effects.

Sounds great, right?

Well there are downsides.

First off all the flip side to being immune to enemy remote effects is that you are also immune to friendly remote effects. So for example other carriers can't remote repair you should you come under attack. Nor sensor boost, or energy transfer. Essentially you are on your own while in triage mode.

Secondly, you can't move. Your speed is zero and you can't enter warp. I'm not sure if you can even jump but I'd have to confirm that, but since you need 95% capacitor to make a jump I'm guessing unless you just entered triage mode you probably are low on cap anyways from using your repair abilities.

Thirdly you can't have active drones. Your DPS? Bye bye.

Finally, you can't dock while in triage mode so don't play station games with this module or your enemy gets a free shot at you while your activation timer runs out.

By the way, did I mention the duration of the activation timer is ten minutes? And you can't shut it off early? That's right, you enter triage mode you are stuck there for the next 600 seconds so I hope the tactical situation doesn't change in the meantime.

Summary

The fallout of this is that a carrier loses a ton of tactical flexibility when it enters triage mode, to the point where most carrier pilots don't use it except for the case of POS shield repair. The loss of spider tanking and drones combined with being stuck for ten minutes is just not balanced enough by the larger capabilities of the repair and energy transfer units.

And personally, on top of all that I'd need to train minimum 41 days extra outside of my current carrier plan just to use it. Egads. So someday after I've gone for Logistic ships already I may consider the Triage Module for the Chimera, but for now its just not worth it in my opinion when I have so many other things to train first.
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* = this means it takes 1.83 energy to produce 1 point of repaired shield in case of the large tech II and 1.67 energy for the capital version.