Supercarrier Disucssions - Part 5 - Veteran Advice

Previously:
Part 1 - Drones
Part 2 - Tanking
Part 3 - High Slots
Part 4 - Cargo

This is the last entry of this series, so readers totally bored of supercarrier posts can breathe a sigh of relief after today.

I was contacted earlier this week by a veteran Wyvern pilot who read my posts and wanted to help me out with some advice. The following chat log is the result and has been heavily edited to protect his identity and to remove a lot of irrelevant chatter (like me going "wow" and "cool" and "nice!"). It seems like a good way to close out the series which I will add to my Masterclass library. Enjoy!

(2:50:23 PM) : Anywho, I would say your highs are doable while solo albeit generic. I would suggest in a fleet of 40+ caps to drop the nuet, smartbomb, and cloak for 3 DCUs.
(2:50:43 PM) : Dont run around normal with DCUs, but in a large cap fleet they are far more useful to the fleet as a whole
(2:50:54 PM) : In your CHA keep shield recharge mods should you get out of a fight at low shields
(2:51:04 PM) : Not boosters, shield rechargers and shield power relays
(2:51:22 PM) : And cap mods like cap rechargers and cap power relays
(2:51:52 PM) : Also I try to keep ozone, cynos, extra nitrotopes, and other capital shield/armor/hull transfers
(2:51:55 PM) : in my CHA
(2:52:24 PM) : in my SMA I keep at least 1 cov ops, 5 disposable cyno frigs, a recon, a few dictors and a bunch of t1 tacklers
(2:52:46 PM) : Your mothership is your home away from home. It needs to be able to run completely on its own if your alliance gets screwed into oblivion
(2:53:06 PM) : Your fit is fine, you were right to drop the shield booster
(2:53:15 PM) : It takes like 3 hours of running it to get even a quarter of your shields
(2:53:27 PM) : Dont even bother carrying it in your CHA, its wasted space on a supercap
(2:53:42 PM) : I would suggest getting at least Gist X types. they are relatively cheap and very similar to pith x types
(2:53:51 PM) : Huge EHP difference
(2:53:59 PM) Bill: I got pith X-Type hardeners last night
(2:54:01 PM) : Do *not* count gang bonuses or titan bonuses into EHP. You almost never get to use them
(2:54:12 PM) : Ah, your fit has gist B types and that concerned me ^_^
(2:54:38 PM) : Even when youre in a gang with a levi all the time like I am, actually recharging that shields takes hours and hours or a few triage carriers willing to rep you upe very time you swap systems or someone moves in and out of squad command
(2:55:12 PM) : Always try to be in squad command or wing command in a fleet so you dont get gangwarped by a hostile spy and die like this http://rawr.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=1988093
(2:55:19 PM) : Also dont fit your hsip like that one
(2:55:26 PM) : T2 shield expander rigs are teh way to go.
(2:55:35 PM) : *extender
(2:55:35 PM) Bill: *nods* got them last night too
(2:55:52 PM) : A few DCUs in a large fleet lets you outdamage anything that lacks them
(2:55:58 PM) : And I mean anything
(2:56:07 PM) Bill: nice
(2:56:23 PM) Bill: thanks for the tips, this is good stuff and hard to find in general
(2:56:33 PM) : I suggest keeping a faction point and a few more 29km faction nuets in your CHA for solo OH SHIT IM TACKLED work
(2:56:38 PM) : 2 nuets can cap out a hictor very fast
(2:56:49 PM) : Ive yet to see a hictor float int hat 1km space where he can tackle you but faction nuets dont work
(2:57:11 PM) : Remote ECM Burst is a killmail whore machine
(2:57:12 PM) : Use it as such
(2:57:34 PM) : It is also great to break focus point locks obviously because hictors have low sensor strength
(2:57:57 PM) : As for your drones, try to keep at least 3 flights of everything you plan on using. 1 is decent if you somehow never lose a drone but you will and restocking can be a bitch
(2:58:26 PM) Bill: You use any ewar drones besides the ECM ones?
(2:58:30 PM) : I dont use fighters at all, I know fighter bombers cant be assigned but they have way way more EHP, do more damage to everything that fighters can hit and I dont sacrifice anything keeping them
(2:58:33 PM) : I use all ewar drones
(2:58:38 PM) : target painters, webs, nuets
(2:58:45 PM) : I dont use sensor damp drones because lawl
(2:58:56 PM) : Target painter drones let fighter bombers absolutely demolish bs
(2:59:03 PM) : 3 of those and 20 fighter bombers is an alphad bs
(2:59:06 PM) Bill: oh... never thought of that
(2:59:27 PM) : Now at some point someone is going to try and kill your FB
(2:59:35 PM) : Be it with bombs, pos guns, or just shooting them
(2:59:52 PM) : If you warp, your fighter bombers enter warp instantly. A very good way to avoid damage with them if you have that kind of freedom.
(3:00:14 PM) : If you dont and the target is within 58km, you can deploy the bombers, tell them to attack, wait till their missiles are fired then immediately recall them and redeploy
(3:00:23 PM) : The missiles still do damage even if the fighter bombers arent out
(3:00:29 PM) Bill: ah, cool
(3:00:33 PM) : And so long as the target is within 58km
(3:00:50 PM) : I keep 30 fighter bombers at any given time and about 1800 other drones
(3:01:04 PM) : But I also keep both t1 and t2 variants so I can just send out wave after wave of t1 heavies or mediums if the need arises
(3:01:15 PM) : I also keep rep drones of both types. Large only
(3:01:29 PM) : If your drones are fighting something more than 150km from you and you recall them
(3:01:36 PM) : They wont MWD to you, they will warp to you
(3:01:48 PM) : Which is nearly instant
(3:02:00 PM) : If someone tries to bomb your fighters never ever ever recall them
(3:02:09 PM) : They turn on their MWD and instead of taking 14+ bombs to kill they take 2
(3:02:33 PM) : Unlike fighters, fighter bombers have the HP of a tech 1 battleship but with a much much lower sig radius
(3:02:36 PM) : So bombs do diddly o them
(3:04:12 PM) : 4 SC of fighterbombs can outright alpha a carrier or dread
(3:04:36 PM) : 3 supercarriers can incap a fully armed deathstar in a little over 20 minutes.
(3:04:46 PM) : They can outright kill every mod on it in about an hour.
(3:04:54 PM) : They can kill mods on online pos with relative ease
(3:05:04 PM) Bill: wow
(3:05:11 PM) : If your fighter bombers are on a carrier and he warps out then tries to align and war somewhere else
(3:05:20 PM) : You fighter bombers will kill him before that second align is done
(3:05:29 PM) : If they are set to chase
(3:05:50 PM) Bill: I can see how that could be annoying
(3:05:54 PM) Bill: for the carreir pilot
(3:05:59 PM) : They are an I Win button
(3:06:12 PM) : 10 supercarriers can demolish a 60 man dread fleet
(3:06:15 PM) : and not lose a single one
(3:06:42 PM) Bill: If I didn't own one already, I'd go out and buy one after hearing that. Good sales pitch ;)
(3:07:51 PM) : Lemme see if i notice anything else about your fits
(3:07:59 PM) : Your mix of FB is good
(3:08:07 PM) : Dont ever get just one damage type because then you can be thulsa doomed
(3:08:16 PM) : Where a fleet designed to kill only you is hardened to your damage type
(3:08:31 PM) : Caldari Navy PDS are the best PDS for a supercap.
(3:08:36 PM) Bill: got em
(3:08:39 PM) : Good deal
(3:08:47 PM) Bill: last night was expensive in mod buying
(3:09:00 PM) : I use 1 pith x type of each damage type
(3:09:02 PM) : 2 of EM
(3:09:13 PM) : and then 2 invulns and a sensor booster
(3:09:23 PM) : Which it seems you already have
(3:09:25 PM) Bill: I have CN invuls, should I upgrade?
(3:09:28 PM) : No
(3:09:33 PM) Bill: that's what I thought
(3:09:34 PM) : Unless you really wanna throw money at it
(3:09:44 PM) : I have over 400b and even I think officer invulns are a wast eof isk
(3:10:22 PM) : In your cargohold try to keep the boosters that increase cap recharge
(3:10:32 PM) : none of the negative effects will hurt you in any way without an acive booster
(3:10:36 PM) Bill: I noticed
(3:10:46 PM) : Stront is very bulky and you may not want to carry any
(3:10:53 PM) : Always make sure you have enough topes to get out of your region and into empire
(3:11:55 PM) : Keep enough ozone though for at least half a dozen cy nos
(3:12:01 PM) : 6 cynos can get you pretty much anywhere in the game with JDC V
(3:12:31 PM) : Now for the part that youre going to think im crazy for
(3:12:42 PM) : Nothing in the game can run anomalies faster than a MS. Except a ragnarok.
(3:13:00 PM) : But if youre going to do it, do it under a jammer and always aligned to a pos or safespot
(3:13:19 PM) Bill: interesting. I'd heard of anom-supercarriers
(3:13:26 PM) : I use mine for it pretty regularly
(3:14:44 PM) : oh
(3:14:52 PM) : if a CCP trailer for an expansion shows a wyvern in it
(3:14:59 PM) : We are going to get fucked out of one of the features in that expansion
(3:15:10 PM) : Im totally not kidding
(3:17:55 PM) : One more thing
(3:18:09 PM) : If youre operating alone a lot for some reason or jumping around to cyno arrays that could be camped
(3:18:12 PM) : have a cap booster fit
(3:18:41 PM) : People will laugh at your lossmail but if dropped on by nueting BS a cap booster is the difference between you taking 6 minutes to kill and taking an hour to kill
(3:19:01 PM) : You may still be fucked, but your support will have more time to arrive
(3:19:06 PM) Bill: Ok
(3:19:15 PM) : And good luck :)
(3:19:26 PM) : Ive been flying these things for years. Ive always loved motherships more than titans
(3:20:38 PM) : Anyways enjoy your blog sometimes. Not big on eve blogs but the capsuleer thing has them and I saw your wyvern blogs :)
(3:20:45 PM) : Always lookin to help a new wyvern pilot. I <3 mine
(3:20:55 PM) Bill: I appreciate it
(3:21:57 PM) : But I dont mind if you list them all and dont mention they came from me.
(3:22:01 PM) : People will disagree with some of them
(3:22:05 PM) : Like DCUs and the cap booster
(3:22:06 PM) Bill: people always do
(3:22:13 PM) : DCUs were worthless for years
(3:22:22 PM) : But fighter bombers do such an insane amount of dps that 3 more is a huge boost
(3:22:37 PM) : Its actually larger than the 25% you figured 5 did. EFT doesnt accurately represent their damage
(3:22:45 PM) Bill: Oh yeah?
(3:22:55 PM) : Ya, its why nyx do so much more damage with a 25% boost
(3:23:18 PM) : Each fighterbomber gets that boost just like each one gets the boost from the fighter bomber skill. In a long drawn out fight against one target, sure its 25% boost
(3:23:27 PM) : In a cap fight where you may get 3 volley soff per ship, its a lot more
(3:23:59 PM) : FB are alpha centric
(3:24:07 PM) Bill: right, I get it.
(3:24:36 PM) Bill: the time between salvos is shorter
(3:24:50 PM) : I am decently sure the skill just increases the damage of a volley
(3:25:55 PM) : oh
(3:25:57 PM) : ECM burst skill
(3:25:58 PM) : Does nothing
(3:26:03 PM) : Train it to 1 and never look at it again
(3:26:18 PM) Bill: *nods*
(3:26:26 PM) : If CCP ever fixes it you can train it up
(3:27:52 PM) : and please dont lose it to ushra kahn.
(3:28:04 PM) Bill: rgr that
(3:33:32 PM) Bill: Didn't Crystal implants used to work with cap mods?
(3:33:37 PM) : Nope
(3:33:43 PM) Bill: hmm, wishful thinking
(3:33:44 PM) : They may eventually give us shield slave implants though
(3:33:55 PM) : Which will make the wyvern higher EHP than anything in the game
(3:34:06 PM) Bill: yeah
(3:34:22 PM) : The levi will have more if you factor in its bonus but the levi never gets to use its bonus since the shields are taken away to add it. You never get the hours needed to rep them before you start getting shot
(3:34:32 PM) : I suggest if you have gang bonuses available take cap recharge or armor over shields
(3:34:40 PM) : Due to the way shield bonuses are applied
(3:34:51 PM) Bill: ok