Adapting To Change - A Miasmos Fit

Now that the lynch mobs have diminished and the devs have taken a break from publishing blogs, I can go back to worrying about important things.  That's right, how low sec miners are going to move their ore around come summer.  Personally, I plan on refining the ore and then moving it around using a blockade runner.  But then again, I'm mining for my personal use.  But what happens if hedbergite suddenly becomes really valuable?  Hey, with large quantities of isogen with some nocxium and pyerite and a trace of zydrine, it could happen.  Then how do I move that ore around?



I've come to the conclusion that the best method is to fit a Miasmos.  Yes, I'm seriously proposing taking a tech 1 industrial in amongst the pirates and factional warfare warriors.  Madness?  Yes, but this is low sec.

My hauling/CEO pilot has almost all the relevant skills at 5.  The only skills not at 5 are the rig skills, so I have a little problem with the power grid.  I intentionally tried to make this as low skilled and as inexpensive to fit and fly as possible.  Not only because of the possibility of loss, but to try to get newer players to peek into low.  Why should new players have to sit around waiting for skills to train in order to enter low sec?  Ventures were made to zoom around hostile space.  Why not have a ship that can haul the ore out as well?

So what skills are required to fly this ship?  Excluding the implants, which I wear when flying my blockade runners, I think the skills are quite low.  I took a fresh Minmatar character, did not do a neural remap or use implants, and the time to train the minimum skills was a shade over 68 hours.  Here is the skill plan I came up with.

1. CPU Management IV
2. Afterburner I
3. Afterburner II
4. Afterburner III
5. Cloaking I
6. Cloaking II
7. Cloaking III
8. High Speed Maneuvering I
9. Mechanics III
10. Hull Upgrades I
11. Hull Upgrades II
12. Shield Upgrades I
13. Tactical Shield Manipulation I
14. Warp Drive Operation I
15. Jury Rigging I
16. Jury Rigging II
17. Jury Rigging III
18. Astronautics Rigging I

These are the minimum.  I would recommend training Navigation to 5 and both High Speed Maneuvering and Warp Drive Operation up to 3 as quickly as possible.  Also, new players may need to swap out modules to fit more CPU as the rigs have CPU penalties.  A new pilot may need to learn Electronics Upgrade I in order to use a co-processor module.  The secret to this fit is align times, having enough capacitor to jump quickly, and learning the skills of the Cloak/MWD trick.

What is the Cloak/MWD trick?  It's a little trick that allows a slow tech 1 hauler (or any slow agility ship) to have a good chance of blowing through a gate camp.  For a real technical explanation for why the trick works, EVE University's Seamus Donohue put together a 10 minute video.  But for just picking up the technique quickly, I liked the below video by Cygnus Zhada a little better.  Also, the video is 4 minutes shorter.


So, what about the fittings? 

High

• Improved Cloaking Device II
• (Empty slot)

Mid

• Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
• EM Ward Amplifier I
• Thermic Dissipation Amplifier I
• Adaptive Invulnerability Field I

Low

• Nanofiber Internal Structure II
• Nanofiber Internal Structure II
• Warp Core Stabilizer I
• Warp Core Stabilizer I

Rigs

• Medium Ancillary Current Router I
• Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
• Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I

The high slot is pretty easy to explain.  The Improved Cloaking Device II is required for the Cloaking/MWD trick.  Usually, the rule is to always fill all slots, but this is a hauler, not a combat ship.  The empty slot allows fitting more important things.  However, if this ship were going into a wormhole instead of low sec, the slot would contain a probe launcher.

The mid slots are basically one important mod plus three mods you hopefully will never need.  A 10MN MWD is needed for the trick to work.  The other three mods are designed to give a little bit of a tank to make a crash back to the gate if the trick doesn't work a feasible possibility.  I'm using two amplifiers because those not only don't need cap, but in the heat of the moment are two less mods to worry about.  They are always on.  Plus, all four mods together are pretty cheap.

Why not shield extenders?  In high sec, the shield extenders are nice because they act as a buffer from the alpha from a suicide gank.  But in low, the name of the game is not getting caught.  I'm a blockade runner by trade, so I want as low a signature as possible.  With the Miasmos, I'll probably still get targeted by a frigate, but slowing down the locks of larger ships is definitely a worthwhile goal.  Depending on the price of the ore, I might even look into taking some boosters to lower the signature radius of the ship even more.

The low slots will cause some to groan.  I fit the tech 2 nanos because this ship's tank is basically all about the execution of the Cloak/MWD trick.  But if the space around a gate is clear, the nanos will make aligning to the next gate faster.  And this fit is all about this ship from station to station as fast as possible.  As for the warp core stabilizers?  In factional warfare space a lot of ships are set up to overcome a +2 warp core strength.  But if the Cloak/MWD trick doesn't work, or I get surprised by an uncloaking stealth bomber, having another trick up my sleeve is always nice.

Finally, I chose the rigs for two reasons.  The Medium Ancillary Current Router I is present because I needed the extra power grid for this fit.  However, that's because I didn't use the 10MN Digital Booster Rockets.  If I had used that prop mod whose blueprints are available in the COSMOS missions, I could have replaced the power grid rig with a Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I rig.  Not only would that change reduce the align time without an implant by a second, but add over 200 million ISK to the fit.  Sorry, not spending that much on a tech 1 hauler for a one second reduction in align time.

The two Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I rigs are included for two reasons.  First, increasing the ship's warp speed means a lot less time in space.  The second is to act as a nasty surprise to anyone chasing me.  Without my 5% warp speed implant, the warp speed of this fit is 4.32 AU/sec.  That's almost as fast as a destroyer and definitely fast enough to outrun cruisers.  With the implant, the warp speed is 4.97 AU/sec, or just a shade slower than a frigate's 5 AU/sec speed.  I think a frigate would find that a nasty surprise.

So what are the results of all this theory crafting?  With my skills, I think the ship's should perform decently:

• Align time: 8.29 seconds (7.88 seconds with 5% implant)
• Max velocity: 222 m/s (1379 m/s with MWD)
• Warp speed: 4.32 AU/sec (4.97 AU/sec with 5% warp speed implant)
• Cargo: 550 m3
• Ore cargo: 63,000 m3 (Gallente Industrial V)
• EMP: 3,850
• Warp core strength: +2

I don't know how the ship will perform for new players, but if the mods are not too expensive, I suggest picking up some meta level items with better fitting stats.  With the reprocessing changes, some of the modules may go down in price once the summer expansion hits.  Also, using the meta level items won't increase the training time required.

One final thought.  CCP is changing the game so I may have to use a tech 1 hauler to transport the results of an hour's effort spent mining around low sec.  I don't have any advantages, so I'm not going to obey anyone's stupid space bushido.  I'm going to fit WCS.  I'm going to use the Cloak/MWD trick.  And if I learn any other "underhanded" tricks, I'm going to use those too.  Just because CCP is making the hunters' jobs easier doesn't mean I'm going to lay down and die.  If I fly this ship around a lot, I WILL lose it eventually.  But anyone who wants my Miasmos is going to have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.