Tank and Miscellaneous Skills

Starwalker noted that there were a number of Core Ship Skills that needed to be trained to level 5 and many of these relate to the tank. However, there were a few others that needed to be added:

·         Repair Systems – 5% reduction in armour/hull repair cycle time i.e. armour repairing systems

·         Shield Operation – 5% reduction in shield recharge time

·         Energy Systems Operation – 5% reduction in capacitor recharge time

·         Tactical Shield Manipulation – 5% chance to reduce damage penetrating shields i.e. invulnerability field shield hardener

·         Energy Grid Upgrades – 5% reduction in CPU needs for power upgrades i.e. shield power relays

Similarly, directly related to fitting more tanking strength would be armour and shield rigs with associated rigging skills.

·         Jury Rigging – required for rigging

·         Armour Rigging – 10% reduction in armour rig drawbacks i.e. Small Trimark Armour Pump I adds 15% armour at the expense of maximum velocity

·         Shield Rigging - 10% reduction in shield rig drawbacks i.e. Small Core Defence Field Extender I adds 15% shield capacity at the expense of increased ship signature radius

Starwalker sat back from the Neocom console after studying the long list of compensation skills such as Thermic Shield Compensation or Explosive Armour Compensation. No doubt these skills would need to be added to the queue at some point but not yet. The list of skills in the training plan was already long and time consuming - these could wait. Similarly the drone skills would also wait such as Drones or Combat Drone Operation, they were not much use to a Rifter or a Jaguar.

However, there were still some miscellaneous skills that did need to be added to the training queue:

·         Thermodynamics (allows overheating of modules) – reduces heat damage by 5%

·         Nanite Interfacing – 20% increase in damage repair per second of Nanite Repair Paste, used to repair heat damaged modules

·         Nanite Operation – 5% reduction in consumption of Nanite Repair Paste

·         Weapon Upgrades – 5% reduction in CPU need for weapon turrets, launchers and smartbombs

·         Advanced Weapon Upgrades – 2% reduction in power grid needs of weapon turrets and launchers

Starwalker had finished his training plan that would take months to complete and knew that even then there was a long road ahead. Plans would need to be thought about for:

·         Other ship classes within the Minmatar race such as cruisers, heavy assault cruisers and battleships and so on

·         Specialist ships like covert operations, interdictors and so on

·         Other race ships from the Amarr, Gallente or Caldari like the Ishkur, Taranis, Harbinger, Abaddon, Tengu and so on

·         Skills for implants, boosters and so on

The list seemed endless. However, the path was clear for now and the best way to make progress was to start and take one step at a time. Starwalker closed the console and considered what to do next. It was time to see who was out and about. Black jacket – check; sunglasses – check; ignition – check. The Rifter slid smoothly from the dock and into the dark of space.