Smackyon IIs

I am now officially iskie poor. Rich in shiny, yes, but the bank balance has taken something of a hit of late.  Been keeping an eye on prices of Paladins and they have been slowly but surely been creeping northwards, so I finally bit the bullet and got one.

Managed to pick one up on contract though for about 720mil which included one CCC and an aux nano pump which was pretty reasonable. I was planning to build one, but discovered that EvEmon had been telling me some fibs. According to it you need L4 in Amarrian Starship engineering and Mechanical engineering. When I had a look at bpcs on contract, it was V and V. Some number of days worth of training. Suck.

So… I finally have this new shiny in Jita, home of the gankfest…. and nothing but it, some tachyons and a damage control II. Hmmmm says I and creates an insta undock just in case. One of the Caldari Business stations is basically an insta as well FYI. Anyways, to cut a long story short, I got the wee beastie home without incident, and plonked some Imperial Navy kit on it I had lying around.

And then the D’oh continued. The alt I have skilling marauders has been set up as my capital pilot. Has T2 sentries… but didn’t actually have the scout drone skill at all. So, no light or medium drones. Why would you, if you’ve been flying a zealot I ask…?!?!? At least I could pull the heatsinks of the zealot because I’d forgotten to buy any. Ugh.

So basically, I’m having a wee play with it, but only when supported by another alt to pop those nasty webbers and scrammers. That is, until scout drone V comes through in another few days.

On the good news front, tachyon IIs are AWESOME, especially with ultraviolet. One shotting frigates and occasionally cruisers at 60km is damn fun ). In practise I’ve found the multifrequency lenses to don’t seem to hit quite as often, possibly because things may be starting to have a transversal as they get closer. Will keep an eye on that.

More good news is that it has a better tank than the Mega and is cap stable (looses out on mobility and all round flexibility… but with the ammo providing variation on optimal, that difference is markedly decreased if not almost totally negated). With the right implants I can remain stable and drop a cap recharger opening up one slot for utility purposes. I’m leaning towards a target painter. Suggestions?

So, the plan at this stage is to find a good Amarr agent or two, get some LPs and iskes together and upgrade to Imperial Navy Heatsinks and Lenses, as well as buy some cap implants and the two relevant damage ones. Doing the Eftwarrior thing for a moment, between doing that and tying off a couple of L5 gunnery skills, that should get me another 200 DPS out of the guns…

Apart from the cognitive dissonance after flying the Mega for so long (it’s quite a horizontal ship vs the Paladin which is decidedly vertical – it just looks…. strange to my eyes), this beast has serious potential for PvE.

FS

H

P.S The difference in DPS between the Mega and the Paladin right now is about 200 DPS… and that gap increases right up the scale to close to 300 DPS. The biggest disparity between the two is that nearly all the DPS comes from the guns with the Paladin, where it’s approximately one third with the Mega (Tachs vs Rails).