In part three we move on to the recon pairs. These ships are inherently less likely to be used as Recons and Interceptors do not tank well. They are exceptionally risky ships to field as even if they give you the win it’s almost impossible to guarantee their survival until a significant portion of your opponents control and DPS ships have been removed from the field. This makes it a very costly win and you can only do it so many times before you run out of hulls.

This time I’m joined by Casper24 of North Eastern SWAT in Pandemic Legion, previously of HYDRA RELOADED. As per usual with my collaborations you can find his comments in italics. He is a specialist pilot of the Chremoas and Moracha which we’ll be covering here and I’m sure he’ll have excellent insight on the Whiptail and Chameleon.

ATXI 2013 – Chremoas & Moracha – Won by Pandemic Legion, Second place HYDRA RELOADED – Prices: Cheremoas 120B, Moracha 160B

Chremoas

Covert Ops bonuses (per skill level):

20% reduction in Cloaking Devices CPU requirement

10% bonus to Core and Combat Scanner Probe strength

20% reduction in Cloaking Devices CPU requirement 10% bonus to Core and Combat Scanner Probe strength Gallente Frigate bonuses (per skill level):

15% bonus to Small Projectile Turret tracking speed

15% bonus to Small Projectile Turret tracking speed Minmatar Frigate bonuses (per skill level):

10% bonus to Small Projectile Turret optimal range and falloff

A Dramiel with a cloak, certainly a risky ship to field due to its low tank, but like the Dramiel in the correct hands can be devastating. I am reliably told by Tourney ship guru Bluemelon that the standard fit rolls a fed navy web, dual prop and does 300 DPS at 20km; in complete control of the engagement due to its fantastic speed. Naturally, in the tournament scenario you are somewhat more limited in your fitting choice and it will likely get creamed by the inevitable waves of T3Ds we’ll be seeing this year, but nonetheless it is a fantastic little ship.

“Chremoas is the most TQ friendly AT ship in my opinion.

You have the option of engaging anything you want – or choosing not to engage at all. With a heated MWD speed of almost 10km/s, if anything goes wrong you can just disengage. The normal fit is dual prop, with a longpoint and web, so even if one makes a mistake the AB is there to get you out of trouble. Artys with Depleted Uranium ammo have the same tracking as a Svipul with 200mm autocannons, so sitting at 17-22km with perfect application is the goal which keeps one out of danger ranges.

It can enter and fight inside small plexes in low sec and be almost risk free PvP to farm them killmarks. The signature of this ship makes it impossibly hard to apply well to, so unless held down this ship is not easily beaten. If it does get tackled that arty damage is nothing to laugh at. Even starting at 0, there are very few things that can beat a Chremoas that can enter a small plex and i really don’t feel like telling which ships those are.

This is the most fun ship i have ever flown.

It’s a very skill intensive ship because not many ships are this fast which makes staying in application range tricky, especially with multiple targets ramming you. But once mastered I cannot undock and fight in this without the biggest grin on my face ever.”

The first ever kill by a Chremoas was a Merlin in Hisec by GonRin of, hold on, this will be a shock, HYDRA RELOADED. Other notable Chremoas pilots over their 36 bloody pages of zkill kills are Dashiel, Casper24, TikkTokk, Mav’Lite, Tropic9, Nik Domar, basically a long list of HYDRA dudes and friends. Thus far eight have been lost in total, only three of which were in a tournament environment. The first was Tropic9’s beautifully pimped Chremoas in Lamaa, to Mav’Lite in a Dramiel. The second on TQ was DHB Wildcat’s to a handful of T1 fit Atrons in Vlillirier. You can see him in his Chremoas escapades in this video.

The next down was the wonderful l0rd carlos of The Camel Empire who lost his in a duel with a Harbinger in Resbroko. Just before downtime he saw him smartbombing so he switched fits to deal with that. The Harbinger saw l0rd carlos as well and had refitted to a PvP fit specifically engineered for him and thus wasted him. Three were lost last year in ATXIII, the first two in a match between Pandemic Legion and The Camel Empire. The Chremoas were lost but Camel won the match. The next was lost later that day in the grand finals between Camel and Warlords.

We move away from Hydramel for the next loss to be Knerf of NC., who lost his in a duel with a Hawk. I say duel, but the Hawk actually had a couple cloaked T2 logi on hand. The most recent Chremoas loss at the time of writing was Kobald Simbian of Gyromatic Cartel in EI-O0O, blapped by 16 guys from The-Culture.

In tournament play:

ATXIII The Camel Empire vs Pandemic Legion – win

ATXIII Warlords of the Deep vs. The Camel Empire – loss

Probability of Chremoas sighting this year: 1.5 out of 5 Unlike most AT ships, the Chremoas shines on TQ in regular play, but is not as good as a tourney ship.

Moracha

Recon Ships bonuses (per skill level):

30% bonus to Stasis Webifier optimal range

20% reduction in Cloaking Device CPU requirement

30% bonus to Stasis Webifier optimal range 20% reduction in Cloaking Device CPU requirement Gallente Cruiser bonuses (per skill level):

15% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret falloff

15% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret falloff Minmatar Cruiser bonuses (per skill level):

30% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret damage

30% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret damage Role Bonus:

Can fit Covert Ops Cloaking Device and Covert Cynosural Field Generator

25% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret rate of fire

Yes, that’s right, that’s 150% bonus to Projectile falloff. The Moracha is a monster, halfway between a Rapier and a Sleipnir, with the web bonus synergising perfectly with the low tracking but high alpha of artillery turrets. While flown like an old-school AC Cynabal, it obliterates anything foolish enough to chase after it. Casper here has more kills with the Moracha than anyone else in EVE so I’ll leave the rest to him.

“The Moracha. This was my original baby. It was even originally named after my GF at the time.

If you want a lawl easy delete button wtf just happened to me, look no further. Not only is this ship amazing because it’s a unique hull but it has the stats to back it up. It does 6km/s, can project from 20km out to 120km, has dual 59km webs and oh yeah, it has a cloak button. With 800 DPS in artys things legit just disappear.

While talking with tikk we tried to make an analogy for the Chremoas and the Moracha to convey how they felt to fly. The best we could come up with was that the Moracha is a Bentley, the best of its kind, very easy to enjoy and comfortable to fly and get kills with, while the Chremoas on the other hand is an Ariel Atom v10, the quickest, fastest thing around, as agile as a ship gets but leaving no room for error and very exposed to the elements.

The Moracha in my opinion is the best overall TQ ship there is, you can choose your engagements at will and when you do uncloak the DPS is insane. You have two webs to screen anything dumb enough to ram you and the speed to run if bad things happen. If i had to choose a downside for this ship it would be that it does have to be piloted well for the artys to track well. And as seen, if you happen get decloaked within 5km of a 10mn AB Svipul… You will lose your ship : ) RIP SWEET HUNTRESS“

The first ever kill by a Moracha was achieved by Poison Ivy of NC.’s Finfleet, destroying a Death by Design Rupture. The list of pilots in the Moracha is similar to the of the Chremoas with a little more PL representation but mostly the same nonetheless.

Five Morachas have been lost so far in the fire of combat. The first loss was by the pilot of the first kill, Poison Ivy from Finfleet, losing it but five minutes later to DBD, getting their revenge and a very pricy killmail. The next Moracha mail is from that half trillion match last year in ATXIII, Destoya of Pandemic Legion losing it to the mighty Camel Empire in quite possibly the most expensive series in tournament history. The next Moracha loss was by Paquito of SHadow Cartel, losing it to a GalMill BlOps drop off a Proteus. Moving on, Rengas of AQUILA INC in Verge of Collapse lost a full officer low Moracha flying with Casper and a few others in their fight against a mixed group from FETID and Feign Disorder.

The most recent Moracha loss was my esteemed colleague Casper24’s to a gang from Smile’n’Wave, which I’m sure he can elaborate upon.

In tournament play:

ATXIII Pandemic Legion vs The Camel Empire – win

Probability of Moracha sighting this year: 4 out of 5 If you haven’t been watching the open practices everyone has been trying to imitate Hydra BOOM HEADSHOT artillery-based teams, which the Moracha fits into beautifully, as we saw by Pandemic Legion in that match. I would be very unsurprised if one of the teams with some spare wallet space decided to pimp out their set up and drop a Moracha on it.

ATXII 2014 – Whiptail & Chameleon – Won by The Camel Empire, Second place Nulli Secunda – Prices: Whiptail 110B, Chameleon 140B

Whiptail

Interceptors bonuses (per skill level):

15% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty

5% bonus to Warp Scrambler and Warp Disruptor Optimal Range

15% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty 5% bonus to Warp Scrambler and Warp Disruptor Optimal Range Gallente Frigate bonuses (per skill level):

10% bonus to kinetic and thermal missile damage

10% bonus to kinetic and thermal missile damage Caldari Frigate bonuses (per skill level):

4% bonus to all shield resistances

4% bonus to all shield resistances Role bonus:

375% bonus to Light Combat Drone damage and hitpoints

80% reduction in Propulsion Jamming systems activation cost

Immune to Interdiction Sphere Launcher, Warp Disruption Field Generator and Mobile Small Medium and Large Warp Disruptor

A tanky ceptor that still isn’t that tanky. As a fleet tackle ship goes, you’re not going to use it unless you’re in a hardcore elite roaming gang that has more money than sense and a stack of them lying around. As an AT ship the Cambion fulfills the role this ship would cover far better even if it costs an extra point as far as rules currently stand. A really cool spaceship but sadly unable to carve its own specific niche that makes it the best in a given situation and it’s not like the Freki, just kinda bad, it’s actually good.

But even a beautifully crafted screwdriver has little use besides sitting on the shelf if you’re working at IKEA and it’s hex sockets as far as the eye can see.

“The Whiptail is a fun ship if you want to fly like a Garmur in null sec and afk orbit at 10km/s. It also puts out pretty insane DPS as far as interceptors go and is nigh uncatchable unless you ram a HIC.

This ship isn’t my cup of tea because when it comes to gtfo cards it doesn’t have many. It has its speed and bubble immunity, but to get under 2 second align time, so insta-camps don’t get you, you have to nerf some DPS potential for nanofibers. With the HIC meta currently so strong this puts massives spheres around those ships that you can’t enter or kiss goodbye your 100bn isk ship.

Another downside of it is its drone-based DPS, so like the Chameleon, they can be either removed or controlled and there’s nothing you can do about it. Looking at the paper stats at first you see “oh man, 45km heated warp point without links, i can just go afk” but wait a few seconds and after looking further “ohhhh only 40km locking range”. Let me tell you, it’s very hard to orbit at 8-10km/s with multiple targets ramming you and hold that point. This means that if you’re not running an Information Warfare link at least one rig slot has to be for locking range to match your point range.

Another downfall, when you want to go and show off your sweet kill in BringingSoloBack, 95% of them will say “sweet raptor dude” and then the epeen balloon gets deflated. If you want to roam null in a 8k EHP mini titan i would suggest the Imp personally but both ships take more balls than i have to run around doing that : )”

The first ever kill by a Whiptail was made by Dalikah of The Camel Empire in Ostingele, striking down the Incursus of Gregor Garsk. The suprising 15 pages of kills on zkill, given they’ve existed in game for less than two years, are filled with the usual suspect alliances, Camel, VOLTA, Hard Knocks and others. Mystical Might of VOLTA seems to be the pilot currently getting the most use out of the hull so props to the military-grade steel balls of that capsuleer.

There have been three losses of Whiptails thus far, the first being lost by Robopleasure of The Camel Empire in Ostingele, home to a great deal of AT prize ship activity. He was caught by a small frigate gang from Rage Camp Carebears. The second loss was made by Planet 6 to, well, there’s no easy way to put this, faction police. The most recent loss was made by an old friend of mine actually, Ikslagor, who I knew in E-Uni and SniggWaffe. He lost his to the 37.5k sphere of Interceptor death that is the modern Heavy Interdiction Cruiser in a wormhole.

The Whiptail is yet to be used in tournament play.

Probability of Whiptail sighting this year: 1 out of 5. Even if it were allowed to use T2 drones ,which it isn’t, it’s a scarily thin ship to bring to a match and using it as your unique slot over a Cambion seems silly.

Chameleon

Recon Ships bonuses (per skill level):

30% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength

20% reduction in Cloaking Devices CPU requirement

30% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength 20% reduction in Cloaking Devices CPU requirement Gallente Cruiser bonuses (per skill level):

20% bonus to kinetic and thermal missile damage

20% bonus to kinetic and thermal missile damage Caldari Cruiser bonuses (per skill level):

10% reduction in ECM target Jammer activation cost

10% reduction in ECM target Jammer activation cost Role Bonus:

600% bonus to Medium Combat Drone damage and hitpoints

80% reduction in Cynosural field generator liquid ozone consumption

50% bonus in Cynosural Field Generator duration

Can fit Covert Ops Cloaking Device and Covert Cynosural Field Generator

Cloak reactivation delay reduced to 5 seconds

The Chameleon has a lot going on in its mids. It needs to tank there, run ECM, have some form of propulsion and maybe even some tackle. That’s a lot of jobs for seven slots. Add on the restriction of no T2 drones in the AT and you’re looking at a very cool idea that ends up being executed poorly. In some ways it feels like the Ashimmu, trying to do too many things at once with the resources it has.

“The best thing about the Chameleon is the description. “Some capsuleers claim that ECM is ‘dishonorable’ and ‘unfair’. Jam those ones first and kill them last.” Other than that, i don’t have many positives to say about this ship.

In theory it sounds amazing, a Gila/Falcon mix? I mean, come on, this sounds epic. But then you try to find a way to fly it and see it has more armor than shield hit points, its cap is absolutely horrid, it’s way too slow and being drone damage based you won’t find it in AT because of the no T2 or faction drone rule.

So what do you do? My good friend Arcani Victus used his to save my Moracha when i was scramed by a Keres and some of the Volta/Tri guys used them, when Skynetting was a thing, but other than that they are not seen or used many times on TQ for the reasons stated above. There are some people that use them with an Estamel’s Multispectral ECM to whore on kills and get sweet officer jam killmails (and you can do this from 150km away).

I guess all in all this is a sweet party piece to show off but that’s about the extent of its use in the current TQ and AT meta.”

The Chameleon zkill is spammed by Deathlives4u killing more Ibises than I care to count in Manatrid, Genesis, presumably to get some cool killmarks on his prizeship. However, if you go back all 32 pages you’ll find that the first recorded killmail involving a Chameleon is sadly an unexciting MTU kill by Gavjack Bunk of Path of Radiance now HYDRA RELOADED.

The Chameleon is yet to be used in tournament play, but according to zkill three have exploded on TQ so far. The first was Big Lynx of Something To Fear who lost his to, well… faction police in high sec. The second lost Chameleon, by Padonac of Lost Consuls, was also lost in high sec but at least it was to players of the I N F A M O U S alliance in addition to NPC faction police. The most recent recorded Chameleon lost was a month ago by Harukshimi Nardieu of the Corporation 192.168.1.1. It’s their only killmail in a corp of one person so I’m assuming it’s someone’s alt. Anyway, it was lost to a cacophony (collective noun creation is fun) of Brave Collective Atrons.

Probability of Chameleon sighting this year: 2 out of 5. Let’s be honest, I painted myself into a corner here by putting the Freki at 1.

“As you can see I am highly biased to the Moracha and Chremoas being by far the best TQ useable uniques. I truly hope that more of the other vessels find their use as the meta changes and can’t wait to see what new ships CCP have in store. Also if i may, a word of anger for those not using these vessels and letting them rot in a hangar somewhere in high sec: think of their feelings man, they are the best of the best and long for the thrill of battle.

You are killing their soul : )