Structure Weapon Systems

All Citadels can be fitted in a very similar way to regular ships through the fitting window. However, the weapon systems available for Citadels are quite different to regular spaceship weapon systems. The available categories for Citadel weapons are:

• Missiles
• Fighters
• Electronic Warfare Systems
• Energy Neutralizers
• Guided Bomb Launchers
• Point Defence System (L and XL structures)
• Doomsday Weapon (Keepstars only)

Not all available weapon categories can be used on all Citadel types. Point Defence Systems can only be used on large and extra-large structures and a Doomsday Weapon can only be fitted to  Keepstar Citadels. These two categories can also only be used in low and null security space. The same is true for Guided Bombs, which are only allowed outside of high-sec but can be fitted to all sizes.

Missiles

Missiles launchers are the main weapon system for citadels and come in two different sizes. One size against subcapital ships (Standup Multirole Missile Launcher), which deal around 130/400/800 dps per launcher depending on the ammunition and can be loaded with three different missile sizes (light, heavy, cruise).

The second size is used against capital ships (Standup Anticapital Missile Launcher), which deal  3000-5000 dps per launcher, but have a poor application to smaller targets. The range of both versions is about 1000 km, which is easily within range of any attacking ship.

Fighters

All Citadels have build in fighter tubes to launch standup fighter squadrons. Medium Citadels can launch three light squadrons, large ones four light squadrons and extra-large five squadrons of heavy fighters. These fighters are very similar to regular carrier fighters but deal more damge. Three full fighter squadrons of attack fighters in an Astrahus ( e.g. Standup Dragonflys) can deal about 1500 dps depending on the type of fighter.

Electronic Warfare Systems

There is a standup version for most electronic warfare systems available. All of these have a very long range and hence are much more effective than their subcap counterparts. A citadel warp disruptor has 210 km range and a warp scramble strength of 100, a stasis-webifier a range of 200 km. The Standup Focused Warp Disruptor can also be loaded with a script to convert it into a warp scrambler with 63 km range.

By these ewar modules, a citadel can basically pin down any ship with point and web that is within subcap weapon range.

Energy Neutralizers

Energy Neutralizers can be fitted in two sizes: heavy and extra large. Both have quite a long range of 100 km / 180 km and drain a large amount of capacitor: 1.5 k GJ for the heavy and 10 k GJ for the extra large version . By this, even a battleship can be completely capped out with one hit of the extra large energy neutralizer.

Guided Bombs

Guided Bombs work very similar to stealth bomber bombs, with the difference that guided bombs don’t only fly in a straight line but can change their course towards the target. Guided Bombs come in a anti-subcap and anti-capital version. The subcap version flies faster but deals less damage (3400 damage) , while the capital version deals more damage (12000 damage) but is slower and can be easier avoided by subcapital ships. The area of effect for both bomb types is a 30 km radius.

Point Defence Systems

A Point Defence System is a high-slot area of effect weapon that damages all ships within 2.5 km of the citadel. Keep in mind that the docking radius of the citadel counts as 0 km away from the structure, so the actual size of the effect on grid is much bigger than the number suggests. These systems are great to kill drones and small ships around the structure. A point defence system can only be fitted by large and extra-large citadels and only be activated outside of high-sec.

Doomsday Weapon

Only Keepstars can fit the high-slot Doomsday Weapon, which is similar to a Titan doomsday. It applies insane 4 million point of damage to up o 4 targets., which can even kill a capital ship in one shot. It has a 10 minute cooldown timer before it can be used again on a different target.

Example Fitting

Most weapon systems can be even more effective with appropriate rigs fitteds to the Citadel.  As an example, I fitted a Astrahus with missile launchers, a bomb launcher, ewar modules and three squadrons of fighters:

Even the medium sized Citadel can deal almost 3000 dps without bomb damage fitted with subcapital sized missiles and ewar modules ranging out to 100-200 km.

As you can see by the numbers, a Citadel can easily defend itself against any single subcapital and even against a small gang of subcapital ships. In order to attack a medium sized Citadel, the attackers will need 3-4 logistic ships to repair the incoming damage, even more when attacking the bigger citadel sizes.  Another point to consider when attacking, are the citadel’s Energy Neutralizers, which can cap out logistic ships and shut down the active tank modules of any subcapital ship. That’s why it is a good idea to fit cap boosters for logistic ships and to fit passive tank modules on your fleets dps ships, that do not need any capacitor.  The attacking ships should also be at least cruiser sized, since even with logistic support, frigates and destroyers can be easily destroyed by citadels by a single missile volley or bomb.

If a citadel is fitted against capital ships, it can deal quite an impressive amount of damage to dreads and carriers. I combat fitted L-sized Tatara has around 15000 dps and can kill a sieged buffer tanked dread in under one siege cycle. So even with capital ships on field, a strong logistic wing is always a good idea to have.

Bashing with Horde

In the last couple of weeks I joined quite a few structure bashing fleets with my fellow Pamdemic Horde bros. Usually there is at least one structure bash fleet going out once a day, sometimes much more often.

Horde has two different fleet setup for these bashes. If the target is located in high sec, the fleet will bring Exequror logistic ships, fitted with Medium Capacitor Boosters against the targets energy neutralizers. As damage dealing ships, Horde usually brings passively armor Tempests. These have an impressive tank and use large projectile weapons, which also don’t need capacitor to operate. Horde usually brings from 60 to 100 pilots to these bashes,  and I haven’t seen any serious resistance on a high sec bash that could defend a citadel against these numbers. So these bashes are usually a very one-sided story, that take less than an hour to form the fleet, bash the citadel and travel back to Horde’s high sec staging system in Perimeter. However, these are good opportunities to pad your killboard with big kills like these: Azbel, Azbel, Azbel.

For bashes in null and low security space, Horde usually forms one of their standard fleet doctrines, which are Hurricane battlecruisers with Osprey logistics support for fights that are not to be expected to get too big. These are mostly against enemy Astrahus and Raitarus which are commonly used as save docking spots that enemy fleets use to stage from.  These fights might actually escalate to medium sized fleet fights, when the enemy alliance decides to defend their structure. Sometimes these are successful, but can also result in a crushing defeat.

The last type of bashes are the ones when the big stuff like Keepstars and Sotiyos are in danger of destruction. Horde usually forms either Machariel or Tempest battleships with Guardian logistic support as the subcapital fleet for these fights. However, to destroy extra large structures, Horde also usually forms a capital ship fleet, that mostly consists of Apostle Force Auxiliaries and Dreadnoughts (Revelations prefered). Furthermore, Hordes allies like NC. or Pandemic Legion commonly send support subcapital and capital and sometimes even supercapital fleets for these battles.  This is when epic fights might happen, that the gaming media is so keen to write about, which involve thousands of players and sometimes trillions of isk in losses. One recent example was the major fight in UALX-3, that involved all major null sec alliances committing their supercapital fleet and resulted in this destroyed TEST alliance Keepstar. This one was a major battle with plenty of Titans on grid and a butcher’s bill of over 2 trillion isk.

I want to end this post with a a great video covering this Keepstar fight, that pretty much shows how massive these structure bashes can become.

The most common type of fleet PVP in Eve is definitely structure bashing. There are so many citadels anchored across New Eden that it sometimes feels like there is hardly any space for ships left. Especially in low and null security space, citadels are the main conflict driver for major fleet PVP, but also in high security space citadels are commonly attacked by wardec corporations that are hired by wealthy traders.

A couple of years back Player Owned Starbases (short POSes) were the most common structure in the game, but since the introduction of citadels these are now mostly irrelevant. CCP is in the process of removing POSes from the game and most of their functionality  is already replaced by similar citadel features. Since POSes will go away soon, I will not explain POS bash mechanics which are bit different to citadel mechanics.

Types of Structures

There is a great number of different structures in the game. However there are only a few types that you can destroy by shooting them and that are set up by players.  

The most important ones are commonly referred to as Citadels, which is actually only the first type that has been released in the Citadel expansion. With later expansions CCP also introduced  Engineering Complexes and Refineries. The main game mechanics for all three types are similar, with only the ability to fit special modules and hull bonuses making them distinct.

The three types come in up to three different sizes: M, L and XL. These are the Astrahus (M), Fortizar (L) and Keepstar (XL) for Citadels, the Raitaru (M), Azbel (L) and Sotiyo (XL) for Engineering Complexes and Athanor (M) and Tatara (L) for Refineries.

A common feature of all three types is the ability to dock capital ships. The medium sized ones are open for all non combat capitals (freighters and jump freighters). The large ones also allow combat capitals to dock, while titans and supercarriers can only dock in the extra large versions. By this, the large and extra large versions are valuable assets in null security space to safely dock your capital fleet in your home systems or in hostile territory to stage from.

The second structure type, which can be destroyed by simply shooting it, are Player owned Customs Offices (short POCOs). POCOs are anchored close to planets and provide a way to get PI (Planetary Interaction) products from a planet into space. For all transfered goods, the player has to pay a transfer tax to the owner of the POCO.  POCOs cannot fit any modules like citadels and you cannot dock any ships in them. However, since the taxes earned by POCOs can be significant, they can also be a conflict driver.

The final structure types that are only used in null security space are the Ansiplex Jump Gate, the Pharolux Cyno Beacon and the Tenebrew Cyno Jammer.  These are also known as FLEX structures and share the same game mechanics.

The Ansiplex Jump Gate is used to set up an alliance owned jump bridge network. These function very similar to regular stargates, but can only connect to a second Ansiplex Jump Gate in a close by system. By putting up pairs of two, you can create a new connection between two systems. They are used similar to regular jump gates by clicking them in space and select the jump option of the Ansiplex.  The alliance can configure the Ansiplex that a fee must be paid for using them and that they are only usable for the own alliance members or also friendly alliances. Only one Ansiplex can be placed in a system.

 

The Pharolux Cyno Beacon can be used as beacon to jump your capital ships to. It is used like a regular cyno given by a cyno ship and is activated from the fleet menu or right clicking your capacitor in a jump capable capital ship and choosing the option Jump To. 

The Tenebrew Cyno Jammer prevents any ship from lighting a cyno in system.  This effect last 5 minutes after activating the structure.  This one is handy to deploy during big fights to prevent the opposing side to bring in new capital ships by lighting a cyno. 

Citadel Timers

To destroy a citadel you simply need to shoot it until it’s shield, armor and structure hitpoints run out.  The shield HP of a citadel can be attacked at any given time by any number of ships. Citadels have a significant amount of shield HP and also quite a big shield regeneration. To run down the shield HP of even a medium sized citadel in a timely fashion, you should at least have 1000 dps on the field. A medium sized Astrahus has 4.8 million shield HP, which comes to at least 80 minutes of shooting it without counting in shield regeneration with 1k dps.  All citadels have an upper damage limit for shield, armor and structure HP. For example an Astrahus citadel can only lose 5000 HP per second. This limits the minimum time a fleet can run down the shield HP of an Astrahus to about 25 minutes. The larger citadels have more HP but also have a bigger damage cap, which roughly results in a minimum time of 25 minutes to run down shield HP with max dps.

Once the shield HP are gone, the citadel enters a reinforcement mode and you cannot further apply damage until the reinforcement timer is over. The shield reinforcement timer is between 24 to 48 hours and the time of the day it runs out can be  roughly specified by the owner of the citadel.

Once the shield timer runs out, you can hit the armor HP of the citadel, after which you reach the armor reinforcement timer, which is up to one week depending on the space it is anchored in (high, low, null sec or wormhole space). The rough time of the day it runs out can again be specified by the owner of the citadel.  After the armor timer runs out,  you can hit the citadels structure HP. If the structure HP are gone too, the citadel will explode in a pretty explosion.

If a timer runs out and nobody applies damage to the structure, a repair timer between 15 to 60 minutes depending on the security status and military indexes of the system is started. If the repair timer runs out, the citadel becomes invulnerable again and regenerates all HP lost on the previous timers. If somebody shoots the citadel, the timer is stopped as long as you apply 10% of the maximum allowed damage.  A citadel has actually be fueled to be fully operational. If the citadel runs out of fuel, it enters a so called low power mode. By this, it loses parts of its shield and armor HP and you can hit until armor HP runs out for the armor timer to start.

Another special case, when a Citadel is quite vulnerable, is directly after the anchoring process. A Citadels needs about 6 days to be anchored, after which it is vulnerable for 15 minutes without any shield or armor HP. So, if you hit the Citadel in this time window, it can be destroyed directly without any timers.

When a Citadel is destroyed it will not automatically drop any items that are stored inside. It will only drop fuel from its fuel bay and the raw materials or products from any currently running industry job that has been started in the citadel. Items stored inside the citadel will miraculously be teleported to another citadel or station when it is destroyed. This process as called asset safety.

To get to the items stored in a Citadel, it first needs to go into abandoned state. This state is reached if the structure has been in low power mode for 7 days. If an abandoned structure is destroyed, it drops all items that were inside into space. An abandoned structure also has no timers anymore, so you can destroy it from shield into hull in one go. 

The mechanics for FLEX structure are very similar. They also need fuel to operate properly but go into a single timer once the shield and armor  hit points are gone.  FLEX structures only have this one timer that can be up to 24 hours long. If a FLEX structure goes into low power mode, you can destroy it in one go.  Once the structure starts the timer, it cannot be used anymore e.g. Ansiplexes won’t let you jump anymore.

POCO Timers

POCO bashing works very similar to citadel bashing. However,  POCOs only have one timer. Initially you can hit the shield HP and bring it down to 25%. After that the POCO enters reinforce mode reaching from 24 to 48 hours. After the shield timer runs out, it becomes vulnerable again but with 0% shield left. From that point on, you can hit armor and structure HP until it explodes. POCOs regenerate shield HP after the shield timer runs and if nobody shoots it the shield is repaired until it reaches 25% again. After that point the timer is reset and you need to push shield down to 25% to enter another shield reinforcement timer.

Reinforced POCOs are still fully functional and players can export PI products from and to the planet.

There is no maximum amount of damage you can apply to  a POCO, so bring plenty of dps to finish it off quickly. A POCO has 10 million shield HP, 2.5 million armor HP and 2 million structure HP, so a lot less than even a medium sized citadel.

After this very brief summary of structure bashing mechanics, I will explain  how structure weapons work and some of my personal experiences bashing them in the next part of this guide. So stay tuned for part II.