Structure Combat Part II

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.

Tempests shooting an 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.

Leave a Reply