New Toy

Lately I have been flying a ship that I have not given much respect to, the cyclone. Honestly, I don't think many other pilots do as well. A couple of weeks back I watched a old video by Endless Subversion, a very good Genos pilot. In the video he fly's the cyclone a lot, with some success. Being a cheap ship, that I have the skills to pilot decently, I decided to give it a shot.

I checked out a few fittings on SHC and a few of his loss mails, threw a fitting together I am currently happy with.

[Cyclone]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II

Domination Large Shield Booster
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Invulnerability Field II
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Warp Scrambler II

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
'Arbalest' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
'Arbalest' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
'Arbalest' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I


Valkyrie II x3
Warrior II x2


You may ask, "Why the faction shield booster?" Well, it helps with cap usage ALOT and it also has a faster cycle time, plus they are fairly cheap. There are tons for sale in jita for about 10-12m, so no big loss. My missile skills are ok, but I changed fitting to all lvl 5, with t2 guns and it went up 10 dps =/. Missiles suck!

Test Time

My first test was merely a tank test, there was a carebear corp in my mission hub can baiting with a couple of cruisers and a bs, so I took there can and let them pound on me. It did well until I ran out of cap boosters, which was a pretty good while, I could have killed there 2 cruisers in that time and gotten away.

A couple of days later we organize a little low sec roam consisting of me in my cyclone, Glokta in a myrm, and PB in a vexor. After spending a while in gallente low sec finding nothing I recommend heading over to the isho area to see if the TBR guys are around. They usually provide some good fights. On the way we find a blinky hurricane hugging a station, so we engage and he docks(not surprised). We go about our merry way, while me and PB jump ahead, glokta is sitting on the other side of the gate waiting for our cov ops scout, that blinky hurricane has followed him to the gate. He immediately engages and pushes him through to us, he jumps and I move in to point, cane primary's me and starts neuting me(ohshit), I start taking damage and lose my scram due to being capped out, I am popping cap boosters as fast as I can, and since he was outta range I decided to pop some drugs because he was neuting and hurting.

My vexor co-pilot was plated and not catching him(damn shield nano canes =P) and our myrm was just jumping in, I finally recharged my cap and started chasing, but unfortunately he decided to run. We docked in a neighboring station to repair and refill on cap boosters, when I hear our scout on comms report that he is back with a friend in a non blinky hurricane. Yummy..
We undock and send our myrm to the gate to see if they will engage, and finally, they were looking for a fight, they jumped right in and engaged Glokta. We jumped in and warped to him, primary was called as the same guy as before, but he was not trying to get range, and his shields were melting? Wait. He has reshipped, they are both in plated/trimarked canes. Damn, wait, Oh these fuckers are primary me, and neuting me. YOU GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKERS! And the next thing I remember is a lot of armor damage, a lot of gun damage, and them bitching in local. I was shocked I survived the fight to be honest.
They apparently had reshipped to kill me, 2 neuting armor tanked canes are tough beasts, they deal out serious dps and are hard to break. But I think my good buddy Glokta fitted some ECM drones that got a jam or 2 off that was a life saver.

Conclusions

Man this ship is hard to fly! It takes ALOT of micromanaging! The shield booster, point, MWD, cap booster, if you are overheating. You also have to watch your cap and keep range. But it is fun and not real expensive, the hull was 14m, the shield booster was 11m, and I had the modules. If I had to guess it is around the 50m mark, not too bad for a fun and challenging battlecruiser.
I have been doing alot of carebearing as of late to repair my wallet, so its fun practice! And don't under estimate this ship, it tanks well and deals a decent amount of DPS, I am getting around 600dps. Fun stuff!