Svipul Theorycrafting yo

So this is my first blog post and I figured I might as well write about the Svipul that was released yesterday. The Svipul is a new Tactical destroyer. Like the Confessor that was released for the Amarr it has 3 different modes. Defensive, Sharpshooter and Propulsion mode. Having different modes gives you the ability to change your ship depending on the situation. Mode swapping creates a interesting way to increase the skill cap and a good pilot will not stay in one mode all the time. Let's go over the stats:

• 10% damage 
• 10% optimal range
• 5% heat reduction
• 95% less cpu on probe launchers

      DEFENSIVE MODE

• 33% shield resistance
• 33% armor resistance
• 66% MWD sig reduction

     PROPULSION MODE

• 66% Velocity bonus
• 33% Agility bonus

     SHARPSHOOTER MODE

• 33% Projectile Tracking bonus
• 100% Scan resolution
• 100% Targeting range
• 100% Sensor strength

The first thing here that sticks out is that this ship gets a optimal range bonus while being a projectile weapon platform. This bonus while not bad is not really optimal either. A 200mm auto cannon have a base of 1.5km optimal when loaded. On this ship a 200mm ac will have 2.3 km optimal. Not really a whole lot. 

This range will be even further reduced if you plan on using one of the major ammo types used for auto cannons. EMP, Fusion and Phased plasma all give a -50% optimal bonus. Making our auto cannons have 1.1km optimal. Something that many people don't even care about usually with auto cannons but here it's directly harming our ships bonus by reducing it. However a optimal bonus will work great with artillery. Boosting a 250mm arty to 9.1+11 with EMP or a 280mm arty to 11+11km. 

Given that the ship has a optimal bonus I would most likely opt for carrying Depleted Uranium and Titanium Sabot as extra/default ammo for the artillery versions of this ship. Both these ammo types give no penalty to optimal range and they offer 20% increased tracking while lowering the dps a bit.

So in short a optimal range bonus doesn't really give much for auto cannons but it will work really good with artillery and you should look into the non standard ammo types such as Titanium Sabot and Depleted Uranium.

Defensive mode

33% Shield and Armor resistance

66% MWD sig reduction. 

This is a extremely strong mode for auto cannon versions of this ship that brawl. Defensive mode allows this ship to have around 7k effective hp with a damage control alone. Giving both shield and armor will allow for some cool things like dual tanked versions of this ship. I think that one of the standard fits will be a ancillary shield booster and armor repairer version. 

The mwd sig bonus is nice but most of the time these will be artillery fitted and even with a tracking bonus you are in a bad spot if someone gets a orbit 500 + scram web on you. I would probably be more likely to fit a 10mn Afterburner like so many Confessors do. The ship has the fitting for it and the 10mn ab will make the ship way more forgiving letting you disengage from fights going bad. Another advantage with the 10mn ab is that you are always going to be able to pull range to a spot where your guns can track way better.

Propulsion mode

66% Velocity bonus
33% Agility bonus

Propulsion mode gives our ship a massive 66% speed bonus. Boosting a 10mn afterburner up to 2600 m/s (3700 m/s heated) or a 1mn mwd up to 2900 m/s (4100 m/s heated). This is one of the best modes for general kiteing. Since the ship doesn't have the range bonus tied in with Sharpshooter mode. The agility part is really helpful for Svipul fits that use a over sized prop mod.  Using this mode and a 10mn ab on the Svipul lets you bring your align time down to around 10 seconds. This is about as fast as a t1 cruiser.

Another interesting thing about propulsion mode is that swapping from it to another mode lowers your maximum velocity. Clever use of mode swapping will allow your Svipul to instantly warp away if you swap from speed mode to any other mode after initiating warp. The confessor is also able to use the same trick.

Sharpshooter mode

33% Projectile Tracking bonus
100% Scan resolution
100% Targeting range
100% Sensor strength

Let's start with the more simple bonuses this mode gives.
100% scan res is a great bonus and makes this mode a good mode to be in for the first part of a fight giving you a chance to get one or even two extra volleys in before you are locked. People fighting in faction warfare plexes would want to use this first for example.

100% Targeting range. This isn't such a great bonus since the ship already has 50km lock range and due to how projectiles work with falloff you don't really want to be super far away anyway. It might have some rare case uses where you are damped down but really most of the time damps are so strong it's not even going to matter.

100% sensor strength. This bonus is actually really strong. This mode bumps the ladar strength up to 26.4. For comparison a Vagabond only has 25 sensor strength. Being able to fight ecm ships is always nice and arty variants of this ship might be able to snipe out Griffins and Kitsunes really fast.

And finally the big bonus in sharpshooter: 33% tracking. I actually don't think this is a super useful bonus. The ship has 4 mids and most of the time a 10mn ab letting you pilot your way to increased tracking. Having 4 mids allow things like 10mn ab + dual web + long point and under dual web anything will track unless you are tracking disrupted to shit.

Stats

Let's go over some of the other things the confessor have.

This is a unfitted Svipul in Defensive mode. As you can see it has a a lot of fittings. Almost a 100pg will make it really easy to fit especially if you opt for auto cannons instead of arties. The base ehp is a bit higher then most assault frigs in defensive mode but actually lower in the other modes. The ship has a generous locking range that is more then enough. 

Fits

The part you have all been waiting for I guess. I have over 10 different fits saved up in eft and I will share some of the ones I think will be standard or variations of will be standard. In general I think the theme will be oversized ab and dual tanks. MWD versions will still be flyable and I think a mwd arty version will work good. 

(all fits are unlinked and I tried to keep the modules to max t2 or cheap faction)

[Svipul, DUAL TANK ACS 10MN AB]

Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

Gyrostabilizer II

Gyrostabilizer II

Damage Control II 

Experimental 10MN Afterburner I

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Navy Cap Booster 50

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I 

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

[empty high slot]

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S 

Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing II

This is a fairly standard brawl fit utilizing both a ancillary shield booster and armor repairer. This fit tanks around 200 dps in both armor and shield. You have the full scram + web tackle and will be able to close range quickly with a oversized afterburner. This ship heats over 420 dps and I feel its a good mix between tank and dps. The rigs are as always personal preference. I feel like there is no best way of rigging a ship. Sometimes you want more tank sometimes you want more dps or range. On this ship I went with more tank and some agility for the afterburner.

Here is a microwarp drive version of the same fit:

[Svipul, PLATE DUAL TANK]
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste 

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Navy Cap Booster 50
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I 

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket 

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I

By skipping the oversized ab and going to a normal micro warp drive we free up a ton of powergrid. The grid is used for additional tank giving this ship a insane 11k buffer on top of the dual active tank. You will easily be able to get in a reload or two on your reppers with this fit. The dps is a tiny bit lower but a rocket launcher tries to compensate a bit. You will be able to heat up to 412 dps just a tiny bit short of 420 dps. There is some flexibility with the rigs here as well some people might go dual ambit rigs for even more auto cannon range helping you against scram kiters.

Thats it for the auto cannon fits. Let's go in to the artillery versions. Arties will be able to fully utilize the optimal bonus and provide great alpha strike.

[Svipul, 250mm ARTY 10MN SAAR DUAL WEB]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste 

Experimental 10MN Afterburner I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Warp Disruptor II 

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
[empty high slot]
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S 

Small Ancillary Current Router II
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing II
Small Projectile Locus Coordinator I

This is like a tankier version of a 10mn ab thrasher that has dual web. You will pretty much destroy any frig in the game 1v1 with this. There is no way of any brawl ship in the same class getting close to this without dying. As soon as you enter dual web range the arties will get perfect tracking more or less and even if you get scrammed its not a problem since you have a oversized afterburner. You can heat to 338 dps with a 1432 volley damage on it using emp. For those of us who wants to kite a bit more we can swap into depleted uranium and get a tracking bonus as well as increasing our range to 21+11 km. Let's go into fleet fits a bit more. While I don't think the Svipul will be as used for larger kite fleets as the Confessor it's still going to be a bit useful.

[Svipul, MWD ARTIES]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Internal Force Field Array I
Vigor Compact Micro Auxiliary Power Core 

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Dread Guristas Warp Disruptor
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I 

280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
Expanded Probe Launcher II, Core Scanner Probe I /OFFLINE
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S 

Small Projectile Locus Coordinator II
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Projectile Locus Coordinator II

This fit is extremly tight on CPU but it allows for a full rack of 280mm arties. You do have to make a lot of sacrifices with low meta modules and I would probably just go all out and buy a republic fleet warp disruptor or a 3% cpu in order to be able to make it a bit better. The arties will get 32km optimal with depleted uranium and 211 dps with 1323 volley. Downgrading to 250mm will lose you a bit of range but the increased fitting will allow for a 10mn ab.

[Svipul, 250mm 10MN]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Internal Force Field Array I 

Experimental 10MN Afterburner I
Dread Guristas Warp Disruptor
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I 

250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium S
250mm Light Artillery Cannon II, Republic Fleet Depleted Uranium S
[empty high slot] 

Small Ancillary Current Router II
Small Projectile Locus Coordinator II
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Like I said I don't feel that the long point kite Svipuls will hold up against a confessor at all while doing super long range kiting. I think they are way better at brawling and will out brawl any frig or destroyer in eve.  This should be able to handle swarms of interceptors or other fast frigs though given the good tracking and range.

Ultraviolet vs Depleted Uranium

Multifreq vs EMP

Aurora vs Depleted uranium

Here are some dps graphs of the confessor vs the svipul shooting different ammo at a untanked target. It is difficult comparing these two since the Confessor is able to instantly swap ammo and range. The benefit a kiting svipul has over a Confessor is not being forced into sharpshooter mode for extra range but even then I feel like the confessor is the clear winner here for kiting t3 destroyers. 

There are many variations and fits I haven't gone over and I feel like the svipul is a really versatile ship much more so then the Confessor. I have found over 10 fits that actually could work and there are fits I haven't gone over here that will be able to fill a role. You can for example fit a 10mn mwd and have enough agility to actually be able to keep a point at stuff while going 10k m/s. Or you can do stuff like dual armor tank with cap booster or dual masb tanks. There is even some fun passive regen fits you can do with purger rigs and stuff.


So this was my first blog post I will probably write more theorycrafting posts, General CSM posts and battle reports here.