Noctis in numbers

1st January 2011 – 5.31 pm

Now that I have my Noctis I am beginning to appreciate how good it looks, at least on super-futuristic space paper. I trained the ORE industrial skill to level one, just because I bought the book and it let me pilot the ship at the most basic level. With the ship in my hangar I have begun training a bit more, currently only at level two but improving. And even at merely level two the bonuses the Noctis gives are impressive. Tractor beams normally only reach out to twenty kilometres and pull at 500 m/s, but the Noctis systems boost this considerably, with my meagre skills letting the tractor beams reach out to forty-four kilometres and pull at 1,100 m/s. This is significant.

A destroyer as a salvager may be nippy and agile, but being able to zoom around at over a kilometre a second, with a micro-warp drive active, is wasted when dragging wrecks at only 500 m/s. The wrecks soon are left behind and out of range of the salvaging modules, meaning you are forced to slow down as on a road full of speed bumps. You could go faster, but pretty soon something will break free. But the Noctis acts in reverse, pulling the wrecks to the ship with the speed of a destroyer, MWD permanently active. Each wreck is being delivered to the Noctis by its own personal courier. On top of that, if you need to move, which you may not with a tractor beam range possibly extending over a hundred kilometres in diameter, the ship won't move away from the wrecks.

The Noctis can be fitted with an MWD, which can push it to speeds a little over 1,100 m/s itself, which is impressive. What is more impressive is that it can maintain this speed and still have wrecks tractored to it from any direction. The Noctis, it seems, will have complete freedom of movement when salvaging, not having to be concerned about moving faster than the tractor beams can pull, and only barely concerned about getting in tractor beam range of wrecks. The icing on the cake is the capability to lock a maximum of ten targets simultaneously, coupled with a decent targeting range, which is another reason to gain the elite targeting certificate and is good for us ex-logistics pilots. The new ship looks like making my carefully considered strategy on salvaging obsolete.

  1. 5 Responses to “Noctis in numbers”

  2. You're the first person I know of who has actually talked (typed) about the capabilities of the Noctis. Everyone else that I see flying around ignores me if I try to talk to them (why spend 50mil on an unknown when you only have 100mil and still carebearing?).

    I still wonder, however, if it would be worth it for someone doing level 4 missions? For now, I'm rolling a Catalyst with 4 tractors, 4 salvagers, and cargo rigs/low slots (1200 m3 space).

    As far as speed while salvaging, I find an AB is pretty good (but only for non-closed out missions).

    By Merchantus on Jan 2, 2011

  3. Train the Noctis up to level 5 and you wont need to move around using AB or MWD you can sit still and bring it all to you double quick time.

    ORE ships seem to be the best thought out ships in eve.

    By Amarrahh on Jan 2, 2011

  4. I think it depends on how much you need to move around, Merchy. I've used the Noctis now, with a post pending, and the level of efficiency is remarkable. You don't have to path between wrecks and, as Amarrahh suggests, instead spend almost all your time locking new wrecks, tractoring them, and looting and salvaging.

    The main drawback is the agility, which can't compare to a destroyer. With some nanofibres it is better, but if you have to use acceleration gates a lot, or any other warp drive, a destroyer may feel faster. But salvaging won't get faster than with a Noctis.

    By pjharvey on Jan 2, 2011

  5. You can salvage after the mission despawned, so gates are not an issue.
    Having used a noctis, yea, i'm having more trouble making sure all tractors and salvagers are actually in use and not being idle than anything else.
    Bit of a pity really, zooming around in my thrasher was sort of fun.

    By Mick Straih on Jan 2, 2011

  6. After several hours/days/weeks of piloting the Noctis, I have switched to a 5/3 tractor/salvager setup. This will largely be a matter of taste, but with the faster salvage cycle, I can chew through wrecks as fast as I can get them in range [which is fast too].

    I have altered my salvaging methodologies some as well now that I am in the Noctis. I generally now land in a site, start to align to the next site or the exit and then start pulling in the farthest wrecks. There are very few sites where I cannot select a warp-in or exit that requires much in the way of 'piloting' while sucking and chewing on wrecks. If there are any hiccups or threats, warp is just a click away at speed. Additionally, moving through a site at +1000 m/s makes any kind of cloaked positioning much more difficult [possible but difficult].

    On the flip side, it took three attempts to bag the first Noctis kill. The first was a mistake of not getting a point on it fast enough. The second was a very well prepared pilot and the third was a combination of bad fit, bad pilot and what appeared to be bad skills. On average it looks like 3-4 bombs are necessary to completely pop a Noctis. More research is indicated and will be performed as opportunity is created or presents itself.

    By Kename Fin on Jan 3, 2011

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