Abyssal Deadspace
The Abyss is about actively engaging with PVE, and reaping substantial rewards for that effort. We, and EVE generally, lack any centralized, updated, thorough guide on what to fly, how to fly, and what you might encounter while doing PVE in THE ABYSS. The goal of this guide is be useful and accessible, whether you're a cute new bee in an Alpha clone, or a vicious bittervet with more ISK than sense. Despite how scary it may sound, the abyss can be a fun and engaging place to spend space pixel time.
Below are some reference links to other resources for flying in the Abyss:
- This is a basic EVE tracker that can be very useful in tracking your progress through the Abyss. It collects data on everyone else doing abyssal runs so you can see what is popular and what isn't in terms of ships and fits. It does not give you much in the way of context so be wary as using it as your only source of information, lest you want lose 144 million ISK Worms in T1 Dark sites.
- https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Abyssal_Deadspace This is obviously someone in EVE Uni's dissertation on the Abyss but like a lot of information in EVE Uni while it is great at describing the ins and outs of what something is, it falls short in giving solutions on how to actually do it. Still, it's a wealth of information so definitely give it a read.
WHAT IS ABYSSAL DEADSPACE
Abyssal deadspace is (mostly) a series of 3 deadspace rooms in a chain connect by TRANSFER CONDUITs (basically an acceleration gate with a triangle RP name). You can enter abyssal deadspace by using a tradeable item carried in your cargo hold, called an abyssal filament.
Entering abyssal deadspace via filament requires that you are currently in a fleet, and that you use the right number of filaments for the ships you plan on bringing. The current breakdown is this:
- 1 filament = 1 cruiser sized hull (no T3Cs)
- 2 filaments = 1-2 destroyer sized hulls (you CAN use T3Ds)
- 3 filaments = 1-3 frigate sized hulls
The number of filaments is based on hull type. You cannot mix and match, and you have to use the right number of filaments, even if you're only bringing in 1 frigate. If you are in a frigate or a destroyer and are going solo, you also need to be in a fleet and bring the correct number of filaments for whatever type of portal you are opening. So, if you are running a solo Kestrel, you need to form a fleet for yourself (don't even put an advert up just open the fleet window and hit "form fleet"). Next, you'll need to make sure you have the correct amount abyssal filaments for whatever type of abyss you're running, so if you're running a Calm Dark (Recommended most for newbie Kestrel runners) you'll need 3 filaments of Calm Dark, you'll need to be in fleet, and you also need to be away from structures and somewhere in space. General advice is to make a safe in the system you are using and run it there. If you are running them in lowsec or nullsec, be warned, your gateway can show up for people hunting juicy ships so take that into consideration. Most abyssal runners use an alt in Highsec for this reason.
Abyssal filaments come in 7 tiers, numbering from 0-6. This corresponds to the difficulty of the rats spawned in each room, and the average value of loot you will fail to extract when you die to the timer.
- Tier 0 - Tranquil
- Tier 1 - Calm
- Tier 2 - Agitated
- Tier 3 - Fierce
- Tier 4 - Raging
- Tier 5 - Chaotic
- Tier 6 - Cataclysmic
A large part of abyssal deadspace encounters is how random they are - each room is chosen from 12 different seeds of 7 faction rats (see: below), and populated by a semi-random distribution of rats. Each room also has 1 bioadaptive cache (loot box), 0-3 resource caches (many players rightfully ignore these), 0-2 triglavian towers, and 1 TRANSFER or ORIGIN CONDUIT. These are gates to the next rooms in the chain, or back to the spot where you filamented in (respectively).
The structures cannot be destroyed, and the towers can either help you or fuck you over because that's how the abyss do.
NB: the entry point spawned by an abyssal filament doesn't despawn. This means that people can, and fucking will, scan down where you entered the abyss and gank your dumb ass when you extract. https://zkillboard.com/kill/88439908/
ABYSSAL WEATHER, EFFECTS, and TOWERS
By now you’ve probably noticed that there are several different flavors of abyssal deadspace filament. These correspond to the weather and effects present in the rooms you will encounter. Each type of filament offers one penalty, and one bonus. The bonuses are always the same, but the penalties range from 30%-50% in T0-T3 filaments to 50%-70% in T4-T6 filaments. The weather and effects apply to ALL SHIPS AND DRONES inside the deadspace pocket. That means that your new EM hole is also a new EM hole for that fucking triangle burning through your structure.
Weather
The forecast is not sunny.
Electrical: ELECTRICAL: 30-70% penalty to EM resist, 50% bonus to capacitor recharge
By far the most costly type of filament, and the easiest to run due do the relative prevalence of active-tanking (read: shield boosters and armor repairers) in abyssal deadspace. electricals were insanely profitable to run but like everything else that becomes popular, they've also become the most expensive to buy on the market. Electricals are fun to run because you can do things which are normally impossible, but people have a very hard time transitioning from electricals to anything else for exactly that reason. They are good way to expose yourself to abyssal deadspace but the cost of the filaments makes them the least profitable to run.
EXOTIC: 30%-70% penalty to KINETIC resist, 50% bonus to scan resolution.
Exotics have a pretty good loot table and the penalty to KINETIC resist makes them generally not very intimidating, as most of the dangerous rats inside abyssal deadspace will use OMNI, EM, or THERM/EXP damage (im looking at you, Pythagoras). The scan resolution bonus is stupid and bad because :ccp:, but at least the guys shooting you aren't benefitting from it either. Exotics are also one of only two types of filament which can consistently be run at high tier with a passive shield tank.
DARK: penalty to TURRET OPTIMAL and FALLOFF RANGES, 50% bonus to maximum velocity---
Dark filaments are in a very weird spot. The penalties mean that bringing any drone or turret based ship into one is almost a guaranteed loss mail, but the velocity bonus also hurts missile DPS. That being said, they are hands-down the most beautiful thing in this game, and the fucking art department deserves a god damn medal for how good they look.
These are almost exclusively run by frigates and jackdaws (do not bring a fucking T1 destroyer into the abyss unless you are trying to be stupid), and with some fairly good results at higher levels (only a 30% loss rate, for a trio of HAWK/HAWK/NEMESIS which is usually paid for by your second loot cache).
Running these can be suicide if you get a spawn of Sansha rats, as they apparently don't care about optimal range or tracking and the speed makes these guys even harder to hit than normal. Leave these alone, generally, unless you're running low-tiers in a missile ship or know what you're doing.
FIRESTORM: penalty to THERMAL resist, 50% bonus to armor HP
Firestorm filaments are great for active tanked ships relying on armor. The most commonly used ships in these filaments are triaglavian assault frigates, and the dreaded ikitursa - both of which fit purely for resists and active tanking, and enjoy the added bonus in lieu of fitting a buffer which would kill their impressive speed and extremely low sig radius. It helps that they also put out shitloads of thermal damage.
Unfortunately this also makes every triglavian rooms suck that much harder, as the rats thoroughly enjoy their added 50% HP and shit in your brand new THERMAL resist hole. (Don’t forget most trigs remote rep each other at T4 and above). These filaments require a little more skill to fly (read: NEUTS WILL FUCKING KILL YOU VERY VERY QUICKLY), and a little more foresight to plan for (I'M REALLY NOT JOKING YOU WILL FUCKING DIE TO NEUTS), but they are good fun and their loot table is very strong in the mutaplasmid department, even at low levels (WHERE THE RATS STILL HAVE NEUTS).
GAMMA: penalty to EXPLOSIVE resist, 50% bonus to shield HP
Like firestorms, gamma filaments have a nice way of curbing your enthusiasm for HP bonuses once you realize that drifter battleship targeting you is also enjoying 50% more shield.
If you have the dps skills for it, however, gammas are an amazingly reliable source of ISK. they have a reasonably good loot table, but being able to get a shield Gila to 500 hp/s of passive regen with no dependence on capacitor for anything but your AB is crazy good. Before moving up tiers in gamma filaments, always do a few test runs on singularity (see: below), because your DPS output matters way more in certain rooms (Karen, Sanshas, and Concord/Upwell to name a few).
For lower tiers where you're not racing against the clock, gammas are an amazing way to learn the rooms and build up your niche fitting skills, and probably the most forgiving of the low tier rooms outside of electricals (provided you can shoot into the explosive resist hole of the rats). This is where you take your stabber, if you're into that sort of thing.
Abyssal Towers
There are two types of abyssal towers that may spawn in each room, adding AOE effects to ships within their radius (varying from 15-40km). These tend to spawn more frequently at higher tier. Knowing how react and take advantage of them is part of being "good" at the abyss.
DEVIANT AUTOMATA SUPPRESSOR
This fucker shoots out tracer shells in every direction and is immediately recognizable. In addition to looking like the battle of Britain, this thing will fuck up any drones that get near it, including both drone rats and the drones you're using to kill those drone rats. The AOE damage gets more potent the closer you get to the tower, and I’ve taken advantage of this fact many times to clear entire rogue drone rooms without firing on anything but the cache.
MULTIBODY TRACKING PYLON
Nice little AOE buff of +60%-80% to turret tracking for all ships in a radius around it. Could be good for you, could be your worst nightmare. Depends on what room you're in. generally you can avoid these to be on the safe side.
Clouds
Sometimes in the abyss you will notice poorly render patches of nebula which you can fly through. This is usually bad for you, and slightly less bad for the rats. Keep your eyes peeled, and if you're running dark filaments good luck because they all look the same shade of gray.
Clouds come in 3 flavors...
WHITE: 300% speed boost - aka holy shit i hit my MWD and then i exploded because i got launched from the room at 15km/s. hitting one of these with an MWD on will kill frigates, and letting the rats hit one is a recipe for a BAD time as you will have to wait for them to get back into optimal range, or go chase them. also fucks up your tracking p badly.
ORANGE: -40% shield boost duration, -40% shield boost effectiveness - essentially you don't lose any potential HP/S, but it does turn your boosters into hungry hungry hippos who will drain your cap faster than my ex drained my bank account.
BLUE: 3x multiplier to sig radius - this one will get your drones one-shot by a lot of abyss rats. but it also makes small rats much easier to hit. is it worth it? idk fuck around and find out.
Abyssal Rat Types
Abyssal rats aren't like normal rats. They’re smart like. And they got a taste for blood.
KEY RAT DIFFERENCES:
- THEY WILL ABSOLUTELY SWITCH TO YOUR DRONES. BE READY TO PULL THEM BACK.
- THEY WILL CHANGE TARGETS AND PRIORITIZE.
- THEY WILL FOCUS FIRE LOGI (dunno if this deliberate or just a tendency for rats to focus fire)
- THEY WILL KITE, THEY WILL BRAWL, THEY WILL TRY TO POSITION THEMSELVES OPTIMALLY BY OUTFLYING YOU IF YOU AREN'T PAYING ATTENTION.
These rats are going to be put in order from most notorious to the least - with tips and theory to stop them from pulling your snakes. Maybe I’ll add screen shots at some point but for right now everything you really need is right here, just close your eyes and imagine.
RAT 1: Drifters and Sleeper drones
KEY NOTES: KARYBDIS TYRRANOS
K will always fly away from you, up to the border of the room. This makes it possible to herd her, and you will need to herd her back towards the gate at highest difficulties or you will die to time. K starts bringing friends to the party at T2, even though you didn't invite those fuckers. You absolutely must prioritize WEBS followed by NEUTS, everything else is irrelevant. And I mean everything else, including K. K has a fuckton of shield HP and resist that doesn't seem to be effected by the weather. A GAMMA K IS A FUCKING BOATLOAD OF HP. K has heaps of armor and structure HP but shit natural resistance profile when her shields are down. It melts quickly. ~~IF YOU FLY STRAIGHT TOWARDS K FROM MORE THAN 15KM AWAY YOU WILL DIE~~
KEY NOTES: EPHIALTES AND SCYLLA TYRRANOS:
EPHIALTES or SCYLLA TYRRANOS are cruisers which will either spawn with K, or spawn independently in much larger numbers. Destroy webs and neuts first. A little overheating on prop and weapon mods is fine but not much, and only if you're worried about time.
Karybdis Tyrranos is widely regarded as the hardest room in the abyss, and rightfully so. As soon as you load into this room you have a few seconds to get your bearings and start moving before you are literally alpha'd off the fucking grid as Karen pings your manager.
The dead tell for the karen room is that there is only one battleship that spawns, and she spawns no matter what difficulty you're doing. The alpha strike from the Karybdis Tyrannos is enough to put most cruisers into mid-armor or even structure, and vaporize frigates if she lands dead on. You will be alpha'd by a WRECKING SHOT unless you have a good buffer as a cruiser.
when K is present you need to start off by manually piloting in this room - click an area in space for your ship to fly to which puts you not far off the BIOADAPTIVE CACHE, but which keeps you moving at least a 45 degree angle to K. as you approach the cache, pop it and snag the loot (try to manually fly through the loot cache to grab it, but it’s okay to approach and then give another move order as long as you are quick)
K's escorts will be EPHIALTES sleeper drone cruisers, or SCYLLA TYRANNOS cruisers. SCYLLA TYRANNOS will either web or scram, and may neut (higher difficulties). EPHIALTES ENTANGLEM will web, and EPHIALTES DISSAPATOR will neut. viewing the full cruiser name in the overview will let you know which (look for ENTANGLING or ENTANGLEM).
The sleeper only version of this room follows the same principles, but is generally easier as long as you make sure your target priorities are on point.
RAT 2: The Hadal/Benthic Abyssal Overmind (OM)
KEY NOTES:
OM flies away from you, like Karen, but seems less intent on doing so. OM is also a dominix with that cool skin so it stands out in a crowd. OM has nasty hybrid weapons which can fuck up your day if you get webbed. OM has a web (T5+). OM has ridiculous armor HP and resistances and is 100% a DPS check on what your ship can do. The guns are dangerous, but the real peril when fighting OM is time. Escorts: OM will spawn with a flight of rogue drones. Prioritize the rogue drones as follows: SNARECASTER (web) > FIREWATCHER (neut) > PLATEFORGER (remote reps) > OM > Other The big issue with this room is time. collect the cache on your way to the OM, and you will probably have plenty of time to clear out any additional escort drones like sparkgrips before you get to OM. if not, it's fairly easy to clean them up on your way back to the gate. Be extremely cautious about the WEB from OM at higher levels, and manually fly if you need to in order to keep transverse up. If you're brawling, heat prop or tank depending on if you can avoid the shots or if your modules are already half-melted from fucking up some other room.
RAT 3: The Angel Room
KEY NOTES: Target priority is everything here. While you are webbed and neuted the Angel ships will have no problem applying a terrifying amount of DPS. DO NOT LAUNCH DRONES EARLY. Your drones will overshoot their targets if you do. Instead, wait until the rats overshoot you first - they're literally too fast to properly stay on you during their first pass and that is the time to launch drones. RECOMMENDED TARGET PRIORITY: ELITE LUCIFER CYNABAL > CYNABAL > ELITE LUCIFER DRAMIEL > WEBS > NEUTS This room has ended many runs for many folks. The Angels are, frankly, terrifyingly fast and very good at applying webs and neut pressure to keep damage application up. The spawns are the most random I’ve seen but the approach to solving this room is the same every time - read the recommended target priority above.
You may need to break from this pattern if you get a lot of neuting frigates (FURY), or a lot of repping frigates (BURST). Don’t hesitate to change your priority if you feel a lot of neut pressure, but NEVER CHANGE TARGETS HALFWAY THROUGH.
The rats here have a nasty shield tank (especially ELITE LUCIFER rats), so be very cautious about this room if doing a GAMMA filament. KITING IS NOT ADVISED, BECAUSE THEY WILL CATCH YOUR FAT GOON ASS. The best you can shoot for is trying to stay out of their optimal – don’t think you’re gonna sit back and watch them play grab ass with your drones from 30km away.
At lower levels this room spawns a trivial number of ships, at T5 and T6 you can have 4-5 cruisers spawn. Oh well, at least we don't have to deal with machariels.
RAT 4: Sansha's Nation Room
KEY NOTES: Like the Angel room, this room is chiefly about target priority. Flying right has less to do with anything in this room because the rats can and will shoot you accurately from 80km away and they don’t give a fuck about your transversal. Kiting can and will help moderate damage, but it will not prevent it and kiting is not very easily implemented here. Under no circumstances should smaller ships brawl with Sansha’s rats in the abyss, however. ALLOWING THESE RATS TO GET INTO A WHITE CLOUD (SPEED) CAN BE VERY VERY BAD FOR YOU. If you see a white cloud, drag them away from it. Sansha's room is the hardest room for DARK filaments, because the rats are basically unaffected by both the bonus and penalty from DARK space. RECOMMENDED TARGET PRIORITY: DEVOTED KNIGHTS > WEBS > SMITHS/PRIESTS > OTHER
The biggest challenges here are getting the DEVOTED KNIGHTS off the field as quickly as possible. They have very strong webs and neuts which are a persistent threat. All rats have excellent tracking and range, so much so that even in a dark filament they will have amazing application.
You may need to change target priority if a lot of DEVOTED PRIEST spawned with your room, as they focus their reps on whatever you are attacking.
RAT 5: Triglavian Collective
Unlike the previous rats, triglavians come in several different configurations - we will go over a few of their rooms here along with some general tips and tricks for fighting the triangle.
GENERAL TIPS: Entropic Disintegrators (triangle weapons) have no falloff, but instead turn off if you kite outside of their range. This is a really good way to cause them 'reset' their damage (they spool up the longer they maintain fire on you). THIS MEANS KITING. All triangle ships have remote repair capability, but not all of them use it all of the time until T5+. Triangle ships are fast, maneuverable, and have very low sig radius - making tracking and application a problem in some environments. Triangle drones stop attacking you once their drone tender has been destroyed (ships with VILA in the name). If you are not under web/neut pressure, feel free to target any RENEWING RODIVAs on the field, as their reps are insanely good and they may cause you to waste time and dps if you do not clear them (mostly higher tier). KEY NOTES: KIKIMORA ROOM This room contains many KIKIMORAs, DAMAVIKs, and possibly 1-2 RENEWING RODIVAs at higher levels. KIKIMORAs tend to form a cuddle puddle, orbiting each other while staying just within their weapons range. use this to your advantage and KITE THEM if their damage has ramped up too high for your tank TARGET PRIORITY: TANGLING > STARVING > RENEWING > STRIKING/GHOSTING > OTHER. Prioritize a tangling kikimora over a tangling damavik, but a tangling damavik over a starving kikimora.
KEY NOTES: VEDMAK ROOM VEDMAK cruisers escorted by smaller triglavian ships, and possible RENEWING RODIVAs. If the room spawns VILA VEDMAKs (drone cruisers) one of them will be a SHINING VILA VEDMAK. This target should be a priority after removing web/neut pressure, as it heals the other drone cruisers. TARGET PRIORITY: TANGLING > STARVING > RENEWING > STRIKING/GHOSTING > OTHER.
KEY NOTES: LESHAK ROOM Depending on your fit, this may be easiest room to handle in the whole abyss. You will start 30-60km away from the LESHAKs who will be bunched up on the gate. When you enter they will star burst and burn away from each other while repping each other - however they spawn at very low HP and should not be a problem if you have 30-50km range. Feel free to burn down one of their handful of rogue drone escorts if you have an opportunity while burning towards the cache/gate. STARVING LESHAKs can neut out to 80km and should be killed first, followed by BLINDING LESHAKs. As the LESHAKs run away from you, the BLINDING sensor dampening can hurt your ability to run them down, causing you to waste extra time. TARGET PRIORITY: STARVING LESHAK > BLINDING/TANGLING LESHAK > OTHER
RAT 6: Rogue Drones
Rogue drones come in two basic configurations. The first is a swarm, which is not very difficult to clear as long as you prioritize targets appropriately and keep moving toward the cache and gate. The second configuration is a group of rogue drone battlecruisers which is extremely deadly if you get too close.
KEY NOTES: ROGUE DRONE SWARM Stay on the move, and use any drone automata suppressors to your advantage. Target priority is based on ECM and reps. WEBS > NEUT > REP > OTHER. Players using a reactive armor hardener should cycle it regularly. Different drones are locked to certain damager types (i.e. sparklance do EM, emberlance do thermal), and it’s no good having +25% EM resist when all the EM drones are dead. 100% of this spawn is susceptible to the DEVIANT AUTOMATA SUPPRESSOR. Use that to your advantage. KEY NOTES: ROGUE DRONE BATTLECRUISERS These drones have extremely limited range, but their damage is absolutely terrifying. They are best kited by orbiting the gate at 20-15km with your prop mod on after you fly past them the first time. No, seriously - stay the fuck away from these guys. I thought they were a joke until I got into their weapons range once on accident and they fucking murdered me. IM NOT JOKING FUCKING KITE THESE THINGS.
RAT 7: Concord and Upwell
KEY NOTES: Leave Upwell ships for last, as their vorton projectors also hit the allied Concord ships. lol The Marshals are no fucking joke. While they start with low shields and armor, their shields will quickly repair, and their missile volleys hit like a tractor trailer moving at light speed. Without a strong tank you must rely on speed, which makes killing webs quickly essential to your survival. Upwell ships will kite, but Marshals will stay on the gate. GILAs in particular will get their shit pushed all the way in by the Marshal, don’t be any closer than you need to be and almost never come in directly at them (missile application is crazy like that, huh?) TARGET PRIORITY: ARRESTER > DRAINER > MARSHALS > OTHER > UPWELL Concord ships use extremely strong missile systems which are very difficult to avoid. Your best friend in this room is your speed, so do whatever you can to stay mobile. Smaller Concord ships are also fairly quick and will stick close to you with their webs and neuts, so popping them is an extreme priority.
Take advantage of the fact that the Upwell ships don't have their safeties set to green, and their vorton weapons will bounce off their allies. Fuckin lol
CHOOSING A SHIP, A TIER, AND AN ENVIRONMENT
So somehow you've read this far and decided that this might be the place for you. You’re into the idea of making 300M+ per hour, and you love a good challenge! Because really, how hard can something made by half-baked Icelanders be?
The first thing you need to do before setting foot into the abyss is read this guide - but since you're currently doing that we can move on to the second thing. Every activity in EVE is an investment of your current pool of ISK, and nothing takes that to the extreme like the abyss - but the barrier for entry is incredibly low (unlike literally everything else in this shit game). alpha clones can and do run abyss sites to pay for their omega subscriptions, and then work their way up as they learn skills like target priority, fitting, and the dreaded manual piloting.
For ease of access, I have broken this down into three tiers of players who typically want to get into the abyss:
- I'M POOR AND I DONT KNOW HOW TO FLY (<500m ISK, <10m SP)
- I'M NOT ~POOR~ BUT I DONT KNOW HOW TO FLY (<1b ISK, <25m SP)
- IM SPACE RICH AND I KNOW HOW TO FLY (2-3b ISK, All Cruisers V, Resistance IV-V)
Cheap Forgiving Ships
Players in this situation actually have a lot of options. All environments can be run at low SP if you use recommended fittings and stick to T0-T3 filaments. These players can expect to invest as little as 15m ISK or as much as 400m ISK in a ship and can earn as much as 120m ISK/hr (although they will generally earn lower than that without better skills).
Your hard and fast rules are as follows: always start by running T0-T1 filaments of the type you want to learn first. Plenty of racial frigates can be used safely and effectively, but my personal preference is to run DARK sites in a KESTREL to start. It is also totally possible to run ELECTRICAL sites in a PUNISHER. However there are dozens of low tier fits that work, and many are included in the fitting sections below.
Unfortunately the TRISTAN seems to underperform, not really having enough slots to fit the needed prop mods and an appropriate tank in low tier abyssal deadspace, although I have seen it used to interesting effect (read: dead after 3 runs).
Try to make sure your ship and filament choices complement each other. Don’t take ships with bonuses to armor into Gamma filaments. Don't take shield tank ships into Firestorms, etc.
After you feel comfortable with the type of filament you have chosen and mostly know how to fly in it, you can look into flying cheap T1 and Faction cruisers in T3 and sometimes even T4. These ships will set you back a few hundred million isk, but cheap GILAs (<400m ISK) can run T4 gammas and electricals extremely efficiently.
This is also the time to play with your favorite cruisers (preferably with at least Tech 2 tanks) in the abyss and see how they perform. Most ships aren't great in the abyss, but some of the ships that people swear by nowadays were hazed just a few months ago because no one had figured out a working fit for them (WANNA MAKE MONEY FLYING A SACRILEGE?)
Caveat: do not use T1 destroyers. they are very difficult to fit a proper tank to and remain cap stable, they have good on-paper dps but for various reasons their application can suffer, and the reward increase is markedly less than just running a shitfit T1 cruiser in the same tier filament. If you have a dumb space friend you want to run sites with, either use 2 frigates or 2 T3Ds - but play around on Sisi first!
Expensive, but Forgiving Ships
We hope you like GILAs. In fact, we hope you looooooooove GILAs. Because that's what you're flying for the rest of forever.
Without HAC V there’s no point in bringing out the HACs, especially not the GSF CERBERUS which is, and I cannot stress this enough, NOT A PVE SHIP. DONT BRING DOCTRINE SHIPS YOU CAN BARELY FLY INTO THE ABYSS BECAUSE IT’S ALL YOU HAVE. WHAT THE FUCK.!?!.
If you have to mess around with HACs then try playing with a DEIMOS on Sisi. They are actually pretty good, if you have good gunnery skills and a solid idea of how to brawl without melting.
At this level you have a little cushion of money to spend on using (read: losing) ships in the abyss and playing with the environment. if you're not sure if you have the skills or not, then this is also a good time to look at assault frigates, as you will typically have enough of the associated weapons skills for gunnery or missiles to make them really shine. If you have multiple accounts, T4s are extremely entertaining to fly in 2-3 frigates (I recommend 2 Retributions and 1 Deacon in electricals if you want to experiment with multi-boxing).
Worms and other faction frigates are also viable at this level, but if you're spending the money for a faction ship you should really be using GILAs.
Without spending more than 1b ISK on a ship, you're going to max out running almost every type of T4 (see: fittings), but if you're just starting out PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD RUN T3s FIRST.
The GILA is the go to ship for abyssal deadspace and for a good reason, missiles and drones really shine here. And for less than 500M-1B ISK this is going to be the best ship you can fly. Your fitting should always reflect the filament type you're playing in, and I will have fits posted for the Gila for T4-T5 in every filament type below over the coming days. You absolutely can fly <1b ISK GILAs in T5s and win, but it requires the kind of skills you can't inject.
We cannot recommend exotics enough, as this is also when filaments start getting really expensive. Did you really just pull 40M ISK from that T4 Electrical when it cost you 25M ISK for the filament? No, you didn’t. You brought in a whopping 15M ISK and now some pencil neck day trader is laughing at you for being a dummy. Filament prices need to be considered when you choose what type of filament to run. This is extremely important or you WILL fuck yourself over money-wise.
Expensive, Unforgiving Big Boy Ships
At this level you’re basically evaluating RISK vs REWARD. How long until your ship makes back the money it cost you, and how equipped is it to deal with EVERY POSSIBLE COMBINATION of rooms from the 36 chambers? Think you can't get 3 Karens in a row? You will. Think you won’t get back to back Angel rooms after jumping with 1/4 capacitor from a neuting sleeper room? You will. The purpose of blinging your ships in the abyss is to take that risk and drag it down as close to zero as possible.
At this level people bring the HACs back out. Sacrileges, Ishtars, Ikitursas, Deimos, super blingy GILAs (these poor bastards hit a DPS ceiling and so your bling needs to be on both DPS mods, implants, AND a tank), and even Stormbringers make their home here. You will want deadspace drip. You will want faction drip. That damage mod better be abyssal. You will be doing unspeakable things for a set of mid-grade crystals.
The cost of T5 electricals is still insane, and so your profits will mean that if you can’t run T6s then you're not as effective as doing T5 gammas or exotics. KEEP THIS IN MIND. Everything I’ve said for the space poors goes double for you! Watch those margins, be mindful of your builds, TEST FLY EVERYTHING. Read shitty threads by idiots who lost 5b ISK because OH SHIT THAT SPAWN HAS 5 NEUTING CRUISERS. Plan accordingly, and one day you'll be doing this shit for the challenge and not the isk.
