Myrmidon

Myrmidon Worried that their hot-shot pilots would burn brightly in their eagerness to engage the enemy, the Federation Navy created a ship that encourages caution over foolhardiness. A hardier version of its counterpart, the Myrmidon is a ship designed to persist in battle. Its numerous medium and high slots allow it to slowly bulldoze its way through the opposition, while its massive drone space ensures that no enemy is left unscathed. Battlecruiser Skill Bonus: 10% increase to drone hitpoints and damage dealt by drones, and 7.5% increase to armor repair amount per level 99% reduction in the CPU need of Warfare Link modules.
Structure Structure Hitpoints 4,297 HP Max Velocity 145 m/sec Inertia Modifier 0.704 Mass 13,250,000 kg Volume 270000 m3 Capacity 400 m3 Fitting powergrid Output 1,175 MW Low Slots 6 Med Slots 5 High Slots 6 CPU Output 400 tf Launcher hardpoints 0 Turret hardpoints 6 Calibration 400 points Upgrade Hardpoints 3 Capacitor Recharge time 750 s Capacitor Capacity 2812.5 GJ Targeting Maximum Targeting Range 55 km Max Locked Targets 7 Magnetometric Sensor Strength 18 points Signature Radius 300 m Scan Resolution 200 mm Shield Shield Capacity 3906 HP Shield Em Damage Resistance 0 % Shield Explosive Damage Resistance 50 % Shield Kinetic Damage Resistance 40 % Shield Thermal Damage Resistance 20 % Shield recharge time 1400 s Armor Armor Hitpoints 4,688 HP Armor Em Damage Resistance 50 % Armor Explosive Damage Resistance 10 % Armor Kinetic Damage Resistance 35 % Armor Thermal Damage Resistance 35 % Drones Drone Capacity 150 m3 Drone Bandwidth 75 Mbit/sec Miscellaneous CPU Need Bonus -99 % Tech Level 1 Rig Size Medium		Blueprint Myrmidon Blueprint Required skills Primary Skill required Gallente Cruiser III Spaceship Command III Gallente Frigate IV Spaceship Command I Secondary Skill required Battlecruisers II Spaceship Command IV Material Requirements Skill / Industry Industry 1 Material / Mineral Tritanium 3,173,694 Pyerite 706,616 Mexallon 237,013 Nocxium 14,831 Zydrine 2,775 Megacyte 1,360 Waste Waste Factor 10%

Additional Information

The Myrmidon is a Gallentean drone boat, in the same field as the Vexor and Dominix. The Myrmidon comes with a bonus to drone damage output and hit points, as well as a bonus to armor repair amount. The Myrmidon has a good sized 150 meter drone bay. With 75 megabits of bandwidth available, this ship can launch a potent wing of drones at enemy targets.

Although the Myrmidon has 6 turret slots, the ship does not have a damage bonus to any weapons system. It is not uncommon to find these ships equipped with anything from blasters to lasers. Despite this inherent flexibility, the Myrmidon is most effective when the fitting is focused on the ship's strengths. Recently, double and triple-rep fits have seen use in combination with combat boosters such as standard-strong Exile, further enhancing the ships potential.

Know Your Enemy by Azual Skoll, The Altruist

The myrmidon is a slightly unusual ship, and I don't just mean that it's freaking vertical! It's primarily a drone boat, with the usual bonus to drone damage and hitpoints, however with only 75m3 of drone bandwidth (and 150m3 bay) its drone capability isn't actually any stronger than the vexor's and is significantly weaker than the ishtar's. Because of this myrmidons rarely rely on their drones alone, and tend to favour a slightly more combined arms approach than most other drone ships. This purpose is served by their 6 turret slots, although it's notable that the ship receives no bonus to any turret type - autocannons are probably the most common choice (due to fitting and no cap usage), while either medium or small blasters are also fairly frequent.

The myrmidon is also the only tier 2 battlecruiser to receive an active tanking bonus - 7.5% per level to repair amount, the same as its tier 1 counterpart the brutix. With a 6/5/6 slot layout, the myrmidon is capable of mounting an effective armour buffer or shield buffer, however it's with an active armour tank that it really shines. Both dual rep (sometimes with a plate as backup) and triple rep setups are common, and the end result is really quite impressive - a triple rep myrm can tank about 1000 dps with heat - a feat that many battleships struggle to match. The base cap regen on the myrm is actually fairly poor, so most active fits include either one or two cap boosters to keep them running. While battlecruisers have fairly generous cargo bays, those cap charges aren't going to last forever!

The myrm has no spare high slots, so unless they drop a gun for a neut (which they occasionally do) you're unlikely to have to deal with any offensive cap warfare. Myrms do have plenty of spare mids though, and webs, scrams, and tracks are all fairly common and should be expected (triple rep myrms are actually the least dangerous in this regard, since they will almost definitely be fitting dual cap boosters). In addition to this, the myrm's damage output is pretty versatile - even if you're able to evade its turrets, at least half of its dps is likely to come from drones, which can engage effectively at any range. Those drones are also hitpoint-buffed and the myrm will have plenty of spares, making removing the drones both difficult and relatively futile.

Against an active tanked myrm, the simplest solution is to maximise the dps you or your gang are putting out. If you're able to out-dps an active tank, they will usually break quickly. If you're not able to do so, you may be able to wear the myrm down simply by forcing it to consume all of its cap boosters (use neuts if you have them, and try not to give the myrm any chance to regen cap). This is a difficult proposition solo however, as most active myrms will be able to kill an equivalent ship before their boosters run dry. When fighting a buffer tanked myrm, be prepared for additional EWAR but otherwise expect the fight to be fairly similar to an armour tanked cane or harby, albeit with less focus on evading turret damage and more on evading (or failing to evade) drones. The myrm's total damage output is generally somewhat less than the cane/harby, but it's enough - don't underestimate it.

For PVE, some myrms are passive shield tanked in the same way as the drake mentioned above. While I don't think this kind of myrm fit is particularly common in combat environments (i.e. lowsec and nullsec), it's worth bearing in mind that you might encounter one. Aside from shield myrms, explosive or kinetic are your damage types of choice (as with the harby, explosive hardeners aren't uncommon but are not standard).

In-World Specifications

Sourced from the Templar One 'eveinfo' competition website^[1]

Ship's Complement

• 1 Pilot 34-36 Crew (Capsuleer)
• 1 Pilot 80 Officers and Crew (Standard)

Propulsion

• 6x TN100 Antimatter Pulse Engines (Roden Shipyards)
• 3x TS200 Vectored Plasma Engines (Roden Shipyards)

• FTL Cruiseline Warp Field Generator (TransStellar Shipping)

Powerplant

• Viceroy HE-19 Aneutronic Fusion Reactor

Drone Bay

• Creodron Drone Flight Control System
• Creodron Helix DLR System

Electronics

• Lancer MTTS-5 Magnetometric Scanning Fire Control
• Guardian NP/12 Armor Support System (Duvolle Laboratories)
• Hunter KHX-5 Main Computer

Ship History

Before the introduction of drone bandwidth, the Myrmidon was equipped with a 125m3 drone bay. The only limiting factor for the maximum size of a drone flight was the capacity of the drone bay and the hard limit of 5 drones at once. As such, the Myrmidon could carry a full wing of heavy drones, and was the smallest Tech 1 ship able to do so.

Whilst not quite as capable as it once was, the Myrmidon remains a powerful ship, and one which should not be underestimated.

Additional Images

Below are additional images of the ship. Click an image below for a larger version:

Myrmidon 1

Myrmidon 2

Myrmidon 3

Myrmidon 4