Gallente Militia: MAULUS

Without any shadow of a doubt, the Maulus is the dark horse of the Gallente frigate lineup. Most pilots overlook it, because it can’t fit a substantive tank, or deliver major DPS, and its bonuses – 7.5% to Remote Sensor Dampener effectiveness / 10% reduction to Remote Sensor Dampeners’ capacitor need – don’t look pew-centric enough. It’s all a bit, well, complicated.

But underestimate the Maulus at your peril. It is an absolutely superb solo / fleet e-war frigate. If anything, it’s probably a little overpowered – but who are we to complain? Like all ships, it tends to work best when you fit it to take advantage of its bonuses. Like a bank holiday mini-break to the Lake District destroyed by the British weather, it just loves to get damp.

Here are some fits to get the ball rolling, then. These are probably not the absolute last word in EFT-warrior tinkering opti-mentalism, but in practice – on the battlefield – they do work and are fun to fly.

[HYDRAMAULUS – SOLO PVP DAMPKITE]

125mm Prototype Gauss Gun / Federation Navy Tungsten S

Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I / Targetting Range Dampening Script

Warp Disruptor II

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I

Damage Control II

Drone Damage Amplifier II

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Hobgoblin II x 6

Spare mags of Federation Navy Antimatter S

All skills at V:

EHP: 2603.7

DPS: 139 / 143 overheated

Speed: 3280m/s

Capacitor: stable at 21.8%

Optimal range: 18km

Cost: 16.6m ISK approx

This is a superb and immensely satisfying solo plexing ship for the money – kind of the Gallente equivalent of the annoying Caldari Navy Hookbill, but for a lot less cash. It is also pretty rare – you hardly ever see these in solo PvP, so enemy pilots don’t really know what to expect. The lowish EHP is a worry, but with careful piloting you can damp down and see off the majority of your opponents, and especially any Tech 1 Frigates.

It doesn’t have quite the fitting to get 125mm Railgun IIs on, but the Proto’s bring reasonable DPS to the table for the two slots you’ve got available for guns.

With anything less than all skills at V, your biggest operating issue is going to be cap. With a highly skilled character, you’ll be cap stable, but if you’re getting 50 seconds plus cap time, that’s still going to be enough to see off most opponents.

It has a ton of modules to activate, so your fingers will be whizzing over the F keys like a concert pianist performing a Rimsy-Korsakov concerto piece. But that’s all part of the fun.

Fasten your seatbelts….

How to fly it

Set your Orbit and Keep At Range at 18,000m – the WDII reaches out to 24km, so this gives you a bit of wriggle room. Generally you’re going to be using Keep At Range to ensure your rail guns can deliver higher DPS.
Pre-heat your guns. They last at least a minute and a half with heat, and you need the extra DPS.
Get the drones out, set to aggressive, single target.
As soon as you see your opponent, activate MWD, spam Keep at Range. Once inside 24km, activate the WDII and the sensor disruptors.
Are you up against a drone ship? If you can get your Sensor Disruptors on really quickly, you can also nullify the effect of any drones if you have managed to whack down your foes’ targeting range. Without a lock, your opponent can’t engage drones against you, so you can then ignore them. If drones are attacking you, orbit, switch to Antimatter and take them down first. Once dead, switch back to Keep At Range.
If you’re up against a short-range afterburner ship, you might not even need to activate the sensor disruptors, but it’s always a good idea to use them anyway for bonus terror.
If you’re facing another kite and he’s trying to slingshot out of range, overheat your MWD and the WDII – it goes out to 28km with heat, giving you more margin of error.

Now onto the options for gang / fleet engagement fittings….

[DAMPAULUS – LONG RANGE FLEET EWAR]

Drone Link Augmentator II

Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I / Targetting Range Dampening Script

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I

Damage Control II

Type-D Attenuation Signal Augmentation

Small Particle Dispersion Projector I

Small Inverted Signal Field Projector I

Hobgoblin II x 6 or Hobgoblin SD-300 x 6

All skills at V:

EHP: 2519.4

DPS: 79 if using Hobgoblin IIs

Speed: 3280m/s

Capacitor: lasts 18m 40s. Should be long enough.

Optimal range: targeting 132.1km / Damping 76km + 90km falloff / drones 108km. In practice, 80-100km.

Cost: 17.3m ISK approx

This is an amazing e-war frigate fit, make no mistake. Long range, treble damps, plus drones. What’s not to like? OK – apart from the cost?

The Type-D's are a little cheaper than Sensor Booster IIs, and although they have fractionally less scan resolution bonus do pretty much the same job with less CPU and don't require Electronics Upgrades V.

Generally speaking, I prefer to fly this with Hobgoblin IIs to contribute a bit of DPS on the battlefield. However, if you prefer to go full-on e-war with your fit, then by all means fit the Hobgoblin SD-300’s, which give a targeting range bonus of -8% each. I have no idea whether this bonus ‘stacks’ across a flight of drones – so a flight of four, on one enemy, gives a cumulative dampening effect of 40%. I suspect it does. Nor do I know how it interacts / stacks with the sensor disruptors and rigs on your ship.

Even though it’s long range, it requires a lot of pilot skill and concentration to operate effectively. Again, this probably isn’t the last word in how it should be deployed, but give this a go.

How to fly it

This works nothing like a combat ship. Your job is not really to DPS the primary, but to target logistics, other ewar and kites, probably in that order. Your FC will be barking primary / secondary / tertiary orders down the headset. Ignore those. Your job is different. And a bit complicated, but bear with me…

Set keep at range to 90km initially and get out to that range as soon as possible.
If you’re entering the battlefield and there’s already fighting going on, scuttle away from the action as quickly as possible.
In a perfect world, you will have four active targets, all conveniently within range. Three targets each with a dampener activated on them, plus one with the Hobgoblin IIs or the SD version running on it, without being shot or targeted yourself. Easy, huh?
Looking at your overview, you want to target select, in this order:

Logistics / ewar: The frigates called Inquisitor, Bantam, Nativas, Burst, any other Maulus, or in cruiser size, Auguror, Exequror, Osprey, Scythe.
Kites. The primary, if possible. You can tell which ones are kites by their velocity on your overview. Over 2km/s? It’s a kite, probably using longer range weapons. Damp it.
Everything else.

Try to keep maximum targets open, so you can switch quickly.
If anything starts burning towards you, keep it at range and if required switch all your damps on it. If things get critical, overheat your MWD and consider bailing.

Now the good news. By spreading your targets, damps and drones, you get on a lot of fleet killmails. Damps do count towards ‘damage’. It’s not killmail whoring. Oh no. It’s 'playing an active and important role in the fleet, for which you deserve to be fairly acknowledged for your skills and efforts in the publicly available records'. That's the line to take, if asked.

If juggling all those targets and mods is a bit much, here’s a brace of simpler options…

[OPTIMAULUS – ULTRA-LONG RANGE FLEET DRONE SNIPER]

Drone Link Augmentator I

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I

Sensor Booster II / Targetting Range Script

Remote Sensor Dampener II / Targeting Range Dampening Script

Drone Damage Amplifier II

Damage Control II

Small Drone Control Range Augmentator I

Small Processor Overclocking Unit I

Hobgoblin II x 6

All skills at V:

EHP: 2603

DPS: 117

Speed: 3280m/s

Capacitor: stable at 47.2%

Optimal range: 129km

Cost: 9.2m isk approx

Cautious? Like to stay at the back of the battlefield and pick off the enemy? Like sniping? Scared of being shot?

The Optimaulus is the frigate fit for you, then. Using drones, this boasts an incredible optimal range of 129km. That’s right – you can lock targets, and fire / control drones out to 129km. Because this fit is cap stable, you can keep the MWD running continuously.

What’s more, the Optimaulus also does reasonable drone damage at 117DPS with Hobgoblin IIs. Although the catch – and there always is a catch with these extreme fits – is that even at 120km or so from your target, a flight of four Hobgoblin IIs travels at 4,200m/s. That’s about 30 seconds from ordering them into the fray at 120km to them arriving and actually engaging the enemy.

You can cut down your travel time by using Warrior II drones, travelling at 6,300 m/s, but that’s still 20 seconds or so before they arrive, and the Warriors slice down your DPS to 95. Personally I stick with the Hobgoblin IIs. Once they’re amongst the enemy fleet, they stay there, flitting from target to target while you relax half-way across the grid.

How to fly it

Fire up the MWD. Set keep at range to about 115km. Don’t worry about orbiting – you won’t be using it.
If you’re first to the battlefield, set yourself up at about 110km from the expected enemy warp-in point. If you arrive and things are already cooking, get out of range as quickly as possible – overheat your MWD if required to do so.
Pick the nearest war target, lock, activate keep at range, launch and engage drones.
If anything gets closer than about 85-90km, or looks to be closing very fast, make that your primary target. Keep at range, engage drones. Then activate the remote sensor dampener to break lock.
If it’s still closing you down, consider overheating your MWD to keep range.

If you want to play around with this fit, there’s an economy model that delivers fractionally lower range and DPS for about half the price…

[DERPTIMAULUS – CHEAP ULTRA LONG RANGE FLEET DRONE SNIPER]

Drone Link Augmentator I

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive

Sensor Booster I

Drone Damage Amplifier I

F85 Peripheral Damage System I

Remote Sensor Dampener I / Targetting Range Dampening Script

Small Drone Control Range Augmentator I

6 x Hobgoblin II

All skills at V:

EHP: 2395

DPS: 105

Speed: 3280m/s

Capacitor: stable at 44.9%

Optimal range: 122.7km

Cost: 4.3m ISK approx

[BACKSTABBER – PLEX FARMER KILLER]

125mm Railgun II / Federation Navy Antimatter S

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scramber I

Damage Control II

Overdrive Injector System II

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Hobgoblin II x 4

All skills at 5:

EHP: 2494.9

DPS: 128 / 137 with heat

Speed: 4310m/s or 6158 m/s with heat.

Capacitor: 3m 20s

Optimal range: around 3km

Cost: 10m ISK

This fit has a singular purpose: to catch and kill plex farmers in lame mult-stabilized frigates.

Anyone who spends time in Faction Warfare will come across them in droves – newly created alt pilots sitting, defensively plexing in lamefit T1 frigates, frequently kitted out with multiple Warp Core Stabilizers. You warp in, and sometimes they have already warped off. Or you warp in, try to grab them with your Warp Disruptor or Scram, and again they warp off - they were fitted with stabs.

Here’s where the Backstabber helps. Fitted with three Warp Scramblers, it can grab and hold anything equipped with even a rack of four stabs in the low slots. Then you can kill it. Speed is of the essence, hence the proliferation of drive and agility mods.

It works best against defensive plexers, as enemy pilots offensive plexing may well have a very capable combat fit that can overpower this Maulus. So ideal hunting grounds are systems controlled by the enemy, usually the quieter, out of the way systems.

How To Fly It

Enter the system. If there’s one or two novice or small plexes open and a similar number of enemy war targets in system, then scan the plexes from afar and see what’s inside. You’re looking for T1 frigates. Then have a look at the characters in system. Are they fairly new? Not in a corp? Perfect.

The next thing to do is to wait for a bit. Don’t rush in, because the chances are that they’ll be watching local and will have noticed you. If there’s unopened plexes available, pop one to give the impression that you’re also plexing (you can Warp To the gate and then quickly cancel the warp to remain where you are).

Make sure your mods are assigned to F keys and you have your fingers on the main mod keys – the MWD and the three webs. Set Keep At Range to about 3-4km. Pre heat your guns, the scramblers and your MWD. Pre-load your MWD. Then pounce. You need to get to the plex gate and get inside the plex as quickly as possible, so warp to it at 10 and spam activate gate as quickly as possible when you land.

As you are warping to the plex, this is what you do in this order:

As soon as the enemy ship appears on your overview, select it and spam approach (Q).
The second you see the ‘Approaching’ confirmation and you’ve landed, hit your MWD, which should see you rocket towards the enemy.
Pre-load all the scramblers by pressing the F keys they are assigned to and hovering the resulting crosshair over the enemy ship. Fire the scramblers as soon as you are within about 8km.
Assuming that the stabbed plex farmer hasn’t warped, you’ve now grabbed it and can relax, a little.
Activate Keep At Range (E).
Turn off heat on the scramblers and MWD. You might need to get away.
Release the drones and press fire on your guns.

Now – assuming that you haven’t inadvertently caught something that’s combat ready, it should just be a matter of chewing through the farmer’s ship. Try also to catch and kill the pod. That’ll teach them. Filthy plex farmers.

Gallente Militia

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MAULUS

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