Cap-stability is overrated.

* Recently I've been talking to the owner of a new EVE news website. I recently agreed to write guest posts for him, (and this is the first) although they will still be here on my blog too :) Here's his site, I found the stories on EVE's mercenary corporations very interesting  :)*


This is a subject that has recently started to annoy me, as I seem to be seeing it mentioned more and more. Yes, if your ship is fitted out well and it just happens to be cap-stable, then that's fine. But if you start building your ships around the idea of being cap-stable, you need a slap. Being cap-stable for the sake of being stable is just pure stupidity. You don't need it. For example, I saw this in Amarr Local the other night:

Random dude: "Hey guys, check out this PvP fit for my Rifter [Fit linked]"

It's essentially a normal PvP Rifter fit, except with a neut fitted. Not to my taste, but I can see it could be effective. Not five seconds later...

Idiot 1: "Cool fit, but it would be better cap-stable"
Random dude: "But my cap lasts like forty seconds with everything running, and like a minute with the rep off?"
Idiot 2: "Nah, fit a cap booster, drop the web"

No. Just no. In a Rifter, you'll mainly be attacking other frigates if you're fitting a neut. Active tanked frigates will drop like flies. The chances of them lasting more than 40 seconds if you know what you're doing? Absolutely tiny. So why the hell would you want to cap boost the damn thing? That web you need to drop to fit the booster will actually help you kill the other guy much faster, so you're just wasting a slot.
In PvP, fitting to make your cap last any longer than around three to four minutes (without the rep on) is a waste. Most fights will typically last less than that. Any longer is either a small gang, or a fleet fight, both of which you should have logis available with cap transfers anyway. And if you have logis, you don't need local tank, they'll rep you.

Even in PvE, having a cap-stable tank is an utter waste of time. The highest amount of DPS you'll be taking in the hardest Level 4 missions (not including bonus rooms) will be around 450-500 DPS at its peak.

"Ahah!" the idiots say. "So I just fit a tank that can last 500 DPS, for about the length of the average mission, therefore about fifteen minutes amirite?"

No you're wrong. 500DPS will be the peak DPS. After you've killed off four or five of the larger ships, that will drop to a manageable level, say only a few hundred DPS. Therefore you only need to last about two minutes at peak DPS. The fitting for this is usually a "four slot tank", though with lower skills you'll probably need five slots. You fill these slot with three resistance boosters (Two for the primary damage, and one for the secondary damage) and a repper of some kind (e.g a Large Armour repairer for armour tanks).
The rest of your slots (and rigs) can be filled with weapon upgrades, tracking computers, drone upgrades etc; so you can utterly murder all of the most dangerous rats around you within that two or three minutes of tank you have. Not only is this far less wasteful in terms of slots (cap-stable tanks often have to gimp their fits, and therefore DPS, in order to achieve said stability), it also decreases the time you take to do missions. Instead of surviving the opening wave and slowly breaking the tanks of the mission rats over the course of an hour, you can simply:

1) Drop in
2) Lock up all the battleships/battlecruisers/EW frigates (Anything with big DPS or annoying mods)
3) Obliterate everything that looks at you funny and pulse tank as needed
4) Waltz back out

This idea is known as a "Gank tank", you simply kill things so fast they don't have time to actually wear you down. It's used in several PvP fits too, one that comes to mind is the Blaster Taranis. It kills you so fast, you barely get a shot off. Of course it can only realistically pew other frigates or crap-fit cruisers, but it's still terrifying.

A corp friend of mine, who will remain un-named (though he knows who he is), also appears to have some sort of fetish for cap-stable ships. I've recently been helping him with fits for missions, because he's a little new and still getting used to EVE. And almost everytime I've given him a fit, he's asked me:

"It's cap-stable yeah?"

Sigh.

"No, because it doesn't need to be"
"Oh... Meh"

What I want to know is, where the hell are the new guys getting this idea that being cap-stable is a requirement for a ship fit? Is it mentioned in the rookie missions or something? Is there a tutorial I missed that screams "OMG U NEED 2 FIT CAPSTBLEZ! LRN 2 PLAY!" ? Is Rookie Chat full of veterans bitching about how they lost a Titan to a cap-stable frigate?

No? Are people just pulling it out of their arse?

The worst part is; it isn't just the new players doing it, and they have the excuse of inexperience. I've seen older players passionately defend their cap-stable shitfit, despite dozens of players telling them "Ur doin it wrong".

I know that seeing "47% cap-stable" or whatever in pretty green letters is addictive, but come on. You're (vaguely) intelligent human beings. Why get it when you don't need it? Why get it when it effectively harms you in the long run?

Infact, there needs to be a damn tutorial that stresses being cap-stable is a waste of time, and often screws up the rest of your fit anyway. Get on it CCP ;)


Tl;dr  Cap stability is overrated, quit obsessing over it