A Pilgrim for Love, not War

So how about a PvE Pilgrim?

Specifically for exploration in Radar and Magnometric sites.

I know some of you are probably already laughing at me. But when you look at the Pilgrim, the bonuses it gets, the slot layout and the abilities it has, it actually makes quite a lot of sense.

First up, let’s look at the main feature of the Pilgrim, the fact it can fit a CovOps cloak. This is a major benefit in LowSec, as although gatecamps are rarer than people seem to think, they can happen and this cloak will probably save your ship unless they’ve got an experienced decloaker with them (which is incredibly unlikely from my experience, since most people can’t decloak ships for sh*t in LowSec). So you can move around pretty much untouched in dangerous areas, and loiter quietly in system if it gets a bit hot in there or you need to desperately run to the toilet. Just make a few safe spots, warp to them and cloak up. Totally undetectable. This is of massive benefit to a PvE fit ship in dangerous space. Don’t overlook it.

Hacking dat comm tower

Now in terms of fitting, the Pilgrim pretty much screams out to be fitted with an armour tank, unlike its brother the Curse. This opens up the mids for almost anything you can think of, like analysers, codebreakers, propulsion, cap mods, drone mods, all that jazz. Usually this is down to the pilot but for an exploration ship you pretty much have to put exploration mods on there. Otherwise, the rest is up to your imagination. Further sticking with this theme of slot layouts is the spare highslots you have. Obviously you need two (for the cloak and probe launcher) but the other two are open to whatever you like. You could go for drone links, salvagers, tractor beams, guns etc. Once again, it’s pilot preference but it shows the adaptability of a PvE Pilgrim. Very few modules are “required” and that gives you room to tinker with your fit until you find something you like. A nice added side effect of the Pilgrim being an Amarrian neut boat, is that it’s got insane amounts of cap for a cruiser. This makes it pretty easy to balance a decent tank vs long cap life without the use of dozens of cap mods, making it useful for lazy explorers who like to leave their tank running throughout the site.

Another bonus the Pilgrim gets is its racial T2 resist bonuses. Since it’s Amarrian, that means increased Exp/Kin resists, which is extremely useful for an armour tanker. These bonused resists let the Pilgrim work well in any type of space, regardless of rats, since the resists can easily match the DPS of any LowSec Radar/Mag site when fitted properly. This is great, because it means you can roam far and wide looking for sites without worrying about your tank too much. If you enter a new region, just dock up, peel off the specific resists and whack the new ones on. Problem solved. Infact, the resist bonus is probably enough on the Pilgrim that you could omnitank it pretty well now I come to think of it, which would be an even better solution than carrying lots of armour hardeners around. I’ve not tried it myself since I prefer to tailor my tanking to the rats, but I’m pretty certain it would work.

I THINK THEY'RE MAD

So you’ve taken up all your slots with exploration modules and tank. How do you kill stuff? Those sites are guarded you know…

Luckily for you, the Pilgrim is a drone boat!

Since it’s not at all difficult to manage drone aggro despite the rat changes recently, I only carry a set of mediums and a set of smalls for the region I’m in (Angels = Minnie drones, but otherwise Gal drones are best for the damage they do). If you want to be universal, a set of Hobgoblins and Hammerhead IIs will serve you perfectly well however. A set of mediums and a set of lights takes up 75m3 and you’ve got a 150m3 drone bay. Now what? Well if you’re smart, you’ll take a set of medium ECM drones (Vespa EC-600s) incase you’re caught in a site by some solo prober. It’s unlikely if you’re paying attention, but some backup is never a bad idea. If you’re a little skittish, then take some light ECM drones too, but otherwise you’ve got 25m3 of drone bay to play with. Of course, if you’re confident you’re not going to get caught in a site then you can bring along whatever drones you like. Once again, pilot preference. You could take replacements, or even some light armour maintenance drones to rep your combat drones when you’re out for long periods and don’t want to dock.

So keeping all that in mind, how is my Pilgrim fit?

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Pilgrim - Exploration - “Monarch”

High Slots

- Covert Ops Cloaking Device II ***

- Sisters Core Probe Launcher  -> Sisters Core Scanner Probe ***

- Salvager I

- Small Tractor Beam I

Mid Slots

- Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I ***

- Omnidirectional Tracking Link I

- Codebreaker I ***

- Analyser I ***

- Large Capacitor Battery II

Low Slots

- Medium Armour Repairer II ***

- 2 x Rat Specific resist modules (e.g Blood Raiders = 1 EM and 1 Therm) ***

- Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

- Drone Damage Amplifier II

Rigs

- 2 x Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Drone Bay

- 5 x Valkyrie II

- 5 x Warrior II

- 5 x Vespa EC-600

- 5 x Hornet EC-300

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(The *** denote what I feel are “compulsory” modules. Feel free to switch out anything else)

And here’s the stats at all Level V skills for those too lazy to put this into EFT or whatever you use.

DPS: 237 (5 x Valkyries)

Tank: Approx 180 - 200 DPS depending on rats (it’s enough, don’t worry)

Speed: 1379m/s (MWD) 1966m/s (MWD Overheated) 205m/s (MWD off)

Cap life: 4mins 35 seconds (Two active hardeners on, rep on, one exploration module running)

1min 12 seconds with everything on (which is dumb)

So that’s my fit.

As you can tell I’m a little skittish when you look at my drone bay, but I’d rather prepare for the worst ;)

Also this fit is quite tight on CPU, though decent fitting skills should make it fit at Recon Ships IV. If you’re still having trouble, either get a 1% CPU implant or drop the T2 items down to meta/upgrade to faction. Getting a cheap faction hardener should solve the CPU pretty easily. Also if you’re the type that likes your ships capstable, you can drop the second exploration module (analyser vs codebreaker) for a Cap Recharger II to be 41% cap stable while running your rep, active hardeners and codebreaker or analyser. I’m not a fan of this myself since I’d rather not dock every few sites to swap modules, but if you want to ignore tank/cap management so you can worry more about your D-Scan instead that’s a fair compromise in my opinion.

One point I must stress however, is not to take this ship into LowSec combat sites. It will die. This Pilgrim is only for Radar/Mag sites, and it does them extremely well. Also don’t pimp it beyond solving the CPU issue as mentioned earlier. It doesn’t really need it, and eventually you will lose this ship. Maybe not for a few months, maybe a year or so, but it will die. As it is, you can make your money back on this fit within only a few days of exploration, so pimping it is cutting into your potential profits. There’s no need to bling out the tank or whatever, it works just fine.

So that’s my thoughts on a PvE Pilgrim. Any other thoughts? Ideas? Something I’ve overlooked?

My loot box after two and a bit days of random scanning

If you're looking for a good exploration fit, then give this a try. I promise it won't disappoint. I made about 250mil with my Pilgrim in a week without really trying too hard with my awful scanning skills, so people with higher skills/more drive to explore can probably make a pretty decent living out of this.

Good luck out there guys :)

Also I’m currently working on a replacement Legion fit for LowSec combat sites, since once you’ve got a Pilgrim, a Legion isn’t that far off. Plus you can use the Legion for the Radar/Mag sites too, so you don’t need to own two ships. If I can get it working well, I’ll write another little guide on here for the Legion.