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Fit Kitchen: The Loki

Ah, the Loki. Since the rebalance it has been one of the most versatile ships in New Eden. It can fit for armour tank, shield tank, long range or short range, missiles or guns, armour or shield remote reps, an optional cloak and plenty of speed. To top this all off, it has a decent drone bay and a bloody good ewar option of long webs. Without knowing the meta it can be difficult to know exactly what people will do with this ship when it lands on grid, much like the Gnosis and friends.

Again, the subsystems and base stats:

Base Ship Bonuses

Minatar Strategic Cruiser bonuses (per skill level):
5% reduction in module damage from overheating
10% bonus to nanite repair paste repair speed

Role Bonus:
99% reduction in Scan Probe Launcher CPU requirements
Rigs may be removed from this ship without being destroyed
On ship destruction, the pilot will lose one random subsystem skill level


(Pick one of each from the following)

Core Subsystem

  • Faster capacitor regen, neut resistance, and lots of powergrid.
  • Longer targeting, better sensor strength, and faster locking.
  • Web optimal range, web heating bonuses, and heat damage reduction.

Defensive Subsystem

  • Shield and armour HP bonus, increased benefits of overheating hardeners.
  • Better shield boosters and armour reps, better overheating of both.
  • Can fit a cloak, smaller bonuses to reps, probe strength increase.

Offensive Subsystem

  • Missile rate of fire, velocity, and explosion velocity bonuses.
  • Projectile turret optimal, falloff, tracking and damage increases.
  • Can fit command bursts and both remote shield/armour reps with overheating bonuses.

Propulsion Subsystem

  • Agility and base velocity bonuses.
  • Afterburner velocity bonus, MWD sig radius penalty reduction.
  • Warp velocity and acceleration bonuses, less cap need for warping, and immune to warp disruption bubbles.

So despite me saying that the Loki is super versatile, you can usually bet on it doing one of a few particular things when you see one inevitably uncloak. Often it’s a toss-up between long-range arty with long webs and high-damage HAMs with the web for application. There’s also the common hisec wardec instalocker for killboard padding T1 frigates and the high buffer fleet variants.

If you’ve read the other articles in this series then you know that I’m not about to just dump some fits from the killboard, though. Let’s take a deep dive together into what the Loki has under the hood and what it’s capable of. I’ll be limiting myself to not simply pasting in fleet fits or blingy meme machines. They’re easily theorycrafted and Zkill is full of them.


A better Huginn: Web Lokis

45km web range, tracking and range bonuses, and 5,000 alpha damage. Deleting frigates doesn’t get much better than that unless you prefer a RLML Orthrus. An incredibly simple way to do that is with shield buffer and artillery as you can see below. The choice of no-cloak and only two gyros is one made post-surgical strike to improve the range and tank. I’ve also dropped a polycarbon there to bring the align time below four seconds, making non-cloaky travel much safer since you warp like a frigate. One more high-slot choice would unironically be a regular Light Missile Launcher for 18 more DPS. It’s laughable, but that’s the same as you get from upgrading to faction gyros!

The equivalent cloaky version isn’t pasted below, but it can be built with some simple low slot and rig changes. It just depends which aspect of the ship you are going to drop. Will you reduce the tank, the speed, range, damage, or tracking? I would personally do it a bit like this, dropping speed and tracking to make it more of a gank boat as many cloakies often are. Seems like a perfect pairing with the cheap shield rail Proteus to me. Together you get a lot of DPS and a hell of a lot more control.

Another fun way to use a cloaky Loki would be to slap Heavy Assault Missiles on there and kite. It’s similar to the Tengu I’ve previously mentioned but with an “active buffer” tank and the web can be to aid application of Rage missiles for that chunky damage bonus. I should note that the shield extender is only present to make sure that you aren’t otherwise alpha’d through the rest of the paper-thin tank.

To fly this you also need to be aware of some uncommon missile range knowledge. Missiles will not always reach their full range due to how server ticks work. With the fit posted below as an example, it displays max range as 33.6km with Caldari Navy loaded. We can then calculate that the missiles will have a 58.7% chance to fly further to 35.4km and a 41.3% chance to reach only 31km. This information can be discovered by hovering over the range in Pyfa. That isn’t so bad with all-5 skills since it’s just within point range, but it’s worth checking your own to make sure that you don’t accidentally out-range yourself half the time. (This also explains the choice of flight time over missile velocity in the rig slot!)

Arty Blap Loki (Non cloaky)

[Loki, 2020 Arty Shield Webs]

Reactor Control Unit II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Stasis Webifier II
Warp Disruptor II
Republic Fleet Large Shield Extender
Republic Fleet Large Shield Extender
50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive

Small Energy Neutralizer II
720mm Howitzer Artillery II
720mm Howitzer Artillery II
720mm Howitzer Artillery II
720mm Howitzer Artillery II
720mm Howitzer Artillery II
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher

Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Loki Core - Immobility Drivers
Loki Defensive - Augmented Durability
Loki Offensive - Projectile Scoping Array
Loki Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers


Hobgoblin II x5
Fitting a 26km point such as Caldari Navy will help your capacitor massively

Cloaky HAM Kiting Loki

[Loki, 2020 XLASB Cloaky Hammer]

Dark Blood Reactor Control Unit
Ballistic Control System II
Republic Fleet Ballistic Control System
Pro-Nav Compact Missile Guidance Enhancer

50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Caldari Navy Warp Disruptor
Caldari Navy Stasis Webifier
Caldari Navy Large Shield Extender
X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher
Auto Targeting System I

Medium Ancillary Current Router II
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Rocket Fuel Cache Partition II

Loki Core - Immobility Drivers
Loki Defensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Loki Offensive - Launcher Efficiency Configuration
Loki Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers


Hobgoblin II x5
Hornet EC-300 x3

Brawling Lokis

As much as I wanted to start here by writing about how good a particular brawling Loki is, I can’t. The Legion and Tengu can crush a Loki in their respective tanks if you fit them right. And that’s a good thing! There should be no reason why the jack of all trades ship can easily outperform a more specialised ship easily. Instead of insane tanks or useful ewar, the Loki gets something simpler, damage.

This isn’t the point where I pull out a 1.5b ISK / 1,000 DPS / 1,000 EHP/s Loki and tell you all to buy that. I can make those fits and they simply aren’t that good due to the low buffer and crazy pricetag for the required modules. Here’s a simple way to do it if you’re going to shoehorn an XL shield booster on without a care in the world. I’d honestly rather do something weird and funky instead like a dual shield boosted setup with or without an XLASB. (I actually really like that second one)

Other than that, it’s not impossible to run a simple dual rep armour tanked Loki in the same way as a Legion or Proteus might. The first fit below is my take on that and it feels ok as long as you remember that you have hardly any spare hull at all. Once the armour is gone, that’s it. It’s for that reason that it might be a better idea to run two plain reps rather than T2+ancil; you simply don’t want someone to punch through into your structure pod. A cloaky variant is possible by dropping a low slot, make sure that you don’t drop any of that buffer.

To finish off my thoughts on brawlers I wanted to showcase one of the weirdest ones that came up during my theorycrafting. It’s cloaky, it uses autocannons, and it’s dual tanked. You don’t get much stranger than that on a T3C. In this case, it provides about a 750 EHP/s tank and 882 DPS providing that you stay near the top of your armour and the bottom of your shield. Not necessarily as optimal as some of the fits already discussed, but certainly a “fun” idea.

Dual Armour Rep Loki

[Loki, 2020 Dual Armour Rep]

Medium Armor Repairer II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Damage Control II
Centus B-Type Explosive Armor Hardener
Corpum B-Type Energized Kinetic Membrane
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer

50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Medium Capacitor Booster II
Warp Scrambler II

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Small Energy Nosferatu II
Small Energy Nosferatu II

Medium Explosive Armor Reinforcer II
Medium Kinetic Armor Reinforcer II
Medium Thermal Armor Reinforcer II

Loki Defensive - Adaptive Defense Node
Loki Core - Augmented Nuclear Reactor
Loki Offensive - Launcher Efficiency Configuration
Loki Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers


Hammerhead II x4


Standard Exile Booster
Agency 'Hardshell' TB5 Dose II

Dual Tanked Cloaky Auto Loki

[Loki, 2020 Dual Tank PvP]

Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer

10MN Afterburner II
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II
Dread Guristas Large Shield Booster
Republic Fleet Large Cap Battery

425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher
Small Energy Nosferatu II

Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell II
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell II
Medium Core Defense Operational Solidifier I

Loki Core - Augmented Nuclear Reactor
Loki Defensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Loki Offensive - Projectile Scoping Array
Loki Propulsion - Wake Limiter


Hobgoblin II x5


Standard Blue Pill Booster
Agency 'Hardshell' TB5 Dose II

Black Ops Lokis and PvE Lokis

To round out the article I obviously need to talk about the use of rep Lokis, hunting Lokis, and PvE Lokis. All of which are undoubtedly good uses of the ship and can conform to whichever tanking style is required.

The first of the two black ops Lokis below is the repping one. This performs in exactly the same way as the cloaky Tengu, but with a faster locking speed. Not much else to say other than that you should drop in and keep your buddies alive in a shield blops fleet. The armour version can be done easily, too, but I would sooner recommend a Legion for the nicer resist profile.

There’s also my Loki version of the nullified hunter Tengu that I’ve talked about before. It does all the same things and aims purely to get tackle on a carrier or blingy battleship as soon as possible. The rapid lights only exist to help remove Rattlesnake drones or shake off a pesky interceptor if you screw up somewhere. It’s designed to be cheap and disposable with only a 400m ISK price tag. If you’re like me and you don’t care about having to retrain SP after a T3C loss then doing something like this is a no-brainer. It’s better to throw yourself in and get the tackle even if it means you die. Being risk averse in a blingier fit hunter just upsets everyone in the blops fleet when they don’t get to fight.

To round things out, here’s my heavy missile, wait for it… dual tanked PvE Loki.
What?
I know it’s insane, I know it breaks typical fitting rules, but it works. I wanted to include this here since it shows something really important once again about sig tanking. It doesn’t matter too much how much you can actually tank if you fly well and shoot the right targets. In the case of running C3 sites, you can get away with about a 400 DPS tank for much of the Anomaly content with a sig tanking cruiser.

This fit achieves that if you use both reps and offers something important in return; it provides cap stability, good application, and three Ballistic Control Systems. It outputs around 650 DPS to 59km with an additional 50 DPS to help dispose of webbing frigates once they get on top of you. I’ve tested it, it works, and it’s fun. Oh and you can heat nearly forever thanks to separate racks so don’t be afraid to use it.

Really what a dual tanked Loki is showing you is that nearly anything can tank sites. Take the stats you can see here and follow my guide in the abyssal article about how you optimise any ship to do a task and match the values until you have the same thing. You can even do that with the same fit and make it work in pure shield or pure armour. Rinse and repeat with every other ship in the game and you’ll have a Pyfa collection like mine.

Pretty damn spicy, but this is a 400 DPS tank taking on over 1,000 DPS while webbed. Most sites aren’t like this

Shield Blops Reps

[Loki, 2020 Blops Shield Logi]

Damage Control II
Dark Blood Power Diagnostic System
Dark Blood Power Diagnostic System

Federation Navy 10MN Afterburner
Republic Fleet Large Shield Extender
Large 'Sheriff' Shield Extender
Large 'Sheriff' Shield Extender
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Republic Fleet Large Cap Battery

Pithum B-Type Medium Remote Shield Booster
Pithum B-Type Medium Remote Shield Booster
Pithum B-Type Medium Remote Shield Booster
Gistum A-Type Medium Remote Shield Booster
Gistum A-Type Medium Remote Shield Booster
Gistum A-Type Medium Remote Shield Booster
Shield Command Burst II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Loki Core - Dissolution Sequencer
Loki Defensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Loki Offensive - Support Processor
Loki Propulsion - Wake Limiter


Standard Mindflood Booster
Mindflood isn’t totally necessary, but it is recommended.

Nullified Hunter Loki

[Loki, Simple Blops Hunter]

Damage Control II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Compact Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Warp Scrambler II
50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive

Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Covert Cynosural Field Generator I
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II
Compact Interdiction Nullifier

Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints II

Loki Defensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Loki Offensive - Launcher Efficiency Configuration
Loki Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier
Loki Core - Immobility Drivers


Hornet EC-300 x8


Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-701

Standard Blue Pill Booster
Agency 'Hardshell' TB5 Dose II

C3 Dual Tank Loki

[Loki, 2020 Dual Tank PvE]

Damage Control II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Thukker Large Cap Battery
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Stasis Webifier II
10MN Afterburner II

Heavy Missile Launcher II
Heavy Missile Launcher II
Heavy Missile Launcher II
Heavy Missile Launcher II
Heavy Missile Launcher II
280mm Howitzer Artillery II
280mm Howitzer Artillery II

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Medium Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II

Loki Defensive - Adaptive Defense Node
Loki Core - Immobility Drivers
Loki Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers
Loki Offensive - Launcher Efficiency Configuration


Hobgoblin II x5


Agency 'Hardshell' TB5 Dose II






Published inEVE OnlineTheorycrafting

6 Comments

  1. Teo Lungu Teo Lungu

    I like the ham hunter Loki you posted, going to try that out.

  2. Might be time for an update Ashy, the PG nerf really took the legs out from most of these.

    • Hmm, I disagree. I wrote this article just after the powergrid nerf I think. Are you looking at the fits in Pyfa with all 5s or do you have low skills (AWU 5? Rigging skills?)

    • Appointed Appointed

      I still fit the Arty cloaky version of this fit with a 5% PG implant!

  3. Kimbo Kimbo

    I have been out of the game for almost 4 years, how up to date are these fittings? Thanks for all the content posted Ashy!

    • Sorry for the super slow reply!
      My fits here should work fine as there have been no changes to the Loki since. Any modules which seem strange can be fixed up by jump importing into Pyfa to get the new module names

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