This article will focus on analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, and the best suited role for the Caldari Heron frigate in Eve Online. The Heron is the Caldari’s scout and electronic warfare frigate. Over the course of this guide, I will try to cover what makes the Heron useful, its attributes, and some possible load outs for Eve Online.
Like the other Caldari frigates, the Heron has low prerequisites, only requiring Caldari Frigate level 2, and Spaceship Command level 1, however Eve recommends potential pilots possess the following certifications; Core Competency, Active Shield Tanking, Frigate Launcher Control and Cartographer.
The Heron is described in the game as “The Heron has good computer and electronic systems, giving it the option of participating in electronic warfare. But it has relatively poor defenses and limited weaponry, so it’s more commonly used for scouting and exploration.” This statement holds true when one inspects the 3 separate bonuses of the ship. For each level of Caldari Frigate Skill, the Heron benefits from 5% bonus to kinetic missile damage, 5% bonus to the scan strength of probes and 5% bonus to survey probe flight time. These bonuses give the Heron a significant advantage suitable for explorers, and giving a bonus to help the ship defend itself with kinetic missiles. The ideal application of this ship is simply to scan down exploration sites.
Fitting wise the Heron can hold 1 low power module, 3 medium and 2 high with 2 launcher and 1 turret hardpoints. Electronics wise, this ship possesses a 250 CPU and 20 powergrid output to power al the fitted modules. The Heron also benefits from a large cargo capacity for frigates of 320 m3 with a drone bay capable of fielding a single scout drone for added firepower or electronic warfare defense. Max velocity stands at a nice 320 meters a second and a combined base hp of 758.
Loadout 1: Lowsec Prober Heron
This loadout designed by Eledran is meant to for scanning systems in low security. The equipped cloaking field allows the player to stay hidden in a system while probing, and the nanofiber internal structure allows the ship to have a quicker warp align, meant for evading gate camps by quickly jumping away before the jump in cloaking field drops. With the micro warp drive, this ship has the capacity to quickly speed away from danger, given it can avoid a warp scramble, allowing it to quickly leave an interdiction sphere. Some benefits of this fitting include reasonably low cost with equally reasonable skill requirements.
Loadout 2: Tearex aka Ninja Heron
This loadout by DeusVernula provides a base set of modules one would want to use for a cheap ninja tool. The art of the ‘Ninja’ in Eve Online is to steal resources from other players floating cans or wrecks. The Gravity capacitor rigs are meant to increase the effectiveness of the probes to allow a quick scan to find worthy targets, with an afterburner to get the job done quick, and a salvager to take the valuable rigging materials. It has been suggested to add a capacitor recharger to this fitting, to give a better capacitor flow to maintain running multiple modules at once.
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