Noobie-tip of the day: The 100MN AB

There's a ton of little knowledge nuggets that are very known to anyone that have lived in w-space for even the shortest amount of time, but might not be used by pilots new to the great unknown. Small things, that if utilized, can make a huge impact on the effectiveness of your operations. Or simply increase the quality of living in a w-system.

Back when I lived in a C2/HS/C4 we did a lot of WH rolling, and it often was holes that we did not know just how much mass that had been through. Which meant that we often had to take it a bit easy when getting close to critical. Often was the times when we did not want to put another battleship through. This is when you need a closing cruiser! A cruisers mass is around a tenth of a battleship, that's a lot of jumps to close that last, say 80kt on a WH. However, a running 100MN afterburner always adds 50kt, no matter the size of the ship. This means a 100MN AB fitted cruiser becomes a ship that can weigh 10kt one way (if you jump through critical wormholes you obviously want to be as light as possible), but reduce an impressive 60kt if jumping "heavy", that is, with the AB running. Pretty useful, eh?

Now, 10kt might still close the WH (I've seen holes collapse from a pod). Would it not be nice if we somehow could decrease the mass on that cruiser like we increase it with the use of an over sized afterburner? Turns out that there's actually a way you can do this, and it's very effective. It comes with a small 'but' tho, the cruiser needs to be a HIC, a Heavy Interdiction Cruiser.

Why? Because the magic is in the effect a Warp Disruption Field Generator have on the mass of the ship that have fitted it. And you can only fit that module to HICs. This thing reduces mass by a whooping 80%. And you can fit more then one! Which means that with two bubbles up your mass is getting close to that of a pod. That is, your cruiser is lighter than a shuttle.

The result is a ship that can jump through a critical wormhole one way, hardly reducing it by anything, but with its afterburner running it weigh in at more than half of a battleship (about 60kt). That's the perfect closer for wormholes that reached critical mass.