To “Black Ops” or Not
According to The Quarterly News Letter quarter 2 2010, the Black Ops Battleship has increased in popularity by 40 percent since the quarter 1 news letter, from 260 ships to 364 currently in use.
It would seem that our pilots are changing their minds about the merits of the covert ops ship, and coming to realise that it was never meant to be a sneaky pawn mobile, but rather a covert fleet tool, to be used for sneaking a fleet of covert ships into an unfriendly neighbours back yard.
I have been training the skills for a Widow, the Caldari black ops ship, for what seems an eternity. Many pilots consider the high skills not worth the benefits of these ships, but then the same pilots probably wouldn’t train for a Carrier. You might ask why am I training for the black ops, especially considering that I am something of a care bear.
Well the answer to that is because I want to be able to offer more of myself to the corp than just the industrial stuff.
I know that am pretty useless at PvP, but with this ship I could bridge the guys who are good at it into a system, cloak up until they have done their stuff, and then bridge them out again.
That, is what I believe the Black Ops are designed to do, and corporations like “Dirt Nap Squad” are putting it to good use.
Did anybody read the report of a 20 man fleet of Stealth Bombers, recon ships and a lone Widow that stalked and destroyed an Archon-class carrier? Heh, I did. 
My choice of black ops is the Widow, and not just because my character is Caldari, but because I think she is the best in her class. She has good missile bonus’s, and a 30 percent bonus to ECM jammer strength.
Missiles would be for “just incase”, ECM should be able to keep her safe until she can warp to safety.
Two cyno alts would be utilised at each end of the portal, one to bring us in and the other to take us home. Because of the incredibly high amount of isotopes required to jump ships through a black ops portal, a transport ship filled with said isotopes will come along to ensure that everybody can get back home.
All I need now is enough brave pilots, and an unsuspecting group of victims to test the plan.
To my mind Black ops ships are not fairly balanced for the price and function they perform. Yes they can be devasating under the right conditions, but any fleet can be if the wind is right!
I own a Sin myself but have never flown it due to never having chance, not having T2 gunnery skills (yet!) and I have only just gained a Black ops cyno pilot Alt.
I’m tempted to work on getting Caldari BS to level 5 as that would allow me to fly a Widow. Hell I may be a Gallente pilot but I do like missiles and a shield tank!