In following guide (and "guide" is a big word - it won't be as detailed as similar guides) I will walk you through my idea of Gila viable for Alpha pilots.
The reason for this guide was lack of concrete information - we always say "Alphas can use Gila for T3", but I haven't seen any fit, guide or testing done to confirm that. It might be available somewhere, but instead of looking I decided to do this myself :) Fun!
[Gila, What are you doing?]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Dread Guristas Shield Boost Amplifier
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Republic Fleet Large Cap Battery
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Drone Link Augmentor I
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
Medium Thermal Shield Reinforcer II
Imperial Navy Infiltrator x8
Imperial Navy Infiltrator x2
Zainou 'Gypsy' CPU Management EE-603
Inherent Implants 'Squire' Capacitor Management EM-803
Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile x10000
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Fierce Electrical Filament x1
Fit is based on Povertila - most commonly used Gila for for Abyssal Deadspace. The fit claims that it can run up to T4s, but doesn't mention pilot skills - I assumed minimum SP spent (later section talks about it more), Alpha clone state and not perfect pilot skills. This forced me to modify the fit a bit.
Base:
My fit is based on Povertila - you can check it out here: https://abysstracker.com/fit/557cf65f-d8f8-4f46-8205-bebc85c85539
Performance of this fit for Alpha pilots, even with max skills, is not the best. Due to lack of engineering skills the fit is not cap stable - which forces me to run Electrical weather exclusively. That's not bad 'per se', but is a limiting factor that I needed to take into account. I tried to modify this fit as little as possible though, because it means that all guides/strategies will be still valid.
Modifications:
Due to fit working only in Electrical weather, and being Alpha-friendly by design, I made following changes:
Shield Boost Amplifier - changed T2 (which Alphas cannot use) to Faction - increases price a bit, but improves our Tank, which is very good
Rigs - since we're running Electricals, no need for CCC rigs. Instead we can get more tank
NOS - I do not like NOS personally. It's not always working, and counting on it is risky. Swapped it to Drone Link Augmentor, which helps with poor Alpha drone range due to lack of skills
Implants - two 3% Hardwirings: EE-603 is required (can be omitted if you have good skills), EM-803 helps a bit with capacitor. Not strictly required, but always handy
Meta Launchers - I wanted to limit SP required to fly the fit, and Missiles are not your main DPS - downgrading to Meta is feasible
All this changes make the fit work with skills I have planned, and do not make it 'that' much more expensive :)
Skills:
CPU Management V
Power Grid Management IV
Capacitor Management IV
Caldari Frigate III
Caldari Destroyer III
Caldari Cruiser IV
Shield Management IV
Shield Operation IV
Shield Compensation IV
Drones V
Medium Drone Operation IV
Drone Durability III
Drone Navigation III
Drone Sharpshooting III
Drone Interfacing III
Drone Avionics III
Gallente Frigate III
Gallente Destroyer III
Gallente Cruiser III
Shield Upgrades IV
Weapon Upgrades IV
Energy Grid Upgrades II
Missile Launcher Operation IV
Missile Projection II
Rapid Launch III
Target Navigation Prediction II
Warhead Upgrades II
Light Missiles IV
Guided Missile Precision II
Missile Bombardment III
Cybernetics II
Hull Upgrades IV
Tactical Shield Manipulation IV
Weapon Upgrades IV
Signature Analysis III
Navigation IV
Evasive Maneuvering III
Thermodynamics III
After 50 runs, with 1 power loss, 1 disconnect and 0 ships lost I think I can offer some pointers ;)
First of all - it's so close to Povertila that any Povertila guides are good. Check out how other people run it, but keep in mind that most runners will be Omega players with better skills that you.
General approach - send your drones, kill stuff :D That's easy to say, but that's really how Gila wants to run.
Tank:
Keep your hardener always running, and stagger your Reps - offset them by half-cycle. It's not strictly necessary, but is a good habit. If your tank will start to break, overheat Hardener - it can take a lot of heat. If it's still not ok - pulse-overheat your Boosters, but switch overheat off as soon as you remove that pesky thing that forced you to overheat.
Missiles:
Shoot your missiles! Use them to destroy the biocache, but also the enemies - for faster run times :) I usually stop shooting when there's only couple of enemies to kill, to start reloading early - I want to have something in launchers when starting new room.
Cap Management:
Even with more Neuts the fit behaves well, but keep in mind to switch off your Boosters when they are not needed - after thinning out the wave you can switch off one, before jumping to next room switch the second one - that way your cap will have some time to recharge.
Drone Aggro:
In especially hard rooms - 4 Leshaks, triple Marshals - you can launch your drones before you do anything else. That will force enemies to aggro your drones first, giving you some breathing room - your drones should survive long enough to remove the biggest threat from grid, which makes life easier. Worst case - you'll lose your drones, but drones are ammo, and losing 2-3-4 of them is much better than losing your ship.
You can also check my runs on YouTube - they might give you some ideas how to run these (and there are timestamps in description).
Amfion Bravais: CONCORD/EDENCOM room can definitely be scary the first few times! My strat for it is: take a moment to get your bearings, start burning in the opposite direction of the battleships (Marshalls/Thunderchildren) immediately. They only apply to ~65km. You can negate their threat pretty easily by sending your drones after them immediately while you pull range. They start damaged, so they falter quickly. While your drones do that work and you're outranging the battleships, you can use your missiles to crack away at the supporting frigates that reach you very quickly. Once you've cleared (enough of them to feel safe/all of) the battleships, you can burn in towards the cache/whatever remains, and use drones+missiles to mop up. EDENCOM/CONCORD room loses most of its teeth once the battleships are gone 🙂
In principle With proper upgrades it is feasible to reach stats good enough to run T4s. It's expensive, much harder, and I do intend to test it, so do it at your own risk :)
Resulting Toon/Fit will be extremely specialized (it will use up almost all 5M SP available), and even then - your stats will be 'just enough' for T4s. I consider this to be a bad idea. TT idea, even.
Fit:
First struggle for T4s is DPS. We need absolutely maximum that we can squeeze out of Alpha alt, which means:
We drop Damage Control, and instead we use Drone Damage Amplifier
All DDAs are replaced to Faction variant
Additionally, we swap Meta Launchers to T2 - we really need Fury Missile, in order to beat high EHP rooms fast enough
Since we got rid of Damage Control, Shield Boosters should be upgraded to Pithum B-type, to recover lost tanking abilities
Implants
We also need extra implants:
Mid-grade Crystal, Alpha to Delta (minimum) or Epsilon (preferred)
Slot 6 - CPU implant (???)
3% Hardwirings for missile weapons
Skills:
You guessed it - we need maximum that we can get. In order of priority:
T2 Launchers
Drone support skills
Launchers support skills
Everything else
Of course that's bait - because you need all of them to be ready for T4s :) In total it's 4.8M SP, so full Alpha SP limit.
[Gila, Where are you going??]
Dread Guristas Drone Damage Amplifier
Dread Guristas Drone Damage Amplifier
Dread Guristas Drone Damage Amplifier
Pithum B-Type Medium Shield Booster
Gist B-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Republic Fleet Large Cap Battery
10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Pithum B-Type Medium Shield Booster
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Light Missile
Drone Link Augmentor I
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Fury Light Missile
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
Imperial Navy Infiltrator x8
Imperial Navy Infiltrator x2
Mid-grade Crystal Alpha
Mid-grade Crystal Beta
Mid-grade Crystal Gamma
Mid-grade Crystal Delta
Zainou 'Gypsy' CPU Management EE-602
Inherent Implants 'Squire' Capacitor Management EM-803
Zainou 'Snapshot' Light Missiles LM-903
Zainou 'Deadeye' Rapid Launch RL-1003
Standard Blue Pill Booster
Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile x10000
Scourge Fury Light Missile x5000
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Raging Electrical Filament x1
Let's go!
Ternimus Tyranblade helped with theorycrafting of this fit -- thank you mate :)
If it fails - blame him :D