Tech 2 Battlecruisers. Provides leadership bonuses to the entire fleet with warfare links. Can tank far more than their T1 counterparts.

Every race has two different flavors, a Field Command Ship, and a Fleet Command Ship.

Command ships were rebalanced in to Odyssey 1.1 patch.

Command ships can fit up to three warfare links before needing Command Processors to add additional links.

All 8 command ships can fit a strong tank, and they are all well suited to fleet boosting. The fleet command ships can generally fit a stronger passive tank and so are well suited to surviving alphas or concentrated fire in large fleets, though the field command ships come close, so while you would generally fly a fleet command ship in large fleets, a field command ship can work well in that role as well (assuming passive tanked) if that's what you have available.

* The Damnation and Absolution will generally be armor tanked * Both get a bonus to armor resistances (20%) * Both get a bonus to rate of fire and damage of their respective weapon systems * Damnation gets a bonus to armor hitpoints (10% per level of Command Ships skill) * Absolution has more powergrid (+200) than the Damnation while the Damnation has more cpu (+100) * Damnation has more starting shield (+700) while Absolution has more starting armor (+130) and structure (+200) * Absolution has 1 extra midslot while Damnation has one extra lowslot * Damnation has more sensor strength (+1) than the Absolution * Damnation uses missiles while Absolution uses lasers * Damnation has a larger drone bay (+75) and drone bandwidth (+25) than the Absolution * Damnation and Absolution have the same base speed and align time, with Absolution having slightly less mass (200k) and Damnation having slightly less intertia (.01) * Overheating: Damnation has an slight advantage overheating lowslots while Abolution has an advantage overheating midslots

For large fleets you will probably see the Damnation in a fleet boosting role as it can achieve a stronger passive/buffer tank (more resistant to alpha) than the Absolution.

* The Vulture and Nighthawk will generally be shield tanked * Both get a bonus to shield resistances (20%) * Vulture has more powergrid (+275) than the Nighthawk while the Nighthawk has more cpu (+15) * Nighthawk has more starting shield (+200) while Vulture has more starting armor (+200) and structure (+200) * Vulture has larger capacitor (+187) while the Nighthawk has a faster cap recharge rate (-41.6s) * Vulture has 1 extra midslot while Nighthawk has one extra lowslot * Nighthawk has more sensor strength (+1) than the Vulture * Nighthawk uses missiles while Vulture uses hybrids * Damnation and Vulture have equal drone bay and drone bandwidth * Damnation and Absolution have the same base speed while Vulture has a faster align time (-.03s), with Vulture having slightly more mass (810k) and Vulture having slightly less intertia (.02) * Overheating: Vulture has an advantage overheating lowslots while Nighthawk has an advantage overheating midslots

For large fleets you will probably see the Vulture in a fleet boosting role as it can achieve a stronger passive/buffer tank (more resistant to alpha) than the Nighthawk.

* * The Astarte and Eos will generally be armor tanked * Both get a bonus to armor repairer effectiveness (37.5%) * Astarte has more powergrid (+150) than the Eos while the Eos has more cpu (+15) * Astarte has more starting shield (+100) and structure (+100) while Eos has more starting armor (+200) * Astarte has larger capacitor (+187) while the Eos has a faster cap recharge rate (-41.6s) * Unlike other races command ships, both Eos and Astarte have the same number of mid and low slots * Astarte has more sensor strength (+1) than the Eos * Both Eos and Astarte use hybrids, though Eos is primarily a drone boat with bonus to heavy drones * Eos has a larger drone bay (+175) and more drone bandwidth (+75) than the Astarte * Astarte has a faster base speed than the Eos (+10) and Eos has a faster align time (-.08s), with Eos having slightly more mass (700k) and more inertia (.004)

* The Sleipnir and Claymore will generally be shield tanked * Both get a bonus to shield boosting * Sleipnir has more powergrid (+200) than the Claymore while the Claymore has more cpu (+50) * Claymore has more starting shield (+200) and armor (+200) while Sleipnir has more starting structure (300) * Claymore has 1 extra midslot while Sleipnir has one extra lowslot * Claymore has more sensor strength (+2) than the Sleipnir * Claymore uses missiles while Sleipnir uses projectiles * Claymore has a larger drone bay (+50) and drone bandwidth (+25) than the Sleipnir * Claymore is slightly faster than Sleipnir by default (+5), and Claymore has less mass (-300,000) and inertia (-0.04) so Claymore has base align of 12.1s while Sleipnir has base align time of 12.5s * Overheating: Sleipnir has an advantage overheating midslots while Claymore has an advantage overheating lowslots * Shield extenders use more cpu than grid while shield boosters use more grid than cpu, so the Claymore is set up to be more easily buffer tanked while the Sleipnir can more easily be active tanked (which is helped by longer midslot overheating).

Both can fit strong tanks; the Claymore with a passive/buffer tank works well in large fleets with logi, while Sleipnir can work well in smaller gangs. Nothing in eve is absolute, these are just generalizations based on the stats of the ships.

For large fleets you will probably see the Claymore in a fleet boosting role as it can achieve a stronger passive/buffer tank (more resistant to alpha).