The fit:
In keeping with my decision to try a wide array of fits, I decided to go with something really off the wall.
3 150mm autocannon (Fusion)
Small Nosferatu
1 MN Afterburner 1
Warp Scrambler 1
Small Armor Repairer 1
3 Capacitor Power Relay
With the three relays, I was cap stable running everything, including the repper. With no plates I would be fairly fast, and I would hope to rep any incoming damage.
While I was not wildly optimistic, it certainly was different.
The hunt:
I wandered around flipping cans, but nobody seemed interested in fighting. Finally, I encountered a Firetail sitting next to a can in Pasha.
I began to orbit the can and familiarise myself with the Firetail. While doing so, I was locked by Cruor. Checking my overview, I saw that the Firetail had been joined by his corp-mate.
I have to say that it was jolly decent of him to lock me. As it was clear that I would be initiating a fight, he could have hung back and jumped me once the fight began. Instead, he let me know ahead of time that this would be a 1v2. I'm surprised that either of them felt that the other would be needed, but it was still pretty cool of them to warn me.
With an invite like that, I could hardly say no, so I flipped the can and engaged the Firetail.
What can I say? Either his tank was uber, or my damage was fail (or both). Barely scratching his shields, I switched targets to the Cruor, but had no better luck. They were well within my falloff, and I had no problem tracking them, but it was not enough.
My repper could not keep up with the pounding the two ships were giving me, and I went boom sooner rather than later. I warped out, defeated.
Post battle review:
Looking back on the battle now, I see some things I did not at the time. Things that apply to all my fights so far, but that I did not really understand until after Punisher 5, so I will save most of those observations for my next post.
What I did know was that I was still not very happy with projectiles, and that a repper alone was not enough. I am pretty sure that I don't want to go with a straight buffer fit (for weight reasons, if nothing else), but the repper is not something I should rely on being able to use. It's simply a nice bonus when it works.
Lessons for the future:
I don't like heavy plate, but I also don't like pure repping fits. I do, however, like resistances, although I appreciate that they suffer stacking penalties and diminishing returns. While I need to give 400mm fits another go, I suspect that a combination of resistance, small plate and repper are going to be the way forward for me.
I'm going to give projectiles another shot (pardon the pun), but I'm just not impressed by them so far. I don't have the speed to make the additional tracking ability necessary, and my opponents are generally able to set the range, which often means high falloffs for me.
Damage control is a pretty standard module on almost all ships, especially frigates where the resists are often needed. They also benefit from not causing stacking penalties with other modules and can make the difference between getting the last cycle or two of reps in to try to kill the other person.
ReplyDeleteA 2v1 with faction/pirate frigates isn't going to end well for a new player but it's a learning experience.
When dictating range it's often important to have the speed needed to do so, most of the time this just means webbing the other person and that gives you a reasonable advantage (except Dramiels who need double or triple webs to keep in place), the Amarr lack of mid slots is often a hampering factor on this though and you have to rely more on your AB than you would otherwise.
I'm looking forward to what you try next with the punisher, it's inspiring me to grab a few and try out some fits as I recently finished Amarr Frig 5.
I must admit that I really like Damage Controls, and I pretty much auto include them in my fits. In this case, however, in order to make the fit "work" (ie, cap stable) I needed to fit three Cap Relays.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are getting something out of this blog, though. I thought that at best everyone would get a laugh at all the different ways I seem to find of getting blown up.
Interesting fits like the one you tried are where we learn new ways of flying ships apart from how battleclinic would suggest, and I'm really glad you're trying unconventional fits.
ReplyDeleteI've come to find that cap stability for battle situations is typically less than 3 minutes worth of cap. If you can manage to be cap stable for 3 minutes, maybe you can sneak in that damage control.
There's a dual-repper rifter fit that runs off of cap injection. It's definitely unconventional, but as long as it has the cap charges it can out-tank a conventional fit and still stay more maneuverable.
It is really neat to see you going to PVP. I too started out Eve with starry-eyed visions of blowing up other people's ships and stealing their loot. You've encouraged me to start working towards heading to lowsec. Good luck finding a fit that works for you. Happy flying!
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest being careful when browsing fits on Battleclinic. There are a lot of terrible fits on there.
ReplyDeleteA better place for getting good or interesting fits is www.scrapheap-challenge.com, there is also a lot of discussion about the fits and you can see a nice variety on some of them.