Messing about

A while ago I was convo'd by Transported, one of the pilots I had faced earlier in the Punisher Plan. He had a couple of fits he wanted to test, and had thought of me. He did not particularly want to get blown up, and so we agreed we would fight a couple of duels "to the hull".

This suited me fine, because it did not violate my new "fights I can win" policy for the last five Punishers. It also gave me the opportunity to test my own new skills - at the time my dps was 66/78, up from 51/78.


400mm Plate Rifter

We fought this matchup a couple of times, and each time I found that I could not break his tank before he broke mine. I had no trouble tracking him and applying damage, but he got to choose the range (up close) and so he was doing full damage as well.

The fights took a long time, though. T1 armor has a base 50% EM resist, so my effective dps was around 33, but my T2 repper and 60% across the board resists meant that he had to work damn hard to drop me to hull. I chewed through about half his armor in the first fight, and two thirds of his armor in the second fight when I overheated my repair system instead of my guns.

As my dps and repair skills improve, I think my odds in this match also improve.


Barrage Rifter

This was (against me) easily the worst fit. He still won, but largely because I thought he was trying to kite me in the first part of the fight and kept rushing towards him, which put me in his optimal. When I figured out that he just wanted to orbit at 8km, I laughed and let him; he was still well inside my optimal, but doing falloff damage himself.

I began regaining ground pretty rapidly, but it was not enough to make up for the damage I had already taken. We agreed that the fit was pretty poor against T2 pulse lasers, and so we did not test it again.


Tracking Rifter

This fit tried to get up close and personal, which works just fine against a Punisher. I can't remember whether we tested this one once or twice, though.

In any event, he got into a tight orbit and tried to beat my tracking, which he was able to do, but only barely. He was still using 150mm autocannons, so his tracking skills and bonuses only put him slightly above my Gatling Pulse Laser. If my own tracking skills were higher than III, the fight would probably have been much tougher for him.

Of course, if he were to "downgrade" to 125mm autocannons, I probably wouldn't be able to touch him. His other matchups might suffer, though.


Closing thoughts

It was good to test out my new dps skills, although 84% dps is clearly insufficient. I'll keep pushing that number up, and I'll think about damage rigs if I can afford the extra power grid. Hull Upgrades V finished yesterday as well, so I have another 5% of my own tank, and I can look at improved resists, if I can fit the Energised Plating.

Interestingly, EANP goes from 20% resists to 25% resists if I max out my armor compensation skills, so getting those skills to at least IV becomes quite attractive - if I can fit the EANP.