Zealot II

After some good feedback on my Seeking Anom Fits post, I've been playing with the Zealot.  I promised to post back, so here's what I'm currently flying as of this morning.

Previous edition of this fit had a named web in mid and a dmg control in low instead of the tracking mods.  It worked fine, and using the web is fun, but I like this version better.  The web was only useful under 10km while the tracking mods are useful throughout the entire range.  I haven't settled on ammo yet; I default to Multifreq but have tinkered with Conflag.  Multifreq seems to work well enough.

With this fit and my skills, I'm blapping most frigates in 1 (maybe 2) salvos from 10km to 20km and can hit frigates well enough out to about 25km.  I've had a couple of frigates get up close and orbit that caused me to maneuver, but mostly I sit at 0m/s and pop things as fast as I can lock them.

[Zealot, Face Melter II]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Fourier Transform Tracking Program
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II 

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Optical Tracking Computer I
Cap Recharger II 

Heavy Pulse Laser II
Heavy Pulse Laser II
Heavy Pulse Laser II
Heavy Pulse Laser II
Heavy Pulse Laser II 

Medium Energy Collision Accelerator I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

May try the Gila soon.

What's Playing:  Interstellar Motion Picture Soundtrack

Anomic Agent #29 - Second Serpentis Kill

***WARNING***
THIS BURNER MAY HAVE BEEN UPGRADED BY CCP IN THE PROTEUS PATCH. I VERIFIED THIS FIT IN APRIL 2015 AND IT WORKS WITH A LINK SHIP RUNNING.
***WARNING***

The single Serpentis Anomic popped again.  I hadn't seen him in awhile so was glad to see he was still around.

Last time around I did kind of a muddled fit out of the random bits in my hanger.  It worked, but I knew it wasn't optimal.

I spent a few minutes this morning scratching my chin, then visited a local trade hub and came up with this slight alteration:

[Hawk, Serpentis Burner Improved]

[Empty Low slot]
Ballistic Control System II 

Medium Shield Booster II
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
Gistum C-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier 

Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II 

Small Bay Loading Accelerator II
Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II 

Caldari Navy Scourge Rocket x3704
Navy Cap Booster 400 x21

The Gistum C-Type was bought to free up some cpu and also has better kinetic resist.  I normally don't like faction stuff, but this was a pretty cheap upgrade at ~7M Jita price (I paid less! Thank you remote trade hub!).

Honestly, I was hoping to get some wiggle room in cpu to get something in that empty low slot, but it didn't work out.  I also realized after I got back that a pair of Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitors would have fit instead of the Langours and would have given me more webbage.  The Langours worked fine, so I'm leaving them in the fit above.

Battle Report:  Strategy was the same as last time.  Warp in, apply web and launchers, set to approach and manage the cap and tank.

Once again I turned the Shield Booster II on at about 60% shields and let it cycle to rep back up to near 100%.  I injected cap as required.  At no point did I feel that the inject cycle was tight (unlike some of the other Burner fights).

This time I brought oodles of ammo (I almost didn't have enough last time).  I also didn't use overheat once I saw how the fight was going.

This setup is MUCH improved over the previous fit.  I'd now rate this fight in the "easy" category along with the Angel.  With the double webs, I dealt damage much more quickly.  I had him in structure before my launchers reloaded and then had to work him down again since he rep'd up armor while I was reloading.  

If I'd dared to overheat, I would have probably killed him before the reload cycle.

Usual disclaimers apply:  I used a link ship running all 3 Siege (shield) mods, plus the Interdiction Maneuvers skirmish link to get some web range.  His default orbit is 11km, so without links you'll need to address that if you want to use non-faction webs.

Mortar Team Kestrel

Awhile back I created a Mortar Team out of random bits in my hanger so that I could finish the Team Vengeance as a dual box setup.  But I like the Kestrel and I am interested in cheaper ways to defeat burners.  After some tinkering, and finishing up t2 light missile skills on the Alt, I assembled this.

I call it the Mortar Team because it's a support role.  This ship fit is intended for a 2nd box to support your main, or several of these to be deployed by a few friends.

Although I haven't tried it, I don't see any way it'd finish off any of the Team Burners solo.

Straight line speed is just under 1000m/s.  That's plenty fast enough to kite the Enyo, Vengeance, and Hawk.  However, the Jaguar runs about 1200m/s and is not kite-able with this setup; he will chase you down and melt your face.

[Kestrel, Jr. Mortar Team]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II 

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Empty Mid-Slot 

Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II 

Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I
Small Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Small Warhead Flare Catalyst I

Tech1 rigs are intentional; jazz these up if you so desire. I was trying to do this on the cheap.

Pick ammo according to the mission:

• For the Vengeance, that's Navy Nova for the Logis, followed by Navy Inferno.
• For the Hawk, that's Navy Mjolnir throughout.
• For the Enyo (although I've not done him yet), it looks like Navy Nova throughout.

I used this last night on a Team Vengeance with the Garmur and we just ate him up.  I'm curious now if I could defeat the Team Vengeance with two of these and keep the Garmur as backup.  More to follow.

Bloodsport II -- Another Blood Raider Kill

*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***
*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***

Just 2 missions after the last Blood Raider / Cruor anomic agent, I had him again.  After the fairly scary Wolf mission, I decided to go try my hand at the Jaguar.  

Quick post just to report the fit and how I approached him during battle.

Team Burner #5 - Hawk Down

The Hawk Team has been vanquished.

The RNG gods are smiling upon me this weekend, as I've not only been pulling a lot of Burners in rapid succession, I'm also getting some of the flavors I hadn't seen yet.  I now only need 1 other Team and still need to conquer the Solo Blood Raider/Cruor and I will have done them all.

Anomic Agent #13 - First Serpentis Kill

***WARNING***
 - 15 JANUARY - 
THIS BURNER HAS BEEN UPGRADED BY CCP IN THE PROTEUS PATCH. THIS FIT IS NOW CONSIDERED UNVERIFIED.
***WARNING***


Ding dong, the Serpentis Witch is Dead.

Finally, something I can use with my Hawk!

I initially tried the fit that I'd used for the Worm Experiments, swapping only Light Missiles for Rocket Launchers and upgrading the shield hardener to t2.  Tank was solid with an off grid booster, but I couldn't deal dps effectively to a small/fast target and decided to meander off grid for a different setup.  After 10 minutes, I'd traveled only a little ways and decided just to logoffski and wait out the aggro timer.  Upon logging back in, I found my ship to be at 37% structure.

Team Anomic Agent #4 - Vengeance

*** FITS VERIFIED PROTEUS JANUARY 2015 ***

The Vengeance Team burner popped this morning, so I have another entry to make in my Anomic Agent Info Page.

I started with the usual research and found that my Garmur fit used for the Jaguar was still viable with an ammo swap.  Today we'd be using Navy Nova to knock down the Logi ships, then Inferno to pop the Vengeance.  I've done the Jag a total of 3 times now and really haven't had any issues once I got the Garmur.  Seemed straightforward, right?

Search and Rescue Operations

So, let's say you got offered the Sansha Anomic Agent (single).

You've done him before, so no worries.  You dust off your Retribution, and dive in.

Things go well - you have him down in armor and your tank is holding.  And then... the unthinkable.  You, the "veteran" EVE player, manage to burn out your rack of guns, right when you were so near to glory.

Death is now a foregone conclusion.  He reps up and grinds you down before you can slowboat off grid.

It happens.  Time to shrug and get another ship.

But let's say there's ~100M isk worth of faction webs and t2 guns/misc in your wreck.  Gosh, it would be nice if you could get to them.

This fit let me recover gracefully from disaster this morning.

 [Vengeance, Sansha Burner Wreck Recovery]
Small Armor Repairer II
Armor EM Hardener II
Small Armor Repairer II
Armor Thermic Hardener II 

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II 

Empty High Slot x5 

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Bay Loading Accelerator I

It could be tankier, but I didn't feel like getting different rigs.  It is cap stable with my skills.  With an off grid booster running, I rarely went below 90% armor (a chain of smashing' hits, I think), but with the armor reps running out of phase (Start the 2nd SARII about halfway through the first's cycle), I was normally bouncing between 95% and 100% armor.

No prop mod means a slowboat off grid under web, but faction webs are faction webs.  Use the time to think about why you don't have Thermodynamics to rank 5 yet.

I guess I should have fit a salvager, too.

Happy Sunday.


What's Playing:  Led Zeppelin, How the West Was Won (Live), Black Dog

Anomic Team #1

*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***
*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***

Another Anomic mission, this time it's the new team variety!  For those keeping score at home, it was offered after 8 successful and 2 declined vanilla lvl4s.

Here's the mission text, with my emphasis added in bold:

Anomic Team
I have a special optional mission for you, we won’t penalize you if you decline it.
A crack commando team, former members of the Republic Fleet, have struck out on their own. We don't know why, but we want you to hunt them down.  

They have all scans open, so we can't go there in force. We've acquired their coordinates and need someone to sneak in and take them out. It's you against them.  

Only frigate sized ships can gain entry to the hideout, so don’t try to bring anything bigger. 

The leader of this gang flies a Jaguar-class Assault Frigate. She fits her ship with Autocannons loaded with Republic Fleet Fusion ammo, and never leaves home without a Stasis Webifier and Warp Scrambler. She is backed up by two allies in Burst-class Support Frigates, which can use Remote Shield Transporters to keep themselves and their leader alive. I advise you to do everything in your power to eliminate the Bursts early in the fight.  

A word of warning: these soldiers of fortune are extremely dangerous and have proven very capable of destroying capsuleer ships. If you choose to decline this mission or if you fail to complete it, you will not lose any standings.

Payout:  5M bounties, 2.17M isk base completion, 2.32M isk time bonus, just over 10k LP.

Read on for the fit and the battle report....

Anomic Agent #5 - Tie Broken

*** FITS VERIFIED PROTEUS JANUARY 2015 ***

Another Anomic Agent mission complete.  Mr. Gurista died on first attempt this time, making the overall score 3 success and 2 punts.

The Daredevil survived his first trial, so now I'll name it.  Lately it's been bad luck to name a ship before its first combat.

Worming Around The Gurista Burner

I'm waiting for my EVE client to update (today is Oceanus! Yay for Patch Day!), so I have a little time to type.

After the debacle with the Cruor / Blood Burner, I quickly got back to lvl4s (earning the Nestor, see previous post) and also drawing another Burner in short order (another 5 missions and 1 decline, my average is coming down).

This one was the Guristas Worm.

I was pretty gun shy.  I'd just blown a good amount of isk (at least to me) on the previous Blood Raider Chucklehead, and watching Gurista strats on youtube yielded another click-heavy fight with ample opportunity for me to miss a cap boost cycle.

My play time was limited with real life issues and great weather here over the weekend.  So I decided to fiddle a bit.  To Worm around.

Burners 0.5, Pukin Dogs 2

*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***
*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***
-----

Well, I have to give the Burners a 1/2 point on this one.

I misread the mission text (noob mistake of the week) and thought I had the Sansha burner again.  Turns out, it was Mr. Angel.  I did a perfect deployment only to be asking why he was orbiting so close and why I wasn't doing any damage.

After a bit of panic (understatement), I managed to sort out what was going on.  My tank was holding, so I navigated away from the spawn point then began playing with modules and didn't just let him burn me down.

Turns out my Retribution can perma-tank him if I turn off all other modules.  I took the cheesey way out and logoffski'd and waited out the 5 minute aggro timer.  Upon my return, I was warped to the acceleration gate.  (For those of you saying "omg cheater" I could have simply slowboated under web to the aggro range, forced him to reset and gotten out, but would have taken ages to do so...).

Anyway, a little bit later, I figured out that a Vengeance was what I needed.  I had one tucked away for a rainy day only 2 jumps from my mission hub.  A quick refit had me set up this way:

[Vengeance, Angel Burner]
Explosive Plating II
Ballistic Control System II
Small Armor Repairer II
Ballistic Control System II 

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I 

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket
[empty high slot]
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket 

Small Warhead Rigor Catalyst II
Small Warhead Rigor Catalyst II

Fitting credit goes to Archtype 66 in this thread.

The fight:

Upon warp-in, the target was 87km away from gate due to the previous pursuit.  He aggro'd immediately and we rushed at each other and the fight was on (I much preferred this starting style vs getting dropped in his lap).  Set orbit at 5k (he orbits much closer, but I wanted to move at least a little), activate all high and mid, watch my stats to decide if/when to overheat and kick the SARII when shields drop.

With an off grid booster (omg more cheater, I know), this was an ezkill setup.  I ended up overheating my SARII right at the end when I hit 50% armor.

I was mildly afraid that I'd go into a reload cycle and let him recharge his shields, but managed to end the fight with 6 rounds left.

Not my proudest kill, but it goes in the win column.

PS:  The loot sucked.

What's playing:  Matt & Kim, Let's Go

Burners 0, Pukin' Dogs 1

*** FIT VERIFIED SCYLLA 13 APRIL 2015 ***

Was a close fight, but on this day, the Sansha Burner floated home in a pod.

It was a close fight.  I misclicked and didn't get the Highslots into full overheat, meaning most of the fight I wasn't dealing maxdps.  I realized this just as my first web expired from overheat.  Mr. Burns (someone's been watching too much of the Simpsons marathon on FXX) died just as the 2nd web went down.

I was making faces and squirming a little. Very close.

So, lesson learned - overheat matters.  Not sucking matters too.

This is the fit I emulated (also watch the vid):

[Retribution] perfect skills, no implants, no boosters
Small Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Centii A-Type Thermic Plating (very cheap)
Centii A-Type EM Plating (very cheap)
Imperial Navy Heat Sink 

Caldari Navy Stasis Webifier (any web with 15km+ range)
Caldari Navy Stasis Webifier (any web with 15km+ range) 

Small Focused Pulse Laser II, Scorch S
Small Focused Pulse Laser II, Scorch S
Small Focused Pulse Laser II, Scorch S
Small Focused Pulse Laser II, Scorch S 

Small Anti-Thermic Pump II
Small Capacitor Control Circuit II

My fit isn't quite this shiny.  I found that I had some headroom in cpu and opted for a cheaper tech2 heatsink.  I also reminded myself that I need skills for a tech2 CCC rig, oops (used t1).  The CN Stasis Webs seem about mandatory, due to the orbit range of Mr. Sansha.  This is more shiny than I'd like to fly on a ship this thin; will adjust with time.

And yes, I cheated. I had a booster off grid providing me some boosty mcboosterson.  I know!  I figure I'll run the training wheels until I get used to small ships again.

The Meatwagon

Here's another good ol' days post.  No particular inspiration, just felt like sharing.

In the early days of our corp (mid-2003), we hung out a few jumps into Lonetrek.  In those days the corp was still pretty centrally located (later on we would be scattered all over high, low, and null).  Once a month or so, we'd have a fun/silly event.

The favorite of these was Ibis Fight Night.  It was probably better termed rookieship fights, but most of us were Caldari and the name stuck.  We'd pick a random moon, and Mrs. Durden would jettison two cans for markers about 40km apart.  We'd split roughly in half and then fight 1v1 in rookieships.  Eventually order would break down and there'd be a big brawl.  Or somebody would race back to station and return in a Blackbird (back when you could fit torps on a BB) and hammer away at 3 or 4 of us at a time.

At the start of each session though, it was serious business, with folks fussing over their fits and trying to get intel on what other guys were bringing this month.  This was in the days before tech2, so we were scrounging through hangers looking for named loot.

The best part of the fight was the start - we'd lunge at each other like jousters on horseback, racing for optimal and wondering if the other guy had fit blasters or rails.  The km would tick down and then the fur would fly.

My favorite Ibis was called Meatwagon, and it went undefeated.  I eventually retired it, the undisputed champ.  Guys got tired losing to it, so I brought more "fair" fits and died a lot more.  The guys asked, but I never gave up the secret sauce in that fit -- a little named autocannon shooting EMP ammo.

Just now I flew across the cluster to grab a screenie of the fit, hoping we'd all get a good chuckle at how horrible it was.  However, I found that while I still have the ship, apparently I gutted the fit at some point. Apparently I needed the autocannon for ... who knows what?  (I did find a Crow with cruise missiles still fitted, and a Blackbird with 3x10mn burners on but that's a story for another time...).

Fun Fit #2 - Lvl2/3 Heretic

Along the lines of "how small of a ship could I do a lvl3 in" ... here's this.

The obvious way to play this might be in an Assault Frig.  Honestly, I've struggled with them over the years.  And I'd trained Interdictors awhile back but never got to use one in anger.

I came up with this fit out of what I had sitting in the hanger, and I am not a fitting guru.  It could probably be min/max'd a little bit more, but it works as is it sits.  So with a little bit of fiddling, here's this:

-----
[Heretic, Silly Lvl3 Boat]
Ballistic Control System II
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Small Armor Repairer II

Experimental 1mn Afterburner I
Cap Recharger II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron

7x Light Missile Launcher II
[empty high slot]

Small Bay Loading Accelerator I
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I
-----

I don't claim to be able to do any lvl3 in this ship.  I don't claim it to be the most fastest isk or lp/hr.  That's not the point.  But it is pretty fun, and the Heretic is a pretty good looking little hull.

So if you're bored ... go play.  It's your sandbox, have fun.