Billy's destroyer adventures

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Hello !

It’s been a while since I haven’t been on the forums, and about the same time since I haven’t seriously took out any of my ships. Currently, I’m waiting for my approval in a new corporation, so to kill the time and make some ISK/LP/PVP, I decided to fly alongside the Caldari militia for a bit.

It’s been great ! I’ve only battled alone, and I feel like the Militia and Corporation chats are mostly empty, except for some faction warfare corps ads, although I haven’t looked at them extensively. I’ve already made a good amount of LP for the Caldari Navy’s store, so I guess I could turn it into faction ships and try my fun out there.

However, for now I’d need the help of the more experienced to get some advice regarding my fit. Basically : this Dragoon fit is around the idea of being on the defensive side, which mean when the guns start shooting, I’m already waiting for someone inside a plex at optimal range. Also, I actually want to try out with some capacitor warfare, which is why I chose Dragoon, as its range bonus is great for small neuts, especially against scram kiters that would normally sit outside of a T2 small neut range.

And yes… It’s hull tanked. I’ll show you the fit now =)

[Dragoon, FW]
Photonic Upgraded Co-Processor
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II

1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Warp Scrambler II
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I

Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II

Small Transverse Bulkhead I
Small Transverse Bulkhead I
Small Transverse Bulkhead I

Hobgoblin II x5
Warrior II x5
Acolyte II x5

Navy Cap Booster 400 x10

So far, I’ve been having fun flying it around, although I lost two in the same day, only to get two kills off the same Slasher pilot (https://zkillboard.com/character/2114485693/). Concerning this fit, I feel like even with five T2 neuts, I can’t kill the capacitor of my enemy before I either run out, or he cap me out (like that Algos).

Concerning why I chose hull tanking : it’s the first time I do it, and it does seems fun. Also… I’ve noticed by flying smaller ships that I have some troubles managing my armor repairer cycles, and I generally get destroyed before I can use the most of my eHP contained in a SAAR… So I decided to go buffer, and chose hull for the surprise (although I don’t know if it’s really needed as a defender).

So, do you guys have any recommendations on this fit ? I hope I haven’t given too flimsy informations for you to build your answers… If you need to know anything else, please do ask, I’ll do my best to answer you, so you can answer me back :slight_smile: !

Also, on a last note, maybe an Algos would be better ? And instead of using any turrets, I could use a full rack of energy neutralizers (that would be six instead of five) AND get a bigger hull tank since Gallente ships have nice hull hitpoints.

Thank you in advance !

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So 5 neuts is a lot of neuts. First cycle you drain 225 GJ, second cycle you drain another 225 GJ or whatever is left of the poor frig’s puny capacitor and on the third cycle you lose scram because you capped yourself out. There is no fourth cycle- you smash the booster while the frig warps off.

Or maybe with more conservative piloting, you cycle three neuts overheated twice to cripple the guy, then keep cycling one or two to keep him firmly below space poverty threshold. Great job- but now you’ve got three neuts looking at you like “now what?”. You could cycle them occasionally to flex on your opponent your superior access to energy sources but you’ll quickly find that there’s not much practical use.

Most people will run two neuts with autocannons or rockets, Dragoon can always use a little bit of extra damage. Even three neuts is pretty extreme, two is already enough pressure for small ships. On top of that, booster fits like that Algos can mitigate the influence or even turn it around if you are not paying good attention. Ships can cap up a little during intervals, or use a nosferatu to keep some modules running. Run the neuts simultaneously to alpha capacitor, then consecutively to keep it dry.

Dragoon is a better brick with an armor tank, sure it takes you from 1 tortoise speed to 0.6 tortoise speed but who cares right, also you are one of the ships that actually care about cargo space for them Cap 400s and bulkheads are no good for that.

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Fly unsafe and have fun, Billy!

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Thank you Wyk ! :slight_smile:
I still have some work to do to reach an acceptable Dragoon or Algos level, but it’s coming together !

Understood, I’ll stay to three neuts. Also, another source told me that T2 neuts weren’t really needed, so I downgraded to the meta variant with lesser fitting needs, and managed to fit a 400mm plate !

Thank you for your recommendations, I tweaked my fit a bit and got that as a result :

[Dragoon, FW]
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
AE-K Compact Drone Damage Amplifier
AE-K Compact Drone Damage Amplifier

1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Initiated Compact Warp Scrambler
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I

Small Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
Small Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
Small Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
200mm Light ‘Scout’ Autocannon I
200mm Light ‘Scout’ Autocannon I

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I

Warrior II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Acolyte II x5

Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S x1000
Navy Cap Booster 400 x21

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@Billy_Sanchezo (hello again!)
The second Dragoon fit you posted looks a lot sounder.
The purpose of Neuting an opponent isn’t really to single shot his capacitor, but it’s to put a significant additional load on his capacitor reducing his options as the battle progresses. Single shotting can be done, but like a volley fitted ganking ship it’s at the cost of over-specialisation.

In a fight both of you have options: shoot/close/run/repair/die. The aim is to remove the other person’s options to a point where they are only left with “die”. A lot of those actions require capacitor. A neut, or two, will progressively take those options away (stop him using a prop-mod to close on you) or open options up for you (reduce his capacitor to the point where he can no longer maintain tackle giving you the “run” option).

So, a single small neut puts as much pressure on a frigate’s capacitor as if he has left his MWD or repairer running. Two neuts will put him under a lot of stress - especially if he doesn’t have a lot of capacitor boosting.
The downside is you are trading your capacitor to do this. Since the capacitor charges slowly from almost empty once he has things shutting down through capacitor drought you can ease off a bit - one neut may we’ll keep him down.
You need to watch what he is doing. A rep-cycle, burst of weapon fire, speed - he’s starting to recover and you may need to slap another neut on him again. You are trying to balance his capacitor and yours at the same time. This is why the Dragoon is good: your drones will apply the damage to him while you worry about the capacitor warfare stuff.

Pick your targets. Missiles, drones and projectile turret based ships don’t need capacitor to hurt you. Passive tanks may be able to soak enough damage to ride you out. What you want is a nice actively tanked hybrid or energy turret based ship as a target. And learning what is what; to know when not to take the fight, is important. Remember if you are already in a 'plex then someone warping in to attack you already believes they can kill you (otherwise they wouldn’t attack you).

On the upside, a Dragoon is a very effective and often underestimated or unfamiliar opponent. I know people who fit them purely as DPS bricks and have great success with them.

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If you post any videos be sure to link them.

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Little update on this subject, I had to do it !! :slight_smile:

So, I was back in my regular FW system, and doing it with the Dragoon fit I posted earlier, and actually managed to kill my very first Retribution !

Cycling my neuts helped me out a lot ! I did as you guys advised me to : starting the fight with all three neuts overheated and cycling as one, and I then turned off two out of three after the second cycle. The last one cycled unheated and alone, and when the Retribution was about half or 3/4 of his armor, his point dropped!

It’s my first time alone against a ship with T2 resists, so after quickly checking a Retribution on the fitting screen without any module fitted. I saw that EM was the lowest, which seemed strange for an armor ship, so I just used Acolyte II and it worked pretty damn well ^^"

I tried to record like you said, but with the adrenaline I forgot to start the recording before the fight…
I still have it, but the Retribution is already in hull. If you want to see it, the link is below ! :slight_smile:

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Good kill. They’re tough tanky little so-and-soes with big bonuses to firepower. He’d have viewed you as relatively easy prey: he’s thinking I’m better armed with a bigger tank, and he’s only a Dragoon.

That’s exactly how you use neuts. Pressure to eventually shut him down. Fortunately the Retribution is a good target - critically capacitor dependent - but it’s tanky - it is an Assault Frigate. Without the Assault DC active he’s a 12k EHP brick. He’s only got a 570GJ capacitor, but will be almost cap stable. You put enough pressure on him to shut him down, and did it quickly. He wouldn’t have expected such aggressive neuting from you - you were probably right on the range limit for doing this, but once he has to abandon his MWD he’s going to struggle to break away from you.

He’s going to.be a lot warier of Dragoons in future.

That’s knocking down an Assault Frigate with a T1 fitted destroyer.
As I said: that is a good kill.

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I suppose he would’ve had more eHP if he had something else than those two nanofiber internal structures, but eh, still worked !

Concerning my range, if you look at the video, you’ll see that I’m about 4km away from him. I went straight at him with my AB on as I feared he would outrange my scram and warp out before I could score the kill, so I went in without thinking much ^^"

For the whole fight, I was at about 4-5km range I think, before I burnt in I finished at around 6km off him, and that’s when I burnt him not to lose him outside of scram range (he was already aligned to the sun, or a nearby celestial) !

Just a question, what do you mean when you say “Aggressive neuting” ? You mean starting the triple OH cycles right at the beginning of the fight ?

And I’ll remember Retribution as nice targets in the future. Even if they’re active tanked, the fact that they only have two midslots do help a lot as a neuting Dragoon, since they’ll have to give up something if they fly with a cap booster.

Last question : it appears that when someone is in a corporation or an alliance that pledged to my or an allied militia, the overview will still show them as neutral ships first. Is there a way to prioritize the purple appearance in the overview, so I don’t end up shooting someone of my militia thinking they’re a neutral ? Thank you :wink:

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It’s a cute fit: he can kite at about 10-12 km, outside of scram range. He’s got the speed and manoeuvrability (that’s what the Nanofibers are for. He should have won that fight.

Aggressive neuting: His first realisation that this could go wrong on him was as he gets hit by three neuts and a quarter of his capacitor goes away. You did the right thing - you wouldn’t start with one drone and see how that goes - you wanted to kill his capacitor so you hit it with everything. That’s aggression.

Be aware, not all Retributions will be an easy target. He can still do 150+dps (the same as you) at 20km: outside of your scram and neuting range while having point on you. He was overly confident - and ultimately that allowed you to catch and kill him. If he had managed to kite you he would have killed you.

Overview: under Overview settings-Appearance the order of the colours can be changed by dragging them up and down. Higher priorities are at the top. Activate by checking or unchecking the boxes.
The overview settings are very flexible but endlessly confusing!

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So very true, I think this is still relevant:

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

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Regarding what you said about aggressive neuting, it did work well today too !

Basically : I was starting the day and tried to roam the same systems I roamed in the past two days, and I when I entered the system of Nisuwa, I saw an Atron and the Comet on DSCAN. I warped to a small plex after pinpointing the position of the Atron and not finding the Comet on any plex, just to see the Comet land on grid with me just I activate the acceleration gate. He apparently chose to follow me, as he did not try to scram me before I was in warp toward the plex.

Since we landed at about 2000m apart from each other, we engaged right away. At the beginning, I saw he was closing in quickly, so I guessed he wasn’t rail fit, and followed him in his dance of orbiting at 1000m. Since I wasn’t too sure if he would’ve had a cap booster, or even the base capacitor of a Comet, I cycled my three OH neuts three times instead of two, but it did work well !

I see his scram shutting down, and he is using a nos to try to get enough power back to scram me again, but since he couldn’t use his armor repairer, I finish him off with my drones (and I actually picked the right damage by using Warrior II on an armor frigate !), while I only lost about half of my armor :slight_smile:

Quite a nice guy too !

Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%20(246)
Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%20(246)1920×1080 577 KB

Thank you for your little lesson on aggressive neuting :wink:

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Marvelous!! I love that style dragoon fights. I wandering do you try to roam non fw losec? Or even 0,0?

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Those are the funniest fights I had !

Currently, I’ve been back since five days after a two months break, approximatively. Nullsec changed a lot apparently, with VNI being nearly useless as the common AFK ship and Local being wormhole-like.

Once I get in my new corporation, I should go back to nullsec, but even when I was playing before my break I never really did any nullsec PVP because I don’t really know where to look for fights, and with all the small gangs with bubbles, I guess it’ll be hard for a solo destroyer…

Currently, I’ve only played in lowsec :slight_smile:

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Gods forgive us: we’ve created a monster!

That Comet pilot had a nasty surprise (and was gracious about it). He has a smaller capacitor than that Retribution and you’ll have probably knocked it out completely in three cycles. That makes this old industrialist want to take something similar out hunting the unsuspecting.
“It’s only a Dragoon, they’re easy.”
“Where the heck did my capacitor go?”
Laughs

I don’t know how stirred Null is - I suspect people are adopting. You see some of the consequences in the hi-sec markets (Morphite is up 30-40% since the blackout for example. And there’s been a spike in Force Recon prices recently). Low-sec, and especially faction warfare is a good hunting ground for smaller ships in small fleets. FW has its flaws, but it’s a good idea in concept.

Not that this tread is about my market woes or the flaws in faction warfare. This is about the Billy the Destroyer. Please keep posting the fight write-ups. I enjoy reading them.

Raises his glass in salute.

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Now it is much easier to get a fight in zero sec. A little analysis of maps an tubes with constant amount of jumps is for you pleasure. Just blow up some bubbles and enjoy. it is really funny.

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Raise%20your%20glass

Thank you for your support, I’ll try to put the write-ups here, and maybe one day I’ll start the recording in time for you to have some video records !

Eh, will do ! Although, I generally don’t carry smartbombs on my ships, so I won’t be able to blow up an interdictor’s bubble ^^"

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anchored bubbles.

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Aren’t those packing a lot of HP ?

@Terak_Romaller Well, I already have another story but this one is how I lost my Dragoon ^^

So, I enter the system of Evaulon, since the Caldari Militia made a big percentage on that one and I’m trying to participate to the war effort and push the capture forward.

As I enter the system, I see three people of a corporation allied to the Caldari Militia together (Navy Splicer and two cruisers, forgot which ^^") in the same medium plexe. Since there’s only one in that system, I decide to go and help them a bit !

After about two minutes of sitting duck in the same plex, two war enemies walk into our system, and DSCAN show up a VNI & Exequror combo. They’re directly coming at our plex, since I spot the VNI at 1 AU right away, soon joined by his friend.

As they warp into our plex, I think I made my first mistake : I tried to play a support role at close range while the two cruisers with me do the dirty job. The VNI didn’t targeted me at first… But well, I suppose I was the only idiot sitting in his scram range, since the Splicer was wiser and burnt out right after the two cruisers land ^^"

Sadly, I was trying to neut the Exequror out, trying to tamper with his repping to the VNI… But in the end, I just got a load of EC-100 drones on the head, with an angry VNI that quickly ate my buffer and that Dragoon that outlived every single PVP ship I ever had : a three days streak (with a bit of PVP in each, of course).

You can’t always win, that was expected. I’m just sad for that little Dragoon that helped me so well :cry:

In loving memory of “Oh look, a penny !”, may your two killmarks suffice to ascend to the Amarr heaven.

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F for respects o7