Well, you met a Decadent Court member in their natural habitat. It’s not Kadesh, nor Ottaviani, but at least someone in like top 10% of smallsize pilots of all time. Fighting such pilots is tough and unfruitful in terms of kb statistics, but at the other hand is helpful at gaining experience. I would never ever discourage you to fight anyone just because ‘they’re scary, I’d better dock’, as it’s a common behaviour of weaklings that ruins this game and makes no benefit to anyone, but checking stats of your potential opponent (cmon, it’s kspace, you see all of them) to figure out his engagement profile and your capability to meet it is useful. And then, after your most probable hopeless demise, I’d convo them and ask politely what exactly did I do wrong and how could I act to win the engagement, Some will reject convo, some will swear, but most will answer.
Next, on your fit. As a frigate pilot, you’re stuck with a low amount of slots. Being solo you absolutely want two things: tackle and propmod of some kind, range control is essential in any engagement, especially for smallsize duels. You went with no propmod at all which means you can’t control range at all, and that’s the first point where you lose to almost anything. Given you have just two midslots, you can generally act as a full-kiter with mwd+point (not the case of the slow punisher, but theoretically - why not), ramf1 with mwd+scram (will work) or scram-kite with ab+web (and pray for the pvp honor in your opponent), You definitely can go for ab+scram, but in that case you’ll have to chose carefully: in case you can’t break your opponent before he slowboats out of your heated scram range, you’ll lose an engagement. Moreover, battery you’ve fit is absolutely useless, as in most cases your fight won’t last longer than one minute. You don’t have to be capstable at all times, cap stability is costly in terms of slots and is useless on most occasions (but some specific ones or when achieved via cap booster).
Next, your weapons. You went with top-tier meta0 pulses, which might seem natural to an amarr ship, but it is not. If you look closely, punisher does not provide any damage bonus to any kind of weapons, just natural amarrian laserboat activation cost one, so you might chose any kind of a turret here, and you’d be surprised, but most common ones are blasters, then ACs. Next: meta0. You don’t want to use any meta0 item if you have higher tier alternatives, they’re just plain better in one way or another, And the last one: pulses. The only reason to use pulses is their versatility in t2 variant: conflag gives you damage comparable to neutron voids but with better application while scorch allows you to engage into deep scram range. Since you’re stuck with t1 for a while, I’d recommend you to avoid close range weaponry as it shines only when able to be loaded with proper t2 ammo. There’s a trick with ACs however, as they allow you to go for greater tank because of low pg requirements without sacrificing that lot of damage or application.
The last is the tank. You’ve done almost well, trying to reduce resistance holes and max out active tank, but it will work on larger ships, not on frigates, just because you have that much of the buffer anyways. Adding more buffer to solo frigate is almost always better than eliminating one specific resistance hole. General advice is to not approach tanking as ‘my ship has to survive anything anywhere’, as it obviously won’t anyways. The good approach is ‘I want my ship to die later than my particular opponent’s one’. Also helps in considering which opponent you want to check, and which one wrecks your ship up so obviously that it doesn’t cost your time to go and reship. The latter is the rare occasion if you do it right =) Common approach for armor tanked frigates is a hulltank in combination with SAAR. Consider ancillary repairers as a prolonged buffer, not as an active tank (which is exclusive to triple-XLASB BSs), and it will help in understanding how much will you sustain. Plates are fine too. Punisher is the toughest of all t1 frigs in terms of plain ehp, btw.
Let’s put it all together. You’ve got a well-tanked frigate which is rather slow and lacks control, but allows for a good range of weaponry. Generally high resistance profile and lack of control says it is a fleet vessel, but no one restricts you to fly it solo, That said, you want to avoid fast targets if not waiting for them in deadpace and want to engage almost anything that fights in scram range.
All that said, there are couple of punishers with most stuff downgraded to meta4 I’d personally try out before considering moving to something that actually can control engagement range. It might work but probably will fail and die horribly in a ball of fire, depending on usage and opponent. Good thing, there is no actual death in this game, so you’re free to try.
[Punisher, Solo Novice]
Damage Control II
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
Multispectrum Coating II
Extruded Compact Heat Sink
Extruded Compact Heat Sink
1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I
Small Focused Modulated Energy Beam I
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Energy Burst Aerator I
[Punisher, 800mm]
Damage Control II
400mm Crystalline Carbonide Restrained Plates
400mm Crystalline Carbonide Restrained Plates
Gyrostabilizer II
Multispectrum Coating II
1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Warp Scrambler II
200mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I
200mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I
200mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I
200mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I
Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
P.S. There is almost no point in t1 ammo in this game, use faction at least, it is just plain better with no drawbacks, However, laser lenses are somewhat pricey to lose, as their price is roughly equivalent to 1000 faction bullets of other kinds, but most likely that exact set of lenses you’ve just loaded into your frigate won’t last long enough to deal 1000 shots.
P.P.S. Sorry for inconsistencies, hope that helps. I was brawling on frigates too long ago to remember everything and to keep in mind current frigate meta. This game is so much better when played with a bunch of friends, and fleeting up adds way more depth to any ship than any honed solo fit, so I’d better recommend to find a fleet for any of this punisher and see what happens =)
