This is probably it tbh, though I don’t know your details. It’s amazing the difference a few well placed modules can make as well as a few stacked skills. Even i’m still learning new ways to squeeze insane HP etc out of ships I thought I knew.
What BS was it? You could ping me the fit in game if you feel like it.
Megathron.
Tech I guns admittedly but 5x Hobgoblin II and mostly Tech II for the rest. I can’t believe someone can suggest a couple of Procurers can sit and tank the damage and kill them with Drones alone and I couldn’t kill one with over 100k EHP, 5 Drones and 7x 425mm Prototype Gauss Gun loaded with Federation Navy Antimatter.
I wonder if the gate camping ones are a different breed. Still find it hard to believe we can be talking about the same ships.
/shrug
Each of those FOB frigate salvos for around 400 damage yes, but the overall DPS you have to soak per frigate actually is only about 125 because they aren’t doing that salvo damage every single second. And I’ll freely admit I’ve got T2 tank fitted with faction plates, faction EANM, and a deadspace rep when I’m running mission blitz armor BC / BS around. Having about 75-80% omni resist or a setup using phasing resists that shifts to the rats damage type helps too.
And the procurers I run if out for a little mining have 85K+ EHP once they heat the invulns and over ~170 drone DPS. Which brings up the another point… do you have Thermodynamics 3+ and bother with overheating equipment? Makes one hell of a difference in dealing with those FOB ships and things like burner mission objectives. Also makes a big difference to your tank if you can overheat the rep and hardeners for the first frigate or two until you pull the groups overall DPS down by blowing one or two up.
As for my usual way of dealing with “elite” frigates is high drone skills and missiles… missiles backed up with a targeting computer with precision script and a T2 target painter. Also taken them out with a blaster Brutix though… just MWD’d into range, webbed and pointed one at a time and dunked them.
As for the you attempting to use a rail fit battleship against them… Railguns have bad tracking against anything in close, and even worse tracking against anything small and fast to boot. Blaster Mega might be able to do it, but with how those FOB frigates like to warp in and out you won’t have the luxury of staying at the 40k+ range to keep those large rails happily tracking and applying correctly. The Mega also doesn’t have a built in drone damage bonus, meaning your flight of lights is going to take a while to chew through them if its the only damage you have that is actively applying to the target.
Isn’t that a rail gun? Feel like you just weren’t tracking properly (not looked in game for a fit)
That sems to be the issue. your guns have bad tracking, meaning you can’t apply to them.
Consider using a grappler, those do wonder on small rats.
I had no issue shooting one in a dominix once I grappled it.
Thanks for the replies / tips guys, much appreciated 
I had a reply but others have said it all really. But yeah the above is why my favourite Cane has 2 x webbers
Your reply will live only in my imagination, where I will imagine it to be the ultimate combination of all of the other replies. It will always be the perfect reply. Thank you! 
Awwwk thank you! Thats so nice <3
No. Thank YOU Sindara 
You’re the forumite I’ve seen in the rookie help chat the most lately, and your posts here are generally of quality.
Your efforts to help people get to grips with New Eden have not gone un-noticed.
You won’t be able to fly it yet because the fit is highly experimental but check your contracts on Christmas EvE for an upgraded Megathron 
Wow.
I am lost for words … and I am never lost for words (ask Rookie Help, lol)
Must be Christmas or something … 
Honestly don’t know what to say without coming across like some kind of gushing over emotional carebear monster thing so just … thank you! 
yeah I was fighting the roaming punishers, even had the little symbol, gave me a warning before I was attacking that I was commiting a hostile act and so forth, they had lowered the shields on a station by 20%, it was at 90 when I got there and I was talking to some other people about what I was seeing. alo at this time I have 216m sp with every skill at 4 atleast
Enjoy your 1,900dps Polarized Hull Tanked Duel Web n Grapple Megathron 
Never again will a rat not die when you look at it. Threw a scram on there cus optimism.
This is to illustrate how off the wall fittings can do some pretty interesting things.
A few weeks ago I saw the gate camping variety of blood raider punisher. 4 of them at the amarr gate in ashab. They were popping autopiloting fools like it was going out of style (AI picked a damn good gate for it); t1 frigate and industrial wrecks, interceptor wrecks, a t1 cruiser wreck or two. Watched them instapop an autopiloting ares while i was still gate cloaked.
Wondered what the actual severity of these npcs is. Took a sleipnir over to investigate (mwd, invuln, XL deadspace shield booster, resist rigs, web, 3x gyro/2x TE, 180mm ACs, perfect skills- figured a frig trap CS would be nice and safe given the rate I watched them flatten the ares).
The upside of these npcs is they don’t warp scramble, disrupt, or web, so they aren’t much of a threat to capsuleers that are present.
The downside is they have a fuckton of dps for npc frigates; my sleip’s lowest resist is kinetic @ 70ish%, the rest are 80-90%. I had to cycle my pith XL booster every 15 seconds or so to keep my shields between 90-100%. They aren’t terribly fast, they couldn’t keep up with my mwding sleip (seem to recall their top speed being around 800 m/s or so).
They took about 5-6 volleys each to destroy (was shooting RF EMP at them).
I ran into 4 of these new npc frigates in a belt as well. The ones in the belt weren’t quite as tough.
Next time I see some of these at a gate in high sec I’m going to provoke a concorde response vs another player to see if/how concorde reacts to these rats.
I don’t have the skill to use those Tech II armour plates yet, so I was flying 300m worth of Battleship and fittings (the Gecko in the drone bay was a nice surprise) with just 24k EHP.
Was on the edge of my seat flying it back from Amarr space to Jita I can tell you. 
I don’t have the skills for the guns either, so I was defenceless. I suppose I could have thrown the Gecko at any attackers in the hope that the sudden extravagant show of bling on an otherwise sitting duck would shock them enough to allow me to escape unnoticed, haha.
I keep waiting to find out that the ship is rigged to explode if the speed falls below 50 m/s but so far so good.
Thanks again, Happy Christmas! 
No you!
New portrait created to show off the outfit. Spare ship in the hangar for when it turns out that Keno’s one IS in fact rigged to explode when the speed falls below 50 m/s.
Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas to you too 
Your’re ■■■■■■. Get out of the blue doughnut.
In answer to the OP: I think they do finish the job.
I noticed a station wreck container near my hi-sec (NPC) home station recently. There isn’t a lossmail on zkillboard so not 100% it was the new NPCS, but there was an FOB in system at the time, there were Guristas Kestrels buzzing around the can, and there was some juicy loot which no sane player would have left behind.
I thought I’d sort out the FOB myself… a costly mistake. It felt like a combination of overpowered Anomic agent-type rats, WH sleeper escalation mechanics, and a DED 10/10 base. There’s little info available and the risk is far too great if the reward is as described. I won’t be trying this new ‘content’ again, I’ll just avoid it.
It would be nice if CCP provided a bit more information/warning on these new mechanics. Sure, EVE isn’t a theme park, but if we can’t make informed risk-management decisions then we won’t take risks at all.
In this case a simple solution might be to display a clear system wide warning - as with incursions - so players know to be on guard. And the FOBs themselves ought to be behind an acceleration gate with some sort of pop-up DED dialogue box carrying a warning of the enemy capabilities (neut, jam, scram, web, high DPS) which far exceed typical PVE encounters (be that anomalies or missions).
I think that the lack of info is actually a good thing, if viewed from the following perspective:
Fear of the unknown. This is a natural self-defense mechanism that is eliminated by overabundance of foreknowledge. Fear ie. adrenaline ramps up excitement and suspense, and thus the excitement of playing. People who are unsure about the strength of enemies in new content thus have two options: wait for more intrepid risk-taking souls to take the measure of the new enemies and then possibly find out from them, either directly or indirectly (as the knowledge starts to filter out), or be such an intrepid soul. If a player goes in blind and see their ass in the process, it’s a learning experience that can shape his/her future interactions with that content (as you’ve chosen to do, according to your own estimation of your abilities based on your available tools, your character skills, and your player skills.) Those who do brave the unknown do so in the knowledge of the fact that the risk could potentially be terminal - for those, it may be the attraction of doing so. They then, afterward, have certain options: share their findings freely/altruistically, hoard the knowledge for themselves in order to corner those benefits for as long as the information is not in the public domain, or sell the information to interested/capable parties.
Personally, I think not revealing too much too soon is a good way to go - let the players determine the danger, the richness, and so forth, allowing for greater scope of play dynamics. This also provides the opportunity for players who do explore/investigate these aspects to enjoy a greater sense of accomplishment, instead of pandering solely for the instant-gratification crowd. These will be be depleted soon enough in any case, as the knowledge is uncovered and gradually permeates into the general awareness.
For the sake of context: I’m not at present one of those who is willing to risk significant losses in order to quantify these unknowns - I’m more likely to play it safe, and perhaps gradually test the waters with small roving bands at some point (if/when bored, heheh) first, and perhaps at some later date dip my toe in deeper. I’m perfectly OK with that.