The very first Frigate I bought back when I first started Eve in 2008 was the Breacher. I liked the idea of a long range missile platform for running missions. Unfortunately due to low skills, I quickly lost it.
The next Frigate I got was a Slasher, thinking up close brawler action would be better. Unfortunately I quickly lost that one as well.
Soo, in my first couple weeks of playing, I lost 2 Frigates and due to spending all my isk on skill books, couldn’t afford to get another Frigate to run missions. There I was, back in my Reaper again, trying to make ISK by ratting in HS belts. That was very slow going and quite honestly, was trying my patience to where I was about ready to give up.
Unexpectedly one player in Corp chat gifted me a Rifter Frigate with a basic T1 passive shield fit and another player gifted me 1 mil ISK for skill books. Needless to say I was quickly back up and running missions again using up close brawler tactics.
It worked great and I upgraded the ship fit as my skills advanced, eventually getting it to a T2 fit. Since it was working, I decided to max train every single skill related to piloting that Frigate. As my skills advanced, so did my ship fit and the level of missions I was running.
After 9 months I was max trained for skills related to that Frigate and was completing level 3 combat missions within the bonus time. By that time my Rifter was max fit with T2, Faction and Deadspace modules as well as Rigs. Back then most players didn’t bother fitting Rigs on Frigates, mainly because Rigs were expensive.
Anyway, along with level 3 combat missions from Thukker Mix, I was also running combat Anomaly and static 1/10 - 3/10 DED sites as well. All I can say is the ship performance was excellent. I was making lot’s of ISK from both loot drops and Thukker LP’s.
Eventually I moved up to Hurricane Battlecruiser for level 3 missions since I needed a ship to quickly complete them so I could also collect salvage. However I’d still pilot that Rifter for exploration sites.
Course years later I had collected a large assortment of ships to use and rarely piloted that Rifter. However when CCP introduced ship skins to the game, the very first skin I bought was for that Rifter.
From the screen shot you can see it’s fit with Large Rigs, Tech 2, Faction, Deadspace modules and a Krusual Skin (Permanent). That ship served me very well for a long time, completed level 3 security missions, DED 3/10 exploration sites and survived multiple Suicide Gank attempts. Even though I haven’t piloted it in a long time, it’s definitely my favorite ship…
It currently sits in station, enjoying it’s well deserved retirement and spinning in all it’s hard earned glory.
I also like to fly in fleets with people I know very well or which are lead well, so I can focus on my role.