Quick Intro
I’ve recently come back to the game (too many times that I’ve made that comment before). I’m taking it upon myself to explore every single combat ship, record lessons learned, and pass that on to the community. After a few of these posts I’ll cross-link them into a single thread. Videos will come with the content periodically both showing victories and defeats with some commentary.
PVP Videos
Full Disclosure: Comments on types of fights
- Some fights are solo*. I run alts but they often are scouts so that I can find fights a bit more quickly.
- Some fights are fleet/gate camp
- Some kills include pods (if they were worth it)
- Sometimes it’s nice to DIAF, I like to see how these ships perform when fighting risky targets.
More Details: Implants
The majority of these fights only have a fitting implant for grid, I’ll comment (if I remember to) which fights had other stuff like snakes and so on. Apart from the fitting implant, I wanted to see what I could do with the base hull and not using pirate implants. Finally, not having pirate implants ends up being a bit more relaxing (regarding getting the pod out).
Notes to pilots I faced
Thanks for the great fights! This has been a great educational experience and I appreciate the commitment that people put into their fitting and flying. It definitely is a “craft”, and it makes this game unique. If you see me in game, please ask for a duel, and I’ll try to accommodate that request (right now I only fly rifters, but more soon!).
Ship Choice: Rifter
Minmatar ships have style, if style includes duct tape and aluminum foil. I remember many years back reading a comment stating “Flying Minmatar is like going down a flight of stairs taped to an office chair, firing an uzi in each hand”.
Practically speaking, speed, tank variability, typically a nice balance in mids/lows, falloff, and some damage selection characterizes these ships for me.
On to the rifter. After playing with the rifter for several months (different character along with Neb), I’ve primarily settled on the plated ancillary scram kiter fit. I’ve tried several variations on the rifter fitting including: mwd instead of ab for the scram kite, disruptor instead of scram and using barrage, artillery fits (somewhat difficult with power grid), and the occasional kiter. I’ve come to the conclusion that the rifter, when fighting in falloff for most targets does reasonably well with t1 frigates, but it is a bit difficult to fight upward (or against blobs).
Here is the fit that I use primarily. The plate is wonderful as it gives the rifter a surprising amount of staying power in 1v1 fights. Needs a grid implant to fit, super tight.
And now the kills, losses and commentary. Videos coming.
Record: 42 K / ~42 L (Nearly 500 give or take a few kills/losses)
K 1 : Sometimes eve just smiles at you, for whatever reason when I got underway, I was fortunate enough to run into a suspect orca right at Jita undock (or should I say a good 60 km off station).
K 2 : I spied a Fed Navy Comet encountering another Fed Navy Comet at a novice, I hopped in and attempted to fight both. One comet destroyed the other (failed to whore) and then I finished off the victor (great space honor here). Would have had the pod, but I burned my guns.
L 1 : Faced off against a thrasher, knowing that this fight would be difficult. Both got into structure, but frankly he would have melted me faster if he had a t2 fit. The neut on the thrasher also caused issues with maintaining ancil reps along with tackle.
L 2 : Fought a cruor, now I knew this would probably be a loss, but again it’s fun to see how bad of a loss. The plate held up rather well for a good period of time. But ultimately, cap warfare reduced my repair capability and I poofed. The drone did around 20% or so of his dps, might have been worthwhile to kill that as the fight went on for a bit (he was beam and I did well with range).
K 3, 4 : Fought the same guy twice. He was in an INS and I was positioned on the button inside a novice. Both times I scrammed off his MWD. First fight I made a mistake and pre-loaded barrage. This lowered my dps a bit, but he died just the same. Made a few additional mistakes with heat management, but I didn’t burn anything out.
L 3 : Fought a hookbill. This was another fight I was very skeptical about regarding the hookbills mids. Additionally, the guy that flies this doesn’t 1v1 much so I was likely doomed anyways (plus I think he flies shiney). He was shield fit, and I didn’t have EMP loaded. Additionally a daredevil came in to mop things up.
K 5 : AFK Garmur + Pod. Again there are times when you roll the dice and Eve throws you a bone. In this case the garmur was sitting outside of a novice gate. I landed on top and killed quickly (along with the pod). There was a cloaky loki though …
L 4 : Cloaky loki got me. I nearly got away as well as his point dropped. My dumb mistake was to get greedy and try and snag the garmur loot during the fight. Still a satisfying (if honorless) kill.
L 5 : Republic fleet firetail: I knew I was going up against a likely loss here, but I wanted to try (and I was bored). The RFF is more a less bigger version of my rifter with that extra web. The fight was close though and I think if I had barrage loaded, I might have been a bit luckier.
K 6 : Worm. This was a good awareness and timing kill. The worm aggressed me from station (my character isn’t a pirate yet). He started taking guns which ruined him pretty quickly. Around half armor I noticed he wasn’t catching remote reps, so I locked him up and gate guns did most of the work.
K 7 : Joined up with the worm guys corp for a bit. Popped a typhoon with some station games.
K 8 : And an algos with a few folks.
K 9 : For the big kill of the night, we fleeted up with another corp and went hunting. Caught a Leshak doing a site (not sure if it was bait that went wrong).
K 10: Final kill of that session involved being point fodder (ate gate guns) for the fleet and tackling a thorax. In retrospect, I should have aligned first.
L 6: And the gate guns ended me. Should have aligned.
More to come in the following weeks along with video! Please let me know if there any questions.
Cheers,
Neb
