What ship would it take to win against these 4 ships?
[Procurer, Barge 1]
Mark I Compact Power Diagnostic System
Power Diagnostic System II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Large ‘Sheriff’ Shield Extender
Gas Cloud Harvester II
Gas Cloud Harvester II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Hammerhead II x3
Caldari Navy Vespa x1
‘Augmented’ Infiltrator x3
Vespa II x2
Infiltrator II x1
[Procurer, Barge 2]
Type-D Restrained Shield Power Relay
Type-D Restrained Shield Power Relay
Type-D Restrained Shield Power Relay
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Caldari Navy Stasis Webifier
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer II
Medium Explosive Shield Reinforcer II
Medium Thermal Shield Reinforcer II
Hammerhead II x3
Vespa EC-600 x3
Caldari Navy Vespa x1
Hammerhead SD-600 x1
Infiltrator II x2
[Procurer, Barge 3]
Type-D Restrained Shield Power Relay
Type-D Restrained Inertial Stabilizers
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Warp Scrambler II
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Gas Cloud Harvester I
Medium EM Shield Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Hammerhead II x3
Caldari Navy Vespa x1
Vespa II x1
Infiltrator II x4
Acolyte II x1
[Venture, Gas Frigate]
Damage Control I
1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Medium Azeotropic Restrained Shield Extender
Enduring EM Shield Hardener
Gas Cloud Scoop I
Gas Cloud Scoop I
Core Probe Launcher I
Small Explosive Shield Reinforcer II
Small Thermal Shield Reinforcer I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Acolyte EV-300 x1
Acolyte II x1
Sisters Core Scanner Probe x8
In this hypothetical matchup, a corpmate bookmarked a location earlier and you’re pretty darn sure those 4 guys are at one of three bookmarks so if you warp to zero you’ll be on top of the guys.
What’s a victory?
If you tackle a barge and everyone else warps off and you kill the barge, that’s a win.
If all of them stand and fight and you destroy at least 1 barge and loot the wreck, that would be a win.
If you only kill the venture, call it a draw.
If all warp off before you’re on grid, call it a draw.
If they stand and fight and only the venture survives, call it a draw if your ship cost less than the most expensive barge, otherwise it’s a loss.
Any other cases you lose your ship is a loss.
If you land on grid with one of the barges and don’t kill any, we’ll say that’s a loss.
What would it take to fight those barges? You know their fits, but not which barge player used which fit. You won’t know which one webs until it actually webs you. You also don’t know what their response will be if you land on grid. Maybe they will flee. Maybe they will fight. Perhaps you saw these 4 dying to gate camps on zKill, but the three barge players kept changing which barge they used.
What’s ship can you use to warp to 0 on these guys and win the 4 vs 1? It’s just mining barges right? You don’t need to bring out something that is as slow to align as a battleship to take them on right? Sure it’s 4 vs 1, but a combat ship should be able to deal with 15 drones if the defenders have no guns right?
A tactical destroyer is very agile. However, a T3D webbed probably isn’t going to survive a swarm of 15 drones…
How about a buffer tanked Omen or Omen Navy issue? Well, the EM rigs considerably weaken the usage of energy weapons. I’m also not sure it has enough tank.
How about a Blaster Butrix? It can mount a pretty good tank and blasters have very good DPS. The range is crap, but you’ll be warping to 0 on guys who don’t have afterburners or microwarpdrives.
How about a Hurricane with 720s? Republic Phased Plasma in the face will deal a lot of damage. The tracking of 720 howitzers isn’t ideal, but that’s no concern against barges that have no propulsion devices. There might not be enough PG left to mount an effective tank.
The Hurricane Navy Issue is more expensive, but it’s better.
Maybe a missile Prophecy would be effect? I’ve heard drones and missiles go well together. A prophecy has a huge drone bay. You can fit in 6 light drones, launch 5 of them to dispatch the enemy drones, and once most of them are destroyed, lunch 4 medium and 1 heavy drones to kill off the barges. Also, an acolyte can often kill a hammerhead when they fight each other, go figure. You can even fit a 1600 mm plate on these things.
Maybe a Drake with HAMs and a shield booster would be able to win? The missiles don’t compete with the shield booster for capacitor.
Would a Munin do well? It might have some difficulty shooting the drones, but it has an ADC, so it can bascially be invincible for a time. This might be long enough to pop a barge, and with the mothership dead, the drones just stop.