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As long as mainstay ships are angry enough to justify assigning support ships that carry all that stuff, you don't need all these things on each and every ship in your gang, I suppose.

The only issue I have is that ships that look like built to be used in such a way (like Punisher, Abaddon...) is that instead of being murdermobiles of their class that are nothing special without support, they are simply nothing special (terms and conditions apply) at what they do while also giving up utility and independence on supporting ships.

So, instead of generic "I can mount a trinity and something else" ship that will either obsolete or be obsoleted by another such generic ship in the meta eventually, I'd rather see CCP implementing more rare concept of a ship for fleets trading size of mainstay body for additional support & maintenance ships (cap transfer, tackling, whatever your backbone ship is lacking because of its slot layout) to be effective.

I believe that experimenting with lowly Punisher is a good start to get an idea on how this can work. Maybe Abaddons, Mallers and the like (think something along the lines of old 8/1/4 Coercers) will finally be good and become a part of interesting to fly composition for once, eventually.

The punisher with 2 mids and 5 lows will work well both in gangs and for solo if only it got a tracking bonus in place of that cap usage bonus. for solo it could be like a noob friendly version of the slicer, not as powerful or fast but much more forgiving of pilot error due to better tracking and more tank.

Patently, no Amarr frigate was designed to fit beams, either. No Gallente frigate was designed to fit rails. *massive skull-destroying eye-roll*

The Rifter was not designed for anything. it was kludged together by CCP whoever, back in the day, before a real mathematical model of the game was really well understood by more than one or two guys, and the Devs just made stuff up by drawing random numbers out of a hat.

You doubt me? Look at the various iterations of Tiercide, which have levelled out hitpoints and capacitor levels to round 100's from the bespoke lunacy that came before. The problem being, CCP Fozzie and current balane Devs are unwilling, unable, or not courageous enough to really deconstruct the lineup of modules and ship fitting capacities to rework them to a logical framework.

You know, you might be right. Let's just assume that Minmatar frigates were never meant to fit long range weapons. This then means that Minmatar are forever at a disadvantage in terms of play style, tactics and meta-gaming with respect to every other race. It also means small artillery was only designed PURELY for the Thrasher (and megathrons, it seems).

What a great example to take to the Devs, if you are correct, and drive hom the point that artillery needs to be reformed, or Minmatar frigates need drastic - utterly visceral - reformation to give them the capabilities that they deserve - or forever be useless.

It is a ridiculous assertion, but one which really does in fact drive home the crux of my argument: either redesign artillery PG costs to make fits viable, or give the hulls the capacity to fit both long and short range guns.

In a metagame where you have faster ships with gankier short-range weapons (Incursus, Atron) and faster ships with more efficient long-range weapons, it is disastrous to keep the Rifter held in check because back in 2008 it was the only frigate which was put together well as an AC brawler (remember Frigates pre-tiercide, when the Bantam has mining lasers? no?)

In a metagame where you have faster ships with gankier short-range weapons (Incursus, Atron) and faster ships with more efficient long-range weapons, it is disastrous to keep the Rifter held in check because back in 2008 it was the only frigate which was put together well as an AC brawler (remember Frigates pre-tiercide, when the Bantam has mining lasers? no?)

And there is your issue. Both are T1 frigates, neither is meant to be an upgrade to the other, they are different tools for different jobs of roughly equal overall power level all things considered.

20k ehp tank

Please elaborate on how 20K ehp is a job.

Bait. Nothing else.

Because for solo the punisher sucks and tank doesn't matter in gang.

10k EHP 4km/s hard tackle with 4 250mm Artillery.

It can work in gang in novice plexes. Right now the king of novice plex fleets is the tristan. 15 or so arty punishers with good timing/teamwork could alpha through pretty much anything that can enter, negating the swarms of logi.

Would need a good number of webs, quake, keep at range 4km. Everybody on primary, firing at the same time.

Don't think it would work well with tremor against the shield tanking kiting tristans though.