Crime & Punishment

Came across your thread the other day and I am really enjoying it. Reading through you're fights is making want to get into PvP and try my hand at it, though with a lowly 8.5m SP I know I'd have my *** handed to me all the time. Any suggestions on ships and fits to get started with?

Good stuff. It is difficult to suggest a fit without knowing a bit about your skills. I would suggest looking at the eve uni site as a starting point. They generally have decent fits with which to start building your own tweaks. E.g. for the Tormentor: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Tormentor

Remember that there are three major flying styles:

1) Brawling uses close range, high damage, high tracing guns like autocannons, blasters and lasers.
2) Scram-range kiting: try and hold a brawler outside their damage range but within your own.
3) Kiting: keep outside scram range and hold them down with a warp disruptor.

If you want to start in lowsec remember that 1 and 2 predominantly use afterburners. If you are MWD-fit and tackled by someone with a scram you will die when it turns your prop mod off.

You will die an awful lot to start out with. Try all the styles. Look at Incursus, Kestrel, Breacher, Tormentor and (ugh) Condor to start with.

Feel free to post back here with something about your skill focus.

I'm back in the Thorax, looking for someone to kill. There are a surprising number of cruisers about but the only solo ones I see are navy or faction. I'm starting to see a trend here. Finally, I get sick of hunting and foolishly engage a Vexor Navy Issue. I died in about 10 seconds, despite having both reppers overheated.

It was a useful fight. I reviewed the logs and figured out what went wrong: his heavy drones broke straight through my reps. Insane DPS. I want some! So I fired up PYFA (I converted from EFT a while ago) and played around.

Well, for a start my Heavy Drones skill is rubbish. But that, evidently, is what Geckos are for! +600 DPS is quite achievable. But it still doesn't overcome the problem of the nasty suspicious and deceitful minds that my fellow lowsec denizens tend to have. They won't want to engage a Vexor Navy Issue because a) they will lose, and b) they will suspect reinforcements.

So I bought a few Stratios hulls. And promptly lost the first one to a gate camp when my stupid Function key wasn't enabled on the keyboard. I was still uselessly jamming F6 to try and cloak when they broke me. Actually, I often do that with F1 at the start of a fight and then notice that my guns aren't doing anything. Maybe I should get a different keyboard. Or just remember to press the button. Or use a scout when flying an expensive ship.

Anyway, the fit:

[Stratios, Zappity’s cloaky gank v1]

1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
10MN Afterburner II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

Gecko x2
Nanite Repair Paste x50

DPS is about 170 from guns and 500 from drones with my skills. 42k EHP.

The next time I took one out I remembered to turn the Function keys on. I made it a few jumps out of Ish when I spotted a Caracal, Arbitrator and Firetail on scan. Even better, a corpie, Spocria Charante, was in system his rail Comet (a marvelous ship, by the way).

They were loitering at the Large plex. I must admit to being a bit nervous! But this is exactly what I had bought the bloody thing for so what the hell. Anyway, Spocria is apparently an avid reader of the thread and was evidently waiting for me to do something. Then he said that the thread was part of the reason he moved to lowsec (op success) and before I knew it I was in cloaked warp, range 50km.

I landed about 15km from the Arbitrator with the Firetail about 40 away, close to the beacon. The Caracal had disappeared which suited me just fine since I was a bit worried about multiple webs forcing me out of electron range.

I approached the Arbitrator. At about 12km I decloaked, hit the MWD for a single cycle and locked him up. I then switched to afterburner and went into a close orbit.

I immediately saw that he was fit with double reps. Oh well, let's see how it goes. The scram and double web combination held him tightly enough that my Geckos were able to hit hard. Sure enough, I was able to chew his hull away between rep cycles and after what felt like hours but in reality was just under one minute, he popped.

Arbitrator: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402967

By this time the Firetail had closed and was doing something nasty to me (to be honest I had been pretty much ignoring him up to now apart from locking him). So I switched everything to him. He died really fast.

Firetail: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402968
And then Spocria podded him! https://zkillboard.com/kill/40149608/

I warped out just after the Caracal landed. Stealth gank! I wonder if I could have killed him, too? But let's not get greedy on the first outing. Also, shouldn’t that Arbitrator have had a tracking disruptor? Was it a rubbish fit? I checked in EFT and was comforted to see that, despite the anti-frigate high slots, it had a decent active tank - it repped hard at nearly 500 dps with the nanite charges in the AAR.

And now I am left to ponder my own fit. First, do I need dual prop? In retrospect it seems somewhat pointless in lowsec since the cloak can get me to the edge of scram range and there are no bubbles. Maybe I'll drop the MWD for a cap booster in case of neuting. Or maybe a drone tracking whatsit.

And what about the double web? I like the idea of being able to control the range of a couple of ships, at least partially. I also like being able to get under the guns of my target by orbiting. But most cruisers will be MWD fit so the scram plus a web would take care of that. And come to think of it, I can probably fit Ions on instead of Electrons.

To the test server!

Thanks Rejuice. Actually, that should be welcome BACK to RvB - I started out there. A nice place to holiday!

I'm back in the Thorax, looking for someone to kill. There are a surprising number of cruisers about but the only solo ones I see are navy or faction. I'm starting to see a trend here. Finally, I get sick of hunting and foolishly engage a Vexor Navy Issue. I died in about 10 seconds, despite having both reppers overheated.

It was a useful fight. I reviewed the logs and figured out what went wrong: his heavy drones broke straight through my reps. Insane DPS. I want some! So I fired up PYFA (I converted from EFT a while ago) and played around.

Well, for a start my Heavy Drones skill is rubbish. But that, evidently, is what Geckos are for! +600 DPS is quite achievable. But it still doesn't overcome the problem of the nasty suspicious and deceitful minds that my fellow lowsec denizens tend to have. They won't want to engage a Vexor Navy Issue because a) they will lose, and b) they will suspect reinforcements.

So I bought a few Stratios hulls. And promptly lost the first one to a gate camp when my stupid Function key wasn't enabled on the keyboard. I was still uselessly jamming F6 to try and cloak when they broke me. Actually, I often do that with F1 at the start of a fight and then notice that my guns aren't doing anything. Maybe I should get a different keyboard. Or just remember to press the button. Or use a scout when flying an expensive ship.

Anyway, the fit:

[Stratios, Zappity’s cloaky gank v1]

1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
10MN Afterburner II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

Gecko x2
Nanite Repair Paste x50

DPS is about 170 from guns and 500 from drones with my skills. 42k EHP.

The next time I took one out I remembered to turn the Function keys on. I made it a few jumps out of Ish when I spotted a Caracal, Arbitrator and Firetail on scan. Even better, a corpie, Spocria Charante, was in system his rail Comet (a marvelous ship, by the way).

They were loitering at the Large plex. I must admit to being a bit nervous! But this is exactly what I had bought the bloody thing for so what the hell. Anyway, Spocria is apparently an avid reader of the thread and was evidently waiting for me to do something. Then he said that the thread was part of the reason he moved to lowsec (op success) and before I knew it I was in cloaked warp, range 50km.

I landed about 15km from the Arbitrator with the Firetail about 40 away, close to the beacon. The Caracal had disappeared which suited me just fine since I was a bit worried about multiple webs forcing me out of electron range.

I approached the Arbitrator. At about 12km I decloaked, hit the MWD for a single cycle and locked him up. I then switched to afterburner and went into a close orbit.

I immediately saw that he was fit with double reps. Oh well, let's see how it goes. The scram and double web combination held him tightly enough that my Geckos were able to hit hard. Sure enough, I was able to chew his hull away between rep cycles and after what felt like hours but in reality was just under one minute, he popped.

Arbitrator: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402967

By this time the Firetail had closed and was doing something nasty to me (to be honest I had been pretty much ignoring him up to now apart from locking him). So I switched everything to him. He died really fast.

Firetail: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23402968
And then Spocria podded him! https://zkillboard.com/kill/40149608/

I warped out just after the Caracal landed. Stealth gank! I wonder if I could have killed him, too? But let's not get greedy on the first outing. Also, shouldn’t that Arbitrator have had a tracking disruptor? Was it a rubbish fit? I checked in EFT and was comforted to see that, despite the anti-frigate high slots, it had a decent active tank - it repped hard at nearly 500 dps with the nanite charges in the AAR.

Video: http://youtu.be/V6lo6P8oxYg

And now I am left to ponder my own fit. First, do I need dual prop? In retrospect it seems somewhat pointless in lowsec since the cloak can get me to the edge of scram range and there are no bubbles. Maybe I'll drop the MWD for a cap booster in case of neuting. Or maybe a drone tracking whatsit.

And what about the double web? I like the idea of being able to control the range of a couple of ships, at least partially. I also like being able to get under the guns of my target by orbiting. But most cruisers will be MWD fit so the scram plus a web would take care of that. And come to think of it, I can probably fit Ions on instead of Electrons.

To the test server!

Thanks Sonoske. I knew you would be rocket fit so spent the first half of the fight just outside rocket range at about 10-11 km. When I guessed you might start thinking about running I moved in to land the scram and finish you off while relying on my repper.

I had just run out of charges for the SAAR and needed to reload guns. If you had finished your MASB reload I wouldn't have killed you - it was a good fight!

Would you mind sharing that fit? I can't fit anything like that DPS along with a decent tank. And yes, you are right that my laser skills are poor. I don't think I even have T2 smalls so I really need to do something about that.

The other reason is that the hull bonus to lasers is for range, not damage. Blasters generally have higher DPS so as long as you don't need range they are a reasonable alternative. With the cloak and double webs I haven't found range control to be a problem yet (although a Gila that I came up against scared me a bit but you will have to wait for that story).

Also, with the afterburner and double webs you can actually get under cruiser guns if you orbit fast and close enough. Even neutrons can get out-tracked while the electrons are fine.

This is certainly not a scram-kiter, that's for sure.

I went to the trouble of making a video of my first cloaky Stratios gank and then forgot to link it! http://youtu.be/V6lo6P8oxYg

Anyway, I had just finished posting in a thread entitled “Random Kindness in EVE”, saying that I was usually kind to noobs in lowsec because I didn’t want to scare them away, when a call went out for people to go and gank a Hulk in our 0.5 highsec border system, Usi. I was only three jumps out so I hastily changed the route back to Ish. I had a few Catalysts fitted in station (not specifically fitted for ganking but close enough) so I put them up on corp contract and joined the correct fleet.

Now, I have never ganked anyone before (not unless you count farmers) but have always wanted to at least once to get a bit of perspective. It was with excited anticipation that I formed up on the gate and waited for the order to jump into highsec. Ugh…highsec. I don’t like the nasty “You are a criminal so bugger off” message that pops up when I jump in. And I REALLY don’t like the fact that I can’t just shoot whoever I feel like.

Except just now, of course :)

We held cloak and were fleet warped onto the target. Really, four Catalysts was overkill for this Hulk but they are cheap at just over a million each so who cares? I tackled him and started firing! He exploded long before the rozzers showed up. Unfortunately I missed his pod but easily got my own capsule away.

Hulk: https://zkillboard.com/kill/39845875/

Whew, that was a rush! But I can’t imagine it holding my attention too long - it wasn't even as challenging as killing a farmer. Anyway, I did manage to capture my first gank for posterity:

Video: http://youtu.be/qqKugHn4h5Q

Looks interesting. Here is my current fit that will feature in the next post:

[Stratios, Cloaky gank v3]

1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
10MN Afterburner II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II

Gecko x2

I get 721 dps cold. 46k EHP or 57k with mid-grade Slaves. I would be worried about how hard heavy drones would hit cruisers without a web. Is that a problem? Probably need to test it on the test server.

I'd be happy to 1v1 you but that probably wouldn't really answer the question since another Stratios isn't really the target of the fit.

Cause people won't fight them. Maybe?

Dunno...