Crime & Punishment

Yeah, thought that might be it. I certainly avoid VNIs now.

Another day, another Stratios gank:

Caracal: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23432601

Hardly worth mentioning to be honest. He wasn't even a PvPer by the look of things. I even caught his pod despite the enormous cruiser lock time.

Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23432602

I spent a while looking for fights in the 250mm rail Thorax but nothing doing. Eventually I jumped back in the Comet and murdered a kiting Slicer by keeping him interested long enough to slingshot him. I have found that by delaying use of the armour repper until I am nearly in hull sets the hook deep in a kiter. And then they die if I manage to land a scram:

Slicer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23448297

Then I got my comeuppance in the form of a Firetail. Yes, a Firetail killed my Comet:

Loss, Police Pursuit Comet: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23448481

Well, I didn't think that was possible with the Comet reps. I can't remember the last time a Firetail killed my Comet and, to be honest, I didn't take it seriously.

Needless to say I am now interested in the Firetail again, despite the scorn I poured upon it a few posts ago. Unfortunately, I didn't record the fight but he used 150mm autos and a vamp. Also, I couldn't pull range even with overheated afterburner and an attempt to sling away. It was almost certainly a double web fit and this meant that my tracking was rubbish. Finally, I noticed that it was active armour. So that pretty much limits things to something like this:

[Republic Fleet Firetail, 150mm dps]

Gyrostabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II

150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
Small Nosferatu II

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I

Rigs are more or less to flavour but I figured I would want a bit of extra reach (ambit) for when I was scram kiting and a bit more tracking (metastasis) for close orbits and drones. I am going to lose a few fits like this before deciding on the Firetail (again). Anyway, Jita prices just crashed through my long term low buy order so I now have hundreds of them! The Minmatar farmers are still driving prices down so I'll probably have them for a while, too.

Truly enjoy reading your posts; they are entertaining and very informational. I haven't entered the realm of PvP per se beyond being caught in lowsec a few times, but following your stories has been one of my major sources of knowledge towards the day I do step in.

May main delay has been that I've invested much of my humble 5M sp into stealth and related activities, and for a few months I've been playing with the Stratios and skilling up. About a week ago I decided to seriously research turning this rig into a PvP platform (many claim it is useless for that) so it has been with intense interest that I've read your recent efforts with the hull.

I have given much thought and research into the drones in particular, and while the flow of information thus far has been from you to me, I hope it won't be too presumptuous of me to offer some observations on your Stratios fit. And since I cannot afford to replace my ship, I won't be risking it any time soon in deliberate PvP; I shall live that vicariously through you.

This frame has as its main offense substantial drone capacity; 100Mbs and 400m3. While this means you can have 4 heavies (or your 2 Geckos) in flight at one time it also means you can have three different sets (300m3) and still have room for more options. In my mind, this suggests the following:

3 x Focused Medium Pulse Laser II (Imperial Navy Ultraviolet M / Scorch M)
1 x Medium Energy Neutralizer II
1 x Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Heavy Drones: (250m3)
4 x Berserker II (Explosive)
4 x Praetor II (EM)
2 x Wasp II (Kinetic)

Medium Drones: (50m3)
5 x Valkyrie II (Explosive)
-or-
3 x Valkyrie II (Explosive)
2 x Vespa II (Kinetic)

Light Drones: (25m3)
5 x Warrior II (Explosive)
-or-
3 x Warrior II (Explosive)
2 x Vespa II (Kinetic)

Logic behind this:

For Cruisers, your pulse lasers (EM) have the best effect against the shields. You might launch Berserker or a Wasp/Berserker mix if the targets shields aren't too tough. For tough shield-tanked targets, start with your Praetors. Except for possible EM mitigation on the part of your target, you should be getting the best bang for your buck out of your potential DPS. When shields drop, switch out to the previous Berserker or Wasp/Berserker. Those choices are based on my research showing that most armors are weakest in Explosive resistance, but a few are about even with Kinetic resistance, and of course you never know if they have added resistances, so you have everything covered except Thermal; my feeling is that this is an acceptable compromise.

For Destroyers and moderately fast Frigates, same concept but with your medium drones. I'm pretty sure with a web they'll be slow enough for your Mediums to hit them.

For enemy drones and very fast frigates, the light drones.

You still have 75m3 of space, which you could fill with a spare or three, or perhaps with Salvage Drones, and perhaps a few EW or Webbing drones.

I believe the strength of a hull like the Stratios is the amazing flexibility of your drones; the ability to very rapidly select the best damage type for the situation. It's like the advantage missile systems have except on steroids :)

And of course your stealth. You'll want to train Cloaking to V would be my thought since the targeting delay kind of kills your element of surprise; anything else that reduces that delay would be a hot topic I think.

One final word about crystals. Everything I've read where people talk about lasers is Scorch. Looking at small pulse lasers, I can see why - 50% range bonus -BUT- 25% tracking LOSS! Might be acceptable for a small fast frigate with an optimal now around 9km.

But for a cruiser it is a different story. Your web is going to range about what 8km (more with skills etc) but probably within 10km. Medium Pulse Lasers have significantly better range than Small, but also inferior tracking. You will very possibly be needing to be t less than your optimal, which means tracking is becoming an issue, not range. Imperial Navy Ultraviolet M hits you with a 12.5% loss on range, but grants you a 35% reduction on cap requirement. That's huge, and I think your range is still right where you want it. The Focused Medium Pulse Laser II has a base Optimal of 10.8km. I'd be willing to bet your skill buffs will handily compensate for the 12.5% loss of the Navy crystal so your optimal is good. Enemy running away from you? Not yet close enough for you? Insta-switch to Scorch and gain 50% range bonus, then switch back once you have range controlled.

Miscellaneous. I think you'll need to boost your sensors for faster target locking. The Stratios has a signature larger than most other cruisers, so other hings being equal you are already at a disadvantage. Add in your targeting delay after decloaking. You must targe fast - everything requires a lock to apply damage/webs/drones/etc. Tracking? Maybe not. Webbed, I can't see you having trouble with any but the fastest frigates, but even if the situation is a bit worse than I think, you hit a frig with 1 or 2 cycles of that Neutralizer and they find their cap gone... let your drones finish them off while you target the next one, check your D-Scan......

And virtually no ammo concerns. Your Nanite Repair Paste becomes your sole consumable. I'd be willing to bet your ship goes boom long before your crystals wear out.


Sorry for the book. Tis ever my failing. If perchance their is any wisdom in my thoughts, I'd love to see you put them to the test. I nearly cleaned out my piggy bank buying and fitting my Stratios, and I need to bore myself with freezing my *** off mining ice for the next month.

Good luck. Hope to see more about your Stratios soon, but whatever you write, I always enjoy it. Thank you.

I was determined to find some fights in the Firetail. Absolutely determined. Until the aptly-named Innocent Scout found a wormhole leading to nullsec. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to poke my head in there?

I have been getting a little bored with my routine lately. It is so easy to get solo small ship fights in lowsec that I have lost my hunting edge. I rarely need to go more than a few quick jumps to find a fight. Sure, I manipulate fights around plexes but those are with (at least somewhat) willing participants.

Actually, come to think of it I'm not sure I ever had a hunting edge to start with. I used to be adept at probing sites down but never really used those skills to hunt people. And the last time I found myself behind some combat probes it took FAR too long to get a result.

Innocent Scout hopped through the hole and found herself surrounded by drone sites in Outer Passage (a most unfortunate name). Brothers of Tangra - aren't they renters? Whatever. Zappity followed shortly after in her Stratios.

Oops! Once away from the colourful overview bustle of Ishomilken I noticed that Zappity was flashing a most conspicuous yellow icon in local. Hmm. I guess they wouldn’t be very used to that around here. And sure enough, the couple of Caracals I had spotted on dscan had already tucked their tails between their legs and run back to their station. I decided to cloak in their system until the timer had worn off.

I used the time to check Dotlan for a nice ratting system. The region looked pretty rubbish to my admittedly uneducated eye but at least there was a system a couple of jumps away with a few hundred recent NPC kills.

With Innocent Cheetah scouting the route Zappity's slower cruiser evaded most of the nasty bubbles. The destination system was fully bubbled on entry with half a dozen pilots in local. Maybe I should put Innocent in an inty to help with this sort of thing. Or perhaps put Zappity in a nullified Proteus.

Anyway, I slowboated both ships out of the bubble under cloak and took my time checking out the system. Of course I forgot to do all the sensible things like check for wrecks and suitable sites. Instead, I watched a mining fleet on dscan warp away from their site.

Oh well. I wandered to the other side of the system. Where I saw a Gila. Surely he would be safe at a moon. But I needed the practice so I warped the Cheetah out of dscan range, dropped some probes, and scanned him down. I got him on the second scan and the Cheetah, already aligned in the general direction, soon landed at 20km range.

Oh. Not at a moon and a 2008 character. I closed to 5km range and launched Zappity. The Cheetah was safely at a safe long before Zappity landed. I deactivated cloak a few seconds before landing to shed the lock delay. An overheated scram snared the Gila before he could scarper.

Now I will admit to not being too sure about my chance of success. I have checked the Gila out in PYFA and it is a nice ship. But what is the point of having a Stratios if you aren't going to explode it in some stupid way!

The Geckos started hammering him pretty hard. But his Hammerheads weren't doing too badly at all and my shield disappeared almost immediately. I was surprised to see that I wasn’t very effectively controlling range and wondered about his fit. I finally broke through his shield when I was already bleeding through into hull. Not a moment too soon!

Gila: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23459022

Ha! And as you can see, that is a PvP fit, not a ratting fit. I'll be honest now and say that I probably wouldn't have taken him on if I had realised that. Is his fit bad? I am going to go ahead and say that it must be. This is because I read that the Stratios is bad and anyone who flies one is bad and should feel bad about being bad especially because of the cloak which is useless for PvP. But apparently the Gila is OP. So I'm confused because he died and I didn't.

Anyway, I was quite proud of that kill until I remembered all the things that I should have done differently. What damage do people usually apply to those drone rats? What do people fighting them tank against? And where was my mobile depot for repping up after the fight? Why was I in my mid-grade snake clone? It should have been clean, or at least the slave set for an extra 10k EHP! Oh dear, what a noob.

Still, all's well that ends well. So back to Ishomilken for some well deserved TLC on the old armour. And hull. I am glad that I kept the double webs on my Stratios fit. The drone tracking whatsit only improved the Gecko damage by about 5% on SiSi so I chose to keep them plus a cap booster.

Video: http://youtu.be/86kffEony5U

Love your stories Zappity, but ill need to comment on this one. I also have heard many people give the stratios a bad rap. This could not be farther from the truth. Sure, it works the best in certain situations, but what ship in EvE doesnt?

Speaking from my own personal experience, the stratios is one of the best tools for wormholers there is. Anything that can move about with a covops cloak and do crazy drone dps is far from useless.

So, you shouldnt feel bad using it at all. Just my two cents.

Firetail! I caught I Hurricane at a large plex. First I killed his drones, then I repaired myself, and then he escaped because I wasn’t watching my cap carefully enough. It was a very frustrating loss, mostly because it was entirely my fault.

Video: http://youtu.be/OvvLo0d9sZo

I consoled myself by killing a dual-MASB Breacher (http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456187). Next, Ciba Lexlulu spotted a Thrasher and an Algos in a plex together so we warped in together and murdered the Thrasher while the Algos ran. I think he was multiboxing, panicked and lost his pod for good measure:

Thrasher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456185
Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456186

He convoed me afterward and promised to get his revenge. Another entry for the nemesis list!

But I’m getting distracted. Firetail! I next stumbled across a Comet but since his idea of a good fight was actually plus another Comet and a Daredevil I decided not to play. Next, I came across a Procurer in a belt. Naturally, I thought it was bait. And naturally, I bit. His drones immediately sprang into action but I saw they were T1. Hmm, maybe this isn't bait after all. I quickly chewed through them using my webs to slow them down enough to land solid hits.

Then a Merlin appeared. The pilot had previously been sitting in a Venture at the same belt and I guessed that this was a multiboxer. I stuffed up my range control and lost point on the Procurer. Still, the Merlin died quickly enough and I reapplied the scram as soon as possible.

Merlin: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458023

A flight of Hornets was dispatched just as fast as the earlier bunch and I settled down to a nice quiet meal of armour and hull. It took my little 150mm guns a while to cheese through. Just as I was getting close to a yummy pod dessert (yes, I am optimistic) another Merlin appeared! He had reshipped and come back for seconds.

I reasoned that he was probably blaster fit like the last one, and that I was considerably faster due to the lack of web on the Procurer. So I slapped one web on the Merlin and increased my orbit on the still-webbed Procurer. The Merlin followed me around, left ineffectually in my wake, while I finished off the miner.

Procurer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458024

And then I caught the Merlin and killed that, too.

Merlin #2: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458025

Hehe, good stuff. I traded the loot back to my noobish victim, sent a few appropriate fits through, and dropped a little isk to encourage him to keep exploding. I gave him The Lecture (of course) and advised him to try some quieter systems if he really wanted to mine in lowsec.

Video: http://youtu.be/DSUAyk4XBR4

So, revised thoughts on the Firetail? I really like its speed. I really like double webs for multiple target control. I really like the selectable damage type. I just need to find some more worthy adversaries to test it against. And I should probably play with a dual prop fit some time.

I quite like the Firetail. I’m sure I ALWAYS liked it. Who wouldn’t like the speed, selectable damage type and all those mid slots? Only a fool!

I have been getting a bit uppity lately and chasing entirely unsuitable targets. Today’s Unsuitable Target #1 was a Thorax. When I landed in a Medium and saw him at 30 km I thought he would be rail fit and already pressing F1 to pop me. Instead, he warped out before I could get into scram range. I followed him to the gate. He loitered indecisively. A good sign.

I locked him, aligned back to a plex and aggressed before warping to shed gate guns. By the time I got back to the gate he had jumped through. Disappointing. But I followed him through when my timer expired and quickly scanned him down at a cluster of gates. I guessed which one was most likely and gave chase. I guessed right!

I shadowed him for five jumps, hoping to see him at a plex until I finally caught up to him on a gate. He loitered again. This time I gave him a bit of time to aggress me. He targeted me and launched his drones but did not aggress so I eventually did the gate gun warp again. He jumped. By the time I could hop through I had pretty much given up.

Frustrating!

But there he was, 30 km off the gate. He instantly locked me when I decloaked. I locked back and approached at an angle with afterburner. He aggressed! I moved into orbit before he could blap me and immediately set to work on his drones. I orbited at 5 km to keep my speed up and webbed the little buggers before swatting them with my guns. I kept getting mixed up with my webs, accidentally turning off the one on the Thorax.

After I had worked through a few of them he de-aggressed and starting moving back toward the gate. Uh oh. I blasted through his shield with EMP and switched to Fusion for the armor. Things were going quickly now, although the gate was getting closer. Hull! Half hull! And then he jumped out. I had forgotten to keep him webbed to delay re-approach!

Bugger.

I again waited for the infernal weapons timer, hoping against hope that he would be foolish enough to hang around. When I hopped through I immediately saw his pod on dscan, located with an Incursus. He typed in local, "Zappity, this ****** stole your kill!"

"Noooo!!!", I yelled. I was not happy. But then I got a chuckle when he typed, "Kill him for me, will you?"

So I did and then sent him the mail. Incursus: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23477449

Here is the Thorax kill even though it is screwed up: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23477438

I was annoyed to lose the mail but interested to see the fit. He was rail fit after all! He missed his best opportunities, probably through lack of confidence.

Video of the first bit: http://youtu.be/Ysmpg5jY-ik

you think that thorax was screwed

i have a lol challenge for you.

100mil if you can record a kill with this exact fit.

yes you can fit tackle in the empty mid.

No, not a typo. You can out-track 200s pretty easily in tight orbit and (I think) the extra damage from 200mm doesn't adequately compensate.

If you think the Thorax fit was bad wait for the Moa in the next post!

“Hello, I am Zappity the Mostly Fearless. I am here to inspect your wrecks for juicy loot and to destroy any who dare oppose me! No ship can stand against the mighty Incursus!”

As you can see I am making a nuisance of myself in highsec. I have been accepted into my new wormhole corp but have only just learned about the fun that can be had with mission runners so I decide to postpone the move for a day or two.

Local is VERY quiet here in highsec, despite there being well over a hundred people in system. It is spooky. So once in a while I drop a comment like this to liven things up a bit. I also warn my potential victims about their impending pod-loss-doom if they do not read The Lecture (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3757908#post3757908). I figure it is a public service.

I am instantly blocked by two or three locals who also feel the need to tell everyone of their action, despite subsequent local communications clearly proving them to be liars. Some others strike up a conversation, asking about lowsec. And a verdict is given on this very thread: “12 PAGES OF FORUM DRIVEL”. A reasonably accurate assessment but he didn’t need to shout it.

[Incursus, Incursus dual rep v3]

Small Armor Repairer II
Small Armor Repairer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 150
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Acolyte II x1

This has a bit more DPS in exchange for slightly lower reps than the earlier version which couldn't break through the Gnosis’ shield regen in my last encounter. Now all I need is a victim to test it on. After an hour or so of scanning down ships in sites and warping into them I discovered a few things:

1. Not being able to destroy people's wrecks is intensely annoying. I only want to destroy a few of them, just to get their attention but CONCORD keeps threatening to explode me.
2. You need to find a target with the right balance: not so young that they are terrified of another ship on grid and not so old that they know an Incursus can kill their much bigger ship.
3. Warping in as a flashy yellow will mostly result in the mission runner warping away so you only want to go suspect when you think the target might be willing to have a crack at you.
4. Leave 5 cubic metres of space free in your hold so you can loot something from a wreck. This is obvious but it is annoying when you are overflowing with cap charges and haven't thought it through.

I eventually find a willing participant. I warp into the site to see a year-old Gnosis pilot mopping up after shooting the last of the little red crosses. I casually wander over to a nearby wreck. Hmm, he hasn't warped away yet - that's a good sign.

I move to the next wreck, trying to make it look as though I am searching for tasty loot. I choose a wreck which I judge takes me in his direction without being overtly threatening. I am a mere 15km away from him when he yellow-boxes me. Then I receive a duel request! Aha!

I cannot accept quickly enough and immediately dive into a tight afterburner orbit. He was ready for me, however, and immediately slaps on a web and starts biting into my armour with his drones. His main weapons get a solid hit too.

Hobgoblin I and Hammerhead I. Good. I start working on the Hammerheads first. I am worried that the web - oh, actually plural which isn't good news - will slow me down enough for medium drones to hit solidly despite my mid-grade Halo set. It takes a few minutes of micro-management while I chomp through his drones before I am finally able to switch to his ship.

The increased DPS on this fit is helpful but I am still in a normal T1 frigate trying to chew through a battlecruiser! His shield disappears pretty quickly even though I am using cold guns and before long I chipping away at his armour. He immediately, and I think very rudely, starts repairing.

Six minutes later… Ugh, this is going on forever! I notice that he has linked the system name in local and I guess that he is trying to summon help in another channel and dropped it into local by accident. I overheat my guns in an effort to hasten the procedure, carefully watching to make sure they don't fry.

Hull! Finally! And yet he is still repping away, trying to cheat me of my victory. I guess he doesn't quite see it that way, though. When he eventually explodes I am ready for the pod but unfortunately he warps away.

35k damage from the magnificent Incursus! https://zkillboard.com/kill/40938754/

Video: http://youtu.be/KApaT-kBGAs

Props to Marieeth Cardogno who wanted a rematch in a frigate. I would have been happy to oblige but was already running out of time and had nothing suitable to hand. I certainly wasn’t going to take that abomination of an Incursus fit up against another frigate. I think I will move a small selection of proper frigate fits across for this eventuality.

What could he have done differently? Not engaging a frigate at 15km when fitted with medium beams would be a good start. There was no way he could track me in orbit, even with the double webs. He probably would have done alright with pulse lasers. Also, a couple of times he managed to get a decent hit on me. He could have increased the chance of this by trying to slingshot me into zero transversal ‘catch up’ mode. Hard to do but actually possible since I was double webbed and he wasn’t.

I'm going to try some other ships some time but I really wanted to start with the Incursus. Because it is magnificent.

My next highsec adventure happened after spending a long time warping from target to target, most of whom heeded my sage advice and fled as soon as I landed. An exception was found in a particular Moa, probably because she was too busy being killed by the NPCs. I locked her out of idle curiosity and saw that she was in half hull and dropping fast. Probably preparing to warp out, I thought. And then I had another thought. This thought was about my warp scrambler.

Before I knew it, I had scrammed her. I can’t remember if I even shot her (probably) but she certainly popped:

Moa: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23661561

I looked her character sheet up and then I felt very bad. Ultra-noob. I felt even worse when I looked at the fit. No wonder she was in structure - no tank at all! I sent 15m which more than covered the loss as well as a reasonable PvE Moa fit with an explanation of the principles she should be trying to achieve with the mid slots and rigs. I also gave her a stern Lecture since the only thing that saved her pod was CONCORD jamming me. I received a brief reply thanking me. Under the circumstances I can understand her lack of verbosity.

The age of the character made me take a more careful look at the system I was haunting. I had made the mistake of thinking that ‘starter system’ and ‘rookie system’ were synonymous. They are not, and although Arnon is not a starter system (which I knew) it IS a rookie system (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Rookie_Systems) because of the Sisters of EVE epic arc (which I did not know).

So if you want some mission runner baiting fun go and do it somewhere else.