Ships & Modules

Here are two fits for you to plug into pyfa/eft whatever

[Incursus, railkursus]

Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II
Adaptive Nano Plating II

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
1MN Afterburner II

150mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Auxiliary Thrusters I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Transverse Bulkhead I


Hobgoblin II x1

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[Incursus, lazerface]

Damage Control II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Heat Sink II

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S

Small Auxiliary Thrusters I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Transverse Bulkhead I


Hobgoblin II x1

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the first thing you'll notice is that the railcursus is HORRIBLY over on cpu, it needs to downsize its weapons, or severely gimp itself to fit 150s. The laser incursus on the other hand can get by with a cpu implant. But lets ignore that, lets pretend the 150s do fit.

relevant stats for those that don't care to see for themselves

turret dps

lasers: 121dps @ 8.25km +3.13km
rails: 119dps @ 9km + 7.5km

tracking:

lasers 0.112
rails 0.0919

what this basically means is that even with a 25% damage bonus for the rails (which don't even fit), they do less damage, track less well and use ammo. The only advantage they have is better optimal. (which barely helps given scrams only go to 9km, and scram kiting is normally at about 8km. This advantage is also lost when the guns are downsized. After downsizing, the 125mm rails have equal tracking to the beams, but with even less dps and significantly less optimal.

In this case, beams seem to just be better than rails, on a ship with bonuses to the rails. The only thing I could think of is that the rails could use long range ammo and hit things kiting it at range. But the beams do this too.

with infrared the beams do the same as the rails with iridium (150mm rails) but shoot to 21, beams only to ~20. which is good enough.

and since 150s don't fit..... you can see where this is going.

The merlin is in the same situation as the incursus. Beams seem better on that too. Am I missing something? Or is this what it looks like?

tl;dr beams are better than rails (in almost every way) on ships that bonus rails for scram kiting

rails will have better range with long range ammo, rails will use much less capacitor, beams just got buffed and i think all S long range turret are in for a buff so just wait and see what happen.

What's the cap on the lazer fits?

Generally the cap drain on beams keeps them from being used, especially on active tank fits. They have high DPS, but they tend to eat a lot of powergrid (which matters for buffer tanks), but you've sidestepped this by using an active tank/afterburner. So I'm wondering how long you can engage with this fit, because it looks like a cap eating monster.

faction lenses also burn out after a specific amount of shots, which makes them like carrying 2k ammo if I remember correctly.

scram kite on one of the slowest frigates in the game

u funny man

Next thing you'll know, sentries are better than weapons. Oh wait.

that just isnt true.

http://prntscr.com/5myghf

That's my up to date pyfa for rhea. Although your link is what I would expect of the pre beam buff comparison. Also, since 125s and those beams have equal tracking, adding transversal to the graph doesnt help.

Incursus is one of the best frigates for scram kiting. WIth my fit which also boasts 150 rails I have had over 250+ kills with it against other frigs/ceptors. Don't underestimate.

Here is the fit with the name of my old main for reference.

[Incursus, Freundliches Feuer's Incursus]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Overdrive Injector System II

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

150mm Railgun II,Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun II,Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
150mm Railgun II,Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I



Hobgoblin II x1

Having taken some time to look at this, I have a few thoughts:

1. Fitting largest-in-class rails to most T1 Gallente ships has always been difficult due to CPU limitations. I've been a fan of kiting Thoraxes for years and I have pretty much always had to fit 200mm rails instead of 250mm ones. This is not a new thing, nor is it limited to small rails.

2. The reason for #1 is that most T1 Gallente ships are balanced around blasters instead of rails, and blasters take considerably less CPU than rails. If you take your railkursus and fit blasters instead of rails, your level of CPU usage becomes much more reasonable. (Yes, I know you can't kite anymore. I'm not suggesting that you do it, only pointing out the difference in fitting when you do.) This is also why using Caldari ships as blaster ships is so easy from a fitting standpoint.

3. The fact that small beam laser performance on an Incursus is so similar to small rail performance may well be a new thing due to the recent small laser balance pass. Small lasers were tweaked with the release of the Amarr T3 Destroyer and folks are expecting CCP to be balancing all small turrets in coordination with the other releases. I wouldn't start to worry unless it's this way after all of the T3 Destroyers have been released.


My suggestion to you to help out with your fit is to try one or more of the following:

1. Drop the Tech 2 Damage Control down to a Meta 3 (or a Meta 4 if you've got ISK to burn). This saves you a good chunk of CPU and doesn't hurt your tank much. (There's a reason why Meta 4 DCUs run 8mil ISK a pop.)
2. Drop the damage mod for a tracking enhancer. Yes, your max theoretical DPS on paper will drop, but you may well end up doing more damage against frigates because of the better range and tracking performance you'll get.
3. Drop down to 125mm rails. Suck it up, Gallente ships aren't balanced around fitting large rails.
4. Consider dropping the structure rig for a hybrid weapon rig. You'd only lose a small amount of EHP and you've got an abundance of grid to burn. Rigs for hybrid range, tracking, damage, or CPU reduction may come in handy here.

5. If lasers really do work better than rails on the Incursus at the moment...run with it! Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

haha.

Yeah, I only tried this because of the beam buff.

3. Normally I would run 125mm's for an incursus. However, as I can fit the beams instead and not bother with changing the fit much, and the beams have equal tracking to 125s, I really think sticking with them is best.

2. As I'd be using keep at range rather than orbit, I dont think the tracking issue is as bad as it looks :

http://i.imgur.com/TOKRZg7.png

^^ here's a dps plot of heatsink vs tracking enhancer. a frig is unlikely to be going over 1000km/s (other than succubus) when webbed and scrammed (and if it is a succubus I'm dead anyway)

I know Iknow ermagherd eft warrior using graphs instead of experience, but I'm trying to err on the side of caution and show it with way more transversal than id normally experience with keep at range rather than orbit.

4.the bulkhead was literally just because I was thinking, "better throw something on and not leave an empty rig for eft warriors to point out" a damage rig would be a good idea, thanks.

5. Definitely running more of these. lasers will devour the world. The torm does this even better (albeit less tankily), almost 200dps cold at 8.25km optimal