Ships & Modules

Perhaps an Incursus with railguns. Stay out of web range. You are screwed if they disrupt you, but it might be worth a try.

An incursus is a very versitile ship.

You can fit them to kite or brawl quite easily. In a pure kite setup you can match or exceed the speed of a HB and in a brawl you can out DPS/tank them. The main thing is that you need to know how they are fit before hand and what their common tactics are.

But thats generally the same as most frig combat.

I personally like the rail AB brawler for the incursus. It will allow to hit out to long point range with long range ammo and comfortable hit scram kiters with navy AM. but it does require some manual piloting to ensure that your tracking you target ok.

Also bear in mind thet generally in term of power navy frigs are by design more powerful than T1. but if you know what they are flying and counter fit your incursus you'll be able to murder them and force them to re-think or re-fit their HB's

The HB is a nasty frig to be sure but they can be killed.

As with most frig combat a lot is how you setup the fight.

If you scan them at a novice and you know they are often kitey fit then don't warp in with an AB blasting brawler.

However if you setup a hero tank MWD brawler incursus there is a decent chance that you can catch them, shutdown their mwd and melt through their tank. Nothing is certain for sure but the rebalance has given you more options than ever before to be able to counter fit things now with a much greater chance of success than before.

I was trying to be ridiculous...geez does no one understand insanity here?

A vicious creature to be sure.



Scram range kiting rail incursus sounded like a good idea, but all the Hookbill variants I've met should still be able to kill it.
Here's the fit I came up with:
[Incursus, Rail Incursus]

Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Overdrive Injector System II

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Hybrid Locus Coordinator I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Auxiliary Thrusters I

When the Incursus has everything overheated, the dual-web HB will still dictate range (thus being able to gtfo easily or dive in and out-track my guns), out tank it, and out dps it. A TD/Web HB can't dictate range without overheating its own afterburner but I won't be able to hit it very easily at all. A kiting HB will outdps it at range, I won't be able to hold point, and the kiting HB could well out-tank it as well.

This talk of rail Incursii has made me think of the Comet again.
The AB blaster Comet can't get through the double webs, but maybe the AB rail Comet can.

[Federation Navy Comet, Rail Comet]

Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Overdrive Injector System II

1MN Afterburner II
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Hybrid Locus Coordinator I

It would be an interesting fight with this fit. Damage peaks at 6-9km, which is where the scram-range kiting HBs normally hang out. If I get TD'd I can try and manual pilot to reduce transversal and range, as I'll be a similar speed to the HB if it's single web/TD.
And if the HB tries to go under my guns I can neut it. The HB does have a larger tank than this but this Comet fit can outdps it significantly enough that it should still have a decent shot at winning.
Unless it has an ASB in which case I'm probably screwed.
Past ~10km though a kiting HB can out damage this and if its fitted pretty much any tank out tank it. I won't be able to catch it if it has a MWD.
But hey, I'm not going to be able to kill every HB fit I meet unless I'm flying something silly.



I don't think I can afford to use the Worm. This brings the Tristan to mind though.

[Tristan, KILL IT WITH THE FAT MAN]

Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
1MN Afterburner II

Light Ion Blaster II, Null S
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Light Ion Blaster II, Null S

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I

Hobgoblin II x5


That's just a fit I have hanging around. A rail fit would probably beat up the pesky Hookbill fairly easily. With a minor tweak 125mms can go on there and hit out to HB range. And if they drop into neut range bad things will happen to them. This has more tank than the other fits I had, though not quite as much as the Hookbill. The drone damage is higher than the rocket damage though, and of course if the guns can be applied the Hookbill might well explode.
Kiting Hookbills still can outrun the drones, but then if I fit rails I can try to splat them out there. I think it would still lose to a kiting HB but it would put up a significantly better fight.



10mn AB? That certainly would get through the webs. I can't fly a Hookbill properly as I don't have T2 launchers or suchlike.
I considered a 10mn Taranis but that couldn't enter novice plexes and the agility was horrible.
Dual damp condor? I'm training.

Unfortunately even a full flight of ECM drones aren't going to be able to jam a Hookbill often enough for me to really consider it - Caldari ships have the highest sensor strength and what with the sensor compensation skills it's going to happen even less often.
The Tristan's drone bay is 40m3 - so 1 full flight with three backups. I was using warrior IIs, but I cut them out of the post because I reached the character limit.

Someone else suggested a condor with light missiles and dual sensor dampeners. I'm going to try that, and it has the advantage of having a good target selection outside of the Hookbill, which is what I want. I need to train into it first though.
The Hookbill has a good targeting range as well, so I'm going to have to test how effective the dampeners are. When it says -50% targeting range, does it halve the targeting range?

-42% and -42% - first stacking penalty takes it down to like 85%, so not much. That's like 37% off of 58% of their initial targeting range. According to my math that damps a max skilled HB down to about 15km targeting range. If I heat point and hang at 20km or so that should work with a Condor.
Doing it with a Maulus seems like a decent idea. I might try it - but the HB can still kill my drones.
Is there any way to set orbit to like 17km or 18km rather than just 15km or 20km?

Double muon damp Condor is the correct answer, it's also hilarious to use.

lml hookbill will have a TD, Thus an incursus/rail comet are not ideal


Fit a fast comet with web scram and an MWD

(You will be at a disadvantage against most other things but you will munch kiting hookbills)