Some Solo Rupture Fun in Curse and Catch

For my earlier post about the Rupture I had tried experimenting using a 800mm plate and fitting a bit more gank. The result was pretty unspectacular and I went back to using the 1600mm plate Rupture as described in the article. The problem with the 800mm is that the tank kept on running out just a little bit too soon, resulting in my own death instead of my enemies. So I thought to avenge my failures with a few solo roams.

For various reasons Providence right now is mostly set temporarily blue to Agony so I had to wander further and check out curse and catch. First blood was a satisfying Taranis kill in 9KOE-A. The Taranis has just dispatched a Pandemic Legion Dramiel (Very nice kill btw) when I showed up. He warped off when I appeared. I quickly bookmarked the wreck (it was quite a bit off gate) and warped off myself, so I could warp back to the wreck. I am not sure exactly what the Taranis pilot was thinking but I imagine when he saw me disappear off d-scan he felt safe enough to return to the wreck. I landed pretty much on him. Normally a Taranis is a pretty tough cookie, however once I locked him I saw that he was deep deep into structure (must have been a nice fight with the Dramiel) and was pretty much instapopped.

I got a nice deadspace afterburner from the Dramiel wreck. Nice! I returned home to drop off the loot.

The next night I returned to the same hunting grounds. Things were very quiet at first. Then I came upon a Manticore Stealth Bomber sitting uncloaked by a gate. Assuming it must be a tarp I checked the other side and found nothing. Quickly returning the Bomber was still there. 10 seconds later it was now a wreck. The pilot must have woken up as his ship exploded and his pod warped off. A quick check of the wreck provided for some more high priced goodies He was hauling some nice large T1 and small T2 rigs. I didn't want to haul the stuff back to friendly space so I docked in station and offered to sell him his loot back for 50m isk which he accepted.

A few jumps later I came across a couple of Goonswarm Ishkurs. This is where the Rupture really shines. In a Jaguar I would be very hesitant about engaging two assault frigates. However in the Rupture I went for it knowing that unless they had an unusual fit, I would be victorious. Sure enough I grabbed one, applied scram/web/neut and put the ecm drones on the other. The first went pretty quick and I switched to the other which also went down. I barely broke shields :).

The next night I was back in the area. After seeing almost nothing I spotted a Wolf and a Crow sitting on a gate. I engaged the wolf first, unfortunately I choose poorly for ammo types with Phased Plasma. It seemed to take forever to bust through his 400mm RT plate. Meanwhile a Stealth bomber uncloaks and starts pounding me with Torpedoes. Eventually I break through the Wolf's tank and then dispatch the Crow. As this is happening an Eris appears and bubbles us all in. With my Armour dropping below a third I start powering for an exit. I put my DPS on the Eris hoping to drive it away from me out of point range and succeed. I manage to warp to the sun just before hitting structure. As I land at the sun I find myself at 0 with the Eris again. LOL we both tried to escape to the same celestial. I start pounding on the Eris as I observe a Falcon uncloaking. I get jammed, but not before Eris explodes. Again I beat an hasty retreat and live to fight another day.

At this point I am feeling pretty cocky. For three nights in a row I have had some GF and made some good isk. In EVE cockiness is what gets you killed. The next night I set out again feeling quite invincible. Then in K-B2D3 with 4 in local I warp directly from gate to gate, only to land in a bubble camp. The Wolf and Rupture on the bubble would have made for a nice fight. With some lucky Jams from the ECM drones I might have been able to shut down the Rupture while killing the Wolf. Unfortunately a Blackbird 50km off made sure that this ship would never make it home.

All in all it was some great fights. It was a shame to finally loose the ship but it certainly delivered. I made about 100 mill in loot in exchange for a 10 million isk ship. It is nice to know that Solo PvP is alive and well in New Eden.

A Rusty Roam

I know it has been quite a while since I last posted. TBH with a new baby playtime has been very limited which has meant that I just haven't had the inspiration to write anything. Skill training online is far from exciting.

However, yesterday I had a bit of time for a nice roam. I grabbed a Claw and headed out into the wild blue yonder. Unfortunately targets were light to say the least. After racing through Curse I decided to check out the land of major alliances and paid a visit to first Querious and then Delve. Expecting to find some big blobs (this is the land of thousand vs thousand battles is it not) I ended up finding almost nothing. Eventually in NPC controlled Delve a Harpy and an Armageddon started acting interesting. Figuring that with a bit of luck I could isolate the Harpy I managed to engage it at a distant planet.

A Harpy is an interesting Assault ship. With as much as a 50% damage bonus to four hybrid turrets, it can deal one hell of a punch. I believe that it is the highest dps AF in the game. On the downside it doesn't tank as well as a Jaguar or an Ishkur. Still, to my claw, it represented quite a threat.

I choose to try and get nice and close and get under his guns. Probably a foolish idea (a webber would have pretty much fracked this plan up too much). As I started my orbit fighting for transversal it was a little scary seeing my shields blasted off within seconds. I consoled myself that I had an armour tank so the shields didn't matter as much. In anticipation I cranked on the armour repper before the shields even dropped. Armour reppers act at the end of the cycle so I was confident by then I would need the repair. Fortunately his fit was unconventional. Instead of a webber he was dual prop. As a result I slid under his guns nicely, and once there his DPS dropped to a trickle. Meanwhile my tracking bonused 150mm AC II were pummeling him.

At this point I have to admit to an embarrassing mistake. For some reason seeing a Harpy I thought harpy = blasters = gallente = armour tank = woops. As a result I was shooting RF fusion ammo, far from ideal against a shield tanked ship. However once his shields finally did crack his armour and structure were obliterated in moments.

Picking up the loot I docked in a nearby station. I placed everything up for sale cheap (This ship was not coming home) and headed out again to see what more trouble I could get in.

Solo PvP Dead??? - Epic Solo Roam by Corpmate

So after my last post about solo PvP I thought I would try and prove that it is all alive and good. Unfortunately my 3-week old baby is not cooperating in me playing so I decided to enlist the help of my corp. I created a small contest awarding 100m isk to the best Solo PvP kill between August 15th and September 15th. Well the contest is not over but it is all but decided. One of Agony's best Solo PvPers is a guy named Altaieere. Although barely even a year old he is the terror of the space lanes. What makes Altaieere so good is his knowledge is his situational awareness. I have often flown with him in fleets and he always knows where our enemies are hanging out, and seems to be able to predict their actions ahead of time. Usually flying a amour tanked / repping Rifter he has taken down everything up to and including battlecruisers. A few days ago he decided to go on a little roam in something a bit more fierce than a Rifter.... a Claw.

Al Claw is a nasty little ship. Faster and tougher than a Rifter it also packs a bit more of a punch. The only downside (and it is a biggy) is only having two midslots. Here is a typical Claw fit for solo work...


So anyways, this Altaieere kid started a nice little solo roam around Providence leaving death in his wake. According to the killboards he started with killing a Crusader in H-GKI6. Nice but nothing special. Then he moved on to F-YH5B where he found an Ishtar (Gallente Armour HAC) at a Haven which he quickly dispatched followed almost immediatly by engaging a Taranis which he also killed! He had to deal with a Sabre as well but managed to get away from that one.

Here are his comments on that kill:

killed the ishtar at a haven saw this taranis and sabre on scan, i warped they landed, they chased... I needed time to rep and had to split them up by warping to celestials at dif ranges.
once repped i warped to a 100 off one, sabre landed 100 off taranis landed near meh, fight engaged kited him a bit i bled into structure, he popped i warped!

Very Nice but he is just getting warmed up...

Moving on into 6-OQJV he found a Nice Tengu and a Raven. Now personally I would not even think of engaging both a T3 cruiser and a BS with a single interceptor, but I am not as crazy as my corp-mate. Here are his words:

found them at a haven... scrammed tengu (who i checked had aggro) raven warped off, i started killing tengu, raven warped back.. Tengu popped , overheated scram got raven we shared agro and i got him

Unfrickenbelievable!!!

Half an hour later he is in GA9P-0 taking down two Crusaders (first, second) and another in H9-J8N. Here are the comments about the GA9P fight:

this fight was toughest, 2 crusaders, vengance and arazu on top of me... No webs meant i can get away at the end of the fight... i was in 50% structure and then drake tengu landed so i decided to bug

So to recap... a one year old character in an interceptor manages to kill 4 interceptors, a HAC, a T3 Strategic Cruiser and a Battleship over a 3 hour long period. Amazing!

So you want to Solo PvP? (Part 1)

If you are looking for a little solo PvP action but don't know where to start, or are not having much luck, here is some advice for you...

When you get started you want to use a T1 frigate. In general the Rifter is considered the best option but a Punisher, Incursis, Tristan, Merlin or even a Griffin would also do if you are determined. Having said that you really want to be flying a Rifter since it has all the attributes that make it excellent as an effective solo ship.

This is generally how you want to fit your Rifter..

[Rifter, Intro Solo PvP Rifter]
400mm Reinforced Nanofiber Plates I
Damage Control I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I

150mm Light Gallium I Machine Gun, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
150mm Light Gallium I Machine Gun, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
150mm Light Gallium I Machine Gun, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
'Malkuth' Rocket Launcher I, Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket

Small Projectile Burst Aerator I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I
[empty rig slot]


You can easily come up with similar fits with the other race's frigate but the important points are the warp scrambler, the aferburner, the webifier and as big an armour buffer tank as you can fit. If insufficient mid-slots then drop the web.

Put together a half dozen of these and then go running around in NPC 0.0 or the Faction Warfare areas of Lowsec and you will certainly get in a fight. What you are looking for are pretty much any other individual ship, cruiser or smaller that you can get to within Scram-Web range. Once you have them held down, orbit at close range, unleash your weapons and hope for the best.

Do this a few times and you will learn about what can go wrong, and sometimes, what can go right. Just remember that every time you die, try and understand what went wrong and learn from the experience. Soon you will learn to be wary of gates (through which the enemies backup will as often as not arrive), be wary of anti-small ship cruisers (like the Arbitrator or an Assault Missile equipped Caracal) and other useful things.

Once you have done this a few times then it is time to start laying traps. In 0.0 this is called a bubble. Train the required skills to launch a small bubble. Find a nice system with some traffic, but not too much and place the bubble. The easiest way to position it is warp to the gate you want to catch from, then warp back to the gate where you want to place your bubble at 70km. Then drop your bubble right there. Once the bubble is up (takes two minutes) sit at the catch position (the point on the bubble where the enemy will land) and wait for something tasty to arrive.

Good Luck :)