Streaming EVE on OWN3D

Over the last 6 months I have been enjoying watching Sard Caid's twitchTV stream. I prefer watching streams to highlight videos since streams show solo/small gang EVE for what it is, hunting with 99% boredom and 1% terror. Most videos exclude out the 99% boredom part which is where most of the strategy lies. If I wanted instant PVP I would play CounterStrike.

With the alliance tournament broadcasting on OWN3d I did a little research and noticed that both twitch, and own3d offer free streaming accounts. With a little digging I learned that the software needed, xsplit is available for no cost. With about an hour of configuring and installing and troubleshooting I was broadcasting on the OWN3D site. :)

My current play style is basically running a small gang as FC once or twice a month, plus lots of solo roaming 3 or 4 times a week. The solo roaming can be a pretty lonely existence so I started to broadcast the feed. With as many as a dozen viewers I jumped through gate after gate until eventually DIAF, sometimes with a kill or two, sometimes not.

All in all I have really enjoyed broadcasting and will now be broadcasting all of my future solo activities and probably some of my gang activities as well. You can find my broadcast when it is up at the top of this blog site (once the tourney is over), or at my site on OWN3d called 'Toterra'. Videos of the roams will be uploaded when complete. In general I will be broadcasting when I am on from 0200 to 0500 eve time depending on my RL schedule.

Cheers!

It is the Mistakes That Get You

Today I wanted to talk about two recent losses I had to gatecamps. In both cases I could have survived, but I made tactical errors that cost me my ship.

The first fight led to this lossmail: Jaguar Lost In Providence

After a long run through null from syndicate I had been bumping around near the Dital and Assah entrances to providence looking for some action. Withe the recent changes to Assault Ships I am still looking for my 'New' Jaguar fit. Jaguars now have the tracking bonus so in theory the web is no longer as needed. This plus the extra low-slot makes for several interesting possibilities. The fit I was in was a heavy tank, some gank MWD fit with two medium shield extenders giving it about 15k EHP and + decent shield recharge rate. This is a very tough nugget. A nanofibre in the new low slot makes this ship about as fast and maneuverable as the shield Rifter. On the downside, damage is only mediocre.

The problem with this fit vs a more ganky fit is that with the lowish DPS it can take a long time to kill a target. I was not going to be popping anyone under the eyes of their gang. Unfortunately all I could find were a series of 5-10 ship gate-camps in the area.

In the end it was one of these camps that got me. In 9-FOB on the 4B-NQN gate I jumped into a HIC bubble. There was a gang on the other side so rather then bump back and forth a few times, I decided to burn away. I failed to realize the significance of the Ashimmu on the field :(. With it's high price tag and bonus to webifiers it was likely fitting a faction web extending it's range. Not realizing that this was the major threat on the field, I was more concerned with the small ship tackle, my escape trajectory brought me within about 15km of this ship where I was promptly stopped cold. Going 300m/s 20km from gate while under MWD was not going to get me to safety.... I died.

The loss led to this loss-mail: Jaguar Lost In Syndicate

This was a bit of an experimental fit, an active armour tanked Jaguar. I have seen these before and thought, with the extra low-slot, it was quite viable. In this case however it was the pilot (me) who led to the loss. There was a gate-camp on the FD-MLJ to PF-346 gate (pretty much always a camp here). However the gate to X-M2LR was clear. I jumped through and held my cloak. 'Perhaps something interesting camping the other gate would come and chase me' I thought. Not a bad plan but execution is key. I held my cloak until something came through, in this case a stealth bomber uncloaked. I gave chase but couldn't catch it. At this point a Sabre came through and launched a bubble. Not having aggression and still 20km from the sabre I was safe. I could outrun a sabre or burn back to the gate. Unfortunately at this point I mis-clicked my overview and resorted everything by name. By the time I had my bearings (which entry was the gate) the sabre had moved into range and I was tackled. With other ships pouring in certain death came soon later. Oooops!

The importance of both of these losses was not that gate-camps killed me, it was that they killed me ONLY after I made avoidable tactical mistakes. Gate camps are a fact of life in 0.0. Some of them will be un-escapable. However most of them are not perfect. They can be dodged in a fast ship. It is the mistakes that get you.

Sidenote: Today is the 100-year anniversary of the tragic sinking of the Titanic. For e the historical significance is this.... it is the first of many huge, and entirely avoidable, tragedies of the 20th century. Pity the 21st is off to an even worse start.

Scram Web - An EVE Online Podcast - Episode 2 - The Percocet Edition

High on percocet due to a shoulder injury, I decided to record a second episode. Enjoy!

Topics Discussed:

• Feedback from first episode including how to fight a blaster ship.
• A fight in Syndicate involving me vs a punisher, dramiel and two stealth bombers.
• Shout-out to Sard Caid for his live stream.
• Discussion of what is happening with minerals.

Download this episode (right click and save)

The 'Arenas' of EVE

The Mittani tweeted a few days ago:

I withdraw any support for 'arenas' or 'battlegrounds' in #eveonline, it already exists in RvB. Holy shit this owns.
@TheMittani #tweetfleet

He brings up a great point that I think is lost on many players. In EVE most thing that are in other games come about as a mechanic, are player driven. There are no set arena's in EVE. However there are lots of Arenas.

For me an Arena is a place you can go to get some mostly consensual PvP action without much effort. Grab a rifter or other ship you are willing to loose, and head to any of the following places and you will inevitably get a fight. Obvisouly RvB is effectively an arena setup in high-sec and provides quick PvP. However if you are looking for something different there are many other easy places to find pvp.

Arena #1 Amamake: Upon arrival in the system warp to the sun at 0. You have about small chance of landing on a fight. Then use the directional scanner to scan down each of the planet clusters. Look for comparable ships like Rifters, Merlins, Incursis and Punishers. If flying a T2 frigate look for these plus destroyers and other T2 frigates. Warp to a belt when you find something. If nothing there stay for a 30 seconds or so then warp back to sun. Great practice for directional scanning. You will almost always get a fight within a few minutes. Typically, about 50% of the time, the target will have one or two ships backup that will arrive soon after fight begins. Also check out nearby Auga and Dal.

Arena #2 Molden Heath (Bosena/Heild). Expect several small pirate gangs to be operating with cruiser and under sized hulls. Gunboat Diplomacy and Black Rebel Rifter Club are very active and will engage any small target very quickly. In addition there are several other groups operating in the area plus tourists. The static plexes in Heild are more often then not the main spot where fight occur. Check Sard Caid's feed which may be active and is a great source of intel. In general major pirate corps in area will accept and honour 1v1s. Molden Heath lowsec forms a nice loop that is great for a quick roam.

Arena #3 Hevrice: Home to Tuskers PvP corp. In addition there are several other entities in the area. Check out Hevrice as well as the several adjacent lowsec systems looking for pirates.

Arena #4 Tama: Like Amamake this system usually has several active small gangs and solo roamers at any one time. Warp to celestials scanning down potential targets. You won't be disappointed often.

Arena #5 Syndicate: This entire region is populated by many smaller alliances and corps specializing in small gang pvp without the burden of sov warfare. Small gangs are the norm but solo fights are still frequent. Be prepared to deal with bubbles and the occasional hot drop. Best region to roam in if you are in a small gang yourself. Lots of stations for 0.0 that are NPC so you can dock. I prefer to enter from the Harroule-MHC-R3. The Orvolle-PF-346 gate often result in crashing into a gate camp getting to the main trunc. Beware there are many areas that are well connected, but there are also some dead-ends you can get camped in.

This is far from an exhaustive list. But if you are looking for a fight, either solo, or in a small gang, these areas are awesome arena's to learn the ropes of PvP and have a good time. Be warned, locals do know what they are doing. Don't fly what you can't afford to loose.

Taranis 2.2

So after surviving my initial encounter and getting my first Taranis kill with a Taranis, I think I have mastered this ship. Perhaps not. I recently started a new corp (I will undoubtedly blog about that later) and I took one of my new corpmates on a little roam though low-sec. I was in my shiny Taranis, my mate was in a Retribution. The Retribution is a really awesome assault ship with one teeny tiny problem... only one midslot. IOW it can fit a propulsion mod but no tackle :(.

The Hunt
We first made our way on to Tama. This is a hotbed of faction war between Caldari and Gallente. I managed to d-scan down a republic fleet firetail, but it was sitting in a minor compound. Oddly minor compounds only allow frigates and destroyers... T2 frigates can not enter :(.

On we went looking for targets. Eventually we ended up Dal, one jump out of Amamake. I managed to tackle a Vexor and we started giving it hell. My shields and armour were obliterated, however once I set into an orbit I was tanking it okay. It's shields dropped quickly and we were slowly chipping away at the armour. I checked the drones and he had loaded up mostly Ogre IIs which couldn't hit me despite being webbed. It was very very slowly loosing armour.

Then disaster struck. I had though I had turned off overheating my afterburner... but it stayed on for the third cycle. Once completed it had burnt out and my velocity went from 500 m/s to 150 m/s... and then an Ogre got a 'wrecking shot!'. Structure didn't last long after that. My fellow corp-mate in a retribution did not quite get his ship out.

2012.01.15 06:41:00

Victim: Toterra
Corp: Walking Dead Pilots
Alliance: None
Faction: None
Destroyed: Taranis
System: Dal
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 2444

Involved parties:

Name: Igo Heeled44 (laid the final blow)
Security: 3.2
Corp: Ascetic Virtues
Alliance: None
Faction: Amarr Empire
Ship: Vexor
Weapon: 200mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 2444

Destroyed items:

Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 114
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Light Neutron Blaster II, Qty: 2
Small Ancillary Current Router I, Qty: 2
Hobgoblin II (Cargo)

Dropped items:

1MN Afterburner II
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 57
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Small Armor Repairer II
Damage Control II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Null S, Qty: 500 (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 4953 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 715 (Cargo)
Hobgoblin II (Cargo)

Afterthoughts
I hate loosing a ship due to stupidity. I don't know whether I could have tanked the vexor if my ab wasn't overloaded.... but burning out was just fail. I will be so happy once CCP fixes the overload interface so that it is less prone to mistakes. As far as the Taranis is concerned the ship performed beautifully. The combination of small sig radius, high speed, and high dps is a winner.

The Current Sad State of EVE-Online Noob PvP Training - Part 3 - OUCH

Open Unversity of Celestial Hardship (OUCH)
OUCH was started by Black Claw who handles the www.evebloggers.com portal. Although he has left the corp and is in fact, planning to leave EVE, his idea of creating an alliance dedicated to achieving excellence in small gang PvP still thrives. OUCH is the training arm of the Art Of War alliance that he helped build. Operating primarily out of the Curse NPC 0.0 region they have made a small name for themselves in one of the most competitive section of the EVE universe.

Getting into OUCH is as simple. They are willing to accept pretty much anyone. As their recruitment post says:

No pre-requisites are required to join OUCH. No minimum number of skill points, API checks, interviews, etc. We truly are an "open" training corporation. Our students have ranged from one day old trial accounts to players who were with Eve since Beta. We accept anyone with a pulse.

OUCH tries hard, they really seem to. When they started over a year ago my Agony corp-mates kind-of laughed at them figuring they would never last. Instead, they are still around and seem to graduate about 5 players a month. Characters first join up with the corp and then take classes. To get to 'Graduate' status several modules have to be completed covering a range of PvP topics. These modules are delivered in a group class format schedules around once or twice a week. Four group classes (about 9 hours of training total) are required to cover the whole curriculum. Reviewing the module names they cover the host of major topics to truly get started in EVE PvP. From fitting to tackling to using the d-scanner, core concepts are covered.

Module List:
UNIT ONE
1. Overview settings
2. EVE client ESC settings
3. EVE client interface

UNIT TWO
4. Bookmarking
5. D-Scan

UNIT THREE
6. Tackling
7. Weaponry

UNIT FOUR
8. Fleet Ops
9. Hunter/Prey

My new character managed to join OUCH without many questions. I created an account on their forum, read what I could and then waited for a class. Fellow corp-mates were friendly and helpful, answering any questions I had. Since I was doing missions during this period they were able to give me some advice about what ship to use and what skills to train for.

The forums provided me with a fit of ship to use in the lessons (AB Merlin since I was Caldari) and some information, however there did not seem to be any way of preparing for the classes ahead of time other then get a ship ready in system. The content of the courses is covered during the lessons rather then in reading material.

As a new pilot I had to fly with several restrictions, basically barring me from any PvP until I had completed the courses. During this time I was not allowed to:
1. Participate in any form of PvP,
2. Join any OUCH PvP Fleet,
3. Go to 0.0/low-sec,
4. Listen in on an active PvP fleet.

Pretty much I was left alone on the lounge channel of their teamspeak server while I ran a few missions and basically was left to my own devices, longing to join a fleet channel where people looked like they were having fun. I chatted with other students and they were similarly frustrated.

During the first 10 days no class corresponded to anything near my playtime and I was kicked for inactivity. Apparently there was a requirement of creating a student folder in the student folder forum. IOW, despite spending over an hour looking for information on their website I failed to RTFM, or in this case, read the f---ing acceptance mail. Since I left they have strengthened their documentation for new members to help them know what to do. In general lessons seemed to be more convenient for EU timezones, while some 'extra' lessons are scheduled outside of that time. I think that due to the x-mass holidays I hit at a bad time where people were taking a break and less lessons then normal were available. This is quite understandable as the amount of work and time that goes into providing these lessons.

I am not really sure if OUCH is the best place for a new character on a 14-day trial. While some of their graduates started as new, I feel that it would be very hard for a new player to have a meaningful PvP experience within the 14 day trial by going through OUCH.

OTOH if a player feels that EVE is really for them and wants to get into PvP, I think joining OUCH is an excellent idea. As long as they understand that it will take a bit of patience (and what in EVE doesn't take patience), and they can control their schedule enough to fit in the classes, they will have a real step up over other players. However it would usually take more than 14 days and, since the restrictions on students are so severe, it would be a pretty uneventful time until they achieve graduation, unless the lessons align perfectly with their play time.

I do think OUCH works best for a mission runner who wants to get into PvP. They can run missions/incursions/other empire stuff while waiting to take the classes.

Response From OUCH
I contacted OUCH with a draft of this post and received the following response:
Dear Toterra,

I have followed your blog a bit and I like most of what I read. I've no problems with your review of us, it's an honest opinion of your experience with the Open University of Celestial Hardship [0UCH].

In my opinion, 14 days is not enough time to really do anything with OUCH, and you probably caught us at the worst time, in December when the holidays were looming. Hopefully for someone joins us and doesn't get disallusioned with the admin of joining will want to stay in OUCH long enough to figure out if they really like Eve. I agree that OUCH is more suited to the carebear come PvP, but we have had many successful brand new players join and successfully finish our course. It requires four groups of modules to complete the course, 9 hours of training.

After the holiday, I made a post called "How to get Kicked out of OUCH" (a little tongue in cheek there) and linked it in our MoTD because we were concerened with all of the students joining and missing the big picture, or failing to actually participate. I think that if that had been in the MoTD when you joined, you might have read it and figured out you needed a Student Folder. It also explains some of the reason why we insist on new pilots showing a little patience with us as we do the same. I will mail it to you for your reference, but in a nutshell, we are not interested in being a huge corp with a bunch of people who want to hang out. We want people who want to be trained, or in the case of a permanent member, want to train others.

Because OUCH is an Open Corp, we make people wait to join us in PvP channel... there has to be some security for counter intelligence purposes... So basically if you havent gotten thru enough lessons to do PvP, you can't join us in the PvP channel. I admit that annoys me that people would rather sit in the AFK channel than hang in the lounge, but it is what it is.

Anyway, I am sorry that OUCH didn't meet your expectations. To be honest, I don't think there is any program out there that is going to fit your parameters. We try very hard to help out who we can, but we're grown up enough to know we can't please everyone. We are going to keep focused on what we do well and refine it as we can.

Respectfully,

Bren Genzan (CEO)

PL and TEST Working Together (not really) Providing Lots of Fitting Advice

Recently Test Alliance Please Ignore managed to snag the forums from Pandemic Legion and have made them available. Most of it is major drama crap, but there are some really useful nuggets. PL is known for some innovative fittings (how many alliance tournament wins?) so the forums dealing with fittings were particularly interesting. Here are some of my favourite posts after spending a few minutes browsing:

Smallish Gangs:

LR HAC / HSLR
http://files.pleaseignore.com/forumdumps/www.pandemic-legion.com/threads/thread-24012-.html

Drake Gang Guide (not the traditional one, but works with smaller fleets)
http://files.pleaseignore.com/forumdumps/www.pandemic-legion.com/threads/thread-33238-.html

Small AB HAC Gang
http://files.pleaseignore.com/forumdumps/www.pandemic-legion.com/threads/thread-28920-.html


For larger fleets there are lots of posts (this is PL after all), but these got my eye.

AB HAC Gang
1. http://files.pleaseignore.com/forumdumps/www.pandemic-legion.com/threads/thread-24603-.html
2. http://files.pleaseignore.com/forumdumps/www.pandemic-legion.com/threads/thread-28888-.html

Artillery Counter to the Drake Blob
http://files.pleaseignore.com/forumdumps/www.pandemic-legion.com/threads/thread-28631-.html


P.S. Only a couple of more days on the cheapfleet challenge to go!! lots of great entries... but we still need more. See here for details.

Ships I Fly - The Punisher

Ever since hearing about how great an autocannon Punisher is from a lecture I heard from eve university, I have wanted to try one out. A Punisher is a very sturdy ship with a naturally strong armour tank, plus a significant bonus to armour resistance. Being an Ammarian ship it has a large capacitor, and a bonus to capacitor usage of lasers. Obviously this means that it is best fit with Autocannons ;).

Although lasers have certain advantages, autocannons lack of capacitor usage, combined with easy fitting, means that a Punisher can fit a massive (for a T1 Frigate) buffer tank + an effective active tank. The EVE FNG blog has a great post discussing fitting autocannons on a Punisher and why it is superior to lasers. His posts and ravings about the Punisher are why I started looking at them again in the first place.

Using his fit as a baseline I have made a few changes to make it more effective with my particular skills. Here is my fit:

[Punisher, Toterra's Punisher]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

125mm Gatling AutoCannon II,Republic Fleet Fusion S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon II,Republic Fleet Fusion S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon II,Republic Fleet Fusion S
Small 'Knave' I Energy Drain

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I

I choose to go with the 125mm AC II instead of the 150mm for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I feel that tracking is the most important characteristic on small, close range weapons (idea for a future post) and without a tracking bonus I felt the punisher would benefit from the 125s. I have also enhanced the tank with a Nano Pump, which increases the active tanking of by 10%. This combined with the punisher's 25% resist bonus makes for a tank of well over 50dps per second. Even without the NOS it can run for a minute and a half.

Looking at it over I felt that there were several weaknesses of this fit. Firstly, it is slow and lacks agility. With a 5.4s alignment speed and top velocity of 814 m/s this ship is not going to win any races. Also the lack of additional e-war could be an issue. A webber in particular would be highly desirable.

So I took this bird out on a few low-sec solo roams. The first ship I engaged was an Ishkur. It is a bit unfair to test out against a T2 frigate but, it was the target of opportunity. I immediately started pluggging away at his drones. Knowing that my tracking was not going to be the best I was not surprised that the damage was slow, however it soon became apparent that there was not damage whatsoever. Checking my overview revealed an indicator that I was being track disrupted.... not a good thing. I quickly switched my guns over to the Ishkur, where started to do damage. I also adjusted my orbit to minimize angular velocity (I wasn't getting under his guns so no point in trying). However I had wasted 40 seconds of time, and a chunk of my buffer tank on the drones and I wasn't going to make up the difference. Not long afterwords I blew up and my pod fled for greener pastures.

Not a great start. Time for a second try. For the next several night I flew this ship looking for targets. An Omen (ammarian cruiser) was my first target and provided me with my very first successful ransom. Even as slow as a punisher was, it was able to get under the guns of the Omen. I also engaged and defeated several armour tanking T2 Fit Rifters. The two Rifters each could have escaped (they were faster + had me webbed), however for some reason they continued to sit there and orbit me even after entering structure. As I have noted before, most pilots will continue with their initial plan and not modify or run when things change. Under these circumstances, a Punisher can easily out-last a Rifter in a straight up slug-fest.

It was a later engagement that revealed the disappointing side to the Punisher again. I had scanned down a Dramiel and a Jaguar from different corps at a belt. As I suspected they were going at each other full bore when I arrived. Both their ships had entered armour once I achieved lock. I quickly took a couple pot shots at the Dramiel to both whore the killmail, and to ensure that it would go down before escaping. However I aligned my ship to the Jag and, quickly switched my guns once it was obvious the Dramiel was going down.

Normally a Jaguar would eat a T1 frigate for lunch, however this Jag was now entering structure and if I could just hold it there it would die real quick. Regrettably he did the obvious, lit his afterburner and fled. If I had been in a Rifter I would have been able to catch up, and I would have probably webbed him. In a Punisher .... no chance. KILL DENIED :(

So to summarize, the Punisher is a great little ship with a hell of a tank. However it is a one trick pony. It won't catch anything that wants to escape and if things go south... time to get your pod ready to flee.

In short .... it is no rifter.


P.S. Several more great entries in the cheapfleet challenge... but we still need more. See here for details.

YARR! My first Ransom :)

While running through low-sec I cam across an Omen sitting at a planet in Vitrauze...

[ 2011.02.21 05:56:42 ] Serivous > how much?
[ 2011.02.21 05:56:56 ] Toterra > 10 million
[ 2011.02.21 05:57:26 ] Toterra > 15 seconds yes or no
[ 2011.02.21 05:57:30 ] Serivous > teach me to stop paying attention
[ 2011.02.21 05:57:35 ] Serivous > money has been sent
[ 2011.02.21 05:57:49 ] Toterra > have a good doay

YARR!

God I love this game :) Are there any other games out there where this sort of thing is even possible?

P.S. We have now two entries in the cheapfleet challenge... looking for more. See here for details.

Contest - Toterra's Cheapfleet Challenge - Frigates

*NOTE THERE HAS BEEN A DELAY IN MY JUDGING-GIVING OUT AWARDS. MY INTERNET IS DOWN. I SHOULD BE BACK UP IN A COUPLE OF DAYS TO ANNOUNCE AND REWARD THE WINNER*

When I started playing EVE one of the best resources out there was the Cheapfleet Challenge contest on Battleclinic. Basically it was a competition for the best fittings for T1 frigates, destroyers and cruisers, using affordable Meta-3 using and lower gear. It gave me a great starting point for various fits that were affordable and much more effective then my early fail-fit attempts.

Unfortunately their fits are rather old at this point. I think that it is time for a new 'Cheapfleet Challenge'.

Here are the rules:

• This contest is for T1 frigates only. (if there is interest I will do larger ships later)
• Toterra will be the only judge and decision will be final. I will take into account any comments positive and negative from other players about fits. Both fits for fleet and for solo work will be evaluated. If there are a lot of entries I may look for additional judges.
• One entry per character. If you are making a change then mention it at the top of the post.
• Fit will be evaluated for it's PvP ability. I do not care about PvE.
• Any module > Meta-3 will disqualify the fit.
• No Rigs.
• No Faction Frigates.
• If two identical submissions, the first one qualifies. Later submissions are disqualified. <--New
• Grand Prize will be one empire faction frigate from the same faction as the winning fit. (hookbill, firetail, comet or slicer). 
• Five 5 million isk prizes will go to honorable mentions, one for each of the following categories (note I changed this on Feb 19):
• best e-war
• best tackler
• best gank
• best ship to bring to a fleet
• best ship for solo work
• Contest will end on March 15, 2011 at midnight EST. (the ides of march)
• Prize will be contracted to winning character from Jita 4-4 by March 22, 2011. 
• Comments on fits are very welcome

Post a comment in the comments portion of this blog post containing the following

Your character name (to receive the prize if winning)
Brief description of the fit (200 words or less)

Fitting in EFT export format as seen elsewhere on this blog

The following metrics (Assuming all lv 5):
EHP :
DPS :
Speed :


For example here is what a posting should look like

Toterra

This is a fit for a Breacher. It works best against another solo frigate that has been fit for AB/SCRAM with short range weapons (like 90% of the pvp frigates out there). Set the keep-at-range to 16,000 m, turn on the disruptor and pelt away. If you can hold range and they can't hit you they will eventually die. It can also be a great tackler / scout for a fleet.

[Breacher, Cheepfleet Breacher]
Capacitor Power Relay I
Capacitor Power Relay I

Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
J5 Prototype Warp Disruptor I

TE-2100 Standard Missile Bay, Piranha Light Missile
TE-2100 Standard Missile Bay, Piranha Light Missile
TE-2100 Standard Missile Bay, Piranha Light Missile
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

EHP: 1497
DPS: 48
Speed: 2783 m/s

The advantage of unusual fits

I had an interesting fight the other day that highlighted the importance of non-conventional fits. As said before I am in the process of changing corps. As a result I am running pretty lean. My collection of ships and modules is sitting in a 0.0 system waiting for a someone to accept a contract to ship it out. Meanwhile I have been flying around in a simple Rifter, trying to get familiar with low-sec mechanics.

Anyways, I came across another rifter from the corp I am currently in the process of applying to. I decided to engage him. When engaging another solo rifter it is a pretty safe bet that it has something like the following fit:

[Rifter, Typical]
Damage Control II
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Small Armor Repairer II

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

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

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

This is a great setup that can handle ships of all sized. It does good damage, and can hold itself together in a fight. I fly this setup regularly. Having said that, I am a big fan of the shield rifter. I have earlier commented on my MWD fitted shield rifter. However of late I have been running a similar setup, but with an afterburner and tracking enhancer instead of a MWD and nanofibre.

The main advantage to this shield rifter is that it is unusual. This is a huge advantage when engaging another rifter. 99.999% of the time the enemy will start shooting either RF Fusion or Barrage. Both ammo types are effective against armour, but no so effective against shields. Couple this with the large EHP buffer that the shield provides and the natural repping of the shield, and you have an easy fight on your hands.

What made this last fight interesting was that my opponent had the same idea. He was also flying a shield rifter. Except his was equipped with an energy neutralizer to further make a mess of the cap hungry small armour repairer on a typical rifter. In this battle both pilots had the same assumption. We were both flying ships that we figured could easily kill our opponent. In the end the battle dragged on and on as we realized that we just were both shooting the wrong ammo. Since I was setup with a bit more damage than him and a bit better buffer he entered structure about the same time I entered armour. His neut managed to silence my scrambler and he fled just before I managed to finish him off. We both switched to more appropriate ammo and went back at in a minute or two later, and I manged to come out ahead in a much faster battle.

Good fight all around. Anyways, the point of this whole post is that by going with non-conventional fits you have a great advantage. Both of us had non-conventional Rifter fits. They were not strange EFT warrior fits, nor were they super rare, just not what one typically expects. As a result we both were super confident going into the battle that the enemy would be setup wrong against us. As it turned out we were both right.

Here is my Afterburner Shield Rifter Fit:

[Rifter, 125mm shield ab]
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
F-aQ Phase Code Tracking Subroutines

1MN Afterburner II
Medium Shield Extender II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
[empty high slot]

Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Small Core Defence Field Extender I
Small Core Defence Field Extender I

Frigate vs Cruiser - Strategies

One of the more interesting 1v1 battles out there is a cruiser vs a frigate. From the point of view of an outsider it should be obvious who wins. A cruiser has both the firepower advantage and an advantage of being able to take a lot more damage. However the reality is that these battles are a lot more interesting then you would think. For me the first cruiser vs frigate battle I was in was way back in a DOS game called  'Ancient Art of War at Sea'. In that game sea battles were fought between 1800 era ships of the line, battleships and frigates. Battleships were slow and hard hitting. Frigates were fast and nimble, but not very powerful. Ships of the line were in between. Since these ships could only fire sideways a fast frigate could maneuver so that the larger ship could never hit it. By dashing in an out a frigate could, given a lot of time, eventually take out a larger enemy ship. Eve is similar. Frigates can use their speed and small signature radius to avoid damage from larger ships. However in EVE, the larger ships have some countermeasures. Drones, energy neutralizers being the most important. The most important thing however is to go into a fight with a plan.

Lets look at what weapon systems a cruiser might have that are a threat to a frigate. In order of ease to mitigation we have:

1. Guns: In most cases if the cruiser's guns can hit the frigate with anything close to full damage, the frigate is going to die. The trick for a frigate is to make a cruisers guns useless. This involves using a combination of high angular velocity and a low signature radius so that the cruisers guns can not track the frigate. In most cases this is going to involve getting into point-blank range, paralyzing the target, while orbiting as fast as possible on afterburner. The medium guns on most cruisers just can't hit an afterburner equipped frigate that is orbiting it. The cruiser will typically try to get range and kite the frigate, which breaks the orbit and crashed the angular velocity. Ergo it is important for the frigate to scram (take out the MWD on most cruisers) and if possible webify (further kill the speed) the cruiser so that it is unable to do so. Remember that a Warp Disruptor is pretty useless here as it does not shut down a MWD and most cruisers with a MWD are faster than a frigate with an afterburner. If the frigate fields a MWD as well, then it suffers from a sig radius bloom effectively making the cruiser's guns track 5x as fast. The exception to this is an interceptor. An inty may want to use it's high MWD speed and relatively low signature radius to mitigate damage.

2. Small Drones: Most cruisers have largish drone bays stuffed with light drones. It is pretty typical to face 5x Warrior II or 5x ECM drones. Either case is a big problem. #1 priority for a frigate is to start dealing with those drones once they are launched. The good news is that frigate guns can usually kill 5x Warrior II before it's tank fails, however it does take a lot of concentration so be ready for it. ECM drones are a different and possibly worse problem. Not only do they prevent you from firing your guns, but they also shut down you scrambler and webifier. All of a sudden the enemy can start manouvering, pull range and then kite you with warp-disruptor range. Death is soon to follow.

3. Energy Neutralization: All frigates have a capacitor disadvantage to cruisers. Energy Neutralizers allow a cruiser to suck the capacitor of a frigate dry. Even for frigates that don't use cap for weapons (autocannons and missiles), no cap means no afterburner, no warp scrambler, no stasis webifier and no armour repper. One way of avoiding neutralizers is to keep range. Unfortunately that is not usually an option (see point 1). Really the only way of dealing with neutralizers is NOS. A small NOS should suck enough cap from a target ship to at least power the scrambler and afterburner. As for repping.... forget it.


4. Stasis Webifiers: If there is one thing that a small ship fears... it is the Stasis Webifier. If the enemy can land a couple of these on you... the whole advantage of being small and fast goes out the window. This is why minmattar recons are so feared. One common 'Fishing' technique for a cruiser is to fit two webifiers. This pretty much locks down a frigate making it easy prey to medium sized guns.

5. Missiles: Missiles do damage with very different calculation than turrets. A small ship can reduce damage from a missile thanks to signature radius and speed, however it is pretty much impossible to drop the damage to zero and still be in a position to do damage in return. Also cruisers have the ability to fit assault missile launchers which are basically frigate based weapons with a higher firing rate. Assault missile Caracals are devastating to a frigate.

The good news for the frigate is that with careful target selection and effective piloting it is possible to successfully kill cruisers. The bad news is that if a frigate can not mitigate the 5 weapons listed above, a frigate will die very very fast.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again

So in my last post I talked about taking an active tanked Cyclone into battle. Results were a little disappointing. In two tries it got hit with neuts twice, making for two losses without even a single kill. For my next attempt I tried fitting the Cyclone with kiting in mind. This is what I came up with:



[Cyclone, Wannabe Vaga]
Tracking Enhancer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Large Shield Extender II
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Warp Disruptor II
DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I, Optimal Range Disruption
DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I, Optimal Range Disruption

425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
425mm AutoCannon II, Barrage M
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Flameburst Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Flameburst Light Missile
SV-2000 Assault Missile Bay, Flameburst Light Missile

Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Projectile Collision Accelerator I


Valkyrie II x3
Warrior II x2



My goal with this ship was to engage another battle-cruiser or cruiser, and hold them at 20km range or so while slowly pelting them with barrage. Using my superior speed and maneuverability I should be able to hold range on most targets larger than a frigate. Yes, my dps was crap, however with the 2x tracking disruptors I felt that I could potentially drop enemy damage down to 0. I also had a bunch of defender missiles in cargo so even a missile firing drake would find itself doing far less than the expected amount of damage.

After a few systems I found myself camped in a station in Curse by a Sleipnir, a Rifter and a Drake, with a Falcon cloaked on grid. After un-docking a few times, and re-docking once they locked me up and put on the hurt, I went to go make some dinner. When I came back they were still there. There was another agony gang operating about 10 jumps away. I dropped in their channel and they seemed busy with other, juicier targets. So I bought 4 stabs in station fitted them and warped off.

Problem was that I wanted a fight and was felt silly to be running away from one, even one that I had no chance of winning. I knew from earlier that the Rifter was fit with a warp scrambler, and had seen it top out at well over 2k per second. This would have killed my speed. With me being unable to move the Sleipnir would be able to put down enough damage that I would have been dead in a few seconds. And the Drake just added to it. The Falcon would have jammed me so I wouldn't even have been able to fight back. OTOH I could simply run away. I knew this, they knew this... so what was the next step.

The Sleipnir pilot convoyed me asking me to settle an argument with the rifter pilot about whether I had a rack of WCS or if they just failed at tackling. After a minute or so this turned into a request for a 1v1. First I wanted to try against the Drake pilot. He chickened out. So instead I offered against the Sleipnir. This would hardly be a fair fight. A Sleipnir is like a Cyclone... on steroids and bionic implants. After providing some assurances to the Sleipnir pilot that this was not a trap... he agreed.

I figured the fight would likely be over in seconds. I was wrong. It became a 6 minute long slug fest.As soon as I landed on him I pulled range out to 20 km. Then I targeted my guns and missiles onto him, but most importantly, also my tracking disruptors. His first volley tore into my shields but after that he was doing very little damage. His drones started to attack and I placed my drones onto him hoping to take them out.

Here is where I did a few mistakes. Rather than shoot my assault missiles at his ship I should have sent them after his drones as well. Also, since I had 3 medium drones, they could have still gone after his ship leaving my 2 warriors and my 3 assault missiles on his drones. Instead I kept my assault missiles plugging away at his shields while it took forever for his drones to die. Also while he was cycling his drones in and out as they started to take damage, I was not. This would have made it harder for him to take my drones out.

After several minutes of this my drones were gone, but he still had several drones in the air, now slowly being taken out by my missiles. Meanwhile my shields were failing under attack from his drones and the occasional hit from his guns. He was able to rep his shield whenever it went down, although his cap was running low and I was starting to get some traction against his armour. In the end it was not enough. A last burst of overheating as my armour quickly was ripped to shreds was not able to make enough of a difference. Once he hit my pathetic amount of structure I quickly died.

All in all I am very happy with how well things turned out. If I had better e-war skills, fit 2x TE instead of one and stocked  8x warrior IIs or ewar drones then things could have gone differently. As it was this was not a battle I was ever likely to win. GFs all around. Respect for honouring the 1v1 on both sides and my pod limped home.

For some reason I still love the cyclone despite having lost 3 of them without a kill. I will definitely be trying these out some more in the future.

Don't just shoot the primary!

One of the things that I continuously try to do better in is maximize my effectiveness when participating in small gangs. When a pilot first starts running in gangs they typically follow the FC to the letter and concentrate on the Primary to the exclusion of all else. As an introduction this is a good thing. There is nothing worse for a fleet then to split fire across the enemy fleet. The FC is calling primary because he/she wants that target down since it represents a major threat to the gang. If everyone starts shooting at other targets then the whole concept of focused fire is lost and the gang is doomed.

Lets do a thought experiment to see why. Imagine two gangs engaging each other, each with 10 identical ships. Each ship has 100 DPS and a tank of 10,000 EHP. One gang focuses fire on primary after primary. The other gang has no focused fire at all.

For the gang with no focused fire it will take 10,000/100 = 100 seconds to destroy each of the enemy fleet. However this won't happen. In this imaginary battle the focused fire fleet will destroy an enemy ship every 10,000/(100*10) = 10 seconds. Every 10 seconds a ship on the non-focused fire fleet will be destroyed. At the 100th seconds the last remaining non-focused fire fleet will be destroyed just as it finally lands the killing blow on the focused fire fleet.

So far you probably thinking that the title of this blog is messed up. I just argued for focusing fire, not thinking about other targets. This is where reality comes in. In real battles we are not using the imaginary ships I described, rather we are using real ships (ok maybe not real in the physical sense but real in the sense that pixels and databases are involved).

Lets look at a common small gang ship that I fly. The nano-cane is an awesome ship whose speed, firepower and reasonable price make it a favorite for small gang PvP. However, if we look close we see that it actually has 4 distinct offensive weapon system.

6x425mm Autocannon: These provide the bulk of the offense delivering up to 600 DPS at short and medium ranges.
2xMedium Energy Neutralizers: These provide the ability to place massive cap pressure on an enemy ship, while the hurricane does not really need the capacitor thanks to the Autocannons.
1xWarp disruptor/scrambler: Prevents an enemy ship from being able to disengage when taking damage. If a scrambler shuts down the MWD as well.
5xWarrior II: Provides moderate amount of damage against ships of all sizes.

In general in battle the Autocannons are targeted at the primary. They are the main DPS and focused fire is what the FC is asking for. But what about the other three weapon systems? Should they be put onto the primary, or is there something better for them to do?

The energy neutralizers could have some effect. If the target has an active tank (a triple rep Myrmadon comes to mind) then they will be very effective, but in general the primary is a cornered beast and nueting it will not really make much of a difference. Even if the ship uses cap for it's weapons since it is soon to die, you neuting may not have any effect at all. Rather it is a better idea to put the nuets on a non-primary ship that is vulnerable to capacitor warfare. The perfect example of this would be an enemy logistics ship. By powering towards and then neuting an enemy logistics ship, you effectively take out one of their major force multipliers. If there is no enemy logistics, look for an laser or hybrid boat and put strain on it. Often this alone will neutralize the enemy ship and make it ineffective in the battle.

The warp disruptor/scram can also be put to better use then the primary. Unless there is a reason to suspect that they primary has not already had its warp drive shut down, or likely to in the future, put that point on someone else and call it. The FC will likely make that ship a future primary and without point it will be able to warp off. This is especially important during the mid-point in the battle when an enemy realizes that the battle is lost and people start running. Without spreading the points around, most of the enemy will be able to run.

The warriors could be placed on the primary. However they only represent about 10% of your total DPS, and they will take time to travel to the target (which may be dead by then). It is much better to place the warriors onto another target, especially a small ship that will be most impacted. Enemy interceptors, Light dictors and e-war ships are ideal targets. Interceptors will have to run from the fight to save themselves. This means that they will not be able to land points on your gang nor will they be able to apply e-war from extra mid-slots. Dictors are also lightly tanked and will not last long under attack from a flight or two of warriors. E-war ships (falcon, blackbird, rook) are also great targets for drones. Even if you are jammed the drones keep on fighting, forcing them to make choices about whether to flee (costing their fleet their e-war) or stay (and risk being destroyed). Even if there are no enemy ships on the field to engage, I would still recommend assigning them to a different ship then the primary. Any ship when it starts to take damage is likely to panic and either run away or request reps putting load on their logistics.

So next time you are in a small gang fight, make sure that you use all of your offensive weapons to their maximum potential. Pay attention to the FC, but also think about what else you can do. If you can remove one or two other enemy ships from the fight, in addition to laying down the DPS, do so. If the whole gang can do this it means that your small gang able to take on a larger gang, and still come out the victor.

Reading the Game Logs

When I got started PvPing I kept on dieing. One thing I noticed was that while the enemy was hurting me, I was barely scratching them. This made no sense to me until I discovered the game-logs. If you look under your EVE folder in 'My Documents' you will see a folder called 'Game Logs'. This folder contains log files from combat actions of your ship. A new file is started everytime you jump or warp.

At the top of the file is a header:

------------------------------------------------------------
Gamelog
Listener: Toterra
Session started: 2010.10.20 03:28:37
------------------------------------------------------------

This simply contains the date and character information. More interesting is information about warping like the following:

[ 2010.10.20 03:28:48 ] (notify) Warping to Stargate (9KOE-A)

In this case I have warped to a stargate and this is logged. Then we get to the real meat of the log. Each time you warp scramble (or disrupt) someone you get the following type of statement:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:55 ] (notify) You have started trying to warp scramble Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur).

Then each time you fire a gun or a group of guns you get a message like the following if one of the weapons hits:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:55 ] (combat) Your group of 150mm Light AutoCannon II hits Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur), doing 139.9 damage.

or the following if they all miss:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:59 ] (combat) Your group of 150mm Light AutoCannon II misses Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) completely.

Conversly you receive information about what the enemy is doing to you. Here I am being scrammed by the enemy:

[ 2010.10.20 03:29:57 ] (notify) Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) has started trying to warp scramble you!

Here I am being hit:

[ 2010.10.20 03:30:33 ] (combat) Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) aims well at you, inflicting 112.3 damage.

And here I am being shot at and missed:

[ 2010.10.20 03:30:00 ] (combat) Isaak Hamilton [101SM]<S2N>(Ishkur) misses you completely.

Drones work a little oddly. While you do receive notification of being hit by a drone like the following:

[ 2010.10.20 03:30:03 ] (combat) Hobgoblin II belonging to Isaak Hamilton lightly hits you, doing 34.0 damage.

Unfortunately the log will not contain notification of your own drones doing damage.

Another problem with the logs is weapon grouping. If even one weapon in a group hits a hit is logged even if all of the remaining weapons miss. Obviously the reduced damage is indicated in the 'inflicted damage' portion however. If you want to study the logs a lot I recommend un-grouping your guns so that you can see how many hit and how many miss.

When a ship gets blown up there is a message that either your weapons are deactivating due to the enemy being blow up, or in this case there is a notification that my ship was destroyed:

[ 2010.10.20 03:31:25 ] (notify) Ship is out of control

Some other useful information in the logs includes data about running out of capacitor and failed attempts to enter warp.

All of this information can be very useful after a battle. Especially in the beginning when trying to understand the tracking mechanics. It was only by checking the logs that I began to realize why I was not doing damage. Either I was out of range or failing to track the targets. After changes to my fittings and tactics I was able to remedy this and start doing some killing. Even now after most battles I look through the logs to try and replay what actually happened. Often I discover things like not realizing that I was being neuted (running out of cap) or that my guns were not doing the damage that they should have. By continuously examining my own performance I can avoid making mistakes in the future. In this case I confirmed that for the most part I succeeded in getting under the Ishkur's guns. However I was late in switching to the drones, not that it would have mattered since the drones managed to get under my tracking somehow. In the future I should web the drones I am shooting at so that I can hit them... then go after the Ishkur.

DURKA DURKA DURKA

So I had an interesting problem. Thanks to my limited play-time lately, I had an unrigged Typhoon whose insurance was close to running out. It seemed a shame to just let it expire so I fitted it up for what we in Agony call a 'DURKA'. Here is the fit...

[Typhoon, DURKA Typhoon]
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
'Stoic' Core Equalizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I

Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I

Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I
Large 'Notos' Explosive Charge I

[empty rig slot]

The idea for this ship is pretty simple. Fly into the middle of an enemy fleet, let off the smart-bombs. Blow up any small ships within 5km, and warp off laughing at the ships pointing you.

So I took my ship on a little roam and managed to come across an OUCH gatecamp in Doril. It took two tries but eventually I managed to kill a Rifter and an Incursis. Much fun :). The next day a frigate gang came running through our home system of Hemin. They crashed into our camp on the RMOC gate and warped away to planet 4. I followed, landing just a couple of seconds too late. If I had arrived 5 seconds earlier I would have taken out their entire fleet :(. I started to chase after them but the server crashed and I couldn't find them when it came back up.

Going a little deeper into curse I came across a NI4NI gang and proceeded to smart-bomb their dramiels and sabre. Regretably nothing popped :(. I tried baiting them again and they managed to keep distance while dropping a bubble on me. No amount of warp-core stabilizers could save me then and I soon went down becoming 45 million isk richer.

A DURKA ship is something all tacklers should be wary of. Most Agony PVP-BASIC classes seems to come across one or two laying in wait hoping to pop 30 lightly tanked frigates in one shot. The trick to avoiding being wiped out is to keep out of 5km range. Also it can be a good idea to either fit a ship scanner or simply check for turrets on the model. If you come across a Geddon with no turrets you can be pretty certain that it is fitting smartbombs.

Admittedly one DURKA is pretty limited. At most I could take out a lightly tanked frigate. However in combination they can be rather devastating. There is a great video (I posted about a couple of months ago) where a handful of DURKA ships took out an Armour HAC gang.

So be careful out there of Battleships and for gods sake check for turrets before giving recon to your fleet to engage at 0. You just might find yourself in the middle of a fireworks display.

Agony PVP-Basic class being sponsored by Fly-Reckless

As many of you know I am a big fan of the Agony PvP-Basic class. So much so that I ended up joining Agony. Well Silicon Buddha (himself a former Agony member) of the Fly Reckless podcast fame is sponsoring a PvP-Basic class on Jan 22nd and 23rd. If you want to take the course but have had difficulty getting in before the sign-ups are filled, or can't afford the isk, then have a look.

He is taking signups on his website first before Agony opens it up to the general public.

Fear the Punisher!

Happy New Year!

I am back from vacation and hope to start posting again soon. I can't believe that I made 70 posts in 2010. Man do I need to get a life :)

Anyways I came across a great new blog with a lot of great information about the Punisher in PvP. Well worth reading. I may have to try it sometime soon.

Incursion Rocket improvements - An EFT Analysis of my Claw vs Flycatcher fight

So last night I had a run in with a Flycatcher. A while ago I solo'd a flycatcher with a Rifter, so I thought that my Claw would provide for a good fight, but one that I would win. I was wrong. In short, thanks to the rocket boost from Incursion, rockets are now significantly more powerful then before.

Fortunatly my enemy in that fight managed to loose his ship soon afterwords, and the loss was posted to battleclinic.com, so I have his likely fit. Lets have a look:

[Flycatcher, hydra flycatcher]
Ballistic Control System II

Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Medium Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II

75mm Gatling Rail II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
75mm Gatling Rail II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst II

That is a nasty little ship! No wonder my Claw had difficulty. Tech II rigs even. Lets feed it into EFT and see what difference the new rocket boost made.

 Here is the image from EFT before the Incursion patch:

Here is the image from EFT after the Incursion patch with the boost to rockets:

As you can see we have gone from a firepower of 225 DPS to 235 DPS. Is that all? Did CCP fail again to provide a meaningful boost. Not quite. The problem with rockets was not their DPS, rather it was the fact that the velocity of the target could significantly affect their damage. In other words, they were least effective against the very same fast frigate sized ships they were targetting. The main change to rockets was a nearly two-fold increase in their explosion velocity, making them very effective against small fast ships like my Claw. Lets have a look.

Here is the damage graph for that fly-catcher before Incursion:

And here is the damage post-Incursion:

There is an increase from 132 DPS to 179 DPS!. That is 35% increase.

Once resistances against armour are taken into account there is a 91 DPS vs 67 DPS. Since my armour repairer can heal about 17 HP per second the net damage is 74 DPS vs 50 DPS. This means that effectively he was able to chew threw my armour buffer 50% faster than before.

So capsuleers beware of rocket Kestrals and Flycatchers. They no longer suck!

Ouch!!! Those new Rockets Hurt!

Need I say more.... Toterra's Claw was destroyed

Damn... those new rockets really really really hurt!