Stabber 101

Its time for yet another shitty Minmatar ship guide. This time we’ll be covering that cruiser speed freak, the Stabber.

I’ve always had an affinity for smaller ships, particularly the speedy frigates. The top speed and amazing align times make them a blast to fly. The Stabber is a really the logical step from the Rifter/Thrasher progression. It is very solid all purpose PvP ship due to the respectable DPS and great speed. It’s very clearly the Vagabond’s little brother (but not little by much).  Let’s start off by looking its bonuses:

• 5% bonus to Medium Projectile Turret firing speed per level
• 5% bonus to max velocity per level

Pretty useful bonuses, neh? That max velocity bonus is especially nice when playing the role of heavy tackle, which this ship is perfectly suited to. Let’s look at a sample fit:

High

4x 180mm AC II

1x Medium Neut II

1x Standard Missile Launcher II/Wildcard

Mid

1x 10MN Microwarpdrive II

1x Warp Disruptor II orWarp Scrambler II

1x Large Shield Extender II

Low

1x Overdrive Injector System II

1x Nanofiber Internal Structure II

1x Damage Control II or Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Rigs

2x Projectile Ambit Extension (optional of course)

Depending on your skills, this fit can hit very close to 3k m/s and get a point on something very far out. The advantage to using the Stabber of say an inty is that the Stabber won’t be eaten alive by Warrior II’s. About 6 months ago, I wrote about a Uni fleet chasing after some nano drakes and how the Inty pilots just got picked up because of the drones kicking their ass. This stabber fit would have been much useful particularly with a scram. The key to this ship is to fly it exactly like a Rifter. You need to get in close enough to get maximum DPS while staying out of scram range, then blast away. For smaller stuff, controlling range is important. Get outside of scram range and use long range ammo to destroy them. An even more durable setup is this one:

High

4x 180mm Dual Autocannon II w/ Barrage

2x Assault Launcher

Mid

10mn MWDI (Named or T2 if possible)

Warp Disruptor II

Large Shield ExtenderII (or named)

Low

2x GyrostabilizerII

Nanofiber Internal Structure

Rigs:

             2x medium Projectile Ambit Extension I

1x medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

The damage goes up significantly due to the gyros and it certainly more durable because of the LSEII, but you do sacrifice speed for these advantages. I’d use this in either a solo or small gang setting since the focus is blasting the hell out of everything.

Now you can use the Stabber as a PVE boat, but I’m not a huge a fan of it as one. I much prefer the Rupture for PvE activities, but if you insist on having a fit here’s one:

High

4x 220mm Vulcan Autocannon

2x Assault Missile Launcher I

Mid

1x 10mn Afterburner I

1x Medium Shield Booster I

1x Large Shield Extender I

Low

2x Gyrostabilizer I

1x Nanofiber Internal Structure

The key to using the Stabber in missions is kiting. You gotta get some frigate aggro then kite the fuck outta them and pulse you AB to keep them at ideal distances for Autocannon fucking. Get comfortable with your shields getting as low as 40% then pump that shield booster. See why I don’t like using the Stabber in missions? It’s :work:.

There have been some unconvential uses for the Stabber as well such as a salvager (fill the highs with tractors and salvagers) and you can also do a cloak and fit purely for speed to run gatecamps as it will still cloak faster than most ships will be able to target you.

Overall, the Stabber is one helluva fun ship to fly. Not only does it use similar piloting skills to frigates and destroyers, but prepares a pilot for flying the faster HAC, the Vagabond.

Healed By The Power Of Bennie Hinn

I had a fantastic weekend. I truly truly fantastic weekend. Let me give you a quick recap: Saturday I went to Dark Lord Day which is a rather monstrous party in honor of the annual release of the extremely limited Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout. I woke up early and had a few cups of coffee then started in on the water consumption in preparation for a long day of beer consumption. My buddy and I left Indy at 9:30 or so and arrived in Munster at 12 noon. We found our other friend from Indy and immediately opened a growler of fresh Weizengoot from Bier Brewery. We had a great time waiting in line and talking to some new friends and fellow homebrewers, I even saw a guy I went to elementary school with! I had a great time waiting in line as I got to know the guys behind me and they were fellow homebrewers. Three Floyds provided scratch-off sections on the Dark Lord tickets that gave you a chance to win the opportunity to buy one of four different limited edition bottles of Dark Lord. I ended up winning one and chose the Dark Lord aged in Pappy Van Winkle 23 year bourbon barrels. It was bottle #85 of 484 so I’m pretty excited.

Most of Sunday was spent in recovery from DLD but I managed to pull myself together enough to get into a Drake/Hurricane fleet that headed to Cobalt Edge with intentions of murder. About halfway to our destination, we got word of a IRC gang of 30-35 (we had 25) but they only had one logi and we had three. Our FC fancied our chances, so away we went.  Once in U6R, we waited on a gate (don’t remember which one) while the FC got eyes on the other side. A few minutes later, he let us know that the IRC gang was moving our way and that was our cue to slow boat to optimals. The gate began to flash and we all got weapons hot. The IRC guys started showing up on overview and the FC primaried tacklers first to go down was an Aruzu. And with that kill, I recieved my very first 0.0 KM. We were taking down tackle while waiting for the rumored Scimitar to show up. A minute after losing its gate cloak, the Scimi went down. By this point, I had been primaried and popped, I didn’t even have time to call for shields from our logi. I bounced around for a while and according to comms, IRC had brought another 20 or so BS in. I got on one more KM, I apparently shot at a Maelstrom on accident while waiting for the Arazu to be locked. Here’s my loss, you’ll notice immediately that I had a load of faction ammo in there. When the op was rolling out, the FC has said that we would be moving fast and warping in and out, as such I thought that I would have more time to GTFO if I got popped. Oh well such is Eve life. I spent my trip home watching the President speak about killing Bin Laden and while I was distracted, some asshole podded me. Dick. I was watching freedom happen. Clearly Will Clark loves Al Queda and professes Jihad at every moment. But I’m not bitter, I just love freedom and the Constitution and human rights. Which obviously Will does not. That is all.

Fly safe gentlemen…

Roadhouse Blues

Tantilizing. That’s the best way to describe an opportunity to shoot at Sir Molle.

I jumped on last night to kill some time while my wife was editing some photos. At first I resisted joining as I had played for 3 or 4 hours the previous night, but when my wife said that she would be busy with photos all night I went to the fridge, grabbed a Ranger IPA and joined up. The op was going to be a support fleet to a TEST system grab in M0-. There was also confirmation that Sir Molle was rounding up some troops to rally a defense, complete with his brand new Avatar. We sped to the destination system via JB’s (I think I’m getting used to these things) and spread out at our optimals (as with the previous night, this was an artycane fleet) just waiting for the hostile bridge in. We waited… and waited… and waited but nothing came. Solo bombers would pop up about 100k off from me (I believe they were on the opposite side of the beseiged station from me) and promptly disappear with a pop. We ended up taking out 3 or four bombers before the station was put into reinforce. The TCU was up next for hitting, so off TEST went with Goons in tow. By this time, we got word that Molle’s fleet was cancelled. Interesting since it was almost completely formed, ships out in space and then they just disbanded it. In place of shooting Molle, our FC designated a certain TEST pilot who had been seen in a compromising photo. The photo was of a slightly drunk male with a popped collar and a Busch Light can in front of him. Really? Busch Light? Has e’er a shittier beer been made? The picture was enough to convince me that blood needed to be spilt. Our FC had us make several fly-bys while practising Alpha-fleet tactics. Eventually the embarrassing picture was posted in local and a couple of the carriers that had been repping his ship turned their fire to him instead. Within a few seconds the Mega popped. No podding was done since he had nasty expensive implants in, apparently there were tears. I love tears.

All in all, it was a fun fleet if slightly disappointing. I’d wanted to see the giant Molle firsthand. After the fleet got back to VFK, I switched to Skerrit Boy and bought myself a Scorpion Navy issue just for the helluvit. I can’t find decent fits anywhere, although I assume it would be set up similarly to a Raven. If you guys have any fitting advice on it, I’m all ears. Until next time…

Fly Safe Gentlemen

It’s Been Awhile

I keep telling myself that I’ll get back to the ole’ blog and put something up. Most of the time, I don’t feel like I have anything to report. Most of the last two months has been spent shooting big ol’ red crosses that magically turn  into isk. My most “active” character (by that I mean doing more than shooting rats) has been The Gonja Sufi. As previously mentioned, he has a big nasty freighter for hauling and has been putting about New Eden in search of stuff to move. He now has some decent PI skills and is pumping out coolant like a mad man. Since PI profit is so tied to market skills, he’s been training all sorts of market related skills. Accounting V will be finished in 5 days, then it’s on to margin something or other. He’s probably got another month or so of training before I will switch the skill queue back to Skerrit Boy. Jokine has 10 days left on cruiser V, then its time to reinforce some of those fitting skills, specifically the powergrid related skills.

Last night (Easter), I joined in a roaming BC gang and headed out to Cobalt Edge as the Goons will be on extended deployment in that region. I was in a sensor boosted artycane and boy it felt nice to be back in it. I forgot how much I love those things, they hit hard and are still very fast for the size. Our gang had about 40 hurricanes in it with a couple of basilisks and even one merlin (newbies, heh). We started out and hit some jump bridges on the way out there since many of us did not have the BM’s for the bridges in the region (we used RAZOR bridges). I promptly forgot how to put enter passwords into JB’s so I got about 10 jumps behind while trying to still look cool. I failed. After a few, that newbie in the merlin clued me into the secret (right click on cap meter) and away I went. I finally caught up with the gang as they were rolling into a system that had just been greenlighted. I was one of the last ones to jump into the system and as I did, one of the slower BC’s got scrammed by a rat on the gate. He started getting blasted and so the FC asked someone to save him, so I did. As I was blasting the rat, a neutral panther jumped into system via the gate I was on. I didn’t have a point so he warped away. Our FC said not to worry about the panther as it surely would have cloaked and safed up. Almost as soon as he gave the stand down order, the panther showed up at the gate the rest of our gang was on. The dumbass then cloaked and tried burn away. Our inty pilots performed magically and decloaked the panther. He melted in under 10 seconds. I guess 40 canes would do that.

The rest of the roam was rather uneventful. We popped some dude trying to light a cyno, but aside from those kills the evening was quiet. The fleet was a nice break from the PI/market grind that I’ve been on. Just a quick random note:  I’m consistently surprised with how empty nullsec is compared to empire. the majority of systems I enter have fewer than 10 people in local and many have none.

Fly safe gentlemen.

Rifter 101

Welcome to yet another edition of Minmatar Ships 101. In this post, I will be covering the very basics of flying and fitting a Rifter. In all honesty, I’m rather hesitant to even post about the Rifter since Wensley has written the definitive Rifter Guide; however, this post will be more of a guide lite than anything else. Hopefully new players can get a taste of the Rifter from this post and move onto The Wonderful World of Wensley(TM) from here. Pencils ready? Let’s begin.

Rendered using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000

 

Overview:

The Rifter is a fast, powerful frigate. It’s very popular due to this, and rightly so. Because of this it is worth it to cross-train (if you are not Minmatar) Minmatar Frigate III and projectile weapon skills. It is hands-down the best frigate in the game and if you can’t fly one, you’re losing out on a great ship.

It has a 320m/s base speed, the fastest of any of the top-tier frigates. It also has a smaller sig radius (35m) than any. This makes it a pretty tricky ship to hit. It’s also pretty fragile, and suffers from a lack of capacitor. Thus, mobility is key. Fortunately, projectile weapons are your friend in regards to cap. Projectile weapons (Artillary and Autocannons) use no cap, allowing the pilot to use speed and ecm mods of their choosing.

It gets a bonus to small projectile damage, and tracking. This means setups tend to combine quick damage and up-close and personal style. This is not a ship for the faint of heart, but provides a thrill without compare in all of Eve. Let’s look at the above mentioned bonuses and some of the important features of the Rifter.

Bonuses:

• 5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret damage per level.
• 7.5% bonus to Small Projectile Tracking per level.

High Slots	4
Medium Slots	3
Low Slots	3
Rig Slots	3
Power Output	37 MW
CPU Output	125 tf
Turret Slots	3
Launcher Slots	2
Max Targets	4
Shield Capacity	391
Shield Resists (EM/EXP/KIN/THERM)	0/50/40/20
Armor HP	351
Armor Resists (EM/EXP/KIN/THERM)	60/10/25/35
Capacitor	250
Drones	0 m3
Drone Bandwidth
Cargo	130 m3
Max Speed	320 m/s
Insurance Cost	84,000.00 ISK
Insurance Payout	195,000.00 ISK
Required Skills
Primary	Minmatar Frigate	III
Secondary	N/A
Tertiary	N/A

The above reiterates the low skill requirements to fly a rifter. A player can easily train the required primary skills for the hull and projectile weapon skills to at least III within a few days. The Rifter is also cheap enough to lose rather consistently and not lose much isk. All these factors combine to make it a fun and dangerous ship for all New Eden pilots. Now that I’ve covered the very basics of the Rifter, lets look at some setups.

Low-Skill PvP Fitting

High

3x 200mm AutoCannons (EMP S or other close-range ammo)

1x Standard Launcher I or Rocket Launcher I

Medium

1mn MWD or 1mn Afterburner

1x Warp Disruptor I

1x Stasis Webifier I

Low

1x Capacitor Power Relay I

2x Nanofiber Internal Structure

This is a basic Rifter setup, some other fitting possibilities include:

• Salvager in place of the Standard/Rocket Launcher (after battle cleanup).
• Cap Recharger in place of the Stasis Webifier (cap stability).
• Warp Scrambler in place of the Warp Disruptor (close range MWD rape).

Combat hostile webs by orbiting at 12km. Otherwise orbit around 7km to web and disrupt (or scramble) while remaining outside of normal smartbomb range. If your gunnery skills are low, you may find some difficulty hitting smaller ships at 12km. If that is the case, move into around 9km or so.

Higher-Skill PvP Fittings:

Solo PVP Rifter

High

3x 150mm AutoCannon I (Phased Plasma S)

Rocket Launcher I (Foxfire Rockets)

Medium

1mn Microwarpdrive I

Warp Disruptor I

Cap Recharger I

Low

Capacitor Power Relay I

200mm Reinforced Steel Plates I

Small Armor Repairer I

This setup is for solo work. It plays to the Rifter’s strengths — speed and quick damage. If things start to go south, the microwarpdrive will allow you to get outside the range of Stasis Webifiers, and the armor tank provides a buffer so you won’t instapop if you take on something bigger than you can chew.

As your skills and wallet increase, consider the following modifications to the fitting above:

1. 150mm AutoCannon II (Barrage S) instead of 150mm AutoCannon I (EMP S) — better range and damage, higher skills and cost
2. Warp Scrambler I instead of Warp Disruptor I — better tackling, higher capacitor usage
3. Capacitor Power Relay II instead of Capacitor Power Relay I — better damage, higher skills and cost
4. 200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten (best) or Crystalline Carbonide (second best) Plates I instead of 200mm Reinforced Steel Plates I — better speed and maneuverability, more armor, higher cost
5. Small Armor Repairer II instead of Small Armor Repairer I — better tanking, higher skills and cost

This setup is still rather easy for pilots to access from both SP and isk perspectives. While I’m not actually a huge fan of active tanking period, this setup provides a higher level of survivability than my setups tend to experience. As your cap skills get better (or if they are good to begin with), you can drop the cap power relay and use a gyrostab instead. This setup will also appeal more to Amarr/Gallente pilots that have their armor skills trained up.

Shield Tank Rifter 

High

3x 150mm Light AutoCannon I (Phased Plasma S)

Named Rocket Launcher I (Foxfire Rocket)

Mid

1mn Microwarpdrive I

Named Stasis Webifier I or Named Warp Disruptor I

Named Medium Shield Extender I

Low

Named Gyrostabilizer I

Nanofiber Internal Structure I

Power Diagnostic System I

Required Skills: Engineering V, Electronics V, Weapon Upgrades V, Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV, Shield Upgrades IV, Hardwiring - Zainou ’Gnome’ KUA1000 ( -3% shield upgrade power needs, slot 6 implant)

There are two dominant Rifter setups: extended setups and plated setups. For solo work, plated setups are probably better because they allow you to fit both a Stasis Webifier and a Warp Disruptor. I go with the Disruptor every time and pick targets that are much slower than myself. What good is a fight if they can get away easily? For group work, an extended setup is arguably better because you have increased staying power due to increased speed. This setup will probably be more attractive if you are coming from a Caldari background as your shield skills should already be rather high.

Rifter

High

3x 150mm Light AutoCannon II (Barrage S)

Mid

1x 1mn Afterburner II 

1x X5 Prototype Engine Enervator I

1x Warp Scrambler II

Low

1x Micro Auxiliary Power Core

1x 400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plate I

1x Small Armor Repairer II

This setup does require some decent fitting skills in order to work. I the T2′s don’t fit, either downgrade the size of the guns or use the best named (although that increases cost in most cases). The point of this ship is to get in a potential targets face and just commit some carnage. Overheating will add some significant damage increases, but you have to be careful about burning out those guns.

Overall, the Rifter is incredibly versitile in terms of tanking options and the situations that you can win fights. I’ve seen countless surprising outcomes in Rifter fights. A former unista that I flew with even took down a Dramiel in one (granted the dramiel pilot clearly had no idea what the fuck he was doing). So, if you haven’t already, train the skill mentioned at the start of the post and get into a Rifter!

Fly safe gentlemen.

The Tale of the Black Tiger

Jumped on last night and was fortunate enough to see a call go up in Alliance right away. FC wanted to do a lowsec roam with BC’s and below. I initially X’d with a speed Stabber, but then remembered that I couldn’t rig it for speed and we were awfully light on BC’s, so out came the arty cane. I had it loaded up with Quake until I knew what type of engagements we were gonna be in. We moved pretty fast through hagilur, around klogori and then headed out to Tasti where things were getting interesting. There were many targets to be had, but since we were a largish gang, the FC wanted to wait for something large and expensive. After much baiting and such, the fleet moved systems a bit and ended up finding two drakes to pew. Unfortunately, they were nano-fit and nano ships tend to eat Uni fleets alive. The story was no different this time, we ended up losing 3 Rifters and two Stilleto’s because we couldn’t kill drones. Warrior II’s just eat the hell out of frigs. I tried to tell guys that they have to kill the drones first if they want to hold point etc. I was able to get off a couple of cycles of the ole’ 720′s on them before they burned out of range. That was the only damage they took. Another issue was that guys couldn’t get into scram or web range. Looking at our inties fits, they were rather shit. Neither had scram or web. Only point and shield extenders? They needed to get be fleet feet instead of some terrible blend of solo/fleet. In the end, a fight against nano-fits is always a learning experience. I’m thinking of putting together a nanocane now that I can fit large extender II’s on it. Oh the possibilities.

In skill training news, all of my characters are training cybernetics right now. I have one in particular that is going to station spin for a bit so his cybernetics will be to either IV or V as he through his training for jump freighters.

Edit: I’ve been drinking some local brews a lot lately as Indianapolis has had a recent influx of great breweries open up. My go to beer right now is Sunking Osiris Pale Ale. Its a helluva a beer and it comes in the superior travel vessel known as a can. E’rybody should be gettin some.

Time, Time, Who Has The Time?

Well I finally quite my carebearing ways last night in favor of joinng a low-sec roam that was partaking around 9 pm my time. We all got fleeted up  and were pretty excited as there were reports of yarrbears around in several close systems.  Our FC was relatively new, but we had several very experienced WC’s and SC’s (although our most experienced was high as a fuckin kite and the other has the strongest hillbilly accent making TS comms a little difficult). We moved out and immediately had various people getting DC’d. I’m not sure how so many routers in the fleet had problems, lol. 29 jumps later, we are in the Eha area. Scouts reported several pirates in the area, so we immediately tried to get some yummy baits in system for them to try to munch on.

Side note: Our large fleet was sitting 2-3 jumps out of Eha. I was thinking that by the time the fleet got into Eha to save our bait pilot, he’d probably be poof in his nice new Railrannis. On the other hand, if we sit on the Eha gate, then it would be easy for the pirate to be alerted to the large OGC. Any thoughts from readers? Is the risk of being found, but being able to jump in system quickly greater than the risk of losing the bait pilot(s) but keeping the whole fleet hidden?

Back on topic: The pirates were most likely alts of two guys and it appeared that they were just ratting. They had zero interest in the bait. In fact they docked up and logged after a bit, (which led us to believe that they alts). By this time we had been in fleet for the better part of 3 hours with no bites. RL calls awfully early in the morning for most of us, so pilots started dropping fleet. I was one of them as I had to be in the gym in 8 hours. I was quite disappointed that I didn’t get any pewpew in, but I guess it goes that way. Having fleet members sing (a little drunk albeit) of TS was definitely entertaining. I’m thinking that I might try to gather a small gang of 8-10 and try FCing myself. The idea of being responsible for 30+ pilots does not sound appealing at this point. Maybe once I’m running an Assault Frig it will be.

Side note #2: Learning lvl 5 will be complete tomorrow. I’m thinking that I finish all of my frig support skills and then head down the assault frig path.

Solar Radiation

I think that radiation is one of my favorite things about the Sun. I spent most of the 4th of July weekend in a swimming pool reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson which is quite an entertaining read. Even though I was soaking up slightly diluted radiation, I managed to get myself a bit sunburned. I look forward to my skin turning golden brown in a few days as a result.

Logged back into EVE last night to check my skill queue. I’d actually forgot what I was training (learning lvl V) and was worried that the queue was empty. Fortunately, I have 5 days left on the training. My annoyance level grew faster than my learning level as I kept getting a “socket closed” error. I’ve been receiving this message more often as of late. I think my neighbor needs to reset his router (I gank his wifi).  My client/router finally chilled out and let me stay logged in. RobTex convoed me and asked if I was up to help out on a mish. I’m always up for flying with someone else, so me and the ol’ Rupture rolled out (cue luda). Had a good time doing some lvl 3 missions and then we parted ways as the evening waned. I finished up a lvl 2 of my own and then logged for the evening. I made somewhere around 2 mil in the hour and a half I was on. Not awful.

I am getting tired of missions though.  For a long while I was doing fleets with the Uni about every night. We rarely found a fight, but even low-sec roaming is better than missioning. I think that the main thing holding me back from jumping at every fleet announcement is a desire to help Rob out. He’s a newer player than I and doesn’t know anyone else in game. I remember how much Eve sucks without the social aspect to it, so I try to hang with him as often as possible. He’s in the E-Uni queue right now though, so hopefully he can join me in the PVP adventures soon. He’s worried about joining a corp as his impression of a corp is somewhat ominous. He thinks that all corps expect regular login times, homogeneity, and a general rigidness. I tried to allay his fears by informing him that during peace time the Uni allows a ton of freedom to pursuit individual interests and that there is almost no pressure to log in. That seemed to make him feel a bit better. Here’s to Rob join the Uni sometime soon and learning far more than I can pass along!