Last night was one of those quiet ones where its really hard to find good targets. Or indeed targets at all. During a roam into Placid the only targets that I could find were two Harpies. The first one was in a belt and I decided to engage it and find out if it was fitted with blasters or rails. I went in and settled for a 5 km orbit to make sure that blasters wouldn’t hurt me too hard. That wasn’t wise. Unfortunately I hadn’t checked the Harpy’s bonuses and I pretty quickly bailed and ran away as the optimal-enhanced blasters tore through my shields and armour. The second Harpy seemed to be rail fit so didn’t hurt me at all. His friends, however, hurt pretty hard and I ended up dying to the support squad that showed up.
This got me thinking about assault frigates in general. Since the changes to speed in Quantum Rise they’ve become a very popular ship class. This means that not only do you see a lot of them around but also that their cost has shot up. Personally I think this makes it hard to justify flying them. For the price of a Jaguar hull alone I can fully equip a Rupture and end up with a much more flexible (and insurable) hull. The question in my mind, though, was can I take any of them on in my Rifter?
Before we start looking at the various assault frigates, here’s a reminder of my current Rifter fit:
[Rifter, 200mm plate + SAR + DC] Damage Control II 200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I Small Armor Repairer II Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator 200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S 200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S 200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S Rocket Launcher II, Gremlin Rocket [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot]
For all these comparisons I’m going to use my skills rather than a level V character because I want to see what fights I can win. With barrage S loaded my autocannons do 82 DPS with a range of 1.4 + 7.2 km (optimal + falloff) and tracking of 0.40605 rad/s. If I swap out to Republic Fleet EMP I now do 95 DPS with a range of 0.7 + 4.8 km and tracking of 0.54141 rad/s. The rocket launcher does a steady 15 DPS.
Wolf
I’ve already mentioned an encounter with a Wolf that I had in my Slasher. What stood out from that fight was that the lack of tracking bonus made my frigate very hard for the Wolf to hit. Can I pull off a similar trick with the Rifter? Let’s assume that a sensibly fit Wolf looks something like this:
[Wolf, BASIC] Gyrostabilizer II Damage Control II 400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I Adaptive Nano Plating II Gistii C-Type 1MN Afterburner Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I 150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S 150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S 150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S 150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S Rocket Launcher II, Gremlin Rocket Projectile Burst Aerator I Projectile Collision Accelerator I
The Wolf’s bonuses are 25% turret damage and then 5% damage and 10% falloff per level of the assault frigate skill. With all level 5 skills the Wolf has the following autocannon damage outputs:
- barrage: 200 DPS, 1.4 + 11 km range, 0.33797 rad/s tracking
- RF EMP: 230 DPS, 0.7 + 7.5 km range, 0.45063 rad/s tracking
The big advantage that the Rifter pilot has in this engagement is the ability to control range. Because the Rifter is faster straight away and has the added bonus of a web it can determine the terms of the fight and also run away if things don’t go according to plan.
Being able to control the fight is all well and good. The question is can the Rifter win it? The only advantages that the Rifter has are tracking and speed. Thankfully these two can combine perfectly as I saw in the Slasher but will it be enough?
Let’s put some numbers into Eve Geek‘s turret tracking tool. If we assume that the Wolf has RF EMP loaded and that we’re orbiting at 2,000 m with a transversal of 1,000 m/s can the Wolf hit us?
| 500m | 1,000m | 1,500m | 2,000m | 2,500m | 3,000m | 3,500m | |
| 500 m/s | 0.0% | 26.7% | 64.4% | 81.3% | 88.3% | 90.9% | 91.2% |
| 750 m/s | 0.0% | 1.9% | 26.6% | 54.3% | 70.9% | 79.5% | 83.5% |
| 1000 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.6% | 26.5% | 47.9% | 62.6% | 71.4% |
| 1250 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.5% | 8.8% | 26.3% | 43.4% | 56.1% |
| 1500 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.9% | 11.3% | 25.9% | 39.9% |
Looking at the numbers the Wolf is hitting us for about 1/4 of its DPS potential. If we can get in even closer then it will find it even harder. At 1 km the Wolf can’t hit us and even if we drop the transversal to 750 m/s we’re still pretty much invulnerable. And all of this is calculated with maximum gunnery skills.
Now lets look and see if we can hit the Wolf for any reasonable damage. Because we’re going to be in close and keeping transversal up lets load RF EMP into our Rifter’s guns as well.
| 500m | 1,000m | 1,500m | 2,000m | 2,500m | 3,000m | 3,500m | |
| 500 m/s | 0.2% | 39.0% | 72.8% | 85.0% | 88.3% | 87.0% | 82.8% |
| 750 m/s | 0.0% | 5.9% | 38.8% | 63.8% | 75.5% | 79.1% | 77.8% |
| 1000 m/s | 0.0% | 0.2% | 12.7% | 38.3% | 57.1% | 66.7% | 69.6% |
| 1250 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.3% | 17.4% | 37.2% | 51.4% | 58.6% |
| 1500 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.2% | 5.8% | 20.3% | 35.6% | 46.0% |
As you can see we do indeed get a better quality of hit but if you factor in the absolute damage the Wolf does 70 DPS compared to our 36 DPS.
So, even in theory, the situation looks pretty hopeless. Even if we did get under the Wolf’s guns it would be almost impossible for us to do any meaningful damage without opening ourselves up to the Wolf’s firepower.
There is one thing that can swing the battle into our favour. So far I have assumed that the Wolf is maximum skilled. What if the pilot only has Motion Prediction trained to level 4 or even level 3? Well, at level 4 his chance of hitting us is reduced to 22.7% and at level 3 it drops to 18.9%. So what? The Wolf still beats us on paper. Well, because we have the speed advantage and because we’re only flying a Rifter I would honestly consider engaging the next Wolf that I see on scan and seeing if I can turn theory into practice.
For the record I have killed a Wolf in my Rifter but it certainly wasn’t a standard Rifter fitting and the Wolf was pretty poor.
Jaguar
I’m not going to go into the Jaguar in anywhere near this kind of detail. Why not? Because it has the midslots to fit a web I wouldn’t have the confidence of engaging under my own terms. It is in every respect the Rifter’s big brother and I can’t see any weak spots to exploit.
Ishkur
The Ishkur is another ship that I am not going to explore in great detail. Its large drone bay and bonuses mean that any fight is going to be short and very unlikely to go in my favour unless I can take out its drones and keep it interested in the engagement at the same time. I say this because to have a realistic chance of dealing with Warrior II drones I need to be outside of web range. If, by some miracle, the drones can be dispatched it becomes very much a case of dealing with a ship like the Enyo.
Enyo
I like the Enyo because without any detailed analysis its probably the assault frigate that offers the most target potential. It has the main feature that allows us to attack with confidence, less than three midslots. Also, as a blaster boat it allows us to utilise our speed to attack at range. Does this stand up to a detailed analysis? First off lets come up with a hypothetical Enyo.
[Enyo, basic] Damage Control II Coreli C-Type Small Armor Repairer Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II Beta Reactor Control: Capacitor Power Relay I 1MN Afterburner II Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I Light Ion Blaster II, Antimatter Charge S Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S Light Neutron Blaster II, Null S Rocket Launcher II, Gremlin Rocket [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot]
The Enyo’s bonuses are a 25% bonus to small hybrid damage followed by a 10% bonus to optimal range and a 7.5% bonus to tracking per level of the assault frigate skill. It is very much a close-range blaster ship by design and we can probably treat it very much like an Incursus; i.e. stay at range and chip away at its armour.
With Caldari Navy antimatter in the neutron blasters the Enyo has a maximum effective range of 1.7 + 3.1 km. This is ideal for us and lets us use barrage to its full strength. Of course operating at range comes with costs for us to. In this case our damage output will be reduced to about 45 DPS. A well piloted Enyo should be able to tank our damage forever. But its not the well piloted ships we’re after. Again we can use our speed to disengage if we think there’s no way we can win this fight.
The worst case scenario sees the Enyo pilot loading null. At this point his effective range becomes 4.2 + 3.9 km. At this point its time to leave.
Because the Enyo has a tracking bonus I am not going to look at the possibility of getting under its guns. I think against this ship range is definitely the best approach.
Harpy
Just like the Enyo the Harpy is another blaster boat. This time its bonuses are a fixed 50% bonus to optimal range plus a further 10% optimal and 5% damage per level of the assault frigates skill. Unlike the Enyo we can see that it has a much larger range of engagements. It also has a shield tank. This is very much a typical Caldari design. The Harpy has 4 midslots for fitting modules and its a fair assumption that two of these will be dedicated to its shield tank. For this reason the Harpy is another ship that we can engage tentatively because we can use our speed to disengage should we have underestimated the ships capabilities.
[Harpy, basic] Damage Control II Magnetic Field Stabilizer II Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II Gistii B-Type Small Shield Booster Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S [empty high slot] Hybrid Collision Accelerator I Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Wow. That’s a pretty mean ship. The range of those blasters means that we can’t really use EMP in falloff because we’ll almost always be out-damaged or just plain not do enough damage to break their tank. What are our options, then? Well, we can treat it like a normal blaster boat and use Barrage. Assuming that the pilot has tried to patch the obvious EM hole that leaves the explosive hole as its biggest weakness. We can also stay out of the range of their blasters and its nice and easy to disengage if they load null.
But, like the Wolf, the Harpy has no tracking bonus and it uses blasters. I wonder if its possible to get under its tracking. Lets run the numbers through Eve Geek for a maximum skilled pilot.
| 500m | 1,000m | 1,500m | 2,000m | 2,500m | 3,000m | 3,500m | |
| 500 m/s | 0.0% | 17.6% | 56.1% | 76.8% | 86.6% | 91.2% | 91.7% |
| 750 m/s | 0.0% | 0.5% | 17.6% | 45.2% | 64.8% | 76.5% | 81.7% |
| 1000 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.2% | 17.6% | 38.8% | 55.9% | 66.5% |
| 1250 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 4.1% | 17.6% | 34.6% | 48.4% |
| 1500 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.5% | 5.8% | 17.5% | 31.0% |
So it turns out that it is actually pretty easy to get under its guns. Of course, as was the case for the Wolf, we also cripple our own damage when we get into close proximity. Getting in this close does encourage us to load RF EMP which also does a mixture of EM and explosive damage. Perfect for exposing the natural holes in the shield tank.
Hawk
The Hawk is the first rocket assault frigate that we’re going to look at. The current consensus is that rockets are a sub par weapon system. Can we exploit this? The Hawk’s bonuses are a 25% bonus to kinetic missile damage and 10% bonus to missile velocity and 7.5% to shield boost amount per level of assault frigate trained. This suggests that the Hawk is going to be fitted for tanking. Rockets being what they are we can expect both blaster hardpoints to be used for just that.
[Hawk, test] Damage Control II Power Diagnostic System II 1MN Afterburner II Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I Gistii B-Type Small Shield Booster Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S Light Neutron Blaster 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 Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
If we assume a maximum skilled missile user and a Rifter travelling at 1 km/s Eve Geek gives the following damage output for three missile launchers:
| Damage | Normalized damage | |||||||
| Type | EM | Explosive | Kinetic | Thermal | Shield | Armor | Average | DPS |
| Foxfire | 0 | 0 | 0 | 34.38 | 27.5 | 22.34 | 24.92 | 21.67 |
| Gremlin | 34.38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 34.38 | 10.31 | 22.35 | 19.43 |
| Phalanx | 0 | 34.38 | 0 | 0 | 13.75 | 30.94 | 22.35 | 19.43 |
| Thorn | 0 | 0 | 42.97 | 0 | 25.78 | 32.23 | 29.01 | 25.23 |
This only accounts for standard rockets. Caldari Navy thorn rockets will give a total of 35 DPS against our armour. Hardly a problem for us. Again the blasters give us a choice between getting in close or fighting at range. Either way they’re our main worry as long as we keep our speed up. The Hawk has a pretty massive tank however you attack it so although there’s no harm in trying I find it unlikely that it would break.
Vengeance
The Vengeance is to the Punisher what the Jaguar is to the Rifter. It comes with an armour tank and a full complement of midslots making it a tough ship to engage and one that can stop you from fleeing. It is also another rocket ship so for that reason we’ll take a slightly more detailed look at it. The Vengeance’s bonuses are 25% to all rocket damages and then 5% to armour resists and 5% to capacitor per level. Just like the Hawk this makes for a tough tank to counteract its puny damage.
Any kind of turret fit gives this ship more damage that rockets alone do so its very hard to predict how it will be fit. Probably something to have a tentative pop at but the lack of damage and massive tank absolutely screams bait for a heavy gang so bear that in mind and keep a close eye on the scanner.
Retribution
Last, and by no means least, we come to the Retribution. This ship is perfect for a tentative flyby because it only has one midslot so has no chance of matching you for pace. It has aggressive, rather than defensive, bonuses with a 50% reduction in small energy turret capacitor use plus a 10% bonus to optimal and 5% bonus to damage per level.
[Retribution, New Setup 1] 400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I Damage Control II Adaptive Nano Plating II Heat Sink II Heat Sink II 1MN Afterburner II Gatling Pulse Laser II, Amarr Navy Multifrequency S Gatling Pulse Laser II, Amarr Navy Multifrequency S Gatling Pulse Laser II, Amarr Navy Multifrequency S Gatling Pulse Laser II, Amarr Navy Multifrequency S [empty high slot] Energy Burst Aerator I Energy Collision Accelerator I
This is another ship that should be treated like a Punisher. Its bonuses mean that it is difficult to use barrage to keep it at range so just get in close and engage it using Republic Fleet phased plasma to take advantage of the thermal hole in T2 Amarrian tanks.
Of course its one midslot means that it is unlikely to be found alone. It is possible that you’ll find one baiting or ratting so we might as well talk about the possibilities for taking one down. If we opt to get in close with phased plasma will we be able to avoid the fire from its turrets? Let’s see what Eve Geek says…
| 500m | 1,000m | 1,500m | 2,000m | 2,500m | 3,000m | 3,500m | |
| 500 m/s | 0.0% | 15.4% | 53.7% | 75.3% | 85.7% | 91.0% | 94.0% |
| 750 m/s | 0.0% | 0.4% | 15.4% | 42.5% | 62.7% | 75.3% | 83.0% |
| 1000 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.7% | 15.4% | 36.1% | 53.7% | 66.5% |
| 1250 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 3.2% | 15.4% | 32.0% | 47.3% |
| 1500 m/s | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.4% | 4.7% | 15.4% | 29.2% |
Its definitely a possibility and with no bonuses to tanking this could actually be an interesting fight. With most of the laser damage being in EM and thermal we stand a good chance of lasting long enough to at least de-agress and run away.
Long Range Fits
All of the fits that I’ve discussed in this post have been designed for close range combat. As I’m sure you noticed a lot of the assault frigates have range bonuses and its not unusual to find Wolves fitted with artillery, Harpies and Enyos fitted with railguns, and Retributions with beam lasers. If you come across one of these fits then a nice close orbit will allow you to shrug off almost all of the damage. As an added bonus the fact that they’ve opted for long range weapons will also require that they weaken their tank to account for the greater fitting requirements.
The thing that stands out about all these ships is that they are the ones that lack the ability to pin you down so are the ones that it is worth a tentative engagement of in the first place. Because of this I advise that you never approach these ships in a straight line and instead spiral towards them. Very few assault ships are going to run from a frigate so you should still be able to get in close and see what they’re made of.
Conclusions
This article is 100% theory. The only practical aspect of it is the fact that I was able to speedtank a Wolf in my Slasher. That got me thinking about more general cases and resulted in this study of the potential for attacking these targets. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to try and find some fights where I can test these theories.
Just because I have discussed the potential weaknesses of some standard fits for assault frigates doesn’t mean that every ship you come across is going to be like this. Skilled pilots will know how their ship handles and won’t let you minimise transversal, or at least not without great effort. On paper all of the assault frigates can kill a Rifter. The ones that we’re looking for are the ones piloted by inexperienced capsuleers. The ones that are overconfident and underskilled.
There are also plenty of ways of countering the approach that I have suggested. Many people fit neutralisers and they will very quickly ruin your day if you come across one. There are also ways to fit a Rifter to counter some of the setups that I’ve proposed but I wanted this to be about what I could engage in my standard fit.
Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed my musings and even if you disagree with my ideas, fits, and suggestions you’ll take away the most important thing about this article. Know your enemy.
Most of the fittings came from the Scrapheap Challenge Ship Setup Hangar – PvP. EVE[geek] has some fantastic calculators for everything from turret damage to refining efficiency.
Related posts:
- Assault Frigates: What Would You Change?
- A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action
- Picking Your Battles
- A Short Life But A Merry One
- Wensley Imicusbane
May 5th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
My friend, assault ships can be a lot of fun and the Ishkur in particular is a wonderful ship. It's a 'mini-vexor' that if flown well, can do a lot of damage. I fly ishkurs exclusively for over a year.
One has to remember the first rule of PvP, know the battlefield. That means knowing what you, your ship and your target and their ship are capable of. You won't be killing many battleships solo with an Ishkur, but it has been known to happen.
Good luck mate!!!
May 5th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I pretty much stopped buying AF's once Quantum Rise came out. It simply isn't worth 25-30mil for an Ishkur hull when it will still lose to a regular old T1 cruiser and can't even think about engaging under sentry fire. I have bought a couple Enyo's just for shits because it is a bit cheaper but really it is a useless solo AF and I only bring it out if I'm in a gang where someone else can worry about fitting the tackle mods. If I want to fly around solo in a frig, it's going to be a Taranis and nothing else because at least it can turn and escape in most bad situations. An AF with an AB is stuck there for the remainder of the fight in most cases and as a result will generate more losses and thus be less cost efficient.
If you ask me, the best thing to have come out of this AF boost is the fact that now people are cocky and will attack my small-gun fit Thorax and get raped hard.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Excellent analysis, Wens. The turret tracking stuff is particularly interesting. EveGeek.com wouldn't load for me for some reason….got stuck on loading for forever. Any idea why (using latest FF)?
May 5th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
"On paper all of the assault frigates can kill a Rifter."
Most definitely in game as well. I, just a couple hours ago, lost my Rifter to an Enyo I had pointed and tackled while the rest of the fleet was warped in. Her and her drones tore threw my passively fit 400mm tank pretty quick.
Excellent write up, lots of food for thought here for several different types of pilots.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Yarr, sorry about the typo. However, to a newb Rifter pilot, one Warrior II can feel like two, sometimes more, drones. It was definitely an Enyo, she has vastly more experience than I and I was into structure pretty quick while my mates were still in warp and landing:
http://bloodmoney.eve-stuff.co.uk/kb/?a=kill_deta…
May 5th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Aye, I've seen how devastating Ishkurs can be. Its probably one of the most flown ships in The Tuskers these days. I'm trying to make PvP pay for itself at the moment so until I've had some practice I can't see AFs being part of my arsenal.
"One has to remember the first rule of PvP, know the battlefield." This is pretty much what got me started on this exercise. When I realised I actually had no idea what the bonuses or capabilities of the Harpy were I decided to spend the day doing some research. Most of what I wrote was a stream of conciousness. Hopefully over the next week or so I'll be able to put some of it into practice. Here's hoping my targets haven't read this.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
The Rifter isn't the only part of my anti-AF arsenal. I have other plans to counter them. For now I'm having too much fun messing with interceptors in Old Man Star to want to fly anything other than my Rifter.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
No idea. It was working absolutely fine for me in Safari today. The site is dead basic so they (or you) might be having connection blips somewhere along the line. Its a cool little site. At some point I'll do an Eve Tools article about it.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Her drones? Plural? You sure that was an Enyo? They only have enough space for a single small drone. Perfectly easy to dispatch before settling in to chip away at the tank.
I think you're right about food for thought for other types of pilots. The one thing that has come out of this for me is that I would almost never load Barrage in a Wolf. RF EMP does more damage, has better tracking, and shed loads of falloff with the bonuses. I think interceptor pilots could learn something, too. Disintigrator has demonstrated how useful a thorough knowledge of tracking mechanics can be.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Warrior IIs do require some pretty fast thinking. You need to get them webbed and down fast. When I was testing with a corpmate once I was able to down all of his Ishkur's drones but only by flying out of web range. In web range they're an absolute pain.
I knew the name was familiar! I love that the BMCB guys hang out in Adirain. It really gives us both some fun fights. Hope to see you there soon o7
May 5th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Yup, it's always fun going into battle against a Tusker. o7
May 6th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Interestingly, I used to fit my Enyo with rails…
Mind, that was over a year ago when I first trained for them, and well before QR, but I still have that very first Enyo in my hangar.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Despite the price tags, I enjoy flying my assault frigs, both Wolf and Jaguar classes, although I'm now trying to be careful with them after losing too many. Also, mostly because they are expensive anyway, I tend to fit deadspace afternurners on my Wolves these days which makes them faster than my Rifters.
I once lost a Wolf to a Rifter in a deadspace plex where he used a Gistii AB to stay at about 20 kilometres and shoot me with artillery cannons. But I don't think this setup can be used anywhere else since MWD frigs will easily kill such a Rifter.
For the record, I returned to that plex in a Rifter with an overdrive, a nanofiber and autocannons and killed that guy after outrunning him by overloading my midslots.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:11 am
I opted to use a fit like Prometheus’ because it is also pretty indicative of the Harpies that I’ve come across and those on our killboard. Looking at the Harpy’s resist holes actually surprised me, I was expecting them to be standard shield resists. A web could be a pretty handy addition to a Harpy. Thankfully if you are making a tentative engagement you’d find out about this pretty quickly and should still have enough speed to get out before you get too close to blaster optimal.
The orbiting thing is the biggest problem with this. All that the Harpy (or other AF) really needs to do is to stop orbiting you and to try and minimise their transversal. You’ll pretty quickly start taking some serious hits. Pilots who are wise enough to do that aren’t really the targets that I’d go after anyway. I guess this is the thing. At the end of the day it takes a bad pilot for there to be any chance of exploiting potential weak spots.
The massive drone bay of the Ishkur just makes it extra horrible. I can just about deal with 5 Warrior IIs if I’m lucky. But ten….
May 6th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Wensley,
NIce analysis.
A couple of things: the Harpy has 4 mids, so may well have a web fitted, which will make it much harder to get under his guns at a decent transversal – with small Hybrids tracking at about 0.4, they are not too far behind you. (You seem to be following Prometheus's fit at Scrapheap, which may not be typical of all situations). Also, since shield rigs are only about 3-4m, in the context of a 20m ship the obvious holes will probably be filled to (swap the Mag scatt in your fit for a web & put a 2nd EM screen in the 2nd rig spot). Finally, he will probably have something in the 5th high slot – a rocket launcher or Nos should fit depending on the guns fitted). I reckon you would be in trouble…
When you are aiming to get under the guns, you also need to be careful if the orbit is not circular, which it is not likely to be if he is moving anywhere near your speed: the transversall can vary quite a bit (put angular velocity in your overview if you don't already to see what the variation can be), and he only needs to catch you at a few low angular points to make it hiurt…
You maybe should also mention that the Ishkur could be holding up to 10 Warrior IIs – 5 out at a time and 5 more in the drone bay.
Good stuff.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:02 am
I´m still a pvp novice, but I´ve lost 2 Enyos. The big issue for me, compared to when I fly my Trasher, is that everybody wants to kill me. And it makes sense. I´ve killed 2 Harpys for the same reason: It´s nice to collect T2 kills:) Ppl seem to 1:Don´t care about my Trasher, or 2: Underestimate my Trasher. When in my Enyo everyone goes berzerk. I´ll probably stop flying them mostly because of that, or just use them in gangs of MORE AF´s, so mine is just one of many. If anyone is sharing my toughts, or disagree, please post!
Regards/ Ebrey
May 10th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Interesting, interesting.
These are great stats and tables. You should really give them try and test out your theorycrafts!