Rifter Drifter

Last Saturday saw the inaugural Tuskers frigate tournament. Our very own Paul Jons did the organising and offered up a prize of 50 million ISK for the winner and 25 million for the runner up. Seven Tuskers entered the tournament, myself included.

The rules were very simple:

Competition rules would be as follows:

1. All participants are required to fight within a 100km diameter. There will also be a can in the centre of the arena so that contestants will know how far they are in regards to the can. So that means you can only go up to 50km from the can before being disqualified.

2. No points (eg. warp scrams) are necessary as participants are not allowed to warp off once in arena once the fight has started. Doing so, the participant would be disqualified

3. Equipment are limited to only t1 and t2 equipments. So that means meta 0 to meta 5 items are only allowed into the battle. I shall scan each ship before a battle happens. If you are fitted with faction/officer equipments, you will be disqualified on the spot. Faction ammo however is allowed.

4. A time limit of 15 minutes per battle is allowed. If a stalemate occurs, participants are to dock up and get a combat fitted noobie ship of their choice. Please get a noobie ship in place first before the competition.

5. Contestants are to be ready in their ships, docked up before their match. Only undock when I say so. Once you’ve undocked, you are not allowed to dock back up until the end of the fight. Doing so would result in a disqualification. So please check and double and even triple check your fittings, ammo, ship and insurance before the match.

6. Once the judge (ie. Me) has scanned a participant’s ship, the participant is required to warp to the fighting arena immediately/only. The first participant should be at the fighting arena when the second participant lands in the arena. Failure to do so will result in a disqualification

7. No podding shall occur. Even firing one volley of shot at a pod is not acceptable. If it does happen, the contestant that opened fire shall be disqualified

8. No cloaking is allowed. Doing so would result in a disqualification

Looking at the rules I decided that my best option would be to use a fast ship with long range damage. I knew everyone would be expecting me to fly a Rifter and by doing something different I should have the upper hand from the start. The ship that I chose was the Breacher because not only was it very fast but it also the ability to fit it with missile launchers. The advantage of the launchers is that they made me immune to tracking sensors and, if I carried F.o.F. missiles I was also immune to ECM. After a bit of fiddling in EFT to get a cap-stable fit this was what I settled on:

With my skills she does 3,015 m/s and delivers 62 DPS. While her damage is pretty meagre and her tank non-existant this is not a problem. The idea is to stay between 40 km (my lock range) and 25 km (their reduced lock range) from my targets and slowly whittle down their defences with impunity.

With our plans formulated and our ships readied the competitors assembled in Hevrice at the allotted hour. One at a time we were summoned by Paul to his scan spot and then sent to the arena. The tension in station was palpable. All we could hear were vague reports of the progress of each fight until the loser warped back to station while the victor looted the field (we are pirates after all).

Quarter Finals

• Ka Jolo vs Suleiman Schouaa
• Rael Valen vs Romeo Blakstorm
• Man Barthelme – bye
• Wensley vs Tarik Mistrelle …

As the dust settled from Rael and Romeo’s bout I readied my systems. I had never flown a Breacher in combat but I had a simple plan and I hoped it would work. My only concern was the size of the arena and I had spent the previous night practising manoeuvring around an anchored can. I decided that the safest bet was to orbit the central can at 25 km and use my microwarp drive to keep Tarik at range.

Paul was surprised to see my ship when I landed at his scan spot. Everyone was banking on me bringing a Rifter and I was relying on this to carry me to victory!

I opted to warp to the arena at 30 km and I was pleased to see Tarik land right on top of the can. As I’d hoped he had opted for a Rifter aiming to counter my obvious choice. I settled into orbit, powered up the microwarp drive, and began launching missiles while my sensor dampner limited Tarik’s lock range to the point where he barely scratched my shields during the bout. I drifted out of my own lock range a couple of times but it was a pretty straight forward victory and I moved onto the next round with my element of surprise intact.

… Wensley vs Tarik Mistrelle

In the other heats the winning pilots had both opted for Punishers and beaten Incursuses.

Semi Finals

With our ships repaired after the first heats the semi finalists were called out to the field.

• Suleiman Schouaa vs Rael Valen
• Wensley vs Man Barthelme …

After toying with the idea of swapping out my sensor dampner for an ECM module I opted to keep the same fit for the semi finals. Once again I warped in at 30 km but to my consternation Bart landed right on top of me. I quickly fired up my MWD and burnt out to range, failing to notice that he did exactly the same. Once I was outside his damped lockrange I felt safe and began to pulse the MWD in order to keep him inside my own lock range. So far so good. What I hadn’t noticed was that Bart had opted for a similar approach to me and speed-fit an artillery Rifter. If he so much as got a lock on me I was in severe trouble. Despite my manoeuvring he got one lock off and a fearsome volley hit me before I was able to break it again. The next time I failed to notice that he had overheated his MWD to close on me and by the time I could respond it was too late. Both ships had deep structural damage and as Bart’s MWD gave a last splutter under the strain he scored the vital hit that removed my remaining defences and tore my ship apart. Victory was his.

I really hadn’t considered the possibility of an artillery Rifter despite it being the best counter to what people were expecting from me. Despite that I did a good job of holding him at range until Bart completely outflew me and was able to get in close. A well deserved victory.

… Wensley vs Man Barthelme

In the previous fight it turned out that Rael had opted for a very similar approach to me and their fight had followed a similar format with Rael dealing damage with impunity until Suleiman was able to get a web on him at which point he was torn apart.

The Final

• Suleiman Schouaa vs Man Barthelme …

Suleiman turned up at the final with an unchanged fitting from his previous rounds while Bart swapped his arty Rifter for an autocannon version fitted with ECM modules.

The final was a battle of wits with Suleiman and Bart pretty much matching each other shot for shot. Whenever Bart’s ECM got a jam Sulei retreated and repaired his damage before returning to the field. As the battle continued this happened more and more often but Bart was unable to capitalise on his jams. Without a web he couldn’t stop Sulei from retreating and the superior capacitor and repair ability of the Punisher eventually won out. Bart’s Rifter exploded and Sulei was victorious.

… Suleiman Schouaa vs Man Barthelme

Thanks to Paul’s organisation we had a fantastic afternoon of fighting. Everyone had lots of fun, even the spectators. Once the adrenaline had subsided we had a detailed debrief of each fight and all the competitors posted their fits and reasoning onto the forums so we could see what had and hadn’t worked. Hopefully there’ll be another of these and I’ll be able to unveil what I am only calling ‘Plan B’ for now…

Oh, for anyone who is interested I recorded the final fight. The footage is watermarked because I am playing with some new video recording software at the moment.

The Tuskers Frigate Tournament5.052

Related posts:

1. [TSKRS] The Tuskers Frigate Op
2. The Little Frigate That Just Won’t Die
3. There’s No Place Like Home
4. At The Helm of a Tuskers Fleet
5. Insomnia