Last night Joc and I had a nice little skirmish with some guys from Blood Money Bootcamp. We’d been chasing two Rifters and a Crusader around Adirain for a while. Joc’s Punisher and my Rifter kept narrowly missing the Crusader until I sat and waited at the gate to Aeschee. Eventually Joc was going to flush him in my direction (he’d been bouncing around between planet ten, a belt, and the gate). As I predicted it happened and I quickly began burning towards the interceptor with my afterburner and scrambler overloaded. If I missed the tackle I would at least not get aggro and be able to burn to the gate and jump out. I didn’t miss the tackle though and scrambled the interceptors microwarp drive. My webs were applied and my guns opened fire. The fragile ship didn’t last long and exploded as Joc landed next to me in his Punisher. We pointed the pod and I considered a ransom until I remembered that he probably had fleet mates so popped the pod to deny them a warp in. I was too late popping the pod and a Rifter dropped out of warp next to us. Joc and I both turned on him and he melted under our combined fire. A second Rifter landed as we finished off the first and he met a similar fate. We scooped the loot and headed to a safe before reinforcements arrived.

So how do you kill interceptors when you only have an afterburner fitted? Part of me wants to keep this close to my chest because I don’t want my targets knowing my tactics but all of this information is already out there so I might as well share it. The other week I had a lot of fun and was able to kill a Malediction, Crow, and Taranis all in one day. Each one required a slightly different trick.

Baiting

You’d be amazed how invulnerable interceptor pilots feel. With their high speed they are confident that they can get out into a safe orbit before you can pin them down. Because of this the majority of pilots will warp in to a celestial at zero. In the old days this was probably true. Their momentum would carry them out of web range. Now that we can shut down their microwarp drives its a very different matter.

So baiting them is easy. Warp to a celestial at 0 km and sit there with your web and scrambler activated and ready to lock. If you can overload then better still. When the interceptor warps in the odds are pretty good that they will land a couple of kilometres from you. As soon as they drop out of warp start to target them and hit approach. Fire up your afterburner and hope your lock resolves before they can get out of range. Obviously the Signature Analysis skill is your good friend here. The faster you lock the more chance you have of getting them.

What if they don’t land on top of you? The best thing to do is to have another celestial selected and to warp away to it as soon as you think you might not get them. Try not to pre-align, this might take you out of range of a good target. You can always do this once anyway to convince yourself that they are warping to zero before you try locking them. If you’re paying attention you might see what range they land at. Warp to your next celestial at this range and surprise them. Most pilots are set in their ways.

Approaching

The other bad habit that most interceptor pilots have is that they approach their targets by just hitting the orbit button. Navigational computers aren’t actually very bright. If they get a command like this they will fly in a straight line towards their target and then turn hard when they hit the desired range. Because they’re travelling at very high speeds this turn often results in overshoot. If you hit the approach button yourself and fly towards them at maximum speed the odds are good that their overshoot will bring them into scramble range. Again overheating and Signature Analysis are your friends here. I generally overheat the afterburner and scrambler on approach and target them as soon as they come into lock range (I have Long Range Targeting IV and Signature Analysis V). If you’re by a station or gate only activate the scrambler when you go for the initial tackle. That way you won’t get any aggression if you miss the tackle and will be able to burn back and dock or jump to safety.

Using Asteroids

One of the best places to try the above tricks (other than gates and stations) is asteroid belts. If you miss the tackle then you can use the asteroids to try and slow down your tormentor. Simply head for the thickest part of the belts and fly manually between the asteroids. Keep a close eye on the interceptor’s speed. If he gets trapped on a ‘roid it will slow dramatically and you’ll be able to quickly approach and get your scrambler on him. As soon as you do this its game over interceptor.

Duck and Dive

If you’ve been caught by an interceptor and its been able to get into a safe range don’t panic. Even if there are no handy belts a patient pilot can still trick the interceptor into getting caught. Eve Tribune has an article with some good dog fighting manoeuvres. These tricks also apply to afterburner frigates.

One of the main things to keep on your side is patience. Rifters have good tanks and by being careful with your armour repair systems you can tank an interceptor’s damage for a long time. If you sit still and let the damage slowly creep up its possible that they will get impatient and either come in close for the kill or slow down to improve their tracking. Keep a close eye on their speed and range. As soon as you see either of these things happen its time to pounce and go in for the kill.

Close Range ‘Ceptors

I’m thinking specifically of the Taranis here but the Malediction and Stiletto probably fit in this category too unless they’re tackling for a gang.

In pretty much all of these cases Barrage ammunition and range are your friends. If you orbit at good range then you minimise the interceptor’s advantage of good tracking and small signature radius. This is especially true against blaster ships like the Taranis. At long range they just can’t hit you and their only real damage comes from their drones. You can just chip away at them from range.

Against rocket ships like the Malediction (and some Crows) the range allows you to keep your speed up. This minimises the damage that you take from their rockets and improves your hit chances.

Skills

In my Rifter Guide I cover a lot of the basic skills for piloting a Rifter in combat. All of these skills apply equally to fighting interceptors. You need good tank and gunnery skills but there are a few extra things that will help you as well.

• Signature Analysis – 5% increase to targeting speed per level is obviously great for getting a fast lock before they can escape
• Long Range Targeting – 5% bonus to targeting range for when you’re trying to break into their approach
• Thermodynamics – overheating for 20% extra scrambler range and 50% bonus to afterburner speed is priceless.
• Acceleration Control – 5% bonus to afterburner speed boost because faster is better
• Evasive Maneuvring – 5% agility bonus helps you make fast turns and accelerate quickly
• Navigation – 5% bonus to ship speed so even faster afterburners
• Spaceship Command – another 2% bonus to agility per level

Epilogue

Even a T1-fit Rifter can go out and do this. T2 afterburners and scramblers will make your life easier but named is perfectly good. Of course, you don’t have to do this in a Rifter. Any frigate that can fit an afterburner and warp scrambler can go out and give it a go. T1 fit Incursii do a great job of this as do Atrons with T2 blasters. There’s no reason a Punisher or a Merlin couldn’t give it a go, either. If you’re not comfortable with the afterburner then switch out for a microwarp drive. This will give you even more speed to play with and make catching your prey that much easier. You sacrifice some of the general purpose use of the afterburner but as long as you bear that in mind you’ll be fine.

So basically just fit up a cheap ship and go out there looking for trouble.

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?

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.

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.

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:

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…

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.

Rifter Guide to Solo PvP

You can also download a PDF version or go and discuss it in my Eve Online forum thread.

Because I’m doing this for my own benefit I’ve run the numbers based upon my own style of fighting and skills rather than a more abstract approach.

First of all lets imagine that I’m in a Rifter fitted with a microwarp drive, 400 mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten plate, and Damage Control II. In this case I use my microwarp drive to close the distance on my target and try and hold a close orbit at 500 m using a web to pin down my target. My maximum speed in this arrangement is 384 m/s so lets take the transversal velocity as 400 m/s and the range as 500 m. For the sake of this test I’ll fit my ship with 150 mm Light Autocannon IIs.

From this graph you can see that under these conditions my optimal range is 2000 m and that Replublic Fleet EMP ammunition does the best damage. So next time I engage someone should I set my orbit to 2 km and load up the EMP? Well, its not quite that simple. What happens if I’m up against an armour tanked Rifter? Lets put in the basic armour resistances of a Rifter and see how that effects the damage.

Now we can see that the most effective ammunition for a close-up fight isn’t one of the high tech ammunitions but Republic Fleet Fusion. At this speed the tracking penalties for Barrage and Hail mean that it just doesn’t do the job as well as regular ammo does.

But this still isn’t the whole story. Even if I go fast enough to dictate range my opponent may still effect the transversal velocity. And what if he has a web? Then my speed will drop right down. Will that affect the ammo I should use? Let’s have a look.

In this graph we can see what happens as the transversal velocity changes while still holding an orbit of 2 km around my target. At all speeds Republic Fleet Fusion is better than Hail, although only just when we’ve been webbed. This leaves me with one last question. Is 2,000 m still the best range to orbit at if I suspect my opponent has a web? Especially against cruisers I want to get in under their guns as much as possible. Let’s revisit our first plot but this time with a transversal of 40 m/s assuming both ships are carry 90% webs.

In this case we can see that Hail is a far superior choice of ammunition for the job, although Fusion still packs a hefty punch. Now, rather than my previous optimum of 2,000 m I can do the most damage closer in at about 750 m so I should set this as my optimum.

Thankfully when facing shield tankers this problem is vastly simplified by the fact that there is only really one choice of ammunition, Republic Fleet EMP, so this choice is already made. There are still questions about default orbits to deal with but that’s about it.

As well as my own ammunition I also need to consider what my opponent is most likely to be carrying. Against missile ships the tactic is very simple; go as fast as possible at your optimum range. It is speed not distance that will defeat missiles. Blaster boats are a bit different, though. Let’s consider a Gallente Tristan with Light Neutron Blasters II and Void ammo. With maximum skills his optimum range is 1.7 km and his falloff is just 1.3 km so if I orbit at 5 km he will barely be able to hit me while I can pound him with Barrage out to 10km and beyond. My best approach, then, is probably to use Barrage and orbit at 7 km so I can hold him in warp scrambler range. If I want to go in close I can also get in under his tracking and load up Fusion like before.

What about a Punisher? Well, fitted with Medium Pulse Laser IIs and Conflagration ammo they have an optimal of 3.8 km and a falloff of 2.5 km. In this case it is much harder to out-distance their guns, even using Barrage. Instead we can exploit their tracking, which is terrible. Load up the Republic Fleet Fusion and get in close. This is especially effective because he can only pick two midslot modules so is unlikely to have stasis webifier fitted.

Conclusion

So what have I learnt from this exercise? Well, basically that I have been misusing Barrage. Its purpose is to orbit outside of your opponents guns so its uses for my ‘orbit at 500 m’ tactic are limited. Instead I should use Republic Fleet Fusion when I don’t think my opponent has a webifier and Hail when I think he does.

There is one other question left to answer. That posed by Burn Mac in his response to my post about passive and active tanking. What is the effect of changing the size of the gun? Are big guns better?

Well it actually happens that the effect of the size of the gun is pretty minimal. When using ammunition with tracking penalties or high transversal velocities smaller guns will help you hit your target more often. You’re better off not sacrificing the rest of your set-up just to fit larger guns. Small guns and gyrostabiliser do more damage than bigger guns without one.

Of course, all of this changes when I consider what happens if I fit an afterburner and use that during combat but that discussion is for another time.

References

The formula used to calculate the DPS for the various combinations comes from Naughty Boy via Scrapheap Challenge. There is also a good discussion of autocannon tactics in The Rules Of Autocannons but I think a lot of this applies only to cruiser-sized ships and above.

Passive Tank

To fit a passive tank on the Rifter I use a 400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten plate instead of a more frigate-sized 200mm plate. This gives me a huge armour buffer but I need to use a Micro Auxiliary Power Core to get it all to fit. On top of this I can either fit three 150mm Light Autocannon IIs or three 125mm Gatling Autocannon IIs and a named rocket launcher. The latter giving me the advantage of better tracking against close, fast moving targets which is the way I like to fight.

With this set-up I can hold the scram and web indefinitely and use my microwarp drive when necessary to maintain range. With my skills I can hit 2150 m/s with the microwarp drive active and keep it running with the tackle gear for 1 minute 3 seconds. Plenty of time to close to my target and engage.

The biggest downside of this set-up that I can see is that I have no ability to repair myself. While this isn’t a problem fighting most small ships it has been an issue when I’ve had to fight multiple opponents either in rapid succession or together. Plus it limits my ability to operate in systems without stations.

Active Tank

The other option that I am starting to play with is a more traditional active armour tank. The smaller plate involved makes my ship slightly lighter and more manoeuvrable as well as allowing me to hit higher speeds with my microwarp drive.

The problems I’m likely to encounter here are my limited capacitor and repair ability. At peak repair I can sustain 27 DPS but even using a small, named nosferatu this limits me to 58s of repair. This actually should be enough to see me through most fights because they tend to be shorter than this. Assuming it doesn’t get swamped I can repair 910 units of armour before I cap out giving me the potential for 1585 extra effective hit points.

In order to do this I have to sacrifice a small amount of DPS by dropping the rocket launcher but this looks like a very promising fit and it is tried and tested. My only concern is that the repairer might not be able to keep up resulting in me being overwhelmed by their fire. Still, I plan on heading out in it a bit during the course of The Bet and seeing how it holds up.

Edit: I’m also experimenting with replacing the Damage Control II with a Gyrostabilizer II and dropping the nosferatu for a rocket launcher. There’s just so many options.

There’s also a variation of the active tank that I came across in a couple of frigate duels with an Heimatar pirate. Rather than using a nosferatu to syphon capactior charge from his victim he used a capacitor booster to all him to keep his armour repairer and afterburner running permanently.

Very tanky but lacking the speed to close to your victims. Still it could have some very good uses as a bait ship and I enjoyed the one time that I took it out until it died at the hands of a gank thrasher.

So, active or passive tank? What do you think?