Rifter Drifter

Dominion is nearly upon us and one of the changes that didn’t make it into this expansion was the proposed change to assault frigates. CCP proposed a 15% per level boost to afterburner speed per level of the racial frigate resulting in a 75% speed increase across the board. This was eventually canned because they weren’t happy about it in testing.

A lot of people were very excited about the changes and with good reason. This boost would have made assault frigates into fantastically fast damage dealers without the ability to disable their speed with warp scramblers. As you can probably tell by my tone here, I was less excited by the changes. assault frigates are already tough little damage dealers and, while they need looking at, a massive speed boost would make them far too overpowered. They’re there to bring on the pain, not to tackle. I like the fact that there is a now a decision to be made between afterburner and microwarp drive and I don’t like the idea of forcing the ship to fit one rather than the other.

Another argument that I have against this is the boost to faction and pirate frigates. These are designed to be fast little ships with damage somewhere between T1 frigates and assault frigates and tackling abilities somewhere between T1 frigates and interceptors.

So do I think that assault frigates are fine as they are? Well, no. If nothing else they do need to get their fourth bonus. Plus I know plenty of Retribution pilots who would kill for a second midslot and, while I can see why they don’t have one, I understand why. Add to that the fact that rockets are simply terrible and you have a ship class that needs some investigation. The solution, I think, is too look at every single ship and give it a suitable bonus rather than make a sweeping generalisation across the whole class.

Let’s take a look at the Jaguar and Wolf because they are the ones that I am most familiar with.

Name: Jaguar
Hull: Rifter Class
Role: Assault Ship

The Jaguar is a versatile ship capable of reaching speeds unmatched by any other assault-class vessel. While comparatively weak on the defensive front it sports great flexibility, allowing pilots considerable latitude in configuring their loadouts for whatever circumstances they find themselves in.

Developer: Thukker Mix

Being the brain-child of the nomadic Thukkers, it is no surprise the Jaguar is as fast as it is. Initially conceived as a way for the tribe to pack some added punch to their organized detachments, they’ve found it to be equally useful as messenger, scout and escort, and it is likely to become one of the most commonly-seen ships in the Thukkers’ stomping grounds.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus: 5% Small Projectile damage bonus

Assault Ships Skill Bonus: 10% Small Projectile Turret optimal range and 5% projectile damage per level.

So taking a look at the Jaguar first we can see that it is designed to be an extension of the Rifter’s flexibility. With 4 high slots, 4 mid slots, and 3 low slots and Minmatar T2 shield resistances it makes an excellent shield tanker. You can fit anything from a single shield extender with a full complement of tackle/e-war, through dual shield extender buffer fits, to active tanks. It screams out to be fitted with autocannons and flown in almost exactly the same way as the Rifter. So why does it have a bonus to small projectile turret optimal range? On a ship like this a bonus to fall-of would be far more appropriate.

The important question is what fourth bonus would I give it? It is not designed to be a hard hitter so I think another damage bonus would be out of place. Following the Rifter model I can see three bonuses which would fit:

1. 7.5% bonus to tracking per level: This is lifted straight out of the Rifter’s bonuses and would follow the theme of making the Jaguar into the next logical step from the Rifter. It would allow fits that don’t have stasis webifiers to still lay down good damage and also go some way to counteracting the Amarrian electronic warfare that is likely to be applied to it.
2. 5% bonus to base speed per level: While I said I was opposed to an across the board increase to speed I think the Jaguar is a ship where such a bonus might possibly be merited. I know that it is already the fastest assault frigate but as a ship designed for the hit and run attacks by the Thukker Tribe the ability to engage and disengage at will is vital to its function. The main argument against this is that assault frigate speeds are already balance and this would probably unbalance things in favour of the Jaguar.
3. 5% reduction in signature radius: This is another potential bonus based upon the ships Thukker roots. It has far less potential to be overpowered than a speed increase but again the Jaguar already has a significantly smaller signature radius than other assault frigates.

I think that while writing that I talked myself out of a bonus to speed or signature radius. In my mind that leaves a tracking bonus as the only viable option for a boost to the Jaguar.

Name: Wolf
Hull: Rifter Class
Role: Assault Ship

Named after a mythical beast renowned for its voraciousness, the Wolf is one of the most potentially destructive frigates currently in existence. While hardier than its brother the Jaguar it has less in the way of shield systems, and the capabilities of its onboard computer leave something to be desired. Nevertheless, the mere sight of a locked and loaded Wolf should be enough to make most pilots turn tail and flee.

Developer: Boundless Creation

Boundless Creation’s ships are based on the Brutor tribe’s philosophy of warfare: simply fit as much firepower onto your ship as possible. Defense systems and electronics arrays therefore take a back seat to sheer annihilative potential.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus: 5% Small Projectile Damage bonus

Assault Ships Skill Bonus: 5% Small Projectile Turret damage and 10% falloff per level

Unlike the Jaguar the Wolf is designed to focus on one particular aspect of the Rifter’s abilities: its damage. With the Brutor’s philosophy this ship is all about firepower. Its five high slots, two mid slots, and four low slots show that this ship is not designed for skirmishing but instead to deliver as much pain as possible. Its double damage bonuses mean that it can function equally well as either an artillery or autocannon platform. Because of this I would propose that it swaps its falloff bonus for the Jaguar’s optimal range bonus.

For the Wolf the fourth and final bonus needs to be something related to damage. I can see two possibilities:

1. 7.5% bonus to tracking per level: Like in the case of the Jagaur I think this bonus could be applied to the Wolf without causing too much controversy. That fact that it cannot fit a propulsion module, web, and warp disruptor together means that it is likely to have tracking issues so would feel the benefits of this more than the Jaguar. This bonus would also benefit artillery configurations.
2. 5% rate of fire bonus: Sticking with the theme of increased damage this would be a boost to both artillery and autocannon setups.

So of all of my proposals above, which would I go for? Well, without hesitation I would give the Jaguar a bonus to fall-off and tracking while losing the bonus to optimal range. For the Wolf I think a tracking bonus is in order as well. I think that to encourage a bit of variety with artillery setups the optimal bonus would be more suitable than the falloff one that it currently has but then as someone who fliers autocannon Wolves I would be happy if they kept the falloff bonus as is.

So that’s my thoughts on the Jaguar and Wolf. What assault frigates would you change and why?

Elfhat0r, a former Tusker, has written an E-war guide and this has got me thinking about electronic warfare and its place in our fleets.

Electronic warfare is a very powerful tool in Eve. All too often it boils down to Falcon alts and flavour of the month fits with tracking disruptors. The tracking disruptor fits are fun but when every solo ship of any worth is accompanied by a Falcon things quickly get dull. A well designed e-war presence can really swing the impetus of a fight in your favour. Force multiplication is the name of the game. How can a bunch of frigates or cruisers overwhelm a force with greater firepower?

Generally when I run around in a gang of more than three or four ships I like to start thinking how e-war can support the gang. A lot of times these days we knowingly engage bait or opposition who we know can bring support. In these situations it is important to maximise your survivability. There are generally two ways that I approach brining e-war in a gang. The first is probably the most traditional, dedicated e-war ships. The second is probably my preferred approach but also slightly harder to organise and manage, that is e-war distributed evenly through the fleet without specialist ships.

Every race in Eve has its own distinctive flavour of electronic warfare. Generally this is designed to either enhance its own strengths or play against its traditional enemy’s weaknesses. For example the Amarr use tracking disruptors to try and counter the Minmatars’ strengths of speed and flexible range. The Minmatar for their part use target painters to try and maximise the amount of damage that their guns do against the tanky and immobile Amarr. Caldari ships use ECM to jam their Gallente counterparts. When jammed the Gallente are unable bring their high damage blasters to bear. Likewise the Gallente take advantage of the fact that ECM is best applied from long range to use sensor dampners to bring the ECM ships into range. The increase lock time also makes it harder to remove their drones from the equation.

The advantage of bringing dedicated e-war ships to a fight is that each race’s ship has a bonus to its flavour of e-war. Even better the T2 ships have a bonus to a second variant, except the Caldari who have a capacitor bonus to their ECM. (Amarr: neut range, Minmatar: web range, Gallente: scram range.) This makes the ships very powerful in their roles. Force Recons also have the advantage of fitting a covert ops cloak so that they can move around in safety and only be deployed when needed. The disadvantage of these specialist ships is that they make obvious targets to be removed from the battlefield, bring limited DPS, and are generally pretty fragile.

The typical fleets that I command tend to be either frigate wolfpacks or T1 cruiser gangs. In these gangs I prefer the distributed e-war approach. Rather than having a bunch of redundant scrams and webs it is better to spread the e-war out through the fleet. This means that we can bring maximum damage to bear on our targets and also makes it more difficult for the opponent to remove the e-war. The downside is that we no longer benefit from the role-specific bonuses of the dedicated e-war platforms. It also takes a bit longer to organise the gang to make sure that a suitable balance is obtained and means that members should be versed in all forms of e-war.

Both approaches are very effective at what they do. Personally I prefer the e-war specialist approach in informal gangs. Its easier for someone to bring a Griffin or Blackbird along than it is to try and split e-war between a handful of ships. In larger fleets, though, I prefer the distributed approach. At the end of the day its horses for courses and everyone will have their favoured method. I just thought I’d share some thoughts.

I’m a big fan of understanding the theory behind our universe. Maybe its because I’m a physicist by trade. Who knows?

Anyway, the Goons have outdone themselves in this field. GARPA – I assume this stands for Goon Advanced Research Project Agency – have produced a manual for manipulating the in-game grid. In simple combat situations the grid is never really considered. It is simply the area of space in which a set of objects will be rendered by the game engine and appear in your overview. When you are talking about large fleets, however, the grid becomes more important.

Loading large numbers of ships creates lag. This slows down the response time of a fleet as it lands on grid and allows opponents to seize the upper hand while the landing force is orientating itself for the fight. By manipulating the grid it is possible to create a large grid where the force can warp in out of range, load grid, and then move into combat positions fully prepared. A sneaky commander could manipulate the grids so that he could hide a large portion of his fleet when conducting a defence. Even at close range the established grid would seem to be invisible even though the reserve fleet is only a few kilometres from the fight.

This document is now in the public domain and can be accessed in PDF format here. You can also read the Eve Online forum thread.

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? Click here to read more.. »