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?

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.

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.

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.