This and That

A few quick notes to end the week, none large enough to warrant their own post right yet.

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I took a hard look at my goals for my Project Vulcan Capital Building Program and decided to stop production of Orcas now that I had capability of building Archons. I was concerned that too much energy would be diverted to what was supposed to be a short term start. By stopping the Orca lines I can move all necessary blueprints to my low sec production line AND liquidate some of the blueprints no longer required to fund more purchase of carrier BPOs (not going to sell any of the ones Ragelle lent me of course!).

Going from build times, I can make the component parts for an Archon in about half the time it takes to build an Archon. So perhaps first purchase will be a second Archon BPO!

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The Rifter got a boost in Rubicon 1.3 and after all the words I wrote about the ship in my Whither The Rifter series I was interested in how the iconic ship got changed:

RIFTER:
Removed +7.5% Small Projectile Turret tracking bonus
Added +10% Small Projectile Turret falloff bonus
+10 m/s velocity
+0.01 inertia

It left me unimpressed. I know some people were interested to excited, but it really turns the ship more into a finesse flyer with longer range and more speed. I don't know if this makes it any better, I'll let you know if I see more in space.

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I've not written on the Erotica 1 / Bonus Room situation because I'm still formulating my opinion and I'm not sure which side I'm going to come down on. On one hand, you have "sandbox" and the victim could have left teamspeak any time, on the other hand you have acts that had to be taken out of EVE in order to avoid blatant banning for, not to mention the moral depravity of it all. To make it even more confusing, there are rumours today the whole thing was staged by Erotica 1 and friends and the victim. 

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With Xander running in the elections and not doing interviews for the candidates, erstwhile hosts of Cap Stable podcast have been doing ~30 minute interviews and doing a great job. I'm working on my list of endorsements and should have them out next week.

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That's it for now, have a great weekend!

More Rifter Thoughts From Khanid Kataphract

Behnid Arcani over at Khanid Kataphract blog has written an in-depth series of posts on the Rifter that echo a lot of my thoughts on the Rifter frigate.

Check them out:

Intro

The Flaws

Proposal 1 - Damage Bonus

Proposal 2 - Falloff Bonus

Proposal 3 - 4th Turret

Final Thoughts

Whither The Rifter?

(... and the Punisher and the Tormentor.)

One of the nice things about faction warfare is the healthy spread of ships you see in a typical week, or even an average night. The nature of the plexes we fight over means that you and your opponents need to fly everything from cruisers to destroyers to tech I frigates, and then have some heavier ships on hand for bunker busting or POS/POCO bashes.

As a result you get to see a wide variety of ships flown by a wide variety and skill level of pilot, and over time you notice certain trends. I want to talk about the Tech I combat ships and the need for another pass of the balancing wand.

Each faction sport two combat frigates in which each one highlights the different weapon systems (except for the Amarr). For the Caldari and Gallente everything seems to be working as intended. For the former, the Merlin is a hard tanked brawler with blasters with the option of kiting with railguns while the Kestrel is a natural kiter with light missles and has the option of going in your face with rockets. For the latter, the Incursus is a personal favourite with blasters and an awesome active armour tank, and the Tristan has excellent engagement range with its bonused drones.

Things start to go downhill though as we get to the Minmatar. The Breacher has some followers due to its high speed and agility and missile weaponry; its very commonly seen with an Ancillary Shield Booster and a tough nut to catch and crack as a result. But the Rifter has gone from ubiquitous to mythical, its rare sightings being the cause, I suspect, of newbs who don't know better or veterans who hang on to nostalgia.

Things get worse as you go to Amarr. Already hamstrung with two combat ships that have extremely similar profiles in being 3-turret laser ships (the differentiating factor being the Punisher having bigger tank and the Tormentor doing more damage due to the extra small drones), they are further hampered by lacking a distinguishing feature to make them attractive in a frigate fight, i.e. not a lot of speed, not a lot of range, and not an overwhelming amount of tank. I can't even remember the last time I saw a Punisher in space, to be honest, and haven't seen a Tormentor in ages.

Next week I'm going to look at each of these three ships in detail and discuss some ideas of what needs to be done to bring them in line with the rest of the tech I frigates.

What's This?!

Its been a week to forget around here.

Mrs Kodachi suddenly in the hospital for 5 days, me being the single father for three rambunctious kids while getting ready for Halloween, getting Mrs Kodachi home from the sudden surgery and having to take care of her while she slowly recovers, and I'm coming down with a Kindergarten cold.

But things are looking up. Kids are gone to my parents for the weekend, and when I get home from dropping them off I find a package on my doorstep. For me?

What's this?!

This is going to look awesome on my desk. Obligatory video of flying the Rifter incoming.

Thank you Diana of EveTimeCode.com! Its the only place I purchase my time codes and this is just one of the reasons why.

2nd Tusker FFA - Good Times

I was able to sneak away from family duties for a bit on Satuday and show up at the 2nd Tusker Free For All. Since it was near the beginning when nothing but frigates were allowed, I took an old Rifter I had sitting around and a newer Incursus. After they blew up, I paid a premium price for a fitted Executioner on contracts.

My Rifter died quickest, only getting on one killmail, the Incursus was also quickly dispatched while getting on two killmails, and the speedy Executioner secured my name on three killmails.

Great time, I wish I had more time to stick around. A corpmate also went down the the event and got in on 46 killmails including the rogue Thanatos that showed up.

Great job Tuskers!

Rise of the Provi-Abaddon

Last night I logged in and saw there was some hostiles in local, mostly pirates and no wartargets. I undocked in my Rifter to look around and had a pirate in an Incursus undock behind me. "1v1?" he offered in local and I said "sure" as I approached and locked.

The new Incursus is a tough opponent for an autocannon Rifter but I gave it my best shot with overheated guns a-blazing. I would get him into armour but his repper (confirmed afterwards its a single rep) always kept up. I dipped into low armour but my Nosferatu kept giving me the energy to pulse it on to try and keep in the fight. We were both in deep structure but mine gave out first. He traded my loot back to me in station as we chatted. (Suddenly I'm struck by the thought that I never looked for his drone... that could have been the difference.)

He left and I decided to look for trouble, so I got into my looking-for-trouble Dramiel and set off.

I love the Dramiel. Its great for jumping into plexes and catching things. But its not so great against hardened targets.

Over in Aldranette I found a Rote Kapelle Thrasher guarding a plex entrance. I was able to easily keep range and send my drones in and was considering diving in to finish him off with autocannons when he was weakened from the drones, but he had some shield repper installed and was back at 100% as my drones died. We declared draw and I took off to get more drones.

Later in Nemmallia there was a fleet of war targets including a Slasher frigate. Forewarned by Anabaric on the deadliness of the new upgraded Slasher, I tried to lure him into a minor plex where I could fight him without his bigger gangmates interfering, but militia member Eldaerin in a Comet was running the timer down and the Slasher thought better of an impromptu two on one.

I moved on and tried to separate a Harpy from a gang and succeeded in Oinasiken, and even had a Taranis in local come over to help, but the Harpy easily dispatched my drones and the interceptor and I was forced once more to leave the scene of the crime.

Frustrated, I went back to Heydieles to upgrade to something bigger. A Hurricane, I thought, before it gets its upcoming nerf. I went out and saw that the Harpy and gang (including two Thrashers and a Hawk) were in local. I tried to find them but they fought someone else in the militia and left to get repairs. I floated around Heydieles looking for another war target when they came back. More dancing, then I waited for them at the Abune gate. The Harpy came first so I jumped through and started to burn off.

The Harpy came at me and I was hitting him pretty hard as the rest of the gang came in. I figured I was going to die but I wanted that Harpy. However I went the wrong direction and he escaped my point. Oh well, I thought, I'll try a Thrasher. A militia mate in a Ferox landed at the gate about 50 klicks off now... and the hostiles up and left. A found out another minute later as to why: there was a big militia fleet on the other side of the gate. Oh my!

I joined that fleet and we swung around to face a large war target fleet in Old Man Star. I didn't know until after we engaged that I was in a fleet with ~50km weapons and my ~2km ranged autocannons were going to be a problem. So I played heavy tackle and helped the fleet kill a Tornado while they got a few other targets with their longer guns.

The fleet regrouped and I docked up to find a better ship for the composition. It was at this point I discovered that the ships I had that were ideal for this adventure required a powergrid implant in my skull that I did not have at this time. GAH! Desperate I grabbed an old faithful friend: A plated pulse Abaddon that I bought back in the days of Paxton Federation in Provi 1.0. But I've got tech II skills now and Amarr Battleship V. Sure, it may not jive with the rest of the fleet (slower and armour plated compared to faster nano and shields) but I was willing to play sacrificial lamb.

We met up with the enemy fleet again on the Abune gate in Heydieles. Our cloaky Loki pilot was asked to try and lure them out so we could pounce. A Taranis burned for the Loki and tackled him; we warped and the enemy fleet warped to bounce spot and came down on the Loki. The battle was joined as we fell out of warp.

We burned down a Hurricane and Drake but we failed to save the Loki and also lost a Naga battlecruiser that misheard the instructions and warped to the gate instead of the Loki pilot.

The slow moving Abaddon was never targeted over the battlecruisers in fleet. Sure it was easy to catch me but my tank was going to be tough to burn through while the rest of the fleet was shooting. I counted myself lucky, docked, and vowed to clean up my hanger for the next time.