Before I get onto the main body of the post, following my last post about the 1m isk bounty it seems to have increased up to the heady height of over 25m isk now and certainly attracts some interest from fellow pirates who now would quite like to take it for themselves! Nothing quite beats having a nice number over your head for me as a pirate, I just hope that I don't go and get podded now and lose it again...
Anyway, to the main body of the post. To regular readers you will know that so far in game with my 13m sp I have only ever flown Minmatar Frigate hulls with the occasional foray into the Thrasher. The Rifter is where I always come back to, it's just capable of incredible feats whether by skill, balls or blind luck (delete as appropriate). To new readers then, this sets the scene.
To date I have had a distinct preference for the cap boosted gank machine Rifter which has been posted elsewhere in this blog. What I have come across recently is the undoing of said cap-boosted Rifter by other Rifters mounting a web. This traversty surely cannot stand. Time to change my setup to move with the times as more and more ships I fight now seem to have fallen in love with webs again. Change and adapt.
With that said I decided on my last supply run to buy 15 Rifters upon which to test my two "new" loadouts. And so, in just over a week I have lost a single one, and that was down to simple unintelligent piloting by me.
The first loadout is slow by Rifter standards, but sports some nice ehp courtesy of an armour buffer, bigger guns and a web. With the bigger guns came a decline in the tracking that I am used to so a tracking enhancer has also been introduced.
[200mm AC Heavy]
3 x 200mm Autocannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
1 x Rocket Launcher II, Gremlin Rage Rocket
1 x Fleeting Progressive Warp Scrambler
1 x X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
1 x Cold-Gas Arcjet Thrusters
1 x Micro Auxillary Power Core
1 x Tracking Enhancer II
1 x 400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates
2 x Small Trimark Armour Pump
1 x Small Projectile Burst Aerator
My skills put her at 4400ehp, 122dps, 877m/s. In solo fights its a very tough mofo, however if you are engaging multiple targets solo in the same engagement then it's probably going to die.
The second loadout being tested is more of a falloff fighter, pretty easy on controlling range. A variation based originally on the old cookie cutter fit with a few swaps on modules.
[Caned & Unable]
3 x 150mm Light Autocannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
1 x Rocket Launcher II, Gremlin Rage Rocket
1 x Fleeting Progressive Warp Scrambler
1 x X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
1 x Cold-Gas Arcjet Thrusters
1 x Small Armour Repairer II
1 x 200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates
1 x Gyrostabilizer II
2 x Small Projectile Ambit Extension
1 x Small Projectile Burst Aerator
My Skills put this one at 2700 ehp, 146 dps at a speed of 1070m/s. Everything runs for 36 seconds which of course is stable without the repper active. Having never been a fan of falloff fighting I do actually like this ship for it, its pretty effective.
I have yet to reach firm conclusions on the capabilities of these two, so time remains to tell. I have a couple of other loadouts I want to try on my next delivery which include shield tanks & MWD's so watch this space in months to come for the low-down.
On an unrelated note, A small crew of around 8 Tuskers were fortunate enough to receive word of a carrier (Archon) and a command ship (Sleipnir) doing a site in a wormhole. Forces were mustered quickly and despatched. The
Sleipnir died extremely quickly followed by the
Archon. Props to the carrier pilot for not self-destructing! I was there to offer a token frigate hull presence on the mails =)
