Tristan Mark II

There is advice that goes along the lines of "don't fix it if it isn't broke". Since Starwalker had initial success with his first foray in the Tristan - it could be argued that he should continue with the same shield fit, that was not his style.

Starwalker was always seeking improvements, whether to the ship choice, the fit, skills, piloting or 101 other things. This was no different, he had learnt from that first roam that he had no range control and it was not clear whether the energy neutraliser was really having the desired effect fast enough. There were some obvious counters to being neuted:

1. Move out of the energy neutraliser range, which would be easy with range control. In a close range frigate fight 7km would be outside of neut range but still inside scram range
2. Stay inside neut range and use an energy vampire to suck back capacitor energy to keep the key modules running
3. Use a capacitor booster that would simply restore some part of the lost energy

To solve the problem of no range control Starwalker elected to use a stasis webifier and that then left the question of how to tank the Tristan. The default armour and structure was very good for a frigate and virtually required the use of a damage control module. Indeed it would be possible to leave the tank at that or around 3.7k EHP. However, Starwalker wanted a little more tank than that so the question was whether to supplement that tank with buffer, resistance or active defence fittings.

[Tristan, SAR]

Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Small Armor Repairer II

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I

Hobgoblin II x5
Warrior II x3

Starwalker selected the small armour repairer and strangely complemented that with some shield rigs. An armour repairer would more naturally be paired with armour rigs but whilst that would be a reasonable choice that would also reduce the speed of the Tristan, undoing some of the benefits of the web. It was to avoid reducing the ship speed that the 200mm armour plate was similarly dismissed.

A resistance based tank employing an EANM II was entirely possible but that would require some additional CPU enhancement whilst leaving significant powergrid still available, which did not seem optimal. Alternatively, an Adaptive Nano Plating II would offer some armour resistance benefits without the CPU hit. It would be possible to simply leave the tank as a damage control and small armour repairer but Starwalker felt that a little more tank was warranted when coming up against combat frigates like the Merlin. Whether those shield rigs would be worth it only time would tell.

Whether this mark II fit was better than the mark I fit was entirely debateable but that was part of the joy of life in New Eden - taking a ship into the wild and seeing what happened. Starwalker undocked...