Starwalker had been flying around recently in a kiting Merlin fitted with 150mm railguns. Generally he eschewed no/minimal tank fits but he had wanted to try out some ideas around damage projection and range control. It was perhaps too early to have a considered opinion but that never stopped him from having an opinion. After all, he had killed this Kestrel and Tormentor and had lost this Merlin, so he did have a little bit of experience.
Fit Assessment - Merlin 150mm Railguns
The basic idea was to have a T1 frigate with good range control by using MWD level speed and damage projection by using railguns. Faster kiting ships like the Imperial Navy Slicer would probably not be able to stand the incoming damage and afterburner frigates were dead meat. Fast close range ships like a Taranis or Republic Fleet Firetail would be a major headache and so would an MWD fit brawler.
The railgun fit was fast but had no tank and the DPS was still well over 100 dependent on actual range and faction ammunition. Starwalker had selected Caldari Navy Thorium with the intent to fire those projectiles from 16km away. That range would give plenty of leeway to stay in point range of 24km and avoid overheated scramble range of 10km and similarly overheated web range of 13km. The key strength of excellent damage projection on a T1 frigate was compensated for by the weakness of very little tank, of around 3,580 EHP. In short, if something got close to a kiting fit like this Merlin - it was dead very quickly.
The high slots were fitted with T2 150mm railguns that offered a good fitting compromise of excellent damage projection with room to fit other goodies. Whilst Caldari Navy Thorium was the selected ammunition choice the equivalent antimatter charges would knock out over 140 DPS at 9km. However, this range was not good with an MWD fitted as it was easily in scramble range, at which point Starwalker could wave his ship goodbye. Spike would hit out to well over 32km but the DPS would drop to only just over 80 DPS.
The mid slots were fitted with a MWD for the speed to outrun any and all T1 afterburner frigates and the speed advantage would negate opportunities to escape by manual piloting. The MWD was coupled with a capacitor booster because without it the capacitor would run dry in just under 1.5 minutes. That might be long enough dependent on the tank of the target but it seemed better to be capacitor stable, with boosts, and take as long as needed to whittle the target down to zero structure. The long point of 24km allowed plenty of room to keep the target pointed, although Starwalker had lost point on a MWD T1 frigate as the speed advantage was minimal and manual piloting could enable an escape. The web was a last ditch attempt if something did get close to try to either pull range or to get away.
Low slots had a modest damage control unit and two magnetic field stabilisers to increase the DPS. To enable everything to be fitted a rig to boost CPU had been included and the remaining rig slots had used shield rigs to boost the meagre tank. Starwalker had Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV but this fit required V or an ancillary current router. As a rough rule of thumb Starwalker only used one or two fitting modules for any ship fit. That number might allow the ship to be enhanced in meaningful ways but without compromising it too much because a fitting module had been used instead of something for gank, tank or utility.
Starwalker did not know if he really liked minimal tank kiting ships but he would have preferred it against this smart-bombing Dominix instead of his short range dual repair Incursus. When Starwalker pointed this Thrasher he had hoped for autocannons but it was artillery fit, and it seemed like two rounds from it were enough to destroy his pitifully tanked Merlin. Fortunately the rest of the fleet killed it. That same fleet of frigates also were on the receiving end of hot drop by Shadow Cartel - first time ever for Starwalker to see that happen live.
Kaeda Maxwell had organised a T1 cruiser roam around Tribute, Cloud Ring, Pure Blind and Lonetrek. It started off with a Republic Fleet Firetail being caught on a gate but it died before Starwalker even got close in his Thorax. Apart from that Firetail the 49 jump roam was largely eventless until the end when it became really fun - crashing a gate camp and engaging in a T1 cruiser brawl.
Arriving at the gate camp, Starwalker along with pretty much everyone else got in on the Hurricane kill. Other members in the fleet also managed to get a sniping Moa kill but Starwalker had trouble getting out of the bubble in a timely manner and missed it but he did not miss this Blackbird. The fleet was still at the gate camp site when it was challenged to a T1 cruiser brawl. Of course it was accepted and the Rebels docked up to repair first.
It was a great fight at an agreed local planet with Kaeda Maxwell setting up his backup FCs and then calling the targets. Starwalker simply focused on the called targets Stabber, Thorax, Thorax, Thorax and Thorax and was fortunately not being targeted initially. However, that could not last and eventually it was Starwalker's turn to get shot at. His shield and armour disappeared fast and he aligned out in deep armour and almost no capacitor.
With less than 10% structure left and the last bit of capacitor Starwalker got the warp away and thought he had gotten really lucky - until he landed next to a Crusader with a Naga working with it 100km away. The Crusader couldn't believe its luck and immediately pointed his helpless Thorax. Starwalker knew it was all over and simply warped away in his pod. However, the last two remaining Rebels had won the field and Starwalker was posthumously on the last Caracal kill by Vincent R'lyeh and Tomba. The d00med roam had been great fun and the last cruiser brawl had been a good fight that was really close.
Fit Assessment - Thorax 1600mm Armour Buffer
Thorax was a T1 cruiser that used medium hybrid weapons and had more DPS and tank than a frigate but was larger and also considerably slower. As a class, whilst they could take on pretty much any frigate they were outclassed by the T2 cruisers (Heavy Assault Cruisers...) and battlecruisers. However, their price point of 5-10m ISK for the ship hull was attractive and potentially offered better value than a T2 frigate (Assault Frigates...).
The armour buffer fit was slow but tough and was able to potentially hold targets with its stasis webifier. Its key strength was its strong buffer tank of over 30,000 EHP and it still put out over 300 DPS with comparatively low skills. Its weakness was that it was slow and could neither easily catch nor evade targets.
Starwalker had only cruiser III and medium blasters IV skills, consequently the guns fitted were only a meta level 4 rather than the T2 variant. This still allowed the Caldari Navy Antimatter faction ammunition to be used but disabled the T2 ammunition option. With an optimal of around 1.4km this Thorax was a close range brawler. However, for brawling, a shield buffer gank fit would be able to put out over 500 DPS but also it only had half the effective tank. The eternal question in New Eden - more tank or gank?
The medium slots had the "holy trinity" - propulsion, scramble and web. The MWD was virtually essential for speed and the web gave some range control. Without a capacitor booster the capacitor theoretically lasted just over two minutes but practically it would be more like one and half minutes as the capacitor was pretty much always in use.
The low slots were dominated by the 1600mm armour plate along with the DCII and EANMII. The buffer plate was complemented by the resistance improvement modules, which effectively reduced the incoming damage. The two magnetic field stabilisers pushed the DPS to over 300 but even better would be to combine those with T2 guns, which would push the DPS to over 400 with level V skills.
The trimark rigs added additional armour buffer at the cost of slowing the cruiser down and the ancillary current router was necessary to boost the power grid to fit everything. The drone bay held five warrior IIs for anti-frigate work and five EC-300 electronic warfare drones for jamming targets. Starwalker had struggled to properly use the drones and during the course of the roam had only launched the drones once and had not managed them well after their launch.
The d00med roam also highlighted that the capacitor for the armour buffered Thorax disappeared very quickly with even comparatively short periods of only micro-warpdrive use, nevermind combat. Once the capacitor was empty the ship simply stopped - it could not move, defend itself or fire.
Starwalker had only found this hapless cyno-ship but was looking forward to the Rebel roam later. However, whilst the Rebels had gathered in Eugales for Peri Simone's regular roam his technical difficulties resulted in the roam being cancelled. So Kaeda Maxwell (Incursus), Alaric Faelen (Vengeance) and Starwalker (Incursus) decided to form an ad-hoc small gang and set off locally to see what they could find.
It wasn't long before Kaeda saw a Caracal jump through onto the gate with him and then warp to the next gate. The Rebels set off in hot pursuit. The Caracal jumped a couple of more systems and then went to a major outpost. He looked like he wanted to fight.
Starwalker was first into the complex and gave chase but the Caracal stayed outside of scram range and laid down its offensive fire of light missiles. It was clear that this cruiser was fitted to kill frigates and was evading Starwalker easily. Very quickly Starwalker had to get his active armour tank going but he was comfortably tanking the incoming damage. This time Starwalker paid close attention to the capacitor and reloaded in plenty of time.
With the other Rebels arriving it was not long before the Caracal was surrounded and pointed and Starwalker also finally established a point. The incoming damage continued for a while but it was clear that the Incursus dual armour repair was able to tank the damage and the Caracal pilot, Stalking Mantis, decided to switch targets but it was too late for him and before much longer his Caracal exploded.
Fit Assessment - Incursus Dual Armour Repair
The Incursus was a T1 frigate that was small and fast and used hybrid weapons, blasters in particular but also railguns for fighting at range. It was a good general purpose combat frigate like the Merlin and Rifter and at an attractive price point - a fully fitted Incursus was around 10m ISK.
Starwalker had used an Incursus with a dual small armour repair fit, which exploited the ship bonus of 10% armour repair effectiveness. It's key strengths were its high DPS and strong tank and its main weakness was the lack of range control.
The high slots were dominated by the light neutron blasters, which were the highest damage short range hybrid blasters and also the most difficult to fit. Caldari Navy Antimatter Charges were used to maintain the best tracking, higher damage void ammunition also had a 25% tracking penalty. This was especially important as Starwalker's tracking skills were not at level V and there was no stasis webifier fitted. Checking the log would confirm how many misses occurred and consequently reduced DPS.
The mid slots held the traditional afterburner for low security space and a warp scrambler. The third mid slot had a capacitor booster rather than a stasis webifier because of the dual repair active armour tank. The capacitor was exhausted in just over 30 seconds of use and given that the capacitor was being used all of the time the practical time was closer to 20 seconds. A typical frigate fight would last 30-45 seconds so 20 seconds was simply too short. With the capacitor booster fitted the capacitor was theoretically stable, dependent on the number of capacitor charges in the cargo hold.
The low slots were primarily focused on the armour tank, with two small armour repairers being the key components of the tank. The small armour repairers were used in a staggered way with the armour HP being replenished at the end of each cycle or every 4.5 seconds with level V skills. This cycle could be improved further by using implants and/or drugs.
Rigs were used to add a little more armour buffer (trimark) and to enhance the repair effectiveness by 15% for each fitted nano pump. The Incursus could also field one drone and Starwalker had the Acolyte EV-300, which drained just a little (5 GJ) capacitor with each cycle (6 seconds).
