Blog Banter 61: Chapter 1

Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 61st edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.

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TurAmarth asks this question: "What would we encourage ALL new players to do in their first month to get them to subscribe long term, if we had to give out one set of advice for everyone (which we do if we're giving general advice)?" 

To be honest, I expected writers to use this blog banter to promote their little niche of New Eden with. Not that I think it’s wrong to do so. Wormhole lords, null-sec barons and pirate commodores need new blood as much as the most genial mining foreman.

In fact, to show solidarity, I highly recommend Stay Frosty as being a great place to learn the ropes of pirating (perhaps after you've learnt the ropes in general). It’s friendly, welcoming, and has a strong focus on personal freedom, a genuine rarity in New Eden. Even if you’re a solo pilot just looking for a comm channel to fill the void, I strongly urge you to try it once. Not only that, but it’s headed up by the most notorious, gallant and cunning ebil scallywag to ply the stars.

I expect my cheque in the mail Rixx.

 

What's actually been written has been refreshingly realistic, and is focused more on general advice about the right kind of attitude to have as a fresh capsuleer. The ones I've read advocate trying everything. Great advice, if a little lacking in clear objectives.

 

So, no matter who you are, I have only one thing to recommend to new players, and something that I guarantee will keep you in space longer than any single activity:

Record the story.

Blog it, vlog it, personal diary entries, comic strips, kill boards, charts and graphs, tattoos showing how many ship kills you’ve gotten… anything to remember the story by. From spoken Captain’s logs to the humblest screenshot album, recording your personal story will keep you coming back.

New Eden is a canvas.

Some capsuleers will try to convince you that the market is the soul and centre of the galaxy. The majority will probably pontificate about the virtues of social corps, and the bonds of friendship. A little more will lure you into the trap of thinking of space as a massive gladiatorial arena. They are all right, but they do not have the whole story.

The EVE Gate led us to a wild frontier where all narratives are possible. A stardust sandbox, where kings are built grain by grain, battered by competition and blasted by misfortune.  Mighty sandcastles build upon thousands of capsules have been raised, and razed. All of these are fantastic stories, and most likely what brought you here in the first place.

So record it.

The one thing people can tell you about New Eden is how temporary everything is. That ship you slaved for, that horded wallet you ground out of space rock… all can vanish in a instant. Your cherished module, looted from an unsuspecting pirate, can crash in value at a moment’s notice. Even the Null-sec barons know how tenuous their empires are.

But your story can remain.

No matter where you end up, no matter how high you rise or how brilliant and destructive your fall, the one constant is your own impetus, and your continuing saga amongst the stars. That, and that alone, is safe from the galactic predators. Your story is something they can never take from you.

You owe it to yourself to have your chronicles made.

It doesn’t matter if they are never shared. It doesn’t even matter what the form is. Even the simplest kill-mail tracker or leader board is enough. The fact that you are aware of it, and are taking part in the crafting of your legacy is what will drive you. It is what will bring you back to hostile space and under fire, again and again.

So if you are starting off in New Eden: Record your story.

I look forward to seeing all of your Chapter 1s.

 

Slice of the Ol' Pirate Life

The stack of paper glared at me with the intensity that only ink and expectations can give.

I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my tired face with stained hands. The damned black stuff got everywhere, no matter how careful you were. It didn’t even seem to matter most of my work was done at the keyboard these days.

A cheery beep from my terminal reminded me of the half-dozen deadlines for tomorrow.

Take some time to appreciate the situation, I told myself. You’ve got a family to feed, and students who rely on you. And you wanted the shift from teaching language to hard science. Better prospects all around. All you need to do is push through these months of truly hard work, and everything will be better.

Don’t think about that government service job you applied for on a whim. Doesn’t matter you’re through to the second round. You have to think of a secure future.

All good points, I agreed with myself.

The stack of assignments and training plans shifted its glare to impatient gloating.

I need to get out for a while.

I left the sombre, confining office, and wandered out to the living area, my wife conspicuously absent. It wasn’t safe enough to bring her to Ardar yet. She was busy being pregnant with our first child back on Hek. Just a comm call away, but our schedules had fallen out of synch. She should be asleep by now.

I fled the empty, claustrophobic quarters, meandering aimlessly around my small section of the station. My corporation had a few levels rented out for members, but I was the only current occupant, footsteps clanging down the darkened hallways. Had to save power on the lighting bills these days.

I stopped abruptly outside my personal hangar. Three sets of key cards hung on the rack, each coded for a different frigate. Just two Rifters and the Prospect here. A fraction of the fleet gathering dust in Hek. Two Rifters.

I didn’t bother with the furtive glancing around. They were my ships, and if you can’t take your own damn ship out whenever you wanted to, what was the point in shelling out the ISK for it?

I grabbed the card for the Rhys Tai; a little project before I started training for my new job. Standard fitting, with plate and ancilliary repper, 200s and trinity tackle. The devil was in the details for this one. Two projectile ambit extensions instead of the standard nano-pumps.

I was of two minds about it. The nano-pumps were a nice, safe, and easily quantifiable advantage, based on the sound military principle of being on the positive side of damage in versus armour repaired.

The ambits, on top of the Rifter’s already impressive range, gave a much more incalculable advantage. Distance against hard firepower was always tricky, but I was confident the Rifter could exploit this advantage well.

Mostly confident.

Within moments the little Rifter prowled out into space. Its butch form was a façade. This frigate needed a delicate touch, and a careful, considered mind. But still, by looks alone, it is one of the more empowering pod sheathes.  

I jumped a few systems, leaving the paperwork to glower in my ion wake. Just an hour or two away. To fly amongst the stars… And then I’ll be good. I’ll willingly press my face to the grindstone.

The various low-sec denizens fled before me, like startled pigeons. The pirate colours I fly tended to have that effect. I don’t begrudge them it. When I fly the Prospect, I act in the same way. Prudence over bravado is my usual running order.

Not today.

A Slicer on scan.

He who dares…

I warped to the complex gate, slightly changing my initial contact tactic. I tend to gamble on warping in on top of my opponent when using Rifters, a habit born from my early days of flying brawling frigates. Today I started 30km out.

The Slicer probably couldn’t believe his luck! A clapped out old Rifter, flown by a pilot so rusty he melded into the Matari penumbra, and right at his optimal range! Incredible!

Pulse fire came in stripping shields with ease, and chewing through armour with equal abandon. Reppers cycled, but the inevitable stream of fire began melting holes of vulnerability.

But it wasn’t going all his way. It wasn’t, in fact, going his way at all.

My own projectiles had punched through his shields, even as he orbited at 20km, the ambits casting the hail of radiated metal across the gulf between us. His micro-warpdrive made him an absolutely massive target, his signature bloomed out like a waiting flower, my own, Matari engineered radius needle thin in comparison.

I managed a text book slingshot manouver, something I’ve never been able to pull off before, and his incoming fire dropped to a trickle. I was neatly under his guns.

Victory was nearly mine when both my rocket launcher and auto-cannons burned out, melted to slag through over use. I made some efforts at escape, but the inevitable happened, and the Rhys Tai erupted into flames.

I set my pod back to Ardar. Just twenty minutes since I left.

It was… perfect.

Well, not the exploding part. But that was a minor set-back, caused by a little inattention to heat levels, and clumsy, out of practice hands at the controls.

The slingshot perfect. The theory behind the ambits verified, at least in this one test. The Rifter could easily match most mundane kiting frigates, and some navy specials, whilst still brawler fit.

I attacked the stack of papers with renewed vigour, its glare reduced to a morose stare.

Everyone needs a little slice of life every now and then.

Yarr.

I know nothing

Lately I've been trying to keep myself to a posting schedule. I take Mondays and Tuesdays off (to actually spend in space!), and then write the rest of the time.

I stalled this week.

I was trying to make a thread of Rifter re-balances. I was trying to be clever, and used Excel to track falloff ranges, and tracking changes.

I tweaked fittings and manipulated graphs until EFT burned holes in my computer. Spreadsheet after spreadsheet fell to my cold calculations.

And I found out that all my suggestions were wrong.

I found the Rifter was exceptionally well balanced.

In fact, I would almost describe it as overpowered.

Imagine my shock, for a ship so underused.

It can literally compete with every single Tech 1 frigate, and I'm not un-convinced it can't best the Navy faction sips either. It has tactics to counter everything. It does not have a single winning formula, but it does gave one for every situation.

All the arguments that I used to claim the Rifter as weak, or somehow un-fit for combat, were demonstrably incorrect. I worked the numbers, and found that the only part of my Rifter that wasn't working was the pilot.

So, I must admit;

I know nothing.

I am... impressed with the finesse of design here.

I also need to apologize for the level of arrogance in assuming I knew better than the designers. I was wrong.

Fitting suggestions: Go with a standard set up. Rocket launcher in the utility high. If you want to scare kiters, two Projectile ambit rigs and a missile launcher works wonders, and actually fits with a meta plate fit. I'd also argue this is a great way to deal with drone users: Kite out to beyond scram range, and pop off the drones. Then close for the kill.

But this whole experience of working through the numbers has been valuable. I have a far greater appreciation for the effects of falloff range increases, and for tracking on turrets.

And I've found out that the Rifter works. It is a finely balanced blade. A product of years of engineering. No crude tool to repeat a tactic over and over, but a calm, measured responder to circumstances. If anything, I was wrong about capsuleers showing their age with a shift to the Tristan. The Rifter grew up... we didn't. We just switched to the easier ship to fly.

I've never wanted to fly a ship more in my entire life than I want to fly a Rifter now.

(That said, a little speed increase would be welcomed.)

((And maybe a reduction on reload times to make better use of damage type selection.))

Swords of New Eden

Less of a factual post, this is more of a framing device for imagining New Eden's weapon systems. I tend to think of each star-ship in terms of conventional hand held weapons.

Honestly, I find it hard to conceptualize falloff and tracking, at least in real terms. Trying to hold all those numbers in my head means they start leaking out my ears. It's certainly impossible to work it out during combat.

Weapon systems also change their use from hull to hull. But keeping a group of weapons in mind whenever I encounter ships in space, allows me to react accordingly.


It also gives us a frame to understand the mystery of the Rifter's unpopularity.

So lets start with the easy one:

Pulse lasers are Spears

I've written several times how I equate these weapons to lances and polearms. They are excellent weapons of war, and perhaps the best example of a real military grade weapon.

They have the best operational range, able to damage at a distance well beyond the reach of other weapons. This is just like the spear. You're able to keep your opponent at arms reach, and you have excellent control at this range.

The ability to switch to point blank faster than other weapons is also shown here. A spear can be swiftly drawn back to a closer grip faster than most other weapons. If you're curious, take a stick, and hold it like a spear. Draw it through your dominant hand to a shorter grip. See how fast that was? Of course your control is limited at this range, but so is pulse laser tracking.

Spears had their roots in hunting tools, and again, lasers are one of the more popular NCP hunting weapons.

Blasters are axes

I've never really used blasters, except once in my youth when I thought the Thorax was the best looking ship in New Eden. But ask anyone anything about blasters, and the ridiculously high damage usually comes up. Blasters blast things apart, just as axes were designed to do.

Axes gained popularity around the same time as chain mail did. The reason being, axes were high impact weapons that could pummel a chain mail user, and even hammer past shields. That's not to say they lacked finesse, but that's what their purpose was: close-range high-damage.

You could also use it to chop wood. Most people living away from civilization centers prefer an axe over other weapons, simply because of it's utility. We see this quite clearly in New Eden, with various ratting Vexors and mission running Dominixes. Blasters are extremely quick to clear NCPs, and a baying pack of drones neatly wraps up the image of a hunter.

You can argue the Atron treats blasters as longer range weapons. You're right. I'd call them poleaxes.

The downside of axes was the lack of protection for its user. No hand guards, and a fairly vulnerable wooden handle meant that a competent opponent could hurt the user, or weapon easily. This was true until the blaster boats got their full-plate armour in the form of tanking bonuses, and a flat increase in hit points.

Projectiles are blades

Anyone who's flown a Slasher knows the seductively little dance of slipping in under an opponents guns, and jabbing them furiously at point blank. The Slasher is just what it says it is; a knife fighter. Utility highs and e-war fits show this little ship to be an utter scoundrel, cruelly closing range and attacking mere inches from the enemy. And it works extremely well.

If you intend to go pirating, you can't do much better in terms of theme than the Slasher.

And the Rifter? Rifters used to be long swords. Able to jab at full reach with Barrage, and then cut more vigorously at close range. In a universe defined by the three ranges: close, scram and disruptor, the Rifter could cope well at two of these, particularly since the other ships lacked the practicality in application of the Rifter.

Long swords, especially those with longer points, could more easily find the gaps in armour. This is represented by the ability to choose ammunition, to find that resist hole.

These days? Other weapons developed, and the Rifter went into stasis. Unsurprisingly, it became less popular. No one needed a plain heavy long sword when the modern axe could hit harder with decent armour to back it up... particularly since the axe users became either lighter on their feet, or started using hunting dogs.

It developed into the rapier. The weapon became a long thin piece of steel, more designed to thrust at long range, into falloff and scram range, but still heavy enough to cut. It was still better than a spear (Punisher) at close range, but nothing like a knife (Slasher) or an honest axe (Merlin/Incurs).

Which is a promising start, but it carries with it the flaws of the rapier. They were not primary military weapons. They were excellent sidearms, being easy to carry at the hip, but aside from a cavalry sabers, the majority of soldiers carried either spear,musket, or some kind of weapon to deal with either (axes being commonly used to chop spears into kindling).

Moreover, it can't full utilize the rapiers advantage. It can't easily find those gaps in armour. Reload times for projectiles are 10 seconds. Yes, you can hunt for those resist holes, but you're going to sacrifice nearly a quarter of your armour to find it. And the Rifter doesn't have much armour to spare.

And without that armour piercing capability, the relatively small damage advantage at range the Rifter has is irrelevant.

The Rifter is a blunt, and over-weight rapier. Yes, it can do reasonable damage at most ranges. But it can't react to its enemy as it should be able to. And even then, it can't leverage its advantage well. Furthermore, it's too bogged down by armour to dictate the ranges it likes against lighter ships.

It's still a good ship. It's just much harder to use effectively than other frigates.

Well, that's fairly common knowledge. Everyone knows this about the Rifter.

So... how ca we fix it?

We could petition designers to alter bonuses (and I'll post up later on my recommendation for that). That takes time though, and does nothing for our Rifter now.

Or we could break the rules a bit.

And we draw our influence from medieval Scandinavia.

Strategikon: Scram Range analysis and the Rifter

I was patrolling around in my Rifter the other day, when I realised a big gap in my knowledge. And it was a fairly crippling gap.

The Rifter is still very much unloved by capsuleers, or at least under-used. Part of this is due to a shift from dare-devil piloting to a more mature, and reliable flying style offered by the Tristan. The Fat Man's drone bay allows for relatively easy counters to an unexpected opponent, and doesn't require such light-footed reactions for piloting.

In short, capsuleers are showing their age. Passions of youth give way to the more cool responses of maturity.

But lets deal with the hulls themselves. A while back the Rifter was re-engineered to have longer ranged autocannons, at least as far as falloff was concerned. I was initially pleased, and excited about the possibility of an autocannon true kiter, operating out to disruption range. More on that later.

However, it still hasn't done the trick. New Eden still distrusts the Rifter. And I know why.

I was hunting for targets. Several frigates popped up on scans, and I noted there were a lot more pirate and navy ships fluttering around these days.

• I saw an Incursus. Blaster boat. Should be easy prey for a scram range kiter... but for the drone it also carried. That drone's damage could be applied at all ranges, and might best my Rifters projectiles in falloff. Better find something more easily targeted.
• Atron. Attack ship, so should also be easy to slug it out with... but its own falloff bonus means the heavy damage of blasters may out-do that of my relatively light projectiles. Hum.
• Kestrel. Can put reliable rockets out to a distance equivalent to my projectiles...

You can see my problem.

Whilst I knew the Rifter's advantage lay in scram range kiting, I didn't actually know how good an advantage that was. Thus, I didn't have the confidence to take my ship into combat. I feel that many capsuleers are the same, and are not eager to go find out for themselves, for fear of embarrassment. I always think flying smart is just as important as flying bravely, and taking a ship into a bad situation without knowing what you're doing is fairly dumb.

So let's find out...

Tactic: Scram range kiting

This is where a ship will operate at the very edge of a warp scramblers range. It knocks out a micro-warp drive using ship, but also stays out of range of the bulk of returning fire. It's a much more delicate form of brawling, as opposed to the more common image of slugging it out with an opponent.

Data

So lets look at some ranges and damage profiles. As before, I got my calculations from the Eve Uni-wiki. If anyone knows this is out of date, or simply wrong, please let me know!

Since we're looking at scram ranges, we'll only be comparing long range T2 ammunition in the biggest short-range guns that can be reasonably fit. This should give the best range achievable by a single hull. Of course, all these are T2 variants (as only these can fit the long range T2 ammuition types).

(Note: We could include faction T1 ammunition types, but they're typically inferior to the specialist T2 munitions for range)

I'll include example ships below for clarity. Many ships carry the same bonuses, and turret layout. If they carry additional drones, add +20dps for each drone (assuming Hobgoblin IIs). For a Rocket Launcher 2 secondary, add 18dps up to 10.1km (Navy rockets), or 15dps up to 15.2km (Javelin).

Auto-cannon -200mm x 3, Barrage [Slasher]
Blaster - Light Neutron x 3, Null [Merlin, Incursus]
Pulse laser - Small Focused Pulse x3, Scorch [Punisher, Tormentor, Executioner]

Whilst running the calculations, I thought it'd be interesting to see the close range ammo on a Rifter. It's range is similar to that of a Barrage using Slasher, so it'll be interesting to see the difference in damage. I also counted the Atron, with a fall-off bonus to blasters, as a separate ship.

The damage shown is before any modules or rigs. Obviously the more damage increasing modules you put on the better! All skills to 5, for fairness.

Table

Scram ranges highlighted in yellow, the first one cold, the second on overheat. The orange is disruptor range.

Graph

Analysis

What follows is mostly my own opinion. If you disagree, let me know in comments!

Pulse lasers are clearly the best scram range weapon (but most of you knew that!). This damage projection offsets the natural slowness of Amarr ships, and gives the reason why the Executioner works as an attack ship. Coming in dead last are blasters, with projectiles in the middle. The Rifter with it's fall-off bonus comes in at 2/3 the firepower of pulses at scram range.

So yes, conventional wisdom wins out. Rifters should use keep blaster boats at range, and engage Amarr ships at point blank.

However...

The drone users

Incursus vs. Rifter is still skewed in favour of the Incursus. Adding the damage of the drone (30dps @ 11km) puts the gap between them at about 20dps. Which is great! But the Incursus with it's repair bonus can absorb that easily. It also comes a bit more cap stable than the Rifter, and usually more armour, meaning that in a war of attrition, the Incursus comes out just a little better the Rifter.

Tormentors are similarly protected by their drones at close range. Most carry a plate along with a holy trinity (propulsion, scram and webifier). Eve if you get under their guns, that's still around 40dps of fire coming in at you.

This can be remedied by putting a rocket launcher in the Rifters utility high. Work on your rocket skills to fit javelins (for range against blaster boats). You lose out on the cap warfare options (neuts and vamps) when you go close range, but it works out to be more flexible (i.e. useful in all engagements rather than one). Cap warfer will mostly be useful against laser boats, but with the Rifter's capacitor being what it is, you'll just cap yourself out before the enemy.

Tristans a little out of control right now. Just don't get involved. Your best bet is to go point blank and hope they're not blaster fit. Either way you have 100dps from drones coming at you, and that's pre-damage mod. If someone can explain to me their weakness, I'm dieing to know... Quite literally in fact.

The kites

It's also interesting to see that the Rifter's damage is quite respectable at disruptor range. Provided you're not hamstrung by electronic warfare, you should be able to do reasonable damage to those pesky T1 frigate kiters. Not a stellar amount, but enough to maybe make them think twice!

Which brings us to the scram range kiting Atron. According to the paper work, these are basically tied. You should try to keep your distance, and the Atron should try to get under your guns. Tracking comes into play too, but these fights will most likely end in one party escaping.

Looking at the pulse laser line, we can see that the Executioner is clearly the king of scram kiters. Keeping out at OH scram range, you even have a great chance against an Incursus. Of course, a number of factors come into play here (sig radius, resistances etc.) but in a 100 second extrapolated fight, the Exec puts out 9300 damage at scram range, to the Incursus' 3000. Not bad at all really!

Against a Rifter, the difference in tank makes this actually a reasonable fight. You won't be able to close the distance on them, but you'll be tougher, and a rocket launcher in the high slot might make all the difference. Weaving in and out of pulse laser fall-off might be the best option, tagging them with a scram when they look like they're about to escape.

On  overheating

On overheating scrams; yes, it does cut incoming blaster fire by half. Against an Incursus, that's not actually significant (because of the drone), and honestly, you'll just be cutting your own damage by the same actual amount. But against a Merlin, which has nothing better to do with it's low slots than damage mods, yes, it's good!

Against a Slasher, well, not that helpful. It's faster than you anyway. Just focus on ripping it's flimsy hull to shreds. Against an Atron, the difference is slightly in your favour, but you're going to have your hands full keeping him at range.

The rocketeers

These are some ships you should avoid like the plague:

At scram range, all the rocket ships out-damage you, and realistically with webs and your guns suffering from tracking, they'll outdamage you at close range too. The Condor you may be able to slug it out with, but you're likely to be hamstrung by ewar. Kestrels are rather terrifying at all ranges, and I'm surprised more people aren't fielding them with an overdrive injector in lows to dictate range. The Breacher, again, shows itself to be a sheer marvel of Matari starship design.

Conclusion

I feel a little more confident about the Rifters ability now, and it doesn't need the overheating management of tackle modules suggested by many others. It helps in some cases, but shouldn't be standard operating procedure. Just keep an eye on your ranges, and make sure your scram has a base range of 9km or better. Realistically, the other ships I've mentioned aren't going to be fitting their biggest weapons, and the virtue of auto-cannon's low fitting cost means that the Rifter can.

A rocket launcher is most likely the best choice to put in that high slot. Leave cap-warfare to the sneaky gutter-fighting Slasher.

What's remarkable is just how well balanced the Rifter comes against the other frigates. Despite having a falloff bonus which suggests it to be a scram range kiter, it always has options. It's still the same flexible, jack-of-all trades it's always been.

Which I think is a problem. This post is getting huge though, so I'll leave why to next time!