I have this tendency to special fit ships for specific uses. So when we kept running into "bring a probing ship" issues while trying to track down militias this got me thinking. "Let, buddy, the answer here is a cov-ops but you're not taking that to low sec till you know who's who in the militia". So I proceeded to go see if I could turn the lowly probe into a cheap faux-cheetah.
Begin EFT---------------------------------
[Probe, Scout Probe]
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Cap Recharger I
1MN Afterburner I
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Recon Probe Launcher I, Snoop Scanner Probe I
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
Warrior I x1
Warrior I x1
End EFT-----------------------------------
Let's go over the decisions that went into this fit. 1) even if you can't warp cloaked, being able to cloak in a scout ship is kind of important. This ship wont' be able to pull some of the survival moves that a cov-ops can, but it can observe a point of interest un-detected if it positions itself ahead of time. 2) Recon launcher is the reason for this fit. I'll hopefully be working with other target frustrated pilots so my lack of guns won't be an issue. 3) The lows are based on my experience with the Prowler. Allign to warp is king to survival in a small ship. 4) The mids I will admit are a bit more problematical. At this point it was "what will fit and be moderately useful?" By this point in time the CPU was prety chuck full (only 25 points left) That kinda works out to no ECM or other snazy stuff. So I went with AB and cap regen. The two warriors are because I can't use ECM drones yet.
Now to address some of the critisizms of the fit: Yes it'll scan much slower than a cov-ops - I have a cov-ops - I know. It's purpose in life is to have probe down capability in a CHEAP trow away frigate, along with some incidental scouting capacity. The added bonus is that I can build the entire thing out of hand. (This includes the cloak).
I still need to get Astrometrics V. Till then I"m limited to using the 3 shorter ranged probes, but since most anti ship probing action happens up close, that shouldn't be as much of an issue.
While in the rifter, I was making very good use of the onboard scanner. Learning to use that in conjuntion with this type of a ship should make things interesting. At the very least it should be decent for flushing people out of safe spots. It can't warp cloaked, so people will see it coming but on the other hand I probably won't be operating it alone, and if I loose it? *shrug* cheap.
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2 comments:
First let me say nice blog. Second, wanted to give you my .02 on some of your recent plans.
I'm not sure that joining FW for 3-6 months is going to achieve your aim of finding more pvp players for your alliance. The thing is, pvpr's want to be doing pvp. Joining an alliance in hi/low sec as a pvpr can mean weeks that go by without any action. This makes the industrialist happy, but causes the pvpr's to look for a new corp.
Here is my suggestion. Find an established contract merc corp, a true one, not just griefers, and figure out if you all can come to some arrangement. I'd suggest a situation where you do not form/join an alliance with them, but have a mutual support arrangement. You all provide them with access to low cost ships/mods, they jump in and destroy anyone that ever war decs you. This way, you don’t get caught up in the merc corps normal war dec contracts, and you'd have a big stick to beat the griefers with.
To make this attractive to the merc corp, you'd probably have to have decent T2 invention/production capability. If you look at the kill boards of a decent size merc corp, they go through a lot of ships. Being able to offer them a wide range of at cost supplies would be beneficial to them.
Another possibility would be getting a merc corp on retainer. In a typical war dec, you’ll probably loose several 100MM isk in ships, plus your lost profit opportunities from sitting in station most of the time. If you spend a week a month under war dec, it would probably be worth paying a retainer. I’ve seen a lot of situations where a well known and capable merc corp just needs to convo the griefer and link their killboard to get them to drop the dec.
Not 100% sure, just seems like a possible solution.
If you'll notice I didn't say I was going to do FW for 3-6 months, just for the first part while certain skills get up to snuff (namely T2 cruisers and the ability to fly a BS without totally embarrassing myself).
I must admit that the more I think about it the longer term things look. Besides if we eventually aim for 0.0 presence, keeping the PvP'ers busy is not usually a problem.
I've seen a few 0.0 PvP burn out cases to know that the opposite is usually the case. We'll see what comes.
Mercs have their place but they are pretty much never part of a long term solution. As Tortuga found out the hard way. Past a certain point it's a numbers game. The trick is to get to the point where you get enough senior pilots to act as the core of an alliance to get to the point where you can get the numbers to be effective. Although useful for those with deep pockets as strike forces, they are rarely able to lend themselves to any form of integrated solution. Besides I doubt that any alliance with sovereignty aspirations is ever a good home for mercs. Best not to get into bad habits of depending on them.
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