Noir. 200th Celebration.. And improving my skills
So, our celebrated 200th contract finally was complete, and we moved out of 0.0. Fortunately, I had no more humiliating losses and despite having next to zero game time available.. I was still able to get on a couple kills. So, while not out of the doghouse, I am near the doggie door.
As most pilots well know, particularly those of the larger alliances and coalitions, Noir. has begun their 200th Contract Celebration which has started off much better than our Curse campaign. We have wardec’d a ton of major alliances and have been flying around all over Eve looking to find targets. The response.. well, the response was predictable. Some corps left their alliances because of the War-dec, others like Eve Uni sent out 100 man fleets to hunt us down. Ah, gotta love it.
During this time I’ve improved both my skills with the interceptor and stealth bomber, getting the real life understanding needed to fly them well and effectively (so expect to see new configurations for both of them in the near future). I am also revisiting my skill at using the Rapier, Huginn, and Vagabond. The simple fact is that my understanding of how to use the Rapier and Huginn fell behind the times. Both of those ships aren’t exactly necessary in the major 0.0 fleets that the NC had fielded.. particularly since 1400mm equipped Maelstroms because they were the NC’s FOTM for quite a while. The Vagabond on the other hand, I never got to get good with in the first place, because of type of fleets that were being run against us at the time.
So, how does that relate to my time in Noir. Well, I am still surprised at how resistant I am at the thought of going back to Battlecruisers and the like. But, the merc life means exactly what it sounds like. You are trying to make money, and if a 40mil isk ship can do the task just as good as a 140mil isk ship, then you bring the 40mil isk ship. Sometimes doing that isn’t as easy as it sounds because.. hey, I’m a 70mil SP character.. doing the same job that a 4 or 5 mil SP can do nearly as good. But, that’s the reality of living a merc life.
On other notes, check out the new banner I got from Rixx Javix over at Eveoganda (http://eveoganda.blogspot.com/)!
Rapier – The Tackle Test
Despite Paxton space being under constant threat now with potential invasion of our Space by Ursha’Khan and their holders, I was finally able to finish the major testing I wanted to do comparing the Armor tanked Rapier and the Shield Tanked Rapier. Here is how I proposed the test:
“The Tackle Test – This test compares the ability of the Rapiers to tackle a target (the example case will be a Hurricane or Harbinger) and hold onto that target for upwards of a minute and a half to two minutes while being attacked by the target. The timer is what I estimate to be worst case scenario for a support fleet to reach you for the kill.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a BC available, but MushskiC of m3 Corp was willing to be the guinea pig.. so long as he could use an available battleship. I chose the Scorpion from his line up for the Tackle test. Using the missile boat for a comparision does have the advantage of comparing even damage without having to worry about any tracking issues the might incidentally skew the results. I also figured that if the results were close, then I could try it against a turret BC later.
Both ships showed their particular strengths as I predicted they would, however, beautiful theories are often killed by ugly facts. So, where did each shine, and how important was it? Here is a breakdown by Ship:
Passive Armor Tanked Rapier:
- Strength: Signature Radius - Its lower signature radius dramatically reduced the damage recieved by the cruise missiles that hit it as well as by the medium drones sent against it. One of the more surprising things was how often the medium drones actually missed me. Damage recieved was reduced by 25% to 30% in comparision to a shield tanked Rapier.
- Strength: Specialization – The Armor tank allows for five of the six midslots to be used for E-war and sensor modifications, compared to only three on a shield tanked Rapier.
- Partial Strength: Web Strength – This one is more up in the air. Against a battleship sized target, the speed reduction was 30% over the Shield Rapier with just two webs when the target’s MWD was on (3x Webs: 95m/s, 2x Webs: 144 m/s). The real effect is more noticable the faster the ship’s base speed is. However, it is clear that three webs isn’t vital unless you are planning to hit alot of small frig to cruiser sized ships that you expect to be fast. In cases other than this, two webs are sufficent.
- Weakness: General Tank – The Armor tank Rapier certainly tanked more efficiently, but not more effectively. It was able to last two minutes against the Scorpion, but it was deep into armor and would have lasted only half a minute more. This isn’t a good thing if you need to bail, or if you need to tank another ship for a short period of time.
- Partial Weakness: Sensor Booster – Oddly enough, this was complete surprise. Targeting a Battleship-sized ship with my skills was about 2.25 seconds with a non-boosted Rapier. What about a boosted Rapier? Nearly the same. See, you lose any time you might have gained because once you decloak, you still have to activate the module first. On a larger target the benefit is non-existant. It does improve the smaller the target is… but I would say the BC targets on up, a Sensor Booster would actually be a waste of space because of how the uncloak delay requires you to re-activate the module.
- Partial Weakness: Logistical support – An armored tanked Rapier REQUIRES that you have another member in your fleet be able to remote armor rep. Therefore, it would not be good operating solo.
Passive Shield Tanked Rapier:
- Strength: General Tank – The Shield tank configuration is by far more effective. After two minutes the shields were still at 50% and while the larger sig radius meant that cruise missiles hit harder and that the medium drones never missed, it was certainly much more comfortable, and even if someone got the drop of me it wasn’t necessarily game over.
- Strength: Logistical Support – Should you need to get out of the situation or even if you’ve won the battle, you aren’t dependent on having to rely on others to be battle ready. In the Shield configuration that I used, it took only three minutes to get me from 50% shields back up to 80% shields.
- Strength: Versatility - A shield tanked Rapier opens up the lows to be useful for speed mods, damage mods, and even cap/power mods.
- Strength: Speed/Manuverability – The Rapier is very nimble when it is shield tanked, which allows it a quicker response getting to the target, manuvering during combat, as well as being able to withdraw and escape.
- Weakness: Signature Radius – The signature radius pretty much balloon to the size of almost a Battlecruiser. This mean you can be locked quicker as well as recieve more damage and be generally hit more often than the armor tank.
After going through the various tests, in the end it was clear that the overall winner was the Shield Tanked Rapier. True, it may not be nearly as effective against faster ships on the field, but after you factor in the cloak, its general longevity on the combat field, its lower need for logistical support, and its manuverability and versitility really puts the Shield Rapier as the better configuration of the two. The armor plated Rapier on the other hand, sacrifices too much for the advanced specialization.. a specialization that can be matched by its brother the Huginn much more effectively. The test has been enlightening enough, that I don’t feel the need to run the other three tests I’ve mentioned. The Shield Tanked Rapier’s few weaknesses compared to the Armor Tanked Rapier pretty well gave me information that the other tests would have just merely duplicated.
Armor Tanked Configuration:
Damage Control II
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Disruptor II
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M
Medium Targeting System Subcontroller I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Shield Tank Configuration:
Damage Control II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Gyrostabilizer II
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Large Shield Extender II
Warp Disruptor II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Large Shield Extender II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Again as always, please leave a comment if you feel like it and remember to keep your guns loaded and your enemies running.
Rapier – Testing the Effective Recon
So here’s my dilema: How do you test the effectiveness of a ship, whose setup varies greatly depending on its purpose? See, the more I pondered some of the criticisms of X1376, and the more I looked at the reasons why I chose to use the Rapier as I do (which is doing rather well in combat) the realization came to me that for me to give a serious and honest assessment of making an Effective recon would require alot different testing. I try my best to make sure that I give not only a good, solid setup.. but also the reasoning behind it, the flaws pilots will need to overcome, as well as any tactics I have used in PVP that I found useful. However, with ships like the Prophecy and Muninn, their tasks are relatively simple compared to that of Recon. Therefore, I am now developing a series of tests, specifically for the Rapier to find out if the configuration I have laid before you as a quality fit performs as good, better, or worse than what has become a standard configuration Rapier.
So far, the test will consist of the following things:
- The Tackle Test – This test compares the ability of the Rapiers to tackle a target (the example case will be a Hurricane or Harbinger) and hold onto that target for upwards of a minute and a half to two minutes while being attacked by the target. The timer is what I estimate to be worst case scenario for a support fleet to reach you for the kill.
- The Pirate Test – This test compares the ability of the Rapiers to destroy an enemy target. The target will again be a battlecruiser (either a Hurricane or Harbinger) and the purpose will be to get the target into structure using any and all means necessary, but limited to bonused e-war and combat drones.
- The Support Test – This test covers the effectiveness at what I personally think is the hardest task in a roaming gang. Taking out an interceptor trying to crash a gate. I have already done this using my armor tanked Rapier to great effect (caught a Dramiel on a Regional gate once, and quite a few inties at other times as well), but it would be good to compare that to the standard Rapier setup.
- The Roam Test – This test will simply cover how well this ship travels. To be honest, I only need to do one test and that is with my configured Rapier in a HAC gang. Armor tanked ships are notorious for being slow to align and slow to accelerate to warp. While this isn’t much of a problem in Battlecruiser gangs, HAC gangs are very much a different story since they rely alot more on speed to outflank the enemy. I KNOW the armor tanked Rapier will perform worse than the shield tanked Rapier, but I need to know by how much.. is it a little bit, or is it critically more?
If you have any additional testing suggestions, or if you see a flaw in my testing procedures, please feel free to give suggestions. The results will be posted later when I go through with it and I will let folks know if perhaps my configurations are “not good” (edit: I thought he said “fail”, but I was wrong) as X1376 puts it, or if they are a more viable alternative than most have assumed.
In the meantime, make sure to keep your ammo loaded and your targets running.
Rapier – Defining the Effective Recon
Since I have had a few requests regarding how I personally would fit the Rapier, I have decided to put together a few suggestions, as well as some fits that have seen combat. For any that don’t know, the Rapier is the Minmatar’s Force Recon Cruiser and it is certain a very popular and successful ship. It combines Minmatar’s signature’s speed with cloaking capability and slot versatility. It’s certainly not a combat ship by most standards (a standard Rapier only mounts three guns), but it is a ship that is common to large fleet actions as well as Black Ops incursions. The Rapier is derived from the T1 Bellicose hull and so receives both a Rate of Fire (RoF) bonus and a Target Painter (TP) bonus. It also gets a 60% bonus to web range along with the standard CPU decrease for Covert Ops cloaks.
99% of the Rapiers you will encounter will probably not carry the TP, and mainly are fitted similar to its brother the Huginn in that regard with a strong passive shield fit with dual Webifiers and a mix of some Power Diagnostic Units, Gyrostabilizers, and a Damage Control in the lows. Its a fairly effective, general setup and is easy to fit since while the Rapier can only mount three guns, it has the same CPU and Powergrid as the Huginn which tries to mount six weapon systems. Personally, I suggest not even trying to get into the Rapier until you have at least Recon IV, because the Cov Ops Cloak uses a ton of necessary CPU until that level.
The Typical Rapier will be configured with one of two goals in mind:
- As a Heavy Tackler – The Rapier is most often used in the configuration. Able to sneak up on enemies and handle them until a support fleet arrives, the Rapier is a strong contender for this role particularly if the intended target is a bit more skiddish.
- As a Fleet Support Recon – In this configuration, it is usually as a Cyno operator, sometimes for the covert abilities.
I think however, there are actually three configurations that will be useful to a typical 0.0 alliance.
[Rapier, Web Tackle]
Damage Control II
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Warp Disruptor II
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Stasis Webifier II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Targeting System Subcontroller I
Valkyrie II x3
Warrior II x2
You’ll notice a few things about this configuration that are not standard. The first is that it is armor tanked. As I mentioned with the Huginn, it just makes more sense to armor tank the Rapier, even though it will make it harder to manuver and accelerate. This configuration actually sports a better tank than what can be had by the Huginn. You’ll also notice that I mount three webs on my ship. I did this because it gives you more options. Suppose you went with a dual web, scram, and TP configuration? Sure, your target can’t move quickly, but the TP isn’t going to make that much of a sig boost on a smaller ship.. at least not compared to a MWD. A MWD boosts the signature radius 500% whereas a bonused TP is considerably less. This takes advantage of the knee-jerk reaction he is going to have when you pop up. If you have the extra implant space, you can replace that Medium Ancillary Current Router I with another Scan Resolution Rig, but that does require you use a 3% powergrid implant. (Additional Note: As mentioned in the comments by X1376, reaching Recon V also gives you valuable option of using an Expanded Probe Launcher because at Recon V, a Covert Ops cloak has a CPU value of zero. While I didn’t put up a variant containing one, X1376 placed a suggested one in his comment below.)
My vision for a Fleet support Rapier, particularly on Covert Ops missions, is considerably different than standard.
[Rapier, Fleet Assist - Black Ops]
Damage Control II
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
Target Painter II
Target Painter II
Target Painter II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Covert Cynosural Field Generator I
720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
Medium Targeting System Subcontroller I
Medium Targeting System Subcontroller I
Valkyrie II x3
Warrior II x2
Again, I kept the armor tank so as to maximize the E-war abilities. Here, since a BS will probably be used only as a tool to warp bombers in.. in practice a squad of bombers can make a run on .. say, a gatecamp. The Rapier can uncloak 10 to 15 seconds before the bomb hit, light up three targets at a 100+ km range, then either cloak or warp off while the bombers set themselves up for another run. This could also be useful in situations where the bombers have chosen to engage at torpedo range, allowing for maximum damage to various targets. If necessary, you can change out one of the EANMs for a Signal Amplifer I, then take out one of the Medium Targeting System Subcontroller I and replace it with a Medium Particle Dispersion Projector I to get better Target Painting optimal range without sacrificing much Scan Resolution.
A third variant actually comes by way of Butterdog of Ursha’Khan fame. During our defense of a Cold Steel POS in low-sec, Butterdog dropped right next to the POS shield and lit off a cyno. Was a rather an impressive tank, and it was not something that could be duplicated by anything except maybe the Falcon.
[Rapier, UK Setup]
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Damage Control II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
Cynosural Field Generator I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I
This is a great setup if you need to drop a cyno and you need it to stay up long enough for your caps to get there. This ship sports an EFT rated tank of 76k (All level V), so it can take a beating for a little bit before its done. The downside to this configuration is that its signature was quite huge at 227m, about the size of a battlecruiser, so it takes more damage than a typical ship of that size. Edit: X1376 also pointed out indirectly, that I didn’t get the whole story in regards to this situation and truth be told it very well could be that I was so enamoured about how sneaky it was that I thought it was a wonderful setup. This particular configuration, however, did allow for the UK rapier to sneak up right next to the POS to drop a cyno. UK had managed to get the password to the POS at that time (though we didn’t know it), but even if they didn’t have the correct one, UK had thought that our being distracted by another fleet 150km off of the POS would allow the Rapier to come in and drop the cyno at close range to our sniper BSes. Fortunately, we were on the ball and we were able to take out the Rapier but, I still think it was a worthy and daring tactic because if we had one maybe two battleships less, he would have been successful.
Overall, the Rapier is a very impressive ship and can be used in a variety of ways, and its reputation is definately worth looking into. This is certainly a ship once can get familiar with and effective with at Recon IV. Again, if you have any questions regarding my fits, let me know. So, have fun and keep your guns loaded!
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