OOC Entry 113 - Valentine's Day

What would be a better start for a Valentine's Day story than a happy woman with thoughts of personal affection on her mind? In that case Hegomir Torstan's personal assistant who prepares for the day that her employer is due to return to active duty in his laboratory.

Well, those of you who read any of my earlier stories will most likely expect that this can not last, especially with the Gallente spy Adrain Sourail still out there and preparing his next move.

Also in this episode the Awakened Industries capsuleers are finally united again and receive news of the situation in their home system.

Happy Valentine's Day.

OOC Entry 112 - New Year Revival

It has been a long time since I wrote anything for my blog. Roughly half a year, enough for the usual blog to be considered dead and dropping off the radar. I had asked a friend to help me out and publish some stuff as well, but he went on to mostly write for Crossing Zebras. Not that I can hold it against him, who wouldn't like to write for a well respected news site.

I may have lost the few readers I had anyway, but still, after all this time, I decided to continue my story writing. Who knows, maybe I attract some attention or someone who is into EVE fan-fiction finds my story collection on the byways of the net.

So what took me so long anyway?

As a matter of fact, this episode has been waiting on my harddrive since a mere week after I wrote the first part of that story. I ended up not publishing it because of no particular reason and then I kept on forgetting about it. When I drop out of a routine, I tend to easily forget everything that relates to it. Not playing EVE and not seeing my co-writer and RL friend much in those last months did not help with that. We did run into eachother during new-years eve though, and he asked me about picking up where I left and so I did.

After so long, it feels weird publishing such a piece which is still building up the story and does not feature anything spectacular. I had to also remind myself where I was going with this but I think I mostly remember now.

In any case, the arc of the Gallente spy continues from his point-of-view and we learn about his abilities and the way he works. Finally, in the end it will be revealed who the mysterious fleet are that has been busy looking for a way to Awakened Industries wormhole settlement. As you might already have guessed, they are not nice guys, but things may turn out in unexpected ways.

Of course one swallow doesn't make a summer and I will have to take an effort to re-establish my publishing routine as flaky as it has sometimes been in the past.

If you have followed my writing before, then I welcome you back. If you happen to be new, then I greet you and suggest you start somewhere at the beginning otherwise nothing in that current story will make the slightest sense to you.

To all of you, happy 2015!

TRS - Fitting Discussion: Incursus Rail Scramkiter

The common fitting meta for Gallente ships tends to focus on blaster fit brawlers. One of the exceptions to that rule is exemplified by this fit:

[Incursus, RailScramkiter]
Damage Control II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
1MN Afterburner II

125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S
125mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Transverse Bulkhead I
Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I

Hobgoblin II x1

Fitting the ship like that is actually pretty easy and can be achieved even with average fitting skills. The main bottleneck is CPU and if you should run out of it, you could use a low-cost CPU implant or downgrade one of the midslot modules to something with lower CPU requirements. I would however not recommend doing that because the range of your tackling modules and the speed increase of the afterburner are instrumental for that ship to function in its intended way.

Another fitting particularity which has to do with the purpose of the ship is the Transverse Bulkhead rig. Like with many Gallente ships, hull hitpoints are the highest buffer you have and this rig increases it further. Fitting the ship with an armour plate and/or resist rig would result in somewhat higher effective hitpoints, but it would decrease the ship's speed which would again be self-defeating.

I have hinted at the intended purpose of the ship a few times now, so let me explain how it works. The most important thing to do at the beginning of a fight is to apply the web and scram. Those two modules should initially be overheated for maximum range. Once you are close enough, do not forget to turn the heat off again because you depend highly on the availability of both. The range you want to stay at is between 7000 and 8000 km. Further away, you risk getting out of scram range, and moving closer means that an opponent can potentially get under the tracking of your guns. You would also run the additional risk of being within range of small energy neutralizers which would put you under a lot of pressure.

At that range you are only slightly above the optimal of your guns, so you will be very good at applying damage. Only artillery cannons, missiles or pulse lasers with Scorch crystals would be able to compete with your damage projection but all three weapon systems would lose out in the DPS race. With 140 DPS at maximum skills, you would even outperform a Retribution or Wolf Assault Frigate. Short range weapons like autocannons or blasters will not even be able to hit you in most cases if you manage to control range effectively. Since you are fit for relatively high speed, you should be able to outmaneuver an opponent even if you are webbed yourself. If your opponent has no web, you are at a definitive advantage.

The main thing that needs a lot of attention is the Ancillary Armor Repairer. It is important to anticipate when you want to run it, and only do so for one cycle, two at most. You need to save capacitor and make sure you do not burn through your charges too quickly. If necessary, overheat the module to gain extra repairs and to accelerate the cycle time. Always remember that armor repairs become effective at the end of their cycle and act accordingly. Your structure buffer should provide you with some margin for error there.

If you need to get out of a fight, move away from the enemy, keep web and scram active and overheat them, overheat your afterburner as well and the armor repairer if necessary. Pay attention to your capacitor though, make sure you always retain enough to run the afterburner and the tackling modules. Eventually you should be able to escape from the point range of your opponent except if they are in a fast afterburner ship themselves.

Alltogether, this ship is cheap, easy to fit and easy to fly.You should avoid confrontations with more than one ship because your DPS tend to be insufficient to deal with several opponents quickly enough, but In frigate duels or in a small gang this is a very effective fighting ship for beginners and experts in frigate PVP.