Friday, June 12, 2015

Confessions of a Frigate Hole Lover

When frigate sized wormholes were introduced, I was skeptical. I remember logging in after downtime to find seven frigate connections and thinking I'll never kill sleepers safely again. Since those early days I'm happy to admit I was wrong, the content they deliver and the hilarious fights that can be had on them mean I'm always happy to see one.

A particular favourite for me are the Q003 connections to NullSec. We have been known to lose security status from time to time, be it from LowSec shenanigans or the occasional HiSec gank, so getting access to null rats to fix your security status is always handy, not to mention any slightly AFK nullbears not paying close enough attention to local. The problem however, is killing NPC Battleships effectively in nothing bigger than a destroyer. Then along came the Tactical Destroyers.

The Confessor, to date, is by far the best at this job. Fitted with beam lasers and a local rep, they deal significant damage at tremendous range and have a resist profile that suits all enemies. The fit I'm sharing with you can even solo C2 Wormhole sites and I've also used it with awesome effect in Wolf Rayet effect wormholes up to C4 class, where its damage application is a long way better than any alternative.

[Confessor, PvE]
Corpii C-Type Small Armor Repairer
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
True Sansha Adaptive Nano Plating
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II

Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Corpii C-Type Small Nosferatu
Expanded Probe Launcher II

Small Energy Metastasis Adjuster II
Small Energy Metastasis Adjuster II
Small Ancillary Current Router I

It pumps out >430 DPS with Gleam and around 250 with Aurora, hitting out to an impressive 30 km's in defensive mode. Switch to sharpshooter and you'll be hitting well @ 50 km's. C2 Wolf Rayet effect sees the DPS jump to 794 and >1000 in a C4. The lowest resist is thermal @ 74% and it's cap stable without the Nosferatu running, not that you really need it to be. Even though they are beams, the tracking is great, easily hitting small targets at close range, usually alpha'ing them off the field.

With the advent of C13 Shattered Wormholes with C4 Wolf Rayet effect, I challenge anyone to find a better alternative to efficiently clearing everything that spawns there.

The only warning I'll give you is about keeping transversal on your target. The Sirius turrets and the like in W-Space will send you into low armour very quickly if you're not moving, so make sure you're in defensive mode when you land.

It was via a Q003 that CCP saw fit to troll me in epic style a few days past. In my time in Curse, the one thing you wanted to find spawning in a belt other than an Officer spawn, was a Hauler spawn. It wasn't unusual to get a 500m ISK drop of various minerals. Well, you know where this is going, right? Sure enough, the Q003 I transited, deep in Venal, gave me a Hauler spawn at the second asteroid belt I warped to. Great.

After flailing about with various Devoter and Coercer options, I calculated that I would need to make about 25 trips in and out of the Wormhole to return my loot to POS. Yeah, no. That won't be happening. So that got me thinking. Maybe it's time for a tiny Deep Space Transport? Perhaps even base it on a Venture hull? I mean, a Prospect has a 10,000 cubic metre gas capacity, it's not like it'd be out of the ordinary. Am I crazy?


OK, don't answer the last part, and maybe I'm being a slightly selfish wormhole citizen for thinking it, but there's got to be a place for a ship like this if Frigate sized wormholes are going to be used for anything more than suicide raids.