Rifter: How lowsec mechanics can kill you

In my Opinion this was an incredible experience, eventhough I didn't made my solokill yet. You remember the fits from the last Rifter post?

If not, go here: http://thousandspaceships.blogspot.de/2014/03/the-beginning-with-rifter.html

After that post Rubicon 1.3 hit the server, so this ship has new bonuses now (Falloff instead of tracking).

My first idea for heading out was lowsec. Maybe I catch a lonely frigate in a belt and just brawl it out. So I left nullsec, made 2 jumps and saw an opportunity: A lonely Industrial on a gate. You guys fighting in lowsec more often then me might know what happend afterwards. I jumped through and pointed him. Excited about the kill I started shooting and suddenly my shields were gone ... and then my armor. And then it hit me: Gateguns. Didn't concidered those. So here we go: First loss:

Well shit ... Next time I need to look for enemies in a belt. My next plan was visiting our lovely neighbours: Legion of xDeathx. They always give a fight, but are also very carelass with jumping through gates. And thie is nullsec, so I don't need to fear any gateguns. This time I took my sniping Rifter, in hope of kiting enemies.

I met a friendly Huginn on the way who let me pass, after I told him about my mission to master every ship. So I was saved this time. I went on a tried to get a fight of another lonely frigate. Nobody picked up so I wanted to go home again, and there I met it: My next doom. I know, that a T1 frigate should probably stay away from destroyers, but I was desperate and hoped for a really short range fit on the sabre I found sitting on gate. I engaged and tried to kite, but welp: he was able to slingshot me, so there goes another rifter:

A day later I gave it another try (had like one hour of play time). So where can I pick up good frigate fights? Factional Warfare!
Next stop: Lonetrek.
I checked some complexes and at one point there was this breacher on dscan. Could this be the kill I was searching for? I engaged and I immediatly saw him trying to kite me. Thanks to the new Rifter bonus I switched to Titanium Sabot to get enough range to hit him. His shields went down, mine were still up. But ... no chance this time either. He was active armor tanked, so I failed again:

Tomorrow is a new day and the weekend starts. Time to welp more rifters into random strangers \o/

If you have suggestions, where I might find a fight, have ideas for improving my fittings (they are far from perfect) or just want to tell me how bad I am at eve, leave a comment.

The Beginning with the Rifter

The Rifter is likely the most iconic frigate, maybe even ship, in the game.Thats why I think its the right ship to start with. First off:

Fittings

I love EFTing (cause you can do it on a laptop in the office, thats to slow for eve itself ^^). I came up with three fittings which I hope will all be able to get the job done ... if I meet the right enemy. So lets get to them:

The first one is an active armor rifter. I think its the oddest fit of the three I came up with, but I hope it will give help me get everything done:

The Idea is to go in and just try to get as many armor cycles iff as possible, while keeping the capacitor up with the booster.

The Second one is kind of standard. I see this one in fleets very often:

 

Its very good for new guys, as you don't need to care about many active modules, beside propmod, tackle and guns.

And here is the last one:

Finally some artilleries. This is for just clicking the keep at range button and hoping to stay out of range of those short range frigs, like incursues.


My first round of Rifters is ready. I bought 2 of each, hoping that I don't need to get more!

I guess its time to go out on the hunt now!

The Humble beginning

You remember the time, when you just finished the tutorial and started browsing for a ship on the market? The possibilities were endless and most people started dreaming of the big carrier or titan they could fly one day.

The same thing happend to me and three years later I am able to fly nearly every subcap (the marauders and black ops are missing) and most of my weaponsystems are T2. And now I wanted to start a project witch gives me the ability to put all of these skills to use. I want to fly all of the following ships and get at least one solokill in them:

Some of you might say now: Wait ... No pirate ships? If this works out and I am somewhere in the middle of that list, I might start a pirate special edition.

Starting at the top going down to the bottom will be a long and hard way (can't wait to see the guy I can kill in the Noobship) but I hope there will be a long process of learning, which I will try to share, via blog, video and maybe some livestreaming.

For most ships I will try to use diffrent approaches (close range brawling vs. kiting/ active tanked vs. buffer) and all of this will be without boosts, thats why its called solo, right? I will try to get a section for new players on every post, so this might even give some educational content for our newbros.

To me as a player and my character: I am currently out in Nullsec with Gentlemans Agreement, Director of "Airkio Mining Corp" (Go ahead ... make a joke about the name :-P) and "midlevel" FC (T2 cruisers, sometimes even Battleships). Thanks to the logistical backbone of JF logistics I will be able to change regions and get the ships where I need them. Let the fun begin!