Cheapfleet, Best Fleet

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Toterra has announced the winners of his Cheapfleet Challenge.  Through some miscount of the votes, I seem to have won some stuff.  What do you mean he was the only one voting?  Hrmm...must have been a really long typographical error then.  Regardless of the circumstances, since someone other than myself seemed to have validated my Crucifier fit as not completely worthless, I thought I'd share some background info on where the fitting came from, and by proxy some of the background info on where I came from.

In case you're too lazy to go check out the links to Toterra's blog, the fit is posted below.  But you really should go read it because there are other fits there which are very friendly to the new player, both in skills and isk required.


[Crucifier, Cheapfleet]
Systematic Damage Control
F-90 Positional Signal Amplifier
200mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates I


DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I
DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I
DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I


Gatling Anode Particle Stream I, Multifrequency S
Gatling Anode Particle Stream I, Multifrequency S


[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]




Warrior I x1

Fancy isn't she?  The true beauty comes in the form of the fitting requirements.  The Crucifier has just enough Grid to fit this with no skills, and only takes up about 75% of the base CPU.  And why shouldn't it be easy to fit?  I came up with it when I had only been playing about a week.

Let's rewind for a moment back to a time when the FNG was just out of his trial account.  To a time when he got his very first taste of PvP and realized it was the only thing he ever wanted to do in EVE Online.  My corporation at the time was holding a weekend training operation of "Frigate Games."  The rules were pretty simple, we were going to divide into two teams, equal in number and general experience of the players, and whichever team held the field was the winner.  Then we were going to mix up the teams, giving as many people the chance to FC as possible and do it again and again until we ran out of ships or got bored.

The interesting part of this was the ships that we were bringing to this op.  All Tech I equipment, and one of each of the four Combat Frigates for your chosen race.  This meant you couldn't just fit out a Rifter for each and every round, because once your first Rifter was down, you wouldn't be flying it again for the rest of the day.  The idea here was to let everyone get a taste for each of their races Frigates, which generally represent the first steps on the path to flying Interceptors, Bombers, Assault Ships, or Electronic Attack Ships.

So I spent about a week tinkering around in EFT with an Executioner, Inquisitor, Punisher and Crucifier.  The resulting ships were interesting to say the least.  Looking back on them now, I made some really Noobish mistakes when it came to some of the design decisions, but they each were more-or-less sound in their designs.  The Executioner flew at 4,000m/s with a MWD+Scram, and had the EHP of a wet paper bag.  The Inquisitor did a laughable 35 DPS from 35km away.  The Punisher hurts my eyes as I look at it today, serving as little more than bait with dual armor reps and a Cap Booster in favor of any sort of propulsion module.  The Crucifier ruined people's day from 70km out thanks to Optimal Range scripts turning a Frigate's range into spitting distance.  How did each one fair?  I'm glad you asked.

Predictably, the Executioner lasted about 10 seconds.  It taught me that I really don't want to fly something with 1,200 EHP.  In fact, it sort of soured me to the entire concept of speed tanking or ever wanting to fly as "suicidal tackle" in a large gang.  The experience being over so fast, I didn't really get to enjoy the remaining ten minute slug-fest, and just sort of felt like I had been benched during the first inning of the game.  You can still see the effects in the over-sized plates and multiple Armor Repairer fits that I fly today.  I think we won that round, but I don't really remember since I was already back in station spinning my next ship long before it was over.

The Inquisitor faired a bit better, although we definitely lost that round.  I know this because I was the only ship left alive for my team.  I was able to effectively kite anything that tried to come after me, but ended up perma-jammed by the twin Griffins that the other side was using and eventually had to concede that we had lost.  I learned exactly why ECM is primary in any gang because of that.  In general it was fun flying a sort of mini-Bomber, but looking back at it now I realize my DPS was laughably bad against another frigate with Standard Missiles.

My first Punisher used against another player was never even fired upon.  The opposing FC, making a probably wise decision, knew that the Punisher's tank meant it wasn't going to go down fast, and so other ships on our team were dispatched first.  Before my tank could ever get tested we had swept the field of the enemy.  I learned that a Punisher without a propulsion mod is unbearably slow, and have never attempted anything like that again.

Finally, the Crucifier performed admirably landing well away from the action and leaving three of the opposing frigates scratching their heads over why they weren't doing any damage.  It showed me just how much fun E-War can be when it's on your side, and started me drooling over the potential havoc I could wreak with a Curse one day.  I toyed with the idea of flying a Sentinel, but have since decided to wait on that one.  I recall a forum post stating EAF and AF would be getting some much needed love soon, and will probably take a closer look at them when that happens.

So that's what I learned from this little experience, now what can you learn?  If you'd never tried PvP before, having something like this in your own Corporation can be extremely helpful.  Making four ships for under five million isk and taking them out for some fun and games can teach a lot of very useful things about range, orbiting, target calling, and a whole host of other things that are difficult to teach on paper without some sort of practical application.  Even if you're sitting in the most Carebear of Industrial Corps your members can benefit from learning these things.  Just be careful that once they get their first taste of blood they don't all leave to go become Pirates like I did.

Regarrrds,

FNG