EVE Blog Banter #12: Tying the dots and locking me in!

Welcome to the twelfth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's banter comes to us from none other than me, myself and I, and I ask the following: First there was the MMO on the PC, and now with the recent announcement of DUST 514, EVE will soon be moving onto consoles. But what about mobile? Allow your imagination to run wild for a second and describe how you would see EVE being ported to mobile devices, whether the iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberrys or Android-based devices. Dream the impossible for us!

Ship Setups - The Minmatar Breacher & Rifter, by Kirith Kodachi

This is a guest post by Kirith Kodachi from Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah. You can follow him @kirithkodachi.

Minmatar ships tend to be odd birds. Besides the use of projectile weaponry, they tend to be all over the map in terms of other major systems. Some make use of missiles, others add in drones. Some are natural armour tankers, others better with shields, and some can go either way depending on the setup.

The downside of this is that you need a lot of varied skills trained well in order to handle the Minmatar lineup; the upside is that once you have those skills you have access to a flexible and powerful fleet.

I'm going to look at two Tech 1 Minmatar Frigates, the Rifter and the Breacher, and discuss some basic setups.

The Breacher

Often overlooked, the Breacher is one of the few Minmatar ships dedicated to missiles and as such can be thought of as a Minmatar version of the Caldari Kestrel. While it only has four missile launcher hardpoints, it is a lot faster with smaller signature radius and higher scan resolution for faster locking. Taking advantage of those strengths is easy.

Lows
Ballistic Control System II
Overdrive Injector System II

Mids
1MN Afterburner II
Small Shield Extender II

Highs
3 x Standard Missile Launcher II

This fast little ship can harry opponents up to 40 km away and fly over 1100 m/s without overheating and without the huge signature increase from a MWD. Not a bad setup for level 1 mission running should you want to avoid getting too close to the NPCs.

It takes a lot of practice to balance the capacitor using modules and make sure you don't run dry at the wrong moment, but once that skill is mastered you can take on a lot of ship types and be confident of coming out on top. The numerous named modules is to save on CPU.

The Rifter

The Rifter is actually decent at level 1 missions and frigate belt ratting as well. While the armour tank will work adequately in that scenario, the Rifter is one of those ships that can choose to shield tank in a pinch.
Lows

2 x Gyrostabilizer II
Overdrive Injector System II

Mids

Small Shield Booster II
1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 200

Highs

3 x 200mm AutoCannon II
Rocket Launcher II

You're going over 1200 m/s and the shield booster can keep you alive in those situations where you bit off more than you can chew. Your DPS is surprising with the Gyrostabilizers and big 200mm calibre weapons. Fly in, orbit tight, kill target, hit the next one. If things get too hot, boot it out of there with your afterburner and shield booster blazing.

Now, there is a world of options between the first and second setups. Passive armour tanks, bigger guns, energy neutralizers, afterburner versus MWD, the list is damn near endless. Hence why the Rifter is well liked by pod pilots.

The opinions shared here are those of its author and not necessarily mine. /CrazyKinux

Ship Setups - The Series

If there's one aspect of EVE Online that many players enjoy, it is playing around with the various ship modules to come up with the best ship setup (or loadout as it's also known) for a particular task. Whether mining, hauling, PvP or PvE combat, every ship of every race has the potential to play vital roles as long as it has the right set of modules.

In an effort to share the wealth of knowledge that the EVE Blogging Community has acquired, I've decided to start a new series of posts: Ship Setups. These posts will all be guest posts written by other bloggers, some part of the EVE Blog Pack , some not. The idea is to provide a friendly platform for discussion, where bloggers and readers can share their insight on the Art & Science of ship fittings.

I'll be using this post to list all future Ship Setup posts — by race and class. So be prepared to test out a few new setups, or to challenge the authors.

1. Breacher and Rifter (Frigates) by Kirith Kodachi
2. The Stealth Bombers , by Hallan Turrek
3. Electronic Attack Ships: Hyena, Sentinel, & Kitsune , by Manasi
4. Cruisers: All Purpose Uglies – Vexor, Rupture, Arbitrator & Moa , by the Gaming Griefer
5. A Mission Running Dominix , by Shinzann
6. Blockade Runners , by Casiella Truza

Many more to come!

Thought I'd add the ship setups I've written in the past as well to have everything in one spot!

1. Vexor set-up for both Solo and Gang PVP
2. Myrmidon Ship Setup
3. A Vexor set-up for security missions
4. A Daredevil set-up for agent missions

The Elitist:

• Good Ship Fittings
• Experimental Fittings

[Latest Update: March 9th, 2010]