Monday, 17 May 2010

Project Rifter #1

Project Rifter
The Rifter; apparently the most coveted frigate in our universe, or so everyone keeps telling me, over and over again. For the last 46 days I have skilled up specifically for this vessel (all support skills to 4 or 5) to finally try it myself. Made famous by a lot of high profile players but non more so than Wensley, the Rifter Drifter. His Rifter guide has been a great help and I have studied it well.

Frigate hulls have really got hold of me over the last couple of months. Assault ships and faction varieties have been great fun to fly and scored me some very sexy kills. However they have come at a cost too, my average Worm, Comet, Ishkur or Enyo fit costs 30 million isk plus the hull. To give you an idea I have lost 5 Comets, 2 Worms, 5 Ishkurs and 3 Enyo’s. Yes auch… This has brought me to practise with something of a cheaper variety, and lots of them.

Enter the Rifter…

Fitting my Rifters
I have spent hours going through kill mails finding the fit that suits me best, poured myself over Battle Clinic and EFT. The first thing that struck me is that the Rifter is very versatile; the fitting options are near endless. Project mentor, Lady S, described it as a loose sock.

There are so many different options however I wanted something a little bit more of a ‘standard’ flavour, so I can really give it my all and make amendments to later versions after my first experiences. If for my style I require more tank or gank than I can make adjustments as required.

I ran a little poll on my blog to see what everyone else would recommend. Your votes are much appreciated and these are the results;

Gank or Tank Rifter?
A) 200mm Plate, DCU, SAR 26 (54%)
B) 400mm Plate, DCU, Resist Mod 2 (4%)
C) 200mm Plate, Gyro, SAR 14 (29%)
D) 400mm Plate, Gyro, Resist Mod 6 (12%)

What is your secondary weapon on your Rifter?
A) Rocket Launcher 17 (39%)
B) Nuet 9 (20%)
C) NOS 16 (37%)
D) Salvager 1 (2%)

What size Auto-cannons do you fit on your Rifter?
A) 125mm 3 (6%)
B) 150mm 25 (58%)
C) 200mm 15 (34%)

In the end I went against even my mentor’s advice and chose the following fit;

With the help of the Bastards logistic backbone I purchased 50 Rifters and the fittings as displayed above. With cargo hold essentials such as garbage, spirits, tobacco and test dummies I spent about 450 million isk.

The biggest reason I never skilled for Minmatar ships is because the ammo thing is very confusing. This is where Lady Shaniqua steps in... Over the past months we have joined forces and killed off some impressive targets, however when not fleeted Lady S is just as likely to shoot me, I guess.

I asked Lady for help on the Ammo issue, knowing that he (Lady S is a he) is a very skilled Rifter pilot. After a patient hour explaining the differences and recommending Barrage, Fusion and EMP as the minimum types to carry with Fusion loaded primarily, I went back to Jita.

I purchased 250 rounds of T2 Rage Rockets, 500 Rounds of T2 Barrage, 1000 Rounds of Faction Fusion and 1000 Faction EMP Shells per ship. Wow that is a lot of ammo…

As described in a previous post I make fitting packages for all my ships. This is what a Rocket-Rifter Package looks like;

My business-associate spend hours getting 50 Rocket Rifters in containers and then a few more hours distributing the numbered packages to my other hangars in Ardar, Old Man Star, Egghelende and Hevrice. The main bulk of the Rifter fleet remains in my home system Evati.

The plan
The idea behind Project Rifter is pretty simple; lose all 50 of them. I intend to undock in Rifters only until I run out of them, engaging anything and everything and learning from the outcome.

In the process I hope to become a skilled Rifter pilot and know the limits and limitations of this sexy thing. I shall post about my experiences and try to keep track of what happened to each vessel, what they killed and how they died.

Wherever possible I shall Fraps any fights I get into and produce a short video.

The maiden voyage.
The amount of time and effort spent on this project already has made a maiden voyage something of epic proportions. There have been a few occasions where I felt like cheating and taking one out for a spin before the last skill (Minmatar frigate 5) completed…

I ran into Venom Orchid and would have taken out a Rifter to travel the 20 jumps back to her new home together would it not have been for both our RL lives cutting our travel plans short. On another occasion I turned down a duel (what me?!) as I had no other frigates available than the Rifter. I stuck to the plan...

The maiden voyage had originally been reserved for a Celebrity Death Re-Match with Ga’len. Many months ago Ga’len pummelled me in his Rifter ‘The Bleeding Rose’. He left me the ‘The Bleeding Rose’ as a present as long as I would fight him again sometime in a Rifter. It was his gifted vessel I first strapped myself into. To my great surprise and joy his fit is near enough the same as my chosen fit! Ga’len has unfortunately retired and could not be convinced to come back for a one off CDM. His ship shall remain in my possession and will be kept safe from harm.

I thus offered for the maiden voyage to be a duel with Lady Shaniqua however with 4 hours remaining on the 46 day skill plan I buckled and undocked ‘#1RR’ to lose it mere minutes later to a Dominix and a Raven in a mission.

But that’s for the next post…

Watch this space…


  1. Refrained myself for quite a long time from flying Rifters. They really have little competition as far as T1 frigs go.

    I'm flying a very similar fit, only differences are in the high slots: 150mm guns with a NOS.

    The NOS is a true life saver. Numerous close calls where I got off a few more repair cycles to make the difference. Not sure I could've won those with bigger guns and a puny rocket launcher.

  2. Agreed. after my initial expierences i am already concidering a re-call on this product and fitting it with a nos...

  3. Brilliant project ! The only thing that tickles me is that you have bought the same fit for all of the 50 rifters, leaving no room for evolution of the fit.

    Despite that, I think you will have fun.. :)

  4. Superb. I love the rifter and I am tempted to see if we can have an all rifter roam very soon? Also, on the subject of Lady S - didn't realise that you were friendly with him so we'll see about adjusting standings to ensure no friendly fire incidents. Another quality post Nashh. Well done and it should be stickied in our forums.

  5. Oh I tend to fit the NOS as my secondary weapon also...

  6. Rockets are bad, fit a nosferatu. Okay, its not quite that simple. Rockets do bring you some extra DPS but my personal experience is that I get more from the nosferatu (better tank or at least able to tackle when neuted) than I do from rockets. If you do use rockets then use faction, not rage. They will do far more damage. If in doubt run the numbers through Eve Geek and see what the actual DPS that rockets do is.

    On the ammo selection I would say that LS has definitely got you going in the right direction. The one thing I'd add is that in many ways Phased Plasma is even better than EMP. The thermal damage is good for ships that have hardened their EMP hole as well as doing good damage against T2 Amarr resists. Its main downside is that it is more expensive that EMP.

  7. Thanks for the comments guys. I'll post project rifter #2 soon with my findings. Nos indeed appears to be the first ammendment to make =)

  8. glad your liking it Nashh and that project Rifter is well under way. The Rifter is a special boat and I've never flown anything as fun.

    @wens, I did suggest faction rockets if his taste leads more towards launchers than nos's/neuts. and on the phased plasma my suggestion was if you dont want the cost of carrying that many loads of ammo then most jobs you want plasma for emp is almost as good and vice versa :P

    @flash, thanks for the offered standings adjustment, but to quote nashh
    "however when not fleeted Lady S is just as likely to shoot me"
    I've enjoyed flying with Nashh and on occasion other bastards and look forward to doing so again, however your good pilots based local to where I roam, and I look for decent fights, so don't change standings as I would like to have boat violence against ya'll

  9. Humph - now I have this urge to go and buy a fleet of Tristans and Incursi (yeah, I just have to be different).

  10. “With cargo hold essentials such as garbage, spirits, tobacco and test dummies…”

    What? Why are those essential? What is the point? I googled around, and could find no information on that combination, or why on earth you would ever buy/carry them.

  11. Where is the exotic dancer?