Shadow of Cerberus
Public => EVE World News => Thema gestartet von: Aura am November 16, 2013, 01:00:03 Vormittag
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Fit of the Week: Rail Thorax
I can't recall doing a medium rail ship since the rail buff as FOTW, so let's do one now. This is my preferred way to fit a Thorax...
[Thorax, New Rails]
Pseudoelectron Containment Field I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Fourier Transform Tracking Program
Fourier Transform Tracking Program
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Warp Disruptor II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Lead Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Lead Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Lead Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Lead Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Lead Charge M
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Valkyrie II x5
First the bad news: this fit is extremely tight. If you don't have really good fitting skills, you're going to have to compromise somewhere... maybe a couple of somewheres. First place to do so is the point, which you can downgrade to meta, though that does hurt your survivability since you'll have to engage closer if you tackle something. But even if you do that, chances are what you're going to have is a grid problem rather than a CPU problem and you may find the only way to solve it is to replace one of the rigs with an Ancillary Current Router. All I can tell you is to grit your teeth and do it and count the days until you can undo this very hard trade. Sometimes ship fitting comes down to these hard choices.
If you can fly this ship as-is, you're going to find a really terrific inexpensive skirmish boat. With decent skills and the faction lead ammo, you'll be engaging at 40km or so for about 275 DPS before drones. Change out for Spike and your range increases to 60+ with a corresponding drop in DPS to about 235. So the first tip is to take this ship out in good size groups: Brave Newbies, for instance, likes rail Thoraxes in groups of 40 or so and they've become quite effective with them!
Get your drones out and on the primaries. They're a significant portion of your DPS, around 140 or so with Valkyrie IIs. Like any skirmish doctrine, your tank is quite thin, consisting of a couple of rigs, Invul, meta LSE and DC, and a little bit of prayer. Also like any skirmish doctrine, the correct choice in this ship once you're engaged on a target is to align off. If you start getting targeted by a large counter-fleet, warp off, turn around, and come back in. As I've said lots of times, this is the heart of a good skirmish doctrine: you're outside of point range, so don't get killed and don't panic. Just get out and come back.
You're going to have to do this anyway in all likelihood because your cap endurance is not very good under MWD, which is also necessary in a skirmish doctrine. You've only about about 80 or so seconds of useful cap depending on your skills and the exact type of ammo that you're firing. A good rail Thorax gang racks up a lot of initial kills quickly, and is countered by its enemies by forcing them into an extended fight. As the lower-skilled pilots in the Thorax ball start to fall away, the DPS of this group drops dramatically. So if you're FC'ing or are part of this group, keep in mind that you want to rack up kills right from the get go!
Working to your advantage is that Thoraxes are fast, at about 2100m/s, which means that they can kill the things that can catch them quite handily, and outrun the things they can't kill. With double meta Tracking Enhancers, you gain terrifying effectiveness against tackle and if things swing close, swap out for faction antimatter ammo or even Javelin, which substitutes range for an additional tracking bonus. Don't be afraid to bring your drones back to attack any tacklers on you as well. Valks can catch frigates without too many problems. The preferred booster for this kind of fleet is some form of Frentix, to improve optimal range. X-Instinct is also a good idea for skirmishing fleets, but you might even want to go with Mindflood to address the cap issue. Carry four types of ammo: Javelin, Spike, anti-matter, and lead. Use lead by default.
Thoraxes fit this way can be a tough fit but are inexpensive and quite effective in medium size groups. Fit with the double Tracking Enhancers, they're also quite forgiving of the routine new player mistakes made in terms of transversal of opponents. Your fleet will probably need some form of dedicated tackle; while these Thoraxes have points, it's optimal for them to be fighting at skirmish range just outside of point range rather than committing to a close battle where they don't have many advantages. Skirmish flying is my favorite way of playing EVE Online and you'll learn very quickly what to do and what not to do in this kind of fleet, lessons that will serve you well when you start flying something more expensive.
Everyone jump jump, and burn for the sun, microwarpdrives on!
All Fits of the Week are intended as general guidelines only. You may not have the skills needed for this exact fit. If you do not, feel free to adjust the fit to suit to meet your skills, including using meta 3 guns and "best named" defenses and e-war. Ships can also be adjusted to use faction or dead-space modules depending on the budget of the pilot flying it. Each FOTW is intended as a general guide to introduce you to concepts that will help you fit and to fly that particular type of ship more aggressively and well.
Source: Fit of the Week: Rail Thorax (http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2013/11/fit-of-week-rail-thorax.html)