[Jester's Trek] Fit of the Week: Battleclinic Atron
Fit of the Week: Battleclinic Atron
I don't usually enter EVE-related contests with prizes and such, particularly if there's a judge. All I need to have happen is for me to win the thing, and anyone with sour grapes is gonna say "Oh sure, give it to the famous guy. Of course." I don't need that hassle, and the guy running the contest doesn't need that hassle. So I try to stay out of the way of EVE-related contests.
Still, Battleclinic is having a fitting contest, looking for solo Atron and Executioner fits... and this is the kicker... that a new EVE player can fly with 45 days of skills under their belts. And the contest with that limitation intrigued me enough that I decided to see what people were posting. And that inspired me to go ahead and suggest a fit. But I'm not gonna actually enter it into the contest, and I'm making sure that Anabaric knows this one's mine (unless it's somehow been entered already and I just missed it).
[Atron, Battleclinic contest]
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
[empty high slot]
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Anode Light Neutron Particle Cannon I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
OK, first thing about this fit? You don't have to spend 45 days straight training a special set of skills in order to fly it. That's most of the current contest entries and that strikes me as kinda silly. The whole point of the contest is to encourage new EVE players to try a new occupation, not devote 45 days of their life to training a toon before they can get out into space. That's strike one for a lot of the contest entries, if I were judging them. Strike two? It's related: a lot of them are full of T2 components, which are not only skill intensive but expensive! Worse yet, other fits are full of meta4 components, which are even more expensive. A new player is gonna be losing ships right and left and doesn't need to be losing 20 million ISK Atrons with T2 guns and meta4 scrams. Strike three, a lot of them are just assuming new players know about overheating, grid implants, and the like. They don't. Keep it simple.
So here we have a great PvP combat Atron that doesn't need any of that. This Atron has two expensive mods. Because of the silly crap going on in the salvage market right now, that ACR rig is expensive. And Small AARs are also still expensive (for now). So both of those mods are 1.7 mil each. The ship itself, 400k. Guns? Less than a mil for the set. MFS, 800k. Everything else is practically rat loot. Total cost out the door? Less than seven million ISK. That's about half the cost of the typical contest entries. And if the salvage market ever settles back down, it'll be even cheaper.
Second nice thing? It doesn't require special training or that you devote yourself to just training this ship to fly. Toughest thing about this fit skill-wise is the T2 Magnetic Field Stabilizer, which requires Weapon Upgrades IV. But I consider that skill a must for frigate flying where CPU is at such a premium so go ahead and train it. And you need Engineering V but again, everyone should have that. Everything else will fit nicely with practically no skills at all. You can have 500 skill points in Gunnery and fly this ship.
But that's the best thing about the fit: it will grow with you. My very crappy (button-orbiting) Gallente frig pilot sitting in this thing does 108 DPS. But when Ripard sits down in it, the very same ship does 170. If you have the skills for T2 guns, go ahead and fit them. If your other skills are up to snuff, you'll find they fit just fine and increase your DPS to 190.
Solo flying in frigates is about finding your target, pouncing on him, and tearing him up as fast as possible. That means a Microwarpdrive. Burn in hard, trying to come at the target at an angle instead of heading straight for him. Set an orbit to 700 meters or so, shut down the MWD when you get within 5000 meters, and put on your scram and web. The Low Friction Nozzle Joints rig is both cheap and will let even pilots with low Navigation skills maintain a tight fast orbit. That will make you damned tough to hit with anything but drones, no matter what the opposition is flying. If the target is particularly large and you managed to wedge on the T2 guns, load Void ammo and do even more damage. Once you're in orbit of your target, you can ignore the piloting from then on and concentrate on doing damage and avoiding damage.
If you get a cloud of drones on you (and you probably will), lock them all up and shoot them down one by one, then go back to the primary target. Repeat as needed if he releases more drones. You won't have very much trouble at all tracking and killing them. That kills what is likely to be the major source of incoming DPS. Your other defense is a Small Ancillary Armor Repairer. This will restore about one-third of your armor with every pulse so activate it once each time your armor goes to 50% for only one cycle. Unless you're wildly out-classed, you won't need to run it continuously. Once you're out of nanite repair paste charges, you've got about another minute of usable cap if you have to run the repper, or you're cap-stable if you don't. Either way, if you can kill the target, you'll be able to kill the target and if you can't ('cause your DPS isn't high enough), you can't.
This ship is light, fast, easy to fly, and cheap while still being quite effective. It's hard to beat the Atron right now on a cost/effectiveness ratio basis. Don't try to get too cute. Save the expensive parts for expensive ships. That's also the way of new player frigate combat. ;-) Thanks to Anabaric for the contest! Good luck to those entering! For the rest of you, good hunting!
(And if you enter this frig in the contest, I want the prize if it wins.)
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: Battleclinic Atron