Ships in Faction War. Part 1 - The Gallente T1 Frigates.

In this series we will look at how to fit ships and various tactics for use in faction war PvP. Generally we will be looking at solo work here and the fits are mainly designed for 1v1 engagements.


General.

Gallente ships are armour tankers. Unless you know what you are doing, stay away from shield modules. Unless you are mad, ALWAYS stay away from hull tanking modules. They say real men hull tank. Real men also die quickly in Eve Online.

Do not mix your guns. Many new players think it is a good idea to include both long and short range guns on a ship. It is not. It is a terrible idea. Chose one type and stick to it. Gallente ships are hybrid weapons platforms there for you have two choices:-

Railguns - Good range, poor damage, high powergrid requirements. Think of them like a rifle.
Blasters - Poor range, good damage, low powergrid requirements. The shotgun of the Eve universe.

Don't sit still. If you are sat on a gate or station a stationary frigate will be a tasty target for any artillary type fit ship. If you are moving then you are harder to hit.

Beware of Destroyers. Destroyers are designed to destroy frigates. With the right weapons and tactics you can kill destroyers, but in most cases it is the other way around. QCATS pilots have been known to win 3 and 4 v 1's like this where the frigate gang thinks they have the numbers.

Most of the Gallente frigates have drone bays of various sizes and some even rely on drones as their primary weapon. The three most common types of drone used are:-

DPS drones - Hobgoblins.
Fast drones - Warriors.
Jamming drones - EC-300.

Do not underestimate the jump between T1 and T2 drones. T2 are a huge leap forward so make sure you have Gallente and Matari drones skilled up.

The Ships:-

Atron.

Summary
The Gallente tackler frigate. Gets a bonus to hybrid weapon range and damage as well as a capacitor usage bonus for propulsion jamming modules like warp disruptors.

Description.
The Atron is a fast ship designed to shut down the enemies warp drive and hold him. It is fast and manoeuvrable  for a Gallente ship.

Fitting

Highs:-
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
[empty high slot]

Mid Slots:-
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II

Lows:-
200mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Damage Control II

Rigs:-
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Auxiliary Thrusters I
Small Auxiliary Thrusters I

Tactics.
The most common tactic with the Atron is to get tackle and speed tank. Most Atrons used in faction war are farmers who will run.


There are some in the war zone prefer their Atron with a bit more punch and can be an effective ship when used in numbers or against ships with poor tracking.

Highs:-
Light Neutron Blaster II x 3

Mid Slots:-
X5 Webifier
1MN AB II
Warp Scrambler II

Lows:-
DC II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II

Rigs:-
You may need fitting rigs such as processor overclocker or ancillary current router.
If you have room, hybrid weapon rigs should fill the rest of the space.

Tactics.

Get in close, orbit with AB on, FIRE!


Imicus

This is not really a PvP ship. You'll rarely if ever see one of these on the battlefield as they a scan probe/hacking ship used at PvE exploration sites. Stay away from these unless you like dying.


Incursus

Summary
The Gallente brawler frigate. Gets a bonus to armour repair amount and hybrid weapon damage.

Decription
One of the more popular Gallente T1 frigates. With the bonus to armour repair amount it can be quite tough and the damage bonus to the guns gives respectable DPS.

Fitting - This fitting is tight on CPU, and you'll need a 1% implant or to downgrade the magstab or the scram

Highs: Light Neutron Blasters II x3
Mediums: AB II, Meta-4 Scram, small cap booster
Lows: DC II, Magstab II, SAR II, SAAR

Drones: Warrior II x1 or Hobgoblin II x1
Rigs: Anti-explosive armor pump, aux nano-pump x2

Tactics:

First of all you need to be careful on target selection with this ship. You'll only be able to kill what you can get close to, but once you get in blaster range things tend to melt really quickly. Merlins and Punishers are usually good targets, while Kestrels will probably kill you from a safe distance once you run out of cap boosters. A webbing Rifter will be able to hit you from outside your engagement range, but won't be able to break your tank with Barrage.

A simple combat tactic will be to just approach the target and fire your overheated guns at it. The Incursus is quite capable of doing damage, hitting 216 dps with Void and a Hobgoblin (246 overheated), so few frigates will be able to rep through that and fights tend to be fairly quick once you get in range. Remember that Void has a tracking penalty, so "Approach" or "Keep at range" might be better than orbiting. Inside a plex, get close to the warp-in and pay close attention to your d-scan: if you manage to scram a kitting frigates like Condors, Slicers or Comets before he pulls range they tend to die pretty quickly, but if they get away you might consider calling for backup.

Pay close attention to your modules because on the Incursus you'll have a lot of active modules to juggle with, and watch your cap: if you time well your cap boosters you may survive even under neuts long enough to dispatch your enemies. Armor repairers are excellent modules to overheat but they won't last forever, so pay attention to the heat damage. Start the SAR when you're about to have armor damage but try to just pulse your SAAR when needed: once your 7 loaded nanite paste units are consumed you won't last long enough to reload them, so turn off auto-reload on it and try to survive long enough running your unloaded SAAR to explode your opponent.

Maulus

Summary
The Gallente E-War frigate. Gets a bonus to Sensor Dampeners' strength and range.

Description
Like the other E-War boats, the Maulus has a very, very thin tank. This is somewhat compensated by the excellent range on the dampeners, locking range and speed. It can also field 4 Light Drones while keeping some for backup. It's best used from range (the further the better) to support mid to long range gangs. It can work solo, but expect having to disengage from a fairly high amount of fights.

Highs:-
<Neut, Rail, Blaster, doesn't really matter>
<Neut, Rail, Blaster, doesn't really matter>

Mid Slots:-
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Targeting Range Dampening Script
<Warp Disruptor if solo, Sensor Booster if in a fleet>
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I

Lows:-
<Drone Damage Amplifier II if solo, Damage Control if in a fleet>
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Rigs:-
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Drones:-
Warrior II x4

Strategy

Orbit out of scram/web range with the MWD on. Range damp. Send drones and pray your target is a) Another noob so he won't shoot your drones or b) using a weapon system that can't track them. Don't let it slip away or get too close (yes, that means manually piloting and overheating the Disruptor if you're solo)

If your target is really slow AND short range, you can stay at range and shoot w/ rails, if you have them.

If the target is shooting your drones, you can try pulling them and redeploying, but it is still just a matter of time before you lose all of them to any half-decent pilot.

If you get scrammed, you're dead. If you manage to get redboxed by anything with light missiles (because you were dampening something else), you're dead. Same with arties, rails and scorch if you don't watch your transversal.


Navitas

Summary
The Gallente logistics frigate. Bonus to remote armour repair amount, cap use and a nice 500% bonus to range.

Description
Logistics with frigates is not a big part of faction war. You'll rarely see these around Black Rise and if you do it'll be part of a fleet. Not a great target for solo!


Tristan

Summary
A drone carrier based combat frigate wit bonus to hybrid tracking and to drone tracking and hitpoints.

Description
The Tristan can hold 8 small drones in its drone bay. Its bandwidth allows five to be deployed at any one time.

Fitting.
There are two common fits for the Tristan. The "Blast it in the Face" and the "Suck it Dry" fits. The Suck it Dry fit relies on three unstable power fluxuators to drain the targets capacitor and let the drones kill it. The Blast it in the Face fit utilises three light blasters to add to the considerable drone DPS.


Blast it in the Face

Highs:-
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I

Mid-Slots:-
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Warp Scrambler II
Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I, Tracking Speed Disruption Script

Lows:-

Adaptive Nano Plating II
Small Armor Repairer II
Damage Control II
Rigs:-
Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Anti-Explosive Pump I

Drones:-
Hobgoblin II x5
Hobgoblin II x3

Blast it in the Face tactic is pretty simple. Scram something (don't bother to engage if the target isn't close) apply TD and orbit. It pushes 200 DPS with void and OH while remaining cap stable so you will usually kill things that can still track you quicker then they can kill you.


Suck it Dry

Highs:-
3 x Small Unstable Power Fluxtuator

Mediums:-
T2 Warp Scrambler
Small capacitor booster (200's)
Afterburner

Lows:-
Small Armour Repairer
Drone Damage Augmenter
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

Rigs:-
2 x Egress port maximiser
1 x Ancillary current router

Drones:-
Hobgoblin II x5
Hobgoblin II x3

Tactics.
For the nuets to work, you need to be close which can be an issue. One of the best tactics is to sit at the warp in to a plex and wait for the target to come to you. The fit relies on drones so even if they do get range all is not lost, you just need to hope the drones perswade them to warp off before they kill you or all of your drones. This fit is excellent against cap hungry ships. If you get close to an Imperial Navy Slicer, then it should die horribly.


So there you have the common Gallente frigates you'll find in the war zone, how to fit them and how to use them to violence other important internet spaceships.

Why not come up to Nisuwa area and try and shoot some of us? Ensure that if you want a 1v1 you agree it with the pilot first. All QCATS honor 1v1's, but if it is not agreed, well we're KM wh0r3s like everyone else ;)