Sytoru Hiroshyma
SkillzKillz
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Posted - 2009.07.07 23:12:00 -
[1]
Hmmm. To support or to not support, I've very mixed feelings on this as it stands. Guess I'll make my post and decide at the end.
Firstly, I'd like to take issue with a couple of statements that have been made so far. 1) Yes, some people do rig T1 cruisers and T1 frigs. I happen to be one of them. 2) No, rigging ships is not a way to PVP through isk. I may rig T1 frigs but I do so to save ISK, not extend my e-peen.
I seem to have the impression that when rigging is discussed it is always assumed to be focussed around the cost for the top end rigs. Trimarks, CCCs, SMCs etc.. With these highly priced ones there are certainly good reasons not to fit them to frigates (T1 or otherwise). Seriously, how many extra armour points are you going to get from a trimark if you fit it to a frigate? Yuh. No where near worth it at the current prices. But what about other rigs? Let's take the Rifter as my example and whack some Projectile Ambit Extension rigs on it. Sure they're still expensive and certainly ludicrously expensive when compared on cost per item as a percentage of hull cost, but what does it give me? Well, it gives me survivability and/or increased dps depending on the circumstances. With a pair of ambits and 200mm AC IIs I can fire barrage at 10km at still hit for acceptable dps. So for frig on frig encounters I am basically a hell of a lot more survivable and the ~15M cost of the rigs pays itself back through keeping the same ship. I proved this point to a corp mate in a Brutix fit with blasters. I was able to stay outside of his range and still break his tank after taking out his drones. There is no way that would have happened if I was unrigged (I could have still shot him from outside of his range, but I wouldn't have had the DPS to break him).
Is that a case of winning through ISK? Maybe, but it's not a massive amount of ISK tbh - just an extra L4 for the rigs.
I'm really unhappy with the concept of "salvage alchemy" as well. The markets have still to fully recover from the introduction of "alchemy" with the last expansion and I feel that this is going to lead to a large increase in salvage prices which will knock on to the cost of rigs. However, the supply of salvaged material is much more fluid than the supply of moon materials is so this should flatten out eventually.
Overall I think that different rig sizes with scaled levels of advantage/drawback would be the way to go without restricting hulls to certain rig sizes. Those that believe there is an acceptable benefit in the largest/costliest rigs can still pursue that path whereas those that don't want to risk their ISK can play safe with the minor mods. Hell, if the alchemy side of things kicks off in a sensible way we can even add T2 rigs into the mix outside of super-caps and pimped mission boats.
I guess this means it get's a thumbs up.
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