Monday, March 10, 2014

First plexing with Vargur


Now I have done a fair bit of sites in my Vargur, and I must say, I really like it. I can't help but to compare it against my previous experiences with "solo" plexing C4s using two Rattlesnakes. Those chewed up any C4 site in between 10 and 15 minutes, whereas the Vargur needs at least 20 min for a Frontier Barracks. But that includes booth salvage and looting.

I discovered that the preferred site for the Vargur was actually the Frontier Command Post and not the Frontier Barracks. This was due to less battleships spawning out at 80km. Normally one would shy away from the Frontier Command Posts due to the first wave that is pretty much useless (frigs and sentry-guns). But with the short range, smartbombing Vargur it does not add many minutes to the total running time. However, for that I need a BM for the centre of the site, which brings me to the fits lack of Micro Jump Drive.

Marauders have a nice bonus to the reactivation delay of micro jumps The ability to warp to a non-bookmarked Frontier Barracks, aim the ships at he first two battleships 90km away, and just a few seconds later be able to hit them from 10km with high dps Hail would have been really nice. But without a much more expensive fit or boosts, I did not want to be without the second Invulnerable Field.

The Vargur costs more than both Rattlers together and is slower, but for me, the ease of piloting a single ship instead of two, not having to setup cap-bouncing and keep track of remote-reps makes up for it. It's simply a more relaxing experience for an old man with lousy multiboxing-skills like me.

It also unlocks one account for a scout, which is very important. With the marauders three utility-highs, the ability to kill frigs with a push of a button (I'm seriously in love with that smartbomb!) and two salvager to take care of the wrecks the Personal Tractor Unit (which really is more of a looting-robot) have dragged in range the whole endeavour is much simpler than all the hoops I had to jump trough to get the Rattlers setup and working.

Since a lot of the time is spent scanning, scouting and closing WH's the actual time spent shooting sleepers is actually quite low. At least for me. Final call is that 20 min/site incl. salvage using one pilot is better than 10 min for two - where you either need to go back for the salvage afterwards or have a third account just for the salvage.

I must say that the combination Red Giant and a True Sansha smartbomb rocks. All your frig problems are just a memory, they die like the pesky flies they are. With the effect of the C4 it gets a range of 12km, more than enough. I could even have used a normal tech 1 and it would probably have done the job. For the latest in overkill - use it on a Vargur in a C4 to kill the sleepers in the gas- and ore-sites. Even if you are not interested in the gas or ore, killing and salvaging the sleepers might be worth your time, I got 80M out of my 12 sites in Gamma.

Since my non-marauder pilot happens to be both my Orca-pilot and a fully skilled siege/armour booster, I simply had him refit the trusty old Orca to a booster. Not that you absolutely need it, not even for the Information Sanctums, but the margins goes from need-to-be-on-the-ball-and-not-make-too-much-misstakes- to can-leave-vargur-tanking-worst-spawn-while-on-the-phone -level.

I started with some Frontier Command Posts since I think those are the easiest ones. My Vargur turned out to be a bit overtanked for C4s (as expected) so I really got no need for boosts. I was planing on using the Orca as booster since Tashi, my Orca-pilot, got pretty good skills for that. Just a quick refit and some 22% bonus to resists, boosting and cap efficiency - not bad considering I get it "for free" with just a quick refit of a ship I need anyway.

At some point I even left the Orca cloaked at a WH to have ears on it and to be able to de-cloak and boost if I totally messed something up. But usually I just had it boosting from the POS.

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