Raven assplosions r best assplosions
tl;dr While there are certainly other ships that might fit the bill, no other ship will get you mission runner kills in the early part of your ninja career quite as easily as the Hurricane.
As you progress through your Apprentice stage as a ninja salvager, you’re going to want to start shooting back at mission runners and probably sooner rather than later. If you were smart, you’ve already trained up Minmatar Frigate to 4 or higher and Minmatar Cruiser at least high enough to get the Stabber. The Hurricane should really only be a few days away for you. Now, certainly, there is much to be said for the mighty Rupture and it is a fine T1, Tier 3 Cruiser. With really strong skills and the correct opponent, you can waylay mission runners with it, getting under their guns and pummeling them with autocannon firepower.
The problem however is that Ravens, Drakes and the like, won’t care about your tight orbit. In fact, they’re probably happy that you’re sacrificing some of your top end speed. You’ll probably find that your Ruppy gets all but shredded as you maneuver into AC range, and then, disaster may strike if he happens to have a web fitted and knows enough to swap to armor-melting explosive ammo. Not the way you had it planned… not so much.
The Hurricane is simply more forgiving, has more firepower, excellent neuting power, and enough tank to keep you in the fight against most mission ships. Most players jump into hulls before they can fit it with T2 mods. This is only human nature and your first Cane will likely be no different. It’s common knowledge that T2 autocannons are very flexible and powerful guns for PVP. Without them, you can’t fight out to Barrage range (critical for a Ruppy who stumbles into a Web and needs to gain range and continue the fight) and you lose a substantial amount of damage from Medium AC Specialization. On the other hand, even a Hurricane kitted out with META 2 and 3 mods is pretty damn dangerous, even more so once the pair of medium neuts have started spinning.
A Suggested Build for Low SP Ninjas
LOWS
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
N-Type Adaptive Nano Membrane I X2
Gyrostabilizer II X2
Damage Control II
MIDS
10MN Afterburner II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Warp Disruptor I
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 800
HIGHS
220mm Medium ‘Scout’ Autocannon I, Republic Fleet EMP M X6
50W Infectious Power System Malfunction X2
RIGS
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I X2
Medium Projectile Burst Aerator I
DRONES
Valkyrie I x1
Warrior I x4
OK, so it’s not entirely T1, but come on, if you’re gonna shoot at people in BCs and BS, at least give yourself a fighting chance by skilling up Weapons Upgrades to get the T2 mods and the T2 suitcase. Be patient and train those. Don’t even buy a Hurricane until you have BC trained to Level 3 (really a good rule of thumb for everything you fly) and get BC to 4 as soon as you can manage it.
Most folks slap on the 3rd trimark rig, but the stacking penalty nerfs it to the point, that you’re probably better off with some more DPS in that slot or plugging your Explosive Hole (debatable since the vast majority of your victims won’t be savvy enough to switch to Explosive). Additionally, 3X Trimarks seem wasteful in terms of utilizing your calibration points. YMMV here.
What Kind of Mission Ships Can I Shoot at with This
Dakka Dakka Dakka
Pretty much all but the toughest of tanks will be threatened by this beast. At low SP, I’d be hesitant to rumble with the following ships; Marauders, Faction Battleships, and Command Ships. Everyone else is on the chopping block. You will soon find that the neuts alone will compromise most active MR tanks and your friends the NPC pirates will add to your somewhat underwhelming DPS. Neuts are the straw that stirs the drink at the Mission Runner Ganking Party. You can certainly run those neuts without the cap booster, but they’ll run for the length of the engagement along with your AB and that could make the difference. Switch it out if you feel you must, but I think it pairs up nicely with all that neuting power.
Kill His Drones
While your Low SP Hurricane isn’t exactly a glass cannon, you’ll usually benefit greatly from killing the enemy drones on the approach. Your 220s can typically insta-pop one or two enemy drones as their transversal drops to 0 on the approach. After that, web them and sick your own drones on them. For that reason, I would probably always fit Minmatar drones for the low SP fitting. They’re excellent at killing drones and by the time you get your MR into armor, they’ll provide a nice DPS boost as well. By all means, start assigning and using keyboard shortcuts for your drones. You’ve already got a good bit of stuff to manage during a fight, so simplifying things with those shortcuts is a Good Thing.
Stagger Your Neuts
You don’t want your neuts running together and in fact, you’d be well advised, to wait until the first neut is about ½ way through its cycle before triggering the other one. This will more effectively combat your victim’s recharge rate and theoretically, collapse his active tank. One of the things that you have to come to grips with is that some MR ships are passive tanks. The Drake is the perfect example and against such an opponent, you’re probably well-advised to swap the neuts and cap booster out for more efficacious modules. Essentially, the engagement becomes a DPS race so consider a pair of HAMs in your high slots and 2 racial ECM mods in the place of the cap booster and web.
Taking it up a Notch
The Hurricane is a wonderful ship and it is arguably the most flexible hull in the game short of the strategic cruisers. With this build or something similar, you’ve still a considerable amount of growing to do. But on which skills should you focus your training time? I believe you should get those T2 guns and Gunnery Support skills rolling along, and then move to T2 drones. This will increase your DPS substantially and the T2 drones will be beneficial on most every ship you fly for the life of your current ‘Toon.
A very easy boost to DPS can be achieved by skilling up T2 Projectile Rigs. They are a bit pricey at around 20 mil, but they offer a substantial boost to your firepower. As with faction and deadspace mods, I would advise that you get some degree of competency through actual flight time before taking the plunge, but I believe you’ll find that they are well worth the splurge. It’s easy to overlook, but incremental advantages really do add up and the more of them you can pile on, the more fights you’ll likely win. Hardwires also fall into this category and you should take a serious look at the MX2 (5% boost to medium projectile damage) and when you can afford it, the Lancer G1 or G2 Delta for increased Rate of Fire.
Now, go get that Bear young ninja.
Come on, you know you want one
Wonderful write-up, as I was just looking for some direction in the field of “MR payback” and such. Right now, I’m training Small Hybrid Turret V and am glad I found some information on the ‘Cane.
Thanks!
Nice post mate. The Hurricane is a great ship. Not too expensive and a beast in terms of dps. I even put my Sleipnir back in the hangar and use the Cane more often these days.
I still don’t understand how a buffer tank can work against a bs, I currently fly frigates with a sar which allows me to bleed down larger ships using my small sig, but surely a cane takes almost full dmg?
It’s the two neuts that do the business. After you’ve shut his tank down with those, it becomes a Deeps race where you’re moving just fast enough to mitigate some of the damage (if missiles), or close enough to screw up the tracking (if a PVE gunboat). Once you’ve killed his drones, you’re applying full DPS where his damage is significantly reduced.
Derp Derp