Monday, December 16, 2013

A Tale of Two Tristan - Triple Neut and the Arty Party!

There are two common Tristan set-ups. The blaster and the kiting rail. However, the specific ship weapon bonus is actually to tracking speed of small hybrids and drones. As drones are the primary weapon system of the Tristan you can experiment with the guns really. I mean tracking is nice, but its not as handy as a pure damage bonus is it? So don't be afraid to try something "far out". The QCats have a couple of fits that do not use either blasters or rails.

I've flown the triple neut Tristan commonly in the past. It is not very good against Matari vessels that are not really cap reliant for DPS. But for Amarr and blaster boats it works really well. It'll cap out most frigates in two cycles and with their guns and active tank mods offline your drones can make short work of them. Here is a common fit I fly:-


It is a 'busy' ship to fly. Even with those egress port maximisers it burns cap quickly. So you need to make use of that cap booster. Then there is the armour repper too. Oh and don't forget about monitoring your drones, you'll need to recall them if the target starts trying to blap them. Oh, and the tank failing? Well overheat that repper. Small reppers love a bit of heat... but don't forget about it. As I said it is a 'busy' ship to fly but also a lot of fun.

If you are lucky you can catch Imperial Navy Slicers with this set up. You have to be lucky as you need to neut, web and scram them as they are making range. But if you do get them before they get out of range of the neuts, then they are buggered. Its a very short and one sided fight after you have them.

One of the more prolific killers of the QCats, Tzenick.....


..........has been experimenting recently with an artillery cannon version of the humble Tristan.

The Arty Party Tristan uses a pair of 250mm artillery cannons along with a small Nos. The guns have an optimal of 6km which is nice if you are fighting a blaster boat and can maintain that range. As you have AB, web and scram this should be possible if they are blaster/MWD fit.


The fit works against triple neut Tristans as the guns don't need cap to fire. Therefore your DPS is higher then theirs. I had a fight at the weekend where the guy was wondering why I was still able to use gun DPS on him when I should have been capped dry.

So whilst there is the 'fit of the month' and other bollocks, you shouldn't be afraid to try new things on old ships. So many pilots out there engage on preconceptions and then DIAF to my armour Kestrel or my artillery Tristan.  As I'm always telling the wife, experiment, you might really enjoy it!


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