I love the NER series titled “Fit For Purpose”. That’s a bloody good name and I doubt Fit Kitchen is as catchy, but I’ve never been known for my wit anyway. As a reminder, this is a series designed to look into the maximum reasonable output of ships in various areas and then tying that together into something that might be interesting, fun, or unique. Usually, I’ll do that without saying “oh look at me, I can put eight damage mods on”, because nobody does that. The max tank of the Naga I discussed previously for example still had guns. Maybe things will eventually devolve into rants about fitting, we’ll see.
The fits described in this article were created before the resistance nerf in April 2020. Post-patch revised fits will be marked with a ++ at the start of each fitting name although screenshots will not always be updated.
With that said, take a gander at the humble Vengeance. Since the assault frigate update of 2018 it really fell by the wayside compared to the Retribution, and it’s easy to see why. Here are the bonuses of each:
| Retribution (5H, 2M, 5L) | Vengeance (5H, 3M, 5L) |
| Amarr Frigate bonuses (per skill level): 10% reduction in Small Energy Turret activation cost 5% bonus to Small Energy Turret rate of fire Assault Frigates bonuses (per skill level): 10% bonus to Small Energy Turret optimal range 5% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage Role Bonus: 50% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty • Can fit Assault Damage Controls | Amarr Frigate bonuses (per skill level): 5% bonus to Rocket damage 5% bonus to Light Missile and Rocket Launcher rate of Fire Assault Frigates bonuses (per skill level): 4% bonus to all armor resistances 5% bonus to ship capacitor recharge rate Role Bonus: 50% reduction in Microwarpdrive signature radius penalty • Can fit Assault Damage Controls |
Both ships get a cap bonus and both get what looks like an equivalent damage bonus, but the real failing is when you actually try putting a set of rocket launchers on the Vengeance. The result is that Multifrequency beam lasers with no damage mods put as much as a full set of rage rockets with TWO ballistic controls (218 DPS). And don’t even bother with light missiles, even the damn Breacher outclasses it there. The range bonus on the Retri also means that the natural 8-9km rocket range isn’t important either.
Diving further into the dumpster, we find that the Vengeance’s lovely 20% armour resist bonus is weighed down by pitiful base stats (considering all V skills). As we can see in the stats below, having 500 less EHP than it’s sister ship accounts for more than what you get from additional resists. In fact, the resistance only really comes into play once you start shoehorning a 400mm plate on there just to get the raw armour back in the first place. Lovely.
Rise of the Shield Vengeance
So what’s the first thing to look at on this ship? Well we need to see what sort of EHP and resists it can reach. By fitting an Imperial Navy 400mm Plate and leaving our DPS in the garbage we get a tasty 25k EHP tank. That’s a little more than a T2 tanked Punisher (see: ‘Tech 1 Frigs’) and works out to about two and a half Fed Navy Comets. Of course this is all silly talk though because you can’t fit anything else, not even a prop mod. Dropping to 200mm steel will at least let you make a janky heavy tackler. It isn’t perfect, but if you really need a Vengeance to hold a web on someone then it will do the job.
The other school of thought is to actually utilise the bonuses we’re given. Popping a cap battery into the fit pushes that cap bonus further, and opting for an active armour repping fit is an easy way to make use of extra resists. Deadspace fitting them isn’t really worth the ISK, though. Two A-Types and a set of High-Grade Asklepians will let the Vengeance rep for about 950 EHP/s (a hilarious 3,412 EHP/s with the ADC on) which is nice. The problem is that you start running the risk of being tackled on grid with your pitiful DPS until someone qualified comes to deliver you from your pod. You’re better off toning down the bling, dropping some tank for damage, or leaving Mr Vengeance’s wild ride entirely.
The T2 version of this fit, though, is something I do actually like the look of. It tanks a respectable 368 EHP/s on just a Standard Exile Booster, rising to almost 500 EHP/s with Mid-Grade Asklepians. With a 37m sig and the AB that should theoretically be all you need. Here’s the fit:
[Vengeance, Decent Lowsec Reps]
Small Armor Repairer II
Small Armor Repairer II
Assault Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Small Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery
1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Warp Scrambler II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Small Ghoul Compact Energy Nosferatu
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Anti-Thermal Pump II
Yes the title of this section refers to shields. It was clickbait so don’t you feel silly now. I did make a fit, though, and found out that if you want a fly a Vengeance in a Merlin fleet then it’s certainly possible. The numbers are on the left here but don’t bother unless you’re the kind of person who fits up shield Cruors and rams people with Machariels in the Alliance Tournament. I just wanted to find a use for that extra shield HP CCP gave it for some reason.
In all honesty it’s always worth trying. I could have told you from the beginning that a three-mid frigate with an armour bonus wouldn’t take shields well, but it doesn’t hurt to try. If you know what you’re looking for in a fit then it sometimes doesn’t matter if you aren’t doing it right. After all, if nobody ever tried to make something a little bit different then half the meta fits of today would never have existed in the first place.
Faster Than a Speeding Sloth
The Vengeance isn’t exactly the quickest kid on the block, but being in the same category as the Jaguar means we should probably see if a RamVengeance is possible. Spoiler: It’s not. Having a base speed 104 m/s slower than the Jag is not one of the ingredients for a fast tackle ship. Using most of your lows on speed is likewise pretty low on the list of nice-things-to-have. I got it to 3.5km/s cold before binning the idea.
While still on the topic of speed I thought it prudent to investigate the potential for a 10mn Light Missile Launcher Vengeance to work. Maybe that tank will be helpful since lows are limited!
As with most of my bad ideas, this too will pass right on into the trasheap. I said at the start of this article that a light missile version doesn’t really work, and you can see the evidence right there. Yeah, there’s potential for a 5mn LML fit, but why bother?
A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing
I’d feel remiss if I didn’t provide another decent fit to use. The thought behind this one is that it works well in our (Foxholers) nullsec nanogangs. Our current flavour of the month is an autocannon Wolf fleet. It’s a hell of a lot of fun, but my alt with few gunnery skills feels lonely when she can’t join in. I certainly could have been sensible and gone for a Hawk or similar, but the spiky look of a Vengeance hull does things for me~
The idea behind this fit is that it does just enough to offset its issues and ends up being a mixed bag of okay-ness. It’s almost as fast as the Wolf, it does almost as much damage, it tanks a bit more, and it has a web! Best use case is to grab VNIs in nullsec and dunk the kitey response fleets that show up when they underestimate assault frigates.
[Vengeance, Trying to be a wolf]
Assault Damage Control II
Crosslink Compact Ballistic Control System
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier
Warp Scrambler II
125mm Gatling AutoCannon II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Small Bay Loading Accelerator II
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Hail S x2200
Inferno Javelin Rocket x1000
Mjolnir Rage Rocket x3000
Nova Rage Rocket x3200
Scourge Javelin Rocket x1000
Nanite Repair Paste x88
Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket x1000
There isn’t much else to say about this frigate. It’s fun to fly if you want to do something off-meta and look like easy prey. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m also not on the CCP balance team nor am I even allowed to even run for CSM so let’s leave it there. I know I said I’d do the Svipul here. I lied. Maybe next time.
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