Besides changing their site layout and making it a cuntiferous abortion to use, Battleclinic had its heyday as a repository of pre-API and pre-CREST verified killmails.
It also had a juge following as a place to swap, rate and discuss fittings. I spent some time there, indeed, and had some well-rated Apocrypha era fits, all now RIP. These days, your alliance and corp will store their fits in the corp library, on alliance forums, or via third party apps like Fleet-up. These are for Doctrines, and there's a reason for Doctrines, but this is of no use to the soloer or a noob corp starting out and finding their way out there amongst the stars and boat violencing.
I think that Battleclinic was a good resource for fits that anyone could access and, if noobs came to the game and found out about Battleclinic, they could at least get a heads up. But, like any social media platform, you got a democracy of idiots, and cultish followings and a culture that developed.
One side effect of Battleclinic was its treatment of rigs, by the culture of reviewers and retards and cliques of douchefuck commenters. According to Battleclinic, rigs had 3 possible purposes:
- more tank
- more spank
- GTFO for nano
This culture kind of survives even to this day, amidst the doctrines which are developed and the way things are discussed and passed around by the old hands at the game, who are what would nowadays be known as the Influencers. Influencers are probably stil keeping on fitting tank rigs as a rule, when the game has to some extent moved on a bit since then.
Consider the hyperspatial rigs. They give your tackle ships a crucial few seconds less on d-scan as they warp in to local. Or a few seconds less travel time from wormhole or gate to the Haven or Hub to tackle the shiny ratting boat. They give your tackle ships more survivability if the logi moves that extra few AU/s faster, and your battleships kind of absolutely need it to get to the battle before it's decided.
It's not to say that, in the right role, the old tank, spank and GTFO rig choices aren't still valid. Especially for Doctrines in alliances, you have a logi wing and so on, you stick to the tried and true. But certainly, the breadth of rig choices available now as opposed to 2008-09 or earlier, really means that shit needs to get explored better to get a new edge on the foe.
Hyperspatials are common with the guys I play with in lowsec. This has been forcing me to ask, for al my old fits I find lying around, can I maybe do something a bit funkier with a few different rigs?
I recall seeing an Arbitrator fit that took advantage of the tracking disruptor rig to great effect, allowing him to aggro people on station in LowSec and utterly mitigate the incoming DPS. It was unusual for the time with everyone, like you say, going tank or gank. That said, there are a lot of utterly superfluous rigs, too.
ReplyDeleteMy T2 Capital hacking rig BPCs would tend to agree. Although T2 capital low friction nozzle joint rigs are starting to be a thing.
ReplyDelete