Welcome to the second issue of The Drafting Table. Slight formatting change: the images are now links to the EFT blocks. This time we are going to look at the opposite side of the sub-cap size spectrum compared to the Hyperion. The Caldari Navy Hookbill takes center stage.
Backstory
The story of this fit begins with a good deal. A fellow alliance member was conducting a hanger cleanout and was selling for Jita split. In this pile of stuff were seven Hookbill hulls. Caldari Frigate is the only frigate I have to Level 5, so I was intrigued with getting the hulls cheap. I purchased them, moved them back to my home station, and then asked “What am I going to do with these?” After some research and tinkering, I imported the first pass of the fit which I named Matchstick.
I meant for this fit to be used for gate camping. There were always lots of small ships roaming about and I figured a Hookbill would be more appetizing to fight then something that was likely rocking a cyno module. To my great surprise, it worked quite well. When Imperium staging moved to D2-HOS, I had the unfit hulls shipped down along with fittings and began venturing out into nearby Faction Warfare space. Sticking to Novice and Small complexes, the fit performed well. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, but it was always fun to fly. With the start of the war, the focus of my activities changed and I had to put the fit on the shelf. Since then changes made by CCP to many modules have made me rethink the fit.
The revisions I developed took the experience with the dual web variant into account. The dual webs tended to be overkill. The warp scrambler shut off any microwarpdrives and rockets had little trouble applying to afterburner fits without a web applied. What did tend to get the ship destroyed was a lack of tank. While the buffer provided was large, the resists were not great. I’ve taken two approaches to correcting this on paper, one for improving buffer and one for mitigating incoming damage.
Technical Details
The Hookbill has an interesting set of hull bonuses. Per level of Caldari Frigate, the Hookbill gets 10% to light missile and rocket max velocity, 25% to kinetic light missile and rocket damage, and 20% to EM, explosive, and thermal light missile and rocket damage. Like most Caldari missile ships, the Hookbill is kinetic-locked. This is because the hull bonus is strongest for kinetic damage. However, the 20% bonus to non-kinetic types means the gap is not large, so the other three types are viable.
High Slots (3, Three Launcher Hardpoints): With no room for utility modules like energy neutralizers, the Hookbill’s high slots are just for damage. Choosing between rockets or light missiles is a choice between brawling or kiting. As I originally developed this fit for gate camps, I knew I was going to be limited by the range of a stasis webifier. I chose rockets due to their range not being a great drawback and at the same time possessing good DPS and light fitting requirements. T2 launchers are nice but not required as Caldari Navy rockets are the prefered ammunition due to a good combination of range, application, and damage. Rage rockets are useful against larger ships due to their increased raw damage, but the tradeoff in application is not worth it for smaller targets. Javelin rockets do not possess enough range to make the loss of DPS over Caldari Navy ammunition worth it outside of some limited senarios.
Mid Slots (5): When talking about the Hookbill, it’s a common theme that the mid slots provide a lot of versatility. I’ve tried to take advantage of all these slots. First up is the stasis webifier. This permits better application of rocket damage and minimises the ability of a hostile ship to kite away. Next is the warp scrambler. When I originally developed the fit, the web + scram combination was intended to make it difficult for a ship to crash a gate and escape. In Faction Warfare complexes, this combo not only helps with shutting off microwarpdrives but also means that ships fitting a single warp core stabilizer cannot escape. For mobility, I chose to use an afterburner. Due to the range in which it fights, a microwarpdrive would be rendered inoperable more often. The afterburner means you will have a speed advantage over a microwarpdrive-fit ship if both of you are scrammed. That speed helps reduce incoming damage if you keep your transversal velocity up or helps you disengage if need be. The last fixed mid slot belongs to a medium shield extender to provide tank buffer. Due to power grid requirements, the compact variant is standard.
The last mid slot is a wildcard. I have explored two possibilities, a Adaptive Invulnerability Field, or a multispectrum ECM jammer. Both of these are meant to extend your tank buffer either via resists or a reduction in raw incoming damage. Which of these is more applicable depends on the sort of scenarios you use the fit in, as well as your views on ECM. On paper, the ECM is better for 1v1 fights since the reduction in incoming DPS from even a single successful jam would be huge. This could be improved by fitting a racial jam specific to what you are fighting. For larger engagements, especially if friendly logistics is present, the resists are favored. Fortunately the Hookbill can carry both options in its cargo bay allowing for refitting on the go.
Low Slots (2): For all of its versatility in mid slots, the Hookbill is lacking for lows. Here the choices are simple. A compact damage control unit provides most of the default resist profile. The second slot is used to improve mobility via a Nanofiber Internal Structure. Depending on how you personally fly the fit, a Overdrive Injector might work better in this slot, but the difference in speed is minimal.
Rig Slots (3): All of the rig slots go to improving the buffer. First, the large EM hole in the resist profile is shored up with a Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II. Do not cheap out with T1, as this is the primary source of your EM resists. Ships with good EM damage like the Imperial Navy Slicer are popular so making sure you have good EM resists is critical. The same logic applies to the Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II. The remaining slot is used for Small Core Defence Field Extender I to improve the raw hit points of the shield.
Bling: The bling on this fit mostly comes in the form of implants. For the hull itself, the straightforward upgrade is to a T1 Core Defence Field Extender (CDFE). This is somewhat expensive to be a standard fit but the additional buffer is likely worth the money if you can afford it. Using some cheap CPU or power grid implants will let you upgrade some of the meta modules to T2 variants. The cost of these implants should be weighed against the likelihood of being podded. Using Faction mods can be beneficial but they often cost more than the rest of the fit combined, so I don’t think the benefits are worth the expense.
The author’s Hookbill after a brawl in 2O9G-D.
Use Cases
While I have not yet had a chance to personally test the revised fit, it should handle similarly to its precursor. For solo work, the fit works very well in Faction Warfare complexes because the semi-predefined arena helps mitigate issues with kiting. It is suitable outside of the complexes as well. Close the starting gap between you and your target quickly with your afterburner on. Don’t burn straight in, but do keep in mind the distance you have to cover in order to tackle your target. Apply rockets, scram, and web as soon as you are within range. On getting approximately 7.5 kilometers away, orbit the target at that range. Keep this up until the target goes down or you are able to disengage.
There are a couple weaknesses of this fit. First is primary EM damage dealers. The EM resists is very low and make it harder to fight ships that concentrate their damage into EM. Keep an eye out for massive incoming damage and keep ships with short range weapons that deal EM (such as autocannons or pulse lasers) at arm’s reach. Ships dealing primarily kinetic damage should be treated similarly. Another weakness is engaging extreme kiting ships such as the Garmur. Getting a scram on these ships can be difficult, so it may be best to disengage most of the time. Attempt to slingshot them off so you can warp out. Ships with bonuses to webs, such as the Daredevil and Cuor, also present a challenge. Whether due to the increase in range or strength of their webs, they can limit your ability to keep close or keep your transversal high. Both of these situations are difficult to counter.
I really wanted to try a video for this fit, but real life prevented that from happening. Perhaps I will attach it as a bonus to a later issue. Got any questions or comments on this fit? Let me know in the comments section. Also, if you would fill out this form about possible topics for future issues, I would really appreciate the feedback.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Robby Kasparic.
