Welcome to another edition of The Drafting Table. Our subject for the day is the Ashimmu, the Blood Raider cruiser.
Backstory
Since arriving in Delve, I’ve had my eye on using the local pirate ships for something. While living in Deklien I made extensive use of Guristas hulls to make money. While the Blood Raider hulls are not useful in that regard they do present some interesting PvP possibilities. After completing a large project, I was finally able to put together enough spare ISK to fit an Ashimmu to take out for a spin.
Technical Details
The Ashimmu is a Blood Raider cruiser with a collection of interesting bonuses. The Blood Raider faction draws its bonuses from Minmatar and Amarr spaceship command skills. The Ashimmu receives a bonus of 15% to Energy Nosferatu and Energy Neutralizer amount per level of Amarr Cruiser. The bonus from Minmatar Cruiser is 20% to Stasis Webifier range per level. There are also two hull bonuses. The first is a 100% increase to Medium Energy Turret damage, meaning each turret does as much damage as two unbonused ones. The second is that Energy Nosferatu will continually drain the capacitor of target ships regardless of the capacitor level. Normally Energy Nosferatu will only drain capacitor when your ship’s level is lower than the targets.
High Slots (5, Three Turret Hardpoints): Given the hull bonus to Medium Energy Turrets, there is a limited number of choices for the turrets. I chose to go with Heavy Pulse Laser IIs due to the combination of range and tracking capabilities. Also, the reduced fitting requirements would allow for greater freedom with the rest of the ship. For the remaining two high slots, I used two Corpum A-Type Medium Energy Nosferatus. Surprisingly cheap[1], the greater range coupled with both the hull bonuses allows for cap pressure to be exerted throughout the ship’s engagement envelope.
Mid Slots (4): The mid slots are a fairly typical loadout, but some of the meta choices are a bit different. The first slot is taken up by a Stasis Webifier II. With the bonus to Web range, this can reach out to 20km with Minmatar Cruiser V. This range also fits nicely with the NOS and Pulse Lasers. As such, I used this range to dictate the engagement envelope of the ship and planned the other mid slots accordingly. The second slot is used for a Initiated Compact Warp Disruptor. I chose this due to fitting requirements, but with its 20km range it fits right alongside the web. Next is a 50MN Microwarpdrive II. Given the large amount of range control with the extended range web, I desired to be able to exert more range control with some speed. Last is a Small Capacitor Booster II, for quick injections of cap when needed to supplement the intake of the NOS.
Low Slots (6): I went very conventional for the low slots. First up is two Medium Armor Repairer IIs. These supply a constant level of armor restoration. The next three slots are taken up by the resist profile, formed here by a Damage Control II, Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II, and a Reactive Armor Hardener. The last slot is taken up by a Heat Sink to improve damage output.
Rigs (3): The rig slots are used to improve tank and application. Two are occupied with Auxiliary Nano Pumps to increase the output of the armor repairers. The third uses an Energy Metastasis Adjuster to improve the tracking speed of the turrets. All of these are the Tech I variants.
Drone Bay (40m3, 40Mbit Bandwidth): For the drones I chose to use a full bay of Warriors to add some Explosive damage to the ship’s profile.
Bling: There are two places I feel that some bling would improve the capabilities of this fit. First is the Warp Disruptor. The versions which require 26 CPU (eg Caldari Navy) provide both some fitting headroom and a 6km bonus to range. The second would be tank mods, ether to improve the resist profile or the raw armor repairing power. Despite its bonus, I would not bling the Web unless you are also blinging the Warp Disruptor. Since the bonus is to range and not strength, you could easily run into a situation where your web helps the hostile run away after burning out of point range.
Implants: Those looking to optimize this fit via implants could do so by focusing either on speed or active armor repair capabilities. Given the not stellar base values for either of those aspects I would not recommend purchasing a set exclusively for this ship.
Use Cases
Unlike most of my previous ships, I did not have a good idea of exactly how I wanted to use the Ashimmu. I was drawn to it by the fact that it is not considered a “good” PvP ship. My goal was to explore what the ship was capable of and find out for myself just how bad it is. This proved to be a short-lived experiment as I engaged and was destroyed by a gang of five frigates. While a pilot more skilled in flying kiting ships might have done better than myself, it was still a disappointing performance from the fit.
Changes After Testing
After getting the hull smashed to smithereens, I would make some adjustments to the tank if I were going to fly the ship again. While the armor repairers restored large amounts of armor thanks to the twin Auxiliary Nano Pumps, the reps were not hitting fast enough to buy sufficient amounts of time to remove DPS from the field. With this in mind, I would swap one of the Nano Pumps for a Nanobot Accelerator to increase the frequency with which reps hit.
Second, I would drop the Heat Sync for another Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane. The resist profile is a little low if you are facing a large variety of damage types with the Reactive Hardener, so the additional Membrane helps improve the overall profile. This change would necessitate the use of a CPU implant or the reduction of the MWD to its compact variant. Given the difference in speed is minimal, I would prefer the compact MWD.
I hope you enjoyed my take on a ship that is not considered a great PvP ship, though I did not do much to improve its reputation. At some point in the future, I would like to repeat the same sort of experiment with the other two Blood Raider hulls. Got a hull with a poor PvP reputation or a known standout you would like to see my take on? Give me a shout in the comments.
[1]: In the time since I purchased and flew this fit, the price on these has increased by about 20mil, pushing a pair of them a little higher than I would like recommend as the default. If the cost is a bit spendy, the B-Type would be a suitable substitute.
