Refining My Prospect Fit

On Monday I posted my initial thoughts on how to fit the Prospect, the tech 2 Expedition-class mining frigate built on the Venture hull.  I was pretty sure a couple of smart readers would come along and leave comments telling me how I was wrong.  I was not disappointed.  Based on their feedback, I've revised my fits.

Samsara Toldya pointed out a flaw that, in hindsight, was obvious.  I had equipped a Small Anti-EM Reinforcer I.  CCP Fozzie, in his dev blog, specifically made a point of stating that, "Blessed with a small signature radius and extra hitpoints, a Prospect equipped with a Medium Shield Extender and a 1MN Afterburner can easily tank nullsec asteroid belt NPCs."  And what did I do?  I installed a rig that increased the ship's signature.  What a noob!

Given that hint, I looked at how I could decrease the signature radius as much as possible.  I decided to replace the EM rig with a Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I as Samsara suggested.  That meant I only needed to fit 1 Nanofiber Structure II in order to get a sub-3 second align time without the afterburner turned on and a sub-4 second align time even with the afterburner running.  That one change gave me more flexibility with fitting the low slots.

But I wasn't finished.  I decided to see how else I could reduce the signature radius.  I chose to swap out the Medium Shield Extender II for a Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I.  I chose that shield extender instead of the Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction based strictly on price.  I didn't consider the extra 37 hit points worth 2.5-3 million ISK.  With the changes in rigs and choice of shield extender, at max level skills the signature for my base fit is 33.8.  Considering the signature of an unfit Stilletto is 31 and that of an unfit Crow is 35, I think I did okay.

Also, with the changes to the shield extender, I freed up enough CPU to have a variety of fits.  The first one is a tanky version that I think should handle the DPS of null sec rats as CCP Fozzie suggested.

A tankier version of my original fit

The resist profile is much better than my original fit from two days ago.  My EM resist drops 9.5%, but as the local low sec rats I have to worry about are the Angel Cartel (explosive & kinetic) and Mordu's Legion (thermal & kinetic), that's not a major concern.  What I am happy with is that my explosive resist increases 4.4%, kinetic resist increases 5.3%, and thermal resist increases 7%.  I have a much stronger tank for less than 1 million ISK more.

One objection to using the Prospect is that the ship does not have the Venture's built-in +2 warp core strength.  My fit above does not use warp core stabilizers.  What would the fit look like with one WCS?

I don't have time for your e-Honor

The Damage Control II has the same CPU and power grid requirements as a Warp Core Stabilizer I so I can interchange them easily.  The penalty for using one WCS is not terrible, as the targeting range is reduced down to 12.5 km, which is still greater than the 10 km range of the Modulated Deep Core Miner II or, if you choose to downgrade, the 12 km range of the Miner II.  I should point out that rats have pointed me while I was ice mining in low sec in my Procurer, so the module isn't just for use against players.

The next fit is for those who's primary concern is maximizing ore yield.  I personally would not feel comfortable flying around in the fit, but I include it as a possibility.

A carebear's version of a max gank fit

By replacing the Warp Core Stabilizer I and Nanofiber Structure II from the second fit in this post, I'm able to fit 3 Mining Laser Upgrade IIs, increasing the mining yield from 852 m³/minute to 930 m³/minute.  The trade-off is that the ship will align 1 second slower and lose the +1 warp core strength bonus.

Easy Esky isn't a fan of the Modulated Deep Core Miner II.  He'd prefer to use the Miner II.  The Miner II does require a lot less training time, but that's not what caught my attention.  If he goes wandering around exploring, he doesn't want to pass up anything interesting due to his fit.  So what have I neglected so far?  Gas harvesting.

With the advent of the mobile depot, players have the ability to make long voyages and refit at the destination.  But if a player wants to use a mobile depot in order to swap out ore mining equipment for gas harvesting equipment, that leaves very little room for mining crystals.  So in that situation, the best choice is the Miner II.

Ready to harvest gas

The above fit just takes my first fit and replaces the ore harvesting modules with Gas Cloud Harvester IIs and Warp Core Stabilizer Is.  The addition of two warp core stabilizers does reduce the lock range down to 7 km, but that doesn't matter as the range of a Gas Cloud Harvester II is only 1.5 km.

Perhaps the most important part of the fit is that, using Miner IIs, a pilot is ready to mine anything found while exploring except mercoxit.  If the above is used as the travel fit, and the pilot is transporting either a Mobile Depot or a 'Yurt' Mobile Depot, the following equipment fits comfortably in the cargo hold:

2 x Miner II
2 x Modulated Deep Core Miner II
2 x Mercoxit Mining Crystal II
3 x Mining Laser Upgrade II
1 x Co-Processor II
1 x Sisters' Expanded Probe Launcher
8 x Sisters' Core Scanner Probes

The list includes the equipment to mine mercoxit as well as a probe launcher and probes necessary for operating in wormholes.  As the list requires 73 m³ of space, some trimming is required to carry around a 'Wetu' Mobile Depot.  I'd have to ask someone who actually lives in a wormhole if a mobile depot is a practical option.  If not, I'd need to come up with a wormhole fit.

I think I'll stop posting about Prospect fits for now.  I'm pretty sure a lot of readers either already know this information or aren't interested in anything that just shoots rocks.  Hopefully by explaining the reasoning behind the decisions, someone might learn why I fit my ships the way I do instead of just how.