Fun with an Algos

So I bought a pair of Algos as part of stockings things for RVB and finally got around to fitting it and flying it last night.  Unfortunately that matched with low activity around RVB, perhaps because of the coming war.  However, I did get some killin' in.

The Algos
So I checked out BattleClinic and Failheap and then ended up making a fit that wasn't from either one.  I'd say this was an example of how a night of fights isn't a good test of l33t fitting skills.  It's a shield-fit, 75mm railgun Algos, which gives me room to put on a MWD and a neut.  Drones were Hobx3, Hamx2 - I debated packing some ECM but decided not too - this is RVB. (Actually I don't think I've actually used ECM drones yet)

The plan was to use the MWD to get onto targets I want and keep out of engagements with targets I don't want.  If RedFed had gotten a fleet together I should be able to kill things that other people have pointed.  The flaw - since this is scram fit then if I have a target scrammed then they can scram me, which means the MWD goes off.  So once I do decide on the fight I'm probably committed until the bitter end.

I just recreated that in Osmium and with perfect skills (i.e. not me) this has 271 dps from drones and 115 dps from the railguns, but is just shy of 10k ehp.  Moves at over 1600 mps.  Yes, ganky.  With my skills, knock probably 5% off those numbers.

And Yes - I'll take any and all suggestions on how I should fit the other Algos.

The Fights
Since nobody was about I headed towards local lowsec.  Nothing seemed to be going on there either.  Just as I was thinking about either turning in or suicide-roaming into nullsec one of the guys on corp channel said a Hurricane had aggressed him on the HQ undock.  Now there is no way that my Algos here is going to solo a Hurricane, but if there are several of us... I rushed back towards Otela.

I warped to a safe near the HQ and took a D-scan peek in.  No Hurricane.  Bummer.  But I did see some frigates (Merlin, Merlin, Kestrel) - maybe one or more of those are BlueRepublic and thus targets.  I warp in to 20km off station so if they're right on top of the station I'll get a chance to make a decision.

By the time I land, seconds later, I see that the three frigates are RedFed but that they're being engaged by a Stabber.  I start moving in and locking as I see one of the frigates disappear, so I figure it's gone down to the Stabber.  My drones pile in on him, followed by my ship's scram, neut, rails.  The Stabber goes down.  Turns out he's MWD/Disruptor fit, so getting scram-tackled was probably going to be the end for him.  Nice, glad to have a kill, okay I'll go to bed - I dock up.

But the pilot there is a long time RVBer and actually only recently jumped from RedFed to BlueRepublic, so I'm guessing he's just working through his stock of T1-fit ships still in the RedFed HQ.  On chat I hear he's back out again, so I undock.

Now he's in a Rupture, so we give chase again.  This time I get on top of him with drone, rail, scram, neut and he replies by turning his medium neut on me.  My cap starts to disappear fast and if I try to use the MWD to stay within scram on him it's only going to go faster.  But my rails and drones are chewing through shield fast so I don't want to let go.  He's into armor as my cap bottoms out.  I have to hope that someone else in our rag-tag group (we're not even fleeted) has a point on him, so I try to fire my guns whenever I get enough cap and keep relatively close to him.  The arty Rupture goes down.  GFs in local again.  Really great of Dan to keep coming out when outnumbered to see what he can take down and give GFs to his ex-corpmates.

Lessons
MWD plus Scram ever? I'm still undecided on this because it means that once I'm scrammed there is no getting away.  Now in an Algos (which isn't that fast to begin with) it's not that I'm getting away when AB-fit either, really, so I think it's okay.  Getting away isn't something I've generally been that successful for.  Plus, if I'm working in a fleet then it's going to be more about getting in there and doing my ganky thing.

In my opponent's head.  In the last fight I'm not sure why Dan neuted me but had turned his artillery on the faster, smaller frigates.  Maybe one of them had low transversal and he hoped to pop them fast with a volley or two.  And since the Algos is a drone boat neuting me didn't actually lower my dps on him by that much.  Or maybe he was like me most times where things become a blur.

Neuts target selection.  I'm new to using neut, though I've had a nos as an afterthought on some frigs in the past.  Is neuting a Stabber or Rupture really a good use of my own cap, given that they are using cap-less weapon systems?  I don't know those ships well enough to know if a bit of cap pressure is enough to start impacting Invulns and MWDs.



As a funny aside.  As pointless as killboards can be it is still a bit frustrating that I got top damage by a lot on both of those kills, but not final blow.  Perhaps payback for when I was lucky enough to get final blow on the Cynabal on the last roam even though I did a very small portion of the damage.