With the cloaky-boosh mechanic, almost all booshers should now have a cloak, as such this article is outdated
A good while ago, I did some exploration with how to fit a usefull smallgang Boosher. Since then, I have kept experimenting with booshers, particularly the Bifrost quite a bit, and in the process also learned some things about other ships. Here is my journey start to finish.
Beginnings
At the very start, I realized that having links and a micro jump field generator as a support would help quite a lot. Originally, my corpmate Web Driver was flying around in 5mn Point capbooster fit Booshers, which he would use as links and tackle.
Standard Boosh
I had privously already made a post about fitting a Bifrost for actual booshing. The TLDR is that with a 1mn and Scram one can get out of a lot of the spicy situations after a Boosh, which gives the opportunity to do multiple Booshes and survive. The Bifost most suitable for this purpose seems to be something like this.
Standard Boosh Bifrost (Patented by AP, do not steal)
[Bifrost, 3link 6mn MSE DCU (Backpack) A21 <<]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
IFFA Compact Damage Control
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Caldari Navy Medium Shield Extender
Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scrambler
Micro Jump Field Generator
1MN Afterburner II
Core Probe Launcher I /OFFLINE
Information Command Burst II, Electronic Superiority Charge /OFFLINE
Shield Command Burst II, Shield Harmonizing Charge /OFFLINE
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Interdiction Maneuvers Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Evasive Maneuvers Charge
Small Command Processor I
Small Command Processor I
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Navy Cap Booster 400 x28
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Core Scanner Probe I x16
Rash Compact Burst Jammer x1
Antiroll
Quite quickly, I realized that one place where a Bifrost would be very useful when living in a Wormhole was to boosh Rolling Battleships of their respective wormholes, giving easy fights. These booshers had requirements that where different in key aspects from other fights. As now it was needed to offensively hold down rollers until someone could pick up point, they would have to stay on target for longer after a boosh and keep scram. If the roller had guns, the buffer of a Standard fit was often not enough. And if it had neuts, it would quickly lose scram. It would also sometimes get scrammed before getting the boosh off.People would also often stop their rolling actions if they saw a boosher on the other side of the WH. After a while of thinking about it, I came up with the following solution.
Anti-Roll Bifrost
[Bifrost, 2link 10mn MSE Inject (Roller Boosh) A11]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core
Damage Control II
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Small F-RX Compact Capacitor Booster
Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scrambler
Micro Jump Field Generator
Core Probe Launcher I /OFFLINE
Small I-ax Enduring Remote Armor Repairer /OFFLINE
Small Remote Hull Repairer I /OFFLINE
Skirmish Command Burst II, Evasive Maneuvers Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Small Command Processor I
Small Core Defense Field Extender II
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Navy Cap Booster 400 x32
Nanite Repair Paste x50
Core Scanner Probe I x16
This variant relies on a 10mn Afterburner, as well as Rapid Deployment and Evasive Maneuvering for links Links, which together allow you to move fast enough to get to any position where a roller might decloak, while keeping the signature low enough that there is no chance he locks it before the boosh goes off - unless the roller has a Sensor Booster fitted.
At the same time it had slightly more tank and a nos to facilitate keeping tackle long enough, as well as a cloak which allow to preposition it at a wormhole undetected.
Mainline DPS
Relatively shortly thereafter, I saw some videos of VLD flying a Bifrost as DPS, and decided to try the same. Initially, the fit was like this.
VLD’s LML Bifrost
[Bifrost, [VLD Miromme] LML 5mn MSB Inject]
'Full Duplex' Ballistic Control System
'Full Duplex' Ballistic Control System
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
'Interruptive' Warp Disruptor
Caldari Navy Stasis Webifier
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Small 'Siesta' Capacitor Booster
Coreli B-Type 5MN Microwarpdrive
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Skirmish Command Burst I, Interdiction Maneuvers Charge
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Small Bay Loading Accelerator II
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Mid-grade Snake Alpha
Mid-grade Snake Beta
Mid-grade Snake Gamma
Mid-grade Snake Delta
Mid-grade Snake Epsilon
Mid-grade Snake Omega
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-703
Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link
Zainou 'Snapshot' Light Missiles LM-903
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Improved Blue Pill Booster
Synth Crash Booster
Agency 'Overclocker' SB7 Dose III
Inferno Fury Light Missile x530
Mjolnir Fury Light Missile x530
Nova Fury Light Missile x530
Scourge Fury Light Missile x530
Navy Cap Booster 400 x26
Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile x530
Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile x530
Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile x530
Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile x530
Nanite Repair Paste x200
My usecase was however rather different. Living in lowclass wormhole space around 2020 to 2021, one could slowly feel the meta shifting, from Wingspan style cloaky playstyle to more kite. The cloaky meta at the time was either relatively cheap buffer fits, which could simply stay until buffer depleets and jump a wormhole or simply get replaced and highly expensive active tanked ships which, with some luck, could simply the entire enemy fleet.
Kiting against the buffer variants was almost always a win, and vs the active variants you usually had plenty of time to get the right reinforcements. As a result, wormhole space slowly became more kitey. Without the locktime and common warps between friends and enemies, agility and speed was however much less of a factor, resulting in (to this day) oftentimes cruiser-heavy kitey gangs.
The LML Bifrost here could easily kite the old guard of cloakies, and was fast enough to outrun most Lokis (usually going 1500 m/s and having one web). At the same time, it just about survived vs most nano cruisers as well and could run away from them just fine. This gave it a good niche at the time (I am unsure if that is still the case today, I don’t fly in WHs enough anymore and Marauder rebalance had significant impacts). Funnily enough it could even win 1v1s vs Battleships like Hyperions, as it’s capbooster would cycle faster than their heavy neut, and it’s cap charges would last a lot longer.
I tried a bunch of versions of this fit, going for more agility, speed or tank. But it turns out VLD was right, and the one that felt best to fly was one that was fitted pretty much the same as the base model, just “slightly” abyssaled to fix the CPU problem.
Survival
An interesting subfield of the DPS Bifrost was that you could often get fights as the enemies did not expect it to tank. To further this direction, I experimented with fits that as the Mainline DPS Bifrost were actively tanked, but did have less or no damage. Initially, I had experiemented with just adding a kinetic rig, which was enough to make a lot of the engagements vs RLML users more confortable. Eventually I however started to go even more towards the tank side, and ditched DPS entirely.
5mn Survival Bifrost
[Bifrost, 2link 5mn MSB (Bling Tackle) A22 <<]
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Dread Guristas Warp Disruptor
Federation Navy Stasis Webifier
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Small F-RX Compact Capacitor Booster, Navy Cap Booster 400
Coreli A-Type 5MN Microwarpdrive
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Information Command Burst II, Electronic Superiority Charge /OFFLINE
Shield Command Burst II, Active Shielding Charge /OFFLINE
Shield Command Burst II, Shield Harmonizing Charge /OFFLINE
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Interdiction Maneuvers Charge
Small Kinetic Shield Reinforcer II
Small Command Processor I
Mid-grade Snake Alpha
Mid-grade Snake Beta
Mid-grade Snake Gamma
Mid-grade Snake Delta
Mid-grade Snake Epsilon
Mid-grade Snake Omega
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-703
Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Navy Cap Booster 400 x28
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Core Scanner Probe I x16
Additionally at this point I also started playing around with 10mn Afterburners again. The goal was mostly to be able to fly more agressively and not fear getting scrammed, but in switching to 10mn the sigtank increased once again.
10mn Survival Bifrost
[Bifrost, 2link 10mn MSB (Bling Tackle) A11]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Damage Control II
Federation Navy 10MN Afterburner
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Federation Navy Stasis Webifier
Caldari Navy Warp Disruptor
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Information Command Burst II, Electronic Superiority Charge /OFFLINE
Shield Command Burst II, Shield Harmonizing Charge /OFFLINE
Shield Command Burst I, Shield Extension Charge /OFFLINE
Skirmish Command Burst II, Interdiction Maneuvers Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Small Command Processor I
Small Ancillary Current Router II
Mid-grade Snake Alpha
Mid-grade Snake Beta
Mid-grade Snake Gamma
Mid-grade Snake Delta
Mid-grade Snake Epsilon
Mid-grade Snake Omega
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-703
Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Improved Blue Pill Booster
Agency 'Overclocker' SB7 Dose III
Navy Cap Booster 400 x28
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Core Scanner Probe I x16
To put into perspective just how tanky this thing is, it takes about twice as much DPS (with the same application) to kill one of these, as it takes to kill an interceptor. But ot doesn’t run out of ancil / cap, can not be stopped by a single heavy neut, and does not care about getting scrammed. Results end up looking something like this.
Antitackle
By this time, I had switched to more nullsec content, and in doing so realized one of they key problems with the Mainline DPS Bifrost. LML (and also RLML) just don’t apply all that well. Versus a relatively squishy Inteceptor, I would only apply about half of my DPS if I webbed him, and even less otherwise.
Typically the Bifrost would have range control on the other Frigate with it’s linked faction web being longer than most Interceptor’s scrams, but killing an interceptor without loosing web and it running away, or getting scrammed and his friends killing you was difficult (and it most cases would just take to long).
To get more application, I started experimenting with rockets. After the first attempt was a failure (way to inagile), I eventually setteled on the following fit.
Ramfrost
[Bifrost, RL 1link 6mn MSB A12]
Ballistic Control System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
IFFA Compact Damage Control
Coreli A-Type 1MN Afterburner
Small F-RX Compact Capacitor Booster, Navy Cap Booster 400
Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scrambler
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Small Bay Loading Accelerator II
Small Kinetic Shield Reinforcer II
Mid-grade Snake Alpha
Mid-grade Snake Beta
Mid-grade Snake Gamma
Mid-grade Snake Delta
Mid-grade Snake Epsilon
Mid-grade Snake Omega
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-703
Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link
Zainou 'Snapshot' Rockets RD-903
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Improved Blue Pill Booster
Synth Crash Booster
Agency 'Overclocker' SB5 Dose II
Inferno Rage Rocket x1000
Mjolnir Rage Rocket x1000
Nova Rage Rocket x1000
Scourge Rage Rocket x1000
Navy Cap Booster 400 x28
Nanite Repair Paste x200
Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket x1000
Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket x1000
Caldari Navy Nova Rocket x1000
Caldari Navy Scourge Rocket x1000
Crucially it can outrun unsnaked interceptors, which makes you able to chose your engagements quite freely. At the same time, it can go in hard and easily outrangecontrol the Interceptor at close range. This results in some really funny situations where I would “seperate” from my cruiser gang on purpose, get “chased down” by some interceptor, only to scram him and return the favour. It still could tank lone RLML users as well, so you also were viable ramtackle.
Link Diversification
At this point, I started flying bigger ships than just cruisers, and as a result I now ran into more situations where evasive maneuvering was not really that usefull, and one would much rather have Shield Harmonizing or Armor Energizing Links. At the same time, I started flying more with damps, where an Electronic Superiority link would be useful. As a result the list of contestants for highslots on the Standard support fit grew. At the same time with the introduction of the “Center on Me” Button, it was now viable to put probes into space quite precisely.
I realized that always having probes was the right thing, but the previous Hull and Armor Reppairers (which I seldomly used) had to go for extra links. In a typical roam or engagement, I would undock my Bifrost as fast as possible and then check that the right links where online while undocking, This limited me to changing one link at the time before warping off. So I ended up with Rapid and Interdiction as permanent links, and would switch in between Evasive, Energizing and Harmonizing.
Interestingly with this change, my designspace in cruisers would increase as well. I had for a while now been experimenting with “spicy” fits. These often had unreasonably thin active tank layers but would achieve greater extended buffer after some time. Think of non plated Vedmaks, Shield Cruisers with XLASB and no LSE and so fourth. Turns out these ships are a lot less spicy, and a lot more viable if you have the corresponding link. As an example, here is a very “spicy” Loki before links:
And after applying links:
Scout
Since I had at this point mostly transitioned to fighting in Nullsec, I needed a somewhat cheap scout which Ideally still could give me some links and boosh defensively. I tried a couple of iterations, and eventually realized that having high speed was working quite nicely to evade even light drones, while at the same time obviously giving you good potential to catch things. Combined with an online probe launcher and a few good probe formations, this made it that you could even get people who where presumably save at pings.
5mn Tackle Bifrost
[Bifrost, 2link 5mnjfg 2MSE (Normal Tackle) A12 <<]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Overdrive Injector System II
Coreli A-Type 5MN Microwarpdrive
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Micro Jump Field Generator
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Caldari Navy Warp Disruptor
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Information Command Burst II, Electronic Superiority Charge /OFFLINE
Shield Command Burst II, Shield Harmonizing Charge /OFFLINE
Shield Command Burst II, Shield Extension Charge /OFFLINE
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Interdiction Maneuvers Charge
Small Command Processor I
Small Core Defense Field Extender II
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Navigation NN-603
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-703
Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Navy Cap Booster 400 x20
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Core Scanner Probe I x16
Hybrid DPS
I was quite certain that the 10mn versions were cool, but I still had a problem to solve. Sometimes my 10mn Bifrost would get “stuck” on a grid, indefinitely held down by a faster interceptor, which would eventually result in the loss of the Bifrost. The only way to survive was to warp in some DPS that could kill the Ceptor(s). Just adding some of DPS on the Bifrost would be enough to get it out. So I figured the following thing with Genos could be interesting to fly.
10mn LML Genofrost
[Bifrost, LML 1link 10mn MSB B11 <<]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System [1]
Gistum C-Type 10MN Afterburner [2]
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Small F-RX Compact Capacitor Booster, Navy Cap Booster 400
Federation Navy Stasis Webifier
Dread Guristas Warp Disruptor
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Small Command Processor I
Small Ancillary Current Router II
Genolution Core Augmentation CA-1
Genolution Core Augmentation CA-4
Genolution Core Augmentation CA-3
Genolution Core Augmentation CA-2
Low-grade Snake Epsilon
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Navigation NN-605
Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-705
Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link
Zainou 'Snapshot' Light Missiles LM-905
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Improved Blue Pill Booster
Synth Crash Booster
Agency 'Overclocker' SB7 Dose III
AIR Agility Booster II
State Mobility Booster II
State Damage Booster II
Inferno Fury Light Missile x530
Mjolnir Fury Light Missile x530
Nova Fury Light Missile x530
Scourge Fury Light Missile x530
Navy Cap Booster 400 x24
Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile x1060
Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile x1060
Caldari Navy Nova Light Missile x1060
Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile x1060
Nanite Repair Paste x200
Border-5 'Pochven' Filament x1
[1] Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Unstable Ballistic Control System Mutaplasmid
cpu 24.2904, missileDamageMultiplierBonus 1.107053, speedMultiplier 0.879053
[2] Gistum C-Type 10MN Afterburner
Gravid 10MN Afterburner Mutaplasmid
capacitorNeed 64.54, cpu 32.3875, power 49.7437, speedFactor 156.24
Eventually I realized however that one could just make the 10mn version fast enough to outrun normal Interceptors without giving up much on tank once speed is up.
Support Diversification
With the WCS changes, I started experimenting with stabbed Bifrosts. The stab would often make you survive after one more Boosh, and reduce multiboxing complexity. The standard fit would kinda work with a stab, but the EHP was uncomfortably low. At the same time I still had problems with getting all the links I wanted, and sometimes I was flying a Shield Bifrost (with an Armor Link) with Armor DPS and Logi, which was not ideal. Also having the correct capcharges in the Bifrost at all times was difficult.
So I ended up making a bunch of versions of the Standard fit on different boosher hulls, one for each ocasion: Armor Kiting, Armor Brawling, Shield Kiting, Shield Brawling. The Kiting ones are tripple link, dual prop MJFG fits, as I want Rapid + Interdiction as well as Evasive or a Tank / Info Link. The brawly ones are dual link, dual prop MJFG fits with a stab, that makes them slower, but easier to multibox. With only having two links, they have the Highslots for two Nosses and a Cloak (of which at any one point two can be online), which allows them to be decent at holding down enemy ships or unexpectedly moving people around.
Brawl Boosh Stork
[Stork, 2link 2nos 6mn MSE WCS (Backpack Brawl) <<]
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
IFFA Compact Damage Control
1MN Afterburner II
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scrambler
Micro Jump Field Generator
Compact Multispectrum Shield Hardener
5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Small Ghoul Compact Energy Nosferatu
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I /OFFLINE
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Shield Command Burst II, Active Shielding Charge
Shield Command Burst II, Shield Harmonizing Charge
Small Ghoul Compact Energy Nosferatu /OFFLINE
Small Command Processor I
Small EM Shield Reinforcer II
Shield Command Mindlink
Navy Cap Booster 3200 x4
Nanite Repair Paste x100
Core Scanner Probe I x16
Rash Compact Burst Jammer x1
Brawl Boosh Magus
[Magus, 2link 6mn (Backpack Brawl)]
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
Imperial Navy 200mm Steel Plates
Multispectrum Coating II
Coreli A-Type Explosive Coating
5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Initiated Compact Warp Scrambler
Micro Jump Field Generator
1MN Afterburner II
Small Ghoul Compact Energy Nosferatu /OFFLINE
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Armor Command Burst II, Armor Energizing Charge
Armor Command Burst II, Rapid Repair Charge
Small Ghoul Compact Energy Nosferatu
Small Command Processor I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Caldari Navy Hornet x3
Imperial Navy Acolyte x3
Republic Fleet Warrior x3
Hornet EC-300 x3
Armored Command Mindlink
Navy Cap Booster 3200 x4
Nanite Repair Paste x50
Rash Compact Burst Jammer x1
Kite Boosh Magus
[Magus, 3link 6mn 200mm (Backpack Armor) <<]
Imperial Navy 200mm Steel Plates
Multispectrum Coating II
Coreli A-Type Explosive Coating
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Micro Jump Field Generator
'Delineative' Warp Scrambler
1MN Afterburner II
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I /OFFLINE
Skirmish Command Burst II, Evasive Maneuvers Charge /OFFLINE
Armor Command Burst II, Armor Energizing Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Interdiction Maneuvers Charge
Skirmish Command Burst II, Rapid Deployment Charge
Small Command Processor I
Small Command Processor I
Acolyte II x3
Imperial Navy Infiltrator x2
Hornet EC-300 x5
Skirmish Command Mindlink
Navy Cap Booster 800 x15
Nanite Repair Paste x200
Core Scanner Probe I x16
Here there are still some open points that I am experimenting with. Currently I don’t fit burstjammers onto any of my Booshers, which is something that could make them more effective. So far I tried to have them in cargo as refit (the Scram can always be changed to a compact Burstjammer), but figuring out when to refit is hard. I also don’t have any way to sustain the armor tanked variants, which limits their usefullness.
Aftermath
With that many different fits and variations out there, it might be interesting to see which ones “stuck” and are still used, and which ones eventually did not get replaced. Currently I have the following selection:
-
Standard Boosh Fit with all 4 Variants
-
Ramfrost
-
Scout Bifrost
-
10mn Survival Bifrost
-
5mn Survival Bifrost
Future
Currently I am experimenting with dual web or dual prop + scram LML Storks to kill light tackle in reasonable time. I have also been looking at other hulls that can run links, can sigtank in some way and have a resist bonus.
Even though I spend a lot of time organizing my ideas and fits, and trying to get a good grasp of how things relate to each other, there is just nothing as cool as the chaos that ensues when enough booshers hit the grid.