Most of the time, stepping outside the box will get you killed in Eve. Innovation and creative thinking are not the Eve players best friends... usually. In rare instances however, bending the rules or changing things up can take your enemies off guard, or better yet, set a new standard - for how things are done.
From the top let me be crystal clear, I am not advocating anything in this post. Time and place are huge determining factors in how you fit your ships. Not to mention the skill of those around you. But I thought I would give you two examples of how bending the rules can sometimes help you achieve your goals.
The ECM Drake
We've probably all been here at one point or another. You have a good gang running and it looks like the enemy will engage, when suddenly they get the sniff that you have a Falcon with you and they run away. Few ships can curb the enemies will to attack faster than the Falcon, especially small gangs of equal size. Certainly there is much you can do to alleviate this problem, like not bringing a Falcon along. But let's be real.
This was the starting point for this stoopid idea. What if you hid the Falcon inside another ship? One so innocuous no one would expect it? The perfect platform? Well, that doesn't exist, so I thought I'd try it with a Drake.
I tried this once and it actually worked like a charm. This does not prove nor disprove the validity of the concept one way or the other, but it did work. Once.
Take a standard Drake fit and rip everything out of the mids except one LSE II and a Prop Mod, most likely the Y-T8 MWD. The remaining slots pack with ECM to flavor. Highs are the usual Heavies, but I think it might have only fit 6 instead of 7. (I'm fitting this from memory, so figure it out yourself) Now low slots, instead of BCII load up signal distortions, nanos and forego the DC, you might need a PD depending on your skill level. I think I may have even had a SB in the mids, to increase locking speed, but I can't be sure.
This isn't a replacement for a Falcon obviously, but no one expects to be jammed by a Drake. The element of surprise. Good luck, you'll need it.
The HurriCurse
This is even more stoopid, but again it worked once. In response to yet another game changing ship, the evil Curse. Which, next to the Falcon, is another "run away" ship. So this idea hit me at the moment I could actually fly a Hurricane but not yet fit T2 guns on it. What if you could hide a curse inside a Hurricane?
Just like the dumb idea above, this one worked several times before I stopped doing it. It was only one gang, but I remember killing a bunch of ships during that roam. So, read into that whatever you want.
Fitting this thing is easy, cram as many medium neuts into the hi-slots as you can, I believe it was three with maybe one more faction or meta smashed in. The rest? Well that is totally up to your skill levels, how many cap boosters, signal boosters, and whatnots you can actually fit. If I remember right it was only one cap booster, two sebo, prop, and a armor tank on the one I used. This was well over a year ago, so memory serves.
It isn't a replacement for the Curse of course. But, once again, no one expects to be neuted out by a totally Cane gang either, so you have that.
Maybe another post and I will tell you about some other terrible fits that actually worked and a few that failed miserably.