Got online tonight, and Superpooper mentioned that some of the Forsaken Federation members were active in the Amoen loop. These guys are fun to play with, though in the last fairly long while they'll only undock if they've got better numbers, or ship-types then what I/my friends come in, which pushes me towards nano-fagging around to try pick some off and disengage.
Heading in there today with my trusty Nano-Hurricane. The grid-nerf hurt my fit a little bit but not h orribly, so I'm alright with that.
Getting into Amoen I had a Drake and Retriever on scan, soon had them scanned down to the belt and warped in. Lock. Disrupt... nothing happens. Hit the disruptor and guns, still nothing happens. Remember about the damn green safety, turn it off, and got the Ret. The entire time this has been going on Superpooper was grabbing a drake of his own to come, once the Retriever was down, I pointed the Drake while loading EMP. Loaded, firing, taking chunks out of his shields with every volley. Mentioning Super better hurry, I turned off the heat on the top rack so he could get on. Not paying too much attention to anything as the Drake wasn't hurting to bad, Super mentions that he's too far off and won't be able to get in range, I look at distances, and sure enough the Drake is burning away while I had turned off my MWD to preserve cap. Overheating the mids, I gave chase, dropping point for a split second when he gets out to 30km away, but doesn't manage to warp in time. Able to re-establish point, I went and finished the drake.
Before we had left system, there was a Vexor on scan, after chasing him around I caught up to him on the Ruerotta gate, with Super landing I engaged, and soon saw the Vexor engage back. Dropped him pretty quick, though I think solo I'd probably have had issues breaking his tank before the drones/sentries did their part.
After repairing and dropping off loot, we ended up down in Avaux, with Super now in a sniper Oracle, and myself still in the nano-cane, since we saw 5 reds in system. After a few minutes, A Talos undocked, and warped off, coming back at a safe 200km off the station, sniping my 'cane. Getting the idea for Super's alt to probe out and warp us in on the Talos, we give it a shot, but sadly have the Talos warp off before we're able to do that. After trying to accomplish similar things afterwards with no luck, they started undocking more and more. With Super's Oracle forcing an Abbadon to dock a couple times, eventually they undocked a Hawk, Myrm and Tornado to go with the Talos and Abbadon. With Super's probes already in place, the Talos and Hawk warped in, with the Tornado warping to the hawk (which wasn't with the Talos, but still 200km off). Probed, warping... Talos warped off. Made the call to go after the Tornado and Hawk instead, though I figured already it was suicide.
Landing next to the Tornado, and about 30km off the Hawk, I right away set orbit to 500 and overheated the top rack, trying to get through what I hoped was a real thin tank as fast as possible. With the Talos warping back at 100 and taking shots, the Hawk burning to us, and an Abbadon & Myrm aligning to us, that was about all my hope. Sadly, the Tornado had a stiffer tank than I had expected, and the Hawk was there scramming me pretty quickly, so I swapped my neuts over to him. Finally dropping the Tornado, with my own ship nearly out of shields, I tried to drop the Hawk, and in a couple volleys nearly had him out of shield, at which point he warped off, breaking tackle on me. Had I been aligned at this point, I could have gotten out, but I was too slow, as the Abbadon grabbed me. I had been speed tanking the Abbadon before, but combined with the DPS from the sniper-talos, and Myrmidon there, it was not to be as my Hurricane dropped. 5v2, and coming out equal on the # of kills, and ahead on the efficiency, all good in my books.
I've tried flying the Bellicose and Stabber a few times now, and I think once I've got my missile-distance skills trained up a bit higher (they're both at 3 right now, both 4 should be sufficient I hope) I think that the Bellicose may be my go-to Cruiser. Good speed, decent damage + projection. The Stabber though. I'm quite sad about the state of the Stabber. It may have it's place for a new player in a nano-fleet or something like that, but by itself, it's basically garbage. I skirmished with it against a larger gang of cruisers, and a Thrasher, and going after the Thrasher, landing good hits, he wasn't all that close to dying when I had to warp out due to the rest of the gang getting close, and nearly being out of cap. I later lost it due to :badatkiting: against a Moa (Vexor just whored on the KM, I was as good as dead well before he arrived).
Still need to give the Rupture a real try, it seems like not all that much has changed, so it should still be decent, I'm just afraid it'll have Rifter syndrome, and be out-classed by all it's competition (and we don't have the Stabber to be the Slasher, and be a viable alternative).
It's been a fun few days.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Monday, 3 December 2012
Expensive Battleships
Saturday night, just got back from grabbing a bite of dinner out of pod, when I saw Sadie the Goat mention "Raven Navy Issue" on scan on Iges, towards a moon with a tower, and no forcefield.With my alt out of system, I decided to bring him in and just be sure where they were. Coming into Iges, it was sat on the gate, 40km off with it's tech 1 drones deployed.
Rather unsure of what I had that could take it, I decided to grab my Cyclone, as the ASB nerf is coming up and I'm unsure of it's fit. Warping to the gate at range, I landed nearly next to the battleship, and locked it up seeing what it would do. Sure enough, it returned the lock, and opened fire. Soon though, the overview was lighting up. Nemesis, Scorpion Navy Issue, Cyclone. All were right there, though the damage wasn't too high, I took the blue-pill from my carghohold just in case. Mostly worried about the Nemesis at this point, I was yet unable to lock it, with it hitting me from over 60km away, but I was in luck, as he burned towards me and I could lock him, and set my drones on him.
Turning my attention back to the Raven, I overheated the top rack, trying to break his shields as quickly as I could. Looking back at the overview, I noticed the Nemesis was right next to me, and deep into armor. Taking my web and scram off the Raven, I put them on the Nemesis to ensure its destruction. Back on the first Battleship, I looked over at my still overheated guns, and tried to turn off the heat, too late. They deactivated from the damage. Ungrouping the guns, it showed they were completely burnt, not a single one left. Faced with only drone damage to try and break these ships, I made the call to eject after I had burned a couple more charges in my Ancillary Shield Booster, leaving the ship with four charges left sadly. As I docked up and jumped into my Vagabond, I got the Insurance Eve-mail. Warping back to the gate, the Cyclone had left, but both of the expensive Battleships were still there.
Going back to work on the Raven, who I had put into half armor previously, it took much longer than I expected for it to drop. Turning my attention to the Scorpion Navy Issue after that, the Cyclone came back. Through some piloting error, it got next to me, and alpha'd my capacitor. Turned out it was completely neut fit. With no cap to keep the Scorp locked down, it stuck around a while longer, getting into low-armor before warping out. Figuring a Cyclone to be a good runner up for a Scorpion, I turned my fire to him, though expecting it to warp out before I could kill it, as I was unable to maintain point. Updating my short-range D-scan, the SNI was back on scan, and sure enough landed 40km off again. With the Cyclone deciding to just stop near the gate, it allowed me to burn out of neut range, and get some cap to pin down the Scorpion. The Cyclone then proceeded to jump out of system, and leave me to finish the more expensive battleship (Repo.'s killboard doesn't like the lock-breaker module yet).
While all but the Nemesis pilot were really new from what I recall, and none of them are well fit (other than the Nem), it was definitely some of the most fun I've had in Eve. Nearly the most ISK I've killed in a fight also.
On other things related to the game, I'm pretty excited for Retribution. I've been training up my missile skills to a decent degree, so I'll probably be flying HAM Bellicose/Drakes soon. I'm really interested to see how the Stabber turns out. I've got a number of hulls to experiment with, so it should be good. Going to be training up rockets next for the Talwar, and I'll probably end up training Caldari and Amarr frigate to 5 afterwards, get a few more ships into the fold.
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
Chord
Rather unsure of what I had that could take it, I decided to grab my Cyclone, as the ASB nerf is coming up and I'm unsure of it's fit. Warping to the gate at range, I landed nearly next to the battleship, and locked it up seeing what it would do. Sure enough, it returned the lock, and opened fire. Soon though, the overview was lighting up. Nemesis, Scorpion Navy Issue, Cyclone. All were right there, though the damage wasn't too high, I took the blue-pill from my carghohold just in case. Mostly worried about the Nemesis at this point, I was yet unable to lock it, with it hitting me from over 60km away, but I was in luck, as he burned towards me and I could lock him, and set my drones on him.
Turning my attention back to the Raven, I overheated the top rack, trying to break his shields as quickly as I could. Looking back at the overview, I noticed the Nemesis was right next to me, and deep into armor. Taking my web and scram off the Raven, I put them on the Nemesis to ensure its destruction. Back on the first Battleship, I looked over at my still overheated guns, and tried to turn off the heat, too late. They deactivated from the damage. Ungrouping the guns, it showed they were completely burnt, not a single one left. Faced with only drone damage to try and break these ships, I made the call to eject after I had burned a couple more charges in my Ancillary Shield Booster, leaving the ship with four charges left sadly. As I docked up and jumped into my Vagabond, I got the Insurance Eve-mail. Warping back to the gate, the Cyclone had left, but both of the expensive Battleships were still there.
Going back to work on the Raven, who I had put into half armor previously, it took much longer than I expected for it to drop. Turning my attention to the Scorpion Navy Issue after that, the Cyclone came back. Through some piloting error, it got next to me, and alpha'd my capacitor. Turned out it was completely neut fit. With no cap to keep the Scorp locked down, it stuck around a while longer, getting into low-armor before warping out. Figuring a Cyclone to be a good runner up for a Scorpion, I turned my fire to him, though expecting it to warp out before I could kill it, as I was unable to maintain point. Updating my short-range D-scan, the SNI was back on scan, and sure enough landed 40km off again. With the Cyclone deciding to just stop near the gate, it allowed me to burn out of neut range, and get some cap to pin down the Scorpion. The Cyclone then proceeded to jump out of system, and leave me to finish the more expensive battleship (Repo.'s killboard doesn't like the lock-breaker module yet).
While all but the Nemesis pilot were really new from what I recall, and none of them are well fit (other than the Nem), it was definitely some of the most fun I've had in Eve. Nearly the most ISK I've killed in a fight also.
On other things related to the game, I'm pretty excited for Retribution. I've been training up my missile skills to a decent degree, so I'll probably be flying HAM Bellicose/Drakes soon. I'm really interested to see how the Stabber turns out. I've got a number of hulls to experiment with, so it should be good. Going to be training up rockets next for the Talwar, and I'll probably end up training Caldari and Amarr frigate to 5 afterwards, get a few more ships into the fold.
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
Chord
Sunday, 25 November 2012
Brawling in Saikamon
So, with some discussions among the corp as to possibly moving to a new area of space for a while, it came up that there were some good looking systems out in the Bleak Lands to possibly check out. Feeling the need to get out of Placid for a while, I right away offered to check the area out. Grabbing what I needed, and heading out in my Wolf yesterday, I had a rather uneventful trip out. The first while I was in the area, I just wrote some reports on activity, and the local groups, but didn't look for any fights.
Today though, while sitting in station in Saikamon, I saw that there were a few more people in local. Deciding to check what was outside, I undocked, seeing a Cormorant, and Enyo on scan. The Enyo seemed to be towards the sun, but by the time I warped out there, he was gone, and both were on scan at a FW Major complex. Warping there, had the Corm sitting 40km off the gate, and the Enyo nowhere to be seen. Going though into the complex, the Enyo still wasn't there, so I warped back out, and came back for the Cormorant. Warping at range this time, I still landed around 40km off the Cormorant, but went for it this time. Figuring it was a rail-rant, I kept transversal as high as I could, though I wasn't sure how much good it'd do. He let me spiral in close, and never activated any prop mod, and his tank didn't last.
With short-range scan showing a Caracal, Thrasher, and the Enyo, I figured I had better bug out. Warping to my safe spot near the sun, I repaired my guns from heat damage while keeping an eye on scan, and where these guys were. The Thrasher and Enyo were at the sun, looking for me it seemed, so I warped at max range to get a good look at them. Blasters, and artillery. Warping at range to a planet, I hoped the Thrasher may land on top of me. Sure enough, waiting a little has the Thrasher right on top of me. He scratched me with a couple volleys, but not too much damage as his guns couldn't track, and the second destroyer popped.
With the Enyo landing on grid, I wasn't sure about fighting him yet with the Caracal around, so I warped back to my safe, and waited to see what they would do. With the Enyo still at the same planet, and the Caracal elsewhere, I warped back to the planet, to see the Enyo just over 100km off of my warp-in.
Hitting the afterburner and heading out towards him, he did the same, locking each other up, I opened fire just under 20km landing some glancing blows. I missed my normal timing to try burn away from him and keep range as large as possible, and soon he had his web on me. Overheated guns, point, and afterburner, I tried to open up as much space between his blasters and my hull as possible, with him already taking armor damage before even hitting me, I was already in good shape. Overheating the rep, I didn't turn it on nearly quick enough, and saw massive chunks of my all-too-thin armor get blasted away. With his ship taking structure damage already I was fairly confident, but didn't want to keep range at all yet. My armor repair getting a couple of cycles in, it was enough to drop him before any damage made it to my own structure.
With the Caracal on scan, I bookmarked the wreck, and got out before I was at any risk, and when the Cruiser wasn't on scan towards that planet anymore, went back and grabbed my loot. A good first time in the area.
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
Today though, while sitting in station in Saikamon, I saw that there were a few more people in local. Deciding to check what was outside, I undocked, seeing a Cormorant, and Enyo on scan. The Enyo seemed to be towards the sun, but by the time I warped out there, he was gone, and both were on scan at a FW Major complex. Warping there, had the Corm sitting 40km off the gate, and the Enyo nowhere to be seen. Going though into the complex, the Enyo still wasn't there, so I warped back out, and came back for the Cormorant. Warping at range this time, I still landed around 40km off the Cormorant, but went for it this time. Figuring it was a rail-rant, I kept transversal as high as I could, though I wasn't sure how much good it'd do. He let me spiral in close, and never activated any prop mod, and his tank didn't last.
With short-range scan showing a Caracal, Thrasher, and the Enyo, I figured I had better bug out. Warping to my safe spot near the sun, I repaired my guns from heat damage while keeping an eye on scan, and where these guys were. The Thrasher and Enyo were at the sun, looking for me it seemed, so I warped at max range to get a good look at them. Blasters, and artillery. Warping at range to a planet, I hoped the Thrasher may land on top of me. Sure enough, waiting a little has the Thrasher right on top of me. He scratched me with a couple volleys, but not too much damage as his guns couldn't track, and the second destroyer popped.
With the Enyo landing on grid, I wasn't sure about fighting him yet with the Caracal around, so I warped back to my safe, and waited to see what they would do. With the Enyo still at the same planet, and the Caracal elsewhere, I warped back to the planet, to see the Enyo just over 100km off of my warp-in.
Hitting the afterburner and heading out towards him, he did the same, locking each other up, I opened fire just under 20km landing some glancing blows. I missed my normal timing to try burn away from him and keep range as large as possible, and soon he had his web on me. Overheated guns, point, and afterburner, I tried to open up as much space between his blasters and my hull as possible, with him already taking armor damage before even hitting me, I was already in good shape. Overheating the rep, I didn't turn it on nearly quick enough, and saw massive chunks of my all-too-thin armor get blasted away. With his ship taking structure damage already I was fairly confident, but didn't want to keep range at all yet. My armor repair getting a couple of cycles in, it was enough to drop him before any damage made it to my own structure.
With the Caracal on scan, I bookmarked the wreck, and got out before I was at any risk, and when the Cruiser wasn't on scan towards that planet anymore, went back and grabbed my loot. A good first time in the area.
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Carrier down! and ~goodfites~
This game just keeps getting better. Though this month started with my most expensive loss to date, it's come back, and I'm over 75% efficiency when I post this. Most of that though, came at one time.
I did some null-sec roaming a little while back, with a stock of Ruptures that I had earmarked to lose out there. While mostly unsuccessful I grabbed a Crow out of a Frigate gang, along with nearly a Hawk before the Kitsune was able to jam me, and I ran. Soon later I lost that rupture as I was expecting a Stiletto to actually try tackle me, but instead he provided a warp-in for the rest of his gang who were ~70 from me, but the Stiletto got out to range.
More recently though, while in Amasiree I noticed a couple players from Forsaken Federation leaving system, but not being in the rest of the local systems. Letting Superpooper and Vulturus know about it, I brought my prober out and scanned down the wormholes in system. The first one I checked, sure enough the Talos and Retriever I had seen were in the Wormhole there. As we all warped to the hole, the Talos came back to the hole, while I was sitting there with my cloaky alt. We were all waiting for him, with a Hurricane, Malediction, and Falcon. The Talos jumped through, and soon enough was locked down, didn't move and I'm guessing never had a chance to lock as we dropped him. Before long, the Retriever tried to get through too, but managed to get out. We all added him to watch list as we noticed him log out, and within about 15 minutes he was back on. All of us warping back to the hole, we didn't make any mistakes this time, and dropped his barge, and pod.
Heading back home after that, I noticed a Chimera on scan, and jokingly asked if anyone wanted to go for it. Sure enough, Andrejs, from Ninja Unicorns was interested. With Super getting a cyno ready, I probed out the Chimera, and went for tackle. Landing 100 off in the mission, it was pre-aligned and warped off.
Andrejs wasn't done with that though, sending a cloaky alt over, he parked it in the mission and we all left system. Soon enough the Chimera came back in, and he tackled it. For reasons I can't explain, I had jumped into a Rupture, instead of anything heavier for this. Warping in and getting tackle, the his cloaky alt had to warp out, as he couldn't light a cyno in the mission, and they bridged in multiple Armageddon Navy Issues, and regular Armageddons. As the Carrier's shields were running out Andrejs said in fleet that there's incoming backup so heat everything. Sure enough, members of Deadly Intent, a former Ninja Unicorns corp came in. As it turns out, the corp that (wasn't blue to Unicorns) the Carrier was in, is an alt corp of Deadly Intent. They soon drop my Rupture, and Superpooper's Pilgrim, but don't manage to save the Chimera.
So, that was my first Capital (and Repo.'s first cap kill), along with Pug's too I think. There was lots of drama in local afterwards as D.Int is apparently still set blue to Ninja Unicorns.
A couple days later, I was back in the Amoen/Avaux loop, seeing if any Malum or Forsaken wanted to play. Being in my Artillery Dramiel, I was hoping that they'd send out some fast tackle for me to play with, and at first that didn't happen. Instead, all I got at first was a sniper Talos and Oracle.
Eventaully Icon OClast came with his Ares trying to tackle me on station with some other ships around, but after a couple volleys he seemed to want to get back to the station and dock, but being in an untanked interceptor didn't do him any favours there.
Docking up and going for a while, I came back, and Civus Caldara was there with a Crow, on station. As more and more of them undocked, and we warped around a bit, Civus never really seemed interested in coming after me. With about 5 of them on grid though, he finally went for tackle. As he came in I got a couple volleys on him, but while trying to keep decent range from the rest of his gang, I let him get a scram on me. Watching his friends close in, I was worried. My drones were doing the best they could to avoid the demise of my Dramiel, as he orbited close, and my arties had trouble landing decent hits. His rockets started to chew through my minor shield buffer, and I had to start blowing through my cap, using my shield rep. Sure enough though, the first couple volleys that I had landed let my drones finish the job, and let me GTFO before his friends arrived.
After that, I played around with them a while longer, getting Phjil's Eris down fairly far a couple of times before getting out of lock range, and running to avoid the rest of his friends, before they brought logistics out, and I figured discretion to be the better part of valour in that situation.
It's been an interesting couple weeks. I'm really starting to get amped for the expansion and having new ships to fly, along with the HAM changes. I've pushed HAMs to the front of my training queue for a while now, and should have t2 trained, with decent support skills before the patch hits. I've already picked up a bunch of Stabbers and Bellicose' to play around with once the time comes, and there's a good chance that I'll end up grabbing a couple Drakes also. With the removal of the penalty for t2 missiles, Javelin's on the Stabber may be a good bet. It'll be cool to fly a few more ships again.
Another thing that I'll probably train sooner rather than later now is Command Ships, as I realized I'm 10 days out from being able to get into a Sleipnir. I really do have a bad case of "Ooh Shiny!"
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
I did some null-sec roaming a little while back, with a stock of Ruptures that I had earmarked to lose out there. While mostly unsuccessful I grabbed a Crow out of a Frigate gang, along with nearly a Hawk before the Kitsune was able to jam me, and I ran. Soon later I lost that rupture as I was expecting a Stiletto to actually try tackle me, but instead he provided a warp-in for the rest of his gang who were ~70 from me, but the Stiletto got out to range.
More recently though, while in Amasiree I noticed a couple players from Forsaken Federation leaving system, but not being in the rest of the local systems. Letting Superpooper and Vulturus know about it, I brought my prober out and scanned down the wormholes in system. The first one I checked, sure enough the Talos and Retriever I had seen were in the Wormhole there. As we all warped to the hole, the Talos came back to the hole, while I was sitting there with my cloaky alt. We were all waiting for him, with a Hurricane, Malediction, and Falcon. The Talos jumped through, and soon enough was locked down, didn't move and I'm guessing never had a chance to lock as we dropped him. Before long, the Retriever tried to get through too, but managed to get out. We all added him to watch list as we noticed him log out, and within about 15 minutes he was back on. All of us warping back to the hole, we didn't make any mistakes this time, and dropped his barge, and pod.
Heading back home after that, I noticed a Chimera on scan, and jokingly asked if anyone wanted to go for it. Sure enough, Andrejs, from Ninja Unicorns was interested. With Super getting a cyno ready, I probed out the Chimera, and went for tackle. Landing 100 off in the mission, it was pre-aligned and warped off.
Andrejs wasn't done with that though, sending a cloaky alt over, he parked it in the mission and we all left system. Soon enough the Chimera came back in, and he tackled it. For reasons I can't explain, I had jumped into a Rupture, instead of anything heavier for this. Warping in and getting tackle, the his cloaky alt had to warp out, as he couldn't light a cyno in the mission, and they bridged in multiple Armageddon Navy Issues, and regular Armageddons. As the Carrier's shields were running out Andrejs said in fleet that there's incoming backup so heat everything. Sure enough, members of Deadly Intent, a former Ninja Unicorns corp came in. As it turns out, the corp that (wasn't blue to Unicorns) the Carrier was in, is an alt corp of Deadly Intent. They soon drop my Rupture, and Superpooper's Pilgrim, but don't manage to save the Chimera.
So, that was my first Capital (and Repo.'s first cap kill), along with Pug's too I think. There was lots of drama in local afterwards as D.Int is apparently still set blue to Ninja Unicorns.
A couple days later, I was back in the Amoen/Avaux loop, seeing if any Malum or Forsaken wanted to play. Being in my Artillery Dramiel, I was hoping that they'd send out some fast tackle for me to play with, and at first that didn't happen. Instead, all I got at first was a sniper Talos and Oracle.
Eventaully Icon OClast came with his Ares trying to tackle me on station with some other ships around, but after a couple volleys he seemed to want to get back to the station and dock, but being in an untanked interceptor didn't do him any favours there.
Docking up and going for a while, I came back, and Civus Caldara was there with a Crow, on station. As more and more of them undocked, and we warped around a bit, Civus never really seemed interested in coming after me. With about 5 of them on grid though, he finally went for tackle. As he came in I got a couple volleys on him, but while trying to keep decent range from the rest of his gang, I let him get a scram on me. Watching his friends close in, I was worried. My drones were doing the best they could to avoid the demise of my Dramiel, as he orbited close, and my arties had trouble landing decent hits. His rockets started to chew through my minor shield buffer, and I had to start blowing through my cap, using my shield rep. Sure enough though, the first couple volleys that I had landed let my drones finish the job, and let me GTFO before his friends arrived.
After that, I played around with them a while longer, getting Phjil's Eris down fairly far a couple of times before getting out of lock range, and running to avoid the rest of his friends, before they brought logistics out, and I figured discretion to be the better part of valour in that situation.
It's been an interesting couple weeks. I'm really starting to get amped for the expansion and having new ships to fly, along with the HAM changes. I've pushed HAMs to the front of my training queue for a while now, and should have t2 trained, with decent support skills before the patch hits. I've already picked up a bunch of Stabbers and Bellicose' to play around with once the time comes, and there's a good chance that I'll end up grabbing a couple Drakes also. With the removal of the penalty for t2 missiles, Javelin's on the Stabber may be a good bet. It'll be cool to fly a few more ships again.
Another thing that I'll probably train sooner rather than later now is Command Ships, as I realized I'm 10 days out from being able to get into a Sleipnir. I really do have a bad case of "Ooh Shiny!"
Anyways,
Fly Dangerous
'Chord
Thursday, 8 November 2012
Back loving the Wolf
As the title says, this week I decided to start flying my old favorite more again, and I started taking my Wolf out more often, and it's been far from disappointing.
Since I've been able to fly larger ships, I've constantly been gravitating towards flying them, and I've put a lot of time in my Ruptures/Hurricanes, and had put most ships to the wayside (other then the arty-thrasher, which I flew when I wanted something smaller) and my Dramiel, which met it's end.
This week in my Wolf, I'm 6-0, all of the fights 1v1 (with two of them being somewhat arranged beforehand).
Started with Simon Pirodet. I landed on the Dastryns gate, about to head out roaming, when he came through in a Jaguar. He was flashy-red, so I right away went to engage. Pulling a little range, hoping he'd chase me after I aggressed, he warped off (I assume to load a better ammo-type). After a little chatting in local, we met at the sun and started our fight in earnest. I had been waiting there, and burned a little off the warp in. Locking and opening fire from around 20km, my "Kiting to be caught" fit (stolen from Ava Starfire) did what it was supposed to, starting to land some hits from that range. I closed in carefully, trying to stay out of overheated web range as long as I could, while whittling away on his shields. The entire time he wasn't hitting me all too hard. Finally feeling it was a good time to commit, when his shields were running low, and my armor was just starting to show some wear, I jumped in for the kill. He got his pod out, which conveniently he went to the station I call home. I warped there, and noticed he was self-destructing, so I took a pot-shot at it to whore on the killmail. It turns out he's also a regular in the Bringing Solo Back channel, which got me another fight with him later.
The day after, I was able to get on much earlier then usual and figured taking the Wolf through some FW areas (and running the static 1/10s in Placid) could be fun. Getting into Intaki, I saw Daniel Alpena, who is usually good for a fight, and usually flying a Catalyst, and he did not disappoint. Catching up to him at a Planet (he seemed to be waiting for me) I set my orbit out to the edge of scram range, and hoped I'd have the damage to break him sooner then he broke me, which I did. Ended taking some armor damage, but my rep soon took care of that.
While waiting for the nanite past to finish repairing my modules, I noticed a Cruor on scan, which I figured wouldn't want to fight, but I warped to the Faction Warefare outpost just in case. Seeing him on scan towards a planet with no stations, I warped there, only to find nothing. Scanning back towards the outpost I had just left, he was there, seems like he does want to fight.
Warping in, and landing nearly on top of him once through the acceleration gate, I overheated ALL the things, and hoped I'd at least keep my scram running with my nosferatu, as I didn't expect that his lasers would be too much of a threat. Sure enough all went as planned, I was able to keep him scrambled as my autocannons tore through his armor and structure. All this time, Simon Pirodet and I had been chatting, and he had been working his way over to get a rematch with a Harpy. As I finished off the Cruor, he came into system. So I dropped off my loot in a safe spot, repaired my damage, and warped to the sun. This time he knew how I flew this Wolf, and I was expecting a much tougher fight. He didn't disappoint.
Landing 30 off of him like I expected, I aligned somewhat away from him, but he never approached directly. starting to burn at an angle towards him, I kept a close watch until I was able to start landing decent shots, and right away started burning away. Range closed a little too much though, and he was able to get his web on me and reel me in. His shields dropped fast, taking big chunks with every volley, just to see them rep up again. My own shields were depleted quickly, and soon my overheated armor rep was going full tilt, and not nearly keeping up. My own DPS was higher then his ASB repping, with a little bit more armor damage peeking through between each cycle. Thinking I was probably going to be on the losing side of this battle, finally his reps gave out, with me having to cycle my own whenever I had cap. Blasting through his armor, and structure, the extra couple cycles from my rep kept me alive, with fire trailing from my hull. That was definitely a fight for the ages.
The last fight I've gotten with the Wolf isn't really one that was all that special. Heading back out to the 1/10 in Oicx, there was an Exodus. gang on the gate from Vlillirier, with a Retribution, and some larger ships. Jumping and warping straight to the 1/10, which only allows frigates, I activated the gate, and burned a little off the warp-in. With the Retribution following me, I locked and began firing as I burned away, in turn to see him burn away from me, at MWD speed. Getting around 40km from each other, I went towards him, overheated my AB and scram, and landed it, and that was about all she wrote. Not activating my armor rep, I was at around 75% armor when he went down. Not sure what laser boats are really thinking going after Minmatar t2, but I won't complain at all.
Definitely glad I decided to jump back into this frigate. Most of my fights of late in the larger hulls have been no more then ganks, so this is a very welcome change.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Since I've been able to fly larger ships, I've constantly been gravitating towards flying them, and I've put a lot of time in my Ruptures/Hurricanes, and had put most ships to the wayside (other then the arty-thrasher, which I flew when I wanted something smaller) and my Dramiel, which met it's end.
This week in my Wolf, I'm 6-0, all of the fights 1v1 (with two of them being somewhat arranged beforehand).
Started with Simon Pirodet. I landed on the Dastryns gate, about to head out roaming, when he came through in a Jaguar. He was flashy-red, so I right away went to engage. Pulling a little range, hoping he'd chase me after I aggressed, he warped off (I assume to load a better ammo-type). After a little chatting in local, we met at the sun and started our fight in earnest. I had been waiting there, and burned a little off the warp in. Locking and opening fire from around 20km, my "Kiting to be caught" fit (stolen from Ava Starfire) did what it was supposed to, starting to land some hits from that range. I closed in carefully, trying to stay out of overheated web range as long as I could, while whittling away on his shields. The entire time he wasn't hitting me all too hard. Finally feeling it was a good time to commit, when his shields were running low, and my armor was just starting to show some wear, I jumped in for the kill. He got his pod out, which conveniently he went to the station I call home. I warped there, and noticed he was self-destructing, so I took a pot-shot at it to whore on the killmail. It turns out he's also a regular in the Bringing Solo Back channel, which got me another fight with him later.
The day after, I was able to get on much earlier then usual and figured taking the Wolf through some FW areas (and running the static 1/10s in Placid) could be fun. Getting into Intaki, I saw Daniel Alpena, who is usually good for a fight, and usually flying a Catalyst, and he did not disappoint. Catching up to him at a Planet (he seemed to be waiting for me) I set my orbit out to the edge of scram range, and hoped I'd have the damage to break him sooner then he broke me, which I did. Ended taking some armor damage, but my rep soon took care of that.
While waiting for the nanite past to finish repairing my modules, I noticed a Cruor on scan, which I figured wouldn't want to fight, but I warped to the Faction Warefare outpost just in case. Seeing him on scan towards a planet with no stations, I warped there, only to find nothing. Scanning back towards the outpost I had just left, he was there, seems like he does want to fight.
Warping in, and landing nearly on top of him once through the acceleration gate, I overheated ALL the things, and hoped I'd at least keep my scram running with my nosferatu, as I didn't expect that his lasers would be too much of a threat. Sure enough all went as planned, I was able to keep him scrambled as my autocannons tore through his armor and structure. All this time, Simon Pirodet and I had been chatting, and he had been working his way over to get a rematch with a Harpy. As I finished off the Cruor, he came into system. So I dropped off my loot in a safe spot, repaired my damage, and warped to the sun. This time he knew how I flew this Wolf, and I was expecting a much tougher fight. He didn't disappoint.
Landing 30 off of him like I expected, I aligned somewhat away from him, but he never approached directly. starting to burn at an angle towards him, I kept a close watch until I was able to start landing decent shots, and right away started burning away. Range closed a little too much though, and he was able to get his web on me and reel me in. His shields dropped fast, taking big chunks with every volley, just to see them rep up again. My own shields were depleted quickly, and soon my overheated armor rep was going full tilt, and not nearly keeping up. My own DPS was higher then his ASB repping, with a little bit more armor damage peeking through between each cycle. Thinking I was probably going to be on the losing side of this battle, finally his reps gave out, with me having to cycle my own whenever I had cap. Blasting through his armor, and structure, the extra couple cycles from my rep kept me alive, with fire trailing from my hull. That was definitely a fight for the ages.
The last fight I've gotten with the Wolf isn't really one that was all that special. Heading back out to the 1/10 in Oicx, there was an Exodus. gang on the gate from Vlillirier, with a Retribution, and some larger ships. Jumping and warping straight to the 1/10, which only allows frigates, I activated the gate, and burned a little off the warp-in. With the Retribution following me, I locked and began firing as I burned away, in turn to see him burn away from me, at MWD speed. Getting around 40km from each other, I went towards him, overheated my AB and scram, and landed it, and that was about all she wrote. Not activating my armor rep, I was at around 75% armor when he went down. Not sure what laser boats are really thinking going after Minmatar t2, but I won't complain at all.
Definitely glad I decided to jump back into this frigate. Most of my fights of late in the larger hulls have been no more then ganks, so this is a very welcome change.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Whelping, and the blob.
Lately has been fairly slow, with the exception of a couple rather noteworthy events. Thursday night, we randomly had a bunch more people on then we were used to, so we decided to actually form up into a fleet. Someone asked the comp, and right away the two words Kitchen Sink were thrown out. I felt like bringing something a bit larger out, so I jumped in my Cyclone. We also had a Caracal, Rupture, Arbitrator, Jaguar, Slasher, and Rifter. Call went out as for who would FC it, I offered on the conditions that everyone didn't expect to come home with a ship, and that I'd whelp the fleet. Everyone was fine with that, and it was a real prediction of what was to come.
Getting three jumps from home, into Agoze, Maleficas who was scouting in his Jaguar said that there was a Vexor sitting on the gate of a minor FW complex. I told him to go for tackle, and soon enough we were all in warp to take him out. As soon as we all landed though, local exploded, lots of Destroyers and T1 frigs coming to help out the Gal-Fed Vexor. With the Vexor going down fast, the ships that nobody had noticed on D-scan landed, a pair of Blackbirds, which really were what turned this fight. Not being able to get a lock from right about when the Vexor popped, until I was finally taken down, the last of ours to die, I was effectively out of the fight for most of it, along with the Rupture. Our Arbitrator had been having connection issues all night.
If I say I'm going to whelp I fleet, I do it good.
Today, another great loss. Out in my Cloki, and there's a Harbinger ratting. Couldn't be bait right?\
It occurred to me after I had scrammed and webbed, that the pilot Jordan Frost, had baited us before. Sure enough, local exploded. Ships landed. I lost SP.
Last month was rough. Had a bad start to it, got pretty annoyed with the game for a while, ended up coming back strong and finshing the month with a positive efficiency (which is always my goal). I don't care much what it is, as long as it's positive. That'll be my goal again this month, but boy have I ever given myself a long road ahead of me.
I noticed the other day that I hit a few milestones recently also. Currently sitting at 500 kills on the Repo. killboard (Pods included), so I'm probably a little higher then that on Eve-Kill or Battleclinic. I'm also nearly breaking into the top 10k on the Battleclinic rankings, so I'm pretty stoked on that (for all that it means). It's not something I pay too much attention to. I've been in Repo. now for just over 8 months.
That's about all I've got to write for now, gonna be flying cheaper now, that's for sure. I'm damn glad I've started to come up with a steady income from running various lowsec sites now.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Getting three jumps from home, into Agoze, Maleficas who was scouting in his Jaguar said that there was a Vexor sitting on the gate of a minor FW complex. I told him to go for tackle, and soon enough we were all in warp to take him out. As soon as we all landed though, local exploded, lots of Destroyers and T1 frigs coming to help out the Gal-Fed Vexor. With the Vexor going down fast, the ships that nobody had noticed on D-scan landed, a pair of Blackbirds, which really were what turned this fight. Not being able to get a lock from right about when the Vexor popped, until I was finally taken down, the last of ours to die, I was effectively out of the fight for most of it, along with the Rupture. Our Arbitrator had been having connection issues all night.
If I say I'm going to whelp I fleet, I do it good.
Today, another great loss. Out in my Cloki, and there's a Harbinger ratting. Couldn't be bait right?\
It occurred to me after I had scrammed and webbed, that the pilot Jordan Frost, had baited us before. Sure enough, local exploded. Ships landed. I lost SP.
Last month was rough. Had a bad start to it, got pretty annoyed with the game for a while, ended up coming back strong and finshing the month with a positive efficiency (which is always my goal). I don't care much what it is, as long as it's positive. That'll be my goal again this month, but boy have I ever given myself a long road ahead of me.
I noticed the other day that I hit a few milestones recently also. Currently sitting at 500 kills on the Repo. killboard (Pods included), so I'm probably a little higher then that on Eve-Kill or Battleclinic. I'm also nearly breaking into the top 10k on the Battleclinic rankings, so I'm pretty stoked on that (for all that it means). It's not something I pay too much attention to. I've been in Repo. now for just over 8 months.
That's about all I've got to write for now, gonna be flying cheaper now, that's for sure. I'm damn glad I've started to come up with a steady income from running various lowsec sites now.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Friday, 19 October 2012
Slasher vs Drake
On voice,
me: "Anyone near Grispire? I'm warping in to tackle a drake"
darmwand: "I'm in Iges with Spar, four jumps out"
me: "point"
Was out running 1/10s in Placid with my Slasher, and came back near home. Figured I'd check the two back systems off of Pelille, and saw this Drake, on scan, with wrecks. Soon narrowed down to an anom. It was only after warping in that I thought about how I would break it's tank.
Landing around 20km off of the Drake, I warped in, and soon had tackle, set my orbit to 1000 and prepared to take out the drones, which... kept attacking the battleship rat. Soon my shields were depleted and I was cycling my armor rep sporadically, to stay nearly topped up. After he realized he wasn't going to be breaking my tank though, I soon found his four angry drones swarming my little frigate. Already having them locked up, I started going after them. Webbing them, and overheating my afterburner to mitigate as much damage as possible, the small buffer that is my ship's armor kept edging lower and lower. Overheating the small rep came next.
First drone popped... second drone popped, armor bouncing between 10% and 30%. I'm able to pop the third drone as he burns through the remaining armor, and take my structure down to 80%, but then, things stabilize. Final drone dies, and my rep brings me back to full. 81% damage on the rep, 82% damage on the burner, but I'm out of the fire. Now to cross my fingers that my help arrives before his does. Sure enough darm enters system with his Ishkur, followed soon by Spar's Brutix.
Inviting the Drake's pilot into our ransom channel I give him the option to eject, or his pod is forfeit, but asking while he's in half shield, we hadn't gotten an answer by the time we had him down to low structure. Holding him there for 10s, we still get nothing, and destroy his ship. Sure enough I call point on pod, and after making sure we've all gotten on, he wakes up in station.
Was nailbiting for a minute there, but that was definitely my best fight in a while there. Shoutout to Sard Caid again (two posts in a row now) for the Slasher fit.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
me: "Anyone near Grispire? I'm warping in to tackle a drake"
darmwand: "I'm in Iges with Spar, four jumps out"
me: "point"
Was out running 1/10s in Placid with my Slasher, and came back near home. Figured I'd check the two back systems off of Pelille, and saw this Drake, on scan, with wrecks. Soon narrowed down to an anom. It was only after warping in that I thought about how I would break it's tank.
Landing around 20km off of the Drake, I warped in, and soon had tackle, set my orbit to 1000 and prepared to take out the drones, which... kept attacking the battleship rat. Soon my shields were depleted and I was cycling my armor rep sporadically, to stay nearly topped up. After he realized he wasn't going to be breaking my tank though, I soon found his four angry drones swarming my little frigate. Already having them locked up, I started going after them. Webbing them, and overheating my afterburner to mitigate as much damage as possible, the small buffer that is my ship's armor kept edging lower and lower. Overheating the small rep came next.
First drone popped... second drone popped, armor bouncing between 10% and 30%. I'm able to pop the third drone as he burns through the remaining armor, and take my structure down to 80%, but then, things stabilize. Final drone dies, and my rep brings me back to full. 81% damage on the rep, 82% damage on the burner, but I'm out of the fire. Now to cross my fingers that my help arrives before his does. Sure enough darm enters system with his Ishkur, followed soon by Spar's Brutix.
Inviting the Drake's pilot into our ransom channel I give him the option to eject, or his pod is forfeit, but asking while he's in half shield, we hadn't gotten an answer by the time we had him down to low structure. Holding him there for 10s, we still get nothing, and destroy his ship. Sure enough I call point on pod, and after making sure we've all gotten on, he wakes up in station.
Was nailbiting for a minute there, but that was definitely my best fight in a while there. Shoutout to Sard Caid again (two posts in a row now) for the Slasher fit.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Monday, 15 October 2012
FW Blapping
Roaming today has been some of the most fun I've had in Eve for a while now. Lately, more often then not I've been flying bigger/more expensive things, but decided that today I'd go roam around FW space in an Artillery Thrasher.
The first one I fit, didn't last long, when it landed nearly on top of a Hookbill at a minor-plex a couple jumps from home. Heading back and fitting another one I went back out, with the first casualty being a FW farmer sitting afk on an acceleration gate. Not a real exciting kill, but it's a start to the day. After docking up to wait out GCC and get a bite to eat, my roam started in earnest.
Working my way out to Nennamaila, (and realizing after a couple jumps that I had things on short-range scan, and probably missed a few possible fights), I found a Catalyst at another minor plex. Warping in, and landing 10km off of him, I hit the micro-warp away, and without taking a scratch on my armor, dropped the other Destroyer.
With GCC gone, and not able to get another fight in system, before long I landed on an Arbitrator/Executioner on a gate. Turning and burning, sure enough the Arb aggressed, setting his TDs on me as the Executioner chased and pointed me, while around 40km away from his friend in the Cruiser. With two-volleys dropping the Executioner into structure, I was unable to overheat my point in time, and keep in range for the finishing blow, and the Executioner got away. With a Firetail joining them, but the Arbitrator warping off, it seemed like it was over with this group.
The Firetail kept following me though, not aggressing. Warping to the sun, he seemed to follow and was on short-range scan, but never actually came, so I kept moving. After the third gate, of the same thing, he did follow me to the sun, landing at 100, while I had warped to 50. Overheating propulsion, I was soon in point range, while local jumped by two. With the top rack overheated, I started aligning away as the Executioner and Arbitrator from before landed. Overheating the point to keep the Firetail locked down, the last volley landed and I was able to turn my attention on the Amarr frigate, who was chasing at this point. Not repeating the mistake from earlier, I kept the warp disruptor overheated as I went for it, and in three volleys, was greeted by a wreck. With only the TDing cruiser left on field, I was a little worried about the drones that were coming after me at the time, until I saw they webbed me. Turning back around, he soon recalled the drones and warped off, allowing me to loot the field.
After waiting out GCC, and having lots of traffic through system (though I once again had my d-scan on short range, and never once saw them) I made my way to Aeschee, after trying to "warp-probe" a Slicer that was sitting AFK between two celestials, only to have it warp off when I was within a couple million KM.
With some local chatter when I entered that showed there was some activity, I soon found a Rupture sitting on a wreck in the ice belt, with an Enyo burning away from it, which was soon joined by a Slicer. I don't think the Rupture and two frigates were friends, but they weren't engaging either. Trying to get towards the two frigs ended up with the Enyo warping off, and Slicer just burning away. Thinking I may have a chance vs a Rupture, I warped at range to the wreck he was sitting on, just to have him warp off at the same time also.
Warping to the sun when that was all done, hoping for some kind of action, saw me landing nearly on top of a Hyena. Thinking that he was probably friends with the other frigates in system, I overheated all the things, trying to pull some range and blap it as fast as possible, and blap it I did. Two volleys. As I started heading for the wreck, a Retribution warped to the sun, one of the Black Rebel Rifter Club pilots, Ohm's Law's, along with the Slicer pilot who is in the same alliance, Captain John Crichton. Burning at an angle closer to the Slicer, but away from both of them the familiar dance started. Overheat. Warp/Tracking disruptors active. With about three volleys into the Slicer, putting it into low armor, it pulled range and I lost lock on it as the Retribution was nearing. Locking Ohm's Assault ship, I started firing while aligning away. I was less confident with both of them still on the field, figuring I'd have dropped the Slicer before having to worry about him. With him tracking disrupted, he wasn't hitting too hard, but he was still hitting. Pulling some range on him, he got beyond my lock range, and landed some much more solid hits. Being aligned to a celestial already, I took that as a cue to warp out.
With my micro-warp nearly burnt, and guns half-way dead, I let my shields recharge and started to look for them again, but other then a near encounter with the Ret and a Tengu, nothing happened. Waiting out my GCC in a safe near the sun, while paying attention to Sard Caid's stream, I suddenly noticed my overview change. The Tengu had probed me down. Luckily I had aligned to my out-gate, and GCC had just finished. Off I went!
Heading back towards home, I got to Agoze, with Xedam in system flying a Taranis. Seeing a Punisher and Hookbill at a minor plex there, I went after them, hoping they'd be outside for some backup from Xedam. Both were inside, so I told him I'd go in and let him know what happened, if they warped off. As exited warp from the acceleration gate, the Punisher was already gone, and the Hookbill warped out towards the 9 cluster. Warping after him, with Xedam also going out there, we landed and soon it was off scan, with nobody having left. Warping back to the minor, it was inside once again, but knowing he'd probably be waiting on the warp-in, I figured I'd rather keep the Thrasher to fight another day.
Checking Intaki, I found Gulidor in system, and warped directly to the minor plex, which was offscan. Seeing a Merlin on scan as I came in, I was surprised to the Gulidor's Merlin sitting at 0 on the acceleration gate. Spamming activation, I went through and warped off ASAP, not wanting to be caught at close range.
Landing in my safe, while chatting a little in local with him, I noticed the Hookbill from earlier, along with a Catalyst on scan towards the minor again. Sending him a message to see if he wanted to gang up to fight them (with Xedam a couple jumps out now, we really should have been in voice), and he agreed.
Warping back to the minor at 20, they were already gone, so I sat there. Sure enough, while talking with Gulidor, trying to figure things out, the Hookbill landed, 10km off of me. Overheating my micro-warp away from him, I got to 11km before the dual-webs hit, and he started reeling me back in. With my propulsion soon being shut off by a scrambler, it was nearly over. Telling Gulidor they had arrived as soon as I could I overheated my top rack, and had the frigate nearly out of shield (which I should have let Gulidor know) when I popped. It turned out that when he came in the Merlin, he went after the Catalyst, which he got into structure before losing his frigate.
Good fights were had, and I'm currently auto-piloting my alt to Jita while I type this to grab a couple more Thrashers to do this with. I'm really enjoying that fit, and the fights it can take.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
The first one I fit, didn't last long, when it landed nearly on top of a Hookbill at a minor-plex a couple jumps from home. Heading back and fitting another one I went back out, with the first casualty being a FW farmer sitting afk on an acceleration gate. Not a real exciting kill, but it's a start to the day. After docking up to wait out GCC and get a bite to eat, my roam started in earnest.
Working my way out to Nennamaila, (and realizing after a couple jumps that I had things on short-range scan, and probably missed a few possible fights), I found a Catalyst at another minor plex. Warping in, and landing 10km off of him, I hit the micro-warp away, and without taking a scratch on my armor, dropped the other Destroyer.
With GCC gone, and not able to get another fight in system, before long I landed on an Arbitrator/Executioner on a gate. Turning and burning, sure enough the Arb aggressed, setting his TDs on me as the Executioner chased and pointed me, while around 40km away from his friend in the Cruiser. With two-volleys dropping the Executioner into structure, I was unable to overheat my point in time, and keep in range for the finishing blow, and the Executioner got away. With a Firetail joining them, but the Arbitrator warping off, it seemed like it was over with this group.
The Firetail kept following me though, not aggressing. Warping to the sun, he seemed to follow and was on short-range scan, but never actually came, so I kept moving. After the third gate, of the same thing, he did follow me to the sun, landing at 100, while I had warped to 50. Overheating propulsion, I was soon in point range, while local jumped by two. With the top rack overheated, I started aligning away as the Executioner and Arbitrator from before landed. Overheating the point to keep the Firetail locked down, the last volley landed and I was able to turn my attention on the Amarr frigate, who was chasing at this point. Not repeating the mistake from earlier, I kept the warp disruptor overheated as I went for it, and in three volleys, was greeted by a wreck. With only the TDing cruiser left on field, I was a little worried about the drones that were coming after me at the time, until I saw they webbed me. Turning back around, he soon recalled the drones and warped off, allowing me to loot the field.
After waiting out GCC, and having lots of traffic through system (though I once again had my d-scan on short range, and never once saw them) I made my way to Aeschee, after trying to "warp-probe" a Slicer that was sitting AFK between two celestials, only to have it warp off when I was within a couple million KM.
With some local chatter when I entered that showed there was some activity, I soon found a Rupture sitting on a wreck in the ice belt, with an Enyo burning away from it, which was soon joined by a Slicer. I don't think the Rupture and two frigates were friends, but they weren't engaging either. Trying to get towards the two frigs ended up with the Enyo warping off, and Slicer just burning away. Thinking I may have a chance vs a Rupture, I warped at range to the wreck he was sitting on, just to have him warp off at the same time also.
Warping to the sun when that was all done, hoping for some kind of action, saw me landing nearly on top of a Hyena. Thinking that he was probably friends with the other frigates in system, I overheated all the things, trying to pull some range and blap it as fast as possible, and blap it I did. Two volleys. As I started heading for the wreck, a Retribution warped to the sun, one of the Black Rebel Rifter Club pilots, Ohm's Law's, along with the Slicer pilot who is in the same alliance, Captain John Crichton. Burning at an angle closer to the Slicer, but away from both of them the familiar dance started. Overheat. Warp/Tracking disruptors active. With about three volleys into the Slicer, putting it into low armor, it pulled range and I lost lock on it as the Retribution was nearing. Locking Ohm's Assault ship, I started firing while aligning away. I was less confident with both of them still on the field, figuring I'd have dropped the Slicer before having to worry about him. With him tracking disrupted, he wasn't hitting too hard, but he was still hitting. Pulling some range on him, he got beyond my lock range, and landed some much more solid hits. Being aligned to a celestial already, I took that as a cue to warp out.
With my micro-warp nearly burnt, and guns half-way dead, I let my shields recharge and started to look for them again, but other then a near encounter with the Ret and a Tengu, nothing happened. Waiting out my GCC in a safe near the sun, while paying attention to Sard Caid's stream, I suddenly noticed my overview change. The Tengu had probed me down. Luckily I had aligned to my out-gate, and GCC had just finished. Off I went!
Heading back towards home, I got to Agoze, with Xedam in system flying a Taranis. Seeing a Punisher and Hookbill at a minor plex there, I went after them, hoping they'd be outside for some backup from Xedam. Both were inside, so I told him I'd go in and let him know what happened, if they warped off. As exited warp from the acceleration gate, the Punisher was already gone, and the Hookbill warped out towards the 9 cluster. Warping after him, with Xedam also going out there, we landed and soon it was off scan, with nobody having left. Warping back to the minor, it was inside once again, but knowing he'd probably be waiting on the warp-in, I figured I'd rather keep the Thrasher to fight another day.
Checking Intaki, I found Gulidor in system, and warped directly to the minor plex, which was offscan. Seeing a Merlin on scan as I came in, I was surprised to the Gulidor's Merlin sitting at 0 on the acceleration gate. Spamming activation, I went through and warped off ASAP, not wanting to be caught at close range.
Landing in my safe, while chatting a little in local with him, I noticed the Hookbill from earlier, along with a Catalyst on scan towards the minor again. Sending him a message to see if he wanted to gang up to fight them (with Xedam a couple jumps out now, we really should have been in voice), and he agreed.
Warping back to the minor at 20, they were already gone, so I sat there. Sure enough, while talking with Gulidor, trying to figure things out, the Hookbill landed, 10km off of me. Overheating my micro-warp away from him, I got to 11km before the dual-webs hit, and he started reeling me back in. With my propulsion soon being shut off by a scrambler, it was nearly over. Telling Gulidor they had arrived as soon as I could I overheated my top rack, and had the frigate nearly out of shield (which I should have let Gulidor know) when I popped. It turned out that when he came in the Merlin, he went after the Catalyst, which he got into structure before losing his frigate.
Good fights were had, and I'm currently auto-piloting my alt to Jita while I type this to grab a couple more Thrashers to do this with. I'm really enjoying that fit, and the fights it can take.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Tuesday, 9 October 2012
A few good fights
After a fair drought from ~goodfites~ and doing some carebearing/exploration on my alt of late (gotta afford all the ships I lose somehow, and I've tried to not sell Plex for a while now), the last couple days have been pretty fun.
Started yesterday, when Spar and Erik, two of our newer pilots were trying to catch a couple of ice-miners in Agoze, a couple times without luck, but with their spot bookmarked, I figured I'd take the Loki out for it's maiden voyage, and we went for it, only to not get enough points on the warp stabilized barges, and having them warp out.
Heading back home to Iges, there was a Megathron out running a mission, which we quickly ganked, nothing too much to write about that. Spar then had to get off for the night, and Erik went back roaming, before too long he told me that those guys were back at it in the belt. Having not bookmarked the site from earlier, I figured I'd take my Dramiel out for a run, so I'd have some speed to get to them if need be. Warping into the bottom of the ice belt, so I could grab a BM from a roid up top near the mining barge, an Atron soon landed on top of me. Burning off and locking, I realized I hadn't set my orbit/keep at range commands since a system crash had lost all my settings. Attempting to manual pilot a 20km orbit around the Gallente Frigate while going at around 4km/s didn't work all that well, and soon I was out of lock range. Good time to fix the settings.
Soon he was joined by a friend in another Atron, which I start to go after, but still fumbling around with range control on them, I get the first into half armor when they warp out. Having not gotten a good bookmark yet, I stuck around in the belt, trying to get one right at the top, I was surprised when a Brutix landed nearly on top of me.
Locking, and hitting orbit, I was surprised when I didn't suddenly start pulling range, sure enough my orbit had been set to just over 2km, rather then out to 20km. Correcting this, after eating a couple of glancing blows from the Battlecruiser, and using the shield-booster on the Angel frigate, I was soon in a comfortable orbit, with a comfortable shield buffer again, outrunning the tier one drones.
While that happened, the Atrons had warped in once again, I had called for Erik to warp in, and he went after the Brutix, brawling it, while I dropped one Atron, who was chasing me, and then the other that was causing Erik issues (I've since told him a few things about proper killmail whoring). Focused back on the Brutix, we were able to drop it without any more issues.
Props to all of those guys for fighting, all quite new characters who are out trying to live in low-sec.
Today, getting online earlier then usual, I figured it'd be a good time to grab my last remaining Slasher and see if I could get any fights with some FW types. Getting to Intaki, I saw a Rupture on scan towards an outpost. Landing on the acceleration gate 10km off the Rupture, I hit the afterburner and got into a tight orbit. Working my way through his shields fairly well, he soon started to neut me dry, and I warped off to the sun, since he had nicely never disrupted my warp drive. Thanking him in local, I landed next to an Incursus, figuring this must be a sign, I overheated all the things and went to work, when I soon realized it was a gun-less button hugger, and figured it wasn't worth the cost to repair damaged modules.
With the Incursus pulling back gobs of armor every time it repped, I got in close and finally saw some structure, as the Rupture landed, while I had next to no transversal velocity. I overheated all the things once more, popped the Incursus, and barely had time to remember about my ASB before my Slasher followed suit.
After some carebearing this evening, Xedam and Vivien were out in Heydieles playing around with a FW group. Having picked off a Tornado before, they were baiting with a Stabber Fleet Issue, with a Caracal Navy Issue, and a bunch of other assorted Cruisers/Frigates/Assault Ships and a Falcon on the other side of the gate. Arriving in system with a dual large ASB Cyclone, Viv called the order for me to warp in and spring the trap. Opening fire on the flashy-red SFI, he started reapproaching the gate, while the gate started flashing repeatedly. CNI. Manticore. Vexor. Hawk. I didn't pay too much attention beyond that, and just locked targets as the Stabber jumped. Unfortunately, by the time he jumped, and I realized I should be focusing elsewhere the CNI had managed to just get out of overheated web range, so I set my neuts and drones on some Frigates, while taking a few shots (that barely landed due to being TD'd) on the Vexor, while Viv melted it.
Using the blue-pill I had brought, the incoming damage was just higher then a single overheated booster was able to tank, but I soon capped out the Hawk, which was the main tackle on me. As the second booster ran out of charges, point/web dropped from the Hawk and I was able to get ~15km away, but wasn't aligned at the time. Thinking this was a great time to get out/get cap/reload, I started aligning. Suddenly, no targets! In the mess that was my overview, the Falcon had come. Xedam had been going after it, but we weren't on voice, so our communication wasn't the best. I lost the lock on the Hawk, and he burned at me right away. With very little cap to run the MWD, and no way to neut the Hawk off me, I soon found myself locked down once again.
The first ASB reloaded, and was already pre-heated, but by this time I was already half-structure, and quite unsure. Seeing my structure drop just a little more between each cycle, the Falcon missed a cycle and I was able to get a lock on the Hawk, but without any cap to neut it off. I tried firing at it, to see if my guns would get a few lucky hits though. Structure nearly gone, the pre-heated second booster loaded, but before the second cycle was able to start, the last of the duct-tape blasted apart.
Xedam also was unable to get out, and lost his Thorax, though Viv did escape in the end. Battlereport is here, showing the Tornado from before I was there. Definitely a fun time, would do again.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Started yesterday, when Spar and Erik, two of our newer pilots were trying to catch a couple of ice-miners in Agoze, a couple times without luck, but with their spot bookmarked, I figured I'd take the Loki out for it's maiden voyage, and we went for it, only to not get enough points on the warp stabilized barges, and having them warp out.
Heading back home to Iges, there was a Megathron out running a mission, which we quickly ganked, nothing too much to write about that. Spar then had to get off for the night, and Erik went back roaming, before too long he told me that those guys were back at it in the belt. Having not bookmarked the site from earlier, I figured I'd take my Dramiel out for a run, so I'd have some speed to get to them if need be. Warping into the bottom of the ice belt, so I could grab a BM from a roid up top near the mining barge, an Atron soon landed on top of me. Burning off and locking, I realized I hadn't set my orbit/keep at range commands since a system crash had lost all my settings. Attempting to manual pilot a 20km orbit around the Gallente Frigate while going at around 4km/s didn't work all that well, and soon I was out of lock range. Good time to fix the settings.
Soon he was joined by a friend in another Atron, which I start to go after, but still fumbling around with range control on them, I get the first into half armor when they warp out. Having not gotten a good bookmark yet, I stuck around in the belt, trying to get one right at the top, I was surprised when a Brutix landed nearly on top of me.
Locking, and hitting orbit, I was surprised when I didn't suddenly start pulling range, sure enough my orbit had been set to just over 2km, rather then out to 20km. Correcting this, after eating a couple of glancing blows from the Battlecruiser, and using the shield-booster on the Angel frigate, I was soon in a comfortable orbit, with a comfortable shield buffer again, outrunning the tier one drones.
While that happened, the Atrons had warped in once again, I had called for Erik to warp in, and he went after the Brutix, brawling it, while I dropped one Atron, who was chasing me, and then the other that was causing Erik issues (I've since told him a few things about proper killmail whoring). Focused back on the Brutix, we were able to drop it without any more issues.
Props to all of those guys for fighting, all quite new characters who are out trying to live in low-sec.
Today, getting online earlier then usual, I figured it'd be a good time to grab my last remaining Slasher and see if I could get any fights with some FW types. Getting to Intaki, I saw a Rupture on scan towards an outpost. Landing on the acceleration gate 10km off the Rupture, I hit the afterburner and got into a tight orbit. Working my way through his shields fairly well, he soon started to neut me dry, and I warped off to the sun, since he had nicely never disrupted my warp drive. Thanking him in local, I landed next to an Incursus, figuring this must be a sign, I overheated all the things and went to work, when I soon realized it was a gun-less button hugger, and figured it wasn't worth the cost to repair damaged modules.
With the Incursus pulling back gobs of armor every time it repped, I got in close and finally saw some structure, as the Rupture landed, while I had next to no transversal velocity. I overheated all the things once more, popped the Incursus, and barely had time to remember about my ASB before my Slasher followed suit.
After some carebearing this evening, Xedam and Vivien were out in Heydieles playing around with a FW group. Having picked off a Tornado before, they were baiting with a Stabber Fleet Issue, with a Caracal Navy Issue, and a bunch of other assorted Cruisers/Frigates/Assault Ships and a Falcon on the other side of the gate. Arriving in system with a dual large ASB Cyclone, Viv called the order for me to warp in and spring the trap. Opening fire on the flashy-red SFI, he started reapproaching the gate, while the gate started flashing repeatedly. CNI. Manticore. Vexor. Hawk. I didn't pay too much attention beyond that, and just locked targets as the Stabber jumped. Unfortunately, by the time he jumped, and I realized I should be focusing elsewhere the CNI had managed to just get out of overheated web range, so I set my neuts and drones on some Frigates, while taking a few shots (that barely landed due to being TD'd) on the Vexor, while Viv melted it.
Using the blue-pill I had brought, the incoming damage was just higher then a single overheated booster was able to tank, but I soon capped out the Hawk, which was the main tackle on me. As the second booster ran out of charges, point/web dropped from the Hawk and I was able to get ~15km away, but wasn't aligned at the time. Thinking this was a great time to get out/get cap/reload, I started aligning. Suddenly, no targets! In the mess that was my overview, the Falcon had come. Xedam had been going after it, but we weren't on voice, so our communication wasn't the best. I lost the lock on the Hawk, and he burned at me right away. With very little cap to run the MWD, and no way to neut the Hawk off me, I soon found myself locked down once again.
The first ASB reloaded, and was already pre-heated, but by this time I was already half-structure, and quite unsure. Seeing my structure drop just a little more between each cycle, the Falcon missed a cycle and I was able to get a lock on the Hawk, but without any cap to neut it off. I tried firing at it, to see if my guns would get a few lucky hits though. Structure nearly gone, the pre-heated second booster loaded, but before the second cycle was able to start, the last of the duct-tape blasted apart.
Xedam also was unable to get out, and lost his Thorax, though Viv did escape in the end. Battlereport is here, showing the Tornado from before I was there. Definitely a fun time, would do again.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Thursday, 4 October 2012
Risk-averse PVP
I just don't understand it. Why are people in this game so risk averse when it comes to fighting. If they don't have some kind of major advantage, they just don't fight. I was just out running some radar sites on my alt, using a Myrmidon (my alt has shit all for combat skills, needs something like that to run the sites easily enough). Sure enough, I'm getting probed down, and I warp out, bring Dischordant into system for backup if needed. Sure enough, I see the alt of this character come into system also. Clue number one, I should have checked what his alt usually flies. I figured it would either be to probe down/warp in quickly, or links.
I bait at the sun for a while, as I had a friend next door who was ready to jump in, after a couple minutes of that, with probes that came/went, and no action, I left once again for the site, figuring he was probably scared off by being at the sun, and I went about clearing the site. Sure enough probes come back out, and go off scan (taking a while at that too, not the best prober in the world). Clearing a wave of rats, sure enough a Proteus uncloaks next to me, I should have warped out, but figured an armor-cane could stay out of range well enough, and I warp Dischordant in, adding as much damage as I could with my alt. Landing with Dischordant and firing, before too long, you guessed it, a Falcon decloaks, and that was that. I should have warped out with Disco, but I didn't I went for the Falcon, but was still in scram range of the Proteus when my alt's Myrm went down.
As a mostly solo pilot, the amount of people that won't even look at me unless they've got backup of some sort is astonishing. I know this game isn't fair, and people will use whatever they can, but seriously.
Another group I fight quite often won't fight unless they have either numerical, or ship superiority. We came with a SFI/Ishkur, and two T1 Frigates? They come with a SFI/Vagabond, and Battlecruisers. We fight them with 4 Battlecruisers? They bring 6 and a Battleship. I come in a Wolf? I get an Enyo and a Scorpion.
I play for the ~goodfites~ more then anything, but they seem to be few, and far between right now. I don't have a great income, and I know that some of these players I fight probably have more liquid ISK then I've had in game, but I suppose ISK efficiency is the most important thing these days, eh?
Oh well, c'est la vie. Time to fit up another Hurricane, and wait until I can properly play on my desktop again. I won't be trying to dual-box on my laptop after this failed experiment.
Fly dangerous
Chord
I bait at the sun for a while, as I had a friend next door who was ready to jump in, after a couple minutes of that, with probes that came/went, and no action, I left once again for the site, figuring he was probably scared off by being at the sun, and I went about clearing the site. Sure enough probes come back out, and go off scan (taking a while at that too, not the best prober in the world). Clearing a wave of rats, sure enough a Proteus uncloaks next to me, I should have warped out, but figured an armor-cane could stay out of range well enough, and I warp Dischordant in, adding as much damage as I could with my alt. Landing with Dischordant and firing, before too long, you guessed it, a Falcon decloaks, and that was that. I should have warped out with Disco, but I didn't I went for the Falcon, but was still in scram range of the Proteus when my alt's Myrm went down.
As a mostly solo pilot, the amount of people that won't even look at me unless they've got backup of some sort is astonishing. I know this game isn't fair, and people will use whatever they can, but seriously.
Another group I fight quite often won't fight unless they have either numerical, or ship superiority. We came with a SFI/Ishkur, and two T1 Frigates? They come with a SFI/Vagabond, and Battlecruisers. We fight them with 4 Battlecruisers? They bring 6 and a Battleship. I come in a Wolf? I get an Enyo and a Scorpion.
I play for the ~goodfites~ more then anything, but they seem to be few, and far between right now. I don't have a great income, and I know that some of these players I fight probably have more liquid ISK then I've had in game, but I suppose ISK efficiency is the most important thing these days, eh?
Oh well, c'est la vie. Time to fit up another Hurricane, and wait until I can properly play on my desktop again. I won't be trying to dual-box on my laptop after this failed experiment.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Month in Review
It's been a while since I last posted here, mostly because I haven't been playing nearly as much of late as I had been before. There's been a couple reasons for this, most of it coming from that thing called life. Went to a wedding a couple weeks back, and came back with a graphics card which far outclassed what I had in my machine. The issue being, I haven't been able to get my computer stable since then (Drivers crashing), and I've prettymuch come down to it being my motherboard not liking an AMD card (had nVidia before).
Now, I would have gotten a new nVidia card by now, (the old one is promised to a friend already), but my car has proceeded to eat all my extra cash, though with a paycheque coming on Monday, I should have the money to get a new card sooner rather then later.
The other thing is, I've been getting a little tired of what I can currently fly, and have a few more major things coming down the pipe that more and more I've been wanting to just wait for and fly before I do much else.
Anyways, all in all because of this, it's been a fairly slow month for me, with my worst ISK efficiency since my first month of PvP. 39 kills, 12 losses. I didn't get many ~goodfites~, and most of the kills were low-value overall. I also tended to fight when I knew I shouldn't, against people that I know don't like fighting unless they've got the odds swung massively in their favour, along with flying more expensive ships overall.
It's been interesting. I look forward to getting back into the swing of things soon, though Guildwars 2 may eat up a chunk of my time once I actually end up getting that.
Fly Dangerous
Chord
Now, I would have gotten a new nVidia card by now, (the old one is promised to a friend already), but my car has proceeded to eat all my extra cash, though with a paycheque coming on Monday, I should have the money to get a new card sooner rather then later.
The other thing is, I've been getting a little tired of what I can currently fly, and have a few more major things coming down the pipe that more and more I've been wanting to just wait for and fly before I do much else.
Anyways, all in all because of this, it's been a fairly slow month for me, with my worst ISK efficiency since my first month of PvP. 39 kills, 12 losses. I didn't get many ~goodfites~, and most of the kills were low-value overall. I also tended to fight when I knew I shouldn't, against people that I know don't like fighting unless they've got the odds swung massively in their favour, along with flying more expensive ships overall.
It's been interesting. I look forward to getting back into the swing of things soon, though Guildwars 2 may eat up a chunk of my time once I actually end up getting that.
Fly Dangerous
Chord
Monday, 10 September 2012
I just don't understand
Coming back from a roam today, I poked my head into Cumemare, the home of the Exploding Squirrels. They're a fairly large, active corp, that has mostly younger players, teaching them how to survive in low-sec. Decent people, I'm in their public channel.
Anyways, I came, and found a Crusader ratting. Being in my Stabber Fleet, I thought this looked pretty fun to me, so warping into the belt, I landed almost on top of it, but it easily had burned out of scram range before my lock resolved, as he was moving at 4km/s when I landed. Checking the wrecks of the rats he had killed, he burned back in, apparently looking for the fight.
Turning off my afterburner, which I had used to not overshoot the wrecks, he looked like he was going to be coming right close to me, so I punched the MWD, overheated the scram, and caught his Interceptor. That was really about it for the fight, he wasn't able to get a good orbit on me to get under my guns, because with my AB running I was just as fast as he was.
Destroying his Frigate, I caught his pod. Seeing as he was an '05 player, I went for the ransom on it.
[05:19:47] EVE System > Channel MOTD: You've missed a few payments on that nice ship of yours....Please CEASE FIRE and RECALL DRONES and we will negotiate a mutually beneficial solution.
[05:40:15] Dischordant > Hey there
[05:40:18] Dischordant > Interested in keeping the pod?
[05:40:36] Sothas > depends on what you want for it?
[05:40:49] Dischordant > 100m?
[05:41:20] Sothas > sure
[05:41:33] Sothas > red in belt
[05:41:48] Dischordant > Makes me think I should have gone higher. Send the money and you're free.
[05:42:30] Dischordant > 100m, not 100k
[05:42:41] Sothas > yeah, missed the zeros
[05:42:45] Dischordant > np
[05:43:30] Dischordant > o/
[05:44:09] EVE System > Sothas was kicked from the channel by Dischordant
Effective until: 2012.09.11 06:14
Reason: "Business concluded"
With that done, I figured that I would just be waiting out GCC and leaving system. Salvaging the wreck with my alt, I got 35m in salvage out of it too, not a bad little profit.
While salvaging the wreck, it didn't take too long to notice an Abbadon on scan, on scan towards the station. Checking the belt and planet in that cluster, sure enough he was at the station. But wait, he's not there anymore. Did he go back to the belt we fought in looking for a fight? No, not on scan there. He is at another cluster though. Warping to the ice belt in system, sure enough he's there. Spiralling in to make sure he doesn't land some massive hits on me before I can get under his guns, he doesn't even lock me until I'm in a tight orbit, with the afterburner running.
Tearing through his shields, he finally targets back and opens fire, not scratching me at all, and not launching any drones. Figuring this would be an easy time, I invited him to the ransom channel again. Wait. I kicked him, he can't join for 30 minutes. I guess I'll just go for the kill then.
Getting half-way through his armor, local goes up by two, a couple of his corp-mates have entered system, before long there's a Drake and Merlin on scan. Figuring I'd have company soon, I overheated the top rack to try and get through his buffer before they come in and start getting me. Keeping an eagle eye on the heat damage to my guns I let them get to 90% before turning the overload off. His backup still hasn't arrived, and he's deep into structure now, and pop goes the Battleship.
I'm really unsure as to what he was thinking, with me still in system to go and grab a PvE Battleship, and go ratting. I wish I had thought about the ransom a little more and just invited him to a conversation and tried to ransom the ship, I really could use the money right now. Oh well.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Anyways, I came, and found a Crusader ratting. Being in my Stabber Fleet, I thought this looked pretty fun to me, so warping into the belt, I landed almost on top of it, but it easily had burned out of scram range before my lock resolved, as he was moving at 4km/s when I landed. Checking the wrecks of the rats he had killed, he burned back in, apparently looking for the fight.
Turning off my afterburner, which I had used to not overshoot the wrecks, he looked like he was going to be coming right close to me, so I punched the MWD, overheated the scram, and caught his Interceptor. That was really about it for the fight, he wasn't able to get a good orbit on me to get under my guns, because with my AB running I was just as fast as he was.
Destroying his Frigate, I caught his pod. Seeing as he was an '05 player, I went for the ransom on it.
[05:19:47] EVE System > Channel MOTD: You've missed a few payments on that nice ship of yours....Please CEASE FIRE and RECALL DRONES and we will negotiate a mutually beneficial solution.
[05:40:15] Dischordant > Hey there
[05:40:18] Dischordant > Interested in keeping the pod?
[05:40:36] Sothas > depends on what you want for it?
[05:40:49] Dischordant > 100m?
[05:41:20] Sothas > sure
[05:41:33] Sothas > red in belt
[05:41:48] Dischordant > Makes me think I should have gone higher. Send the money and you're free.
[05:42:30] Dischordant > 100m, not 100k
[05:42:41] Sothas > yeah, missed the zeros
[05:42:45] Dischordant > np
[05:43:30] Dischordant > o/
[05:44:09] EVE System > Sothas was kicked from the channel by Dischordant
Effective until: 2012.09.11 06:14
Reason: "Business concluded"
With that done, I figured that I would just be waiting out GCC and leaving system. Salvaging the wreck with my alt, I got 35m in salvage out of it too, not a bad little profit.
While salvaging the wreck, it didn't take too long to notice an Abbadon on scan, on scan towards the station. Checking the belt and planet in that cluster, sure enough he was at the station. But wait, he's not there anymore. Did he go back to the belt we fought in looking for a fight? No, not on scan there. He is at another cluster though. Warping to the ice belt in system, sure enough he's there. Spiralling in to make sure he doesn't land some massive hits on me before I can get under his guns, he doesn't even lock me until I'm in a tight orbit, with the afterburner running.
Tearing through his shields, he finally targets back and opens fire, not scratching me at all, and not launching any drones. Figuring this would be an easy time, I invited him to the ransom channel again. Wait. I kicked him, he can't join for 30 minutes. I guess I'll just go for the kill then.
Getting half-way through his armor, local goes up by two, a couple of his corp-mates have entered system, before long there's a Drake and Merlin on scan. Figuring I'd have company soon, I overheated the top rack to try and get through his buffer before they come in and start getting me. Keeping an eagle eye on the heat damage to my guns I let them get to 90% before turning the overload off. His backup still hasn't arrived, and he's deep into structure now, and pop goes the Battleship.
I'm really unsure as to what he was thinking, with me still in system to go and grab a PvE Battleship, and go ratting. I wish I had thought about the ransom a little more and just invited him to a conversation and tried to ransom the ship, I really could use the money right now. Oh well.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Sunday, 9 September 2012
Satisfying blue flashes.
Well, after another unexpected absence (life worked out that I could make it off to a wedding that I didn't expect I was able to), I've been able to get back in the pod again for a while. Though I've been back for the better part of a week now, I hadn't had any fights worth writing about, until tonight.
I had been fairly lazy, with a couple of BPOs heading down via Red Frog, I was using my alt to mine, sort of. I placed him in one of the belts in Iges, getting some of the minerals that I wasn't able to get a good supply of in high-sec. Using a tanky Procurer for this served two purposes, first was to get these minerals, also was to bait anyone who decided that it would be an easy target. Sure enough, some people decided that looked good to them. Seeing an Enyo warp into the belt, I undocked Dischord's Hurricane, and went in after it. Before long a Merlin and Condor warped in to assist the Enyo.
Landing with Dischord, I right away went after the Enyo, with it being the most expensive ship on field. It right away started burning away with its' Microwarp Drive. Overheating my Battlecruiser's mid slots, I was barely able to keep him within overheated point range, while keeping the damage on him. Reeling him to around 20km, I turned the heat off, and soon realized that he was able to outrun me without the heat on the MWD. Having to once again heat all the mids to keep him from getting out, my MWD was reaching critical levels as he was once again to around 20 km range. Turning off the heat just too late, I saw the prop mod burn out, as I overheated the top rack to try get the assault ship, now spewing flame from it's hull before it was out of point range, and was rewarded with a satisfying blue flash.
With the other frigates having warped off when they realized the mining barge was heavily tanked, and thinking I would be coming for them next, I warped my alt off, to get his covert ops ship, which has a salvager on it, to try maximise my profit on the kill. As my cov-ops warps to the wreck, I notice a slicer warp into the belt. A pilot who I had talked to earlier who was interested in fighting my Wolf, so I decided rather then bring the 'cane against it, I'd grab my Assault Frigate. Coming back to the belt with barrage loaded, I landed on top of the Amarr Frigate and went to work. It soon became apparent that the pilot of the Slicer though was AFK, as he didn't move as his shields quickly evaporated. With it's armor nearly depleted, the pilot finally took control and set about trying to do some damage to me before his ship reached it's end.
Gloating to myself over the nice loot that the Slicer dropped, I was about to warp out when a Malediction warped in, and I thought it would be interesting to continue the fight, not thinking about the loot in my cargo hold, and more importantly, not checking my directional scan.
Getting the Malediction scrammed right away, along with my Nosferatu keeping my cap levels up, I overheated my armor rep and hoped for the best, especially once the Federation Navy Comet landed on grid with us. Cursing myself then for not having any Exile booster, I overheated all the things to try and make sure I took as much out with me as I could. Entering structure at around the same time as the Malediction (wishing this entire time now I had loaded Fusion also), my the overheated repair module pulling a bit of armor back every cycle, was enough to see another satisfying blue flash as the aggressing Interceptor exploded.
I still had some hope at this time that without the rockets pouring out of the Malediction, the rep may be able to pull back some armor against the Comet, but that hope was short lived, as before I was even able to turn my guns around towards the Comet, my Wolf 's hull let go, with my most expensive loss to date.
Definitely a fun few minutes. Looking at local afterwards, I think even if I had gotten that Comet, there may have been more coming for me, There were definitely more hostiles in local, but I don't know if they were together at all.
On the skilling side, still cleaning up a few holes in my support skills, though I've decided to train into a Loki sooner rather then later, after looking at a few fits, so while I was gone for a week there, I started on Minmatar Cruiser V, and I've been cleaning up the last couple skills I need to train the subsystem skills. I've already got the full Loki fit sitting in Slays. Not going to say anything more about it then it'll definitely be my most expensive lossmail when it eventually rolls around.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
I had been fairly lazy, with a couple of BPOs heading down via Red Frog, I was using my alt to mine, sort of. I placed him in one of the belts in Iges, getting some of the minerals that I wasn't able to get a good supply of in high-sec. Using a tanky Procurer for this served two purposes, first was to get these minerals, also was to bait anyone who decided that it would be an easy target. Sure enough, some people decided that looked good to them. Seeing an Enyo warp into the belt, I undocked Dischord's Hurricane, and went in after it. Before long a Merlin and Condor warped in to assist the Enyo.
Landing with Dischord, I right away went after the Enyo, with it being the most expensive ship on field. It right away started burning away with its' Microwarp Drive. Overheating my Battlecruiser's mid slots, I was barely able to keep him within overheated point range, while keeping the damage on him. Reeling him to around 20km, I turned the heat off, and soon realized that he was able to outrun me without the heat on the MWD. Having to once again heat all the mids to keep him from getting out, my MWD was reaching critical levels as he was once again to around 20 km range. Turning off the heat just too late, I saw the prop mod burn out, as I overheated the top rack to try get the assault ship, now spewing flame from it's hull before it was out of point range, and was rewarded with a satisfying blue flash.
With the other frigates having warped off when they realized the mining barge was heavily tanked, and thinking I would be coming for them next, I warped my alt off, to get his covert ops ship, which has a salvager on it, to try maximise my profit on the kill. As my cov-ops warps to the wreck, I notice a slicer warp into the belt. A pilot who I had talked to earlier who was interested in fighting my Wolf, so I decided rather then bring the 'cane against it, I'd grab my Assault Frigate. Coming back to the belt with barrage loaded, I landed on top of the Amarr Frigate and went to work. It soon became apparent that the pilot of the Slicer though was AFK, as he didn't move as his shields quickly evaporated. With it's armor nearly depleted, the pilot finally took control and set about trying to do some damage to me before his ship reached it's end.
Gloating to myself over the nice loot that the Slicer dropped, I was about to warp out when a Malediction warped in, and I thought it would be interesting to continue the fight, not thinking about the loot in my cargo hold, and more importantly, not checking my directional scan.
Getting the Malediction scrammed right away, along with my Nosferatu keeping my cap levels up, I overheated my armor rep and hoped for the best, especially once the Federation Navy Comet landed on grid with us. Cursing myself then for not having any Exile booster, I overheated all the things to try and make sure I took as much out with me as I could. Entering structure at around the same time as the Malediction (wishing this entire time now I had loaded Fusion also), my the overheated repair module pulling a bit of armor back every cycle, was enough to see another satisfying blue flash as the aggressing Interceptor exploded.
I still had some hope at this time that without the rockets pouring out of the Malediction, the rep may be able to pull back some armor against the Comet, but that hope was short lived, as before I was even able to turn my guns around towards the Comet, my Wolf 's hull let go, with my most expensive loss to date.
Definitely a fun few minutes. Looking at local afterwards, I think even if I had gotten that Comet, there may have been more coming for me, There were definitely more hostiles in local, but I don't know if they were together at all.
On the skilling side, still cleaning up a few holes in my support skills, though I've decided to train into a Loki sooner rather then later, after looking at a few fits, so while I was gone for a week there, I started on Minmatar Cruiser V, and I've been cleaning up the last couple skills I need to train the subsystem skills. I've already got the full Loki fit sitting in Slays. Not going to say anything more about it then it'll definitely be my most expensive lossmail when it eventually rolls around.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Sunday, 19 August 2012
A Series of Fortunate Events pt. 2
I'm still somewhat in disbelief with the events of this morning. Getting into my pod, I start doing a bit of logistics. Having a friend move a couple Dramiels that I won off the blink lotteries, and then playing around fitting one of them with items I had laying around in the hangar (Got something that looks half decent now, but with the price of the ship, I'm a little leery of flying it often). Taking a couple pot-shots at a friends Cheetah to check the tracking on it as the Angel frigate zips around at nearly 4km/s. While doing that, I notice one of our friends in local from last night, the Drake/Myrm pilot.
Sure enough, before long he's out in a Hurricane, and then sits himself on our station undock. Pug is online once again, and though I'm GCC'd, and will have station aggro, we decide it could be fun. He grabs his SFI and undocks. Sure enough TIRANOSSAUROS engages him, so I undock my Cyclone and start fighting. His Hurricane is ASB tanked, the same way my Cyclone is, so it's really a race to see who runs out of charges faster, as he starts attacking me, but under the combined fire of the Hurricane and the Station, it's soon apparent that he has the advantage. Able to pull a couple more boosts out of my cap, it seems like he's also run out of charges in his ASB, but not soon enough, as my Cyclone explodes. Warping my pod out, and back to station, I see his pod warp away from the Hurricane wreck as I land.
We loot the field, and I begin waiting out GCC again, when Agrippa notifies us that TIRAN is sitting on our undock again, this time with a Tengu. Pug undocks his Megathron this time, and soon enough the battle is going again when the Tengu aggresses on the Battleship, and also on Agrippa's Rifter. Undocking in my dual rep Stabber Fleet Issue again, we start working on the Tengu's active tank. Before too long it's very apparent that the incoming damage is overwhelming my active tank, so using my afterburner I burned out of his scram range, and warped to a nearby planet to repair/reload the cap booster. Coming back in, and opening fire, we do the same thing again, getting the Tengu to show a little armor damage, before I need to warp out again. After about four times of doing this, we really haven't done much to his armor yet, and Arch Widowmaker gets on, but is a little ways out. I continue my dance in and out of the fight, with nearly burnt out reps it makes things a little more difficult. Soon enough though Arch undocks in his Machariel, and the Tengu starts attempting to de-aggress and dock up, but too late. The combined firepower of the two battleships on a stationary target, along with my Stabber and Agrippa's Rifter finally were able to get through the Tengu's tank.
I'm really amazed that this guy kept coming back time after time. Four ships in two days to us, getting two kills in return, but losing the ISK war by far (and some SP at the same time).
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Sure enough, before long he's out in a Hurricane, and then sits himself on our station undock. Pug is online once again, and though I'm GCC'd, and will have station aggro, we decide it could be fun. He grabs his SFI and undocks. Sure enough TIRANOSSAUROS engages him, so I undock my Cyclone and start fighting. His Hurricane is ASB tanked, the same way my Cyclone is, so it's really a race to see who runs out of charges faster, as he starts attacking me, but under the combined fire of the Hurricane and the Station, it's soon apparent that he has the advantage. Able to pull a couple more boosts out of my cap, it seems like he's also run out of charges in his ASB, but not soon enough, as my Cyclone explodes. Warping my pod out, and back to station, I see his pod warp away from the Hurricane wreck as I land.
We loot the field, and I begin waiting out GCC again, when Agrippa notifies us that TIRAN is sitting on our undock again, this time with a Tengu. Pug undocks his Megathron this time, and soon enough the battle is going again when the Tengu aggresses on the Battleship, and also on Agrippa's Rifter. Undocking in my dual rep Stabber Fleet Issue again, we start working on the Tengu's active tank. Before too long it's very apparent that the incoming damage is overwhelming my active tank, so using my afterburner I burned out of his scram range, and warped to a nearby planet to repair/reload the cap booster. Coming back in, and opening fire, we do the same thing again, getting the Tengu to show a little armor damage, before I need to warp out again. After about four times of doing this, we really haven't done much to his armor yet, and Arch Widowmaker gets on, but is a little ways out. I continue my dance in and out of the fight, with nearly burnt out reps it makes things a little more difficult. Soon enough though Arch undocks in his Machariel, and the Tengu starts attempting to de-aggress and dock up, but too late. The combined firepower of the two battleships on a stationary target, along with my Stabber and Agrippa's Rifter finally were able to get through the Tengu's tank.
I'm really amazed that this guy kept coming back time after time. Four ships in two days to us, getting two kills in return, but losing the ISK war by far (and some SP at the same time).
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Saturday, 18 August 2012
A Series of Fortunate Events
Roaming around today for a couple hours, netted me a whole lot of nothing.Eventually going and checking Pelille/Dour/Grispire, had me needing to get through a gate camp to get back home, so I ended up docking up in Pelille for a little while and doing other things. Coming back, darmwand was in Iges saying that he's been playing cat and mouse with a Retriever and Drake, while flying a Merlin. I undock and head to the Ostingele gate, thinking that there very well could be a camp there. The members of Friendly Players Alliance aren't all that friendly to pirate-kind. Nothing on scan as I come to the gate, I cross my fingers and jump through, into a nearly empty system. Success! Jumping gate to gate, I land on the Iges gate, as darm reports that the Retriever just docked up, and seems to have gotten in a Cyclone and left system, sure enough he comes right through me. Completely unsure about being able to tank gate guns, and break a Cyclone's tank in my nano Hurricane, I let him go.
In Iges, we turn our attention to the Drake that's still in system. Putting the call out to my cov-ops ally, he docks the mining barge he had been in and comes to help us out with the potential targets at home. With good directions as to where the battlecruiser is, one pass on the probes is all that he needed for the warp in, and soon enough, with darm serving as fast tackle in a Taranis, and myself sitting in a dual medium armor repairer fit Stabber Fleet Issue, we're in warp to the Radar site. Coming out of warp, it's empty. We must have just missed him. He's still in space, and has probes out, so it may not be our last chance. Telling the Cov-Ops pilot to use regular probes to find the various sites in the system, soon enough we know where they all are, and soon enough we see the Drake on scan towards another of them.
Once again we warp over there. Landing 60km away from the Drake, darmwand heats his microwarp, trying to get there as fast as possible, but sadly, the Caldari battlecruiser warps before the distance is closed.
About to warp off, thinking that's probably the last chance we're getting, we notice combat probes on scan. After double checking with our friend, and confirming they aren't his, we decide to wait and see what comes for us. Not having us wait to long, we see a Republic Fleet Firetail, Jaguar, and Wolf on scan. I start to think about changing ships over to the armor tanked, dual web Hurricane in my hangar, but that thought is interrupted when the three frigates land on top of the Stabber. darm takes the chance to warp off and grab something a little better for the situation, as I turn my guns towards the Firetail. Able to use my afterburner to reduce transversal, along with the added damage from my drones, the Firetail falls without much difficulty.
Wanting to take as much damage off the field as I can, I load explosive rounds into my guns and start firing on the Wolf when I get the chance. Having to micro-manage my drones as they're picking them off, the few hits that land, aren't landing all that solidly. darm is back en route with a Wolf of his own, but before he lands enough of my hits had been landing on the enemy Wolf that he warps off. Able to switch point over to the Jaguar, I still couldn't hit it very well. It pulled range on me and let me get a few shots in, while darm did most of the work to pop it.
As we were looting and salvaging, the drake comes back, with a friend. As I had ended up leaving a rep and my cap booster running for most of that fight, I had to warp out and grab more cap boosters. darm's ship was full of overheated modules at the time, so we weren't sure about taking the fight. It was then that Pugnacious Monkey came around, I told him about the situation, and soon enough we were in warp to the site they were in with a pair of Stabber Fleet Issues. Upon landing, they both left again. Pug decided he wanted to jump into a different ship, and headed away while I waited until some of the pirates that lived in the site took notice of me. Warping out just as the Drakes were landing. Landing back with Pug, who was now in a Cynabal, we went in again. This time landing right on top of the two Drakes, I soon called TIRANOSSAUROS primary, and we went to work on the legendary tank of the Drake. With both drakes hurling their missiles at my Cruiser, the incoming damage was fairly high, but with the afterburner reducing the damage, one rep did most of the work, with just pulsing the other to keep topped up.
Soon enough the first Drake had fallen, and the other pilot 0Power0 knew he wasn't going to get his ship out of this in one piece unless he paid us, so after some quick negotiations, all three of us were 25,000,000 isk richer.
I started writing this entry after all of that had gone down, but before I finished we had more to do in system. Our friends had returned, TIRAN had come back with a Myrmidon, along with Power still in his Drake. Having all the sites scanned down, we soon were warping down to go fight them, this time with myself in a Hurricane, and Pug in his Megathron (darmwand had to leave in the meanwhile). Heading through acceleration gates, that the Mega actually couldn't get through, they noticed us nearby and left towards a station. Following them, there was also a flashy red Cyclone there. After playing some games on the station for a while, the Myrm and Cyclone ended up engaging my nano-Cane, and if not for the neuts would have destroyed it, as Pug was getting his Battleship in range. With the two ships focusing on him, he de-aggressed, and managed to dock before I got back in the fight, where I grabbed the drones I had left behind, and warped out again.
Before too long, I noticed that one of the pilots went to an asterioid belt, trying to bait us, with a Retriever. Going after it, my eyes crossed as I went through the targetting routine, and ended up keeping a Veldspar asteroid from being able to warp off, whoops. Before long, the Myrmidon came into the belt, and I started doing my regular kiting around, but soon bounced off an asterioid which let the Myrmidon catch me with a web, and soon a scrambler. The Hurricane was dead in the water, and going to explode fast. Overheating everything, since it wouldn't last anyways, I put as much damage into the Myrm as I can, as his friend arrives in the Drake again, though Pug is also en route with his Megathron. With my Hurricane reduced to wreckage. I jumped into a Cyclone and warped right back in, as the Megathron tore one last hole in the Myrmidon's hull. With both the Drake, and the unaffiliated Cyclone in belt yet, I burned towards the Drake, which between our combined firepower didn't last long at all, at which point the Cyclone, who had been burning away warped off.
As we were scooping the loot though, a Machariel warped into the belt, and with neither of us wanting to deal with that, we left. I later returned to see all the loot was still there, success!
A crazy series of events, which has led to probably my most memorable night in Eve. Right up there with "Industrial Fury" from a few months back.
With all that, I bid you adieu.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
In Iges, we turn our attention to the Drake that's still in system. Putting the call out to my cov-ops ally, he docks the mining barge he had been in and comes to help us out with the potential targets at home. With good directions as to where the battlecruiser is, one pass on the probes is all that he needed for the warp in, and soon enough, with darm serving as fast tackle in a Taranis, and myself sitting in a dual medium armor repairer fit Stabber Fleet Issue, we're in warp to the Radar site. Coming out of warp, it's empty. We must have just missed him. He's still in space, and has probes out, so it may not be our last chance. Telling the Cov-Ops pilot to use regular probes to find the various sites in the system, soon enough we know where they all are, and soon enough we see the Drake on scan towards another of them.
Once again we warp over there. Landing 60km away from the Drake, darmwand heats his microwarp, trying to get there as fast as possible, but sadly, the Caldari battlecruiser warps before the distance is closed.
About to warp off, thinking that's probably the last chance we're getting, we notice combat probes on scan. After double checking with our friend, and confirming they aren't his, we decide to wait and see what comes for us. Not having us wait to long, we see a Republic Fleet Firetail, Jaguar, and Wolf on scan. I start to think about changing ships over to the armor tanked, dual web Hurricane in my hangar, but that thought is interrupted when the three frigates land on top of the Stabber. darm takes the chance to warp off and grab something a little better for the situation, as I turn my guns towards the Firetail. Able to use my afterburner to reduce transversal, along with the added damage from my drones, the Firetail falls without much difficulty.
Wanting to take as much damage off the field as I can, I load explosive rounds into my guns and start firing on the Wolf when I get the chance. Having to micro-manage my drones as they're picking them off, the few hits that land, aren't landing all that solidly. darm is back en route with a Wolf of his own, but before he lands enough of my hits had been landing on the enemy Wolf that he warps off. Able to switch point over to the Jaguar, I still couldn't hit it very well. It pulled range on me and let me get a few shots in, while darm did most of the work to pop it.
As we were looting and salvaging, the drake comes back, with a friend. As I had ended up leaving a rep and my cap booster running for most of that fight, I had to warp out and grab more cap boosters. darm's ship was full of overheated modules at the time, so we weren't sure about taking the fight. It was then that Pugnacious Monkey came around, I told him about the situation, and soon enough we were in warp to the site they were in with a pair of Stabber Fleet Issues. Upon landing, they both left again. Pug decided he wanted to jump into a different ship, and headed away while I waited until some of the pirates that lived in the site took notice of me. Warping out just as the Drakes were landing. Landing back with Pug, who was now in a Cynabal, we went in again. This time landing right on top of the two Drakes, I soon called TIRANOSSAUROS primary, and we went to work on the legendary tank of the Drake. With both drakes hurling their missiles at my Cruiser, the incoming damage was fairly high, but with the afterburner reducing the damage, one rep did most of the work, with just pulsing the other to keep topped up.
Soon enough the first Drake had fallen, and the other pilot 0Power0 knew he wasn't going to get his ship out of this in one piece unless he paid us, so after some quick negotiations, all three of us were 25,000,000 isk richer.
I started writing this entry after all of that had gone down, but before I finished we had more to do in system. Our friends had returned, TIRAN had come back with a Myrmidon, along with Power still in his Drake. Having all the sites scanned down, we soon were warping down to go fight them, this time with myself in a Hurricane, and Pug in his Megathron (darmwand had to leave in the meanwhile). Heading through acceleration gates, that the Mega actually couldn't get through, they noticed us nearby and left towards a station. Following them, there was also a flashy red Cyclone there. After playing some games on the station for a while, the Myrm and Cyclone ended up engaging my nano-Cane, and if not for the neuts would have destroyed it, as Pug was getting his Battleship in range. With the two ships focusing on him, he de-aggressed, and managed to dock before I got back in the fight, where I grabbed the drones I had left behind, and warped out again.
Before too long, I noticed that one of the pilots went to an asterioid belt, trying to bait us, with a Retriever. Going after it, my eyes crossed as I went through the targetting routine, and ended up keeping a Veldspar asteroid from being able to warp off, whoops. Before long, the Myrmidon came into the belt, and I started doing my regular kiting around, but soon bounced off an asterioid which let the Myrmidon catch me with a web, and soon a scrambler. The Hurricane was dead in the water, and going to explode fast. Overheating everything, since it wouldn't last anyways, I put as much damage into the Myrm as I can, as his friend arrives in the Drake again, though Pug is also en route with his Megathron. With my Hurricane reduced to wreckage. I jumped into a Cyclone and warped right back in, as the Megathron tore one last hole in the Myrmidon's hull. With both the Drake, and the unaffiliated Cyclone in belt yet, I burned towards the Drake, which between our combined firepower didn't last long at all, at which point the Cyclone, who had been burning away warped off.
As we were scooping the loot though, a Machariel warped into the belt, and with neither of us wanting to deal with that, we left. I later returned to see all the loot was still there, success!
A crazy series of events, which has led to probably my most memorable night in Eve. Right up there with "Industrial Fury" from a few months back.
With all that, I bid you adieu.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Long time, no post
It just occurred to me that I've been neglecting this blog. I kept meaning to write a post up here or there after things had quieted down, but being the master procrastinator that I am, I always would just put it off.
Add into that, taking an extended long weekend to go out to Shambhala Music Festival for the third year in a row (and having an amazing time with a whole whack of my friends out there), it's been the better part of a month since I've written anything here. Even with it being a fairly slow month, I've definitely had some good times in there.
Battlecruisers have become the mainstay of what I've been flying, though with the most recent patch, I think I may be trying to get out in Tech 1 Frigates more often again. The Slasher really has piqued my interest, it seems to be a better version of the shield Rifter at this point. In three days, when AWU IV finishes, I'll have a decent fit for it to test out I think.
Back on the Battlecruiser thing though, as much as I wanted to love flying the Cyclone around everywhere at first, I've more and more found myself in my Hurricanes, or more specifically, my nano-cane. It's fairly devastating both when up close, or while kiting. Add in to that, the fact that I can jump through 0.5/0.6 security systems with it, to hit some low-sec pockets here and there, and I'm quite happy with it. While flying them, I'm usually 50/50 on going out with my cov-ops alt scouting me. I've saved myself from a few gatecamps with that (and never managed to go through one without scouting it, knock on wood), and having a prober along for the ride has definitely netted me some kills here and there, but the effort to do it on one monitor is sometimes more then I want to spend, and there have been a couple of times where the alt has been left sitting on a gate, and woken up in a clone vat.
On an aside, and I almost hesitate to put this in the blog, my alt has gone on a fairly large aside on his training. I had been training boosting skills, with the eventual goal of getting into a link Loki, but once I saw the mining changes coming up, and the minor amount of skill points needed to get into a Retriever, that's exactly what I've done. Along with that, I've gone and been training various industry skills, so before too long, I'll probably be trying to do some basic production to keep myself stocked on ships rather then having to buy everything, along with getting some extra income from the whole carebearing thing. I've ganked enough miners, that maybe it's rubbed off now? Definitely not going to be something I put much effort into (though I've done it a lot in the past few days, as I've not wanted to put any effort into anything else after coming home from work), but I may be able to support my PvP habit with it (I hope).
Anyways, just a quick post here. I'll probably hit some of the ~goodfights~ in my notes in the next few days, get back to some of my normal content here.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Add into that, taking an extended long weekend to go out to Shambhala Music Festival for the third year in a row (and having an amazing time with a whole whack of my friends out there), it's been the better part of a month since I've written anything here. Even with it being a fairly slow month, I've definitely had some good times in there.
Battlecruisers have become the mainstay of what I've been flying, though with the most recent patch, I think I may be trying to get out in Tech 1 Frigates more often again. The Slasher really has piqued my interest, it seems to be a better version of the shield Rifter at this point. In three days, when AWU IV finishes, I'll have a decent fit for it to test out I think.
Back on the Battlecruiser thing though, as much as I wanted to love flying the Cyclone around everywhere at first, I've more and more found myself in my Hurricanes, or more specifically, my nano-cane. It's fairly devastating both when up close, or while kiting. Add in to that, the fact that I can jump through 0.5/0.6 security systems with it, to hit some low-sec pockets here and there, and I'm quite happy with it. While flying them, I'm usually 50/50 on going out with my cov-ops alt scouting me. I've saved myself from a few gatecamps with that (and never managed to go through one without scouting it, knock on wood), and having a prober along for the ride has definitely netted me some kills here and there, but the effort to do it on one monitor is sometimes more then I want to spend, and there have been a couple of times where the alt has been left sitting on a gate, and woken up in a clone vat.
On an aside, and I almost hesitate to put this in the blog, my alt has gone on a fairly large aside on his training. I had been training boosting skills, with the eventual goal of getting into a link Loki, but once I saw the mining changes coming up, and the minor amount of skill points needed to get into a Retriever, that's exactly what I've done. Along with that, I've gone and been training various industry skills, so before too long, I'll probably be trying to do some basic production to keep myself stocked on ships rather then having to buy everything, along with getting some extra income from the whole carebearing thing. I've ganked enough miners, that maybe it's rubbed off now? Definitely not going to be something I put much effort into (though I've done it a lot in the past few days, as I've not wanted to put any effort into anything else after coming home from work), but I may be able to support my PvP habit with it (I hope).
Anyways, just a quick post here. I'll probably hit some of the ~goodfights~ in my notes in the next few days, get back to some of my normal content here.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Back in action
So, the company that was over, and had me tied up out of pod has left on an aeroplane, and now I can get back to my regular (large amount) time in game.
While watching the Alliance Tournament yesterday, during the break I noticed that there was a Jaguar in the home system, and one of our neighbours from Valkyr Industries there. We've had some bad experience with these guys, but I figured I was down to give it a shot. I sent my cov-ops into the next system to see if any of them were active there as I jumped into a Wolf to give it a shot.
Seeing that it was all clear, I warped into the belt that the Jaguar was in, and saw him around 40km off. Starting to burn towards me, he fired up his microwarp drive away from me, so I had no chance catching him with my afterburning Wolf. Thinking that he may be up for a fight, I warped to the sun with a bit of range, to try and make sure he didn't land directly on top of my Wolf. Landing, I started hitting my scan, and soon enough he registered, and landed 50km off me, back towards the belt we came from. Turning towards him, this time he started burning towards me. Game on!
Overheating my point and guns, I turned off his drive right away, and then noticed that this fight should be easier then I figured it would be, as rather then webbing me he was tracking disrupting me. With full range control in the fight, the superior range of my Wolf started burning through the Jaguar's shields, and it was soon apparent how things were going to turn out, when his shields were depleting at around the same rate as my Wolf's were. Popping the ship, I also was able to grab the pod with an overheated scram (as I didn't stop my ship right away) I went for the ransom, but during negotiations I burnt out my scram and popped the pod asap.
Following the Tournament, I went out and checked the local systems, finding a Thrasher in a FW plex in Covryn. Getting into a Firetail, I went over there. Landing in the plex, I found Caldari FW in the Gallente plex, with a couple NPCs left firing at him, he burned away from them right away and was obviously up for the fight. Setting my orbit to 7500 as he burned with his MWD towards me, I loaded Barrage, and an optimal range script in the tracking disruptor. Opening fire, I wasn't doing much to him, but it was still more then he was doing to me. Getting a bit greedy I set orbit to 5000, but started to take lots of damage, and was also just in range of his neut.
Seeing the neut light up on the effects bar I decided to start pulling range, as I also had to start running my armor rep, which capped the Firetail out in short order, turning off my tracking disruptor and afterburner, luckily the web and scram kept on, and I was still able to pull out of neut range, and get the tracking disruptor on as some flame started pouring out of my hull. The Destroyer was also hurting as bad as my Frigate and took the time to warp out.
Heading to a safe, I repped up my armor, and by the time my shield had naturally regenerated, I saw the thrasher was back in the plex. Deciding to go for round two, I warped in, flames still coming out of the ship, and went for it again. He was down for the fight again also, as the same series of events took place, but this time I kept my orbit at the edge of scram range and plinked away with Barrage until he finally broke. GF! I think if he had t2 guns w/barrage, I would have been in trouble right from the start.
In Ruerotta later, there was an Ishkur and Punisher in the ice belt, but far away from the warp in. A quick scan later, and my Hurricane was in warp 20km off of them, landed, and made quick work of both of them.
Logging off after seeing my normal roam had an Incursion on the route, I got on again today, and went looking for fights after the tournament again (some great matches in there. I won't say anything more then that incase people are still planning to watch on Youtube or something like that), and soon found Reaperxvii camping the slays gate in Amoen with a Hurricane. Grabbing my Nano-Cane I went for it. Both of us being shield tanked, it was fairly even until I pulled a bit of range where I was landing much more solid hits then he was, as he entered structure, I was at around 1/4 shields.
Being used to using a scram and having to worry about people trying to run, I hit approach to seal the deal, and his damage shot way up. I was taking chunks out of his structure, but my armor nearly evaporated at the same time. Entering structure, I managed to get the last volley needed with my nearly burnt out guns (95% burnt out) as my hull once again started spewing flames.
Dropping the loot back in Iges, I jumped into my shield Rupture, and went back to the loop, after having to dock up for an hour, I came back and found a Brutix/Incursus in Amasiree. Wanting to see how my Rupture would do against what I hoped was a blaster fit Brutix, I went for it, landing 20km off them in a belt, I soon had the battlecruiser pointed, and drones going after the Frigate. With Barrage eating through the shields, and doing good damage to the Brutix's armor, I felt pretty good. The Incursus warped off with low structure as the drones did their work, but soon a Maller warped in, around 50km off of me, and 40km off of the Brutix. With the Brutix launching a flight of EC300 drones, I locked them and sent my own drones after the dishonour drones.
With the final shots punching through the battlecruiser's armor, and into his structure, I noticed he was suddenly gaining armor as the Maller neared him. Must be a remote-rep Maller, damnit, overheating the guns I kept firing as I aligned out, and saw a Dominix warp in. With my shields starting to take heavy hits between drones, and lasers, along with the Brutix pulling back armor, the remaining ECM drones got a jam off and I burned my guns out at the same moment. Already being aligned, and nearly out of cap I warped off, with just a little armor damage peeking through, leaving my drones behind in the process. All I could think of after that was "I should have brought the 'cane"
It's been a fun couple of days. It was fun to have people over, but I'm glad to be back to my normal schedule. These blog posts should be back in a normal kind of schedule again too, as I'll actually have content again.
On the skills front, my alt almost has cov-ops 5 finished, and I'll probably end up getting the scanning skills a little higher after that yet, but after that I'm thinking of training some drone skills and Gal cruisers, and using a Vexor for radar sites for some extra income.
Discho is mid-way through Battlecruiser V now, after which I'll be doing some quick cross-training so that when the time comes that they change to racial Battlecruiser skills, I'll have that all ready to go (I'll be doing Destroyers soon enough also). I'll probably follow that all up by going a little further with Amarr/Gallente Cruiser skills, so I can fly Arbitrators/Vexors, as my drone skills aren't horrible these days. After that, I'm not entirely sure where I'll go. I'll be glad for more ships to fly once again though. I'm glad to have some decent variety already, but I'll always want more, I can tell that already.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
While watching the Alliance Tournament yesterday, during the break I noticed that there was a Jaguar in the home system, and one of our neighbours from Valkyr Industries there. We've had some bad experience with these guys, but I figured I was down to give it a shot. I sent my cov-ops into the next system to see if any of them were active there as I jumped into a Wolf to give it a shot.
Seeing that it was all clear, I warped into the belt that the Jaguar was in, and saw him around 40km off. Starting to burn towards me, he fired up his microwarp drive away from me, so I had no chance catching him with my afterburning Wolf. Thinking that he may be up for a fight, I warped to the sun with a bit of range, to try and make sure he didn't land directly on top of my Wolf. Landing, I started hitting my scan, and soon enough he registered, and landed 50km off me, back towards the belt we came from. Turning towards him, this time he started burning towards me. Game on!
Overheating my point and guns, I turned off his drive right away, and then noticed that this fight should be easier then I figured it would be, as rather then webbing me he was tracking disrupting me. With full range control in the fight, the superior range of my Wolf started burning through the Jaguar's shields, and it was soon apparent how things were going to turn out, when his shields were depleting at around the same rate as my Wolf's were. Popping the ship, I also was able to grab the pod with an overheated scram (as I didn't stop my ship right away) I went for the ransom, but during negotiations I burnt out my scram and popped the pod asap.
Following the Tournament, I went out and checked the local systems, finding a Thrasher in a FW plex in Covryn. Getting into a Firetail, I went over there. Landing in the plex, I found Caldari FW in the Gallente plex, with a couple NPCs left firing at him, he burned away from them right away and was obviously up for the fight. Setting my orbit to 7500 as he burned with his MWD towards me, I loaded Barrage, and an optimal range script in the tracking disruptor. Opening fire, I wasn't doing much to him, but it was still more then he was doing to me. Getting a bit greedy I set orbit to 5000, but started to take lots of damage, and was also just in range of his neut.
Seeing the neut light up on the effects bar I decided to start pulling range, as I also had to start running my armor rep, which capped the Firetail out in short order, turning off my tracking disruptor and afterburner, luckily the web and scram kept on, and I was still able to pull out of neut range, and get the tracking disruptor on as some flame started pouring out of my hull. The Destroyer was also hurting as bad as my Frigate and took the time to warp out.
Heading to a safe, I repped up my armor, and by the time my shield had naturally regenerated, I saw the thrasher was back in the plex. Deciding to go for round two, I warped in, flames still coming out of the ship, and went for it again. He was down for the fight again also, as the same series of events took place, but this time I kept my orbit at the edge of scram range and plinked away with Barrage until he finally broke. GF! I think if he had t2 guns w/barrage, I would have been in trouble right from the start.
In Ruerotta later, there was an Ishkur and Punisher in the ice belt, but far away from the warp in. A quick scan later, and my Hurricane was in warp 20km off of them, landed, and made quick work of both of them.
Logging off after seeing my normal roam had an Incursion on the route, I got on again today, and went looking for fights after the tournament again (some great matches in there. I won't say anything more then that incase people are still planning to watch on Youtube or something like that), and soon found Reaperxvii camping the slays gate in Amoen with a Hurricane. Grabbing my Nano-Cane I went for it. Both of us being shield tanked, it was fairly even until I pulled a bit of range where I was landing much more solid hits then he was, as he entered structure, I was at around 1/4 shields.
Being used to using a scram and having to worry about people trying to run, I hit approach to seal the deal, and his damage shot way up. I was taking chunks out of his structure, but my armor nearly evaporated at the same time. Entering structure, I managed to get the last volley needed with my nearly burnt out guns (95% burnt out) as my hull once again started spewing flames.
Dropping the loot back in Iges, I jumped into my shield Rupture, and went back to the loop, after having to dock up for an hour, I came back and found a Brutix/Incursus in Amasiree. Wanting to see how my Rupture would do against what I hoped was a blaster fit Brutix, I went for it, landing 20km off them in a belt, I soon had the battlecruiser pointed, and drones going after the Frigate. With Barrage eating through the shields, and doing good damage to the Brutix's armor, I felt pretty good. The Incursus warped off with low structure as the drones did their work, but soon a Maller warped in, around 50km off of me, and 40km off of the Brutix. With the Brutix launching a flight of EC300 drones, I locked them and sent my own drones after the dishonour drones.
With the final shots punching through the battlecruiser's armor, and into his structure, I noticed he was suddenly gaining armor as the Maller neared him. Must be a remote-rep Maller, damnit, overheating the guns I kept firing as I aligned out, and saw a Dominix warp in. With my shields starting to take heavy hits between drones, and lasers, along with the Brutix pulling back armor, the remaining ECM drones got a jam off and I burned my guns out at the same moment. Already being aligned, and nearly out of cap I warped off, with just a little armor damage peeking through, leaving my drones behind in the process. All I could think of after that was "I should have brought the 'cane"
It's been a fun couple of days. It was fun to have people over, but I'm glad to be back to my normal schedule. These blog posts should be back in a normal kind of schedule again too, as I'll actually have content again.
On the skills front, my alt almost has cov-ops 5 finished, and I'll probably end up getting the scanning skills a little higher after that yet, but after that I'm thinking of training some drone skills and Gal cruisers, and using a Vexor for radar sites for some extra income.
Discho is mid-way through Battlecruiser V now, after which I'll be doing some quick cross-training so that when the time comes that they change to racial Battlecruiser skills, I'll have that all ready to go (I'll be doing Destroyers soon enough also). I'll probably follow that all up by going a little further with Amarr/Gallente Cruiser skills, so I can fly Arbitrators/Vexors, as my drone skills aren't horrible these days. After that, I'm not entirely sure where I'll go. I'll be glad for more ships to fly once again though. I'm glad to have some decent variety already, but I'll always want more, I can tell that already.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Two days, two hulks
Well, I've been back for a couple days now, had a few fights, couple interesting ones that I'll include in some other posts, but I've snagged a couple of hulks in the past couple, both being lots of fun.
Having a Cov-ops/Scanning alt, I've had someone who offered me a cut of any profit he makes from sites I scan down, so more and more often I've been scanning the systems down if things are slow, as it also provides me bookmarks to head in and catch people if I find them at the sites later.
Doing this, yesterday I found a wormhole, and decided to check it out, and soon enough saw a mining op in progress, a Hulk and a Retriever. Not sure if there would be much in the way of backup for these guys, I invited a few friends to fleet up and drop these as I scanned down the site. Fitting a MWD to a Wolf, we went in, and warped in.
Getting in, we all started burning for the ships with Pug getting there first and grabbing the Hulk, so as I went for the Ret while firing on the Hulk. Getting a point on it, they both drop rather quick. Seeing the message that someone else got a point on the Ret, I grabbed the Hulk's pod, inviting him to the ransom channel, he spewed some Russian profanity at us (according to darm, who ran it through google translate) and left channel. As we were on our way out, they said more, that I didn't bother checking out.
My first time finding people in a WH myself, I was quite happy with how that turned out.
Today, I went out and it had been fairly slow, and decided to roam to my favourite corner of Placid, and made it out to Kenninck without any targets coming up.
They had a mining op going when I got in system with co-ops alt, they all docked up, did some other stuff, and after an hour or so they came back, had a Hulk out with some friends.
went and had my cov-ops line up for a warp in as I brought Dis from a few jumps out, as I came in system he had been moving but wasn't aligning out. Coming out of warp, and I was on top of him, and then this is what followed.
EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Kenninck
Teck Togenada > dischordant
Teck Togenada > come on
Teck Togenada > ill pay you
Dischordant > domi doesn't kill me, and alright
Teck Togenada > domi, dont kill her
Teck Togenada > whats the fee this time?
Dischordant > 220 mill.
Dischordant > he's shooting
Teck Togenada > domi stop
Bo Baggs > oh nooooo
Bo Baggs > lol
Commander Mittens >
Dischordant > I'm OK with that trade.
JssNinja > kill your self
Dischordant > Kill: Teck Togenada (Hulk)
Dischordant > Kill: Dischordant (Rupture)
Dischordant > 300 mill vs 40 mill. Not bad.
Dischordant > have a good day!
BM'd the wreck with the alt, warped to a safe, saw a noctis on scan so I didn't head to grab it, soon noticed it off scan, so I warped to the belt, and saw that the wreck was still there. I warped off, and warped in again, started salvaging, and then saw the Noctis back on scan, and then came into the belt. It took forever to salvage, the Noc then warped out, and I had a Drake/Domi/Caracal on scan, managed to salvage and scoop the loot just as they arrived, so I warped off.
3 intact armor plates, + the loot, I broke even on that, even though I didn't get the ransom.
All in all, it's been a fairly good couple of days. Not back playing as much as I used, and probably won't be for a couple more weeks. Finishing off a few shield skills so I can fly a XL-ASB Cyclone, and then it's back to BC V, and then on to cross-training so I'll have the other races Battlecruiser skills when the time comes that CCP changes things around.
Fly dangerous
Chord
Thursday, 28 June 2012
Goodfights at the edge of Placid
A while back, I did a post talking about a few of my fights with the Federal Consensus Outreach, and called it part 1, but the sad state of things is that I let my notes get into this overgrown mass of a .txt file, and I can't really distinguish which fights were theres, and which weren't anymore, so part two isn't really on it's way anymore.
With that said though, I've had a few good run in's with them, and a few others in that area of Placid.
Having docked up for the night in Kenninck, I undocked my Rupture the next day, scouting around the system I found nothing, and docked up again to take care of a few things. Undocking the cruiser, I found that there was a Cynabal waiting for me. Knowing I didn't really have too much of a chance against a ship like that, I attempted to warp off, but it pointed/scrammed me before I was able to, but the station I was at had a nice large docking radius, so I just docked right away again. Undocking again, I looked for anything that may be a good instant-undock, and there was a moon that was close to straight in front. Hitting warp to that moon, the warp drive kicked in just before the Cynabal's computers managed to get a lock on my ship and disrupt the engines. I was free to go.
Or so I thought, as the Cynabal started chasing me, from gate to gate. Figuring he'd eventually give up as we started down the pipe, I was more and more surprised when he kept coming and coming. Calling out to some of the fellow Repo. agents, darmwand and Maleficas both jumped into Hurricanes and we decided to lay a trap for the Angel cruiser. Getting into Covryn, I warped to the Iges gate, where I held, and the Cynabal followed me. Landing next to me, I locked it up, and waited, to see if he would aggress. The pilot never did, but then it clued in to me, since he had fired upon my ship back in Kenninck, I was still able to shoot him without taking sentry fire from the gate. Locking him up, my Rupture's guns wound up and started firing, as he took shots back at me I told the fellow Repo. members that they were free to come. Under the combined fire of our ships, the Cynabal didn't have any chance, we quickly mopped up and grabbed the loot as he warped his pod out.
Before the end of that day, I wandered back out to Kenninck. That system has a certain appeal to me, after catching miners out there a few times, along with people ratting in belts. The trip out there was rather empty, but getting there, I found an Arbitrator in space, but nothing else. Having no luck scanning it down, I went back to the gate, where it also landed. Locking each other up, nobody decided to open fire first. Eventually he warped off to the nearby planet, and I followed. Landing 50km off him, I started burning for him, getting into range, I started the routine. Lock, point, web, open fire & launch drones. Knowing I would probably be tracking disrupted, I hit approach, and webbed him, hoping that would be enough for my guns to track him. Eating through his shields, I hit a wall with his armor, as his drones kept nibbling through mine (after he had destroyed my own drones). Seeing I would be unable to break his tank before my own broke, I started burning away, though scrammed, I still had a speed advantage due to the web. Hoping that'd be enough. At this point I was also given a glimmer of hope, as my guns were actually landing pretty solid hits on him, but sadly it wasn't enough, as his drones delivered the last hit. Warping the pod out, GFs were exchanged in local. I've gotta figure out a better way to deal with those. They're also definitely on my list of ships I want to fly. I'll probably be training all the racial cruisers to III after I train up BCV, but I'll probably spend the extra time to get Amarr Cruiser to IV just for the Arbitrator, since I've invested in my drone skills fairly well now.
Days later, back in this recurring system, I came in and popped & podded a Retriever while flying a Wolf. This time though, it woke the hornet's nest. All kinds of ships started undocking, many of them heading for the gate, trying to camp me into this dead-end system. Warping around to various safe spots, I soon spotted a Rifter by itself in a belt. Warping in, it didn't take me long to drop the T1 fit Frigate, but as I was finishing it, an Enyo came in. Thinking that I was flying the half-kiting wolf (Ava Starfire's fit) I started aligning out, but letting him get closer to me as I opened fire, though my damage was far less at range then I was expecting. Getting it into low structure, while dropping to around half armor myself, it managed to run out of point range and warp off before I could get it, too bad.
Repping up my armor, I kept an eye on d-scan, and soon I found another Rifter, with a similar name to the one I dropped, along with the Enyo in a belt again. Warping in on it, I landed near the Enyo and started to do the same thing, it too had repped it's armor back, but still had the hull damage. Getting in close this time, everything heated it was a race through the armor, with my rep holding out just enough to get the edge. I was able to pull range a few times through the course of our deadly dance, which was just enough to mitigate some of the damage he was able to dish out, while laying the hurt on him (I found out after the fact he stopped using his web to conserve some cap for his rep, not sure it was the best of ideas). With most of his structure already gone from the first engagement, once I got through the armor, the Gallente Assault Ship vented atmosphere, and I turned my attention to the Rifter. Opening fire and getting as close as I could, the Rifter was taking really heavy damage, but with the help of his web started to pull range. Once again, I was perplexed at the damage I was doing at range, but I thought I got him as he wapred out, and I turned my attention once more to another new ship landing here, an Ishkur that landed 40km off.
Starting to burn towards this new hostile, he warped off before I got too close, so my thought then went to grabbing loot, but that only lasted so long when a Demios entered the belt. That was a little more then I was prepared to try and take on, so I got out of there as fast as my Wolf's warp drive could take me. Waiting out the GCC I had, I jumped the gate camp, and made it un-eventfully back to Iges, no loot, but feeling great after that fight, with getting the ship out. It was when I got back, I noticed what had been bothering me the entire time there, this wasn't the fit that Ava wrote about, but I had put a 200mm plate in there rather then the TE, which had been my standard fit before.
Fast forward to today. Flying a Stabber Fleet, I made my way out to that side of Placid, and while there was nothing in Kennick, but getting into Espigoure there were a bunch of the Federal Consensus guys out. Seeing a Thorax in a belt, I warped in and burned towards it. Getting in range I turned off the Microwarp and hit the Afterburner, and settled into an orbit around it. Before too long though, I noticed d-scan filling up, and a Drake and Taranis landed on us. Burning down the Thorax, figuring that my tank may be able to hold up to the Taranis and HML Drake, but it seems like I was putting a little too much faith in the DMAR SFI's tank without drugs. It wasn't too long before they had it reduced to scrap metal.
Talking with Mal on mumble, we decided to grab our Hurricanes and head back down there for round 2. Aaron Stark, a new Repo. recruit joined us with a Rifter as our scout/tackle. Getting back to Espigoure , we decide that if Aaron and I go into system, it may work best as Mal has a shield-cane and could get to us fairly well, and it wouldn't scare them too much. Hitting my directional scanner right away, I noticed something I didn't quite expect, they had some Retrievers out, along with a Moa. Scanning the belt right near the gate, they were there, and I warped right away, not waiting for anyone else, while I called it out on comms.
Landing 20km off the closest mining barge, the Moa warped off, and I heated prop and tackle to get to the barge, which seemed to be stuck on rocks trying to warp. Landing tackle, it melted under the fire from my Battlecruiser. The other Retriever still hadn't warped off, and was 20km off of me at this point so I started heading over to that one, as a Brutix warped in for Defence... and proceeded to warp out again. Able to get tackle on the other barge, it too didn't last long. I thought about holding it to let the other guys on the mail, but that's when a Drake from their alliance landed. Getting a point on that before it too could warp off, the combined fire of the two Hurricanes dropped it rather quickly, along with grabbing the pod, which he didn't want to pay to keep.
With Aaron scouting us back, we decided to check if there was any action in Kenninck before heading home. Telling him to scan from the gate, and then warp to one of the 9 cluster belts, as the residents seem to dock up rather quickly when Repo. enters system, he ends up in belt 9-1, with a Myrmidon. Getting tackle on it, both Mal and I jump into system and enter warp, as he calls out that he was down already. Sending up prayers that his hero-tackle wasn't in vain, we both land on top of the Myrm and open up. Neuts on it, it didn't seem to have too great of an active tank, and was overwhelmed quickly (our killboard didn't like that, and neither did eve-kill apparently, there were no low-slots, if I remember I'll link the Repo. killboard link when darm works his magic on the killboard and makes those items show).
All in all, even though it's a slow end of the Universe (until you hit Syndicate, but I try to avoid that most of the time, I prefer to keep the impants in my head, I want to get my skillpoints up asap.
This'll probably be my last post for two or three weeks, something like that, but I definitely will be posting when I'm able to again.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
With that said though, I've had a few good run in's with them, and a few others in that area of Placid.
Having docked up for the night in Kenninck, I undocked my Rupture the next day, scouting around the system I found nothing, and docked up again to take care of a few things. Undocking the cruiser, I found that there was a Cynabal waiting for me. Knowing I didn't really have too much of a chance against a ship like that, I attempted to warp off, but it pointed/scrammed me before I was able to, but the station I was at had a nice large docking radius, so I just docked right away again. Undocking again, I looked for anything that may be a good instant-undock, and there was a moon that was close to straight in front. Hitting warp to that moon, the warp drive kicked in just before the Cynabal's computers managed to get a lock on my ship and disrupt the engines. I was free to go.
Or so I thought, as the Cynabal started chasing me, from gate to gate. Figuring he'd eventually give up as we started down the pipe, I was more and more surprised when he kept coming and coming. Calling out to some of the fellow Repo. agents, darmwand and Maleficas both jumped into Hurricanes and we decided to lay a trap for the Angel cruiser. Getting into Covryn, I warped to the Iges gate, where I held, and the Cynabal followed me. Landing next to me, I locked it up, and waited, to see if he would aggress. The pilot never did, but then it clued in to me, since he had fired upon my ship back in Kenninck, I was still able to shoot him without taking sentry fire from the gate. Locking him up, my Rupture's guns wound up and started firing, as he took shots back at me I told the fellow Repo. members that they were free to come. Under the combined fire of our ships, the Cynabal didn't have any chance, we quickly mopped up and grabbed the loot as he warped his pod out.
Before the end of that day, I wandered back out to Kenninck. That system has a certain appeal to me, after catching miners out there a few times, along with people ratting in belts. The trip out there was rather empty, but getting there, I found an Arbitrator in space, but nothing else. Having no luck scanning it down, I went back to the gate, where it also landed. Locking each other up, nobody decided to open fire first. Eventually he warped off to the nearby planet, and I followed. Landing 50km off him, I started burning for him, getting into range, I started the routine. Lock, point, web, open fire & launch drones. Knowing I would probably be tracking disrupted, I hit approach, and webbed him, hoping that would be enough for my guns to track him. Eating through his shields, I hit a wall with his armor, as his drones kept nibbling through mine (after he had destroyed my own drones). Seeing I would be unable to break his tank before my own broke, I started burning away, though scrammed, I still had a speed advantage due to the web. Hoping that'd be enough. At this point I was also given a glimmer of hope, as my guns were actually landing pretty solid hits on him, but sadly it wasn't enough, as his drones delivered the last hit. Warping the pod out, GFs were exchanged in local. I've gotta figure out a better way to deal with those. They're also definitely on my list of ships I want to fly. I'll probably be training all the racial cruisers to III after I train up BCV, but I'll probably spend the extra time to get Amarr Cruiser to IV just for the Arbitrator, since I've invested in my drone skills fairly well now.
Days later, back in this recurring system, I came in and popped & podded a Retriever while flying a Wolf. This time though, it woke the hornet's nest. All kinds of ships started undocking, many of them heading for the gate, trying to camp me into this dead-end system. Warping around to various safe spots, I soon spotted a Rifter by itself in a belt. Warping in, it didn't take me long to drop the T1 fit Frigate, but as I was finishing it, an Enyo came in. Thinking that I was flying the half-kiting wolf (Ava Starfire's fit) I started aligning out, but letting him get closer to me as I opened fire, though my damage was far less at range then I was expecting. Getting it into low structure, while dropping to around half armor myself, it managed to run out of point range and warp off before I could get it, too bad.
Repping up my armor, I kept an eye on d-scan, and soon I found another Rifter, with a similar name to the one I dropped, along with the Enyo in a belt again. Warping in on it, I landed near the Enyo and started to do the same thing, it too had repped it's armor back, but still had the hull damage. Getting in close this time, everything heated it was a race through the armor, with my rep holding out just enough to get the edge. I was able to pull range a few times through the course of our deadly dance, which was just enough to mitigate some of the damage he was able to dish out, while laying the hurt on him (I found out after the fact he stopped using his web to conserve some cap for his rep, not sure it was the best of ideas). With most of his structure already gone from the first engagement, once I got through the armor, the Gallente Assault Ship vented atmosphere, and I turned my attention to the Rifter. Opening fire and getting as close as I could, the Rifter was taking really heavy damage, but with the help of his web started to pull range. Once again, I was perplexed at the damage I was doing at range, but I thought I got him as he wapred out, and I turned my attention once more to another new ship landing here, an Ishkur that landed 40km off.
Starting to burn towards this new hostile, he warped off before I got too close, so my thought then went to grabbing loot, but that only lasted so long when a Demios entered the belt. That was a little more then I was prepared to try and take on, so I got out of there as fast as my Wolf's warp drive could take me. Waiting out the GCC I had, I jumped the gate camp, and made it un-eventfully back to Iges, no loot, but feeling great after that fight, with getting the ship out. It was when I got back, I noticed what had been bothering me the entire time there, this wasn't the fit that Ava wrote about, but I had put a 200mm plate in there rather then the TE, which had been my standard fit before.
Fast forward to today. Flying a Stabber Fleet, I made my way out to that side of Placid, and while there was nothing in Kennick, but getting into Espigoure there were a bunch of the Federal Consensus guys out. Seeing a Thorax in a belt, I warped in and burned towards it. Getting in range I turned off the Microwarp and hit the Afterburner, and settled into an orbit around it. Before too long though, I noticed d-scan filling up, and a Drake and Taranis landed on us. Burning down the Thorax, figuring that my tank may be able to hold up to the Taranis and HML Drake, but it seems like I was putting a little too much faith in the DMAR SFI's tank without drugs. It wasn't too long before they had it reduced to scrap metal.
Talking with Mal on mumble, we decided to grab our Hurricanes and head back down there for round 2. Aaron Stark, a new Repo. recruit joined us with a Rifter as our scout/tackle. Getting back to Espigoure , we decide that if Aaron and I go into system, it may work best as Mal has a shield-cane and could get to us fairly well, and it wouldn't scare them too much. Hitting my directional scanner right away, I noticed something I didn't quite expect, they had some Retrievers out, along with a Moa. Scanning the belt right near the gate, they were there, and I warped right away, not waiting for anyone else, while I called it out on comms.
Landing 20km off the closest mining barge, the Moa warped off, and I heated prop and tackle to get to the barge, which seemed to be stuck on rocks trying to warp. Landing tackle, it melted under the fire from my Battlecruiser. The other Retriever still hadn't warped off, and was 20km off of me at this point so I started heading over to that one, as a Brutix warped in for Defence... and proceeded to warp out again. Able to get tackle on the other barge, it too didn't last long. I thought about holding it to let the other guys on the mail, but that's when a Drake from their alliance landed. Getting a point on that before it too could warp off, the combined fire of the two Hurricanes dropped it rather quickly, along with grabbing the pod, which he didn't want to pay to keep.
With Aaron scouting us back, we decided to check if there was any action in Kenninck before heading home. Telling him to scan from the gate, and then warp to one of the 9 cluster belts, as the residents seem to dock up rather quickly when Repo. enters system, he ends up in belt 9-1, with a Myrmidon. Getting tackle on it, both Mal and I jump into system and enter warp, as he calls out that he was down already. Sending up prayers that his hero-tackle wasn't in vain, we both land on top of the Myrm and open up. Neuts on it, it didn't seem to have too great of an active tank, and was overwhelmed quickly (our killboard didn't like that, and neither did eve-kill apparently, there were no low-slots, if I remember I'll link the Repo. killboard link when darm works his magic on the killboard and makes those items show).
All in all, even though it's a slow end of the Universe (until you hit Syndicate, but I try to avoid that most of the time, I prefer to keep the impants in my head, I want to get my skillpoints up asap.
This'll probably be my last post for two or three weeks, something like that, but I definitely will be posting when I'm able to again.
Fly dangerous
'Chord
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)