Wednesday 28 March 2012

A few busy days

It's been a busy few days in Eve for me. Minmatar Frigate V finished training, so the past few days have been spent on Mechanics IV/V, with that being three days out. Once that's finished I'll of course be training into Assault Frigs, and I'll be glad to get something a little different out there in space. I've had a few Firetails (and as I write this, there's another one in the cargo of my hauler) that just haven't done too well yet, but I've worked out another fit in EFT that I'm happier with.

There have been the usual nondescript kills, but other then those two it's been fairly good fighting all around.

Soon after I put up my last post, I resumed roaming that day. Finding a two day old Catalyst in Ruerrotta on a gate, I approached him and locked, hoping he might fire upon my flashy-red self, he didn't but instead warped off to a belt. Following him, he once again warped off, but this time to a station. At this, I decided I probably was just wasting my time, so I left the system and decided to try my luck elsewhere. Not finding anything in a few jumps, I came back through there, and saw him out once again, sitting outside the station now. I set my Firetail into orbit around him at 5k and lock him again. This time, he does what I had been hoping he was going to before. He locks and opens fire. As soon as that happened, my scram, web, and tracking disruptor (with an optimal range script) are powered up, and my guns start spewing their Barrage shells towards him. It doesn't take long until his ship is a wreck in space, and I'm grabbing my spoils.

Later that night, I'm heading back through the Amoen/Avaux lowsec pocket that has become a favourite of mine, and once again I see Takezo Kensei, the pilot who had tore me to shreds in a Sentinel the day before. he was flying a Vengeance at the time, and challenged me to a 1v1. I declined that, saying that I wasn't liking my chances of a Firetail vs a Veng. He offered to re-ship into a Rifter, and at that I accepted. Not much to say about that fight, other then he absolutely destroyed me. I'm really not sure what happened with it, if he had a fleet-boosting cloaky alt/corp mate in system, but it didn't last long

Returning to Iges and deciding that was enough with the Firetails, I jumped into the Rifter I had there yet, and right away found an Incursus on scan. Finding it at a belt, I was around 20km off as I warped in, and got to around 15k before she warped off. Going back to my scan spot, I saw her back on scan in the same belt as before. Jumping in, I was around 15k off, but this time managed to get in range of an overheated scram, and took minimal damage before my autocannons took care of the Gallente frigate. Landing a point on the pod, I tried for a ransom, but they declined.

The highlight of these last few days is most definitely this next fight though. Back in the Amoen/Avaux pocket, I saw a Tornado on scan in a belt, warping in I was around 50k off of the 'nado. Turning on my AB I started in for it, spiralling so as to maintain as high of a transversal as possible. Getting to roughly 35k away, a Thorax also jumped into the belt, and seeing that, I warped straight to a safe thinking that they were together. Soon though, the Tornado left system, and all that was left on scan was the Thorax. Not knowing what they were capable of, I asked in the corp if a Rifter had a chance against a Thorax, to which I was told they most definitely did. Warping into the belt, I set my orbit to 500 and burned in, locking and scramming the Thorax and saving my web for his Hammerhead IIs. I had taken out two of his drones, but then for some reason decided that it was time to set my guns back onto the Cruiser. I dropped his shields relatively quickly, being at around half armor by this point, but the incoming damage was still too high to deal with. Overheating my armor rep, I went back to taking out the drones, dropping another as I hear the warning for my armor nearing the end, still two left though, and not too much left holding my ship together. Downing another as I hit around half structure, still pulsing my overheated armor rep whenever it wouldn't cap me out, it was just enough to drop the last drone. I checked my structure, the reading was at 17%. Now just hoping that the Thorax wouldn't get a lucky hit on me, I turned my guns towards him again. Eating his armor, he still hadn't gotten anything, and then I was surprised. His guns went silent. Giving up? when I was that close to dying myself? He entered structure, and then I saw something new on my overview and started getting ready to try and bug out of there. What really surprised me when I actually looked though, it was his pod. He had ejected, and was able to warp out before I got his pod. At this point, I really wished I had Gallente cruisers trained, but really had no choice but to destroy the ship as there were no corp-mates nearby who could have jumped into the burning hull. Talking with the pilot in local after, he had burnt out his guns at that point, and figured ejecting was the most sure-fire way to save his pod. This would probably be the first real above class kill, since the stabber I had gotten earlier was some major mistakes from the other pilot.

Ending the night on a high-note there, the next evening I logged back into and found myself in Avaux fairly quickly again. This time I saw savagewolf1974 in a Talos, sitting on the sun. Having a real lust to take out a T3 BC yet, I right away jumped in, and started spiralling towards him. I took minimal damage as I came towards him, just the drones he had launched. Being a smattering of T1 drones, I took them out quite quickly and went to work on the Talos, with my autocannons throwing their EMP shells towards it. As soon as his shields were down, I swapped over to Fusion and was making quick work of his armor, at which point an Omen warped in on us. An Omen in his corp. Overheating my Rifter's scram, web and afterburner, I made a hasty retreat, but not before taking some rather devastating hits before managing to get out of scram range and warping out with the duct-tape holding the hull together on fire.

Fleeting up later with Darm/Prenumbra/HoG, we went on a short roam with HoG two volleying a taranis on a gate, and scanning down a Hurricane running a mission, whom I hero-tackled before they arrived and finished the job after the pilot refused a ransom.


Looking at how much I've written, I think this wall-of-text has gotten long enough. Still got more that I think is worth posting, but having some in reserve is never a bad thing.

Fly dangerous.
'Chord

2 comments:

  1. wicked thorax kill!

    As for the firetail loss, I was wondering how effective a TD is against a Rifter since it has that tracking bonus (or did you use the range script?). Do you think a regular firetail (shield gank) would have worked out better?

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    1. Yeah, I think the regular FT may have worked better. That's more what I'm flying with the current one.

      I don't think the range script would have done any better, since Autocannons are all about the falloff rather then the optimal.

      That said, it's speculation. I'm still quite new to this game, so there are lots of things that I'm just not sure about.

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