Hazardous Ventures

- a spaceflight fighting chronicle

[androflight]

BBB 2.0

Somehow it kind of happened again. I got myself into - and out of - a perfect solo fight - in a BC. Actually two fights but the first was lees than perfect; just surprising and enjoyable. It kicked off when I found a shortcut in the space-time of New Eden reducing the travel time from Prism to Bosberger by twenty jumps. So I decided totake some of the heavier ships out of their exile. And so I was once more traveling across faction warfare lowsec in a battlecruiser. And found myself once more wildly underestimated. It seems after the Tech1 Cruiser buff and the warp speed changes the ship class have fallen in esteem from uncrowned king to something hopelessly outdated and nothing but an easy kill. How can you otherwise explain three destroyers; Thrasher, Coercer and Dragoon, jumping a Cyclone hoping to win a brawl? I was close to the destination wormhole after 7 jumps in low as I warped to a large and very soon after they decided they would have a go. The Dragoon took some time as he was buffer fit - whereas the misfit active Thrasher went down in a blink under my capacitor warfare. The Coercer had enough sense to stay at range and legged it once the others were eliminated. I could have used a Crash booster to make my oversized Heavy Assault Missiles be more effective against such small targets but even with bad mismanagement of my charged shield repairer I felt safe as houses in the Minmatar BC. I looted up and jumped out though the wormhole and parked the victorious dinosaur. The wormhole between Ha and Lulm would be gone by nightfall so I took my pod back the same way and equipped another battlecruiser; a ship I like a lot though I never flew it much at all; the vertical and very sculptural Gallente Myrmidon. Taking this affair really lightly, after traversing low as far as Nikkishina I warped in at range to a potentially nasty group of ships outside a novice warpgate. It could be a fight in progress that I possibly could turn to a three way engagement. As I landed I was slightly undecided what to do - the group was small and the fight was off or over - but had my eyes fixed on a juicy Cynabal and judged that if he stayed at range his damage would be manageable to my tank and if he went close I could toast him with dones and blasters. The Svipul landing his long point decided it - the fight was on and I set out to pin down the Cyna. Rushing him and having double webs heated did the job almost instantly and I suspected some super brawly trick fit but did what I could: scam webs, faction antimatter for close range and the best tracking - Ogre II's in action and then full focus on management of my active armor tank. Apart from the Cynabal I had Svipul and a Vexor at range putting a though pressure on my armor repairs. It was just holding with selective use of heat and some dipping into structure. Cynabal held up too well for me to feel comfortable - until I noticed I had lost half my Ogre II's. Not good. I deployed Hammerhead II's and went back to managing reps heat and cap boosting. I was not comfortable but popping a shot of yellow exile helped a lot to make my focus stronger and improve the performance of my  defensive systems. After a while the Cynabal began taking armor damage and I knew he would not last long. Incoming damage lessened but someone had chewed up my medium drones as well. The Cyna still had to hold up against my 250 dps blaster damage and with two webs I could hold him right in the sweet spot. To my great satisfaction the pirate faction cruiser finally gave in to my detructive powers and I had something like four Warrior II's and one Hammerhead II to make chase the Svipul that was wizzing around me at amazing speed. He was terrible at keeping his distance but so fast I twice hit scram web when  he was in range but as the modules activated he was out again. I gave it up and went for the Vexor that had positioned himself 20ish km away. After a mwd cycle or two I got up to speed and suddenly I had the Svipul right in my face again. This time I caught him to my own surprise and with two webs and his propulsion scammed out of the equation he was in for the full brunt of blasters and small drones. No, he did not hold up very long - and somehow I could keep my tank up sufficently to feel rather comfortable while chewing up the Tech 3 destroyer and starting to align my ship towards the next and final hostile. I only had 6-7 km to burn to land my heated webs but I did not bet too much on that kind of fortune. But I was on a golden streak and he didn't warp or kite but let me rush in and pin him. I engaged him with one navy 400 booster charge left and low cap from repping and bursting my speed but I could tank him and chew him up in time. Paranoid for some redicious reshipping I hurried looting and warped to safety. So I had wiped the field in my battlecruiser killing 290 mil worth of ships loosing all my drones and doing another plus one for Bringing Battlecruisers Back!

[androflight]

Bringing Battlecruisers Back

You may say my pirate life is not a focused one at the moment. I have ships in Bosberger and in Prism as well as our main HQ in Hevrice. I am tired of frigates and tend to grab whatever from the hangar and fly somewhat planlessly.

The other day I got jumped by a Brutix in my shield Gnosis. He had a perfect warpin and scrammed me right away. So I had a look at the Brutix i had in the very same system and refitted it from shields to dual web hull tank. Chose medium neut over nos for fighting active tanks and frigates and for lack of better ideas set course to Hevrice from Rens. Shoot some rats on the way in boredom in my buffer fit but entered Mormelot with full tank. Going to the outgate I noticed a Megathron in the ship scanners. A ship very similar to my Brutix but one size bigger. Technically a fuckbrained fight to take but I was restless, bored and noticed Tech1 drones in space next to the battleship.

So I warped in at zero, he was there, 10 km off. It took some time to get my BC ass in gear and claw myself into range to but my scram on him shutting down his main thrusters and jamming his warp drive power cores. Orbit 500 meters to get an advantage of my smaller guns and load Void M. Worked like a charm and luckily I was not shut down by a Heavy Neut so my Neutron blasters could freely apply their just short of 1000 dps  with the added damage from the 5 Hammerhead II's.

It looked like I had struck gold catching a noob in top belt – but then a Rook uncloaked. A trap or a rescue mission – the result would be the same. A Battleship specialized in frying out my targeting computers – the core systems for making my Battlecruiser a combat ship not a piece of useless metal hanging idle in space – my chances looked really slim.

The jams delayed – maybe slow targeting? - and the Megathron had lost all defensive systems, taking its right in the structure of its massive hull. Could I? Yes. One cycle of jams paralyzed my guns, but the drones kept going and suddenly the Mega popped! leaving me with an above class kill and another Battleship to worry about.

The Brutix' tank was doing well as dps was rather low and so it happened – targeting computers resurfaced and I could reapply hurt on the hated ECM boat. Jammed in the next cycle I figured I maybe could escape if I got another lock and dual webbed him so I aligned out and spammed target. I got lock a gain and saw him drop – or rather melt – once his shields had chipped away. So I re-approached and soon after was shaken by the unlikely shockwave blast as his main power core became unstable and the ship exploded in space.

I had killed two battleships in my Brutix. Yay!

I looted the Mega and shot down to station where I got bumped by a Loki who continued the hurt on my Super Reinforced He-man hardened Brutix hull – and even though he made an successful bump that shot me 4000 meters away from docking range I slowboated Ghandi-style back to safety and docked up just as my adversaries thought my ship died. They lol'ed out on local until the truth dawned on them:

tazz dimas > lol MCKen3311 Daugherty > LOLOLOLOL MCKen3311 Daugherty > god damnit dude, you were suppopsed to die lol Androxtar Nemsis > oh sorry missed that part MCKen3311 Daugherty > XD

OK after a little cool off time I undock and find the coast clear. So I hit warp to the wreck I had bookmarked and just before I shoot off I notice the Loki on scan. The infamous belt is out of scan range from the station but I pick up readings of a Caldari destroyer as I approach – and rightly so – I land on top of the Megathron pilot's looting Corax and he stays around till I get him locked and pinned down. Third kill in the sack but then the real dilemma: Do I stay for the Loki that appears on the directional scanner readings?

The answer of course would be: Hell yeah! My ship was all paid for and it just might be a shit fit like the others...

I decide to orbit really close and fire Faction Antimatter to maximize any advantage I'd have in tracking tho I was using Neutron Blasters, overheat and pray. His drones surprised me. Dragonflies! They had undocked a freakin' Carrier and drone-assisted him to make this fight comfortably one sided i his favor. Never the less – for some crazy reason, I think Hail ammo failed him when going as close as 37 meters – my Brutix held up in the last bits of bolts and bulkheads and his 700 mil Strategic Cruiser was reduced to rubble.

I warped out like a madman not looting or looking back – and this turned to be my undoing. I docked and repaired – looked at killmail and realized I had left two Fed Navy Webs on the field. Enough to pay for my ship 1½ times. After the Megathron pilot begging for peace I thought I had a slim chance. So I warped to 0 on the wreck again. Found a Garmur looting and landed within scram range. But by the time I had him locked he had danced away and put a long point on me.

5000 m/s Garmur vs 1200 m/s fat Brutix butt is a hard as hell slingshot so in the end they got their kill. But still.  The killboard overview calculated 0.7 loss but 1.16 destroyed for an 94% efficiency – that's acceptable :P

http://killboard.the-tuskers.info/?a=kill_related&kll_id=129884

I think I can say this was a very encouraging go at Bringing Battlecruisers Back!

EDIT:

The Rook is clearly not a battleship but a Tech II Combat Recon Cruiser and he did not uncloak but warped in under cover of his d-scan invisibility. Poor choice of jammers made his fit so ineffective and fitting a scram forced him to stay within blaster range once the Loki had evaporated.

[androflight]

Surprise jump

Androxtar Nemsis > no loot what so ever, no Domination BS mods, no Mach BPC, no nothing Androxtar Nemsis > what da fuk? Androxtar Nemsis > WH took me to another location! Androxtar Nemsis > 25 jumps back to hev Androxtar Nemsis > lost my Mobile Tractor Unit too I had jumped into a Wormhole next door to our HQ for a little money making adventure as finances were running low. In spite of heroic effort it did not at all yeld what I hoped for. And  then for some unknown reason I found myself looking at 25 jumps though Empire from some remote Amarr low sec system. It was disheartening and made me squeal in corp chat. No way around it, I repped up the armor damage I had taken assaulting the Angel Fortress in my shield buffer Ishtar and harnessed myself for the hike home. A pirate Navy Brutix caught my attention as I jumped out of the semi-lawless border system and I got interested enough to turn around and jump back. I could not locate him in system but returned to find a Rupture and a Brutix camping my outgate. Both nice targets for my kitey Assault Cruiser. But how to engage and still avoid fire from the Gate's Sentry guns that would respond to any unprovoked agression done within 250 km off that gate? Those automatic guns have a very limited memory span or a unparallelled capacity for forgiveness as taking a shot and then warping off will leave you with an reminder in the list in the black book og naughty deeds but no hostility from the guns once you return to the scene of crime. So I did. And they left. At this point I was feeling rather dissapointed with my adventures. I let it out in Local like this: Androxtar Nemsis > I wreck my sec, I take sentries and I take suspect to get 1vs2 - and then you guys run?? Not 20 seconds later they all were back including the BNI pilot now in a standard Cyclone Battlecruiser.I was looking at a 3 vs 1 plus a Loki that apparently just passed through but plenty of people in the local system channel for them to have even more backup available. Soon they were scolding me for wizzing about at safe distance and I sort of blamed my big mouth for this situation where I couldn't just back out and keep my honor. I fiddled about commanding Geckos onto the Cyclone that was the only one who had left the safe proximity of the gate and he responded with his Warrior II's attacking my drones back. Nothing serious at first I changed to Curators and fooled about and then suddenly I realized he was getting too close and heating MWD was not enough - I had fucked up and had gotten myself scrammed. I aligned out and tried to counterweb but his two med neuts were sucking dry my capacitor at an alarming rate. I had no scram so couldn't shut his main thrust down as he had done to me so my higher base speed and the web didn't help me. My counter neuting only made it worse as he had cap injection and I didn't. I was dead in the water but had all hands engaged in fighting back. I abandoned my sentry drones and launched Geckos, stumbling and failing to seize fighting and go for a jamming cycle of a flight of EC-300's. Then it dawned on me he was dropping quite dramatically and the well known Cyclone ASB repping action was not withheld because of bait tanking. He was in fact buffer fit! His damage application with HAM's on my unwebbed nano HAC butt slowboating like there was no tomorrow, was surprisingly poor. All I had to do was to find the cap to point him back and make my Geckos brawl him down. I did and I spammed warp as he popped but alas! The Rupture had reached the fight and put a long point on me. With the scram and neuts off the field I struggled but succeded in putting my MWD to work and pull away. I did as the Brutix arrived close by. Satisfied with and honestly shaken by the unlikely escape from the fail fit Cyclone I took a huge run out before returning back towards the two remaining ships. The Rupture had plenty of time to warp off while the Geckos hammered down his armor buffer. He didn't and in the last second I planted a 28 km longpoint on him and secured a second, just as unlikely, explosion. I put drones on the Brutix but he managed to wiggle himself out of point range as I did not aggressively close in on him. Probably a good call as an Arazu decloaked and put point on me as the Brutix left the field. For a second I wanted to go for him but then the Cyclone pilot returned in a nanoed Hurricane. A better pilot could probably have made more out of this engagement but I considered myself to be in a bad shape and felt very lucky to be able to pull range and warp off. Still feeling a bit cocky I warped back on grid to a bookmark and were able to snatch the Cyclone loot from under the nose of the Hurricane that was no doubt scooping my remaining Gecko drone as well as the sentries. The Arazu pilot saluted me with a big thumbs up as I warped down to the gate and jumped into high sec. I had an empty drone bay except for some light drones and a bad case of combat shakes but had upheld my honor and the Tusker name. And even had put loot under my belt. The 25 jumps to go home didn't seem that much of a price to pay for this adventure.

[androflight]

On Flying Things Terrible

Possibly the hardest task of a interstellar solo  combat pilot is finding suitable engagements.  A quick estimate of power levels will decide if an opponent looks manageable and/or tempting to engage . More often than not the outcome will be unquestionable one sided and the side that is underpowered needs to use his skills to avoid getting caught and forced to fight.  For a skilled pilot this is often doable. 

Many people avoid fighting all together and the ones who will fight will most of the time know their capabilities and take fights they judge they have a good chance of winning. 

One way to get fights is to break the meta and fly ships that behaves differently than you would expect. 

This is why I fly the Celestis the Gallente Tech 1 E-war cruiser.

With five mids and four lows and 50 meter square dronebay it can be fit in endless ways - any way you fit it the Celestis it's combat performance is poor. Especially compared to the performance of the hulls designed for direct  combat. But the Celestis confuses people and attracts fights as small gangs of frigates sees you as an suitable target and generally underestimate you. Or rather - they do not know what to expect so they chance it. 

I had a roam where I was toying with a group of dessies and various frigates around a medium - very aware that very much more than one at a time would be a serious challenge for my ship. 

Eventually they left and I could solo engage an Ishkur. He was actually repping rather solidly as I held him at arms length double webbed. Griffin and Slicers on d- scan. I couldn't disengage quickly anyway so I hoped for a fast lock. Didn't happen. I got jammed but so was the Ishkur - I could pull range. Damage was very manageable and after a couple of successful cycles the Celestis shaked the jams and got drones on the Griffin. Griffin kills are priceless - especially when not pointed - and as jams left the field tide changed.

Slicers with Scorch orbiting in scram range were quickly disposed of and we got one each. Nom nom. I turned my cruiser and burned the 40 km down to the tough nugget frigate before he got second thougths. Scram double web and I decided this time to go closer to maximixe dps. Luckily he stayed off my drones and slowly he was breaking. Low on cap from burning and armor repping and in half armor I finally succumbed his armor repairs and won the duel but then suddenly Dragoon on top of me. Not good. I need cap for webs, counterscram, ab - and for reps . And suddenly I was dry. Nothing to do but align and spam warp. And then his neuts capped himself out and shut down  point. Adios motherfucker! I could go back and pick up 20 mil worth of loot - he was not staying around.

[androflight]

A High North Blitz

My return to lowsec was not a happy homecoming really. I had a couple of unfortunate frigate fights,  some fairly unfruitful moneymaking endeavors and my Fleet Stabber got tackled by a Stiletto, scrammed by an Orthrus and then blobbed to embers in Costolle.

So when I found a wormhole to Branch in the extreme north I jumped my replacement 'Flabber' inside to look for some high stake pew pew. 

The area was quite active and I explored some systems trying to single out an Ishtar shooting Guristas. My skills in combining the directional scanner and the star system minimap needs some improvement - but as most people out here hunt anormalies it is absolutely doable to catch ratters this way. An Ishtar fight would have been a real nice catch and a though fight. 

Looking round in the pocket I found a Rupture on a gate. He wouldn't fight but ran back to the gate and fled to docking range of the station where he stayed undocked. Rupture was a nice bite for me - a bit too perfect to be anything but bait. I warped to my outgate that I knew to be unbubbled. I was pleased my scanner reviled the Rupture followed; this ment a fight was likely somehow. Someone jumped before I did and a Proteus decloaked. I was then certain something would be waiting on the far side of this jump. 

It was only a lone Taranis. I aligned out and started running to get some distance from the gate. Managed to get a MWD cycle off before he scrammed me. No idea what he expected but I was happy to counterscram and fire up my afterburner to gain complete range control even in my fat ass cruiser. His ancillary repper and extraordinary hardy hull held him up for some breathtaking long seconds while Proteus uncloaked and the grid started to count more hostiles. I aligned out while Proteus closed up and I began taking significant damage. The ceptor finally popped and I started accelerating for my escape warp. In the last half second the Proteus landed his scram. 3500 meters distance to a Proteus would be acceptable if I could have him alone and orbit fast to avoid his tracking. But he had not less that five Tengus with him for added destructive powers so I had to think of an exit strategy fast. Quite obviously there was only one thing to do - once more counterscram, heat and fire up afterburner, run like hell, spam warp - pray the tank lasts. I do not know why he would fit a Proteus without a web but it sure made things a lot more manageable. In spite of the incoming damage I actually managed to warp out with Proteus in hot pursuit. 

I think I really pissed them off because they vigorously probed me down and Proteus almost caught me on a steaming fresh safespot. My outgate scanned to be all clear but as I landed the Tengus appeared out of nowhere and they had called in Phantasm to assist Proteus on the far side. I reapproached and ran from the Tengus.

I felt it was getting really hot and they had pulled a couple of surprise moves so I decided I had enough. The access to Branch was cut off but I still had a trump up my sleeve: I could go deeper into the pocket and return safely to Verge Vendor with my single ceptor kill stuck under my belt. 

Not efficient in terms of killboard stats but I had had loads of fun and excitement in this short outing.

[androflight]

Return to the Drone Lands - Part 2

My sleep pattern these days is completely disturbed - I crash early and wake around the time where I normally log off. I guess the desolation of the drone lands is even worse due to exploring at these hours. I found a system with 15 active capsuleers behind another bubbled gate. Took heart entered and found - nothing. On their station - nothing. I try to insult them in local - no response. Warped around a little looking for the carebear ships I saw on scan and found their mining anormally complete with emergency abandoned Valkyries II. So I took some time swapping my unfashionable drones and the suddenly an Arazu decloaked on top of me. Whatever they had inbound I decided to try and burn this Recon down while I had it within my preferred range to my 180 mm Autocannons. And succeeded with surprising swiftness.  Even more surprising; d-scan stayed unchanged - he received no backup. With this 180 mil solo kill I felt my Fleet Stabber had done well in its deep null roam. No one chased me as I went for a safe system and logged. --- Third night out back I felt suicidal and decided to go hunting for that Hurricane. I made my show in their ratting system and sure enough a Hurricane showed on scan and soon after a Tornado. Twice I found the Nado sniping for me on either side of the gate and I chased him a little but nothing decisive. A little later I found the Caracal back baiting 20 km off the outgate in the ratting system and this time I plunged in. Got tackle and started to wear him down. I took quite some damage from his rapid lights before he hit the reload. Had expected him to go down faster than he did - and by the time he hit armor I had both a Tengu and a Nefantar Maelstrom warped to 0 on gate and shooting me. The MAAR reps were most welcome and luckily I had learned to align out in due time before the hostile drops. I did this a little early and almost drifted out of damage range but as he went down I was somehow free to warp. With a smug grin I hid myself in system unloaded nanite and repped up heat and armor damage. Twenty minutes later we were ready for the fun times fireworks of round two. Local dropped by three and I had a feeling I'd better check my outgate. Nothing on the inside but making the jump I found all three waiting - Hurricane Tornado and a Manticore - all within the large bubbles. With no further hesitation I MWD'ed the 30 km to the Tornado, scammed him and orbited to take his large guns out of the equation. While making the burn I remembered to pop my sig reducing booster while taking the full blunt of the Nado's large armaments. Turning off MWD reduced the incoming damage and my defenses almost stabilized in the lower end of my armor buffer. Tornado eventually popped and I put drones on the bomber trusting the bubbles to keep him from warping. I had no trouble changing to scram the Cane starting a semi wide orbit. My drones reached their mark and took out the Manticore. For some reason the Cane had no neuts so my small cap booster could keep up and steadily feed the medium anc. armor repairer that now ran unfueled. I changed for a 500 orbit and his 425 mm AC's lost any and all tracking leaving only his Warrior II's to molest me. My Fleet Stabber's bonused 180's had no trouble landing good hits on the BC and confidently wore him down while just keeping itself out of receiving hull damage. Soon I just had the stranded pods to finish off and I could leave bagging a convincing 1 vs 3 victory.

It was neded to go looking for nanite paste so found myself going 14 jumps and entering High Security space once more. Eventually I decided to call it a day, kick back and doze off while the ship's autopilot took me back to Verge Vendor. EVE never seizes to surprise - I had killed 400 mil worth of ships and made it back unscratched.

[androflight]

Return to Drone Lands - part 1

The Wormhole Roulette gave me a passage to the easternmost New Eden low sec and I grabbed the opportunity to return to the sparsely populated Drone Regions. I went with a dual prop Fleet Stabber with it's ability to engage and orbit under cruiser sized guns tho it was built for low sec. I made my entry north of BWF as it is less likely to be camped and sure enough I made it clean through. Null sec is more dangerous the closer you are to Empire so I made best speed east avoiding systems with counting more than 5-10 capsuleers in space for the first dozen jumps.  I found no one. For maybe two hours I traversed these unpopular  eastern regions where the absence of faction rats and their valued drops makes policing for undesired settlements a lot less attractive than just about any outer part of null sec space. It did feel quite unfashionable warping gate to gate endlessly - boring as it was I attempted to repair my sec status by killing Rouge Drone Battleships. It proved a bad idea as they ganged up on one og my Hammerhead drones and killed it before I noticed and managed to recall it to dronebay safety. Half an hour later I jumped into a heavily bubbled gate with a decloak trap of Hobgoblin I's and helped myself to stock up on light drones. Better than nothing - and light drones were in fact a welcome addition to my anti-frigate armaments -  but it did feel immensly unfashionable. I had long surpassed the maximum flight time recommended by Concord and I was running out of accessable star systems on my eastbound path. But there were one or two active systems I had to check out. Heavily bubbled accsess but no one there. Ships on scan but all the carebearing kind and not to be located without probes. I went deeper into the system and scanned more mining ships on POS or safe. Then suddenly Hurricane. I made sure he noticed me on station and figured he'd not be alone. Soon after I scanned a Caracal. With +10 capsuleers on local I declined fighting them in their home system and tried to make them chase me. Shield Hurricane was possibly my ideal fight but with Caracal volleying me from start to finish maybe not so much. Not to mention the Curse-Rapier-Rokh-Geddon-Deimos-Ishtar or other monstrosities that I out of experience was expecting to make an appearance any time soon now that I was hanging inside the large bubbles on the next door gate. My worries about the blob that never showed and my lack of experience with the ship made me play it rather defencely - and as I made my warp back to the bubbled gate to go for scram on the Caracal I landed 25 km off and he plain sqealed and warped - and immediately after the Cane also legged it even though I was way out of range. I found no way of setting up an engagement so I drifted towards my outgate. A Crow waited for me there in the bubbles. Figuring he was there with a scram to stop my run for the gate while the outers ganged up on me I went in. Scram and afterburner would give me the edge I needed. The scram was stupid easy to land and no one came for his backup so at least I secured one kill before jumping out to safety and logging for the night.

[androflight]

One Way Ticket

I whipped myself out of my comfort zone and jumped though a null sec wormhole in an Augoror Navy this friday. I had been joining the public roam late as usual but found myself podded back to Hevrice and thus out of the action. Low sec keeps denying me cruiser fights and visiting my new hunting groundeds have not offered the same activity that I experienced the fist time. So off I went - head first one way deep into the Drone Regions. Navigating towards systems with capsuleer activity I soon encountered a gate plastered over with  permanent warp supression bubbles - but no gate camp. Just short of ten capsuleers avake in system I felt both intimidaded and excited. Dropped on a mining barge but landed too far off to secure a  point - other than that nothing. Checking the outgate I scanned down a Harbinger waiting in a ball of bubbles, but seemingly noone else  out hunting for me. Harbinger offered a one vs one fight and I reluctantly agreed. Managed to make a setup where I could start the engagement at range and take the fight without comitting 100% - but I could not think of a clever way to get a clear upper hand in this fight.

Our ships were in many ways comparable resembling identical - and taking advantage of a slightly longer range would mean dropping point, a thong I was not too keen on. The fight was surprisingly even and tho I was active and he buffer we entered structure about the same time. Had I applied heat in the end of the fight, (my two neuts acting as heat sinks for some extra overheat capability) and thought to turn off autoreload on my ancillary repairer for a little more reps unfueled, I think I could have come out on top but now I had to bail in 17% structure while he was around 50%. With local taking interest in our fight I warped between safes till I could log off safely and waited till the next morning to reappear in system and make my getaway. Half a dozen jumps onward I entered a station system where I could make some trouble.  Armageddon, Taranis, Slicer and after a while Omen and Prophecy undocked with a stong intent to explode my Amarrian Faction Pestilence. Taranis came for me and instantly got stripped for shield and armor. Sadly I didn't have the nerve or spatial awareness to hold within point/damage range of him as he turned and ran. Had I not warped and left my drones the day before I would have made the kill. Overheating could have done it too, but I was holding back trying to kick my lowsec frigate overheat-everything-allways habit. Slicer came in and also made a narrow escape. These guys were not absolute beginners. With two cruisers joining and a long range BS on field I decided to leave. Not really aligned the Prophecy made it from 40 to 10 km from me before my fat cruiser ass had turned an accellerated to warp. But I got out, barely. I landed on my outgate with 16 seconds to wait out before agro would let me jump. The Flycatcher waiting for me there didn't hesitate. Hawk landed as I could make the jump - and I was mostly anticipating a tough welcome on the other side. But I found nothing but the Flycatcher burning away so I immediately made chase. Bubble went up and Hawk  decloaked but I rushed through the warp inhibited field locking and shooting the Assault Frigate that hung 20 km back right in my exhaust trail. Local went up by three as their heavier hardware made it to the gate and jumped. The Hawk stayed too long - probably overconfident with so many friends close by so I made my first kill without really noticing and went on. Suddenly I was on top of the Flycatcher that shut down my MWD and tried to blaze past to the safety of the Cruisers and the Geddon that decloaked 30 km from my position just before as I was rushing off the gate. A little disoriented and pissed off by the number of frigate kills that had slipped my grip I turned inward towards the Flycatcher and the gate for a second. In hindsight the 'leet' move here would have been burning 45 degrees down under the gate staying withing point and damage range of the Interdictor while burning past the heavier ships' scrams and webs for long enough to secure the kill.

What I did was to change vector I think two times and then initiate warp with only a general alignment. Their Omen landed  his point on me right in the last second and I had to stay and fight. Worse still I caught double web from Stabber and to crown the disasters: ecm jams from BS's Vespa-600's. While the jams lasted I noticed the Omen had capped out and had dropped all agro. As I regained lock I put my two med neuts on the Stabber - with double web he could have no cap injection - but then the BS caught up and drained my replentished capacitor stone dry in one nasty heavy neut cycle. Seconds later I emergency warped my pod out and made a blood jump back to Tuskers HQ. Lessons from this adventure? It's a totally high stake game to go disturb some null sec alliance in their private vegetable garden but it is refreshingly dangerous and a strong and entusiastic response is almost garanteed. I have a lot to learn about when to turn and chase a frigate kill and when to let them go  - and generally how to position and direct myself in a fight with multiple opponents. A cruiser is much more unforgiving about a bad decision and trying to correct a bad move can easily make matters worse as changing direction will kill both speed and momentum for a unbearably long period of time in a fight. The only way I know I can improve on this? I need to do it again. Soon. Peace, Andro

[androflight]

Stirring Up The Locals

The whole thing kicked off from another low-low Wormhole in Loes. It led to a pocket not far but esperated from the Faction Warfare Zone by a narrow streak of HighSec. I had never gone there before and I suspect very few of the other hard core LowSec Pirates ever thought of going there.

Scouting in my Prober it seemed peaceful and quiet but on finding a Hydrophonics Serpentis site I decided to come back in my Ishtar. My theory about this a out of the way place was confirmed as I scanned a Noctis while warping to the site and found him smack on the beacon - he hadn't even bothered to move away from the deadspace warp-in. Not acting like a true pirate I didn't think of demaning ransom but just unleashed my weapons on the poor bastard.

A couple of jumps further on I scanned an Orca and knowing nothing about Industrials I guessed he'd be mining somewhere. He was a bit hard to locate as there was no less than 5 anormalies offering mineral deposits. While I was occupied with my  d-scanning local went up and I saw Arazu with me on the gate.  I decided to wake up and let the Indy about its business. Sure enough it seemed I had people chasing me - the pilot I killed was in a Crow, there was a Diemos and somewhere the Arazu. So I decided maybe I could do something. At least I could maybe trick the ceptor to aggressing on a gate taking sentries.

So I jumped into Aubonnie and Arazu Deimos Onieros were there. I was outside scram range of Arazu so I burned off gate towards a nearby planet. They all aggressed - having the logi to shield them from sentries - and Arazu longpoint damped me. So they spread out a little, Deimos in front going from ~1500 m/s to 1700 and then finally accelerating to +2000 m/s. He was catching up. My Ishtar is an armor brawler and I was quite comfortable about AB orbiting a Deimos really close - but not if he got Onieros reps. I made a daring move - I warped to the planet at range and immediately rewarped to the Gate at 30. The plan worked sweetly as I landed 10 km off the Logi and got tackle. My plan was to burn him down quickly and then counterscram AB away from Deimos or actually taking the fight evading damage by close orbit, trusting my Tech2 Gall resists and Drone damage. What I had not noticed before I warped off was the second Deimos that now was 30 km off. Well - 30 km is not damage range so I decided I was going to burn down the Onieros before anyone got themselves back to our position.

I'm not sure what I expected but killing him was far from the blitz kill I wanted. I quickly melted his shields but once he got to armor damage slowed alarmingly. In my head he had to be an easy kill so then he disappeared from my visuals I assumed he died. Actually he just warped as he had been 9,7 km off when I attempted to scram him and I didn't notice my point falling short. In retrospect this was not all bad. By the time he warped I had dual Deimos and Arazu in top of me but I had not yet taken any damage. Ader Alabel in the Diemos had opened fire on me - a law abiding citizen - and was now taking sentry fire. He was in my face so I tackled, ordered my Geckos on him and set my afterburning Ishtar to orbit close to avoid some of his damage.

His bonused deadspace reps held him in structure for alarmingly long as the sentries switched to his Deimos companion but to my joy he exploded as my ship was starting to take damage to its hull. I had hardly noticed that a third Deimos had jumped in and burned up to the fight as I struggled to get heat on both my armor repairers, one rapidly running out of its boosting Nanite Paste while the joints of my ship were screaming to hold up against the hail of enemy fire. Counting down on the seconds I'd have left I put my drones on the Arazu hoping he would have the least tank. But he pulled out of tackle range and soon after the Onieros came back and with him the Crow. It mattered little as I was double webbed negating my afterburner advantage and running out of fuel to my booster-repairer but I think everyone on field was surprised how long I lasted after hitting 15% structure. But downing a 318 mil deadspace rep HAC getting a 1 for 1 trade in a 6 vs 1 is a worthy outcome and a glorious end to a trusty moneymaking Ishtar.

Inslander Wessette > worthy tuskers :D

[androflight]

Rare Fortune

Last week I had the crazy luck to find a wormhole that served me as a natural jumpgate to another LowSec system I never visit. In the belts I found a paper thin battleship so rare that my Navcom couldn't recognize it. The Mordus pirates had made their show in Verge Vendor. I went back thinking it was a bit overkill to bring an Ishtar. But not at all - it turned to be the strongest non-capsuleer battleship I ever encountered. Wearing it down took ages while spamming d-scan but eventually its defences collapsed. The remains of his ship contained a complete set of blueprints to the ship. I had to done the business suit and aquire minerals and a contractor - my access to HiSec was a great help. The Barghest Stealth battleship went to Jita and the sale put an end to my financial troubles for the next couple of months.

The road should be paved for some cruiser soloing but this has been a bit slower. Picking a fight in low in our area is hard unless you want to fight a linked blob in Heydeles or Old Man Star. Going to Syndicate _does_ make people undock and chase but so far it has brought me only doging and running or fiery death from overrating my combat abilities. I need to try and separate by agression on gates as ongrid separation only works for ultrafast kills or fighting afterburner ships if running brawly like I have done. Even though I kinda knew better I took a fight Vexor vs Hawk in Black Rise after a long fightless roam. I figured small drones and a web would give me a fighting chance tho my medium blasters were intended for cruiser brawl. He turned out to be faction scram web dual MASB fit and the fight turned into a 45 minute 1 vs 1 as none of us could burn through the other's reps. I did get him into half armor and he got me in two thirds structure but both managed to pull back. As he ran low on cap charges he began killing my drones. With 7 km travel time to my drone bay they were hard to save while keeping pressure on his tank. Turning web on and off didn't give any tracking to hit him - but balancing cap use, nanite charges and heat kept my defences up while his ammo went from first to second to eventually third choice. When friends of his eventually appeared on grid in slowboating Algoses he dropped point in honor of our manly fight with no backup called from either side. I belive the Tusker name also played its part. Stocking up on drones, cap boosters, paste and ammo cost me 13 mil. Homeward bound I found a clone soldier trainer in a belt  - and suddenly Stratios 26 km off. I thought TARP! and saved my Vexor that had become venerable to me. Minutes after it occured to me the guy probably was a random  pve'er who decloaked himself by accident. His killboard confirmed this later.  And I had returned to Tusker territory where fast backup was indeed possible. By not going for tackle seemed I just missed out on a viable cruiser fight and wild chance to pocket a 500 mil killmail out of fondness of a 30 mil Vexor.

[androflight]

Chance Encounters

I have dried out on solo frigates. Been doing some fleets - the late night Algos fleet was well suited to Faction Warfare fleets but otherwise we have a tough time finding targets. Three fleets docked up and hid themselves from the friday night Gila fleet. Made myself useful as a scout - I find it more fun to run independant in a small T1 Frigate than to stay in the apply-dps body of the fleet. Other than the fleets I've been stepping up to flying cruiser hulls. I started out in a Fleet Scythe, sort of a little brother to the X-L ASB Vagabond - less dps 10% slower, 15% less damage, 5600 more EHP buffer and a little short of the old Vagabonds repping power due to Tech 2 resists. I believe also 30% less scary :-)

The idea is signature tanking like a Fleet Stabber, outtracking medium guns. Of course the ideal fight for this ship  has not come to pass. I have found it surprisingly effective on MWD Enyo because with overheated AB this cruiser is actually faster then the Assault Frigate even under a web. Had I known the ship better I would have gone full in on Sentinel and the second Enyo and maybe downed them all.

Did I mention I named the FScythe after an old corpmate who went sov fighting and hours later he by utter chance appears in local, asks for directions and we kill a Navy Vexor and and a few others together round Hev? Solo cruiser is a lot different than hunting FW 1 vs1 fights. Managing distances, relative speeds, what is a good tank/dps and how to mitigate damage due to tracking, active tanking vs buffer, resist profiles. Principles are the same but telling what plans can work from the plans that can't takes experience. I took a fight vs a local Pirate Vexor but my dps didn't break though his MAAR reps and I decided to disengage. I fumbled in appying heat on my AB and after the fight I realized I had unused boosters in my cargo. that was 30% potential shield boost power lost to a mind derp.  Other than that I was fairly effective in managing reps. My fit would have alowed me to disengage had I kept myself close to max scram I would have had a better gtfo ablilty and even with the added range, my hits were as good in that fight as when I was up close. The Gecko was the main source of his dps and both sig and hp is comparable to a destroyer. What is if had gone for that? Could I have turned the fight? My Ion blasters on my Atron couldn't track a Hobgoblin while orbiting - only when MWDing in a straight line. So what about an unwebbed Gecko? And how far was he from having spent his nanite charges? There is a lot of fights I have to take (and loose) before I'll gt that experience. Tho I had fun in the Fscythe I tried another strategy; sentry baiting. Exequror double MAR small guns and a med Nos. Traversed half of known lowsec space hardly meeting anyone and definitely not getting anyone to agress me. I talked to RedBerret about how he had taken hunting fields far from Hevrice and suddely we could salute in local.

One jump further out and he called me back; someone was probing his Tengu. So fearless I warped my AB T1 frigate out into the fight. I landed 25 km off the Tengu and deemed myself dead in the water. Red put a web on him but I couldn’t really keep up. And then an second Tengu landed and the first turned back and scram-webbed me. Red got understandably worried and after a short debate he announced his decision to bail. He stayed a while after this not wanting to leave me behind but the fight looked rather hopeless. Strangely they didn’t keep their dps on me constantly - and one was shooting EM against my highest resist the other was shooting Rage Scourge that I believe was also terrible against an afterburning target even if webbed. They alternated between Red and me, so I had opportunity to regain cap and cool my rack a little. Red soon got seriously cold feet as it seemed we could not break either of them while I deemed myself lost in space - especially on finding my cargo bay alarmingly lacking cap boosters. After Red finally warped out they changed to explosive HAMS - but still one was shooting Rage doing 75 per hit whereas the other did 125 each time with faction ammo. A couple of lucky staggered reps and well placed heat they decided they were shooting in vain against a holding tank. So while I was getting ready to abandon ship one first than the other dropped point and left  - it actually seemed they got really nervous they were up against some devious trap holding them while reinforcements were on their way. Or something. Praeus > The fuck kind of a comp was that shit ? RedBerret > accidently one Praeus > Well it worked somehow Praeus > lol RedBerret > xD Irusan Ramza > yeah.....  fuck is with that Ex Praeus > hell of a tank on that logi man Went all the way back to Heyd and caught a fight with a Wolf that agroed on station, got blobbed and tried in vain to deagress while under Ishtar neuts. I was expecting him to catch sentries but had forgotten about a can I looted earlier.

[androflight]

Crimson streak

I have done a lot of hours of soloing the last days and I must say - the tides of my luck has ebbed. I have lost 6 ships in a row without getting a single kill. I figure the usual targets have been missing and I guess I have chanced some tough odds fights and mad my mistakes too. First my Arty Thrasher -  280mm Sensor boosting MWD. I have no liking for this fit as I am poor at kiting but people tend to love this fit and I figures it could be a good way of learning to kite like in a fast nano cruiser. I had an interesting duel against a MWD Maulus where the targeting range scrips on the sebo gave me back my lock range to force him off. I think I had a chance of killing him but various factors - mainly his drone damage and my slow handling of the ship mad me choose to leave when he was forced to pull off.

I docked for repairs and was blapped by two instalockers when undocking. Yes I panicked and turned on DC after issuing dock command. I wonder if I'd lived if I didn't? So I went back and got a Tormentor. After roaming far and wide I dragged a Comet out to a belt. I approached from 50 km and set orbit to 10km. His damage was very manageable so I figured he was neutron fit and I had to get closer to get point. So I instructed the navicom to keep range 8700 m and seconds after his hybrid antimatter charges wrecked my armor in rapid heavy strokes. He was rail fit. I gave order to go close and orbit fast - but it was too late. I didn't have time to change trajectories and his drones did also not care about  my speed and postion. In retrospect I had plenty of time to look at his guns when he came in - and I made a mental note that Tormentor will not outrun a Comet unless he is heavily plated and/or trimarked. I had a rush Incursus in the hangar - swapped scram for a secound web, loaded Void and went back to Melmaniel to look for the Comet. I couldn't  find him. In stead I found WE FIGHT round a plex - Maulus + Incursus and evaded them. I hung around a bit to look if they would follow; not really decided if I wanted the fight. Maulus landed and I danced a bit with him trying to get a lock and a web on him. At one point I got within 13 km and put my webs on him - but seconds later he heated his SD's and I lost lock. by the time a Comet had come in and they slowly killed me off unsing drones. What could I have done better? First not take the fight at all if not determined. Second - get rid of his drones fast/first. I had web - even double web and that could have bought me a lot of time forcing my enemy to get closer. I lived for surprisingly long on my uncharged ancillary reps. Third possibly trying to run and outcap the Maulus as damps + MWD can be hard on cap over an extended period. What I did would have been awesome had I gotten a hold on him tho, as going closer than 8000m's would have negated all E-war and set me free.

Next ship was a dual prop Atron. Not getting any even odds I settled for warpin to a plex with Atron Kestrel thinking I could separate them. I could as the Atron MWD after me in fast 4000 m/s persuit and Kestel humped after doing AB speed. So I turned to kill, ab on fast orbit. That was all well - but even under his web and sporting a tracking rig I outtracked myself. Good hits would be around 200 and I was hitting 50 each time. He was also hitting me for almost the same damage - probably a damage mod where I had my power grid boost to fit the dual prop. I would eventually kill him but his mate was closing. I straighted out and made a run for it but my ab could not take any more heat so his web plain negated my thrusters and the Kestrel caught up and shut me down.

I did another Tormentor vs Comet fight that also was rail fit - honestly I mix those fights up - and finally I lost another Atron trying to separate Kestrel Merlin in a Ladistier like I have done before. This time I think I may have disrupted my heading a trifle when landing and OH MWD speeding away. It is not uncommon that the waiting frigate(s) land a scram and cuts my MWD but usually I drift the last metres and am able to reengage MWD outsid their scram range. Not this time - it may have been webs, OH scram, positioning IDK. Engaging AB gave me a little headway and actually deactivated their scrams but now MWD was blocked because the AB can't be cut out during it's cycle. A 180 turn didn't do it so gf and back to HQ. I had had enough with hunting frigates and took a spin in a newly aquired Fleet Scythe that already have granted me two narrow escapes but no kills. But that is an other story that I may miss out on here as I didn't fraps but did panic so a lot of details are 'lost in translation'.

[androflight]

Hand Fed

I started a brilliant PvP night with an unfortunate duel with Crake in his rail Atron. His normal fit is AB web longpoint and I have been looking for an opportunity to surprise him with my dual prop Atron. But I had at one time shown my hand - and he took the fight well knowing that for once he had a scram and would easily control the fight. So I was countersurprised and thrown off guard. When I popped I was trying to maneuver and find the right second to activate MWD so he also caught and held my pod. After some breathtaking seconds he dropped point and let me go. I had just decided to upgrade my pod with some learing hardwireing and some 3% implants the day before so I was really grateful for this act of surprising kindness buy this honorable gentleman villain.

  Ploebas came online and I went to join him in the Old Man Star system in my Tormentor. The system was quite active so we had to be alert. Phloebas tacked a Comet in his scram kiteing Firetail. A doable fight but single web TD it very much comes down to speed – If Comet can close on the Firetail hes done. Otherwise there is a chance tho drone damage makes time very much a factor.

When I warped to the plex I had two other ships on scan – Hawk and Condor. The Hawk was barred from the FW deadspace pocket so he waited outside and almost tackled me while I was adjusting my combat settings on warp bubble collapse. I shot my Tormentor through the acceleration tunnel and landed right in top of teh Condor - the fight going on some 40 km off. So I scrammed Condor at once and put my drones on the Comet to help my mate. Once the Condor was down Ploebas had largely soloed the Comet and catching up on his breath – it was a tough fight.

I went back with loot and soon after Ploebas fought a MWD Sensor damping Hookbill - the MWD part didn't really suck into my minds decicion-mating-circuits - so I found myself plunging into a in a potentially quite dangerous situation. Well I got drones on him and quickly got within 14 km almost in webrange. Sadly he got away and I redirected to get distance. I manually piloted my flight while keeping an close eye on his trajectories and suddenly; success!. I landed a heated web and seconds later my scram. That of couse went game over for the missile Hookbill.

I dropped loot and Ploebas sought and found a Jag in another FW site. I we got there almost simultaneously and it was an easy kill as he had no web = range control to start with and we were both kiters.

We went back to Hev for a short break and loot dropoff and the Cannabis Duo was in Hev begging for it. They were in Thrasher/Incursus and we collected a trio for a gank. I brought an 400 plated Algos that seemed a solid bait. Not solid enough though - it didn't survive. On hindsight I should have MWD'ed away and let them catch me as drones takes a really long time from deployment to actually applying damage. replacing the drone damage mod for armor resists would have helped too.

Some other time I need to think like I was trying to solo them, maximizing my own damage and keeping as far from harm as possible. Seconds count in the fine art of baiting til the gang comes in when in frigate sized tanks. Again - the support was not ultra high dps which of course is the best supplement to the bait tank.

After this a Navy Vexor made a fool of himself in the undock - and not paying enough attention to the chat I missed the gank.

An hour later the Cannabis Club were back - now in cruisers. We sent in an Interceptor that grabbed tackle. And for once BoomBangGone warped off saving his Moa while we made shot work of pinball's Vexor. The Vexor was well fitted against tackle frigates equipping a med neut, double webs and small guns. but we were in cruisers and the tackler was a specialized tackle frigate that apparently didn't make any mistakes.

Last night felt a little like someone was hand feeding us easy kills - and a miracoulous escape.

[androflight]

The Liam Incident

I thought my next post was going to be about killing Hookbills in a Catalyst. Or killing Hookbills in a Tormentor. Or fighting a Gnosis in a Fleet Stabber and learning about it's terrible damage projection and poor choice of projectile ammo and the effects of dual webs and medium neuts. But no - I'm going to talk about last night and it's fights and the mixed results hereof.

  We started in Hevrice HQ where some guys were forming up to kill the usual suspects; BoomBangGone and pinball wiz of Caldari Cannabis Club in their Tanky Algos'ses. In short we had Enyo Incursus Slicer Firetail and were quite obvious setting our trap - but the Cannabis Club don't warp off even if set up so they stayed and fought. In short I made the mistake of rushing in on the wrong Algos - and once in place I put too much faith in my damage, my Kin/Therm resists and my repper. I was doing better on "my" Algos than the rest of the guys on theirs once I got both targeted and he entered structure before I did. But the small neut and the 3x weaker-than-I'm-used-to reps from the two rep cycles I got did it and I popped with him in 2/3 structure. The other Algos then had still 1/3 armor left. How I managed to confuse myself this way and underestimate the destroyers is unclear to me - I was clearly overestimating the kill potential of our guys and the defences of my own ship. The deadspace repper was clearly not suited for this kind of intense damage. But all speculations aside - next time take time to asses the situation and shoot the fucking primary!

  After this I took roaming in my Rail Tristan and found myself in the same area as Phloebas so we went target hunting together. It was not easy to find anything suited for us - but I singled out a Ivy Merlin that I could kite and finish myself and a little later we kited and killed a AC Thrasher.

So when I spotted a lone Thorax - even railgun fitted I followed and called in Phloebas. I had not idea Liam Inkuras was anyone - but now I know.

We found him off a plex gate willing to give fight - but as we were AB and he was MWD. Phloebas went for him but Liam was fast to pull range and keep point and let his warriors finish him. I was 80 km off burning to them but way too late. Liam came closer and I took transversal and assessed. A little hesitation and he landed point just my warp order was given. No way I could outrun him straight - warriors or no, I overheated AB and spiraled in. He was really fast to accelerate to 1700 m/s and I had give up landing a scram. I redirected and fairly easy scrubbed off his point. Even warped back on grid for retrieving my Hobgoblins.

    But that was not the end of it. Literally five minutes later I jumped into Jovainnon and found Liam fighting a couple of frigates and cruisers running off the gate. I was considering my possibilities of joining or pinning down one of their tackle but AB frigs are bad for that. So I waited and they pinned and killed him - and I saw my cue to warp up and snatch the loot :)

Phloebas took a Heretic to hunt down the unknown gang's tackle and then, minutes later Liam was there again - in a Deimos. While scouting for the gang in the Hev gate Heretic got off gate and Liam made the opportunity kill. I could have tackled and held him for a short while but I had no backup - and thermal damage vs Deimos would just be a joke.

So I waited. Went back to get Hertic loot - was omw to HQ when I found Liam and Stan fighting in the Jov gate in Hev. I threw my drones on him to help out and immediately realized he had lost suspect status and I was taking gateguns. Shit. Emergency warp to sun making it in 45 structure hp. Ouch. I went back figuring I could help out and orbit under his guns now that sentries were out of the question. A fine plan but suddenly Hyena 30 km off. Triple webbed Liam's Ions could one shot me and my lootbelly Tristan.

  Stan died to the Diemos – his Navy Aug was kitey and the Deimos was fast as fuck as it later showed. This was in Tuskers' home station - and I was surprised he didn't get backup. Well people was discussing how to take out the Hyena so I undocked a Rapid light Fleet Scythe thinking we had something going between us. I found myself on the Jov gate with the Deimos with a Sabre baiting 50 km out. Knowing I'd be faster than Deimos I launched forward and got within range. Not playing my cards right I wasted precious missiles on Deimos and forgot about Warriors for that Sabre. I was doing fine tho outrunning the Deimos but then suddenly once more – Hyena in perfect position 30km off. I did switch to him – but too late. Double webbed from 30 km the Deimos got on top of me and exit FScythe.

  Doing a 1 vs 3 against that experienced players was a bad move - but a strong learning experience for cruiser sized hulls and the efficiency of E-War frigates. And I will never fit and trust Rapid Light Launchers ever again – their reload time is such a turnoff [literally] that they are worse than nothing. Counting on aggressive corp backup was another grand mistake.

I'm happy my combat exploration adventures have payed well lately so I can stomach these losses without too much pain except loss of pride.

Still wonder where Liam got that Deimos from – did he have it in Hev all ready – or did someone offer him a ship? That smug grin and unbecoming mustage remind me of someone...

[androflight]

Goldrush in lowsec

I have struck gold. Finally. During the weekend where the Goonswarm Federation assaulted the mega trade hub Jita I have had luck with my combat exploration. After dust had settled in The Forge I could take a stealth bomber with modules worth 800 mil+ and put them on the market just as trade reopened. The more bulky load netting a neat 400 mil worth of combat loots etc. is in contract and I have even more good stuff in my hangar. The best thing about it is I fly combat capable ships and have had interesting fights while harveting the riches of Verge Vendor and Placid low sec. Like a double boosted Hawk that insisted on  tanking my light drones and staying in my face even with 3 med neuts on him. Finally his boosting Sleipnir came on scan and I had to bail with half of my Warriors and Hobgoblins in structure letting the frigate hold the field... It turned out Sleipnir couldn't pass the acceleration gate to the deadspace pocket so there was no real danger. I got redress warping back 5 minutes later and stripped the frigate size complex of a 95 mil Shadow Serpentis faction treasure that the Hawk failed to pick up. The LSE Ishtar is my favorite tool and it works surprisingly well with its superior range and good speed. Its favorite operational range is 60-90 km where it is largely safe from damage and assigning one Warden II on each of the approaching frigates makes it extremely efficient for all size targets. I have had an adventure in a smaller ship  too; an expedition known as Elite Playground that I did in an Enyo. It required some piloting to balance reps, cap range and choice of targets while looking out for unwanted guests - and netted me some low end Serpentis modules and one of the low grade snake hardwire implants.  The final stage brought me into 0.0 and going there in solo Enyo, heart pounding, ready to dodge bubbles and also looking for fights with locals was a 'real' Eve experience.  On returning to high sec space I could start gathering materials for building my first ever Vigilant that is now in my hangar waiting to be fitted out. There are more stories but it will have to wait - next post will be some write-ups of recent fights. Nothing cruiser sized yet, it is still on my list of things to do soon (TM).

[androflight]

Pirate life part-time

Pirate life surprises me. As expected I have done a lot of solo Tech1 frigate fighting one on one and largely been successful. To a point where I have gotten slightly bored with it.

 I have had some really good runs with fellow Tuskers looking for fights and travelling together. The guys generally know how to handle themselves and fly their chosen ships to maximum efficiency. 

When airing my concerns about a hostile Destroyer's capabilities my partner merely replied "we will just have to kill him as quickly as possible" - so we warped in our frigates and did just that. This happened more that once - the exact same words  + result :)

Another time I came to help vs a Comet but on land they had two Comets and a Griffin vs Firetail and my Incursus.  So I doubled back and ran. Got jammed and the Comet on my tail was slowly gaining on me. 13 km and I would be webbed and no lock ment no counterweb so I had to gtfo. I had my worries about my fellow Tusker who I knew was jammed and pointed. Then he linked the killmail. As we had burned seperate ways I had drawn the Griffin away from him and the second Comet was suddenly separated  with a capable arty Firetail. 

Generally the corp fleets are quite expensive cruiser hulls and maybe a bit optimistic in what they can take on and live. And they are keeping to low sec only. It leads to intensive fights but also expensive losses. 

So I have to earn ISK - and when attempting to keep sec status reasonable it means shooting things that concord and the other  authorities dislike. So I have taken to low sec combat exploration. 

The cool thing about it is I can do it in a PvP LSE Ishtar. The downside is my terrible karma with the loot drop deities. The hours I have put into clearing pirate hideouts with no or little gain is scary. While my corp mates are getting 1.5 bil drops + kills the competitors blingy ships who warp in to steal their plexes. 

I'll get there I keep telling myself. Once income is stabilized I want to explore nullsec solo. Untill then I'm a part time losec carebear.

[androflight]

AAR of 5. april

Talwar fleet last night - I was late due to fetching a clone 20 jumps from home. Eventually Caught up with the gang who were chasing a frigate gang. As latecommer I did not know exactly what we were chasing and when we went back and forth between two FW sites I made the mistake of leave the gang to chase two Talwars who on land turned out to be a group of 4 Talwars and two Taranises. Apparantly the two pilots who went befor me had already died without telling the FC. I had a hard time reacting and reporting due to surprise and my injured left hand that works terribly with hotkeying and push to talk. So I died. Spent time reshipping locally - and tho the fight went on for a while I didn't make it back in time. Back in Hev I took out an Incursus to get back to basics. Scanned down Condor Hookbill in a novice plex - and as Condor left I decided - fuck it why not. I loaded Iridium to counter a TD cutting my range and went in. Quite quickly it was clear I lacked dps to break him and twisting and turning I escaped his scram and got out. Lucky he did not have dual web. Went next door to get a drone replacement and as he saw me again he suggested a 2nd round. Knowing I had little chance to do better I called the cavalry and yes - Hamul Jinn was 4 jumps out. I made up some lame excuses to explain the wait and hurried on Hamul. He got in system and I felt like a real pirate villain exhausting his dual ASB's and killing his faction frigate.

https://zkillboard.com/detail/38010308/ I made the mistake of not going to drop loot - this is always bad luck for me - and continued roaming. Hamul Jinn spotted a Hawk in Abune and we had our doubts. But Leo Solunar joined us and then we felt confident to take him. I went in first and set up the engagement. He started shooting me but paused as the others came. I guess he changed to Leo's dual rep Incursus. Not breaking that he changed back to me. I pulled range and the damage halted. My repper was out of fuel going on raw capacitor and I thought 10 km would be enough to get out of rocket range. It wasn't and by the time I realised It was too late. Too bad as I actually had Iridium in my cargo and could have kept some damage on him from 20 km.

https://zkillboard.com/detail/38010522/

So I died where I did not need to. With loot in cargo. The trade was ok but looking back I need to find more pleasure in getting my ship out in one piece. Back in Hev Dark asked for help ganking an ex-tusker that was in a Merlin. I deemed it a simple task and got out my tanky Comet. Turned out a joke. Dark had a disruptor Punisher that couldn't web or scram. The Merlin was doing 1200 m/s unheated so I could not get within web range. We chased him till Dark gave up. When Punisher left the Merlin approached - and soon we were slogging it out. I had faith in my 400mm plate and Gallente hull hp and went up close. To my surprise the Merlin stood its ground. It had Loki links other other linked support from a 1 billion ship hidden somewhere in system. So Darks cunning plan backfired and I was unprepared for a boosted adversary. When I realized I was loosing the fight it was too late even with double webs on my Comet.

https://zkillboard.com/detail/38010966/ I had to go stock up on frigates and spend some AUR on a paint job for my Incursus. Market in Hev is fair but not for hulls so it took some time.I really liked the result. the Incursus Aliastra Edition is a beauty. With the intent of trying hard too keep alive I caught a dual rep Incursus and stomped him. But the next target - a Tormentor -  had backup and getting from 6 km and out to edge of scram range took more time than I had before the Tristan caught up. They even brought in a Navitas so I guess I fell for the tanky frigate trick and missed out on Tusker backup. It COULD have been a really good fight whith the Hawk gank squad vs. these guys.

https://zkillboard.com/detail/38013141/

I logged feeling a little dissapointed but really it had been a night full of fights and experiences - and some successes too. What did I learn? Mainly I guess - I like ganging up with the other soloers for juicy kills. And I should not count on corp mates to judge if a plan is valid. Home system gives a false sense of security if people are not keen to undock. I know it and I fall for it myself.