Even a late bird gets a worm.

TXW was unusually quiet for some time before Leprosorium decided to make a stop by our system in a few BC's.  Admittedly, we undocked 2 BS and a HIC(me) to try to effect some tackle on their BC's and they rightfully ran like hell, and called us out on bringing heavier ships to engage their BC's, conveniently leaving out that they DID outnumber us 5 v our 2-3.  We chased them back to XYY.  Approximately then, one of Leprosorium's alt scouts in TXW said that a BSOD gang was headed our way!

Happy for some kind of a fight, a smallish gang was formed at the station, consisting of a few Armageddon BS since we knew that the BSOD guys always show up in force.  In jumped around 4 drakes and a few tacklers, hanging on the 5-F gate in TXW.  Our gang had about 5-6 people in it now, 3 in armageddon's, myself in a Devoter and a Navy Comet.

With the ever-rallying cry of "who wants to live forever!" we warped in on the gate hoping to go down swinging!  Immediately local blossomed as the rest of the BSOD+Friends fleet jumped into us, intent of eliminating our small squad.  We lost a armageddon to the first skirmish on the gate, just before I got to jump through.  I thought and was hoping there was a good chance I would break free on the other side, however a smart interceptor pilot had jumped through with me and nabbed me before I could warp off of the gate, The other BS made it off the field before more could jump through and get them.

I reversed towards the gate, engaging all my hardeners, and waited for the pain train to roll into the station.  I didn't have to wait to long, but thanks to some smart thinking on their side, their fleet remained split, leaving me without an escape.  Only got bumped out of jump range once...  But it hardly mattered, my fate was written in this ship at least!

I teased them for a while, my passive tank soaking up the damage with some ease, and just as I hit below half armor I jumped through into the other fleet, and was quickly reduced to dust ...  just had to make sure they didn't all get on my mail.  Besides I hate it when people do that to me so I had to return the favor!

I even managed to get my pod back to the station (they didn't have any dictors).

I quickly changed ships into the Hydra II, and undocked, heading for a offgate spot about 200km from their fleet, to see if I could pull some of their light tackle off the gate and engage with any luck.  They had a Malediction, Crusader and some friends.  Shortly after I landed they were all warping to/jumping out into 3MOG, with one crusader providing hope for me by MWDing at first out towards me and then over towards 3MOG, I tried to catch up with him but I was AB fit and a little timid about their fleet turning around to kill me, again.  Knowing that he was MWD would turn the tide later.

With the lack of a RK fleet to distract the main bit of their fleet I followed cautiously behind, at the heels of the other Crusader.  His fleet left him behind in 3MOG, and after a few near misses, I would jump through, he would have just jumped back, etc.  We engaged in 3MOG, I however jumped through to verify no large fleet was waiting on the other side to jump back through and kill me!  That cost me my shields as he got a volley off before I jumped.

With nothing on the other side, and no shields (first volley of his hit me at 0m/s on the other side and HURT) I jumped back through and twisted around to engage.  Barreling in this time, I already had loaded IN Multi lenses, had my guns overheated from the start and swept into a stable 2500m orbit around his sader.  We traded blows, his shots taking me into first mid armor and then low armor, my guns burning down into his armor just as quickly, though I had a bit more to make up as he still had shields.

Once inside 2500m, AB on and scram on him the speed advantage was mine, I pulsed my small rep, and manually avoided his fire.  His damage lessened long enough for me to catch up, and with him in low armor I turned again, landing strong hits along his hull, venting his pod into space.  We shared a GF in local and then after some inept fumbling on my part to kill his pod it was over and I was left with just his wreck.  Time for some spoils!  Evidently he had been looting from other fights.  Looks like my dogfighting setup worked for once!  Manually turning around to run back past him helped as well.

The other guy

After action analysis (AAA) - I did all that shit I said I was going to do after I lost the Hydra I.  You know what?  It worked!  I gained some revenge for my lost HIC, I didn't want it anyways!

Shortly after that fight the Leprosorium guys succumbed to some shiny Hurricane bait and lost some of their fleet.  Flew a Vaga in that fight, I keep forgetting just how much like a inty that ship is!  Nearly zoomed out of range three times.  Anyways it was a short fight and, ended well for us.

Best quote from that fight was Poem asking the scramming rifter be removed from the fight, followed shortly by a thanks as he was vaporized under fire from Floobus.  I even managed to sneak onto that mail!

Not a damn chance

I'm a bit rusty at my FCing but recently I have tried to make a more concious effort to get back into it.  Not only does it add another level of challenge to the game, but it helps to focus any mistakes you made because after the fight seemingly everyone will notice.

Our alliance operated pretty silky smooth when it comes to roams and fleet ops through the direction of our stellar list of FC's.  In fact there are so many of them that are good it's a little rediculous because no one dying significantly drops our target calling abilities as so many people can fill in.

Saturday night was an excellent example of this as we roamed through much of Syndicate looking for a fight and found only a few ganks, and no comparable sized gangs that wanted to engage us.  It was fun cruising around in my Broadsword in that gang, just the smoothness of operation speaks volumes about our Alliance level coordination.

Anywho...

On Sunday, I was able to scrounge up some "eve time" and had just made it back to TXW from doing some escalation sites, gotta make money somehow!

I undocked in my probing ship just as a Ronin gang of tenish frigates jumped into local.  Stugh had about 5 pilots in TXW at the time so I spent some of my time sharpening my combat probing skills trying to track down the frigates.  Shortly after the Ronin gang, a DIE/MORTS, aka Death Is Everywhere Alliance and Ius Prima Noctis Alliance, mixed gang of about 14 jumped in as well.  For a few minutes they tried to pin down the Ronin frig gang and I wondered if the now six of us Stuggies could get a fight against the heavier (in compisition) gang of IUS.

I jumped on vent and called for a RR BS gang, with 2 Guardian's for support to hopefully equal the fire from their fleet as they had something like 2 Drakes, 2 Vaga, sleipnir, Ferox, Hound, Arazu and a few others.  Anywho I undocked in one of the Guardian's, with 4 RR BS to our little fleet.

The gang we were trying to engage were somewhere around Planet 10, but not at a gate or celestial so the trick was trying to find them or get them to engage.  I had the BS warp to the NG- Gate and try to get them to engage there because we intially thought they were over there.

Well during the attempt to get them to engage I had the BS at the NG- Gate align to the 5-F gate at speed so they could warp there if needed since it looked as if the gang was closer to that gate.

Time passed with no engagement.  During this time the BS on the NG- gate were spacing themselved away from the gate, ended up being around 30km from the gate at the start of the fight, and me being the moron I am, forgot to tell them to stay closish to the gate.  One of them was moving between there and 5-F trying to provoke a response as I docked my guardian to change into a prober to force the fight.  Indeed this seemed to work because as soon as I docked and changed ships, in fact right as I was undocking, one of their Vaga engaged our already exposed BSes on the NG- gate.  However I failed to undock the alt(now in the Guardian) at the same time as the prober and of course, murphy at his best, they engaged, in force, the BS right at that moment.  The lone guardian warped out there, but, while in warp, another surprise, a Falcon, uncloaked and engaged, effectively putting all our RR out of the fight.  Props to the Falcon pilot, he had most of us jammed out 90% of the time after he uncloaked.  Either skill or luck.  In the end...

Battle

I ordered everyone to disengage, and jumped into NG- hiding at a safe where the two guardians were able to get what was left (2 other ships besides the Guardians) back to 100 percent.  After a bit their fleet moved on and we jumped back in and docked up.

Hindsight is easily 20/20. 
Negatives...

A.  I failed to establish myself properly as the FC of the fleet, and it led to some confusion at the start of the engagement. 
B.  I should not have docked up to trade ships, doing so gave them a window for engagement.
C.  Splitting the fleet as usual proved costly.  I will not make that mistake again.
D.  Always expect the Falcon.

Positives...
A.  People willing followed me into a fight
B.  We didn't just sit in the station like everyone else when faced with a fight.
C.  I gave it a shot, I will know better next time.

I offered to help people with their losses but nobody took me up on it, once again confirming how good(or rich) the pilots in this alliance are.

Zephyr, not just the name of the claw that killed me!

Well CCP did it, something other than the usual for Christmas.  No snowball launchers this year it looks like, maybe they will do both!  Now that would make me happy.

Anyways, what am I talking about?  Check out the new Dev blog.

Or even better the new sexy screenie of the new ship they are going to give us!

That is the better of the two screenies!  Even get's it's own proble launcher, pod like invul from Sleepers and NPC's targetting.  Oh yeah, and it is called the Zephyr class!  Too funny.

But I was so close to fitting a Raven with 6 x snowball launchers and terrorizing some newbs!  Damn!  Well I can still hope, since they didn't say instead of snowball launchers!

Zephyr, the Claw that killed me

So the downside, I died, the upside, he did too!

I undocked my Crusader in TXW, seeing one non-blue in local, hopefully in a frig or inty!  I headed towards the 3MOG gate just as he jumped out.  Sure that he had jumped into 3MOG I hopped in only to see him jump back into TXW from somewhere other than 3MOG just as I left local!  Damn it.

I turned and re approached the gate, hanging on the 3MOG side of the TXW gate to see if he was going to jump through and to find out what he was in.  Hopefully something I could kill!

The gate flared, and he jumped into 3MOG, his Claw, Zephyr, quickly turning and engaging me, through my shields before I had even begun to fire on him!  Initially I was at a disadvantage, since I could not get my speed up quickly as I kept bouncing off the damn gate.  One of my bounces threw me clear and I was finally able to orbit at around 4-5k from the Claw.

Mental note, I will never use standard S in an engagement again.  First time it nearly cost me the Tristan kill last time, this time it, once again, was not providing enough damage to break the Claw's tank!  I reloaded Imp navy mutli S and ducked in closer, where I should have been the whole time, overheating both my guns and rep to keep up with the damage.  At this point we were both sitting in high armor.

Twisting towards him proved costly to my armor, his NOS made my cap even more scarce and soon, right as we both hit structure, my guns, rep as well as my ab and scram all shutdown because I was cap dead.  His projectiles had no such problem and remained striking at my hull, plunging me towards death, however his rep cycles stopped as well.  During the fight 4 x Serpentis Cruisers had spawned by the gate and now were taking long range pot shots at the Claw and not at me!  Sadly they were 15km away and not the long range cruisers.

I tried to cycle my guns to keep the damage up, one cycle of my armor rep capped me out again but gave me enough armor to withstand his assault for a few moments more.  I hit 1/4 structure after a few frenzied moments, as he hit about 1/3 structure.  I spammed warpout, my screen jerked a few times like it does when you kill someone or die.  I thought I had won briefly, but I knew it wasn't to be when my ship blossomed around me, spitting out my poor pod.  Unable to slip into warp thanks to the lag I was locked down, thrown a GF in local and then podded right back into TXW!

Seconds later as I tried to board my Vagabond to get back to my wreck and hopefully finish off the claw I got a convo...  those rats, landed a lucky killing blow on the claw just after I died.  Thanks a lot Serpentis, couldn't you have done that JUST a bit sooner?  All told we both lost our ships in a very close fight, but I nabbed the wrecks of both inties.

I wish I could say I learnt something new from this fight, but instead I just get to rehash.

A) No damn Standard Crystals to start out PvP, get in close with Imp navy Multi and try to get a kill!
B) Cap stability would be nice, or it even would have been a good idea to run just the AB or just the rep, so I could have kept my guns going longer.  At the very least better cap management!
C) In addition to A, overheat at the start of the fight!  With more damage on him early from both Multi and overheating and maybe I wouldn't have capped out and eventually died!

Sometimes I wonder if I even remember these thoughts in the middle of a fight.  At least frig fighting isn't as expensive as fighting in a HAC or anything else!  Great fight though, silly loss!

At least the 49ers won last night!  They obviously overheated from the get go!

Cargo Crusader

My Crusader-class interceptor, Hydra, pulled into the light of Stacmon's sun, loaded with spare parts for the logistics ships waiting in my hangar in TXW.  I turned the ship around heading for the Covryn gate instead of the much more often used Ostingele gate.  I tested out my new top speed as my forays into deadspace had finally netted me a 1mn afterburner.

Once on the Covryn gate, a short warp later, I noticed a t1 frig landing next to me, a Tristan.  I shrugged at the time writing it off since nither one of us could engage on a gate and unless I saw him warp to a belt I wasn't about to wander too far off the gates with my current more or less expensive cargo.

I turned towards Cumemare in route to TXW, noticing that the Tristan did the same, warping off a few moments before I did.  I hung around in Covyrn for a few moments trying to locate a rifter I spied on my scanner midway through the warp.

No luck so off to TXW.  Sadly there was nothing of note in they systems leading up to TXW other than this Tristan was headed in the same direction as me, only slightly ahead of me as I had detoured a few times.  In Vestouve I saw him hit and jump into TXW as I was landing on the gate and I hoped he would remain on the TXW gate long enough for my scram to net me a kill on this slow delivery mission.  Or better, engage me!

Jumping through found the Tristan 30ish KM to the side of the Hydra.  I knew he would warp out before I had a chance to tackle him but I wanted to try anyways.  My new afterburners roared to life pushing me up to speed, and the Tristan turned towards me and accelerated.  I loaded Standard S crystals, expecting to have to keep him at some range to avoid his blaster fire while still striking hits of my own.  I was also worried that this would be one of those fights of a t1 cruiser utterly crushing an interceptor because it was fit to do just that.

Inside of 10km Hydra burnt, rockets spewing from the launchers mounted on the Tristan.  My shields fell quickly however my small armor rep pulsed, nearly keeping up with the damage the small frigate was dealing.  I noticed my fire was similarly ineffective on his armor, his rep cycles keeping up with most of the incoming damage.  I knew I had limited time with my lasers, ab, scram, and rep running at full bore before I would be capped out and in serious trouble.

I opted for a tighter orbit, swapping crystals to higher damage imp navy mutlifreq and ducking in much closer, spiraling towards 2,500m noticing for the first time that he was firing rails and rockets and not blasters at me.  Once in close my rep was able to catch up on the damage, while the Tristan was unable to rep my increased damage and likely found his capacitor struggling as well.  The Tristan sunk into structure and just in time as well, my capacitor had only a sliver of energy left, preventing my final cycle of armor repair.  Shield

Had the fight lasted too much longer, or if I had stayed at range, trying to bleed him to death, I most likely would have lost or at least been much closer.

GF's were shared in local, as his pod warped out before I could get a lock.  I complimented him on his setup, rather unhappily, he replied his setup obviously wasn't good enough leaving the system back into lowsec.  Ahh well, my crusader turned happily, snatching what was left of the t2 loot and docked up, delivering it's boring payload.

----------------------------------------------

As an aside, His comment made me think about the attitude of t1 frigate pilots engaging t2 frigates of any type.  Sure (some) T1 Frigates can be lethal to interceptors or even some AF's, however can you really be mad when you lose to one, especially if it is a (sub-par) frig like the Tristan (when compared to killers like the Punisher or Rifter)?

What are you risking, like 8 mil at most for a well fit t1 frig and around 28 mil for a well fit t2 frig of most any kind these days.  Especially the Tristan!  I have long considered that ship more than a bit of crap, the Incursus is a much better choice as far as pvping t1 frigs go. 

Has anyone had any luck out there with the Tristan? 

I still fly Rifters on occasion, especially in lowsec where there is undeniable fun to be had flying agaist cruisers and BC's in lowsec in a vastly smaller ship.  It just seems like with the Tristans split weapon system, single drone and tight fitting that it is a sub-par ship.  If you want to kill a interceptor it is always going to be a close fight unless you get lucky or they are crap.  Especially if they are AB fit and you are not!  He was but still, the point stands.

RK > OI

I will add a battlereport to this once I find out what happened, but seriously ouchies!

35 kills 1 loss

From Bacc

Quick and dirty summary.  An hour+ of smacking them.  We fuck off, then decide fuck it, let's give them one more chance.  They've got a 30-man fleet waiting for us, we jump in with about 14 BS and some BCs.  Totalhelldeath commences.  They primary the Damnation, then the Bhaalgorn, then Cassius (they kill Cass), then the Bhaalgorn, then the Damnation, and at some point in there they shoot the Scorpion but he warps off, repairs at station, and comes back.  They jam the Damnation the entire time, sometimes with 2 jammers, and otherwise manage to die horribly.  Several of them come back in a second ship only to die horribly again, and they lose a Scorpion at 90km to an armor-tanked Raven that slowboated out to him to point and kill him.

We had too much loot to carry home so we popped a few dozen t2 drones and several wrecks full of loot.

The end.

Logan's Run

In recent times, my eve time has come under strenuous fire from my life. In the meantime it seems that my forays into the world of eve have proven poor time spent for few or no kills, except for myself. The following details the fights I have been in over the past few months, sparse as they may have been.

"The cane that just wouldn't die!"

Until now, of course

I left from Orvolle, flying in my trusty AC fit Hurricane that was nearing the end of it's insurance cycle and seemed difficult to kill, it has been into battle more than once, survived when the rest of the fleet was wiped out and even made the trek back to syndicate from Molden Heath in one piece.

I moved through the gate into nearby lowsec searching for some action on my way down to Stacmon/Vestouve/TXW. I soon had my wish. A small contingent of -47- pilots barred one of the lowsec gates, daring me to attack, however I am familiar with their usual tactics and jumped back through escaping deeper into lowsec to find a way around what turned out to be a domi, 3 cruisers, two of the t2 and two more BCs.

On my way through ostingele a Myrm appeared on scan, Ost has only one belt and soon I was at it but it seemed the Myrm had already left the belt. I aligned to the gate, looking through pilots in local and seeing 1-2 pirates, Negative ten alliance. I hoped one or both of them were watching and it turns out I got my wish, the Myrm returned and battle was had.

Neuts reached out from both our ships as I traded out to close range ammo. His drones were quickly launched, however my cap was dead quickly and I was unable to run my neuts to cripple his tank. I focused on his drones, eliminating 3-4 of his Ogre II's during the battle. My passive tank was no match for his determined drones. A late addition to the fight, a most unwelcome Cyclone sealed my doom. I don't recall even getting the Myrm below 3/4 armor during the whole fight, made me wish I had brought my triple rep myrm instead! I had go before I could make good my return in the Myrm. At least it was not a gank fleet that claimed my BC! I'm not sure how I could have won this battle, perhaps spending more time shooting the Myrm and less on his drones, but it seems unlikely he would have died before the cyclone came in, maybe when the Cyclone landed I should have switched over... seems like I was doomed from the undock on this one.

Loss

Then there was the thrasher that was convinced it was a coercer. Definitely in my list of top 10 worst Destroyer fittings, if not number one.

I received word of a Tengu sitting on a gate in Aubres, and along with a mix of other pilots started heading in that direction, but everyone else was closer. Sadly not on this kill, but I was there in spirit!

When I arrived there was the Tengu wreck, a Drake pilot (flashy from the same corp as the Tengu), and a noob Thrasher headed to the Tengy wreck and a abandoned can of cap 800's... I was uncloaked by the gate and warily looked at the Drake as the thrasher took from the alliance can's 800's and turned flashy to me!

Throwing my AB on I headed towards the Thrasher, laughing, launching drones, neut, web and scrambler. Thrasher had no idea what was going on and died quickly(lol). However the Drake wasn't so happy and engaged me, launching HAM's into my plated Pilgrim. I turned on my rep, and headed back towards the gate! Local was spiking like crazy right then as a fleet entered system, 20+ gains in local. I figured I was done for as they started landing on the gate but they immediately engaged the Drake (as he was flashy and I wasn't) and I was able to jump through to safety! (and an immediate cloak and warp away from the gate. It was lucky I was able to jump out otherwise I might have been next on their dinner course!

Just to repost the Thrasher fit.... WOW

Early this month I scanned down a Raven in a plex in a WH off of Stacmon... However by the time I got back to it with a combat ship, all I got was this lousy Osprey! Anyways I finished the job on cleaning up the plex and made it out 3 minutes before the WH collapsed. Close call considering my combat ship didn't have a probe launcher fit!

I scanned through my ships in Stacmon and decided to head out with a Crusader, something I have never flown before so most likely my fit was bad, but it was a blast to fly. I chased some random fleets around close to TXW to land a tackle by managed to fail at that as well... sadly.

A short AFK later and all I could find in local was a Eris passing through with a few (2 others) from the IUS alliance. I decided to take that gamble and headed to the 3MOG gate. A Manticore landed and jumped through with me, uncloaking and then engaging me on the far side. I knew he had to have friends on the way, but damn it I wanted a kill before I had to log again! I burned towards him as his damps had their way with my already small lock range... don't ask about the t2 WD instead of t2 WS... Anyways, I got close enough to hold a point on him and pin him back with my LAZORS....

Just as he entered structure, the Eris landed, immediately throwing up a bubble (goodbye pod) and locking me down with a pesky warp scrambler, nicely fit. I overheated my rep, guns and mind, trying to find a way out... It was easy to find one but only after I killed the damn Manticore!

125mm rails ate me up quickly, and I popped shortly there after, as did my pod... Wouldn't you know my clone was still set across the damn universe!

Report

Turns out the last guy was in a pod, so 2 v 1, I still should have won! I think if I had fit a warp scrambler, paid a bit better attention to range on the Eris, engaged it first even with the manti in structure, and I might have survived or chased off one or both of the hostiles and been a lot happier. Gonna have to remember that next time! Maybe if I had overheat my guns from the get go I could have gotten out of there before the Eris landed or uncloaked, not sure what one lol! Maybe a healthy dose of watching my overview wouldn't hurt either!

I got a new PulseSader, fit it better this time(WS), even with RIGS! wewt... Now to find more play time... and another death.

Side note, my clone cost 20 mil isk now :( I miss the days where my clone was worth like 500k.