Wednesday 16 January 2008

Slow day at the office...

The death of the farmer made me hopeful of an epic day.
Recently I've been on a run of good fortune with some great kills including Faction Battleships and a Thanatos Carrier, my kills and losses are recorded at Battleclinic.
A good run of form recently but not every hunt is as lucrative.

As can be seen from many of my recent kills, I no longer solo as much as I used to. Having made friends in the area has been good to me. Particularily flashfresh, an independent pilot I first met when I moved to the area. flash recently joined The Black Flag and through him I have struckup a friendship with many of their pilots.
My general rule is no Blues, NovaKane's standings to others is neutral or red but I now have friends who I will not shoot and I will help them without thought for my own safety as they would be willing to help me.
Two other corps who I'm on friendly terms with are Mean Corp and Hellaquin. Both corps I've been red with in the past but through tenacity, patience and being polite have managed to get neutral standings with. It makes hunting in the area a lot easier as I don't have to worry too much about being ganked by them.
Everything else is a target.

Of course I still don't trust many people, EVE is a harsh universe and you always need to be on your guard.

Anyways, back to the story, the Raven kill had made me hungry for more. A small gang had formed with Members of Hellaquin, Mean Corp, The Black Flag and Tempered Steel Legion ( A corp who I don't know much about besides one pilot who I've flown with on numerous occasions)

The gang had become spread out over multiple systems with reports of a Curse and Raven one system out from base. Scouts/Bait were deployed in an attempt to force an engagement.
At this time we received reports of an Ishkur piloted by a mark exploiting one of the local complexes. Between myself and flash we have killed the Ishkur pilot twice and one more is always welcome, but needs of the gang dictated we help with the Curse and Raven.
Raven disappeared from scan and was presumed docked in system when one of our pilots in a Tempest battleship reported engaging the Curse.
Warping in my overview showed the curse moving at 3.5km/s , rather quick for a cruiser sized ship.
My Hurricane has a few nasty suprises for just such an occasion and I closed the distanceon the nanoed cruiser.

Experience has taught me that nanoed pilots are over confident and you can exploit this to your advantage. Closing within 13km I activated my dual energy neutralisers which bit hard into the cap of the Curse, seeing this he got out of range quickly again. His evasion making him more vulnerable as he probably thought he outsmarted me. AT this point we were very far from where the fight started, only one other pilot getting in on the action, a Stabber pilot. The Curse was running rings around us but I had one more suprise for him, getting within 15km he thought he was safe from my medium neuts but overheating them brought the full capabuilities of the mods to bare againts his cap hungry ship. I launched drones and they went to work.
So close, he was entering structure but activating a Cap booster gave him enough cap to acivate his MWD and run. He warped out in structure, probably wondering how he managed to survive.

I was happy with that engagement, The Curse can be very dangerous but I have massive faith in my Hurricane and would have definitely won that engagement had I a web but you don't really need one to take out a nano ship if you're smart.

Reports filtered in of a Typhoon Battleship on the station in local. One of the gang was going to try and get him to aggress, so that he wouldn't just dock as we arrived. The Typhoon aggressed the Drake and Initiated warp. Coming out of warp I saw the Typhoon being engaged by TiggerTime in his Dominix and the Drake pilot, I joined in the party and went to work.

The Typhoon was bait and now that he was engaged his friends came in, it's all a bit fuzzy but I saw at least 2 Dominix class battleships and a few other battleships appear on my overview.
Order was given to bug out, I activated my MWD and aligned for a safespot, all the while keeping my guns on the Typhoon, Tigger was doing the same as we wanted the Typhoon dead.
Recalling my drones the Typhoon was in structure, My overview started flashing as the other ships started targetting me. My MWD had taken me out of Warp Disruption range so I was comfortable in the knowledge that I would get out. The Typhoon explded and I hit the warp button and was slung into warp just as the hostiles opened fire.

Sitting in my safespot I opened up a kill/loss report to see if I had managed to snag the Typhoon killmail only to be greeted by the killmail for the Curse.
o_0
I saw him warp out, surely he warped out. I opened comms with the pilot to find out what happened, only to be told he got popped by sentries on his way out of the system.
I grinned, that was frickin hilarious. A win in my book, he ran and died regardless.

Returning home I spotted our Ishkur friend in our local plex, or at least he appeared to be there as indicated by my on board scanner. Docking up quickly I changed to a Wolf class Assault Frigate specifically setup for plex hunting, Undocking I moved all haste to the plex gate, mashing the scan button all the time to make sure my quarry was still there, I must have passed him in warp at a safespot as he no longer showed in the direction of the plex, instead a Stabber cruiser greeted me as I exited warp. Oh well, kill is a kill, Target lock resolves and I open fire, not much reaction from the Stabber pilot and by the time he woke up it was too late, I'm joined by some other members of the gang, all hungry for blood, his ship exploding in a shower of sparks. Feeling rather vindictive at no Ishkur kill I locked and popped his escape pod, his corpse being frozen instantly as it hits the vacuum of space.

I grab the meat popsicle which will make a nice addition to my collection, loot the wreck and go home.

All in all a rather slow day, the Raven being the highlight but there will be many more hunts and many more explosions.

Leaving my ship, I light a cigarette, inhale deeply and grin. The dancers at the club are just starting up, time to go relax and have some fun ;)

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