Tuesday 8 April 2008

Things that make you go BOOOM

I unveiled a new ship today, a Dramiel class Angel faction frigate, a truly beautiful piece of design but somewhat lacking in the firepower department with a split 3 missile/2 autocannon setup with bonuses just to the guns. It flies more like a Crow Interceptor than a normal frigate and needs to utilise its speed. I used it againts a Thrasher that was peacefully accosting some Angel frigates in an asteroid belt. The ship performed well but is lacking IMO, as beautiful as it is, it just doesn't do it for me. The thrasher was dispatched and the pilots corpse added to "The Morgue" I will of course use it again, no use letting it gather dust in the hangar.

I then boarded something a bit more familiar, a Jaguar assault frigate named "Crop Duster™", specifically setup for hunting in my local Angel complex. Keira had spotted a Vengeance assault frigate in system and I decided to use the plex as the baiting ground, I warped there and waited and was not disappointed as the Vengeance scanned me down and warped in. The fight kicked off around the ancient acceleration gate and due to spacial anomolies it means that MWDs are useless, this of course suited me as I have an afterburner fitted and I would use this to my advantage. The Venageance's tech 2 rockets were hitting me but my shields were holding, my guns and rockets loaded with ammo with high thermal damage were playing havoc with the armour of the Ammar frigate, thermal damage being a big weakness for them and the Vengeance crumbled in a shiny explosion, the blinding flash confusing the pilot long enough for me to lock on and scramble the pod, my guns splitting it like a pinata.

ANother Rifter was added to my tally for the day before reports of a ISK farmer Raven warping to Gusandall gate in Ingunn came over intel channels, I rapidly boarded "Guards Guards" a Broadsword heavy interdiction cruiser, a solid ship with the ability to lock down any ship no matter how many warp core stabilisers it has fitted, this ability would be key as I waited on the other side of the gate. The Raven uncloaked 26km from me, my tackling systems primed and hot, lock resolving and in an instant the Raven was going nowhere, I closed the distance an applied a Stasis Webifier to stop him trying to make his way back to the gate, my guns spitting out EMP shells at a rapid rate, the shields of the mighty Caldari Battleship starting to break, I was joined by some accomplices and the Raven flashed into nothingness, the escape pod rapidly being locked down and destroyed.

I returned to my Jaguar and scanned out two Rifters in the direction of the plex, I warped in to find one on the gate, it was locked and destroyed with no fuss, the corpse joining "The Morgue"
I hit the scanner in the direction of the deadspace and saw the other Rifter still in the plex, as I activated the gate another Rifter warped in, a speedbump. I deactivated my warp and downed the Rifter, quickly scanning in the direction of the deadspace to see if the second was still there, it was and I once again activated the gate, I burst out of warp to see the Rifter over 60km away and I started to close the distance but the Rifter decided to get out of dodge, leaving me with only the two kills.

Later on the intel channels were buzzing again as two battlecruisers were spotted in Eifer, a gang was hastily formed and we headed to the gate to the system whilst our prober scanned them out, whilst waiting a Dominix Battleship jumped into system and was greeted by 3 very tetchy pilots, the combined firepower of two Hurricanes and an Astarte vapourising the Gallente Battleship. In this time our prober had some technical issues and Keira made her way to Eifer, she had dropped a probe and got a hit on her first scan, she made her way to the safspot to set up a warpin for us, however both battlecruisers were aligned at speed, Keira made the decision to sacrifice her Cheetah Covert Ops frigate to make the intial tackle until our Recon could get in for the prime tackle. She uncloaked and locked the Hurricane, our primary target and started the tackle, the Hurricane instantly returned the lock and the Cheetah was ripped to shreds but allowed anough time for the rest of the gang to get in and lay down points. By the time I burst out of warp she had managed to get her escape pod out. The fight however was only just starting, the Ferox had warped out and the Hurricane was using its MWD to try and get out of warp disruption range. I started to give chase as did the rest of the gang, the fight spanned 370km from initial tackle to the Hurricane exploding and to top it all off the Ferox came back only to be locked and popped in short order. Loot was scooped and the gang returned to Gus to share the spoils. I'd like to thank the guys who donated loot and mods to get Keira back into a Cheetah as soon as possible, much appreciated.

A little later on, once again targets had appeared in Eifer, two Drake class battlecruisers, myself and deathstarbeing the most eager and getting to the gate to Eifer first. The gang formed in drips and drabs as blood in the water attracts the predators and there's no shortage of them. Tim Burton was our prober on this one and did a stellar job as we were struggling to track the two marks down. He had setup a perfect warpin and the signal was given to warp in and engage, tackle was to be shared between the two targets to make sure none made it out alive. Both Drakes exploded in short order, the legendary tanks of these Caldari battlecruisers not standing up to the combined firepower of an Astarte, Brutix, dual Hurricanes, Manticore, Pilgrim and after looking at the killmails it looks like they were weapons testing against each other, not the smartest thing to do in Pirate infested space.

On my way home I encountered a Stilleto on the gate in Gusandall, I engaged the Goonfleet pilot and he popped almost instantly under the fire from my mighty 425mm autocannons.

I docked up for the night, a long days hunting and some great kills, I make myself a cup of Earl Grey, light a cigarette and reflect on a good day, 18kills including 6 pods to the one loss of Keira but she's still giggling and has a new Cheetah. Some good loot and good memories.

I love my job

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kane.
I'm Derekest, a fellow eve blogger. I was wondering if you'd be interested in a link exchange. You can find my blog at http://derekest.wordpress.com

Cheers.