Tuesday 23 September 2008

I can ride my bike with no handlebars

In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)

"Huginn in Eifer"

Those three magic words enough to get the blood pumping.

Been a lazy day thus far, actually managed some sleep, well more like an exhaustion induced coma but I woke up groggy and boarded Flubber™ for some hunting, I caught a Rupture earlier with the help of El Nabe, or to be more precise, I warped in on El Nabe killing a Rupture and added my unique brand of violence to the mix.

But the news of a Huginn in Eifer was enough to draw me out once again and soon I was jumping the gate into my kingdom. Once in system I checked the Intel channels again and gathered the Huginn was in the V belts, so I warped to the planet and scanned him to the third belt in the cluster.

WARP DRIVE ACTIVE

Those iconic words immortalised by Winterblink in his amazing work and words that sooth and invigorate at the same time. I kept hitting the scanner hoping the Huginn was still in place, willing him to be there.

A Huginn is a very good ship, one I have flown on a few occasions, able to dictate range with it's webbing bonuses and able to deal a good amount of pain to anything smaller than a Battlecruiser.
Flubber™ would be tested to the limit in this encounter and I was really eager to engage.

My Fleet Stabber burst out of warp about 40km away from the Huginn, I gathered my senses and started to close as soon as the last trails of warp evaporated off my ship. Tackling gear was primed but not overloaded, I had a good run in, good speed and was closing fast. I locked and engaged my warp disruptor, beams of energy reaching out and disrupting the flow of the Huginn's warp drive. At this point he locked back but I was closing fast and in the blink of an eye I was on top of him and he was now webbed, his ability to dictate range now gone the fight was well and truly on.

A flight of small combat drones streaked out from him and swarmed me, I deployed my own drones and a feature of the Fleet Stabber made me smile... It has a huge drone bay for a Minmatar cruiser. My three medium and two small ECM drones reached out and... HOLY SHIT, THEY WORKED. A good jam cycle and my guns were eating into his shields, slowly but surely. He regained lock and continued to rain heavy assault missiles and autocannon rounds into Flubber™. My shields had failed and my armour started turning red, one eye on the overview as the bar turned red and continued to do so. I overloaded my guns, squeezing every ounce of DPS out of them, his shields failed and his armour started to vapourise. It didn't last long and as the last remnants of armour disappeared a Drake warped in, the pilot who had originally reported the mark. His structure vanished near instantly and bits of Huginn rained against Flubber™. Her targetting systems quick enough to resolve a lock on the pod and yet another corpse was added to "the Morgue"

I glanced down at my HUD and noticed I was at 20% armour, a close fight indeed and one I was stoked about, blood full of adrenaline. What a rush.

Back in Gusandall it was time for dinner, maybe a smoke and a cup of tea.

6 comments:

Carole Pivarnik said...

Another impressive kill! Seems like the tipping point was that lucky jam, considering the state of your armor at the end. Exciting to read about...except I was pretty sure how the story would end ;)

Kane Rizzel said...

The 20% armour didn't really phase me tbh, since my Fleet Stabber is plated :P

Yes, you read that right... Plated

Hallan Turrek said...

Sounds like you had a good fight. Good to see those drones working for you at least some of the time.

Anonymous said...

Great story. Wait, what, ECM drones managed a jam cycle? Now that's cool :)

Keystone said...

I'm new to EvE, but I've heard, and also read on your blog that ECM drones hardly ever jam their target. I'm wondering if it would be more beneficial to have combat drones firing away, or is the damage not comparable to the jam?

How long till they can re-lock you?

Kane Rizzel said...

TBH, I just have really bad luck with ECM drones, some people have better luck, normally against me. I've always preferred damage drones but as a solo operator the ECM can quite often turn a fight (If they get a cycle)

Jam cycle is about 20 seconds and then just depends on skills and mods for relock