Blast! Part Deux

"There's nothin' wrong with bein' a son of a bitch."
-- Gaspode the wonder dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

The Megathron has been rebuilt, of course it has, you saw a picture of it in the last post, renamed Gaspode to fit in with my fleet naming convention, sorry Sard :P. Been a while since I've had as much fun in a battleship as I am with this one and for good reason.

It requires some micro-managing of guns, cap booster and armor repairers and when a swarm of drones is about, the smartbomb is just ace.

It is particularly handy for going in outnumbered, especially if there aren't gate guns playing merry havoc with your armour.

A trio of Drakes are camping the Emolgranlan gate in Eifer, I was keyed to this by my cousin Kenny, who mentioned that some Russian dude from the same corp was saying there was a 6/10 in Eifer and he needed help... A lame tactic but a viable one to lure carebears into a trap.
What made me decide to go in guns blazing was when an associate had just warped to her gate peep and said the red flashy Drake was 10 clicks away from her, out of range of gate guns.

She got as close as she dared, to set up the warp in, as I made my way to the Eifer gate in Gus, when she was ready she signaled and I jumped in to make the long warp, listening intently to her intel in case they warped off.

Bursting out of warp a mere 5 clicks off the primary Drake, I drop drones and close, target locked, tackled, engaged. First Drake lights me up, second is a bit hesitant, third still sitting at zero on the gate, not sure what to do, which gives me a precious head start.

My guns aren't tracking all too well until I maneuver to reduce radial and transverse velocity so they could hit better, by this time second Drake had lit me up and third had warped in, A swarm of small drones envelopes my Mega, smartbomb pulses, destroying waves of drones but doing a good job on my capacitor too. Overloaded heavy cap booster* starts chewing through charges, both large armour repairers engaged as I'm deep in armour and won't be able to hero tank.

First Drake explodes, a combination of sentry drones and the blasters from my Mega chewing it up, the pod warps out as I engage the second Drake, with extreme prejudice. The third Drake curiously warps out, strange but it becomes clear as CptHaoc from Celestial Argonauts warps to the wreck of the first Drake to join the fight, not sure of his intentions as I target him but keep burning the Drake, I see he has engaged the Drake too and it is not long for this verse, it explodes and CptHaoc warps out, unsure of my intentions and to be honest I was in two minds, sure he helped but he also ruined my solo of these guys, c'est la vie. Anyways, help sometimes is needed, even when you're me :) Thank you.

Before all this though, I did kill and pod a mission runner's Hurricane with a Harbinger, he never responded to the ransom offer :( which is becoming common place, other than the Rifter pilot from a few days ago who paid the ten million offer for safe release of his escape pod.

And just because I'm enjoying taking screenshots atm, here's one of Havelock Vetinari
Remember to RIGHT click and open in a new tab/window for best results


* Something I see very little of in PvP videos is overloading of cap boosters to get that extra out of the charges, always frustrates me as I watch them, furiously trying to click their HUD to overload

BREAKING NEWS



A Thanatos carrier appears on scan of my associate in Eifer, she probes it down in seconds and reports a warpin, I start asking if anyone is nearby to help as I board Interesting Times, my Machariel class battleship. I warp in and tackle, he requests a private conversation:

Kane Rizzel > yes?
clamslayer > what up
clamslayer > unfitted
clamslayer > you want to make some isk to let me go?
Kane Rizzel > what's it worth to you and I'll see if it's worth more than the killmail
clamslayer > fuck off

He initiates self destruct shortly after I start shooting him

[ 2012.02.23 00:58:24 ] (notify) clamslayer has initiated self-destruct of their Thanatos, it will explode in 120 seconds.

[ 2012.02.23 01:00:24 ] (notify) Thanatos belonging to clamslayer self-destructs.

It explodes as it enters armour, denying me a killmail but it matters not, a Thanatos wreck is now before me, spoils to the victor of 43 armor plates.

TECHNICALLY KANE RIZZEL JUST SOLO'D A CARRIER WITH A BATTLESHIP, WHO WANTS TO TOUCH ME? Truthfully though I was cockblocked in the most unimaginative way :(