Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Wasting Time

So today, I log in and things are kinda slow. No one but greens in local. What a good chance to get some practice in! I bug Duke to come out and play with me to which he gladly agrees. We fight to hull because Im a noob and forgot to insure my ship. Duke comes out in his Wolf, and I have a TD fit with optimal range script. Worked pretty good imo, it cut his falloff and optimal by almost half, allowing me to tank his smaller amount of damage. He was buffer fit, so an extended fight with a Vengeance is a guarenteed loss.

We then ship up, me to my Sacrilege and him to a Tempest. For some reason, I thought the Tempest was a battlecruiser. Duke confused by tossing in Tornado and as such, my noobness showed through. Upon getting in range, Duke promptly killed my capacitor with his heavy neuts. I was in range, trying to nos and rep, but it just wasnt happening. I didnt even get half Duke's shields down before I hit hull and warped to station to lick my wounds.

Soon, I saw Tawa, a Tusker in local. I shout out asking what ship he's in today, either jag or enyo. We agree to an AF 1v1. Asking in corp if he uses booster alts, I get mixed responses. To be on the safe side, I invite Tawa to fleet and undock. He's about 200km from me undocking, so I warp us to my Bosena gate pounce. 130km from the gate to be exact. Thats a long as flight to make with just an AB and now warp drive. We'll get to that point later....

Anyhow, we start out roughly 100km from each other, and slow boat in range. Soon, I figure out that I didnt change fits from fighting Duke earlier, so I have no point to lock Tawa down. He easily keeps range at about 12-14km. I toss the TD with optimal script on him and hope he comes closer. Unfortuneately, he doesnt. I overheat my web to reach, and close the distance slightly. Tawa adjusts, resetting range, my web turns off. I ate through half his shields and he had some bleed through to armor! Woo hoo!

And now, the start of at least 20 or 30 minutes begins. Tawa dips into range, trying to get me to waste ammo, and it works. I eat through his shields and armor after several rounds of this. He destroyed my shields, as they always tend to be, and my armor is taking heavy damage. Then I realize I forgot to turn on the repper. Soon enough, my armor is back to 100%. I started this fight with 20 minutes left on my Exile Booster, so my repper was easily handling the damage. Yeah, the fight lasted long enough to wear out the booster. WTF?!

So we continue our dance, neither of us really gaining the upper hand. Being a Gallente ship, I know its going to have a tough hull, so I try to conserve my rocket stockpile, only shooting when I know they will hit. I dont know if Tawa was orbiting me at 10km or manually flying throughout the fight, but I started to slingshot (I think thats the tactical term for it) myself back and forth to him. Doing this allowed me to get back to the 13km or so range he liked to stay, and then approaching him brought me in web range and soon rocket range. At some point, he figured out what I was doing, roughly 75% structure I think, and I had to adjust to aiming my ship where he was heading in the orbit.

This worked out better for me than just approaching him because it put in range faster and for longer periods of time. I eventually ran out of my Inferno missiles, and switched to the Nova rockets I had. Getting distracted by talking in corp, Tawa repped to full shields often between dipping into my range of damage, forcing me to eat through them each time.

Eventually, I started to run low on ammo, roughly 500 rockets left. I know this is only a couple reloads away from running out. With this in mind, I stopped letting him rep to full shields and started actively going back in and out to hopefully make him make a mistake. With 50% structure left on his hull, I dipped in, and risked burning out my AB to keep in range long enough to either explode his ship or force him to warp off.

Eventually, I break his willpower to stay and he warps off, to my satisfaction. No killmail to provide as no one blew up. I considered this fight to be a draw until I finally broke down and forced myself to actually fly tactically and get damage on him as I could. I consider him warping out of a 1v1 to be him surrending and me winning.

Now, you need to understand, this was a long ass fight. For the longest time, I asked to just end it and call a draw, to which Tawa refused. I offered first a 30 million isk get out of jail free card. Again, Tawa refused, claiming my ship is worth more than that. Well, the hull itself isnt worth more than 30misk for sure. Another 5 or 10 minutes pass and I offer 50 misk to end this torture. Neither of us can kill the other, hes too far away for me to hit and he cant break my tank. And again, I get rejected with comments about how Im buying wins with my meta 4 DC and my atype reppers. Eventually, I just get tired of this and force myself to do what I mentioned above. I will admit to asking in corp if Ill get kicked for bringing in help. To which, most likely yes, I will get kicked. Also to which, no one in corp is comfortable in assisting in a 1v1, even one as annoying as this. So no corpmates helped in this 1v1 and Im glad they denied me the assistance.

However, being told I buy wins by using meta 4 dcu and atype reppers is an insult. The first rule of EVE is to not fly what you cant afford to lose. Just because you cant afford atype reppers and a meta 4 dcu are not my fault. I can, so I fly with them. The only reason I use the meta 4 dcu is because I have to so the fit I have fits within the ships CPU limits. I use the a type repper to add more to my tank, which if Im not mistaken, is to keep me alive during a fight. Ive lost several ships fit in this way and yeah, it makes me sad, but I move on and do it again.

I dont buy wins by using the best modules I can afford, thats called Risk vs Reward. If I risk a repper thats worth twice or three times the hull of the ship it is repairing, I am risking to lose that module any time I undock and use it. I can afford to lose it, or else I wouldnt even use it. Sorry if youre a broke ass pirate. My apologies if youre a risk averse pilot who doesnt want to risk an exspensive module to increase your chance of survival.

Buying the best modules you can afford does NOT guarentee you will live through all engagements. As has been shown by my very own killboard.

Vengeance vs Harpy

So I was feeling in the mood for a fight. Thats new, huh? If youve been looking at my kill board, it might seem I have a relationship with Sneakybadger. Let me say this now, I dont. It just so happens he and myself blow each other up often.

So Im jumping around Heild between safes, belts and the sun. I see a harpy on dscan and I take a minute to double check the info on this ship. Ah, another Assault Frig. Low explosive resists in both shield and armor; luckily I have the boom boom missiles. Yikes, hybrid guns. He's either got an mwd equipped with rails to kite me, or hes fit with blasters for close range. I docked up real quick to switch out my web for a TD. On a split second gut feeling, I chose not to do this. First, my ship is slow compared to most others. If he's got mwd fit, Ill need the web to get him within web range to scram. If hes ab fit, he'll just burn out of range if things go sour. While doing this thought process in a few seconds, SneakyBadger asks for a 1v1 in local against the Vengeance. To make sure, I ask if hes the harpy. Surprise, he is!

I accept, and undock without equipping the TD. I set the location to the sun, a dangerous spot anywhere in low sec, tbh. We mutually agree that if anyone jumps in, we primary them. I like SB, he's got pirate honor. Anyhow, I warp in at 40 or 50km. He's roughly 20 away from me. I try to remember my manual piloting skills and set an off center approach to the harpy. When we hit about 15km, I adjust to a sharply upwards course to maximize transversal against his turrets.

Right then, my girlfriend calls and of course, I have to answer it. On speaker phone she goes as I half pay attention to her. I have a ship to blow up! Within range now, I open the scram and web modules. My launchers and repper were both pre-heated during warp to the sun, and as they blast into his shields, my shields go down. Expected of course, and I pop a standard Exile booster. At this point, Ive got the combat adrenaline under control and continue my conversation with the significant other.

She asks if Im busy I think, and I say yeah, Im busy fighting this damned pirate trying to kill me! Or something like that. Anyways, Im keeping up with the incoming damage relatively well, so I turn off the overheated repper and go regular speed. My cap is stable, my launchers arent taking much heat damage, and my opponent is half in armor while my armor is roughly 90%. At this point, I finish my conversation with the "ball and chain" and focus entirely on the fight.

With the combat rush under control and still going strong, I take in everything happening: My rockets are doing insane damage to this Harpy. My armor is taking very little damage, each rep fills me back to 100%. My opponent hits structure, then explodes. I dont even try to grab the pod out of respect for SB. I won!

GF's were exchanhged, and as he exclaimed at how that went in an unexpected direction for himself, I let him know that I had little over 82% in all resists, so not much was going to hurt me in a 1v1. I think he was surprised, but I dont want to think that he was because that would just make my head bigger thinking I surprised a seasoned fighter like SneakyBadger. One of the better fights Ive ever been in, and not because I snagged the victory. Other than the distracting girlfriend on the phone, I was focused and didnt let the rush of combat excitement overpower my thought processes while manually flying or managing modules.

Great fight, imo. I think Im getting the hang of this =) Except for one thing I noticed just as I finished this post: 3 of his 4 blasters were fit with null, while the 4th was fit with void. I think he said he was using void in our after fight conversation, so Im not sure he noticed this either. Seeing this, I think a rematch may be in order.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Making Friends of Enemies Doesnt Work!

To get back into a regular schedule of posting, Im posting today also. This was an interesting chain of events that I didnt even comprehend happening and am rather annoyed by. I was out screwing around and then noticed I have no ships in Heild. This was bad because this is home. And with my prior pod and ship kill, my sec status took a nose dive. I may as well plan ahead rather than wait until I cant enter high sec again!

In this process, I got bored and tired of waiting for my Heavy Assault Missile 5 to finish training. So I fit up one of my Sacrilege's with a nice set of Arablast launchers. I decided not to fit any faction stuff this round due to this being my first time out in this ship in a comnbat setting. I like being in the mindset of "this is undocked...Its already exploded." It helps with the rush of adrenaline in combat. As long as I take one down with me, the ship did its job and can also explode now.

So out of Teon I go, flying towards Heild to get my ships moved. I found some trouble though and I dont exactly remember how the engagement started. I think I was jumping around and got distracted with something, ending up just flying in a random direction at the sun. Its habit, what can I say? Soon, a rupture landed. Awesome, except he was 120 kms away. Luckily, there was a wreck near him (not really, it was 152km from me) and I quickly bookmarked it and warped into his range.

Landing nabout 12km from him, I knew my web and scram were out of range. My missiles are roughly 15km max range atm, so I set an orbit of about 7500. I think this was a mistake though, as it put me in a nice range of his cannons. It doesnt help that I forgot to load my drone bay, something I remembered when he popped out warrior 2's. I was doing pretty well, then a Jag landed on grid, a quick look at the tickers showed these guys were going to team up on me. Well, ok, an AF and a cruiser. I think I can do this!

I forgot to check the penalites, but when I warped to the wreck, I popped an improved Exile booster. Its amazing. I love boosters. I was easily able to keep reps up with just the Rupture. The Jag and drones dps was annoying, forcing me to overheat my repper. Guns were preheated in warp, and at about 20% armor of the Rupture, I remembered to check their status. Very nice, not even 50% burnt. I like big guns! Not like earlier, when I burnt out my launchers on the Vengeance. I didnt post that story because it was just a trap and I just lived through 3 ships and drones damage for an insane amount of time before they discovered how to overheat their guns. Anyways..

The Rupture hit structure, I was about half armor and capped out now. Had two neuts on me, so much hurt. So much micromanaging to keep the repper going while holding point and web. Thank the gods of EVE for my Nos. I hit about 25% armor and the rupture popped finally. I started firing at the jag while also aligning to gtfo. The Jag went the other direction and bailed. I didnt bother looting, something I just dont remember to do after a fight.

Docking up to repair modules, I checked the killmail and was happy with it. I didnt lose my Sac in my first combat encounter with it and with lesser modules than what I would have preferred. Sadly, my luck didnt last much longer.

I joined a standing fleet trying to find an elusive typhoon who fits warp stabs. I missed him earlier due to engaging when he was in jump range of a gate. He jumped, I couldnt, he got away. Joining this fleet, we also enlisted the help of, you guessed it, Gunpoint Diplomacy. We normally shoot each other, but sometimes, rarely, we'll team up to kill something the other is having issues with.

We didnt fleet, but the R1fta FC (I forget who right now) and the Rnsm boys were in private convo to relay info. They all had engaged in Aed, I was midwarp to the gate. Jumped through, landed only to see the phoon jump back the other way. Apparently, the call to stay in Heild was not called. Well, back to the gate I guess. Actually, not really. Sneakybadger (The Rupture pilot I killed earlier) was in his geddon and promptly targeted and assploded my ship literally 3km from the gate and jumping to life.

I didnt fire back, knowing we were teamed up together to find and kill the phoon pilot. I did say in local to turn off guns, we're friends atm. Obviously, he didnt see local. My corp didnt shoot him while I was getting shot, yay for no voice comms this time, right? I will kill this guy anytime I see him. Its nothing personal, just business, SB! =P

Being my first t2 cruiser loss, I found out insurance is damn worthless, 44misk payout for a 115 misk cost ship. WTF!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Lifes Little Things

Apologies for abruptly just disappearing. A big change in a loved ones life and her needing my help through it was a bit more important than even just logging in to update the blog. Luckily, R1fta are a cool group of people and allowed me to take a leave of absence. Im back for now at least, and my first day back provided a nice little kill.

Logging in, on my shiny new laptop, I had to adjust my ui and settings and try to remember all the channels I had joined. Smaller screen though, so not enough room for everything Im used to having up. While dicking around with these minor things, a shout went out for help killing a CNR. Its a battleship, so I said screw it, Ill join up in my lil Vengeance.

And with that, a fun little hour of cat and mouse started. The CNR had a cloak, so he was being cautious and really wasting our time hoping we'd give up. Well, we didnt, and eventually, our cloaky scout got an alignment to the pilots cloak spot. What we forgot was that cloaked ships dont uncloak each other anymore, and when this was realized, our cloaked scout uncloaked. Once this was done, the CNR unlcoaked also....64m from our scout. Needless to say, point and tackle were tossed out and the fleet warped in. The BS shields melted. The pilot wasnt attacking back, so we paused combat and thought he might want to offer a ransom for his ship.

Then popped up the self destruct timer. Well, guess not, resuming our assault, his armor just got eaten. I was thinking, "wow, this ship sucks!" And when he exploded, I locked and pointed the pod. Go me! Pod killed! This chain of events brought me down from -0.29 to -1.64 sec status! Woo!

Looking at the km, it shows why he wasnt shooting and his defenses were overwhelmed so easily. Only a cloak and a couple cargo expanders? Wtf, man? And only a few implants, no crystals or anything? WTF, MAN? Its not nice to tempt us with shinies loot and not actually have any! Oh well, still a half a billion isk ship kill on my first day back. Not too bad imo!

As I went to add the links to the killmails, EVSCO went down, so the links are avail right now, but you can find the link to my kb on the right side under my links section =)