Rifter vs Firetail

I know I said I wasnt going to do so, but I app'd to the Black Rebel Rifter Club. After fighting a group of them, I felt I knew them. That whole "you dont actually know someone until you fight them" thing. Or something like that. Either way, since I apped to R1fta, I figured tonight I would fit one out and fly it. As seems custom in this area, most people fly Minmatar ships. Being that I dont fly Rifters regularly just yet, I felt in the mood to piss people off. It sorta worked.

I saw a few people in Autocannon fighting and one was of The Hatchery. If you dig, you can see that I fought Aeth of The Hatchery awhile back also in a prior life. Good people, honorable pirates. Not the type that would enjoy fighting my Rifter tonight. Anyhow, he killed some cruiser in his Republic Fleet Firetail, so I offered up a 1v1. He was busy in one already, so I waited while warping around. Getting an invite to fleet and an offer to warp to his safe, I obliged. Warping in at 20km, we charged at each other.

With no AB, I was unable to control range during this fight due to his ability to weave in and out from 6km to 12-ish km. However, as he ate through my shields, I popped on my surprise: ECM. He did not like that at all. I let it cycle once, because being perma jammed sucks, and I wasnt doing anything with him out of my range. Had to lure him back in.

It worked, but not for long. My armor was gone soonish. Popped the ECM again, repped up to full armor, turned it off. And again, he brought my armor down, shedding sunlight on some of my structure as well. At this point, I said "fuck honor!" and turned on the ECM once again....And warped out. Sadly, I didnt get any mean comments attempting to hurt my feelings and honor.

Things I learned this fight is that a non-AB Rifter is slower than my Vengeance. Thats sorta bad since its tank is not even half of what Im used to. The only reason I escaped this fight is due to my ECM, whereas most people rely on their speed for gtfo-ability. I mean, I couldnt perma jam my opponent, the Rifter's cap and regen isnt nearly good enough to pulse a repper and keep the ecm on while I shoot it AND keep within distance to do acceptable damage. I learned I dislike the Rifter.

Meh, its one fight. Its a t1 ship with meta mods instead of a full t2 fitting. Ill give it more chances, adjusting my fit around for next time. Tbh, this fight wasnt long, but I did notice that manual flight is important while being kited. Im not experienced enough to pull off more advanced techiniques to get an experienced pilot like Michael Harari to get closer than he wants to; but eventually, I will be. Right now, not so much.

No killmail, yet no lossmail. It doesnt feel as good as it did before when it happened, so Im going to consider this fight a draw. I didnt lose much except for a little ego for running away, but I still have my Rifter to live and fight another day! Which is a true pirates attribute afterall.

Also, in case you missed it, I was accepted into R1fta. An updated photo with my new black jacket below.

New Turn of Events

Ok, so I know I said I wasnt going to post for a couple weeks, but I felt this was a good time of the day to update on things.

First, Ive moved out to Delve. Blood Raider territory, woohoo! Ive wanted to come down here for quite awhile, but the high activity has put me off of going solo in this area. Which brings me to point number two;

Ive joined Militaris Industries, part of the Cascade Imminent alliance. I know looking at my corp history, it seems to show I jump from one corp to another, however, this was an oppurtunity I couldnt pass by. These guys have an extremely high efficiency ratio as well as having alot of competent pilots I can learn from. They also have a similar personality to me and so far from watching their chat and lurking their forums, I feel I will fit pretty well with these guys.

Now the downside to this, which is my own doing. They asked if I was ready to move out to Delve and I jumped at the chance to do so without fully thinking this process through. I switched to an empty clone. I used my bookmarking fit Rifter for this 33 jump travel. Warp stabs, mwd, cloak. I even had it rigged with the duration increases for mwd to get a bit further out when cloak/mwd tricking. So I start my journey from my former home.

Pretty uneventful through my high sec jumps. I get to the last high sec system and update my clone facility, just in case I get podded, I dont want to make the last 19 jumps again. At this point, my app gets processed and I start the low/null sec portions of my journey. I see something about some other corp/alliance, Black something. I dont remember tbh, but they had the 1dh station bubbled hardcore most of my trip, so docking at this time was not an option; once I got into system that is.

Well, my trip was going pretty well so far. I had made it seven or eight jumps through really low sec space, and into a pocket of two .5 systems. Neither of which have medical facilities, mind you. So I continue towards 1DH. Two or three jumps more, and I see a Rohk on dscan in the direction of the gate I need to pass through. Well, Ill just warp to zero and jump through, he wont be able to target me that quick. Riiiggghhhttt.....Did you know there is no reason to target when you have smartbombs? Before I had even finished warping to the station, I was in my pod. There was no lag, there was no delay in my hitting the jump to the next system command. Smartbombs are stupidly dumb imo. I knew that the Rohk was there, and I didnt account for the chance he would have smartbombs, resulting in me losing my ship before I could even land on grid and react. This loss is one that I feel is stupid and cheap. I convo'd the pilot and asked let him know how I felt too, and gave him a sarcastic "good job".

Smartbombed Rifter

This all happened within about 5 or less minutes of joining Militaris Industries, but the killmail doesnt reflect this for some reason. After my amazingly stupid loss, I continued towards 1dh in my pod, with the knowledge they were heading home. Well, they (Black somethings)werent moving too quick to get home. As I warped to the 1DH gate, I jumped through into a sea of reds and yellows. Thankfully, I was out about 12km cloaked up. I did nothing, not because I froze or got scared, more because I would have been too pissed off to make into the system just to get podded and sent back to the high sec med bay. With just about 10 seconds left on my cloaky timer (session change had expired by now) their entire fleet jumped through the gate and I was home free!

Docking up, I relocated my clone services and setup all the stuff required by alliance and corp. Ill be out of commission most of this weekend due to it being my birthday on the 4th, but having the party over this weekend, so later today, Ill jump back into my +5 clone and get a bit faster skillpoint gain until I jump back into Delve.

Thats about the extent of action I have experience so far. My plans for ships are shifting though to accomodate the corp needs. I am 30 days total from getting into an alliance standard guardian, excluding logistics 5. That adds another 25 or so days. Im going to add roughly 10 days to that plan though to finish out getting into my Vengeance and its fits. Doing this will also allow me to get into a Purifier, with roughly 4 days of additional training to get cloak 4 and torpedos. They dont seem to like the Sacrilege that much, choosing to go with the Zealot instead, so I may or may not train up my lasers to go that route. I have a feeling though that once I am in a shiny Guardian and eventually Scimitar, I wont be allowed to use another ship in fleet ops =P

And Im out for the weekend!