Archive for July, 2009
Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you. And sometimes..
…The bear slips on a banana peel and falls in the river.
So it was when I ran into a Solar Fleet gang while roaming in my Harbinger. I was in NJ4 in warp to the G9D gate, and Solar started jumping in while I was in warp to the gate. Landing, I discovered a Malediction, a couple of Stilettos and a couple of Sabres waiting for me. I wondered if this was all there was to it – a small, very very fast roaming gang. I sat on the gate and waited to see if they would all aggro me, or if one of them would be smart and hold off to pin me on the other side.
Well, to my considerable gratitude, they all aggroed me, and I jumped through as one of the Sabres tried to bump me off gate.
On the other side, I saw a nightmare list of a dozen HACs and battlecruisers. In a token attempt, I warped to a planet at 100.
My velocity indicator was at 50% when the fastest lockers acquired me and started firing. I expected to see it start to dwindle as more and more of them locked on, waiting for the little warp scrambling icon to appear next to them in my overview. Soon, every one of them was firing, and my armor was starting to go down fast.
And then I went into warp.
The Solar gang apparently didn’t put any tackle on their DPS ships… and then let all their tackle get stuck with aggro on the far side of the gate. Oops! Making safespots, I bounced around till my aggro timer ran out and logged. Not a good fight, but a lucky escape.
Sunday Morning Theorycrafting
Dual-repping Legion tanking 671 DPS while neuting 436 capacitor every 12 seconds and doing 391 DPS (for as long as your cap booster 800s last). Turn the medium neut off when your enemy is capped out and hold him down with the small.
[Legion, Dual Rep Neut]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Heat Sink II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Warp Disruptor II
Stasis Webifier II
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 800
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Amarr Navy Multifrequency M
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Amarr Navy Multifrequency M
Heavy Pulse Laser II, Amarr Navy Multifrequency M
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Nosferatu II
Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Nanobot Accelerator I
Trimark Armor Pump I
Legion Defensive – Nanobot Injector
Legion Offensive – Drone Synthesis Projector
Legion Engineering – Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Legion Electronics – Energy Parasitic Complex
Legion Propulsion – Chassis Optimization
Hammerhead II x5
So, no shit, there I was: Zealot vs Loki 1v1
Yes, you read that right.
I was sitting in TVN station pondering going down to empire to pick up a Harbinger and going for a Saturday night solo roam in Venal when the presence of a Loki was announced in intel. Just a handful of jumps away, the Loki belonged to a Solar Fleet pilot named Crystal2, who seemed to be looking for solo ganks in much the same way that, well, I do in Solar Fleet’s space. He was reported to have a covert ops cloaking device, a high-survivability but low-DPS option.
It was a quiet night. I was, frankly, bored as hell. And the Loki seemed to be sticking around. I was a bit short on PVP ships and I was worried about being able to catch him. The only thing even remotely suitable to do the job in my hangar at the moment was my trusty pulse Zealot, which I fly in small gangs and is the veteran of many battles. I undocked and quickly warped to a jump bridge that would take me to within a couple of jumps of his last reported position.
I caught up with him in T-ZWA, a system at the edge of Majesta Empire space that borders that of our nearest neighbors, Morsus Mihi. Local was pretty empty, just me and him and one or two other folks who were probably docked. I warped to the far gate, QFF, wondering if he was leaving our space. As I travelled the 60 AU between gates, I saw a Loki on scan and my heart rate picked up. I knew what he was doing now: he was camping the gate to QFF and spamming his scanner, to see if anything small and lonely enough to kill came after him. He left local seconds later.
He might be running, or he might be betting that the commandship-like tank of a strategic cruiser would save him and is waiting for me on the other side, I thought. I knew that he wouldn’t out-DPS me, a considerable loss of DPS is the price you pay for the cloaking subsystem. Either way, I wanted to fight him. Intel had confirmed no other reds in the area, and my own allied forces were mostly drunk or asleep. If the fight happened it was going to be a pure solo duel at least for the first few minutes. If I could even just keep him tackled long enough for my alliance mates to wake up and get there, I’d be a hero. If I took him out solo, I’d be a legend. And if I lost, well, I’d have a story to tell.
I was oddly calm when I jumped into QFF. A tight smile crossed my face when I loaded grid and I saw him sitting there, waiting for me, just at the outer edge of optimal on my multifreqs. I decloaked, approaching him to put him in the sweet spot of the optimal on my heavy pulse lasers as I locked him up, and opened fire. I took the time to scream in intel, corp and everywhere else that I had a Loki tackled, but I didn’t really expect anyone to get there in time. It was just me and him.
His shields started to go down, but slowly. Definitely a shield tanker, with a considerable buffer and resist tank, but I expected that. The question now was whether his DPS was any good.
My shields went down in three volleys. Well, not great, but it could be worse. His DPS dwindled a bit when he got to my armor, and I activated my repper to keep things stable as I kept chewing at his shields. He was definitely doing more damage than I expected, but I was getting word that help – unfailingly roused by the promise of a T3 kill with the tackle already made – was on the way.
Then, the Loki pilot whipped out his secret sauce: a medium energy neutralizer, AKA sparkly blue death for Amarr ships. My armor repper went dark not long before my lasers did. I started trying to slowboat my way to the gate on buffer alone, but it wasn’t going to happen as the Loki had me webbed as well. Quite possibly he even had the webification subsystem as well, there’s just no way to know with these T3 ships when you’re in the thick of things.
It was just under a minute from the time when he turned on the neut to the blue-white flash of my Zealot exploding around me. I had gotten him down to a bit over half shields when I popped, which in itself is an achievement I suppose. I got my pod out and returned his “gf” in local with one of my own. The Loki pilot clearly had an excellent solo fit, a much better one than I initially thought he did. That combination of cloaking and neuting made me long for the cloaky Tengu I posted about previously – or perhaps a Legion with the neutralizer subsystem.
Happily, most of my gear dropped, too; as I write this I am on my way with it to Jita to fit out that Harbinger. This may not be the last story of the night!
Morsus Got ‘Im
The Hurricane I fought the other day got bagged by Morsus Mihi (with some help from Majesta) in WH-JCA. I thought I would link the kill here, since it’s always cool to see the fittings of the stuff you’ve fought:
http://kb.majesta-empire.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=66869
I’m kind of curious to fly a Hurricane some time.
In Which Our Hero Achieves Partial Success
A pilot named Dolmatin from the rather uniquely named Orange Orchestra corporation went on a rampage in Vale of the Silent and Tribute, killing ratters and generally wreaking havoc. He was showing off how the combination of speed, DPS and capacitor independence makes the Hurricane an excellent solo ship while ripping to shreds or running away from everything that came after him.
I could not allow a challenge like this to go unanswered. Hopping in my latest experimental solo Rook fit, a lightly tanked version optimized for DPS and truly serious ECM capability, I went after him. The merry chase went on for five jumps out of Majesta Empire space and into Morsus Mihi’s section of Tribute. As I chased the Hurricane he managed to kill a Morsus Falcon (which I can only assume was asleep at the wheel or something) before I finally caught up to him.
The Hurricane managed to warp before I could lock him not once but twice; only my T2 cruiser’s superior warp speed allowed me to keep up with him. Just past the border to Venal, he decided to stop and fight me, as we were alone in system and it had become obvious that I was burning after him alone.
His first volley put me at half shields, but it didn’t matter – he never got a second volley. I put a Minmatar racial jammer on him and he did not get to fire another shot. Instead my Hobgoblin IIs screamed out and orbited him while I slammed him with Caldari Navy Thunderbolt missiles. He activated his microwarpdrive and started orbiting, trying to lessen my DPS while waiting for me to miss a cycle, but to no avail.
Dolmartin soon did the smart thing and aligned to warp out, his MWD letting him burn out of my disruptor’s range easily enough, and he fled the field just as he entered armor. I couldn’t fault him for withdrawing at that point; it was the only sensible thing to do, and while I would have loved to have gotten a kill on him I will content myself with having won the engagement and driven him off. I pursued him as long as I could, but he was soon long gone.
PVP Blog Spotlight: Ethereal Navy
Securitas Protector of Ethereal Dawn has set up a very promising-looking blog dedicated to the field of PVP with covert and black ops ships. It is an area ripe for innovation, with the changes to black ops battleships and stealth bombers bringing a new wealth of possibilities. Securitas has found a niche for himself as a blackops fleet commander, and I can attest to the effectiveness of their tactics firsthand. I strongly recommend you give it a read!
Ethereal Navy: Commanding An EVE Blackops Team
EPIME 1v1 Cruiser Tournament!
Starting next Friday I’ll be running a special set of features. I am hosting a 1v1 cruiser tournament for my corpmates, with prizes for the winner and runner-up. I’ll give a blow by blow of the matches and see about frapsing them for Youtube as well. It should be some great 1v1 action!
Well, that wasn’t SUPPOSED to be a 1v1…
There is a cliché scene that pops up in action movies once in a while. You know, the one where hero A is busy frantically fighting for his life in the next room while his buddy hero B listens to really loud music or watches TV or something. By the time hero B wakes up to the fact that there’s a fight on, it’s all over.
So it was when my old pal and ex-corpmate Felix Underwood went on a wee little roam through Venal with me. I was in my Rook, and he was in his Deimos. We passed through a great many empty systems, and as I jumped into JURU-T I was suprised to see a neut in local – ewquilibrium from WEPRA Corp. I excitedly told Felix in fleet chat (voice comms were out for both of us due to trying to not wake our respective significant others) that I had a Dominix on scan.
So far, all was well. I narrowed down the Dominix almost instantly and warped to the belt, landing right on top of him – he had been sitting at 0 on the warpin point. The setup was perfect: he had just gotten full aggro from a 3-battleship spawn, so he was already taking very heavy fire. Chortling, I stuck a two-point scram on him along with missiles, drones and ECM. I was confident of victory, between my ECM and over 800 dps between me and my friend in the Deimos, plus the rat DPS, the Domi would surely fold.
The Dominix is jammed and going down nicely, but I notice that I don’t seem to have gotten a reply from Felix. I poke him in fleet chat again, wishing he would hurry up.
Silence. Felix? Anybody home? Uh, I could use some help here…
Still nothing. Finally my jammers missed a cycle and the Domi gets drones and energy neutralizers on me. His drones aren’t hurting me terribly badly, but the energy neutralizers will eventually kill my jammers and my invul fields, so I started screaming at Felix in fleet, wondering where the hell he is.
Felix finally wakes up and warps in just in time to see my neuted, helpless Rook go poof. While I was fighting for my life… he’d been looking at the map. 
I am fairly proud of the fact that I had that Domi almost in structure despite the neutralizers. Unfortunately, without my ECM support, the Deimos turned into a Diemost as he was neuted into oblivion and unable to finish the job with his highly cap-dependant blasters.
Here endeth today’s lesson: Don’t get into a fight expecting backup without first making sure that your backup is aware that action is coming!
The Solo Ship Of My Dreams
One day, when I own my own personal dysprosium moon, I want this:
[Tengu, cloaky pvp]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
10MN Afterburner II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Warp Disruptor II
‘Hypnos’ Multispectral ECM I
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Torrent Rage Assault Missile
250mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Core Defence Field Extender I
Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Bay Loading Accelerator I
Tengu Offensive – Covert Reconfiguration
Tengu Electronics – Dissolution Sequencer
Tengu Defensive – Supplemental Screening
Tengu Propulsion – Interdiction Nullifier
Tengu Engineering – Power Core Multiplier
Resists: 57.1/89.7/84.5/74.1, EHP 67,884
DPS: 394 with Rage torps and CN Antimatter @18km
Sensor strength 35
Warps cloaked and ignores interdiction bubbles.
It even looks sexy.
DO WANT.
A Fatal Pilgrimage, Part Two: Scream And Leap
In Larry Niven’s classic science fiction setting Known Space, there exists a race of felinoid aliens called the Kzinti. Highly aggressive and territorial, the Kzinti are the principle antagonists of Humanity. They have every advantage: they are bigger than humans, stronger than humans, have faster reflexes, are a culture totally dedicated to warfare, and have been a spacefaring race far longer than humans have. Yet the humans win every time for one simple reason – we stop and think, we plot and plan.
A Kzin, when presented with a target of opportunity, screams and leaps.
This is an instinct which is present in humans as well, albeit to a lesser degree, and it is one which a soloist must eliminate in order to be successful. One must learn to resist the temptation to pounce blindly on an enemy ship. A soloist must stalk, slowly and carefully, sometime over a period of hours, waiting for just the right moment to strike when one’s target is at the point of greatest disadvantage.
Unfortunately, upon sighting that Apocalypse I felt millions of years of evolution and the entirety of my frontal cortex melting away in a single instant. I had more in common with my cat trying to catch a moth than I did with a reasoning human being.
In short, I screamed and leapt, decloaking and siccing Hornet EC-300 ECM drones on him while my energy neutralizers did their work. This part of my gambit worked: the ECM drones ensured that he was unable to fire on me or the rats until he was well and truly neuted. I began to orbit him up close and personal, activating tracking disruptors to throw his guns off even if he did muster the capacitor needed to fire them.
At first, everything worked The rats pecked away at his armor, and my neuts and ECM drones kept them from shooting back. But I began to realize I had made a mistake in attacking immediately. The spawn in this belt was tiny, just a pair of destroyers and battlecruisers, and its damage was so miniscule that even a totally neuted battleship could hold out on raw HP alone for some time. He was going down very, very slowly.
When my ECM drones missed a cycle, the Apoc pilot ordered his drones to engage me. My Pilgrim was armor tanked and could hold out for a while, but not indefinitely. I pulled my ECM drones, confident that I had him thoroughly neuted at this point, and sent my light drones to attack his medium ones, hoping that I could destroy them and leave him totally defenseless before he brought me down. Even if he did, I was still confident that I could disengage and escape.
One of the problems with flying a temperamental recon like the Pilgrim is that you have to spend a lot of time managing not just your ship’s movements, but your modules and your cap. Pulsing the MWD and e-neuts requires a lot of hands-on adjusment, as does activating the cap booster when necessary. Orbit, transversal, capacitor, neutralizers, drones, target status, local – that is a lot of things to watch. Dividing your attention that many ways is risky and requires a great deal of practice, practice I just didn’t have, especially with my heart thundering in my ears from the adrenaline of combat.
In the end, it was forgetting to activate my cap booster at a crucial moment that did me in. I didn’t realize my neuts and repper had stopped for a few precious seconds, and before I knew it not only was I almost in structure, but this “ratting” Apoc had pointed and webbed me as well. I didn’t last much longer after that, and was sent home in my pod, kicking myself for being so over-eager and foolish.
There were so many things I could have done differently in that fight. I could have watched the Apoc carefully and followed him through the belts until he was under the guns of a really nasty battleship spawn. I could have watched my energy management better. I could have used medium instead of light drones to attack his, and maybe wiped them out faster.
Embrace your inner monkey. A human’s only natural weapon is his mind. Use it.