Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Death by a Thousand Cuts

I was feeling pretty smug off my recent solo kill of a Navy Raven Issue.  Guess I was getting cocky.  There was a noobish T1 frigate gang roaming around Adirain the other night that consisted of three Rifters, two Punishers, and an Incursus.  My corpmate engaged them his own Rifter at a belt.  I figured my Stabber Fleet Issue would make very short work of them so I warped to the belt and jumped in the fight.

My buddy's Rifter died from all the fired but I fully expected to get a couple of kills out of it until the gang fled from the power of the Stabber Fleet Issue.  Then the ECM ships showed up.  There were two Griffins that pretty much jammed my silly.

What followed next was a slow death at the hands of a bunch of T1 frigs.  I will say that the Stabber's tank was dang good and it took them awhile to wear me down.  Unfortunately I was webbed and couldn't get away.  It was very frustrating because every time one Griffin would miss a jam, the other one was able to pick it up.  I ended up dying without a single kill.

Ah well. It was a very well done trap and I tip my hat at those guys.  I've seen a couple of them flying around the area and I look forward to engaging them again, minus the ECM ships though.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Rich Newbie

I had my most expensive solo kill the other night.  I am very proud of it.

I peeked my head in Kubinen just to see what was going on and I was very surprised to see a Raven Navy Issue on D-Scan.  Surely he would warp out once he saw a flashy -10 sec status pirate in local.  When he stayed on directional, I had my alt drop probes even though I fully expected him to flee as soon as probes showed up on scan.

He stayed put and I quickly got him scanned down.  My heart was pounding as I warped to him.  No way would he still be there.  Imagine my surprise when I landed in the middle of a bunch of wrecks and saw that beautiful Raven Navy Issue sitting there.  I started spamming the approach button and thanked the stars that I had a long point fitted.  Of course with his align time, I probably had plenty of time.

I locked him up and immediately started pounding him with RF EMP while using my dual neuts.  It actually took a couple of cycles before he responded.  I suspect that he was AFK and simply just tanking the rats.

The end was actually very quick (love you dual neuts) and satisfying.  My KB put the loss as 685 million.  Unfortunately the loot drop sucked.  The pilot warped off before I could lock his pod and disappeared from local without a single tear.  I was very surprised when I looked up the toon and saw that he was only about 1 and 1/2 months old.

How the hell does a newbie afford a half billion isk ship and not utter a peep when it goes pop?  His battleclinic page shows zero activity except for this loss.

While I don't have any proof, I suspect isk trading.  When I was a 1 1/2 month old character, I was scrambing to fit my rifter properly.  No way I could afford a faction battleship.  Hell, I can still barely afford it.
If he is earning isk legally, I sure would love to know his secret.

Well at least it gave me an awesome kill.  Thanks.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Greed Kills

One of the best tools for getting kills isn't a warp scram or a cloaking device.  Heck, it isn't even having a shiny ship.  The best tool is something that my opponent brings to the field.  That tool is greed.

I'm not a big fan of fair fights.  I like to choose my targets and attack when I think that the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor.  That means my target of choice is usually mission runners.  Sometimes they are easy to catch and sometimes they are extremely careful.  One thing that usually works in my favor though is the fact once a mission runner starts a mission, he really really hates to abandon it.

Take this guy for example. I warped into his mission as he was almost finished. I was too far from him and he warped off.  I exited the system and waited a couple of minutes.  Then I jumped back in and warped straight to the mission.  Sure enough, he was busy looting the wrecks.  I landed on top of him and it was all over.  In local he told me that he came back because he couldn't resist the loot in the wreck.

Then there is this fella. I stuck my head in this dead-end system and saw two destroyers working a mission together.  I warped in on them and one fled immediately.  The other one was too slow and died.  In local his buddy told me that he warned him that I was probably enroute to kill him but he took too long to kill that last rat.

Finally there is this victim.  I busted this mission in a Hurricane.  The target Drake warped off and docked up. I docked and came back out in my Stabber and warped back to the mission gate.  I figured that the pilot would be checking d-scan for my Hurricane and wouldn't be as suspicious about the cruiser.  Sure enough, he warped to the mission gate at 0km and was quickly pointed and killed.

I love greedy mission runners.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Speed Tanked Thoraxs and Gate Camps

It's been fairly slow for me the last couple of days.  I haven't had any decent kills and my area of space seems to be pretty empty.  Of course that doesn't stop the other Tuskers from racking up some incredible kills.  Lucky bastards.

I did come across a Thorax ratting in the Hevrice the other day.  I locked it and noticed that it was moving at a surprising speed for a Thorax.  Unfortunately for him I was in a Stabber Fleet Issue and he wasn't getting away.  I popped him pretty easily and found out why he was so speedy.  Four overdrives?  I guess this guy was trying to speed tank rats or something.

That is pretty much it for my adventures other than a huge gate camp I ran into the next day.  They popped my cane and then podded me.  I woke up on Costolle and headed back to Hevrice in an Ibis.  I ran into another gate camp in Hevrice and they blew up my Ibis and podded me again.  Two poddings in about 10 minutes.

That is when I rage logged for the night.