Punisher 6.3

The fit:

3 Dual Light Pulse 2 (Navy Multifrequency & Scorch)
Small Neut 1

1 MN Afterburner 1
Warp Scrambler 1

Small Armor Repair System 1
Adaptive Nano Plating 2
Damage Control 2
200mm Rolled Tungsten

Small Auxiliary Power Relay

I have taken on board FNG's comments about my T0 modules, and I will be replacing them next time I am online. However, this fight occurred before that advice was offered. I am also going to be testing Gatling Pulse Lasers 2 at some point, as the higher tracking and lower cap usage appeal to me, and the additional range offered by the Dual Light Pulse 2 may not be as useful in practice as it seems on paper.


The hunt:

I've been doing a great deal in high sec recently, but I really need to start broadening my horizons. Time for a proper low sec roam; those roaming skills are just as important to develop as the combat skills.

Armed with that resolution, I decided to take a stroll through my adopted low sec network. It's just so different from high sec roams. In high sec I just warp into the belts one at a time, perhaps using my Dscan to cover groups of belts at once. Not in low sec, though.

I began by warping to my random safe in each system. I'd then look at the bios of everyone in local, and see if there were any likely targets. If there was, I would warp to each of the celestial groups and try and find that target on my scanner. Incidentally, I have gate safes, I have random safes, and I even have a few deep safes (one of the benefits of exploration), but what I have never seen anyone talk about are hunting safes.

It seems to me that a safe spot (much like a gate safe) 300km off a planet in each celestial group would allow you to warp in, scan the group, and warp to target (or warp out). You could even get far enough away that you are off grid, giving your target no warning of your approach (or your passing). It would be loads of work, but probably worth it in those areas you plan to hunt often. Perhaps a job for next weekend.

Anyway, I managed to use the Dscan to pinpoint a Rifter pilot in a belt. The character was exactly one day younger than me, so I thought it would be an evenly matched fight. Now, I've heard loads about Rifters, and while half of it probably hyperbole, I was pretty sure that he would have a significant speed advantage over me, but a slightly weaker tank and way less cap (although he is using cap-less weapons).

I warp in on him, and he is 20km off the warp-in point fighting a Sansha Lord. This npc had a 500,000 bounty on him, so I can see why the Rifter was interested. The pilot was tanking the damage (flying under the guns and/or an active tank), but the Lord's own tank was formidable. It would probably take the Rifter several minutes to finish him off.

When the Rifter saw me burning towards him, he wisely warped out. I took note of his direction and followed, but he immediately re-warped, and this time he lost me.

We spent some time playing cat and mouse through the belts (this part of the hunt is just awesome, by the way, and not something you get in high sec), and eventually he decided that he could take me (presumably he had been buying time to read my bio, etc). I warped into a belt at 20km (as he was unlikely to warp to zero, I tried playing around with my warp distances in the hopes of landing on top of him, or at least not being too far from him), and found him waiting for me. We burned towards each other, and I opened fire.

At first, nothing much happened. We whipped past each other, with neither of us scoring hits. I immediately started hitting him with my neut, and began playing with my orbit to try and keep the tracking manageable. As he was using missiles and projectiles, he found his sweet spot first, and I started taking damage.

When my cap was at about 50%, however, my neut started paying dividends. His speed dropped, and so did his point, so he must have been capped out - although his web stayed on for some reason. This gave me control of the range and tracking, and and my beautiful T2 guns began pounding the hell out of him.

The battle was all but decided at that point; there was nothing much he could do, except escape in his pod. Victory was mine.

2011.02.20 15:11:00

Victim: leyzar

Corp: Tesla Tech Industries

Alliance: Unknown

Faction: Unknown

Destroyed: Rifter

System: Gemodi

Security: 0.4

Damage Taken: 4648

Involved parties:

Name: Sansha's Ravager / True Power

Damage Done: 3788

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)

Security: 0.3

Corp: Viziam

Alliance: NONE

Faction: NONE

Ship: Punisher

Weapon: Dual Light Pulse Laser II

Damage Done: 860

Destroyed items:

Upgraded 'Limos' Standard Missile Bay I

Fusion S, Qty: 2520 (Cargo)

Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters

Fusion S, Qty: 32

150mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon I

Dropped items:

Beta Hull Mod Inertial Stabilizers

Flameburst Light Missile, Qty: 100 (Cargo)

Sabretooth Light Missile, Qty: 3 (Cargo)

Fusion S, Qty: 64

Stasis Webifier I

Caldari Navy Sabretooth Light Missile, Qty: 84 (Cargo)

150mm Light Carbine Repeating Cannon I, Qty: 2

Mark I Modified SS Overdrive Injector

Sabretooth Light Missile, Qty: 31

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

 
While the killmail reflects the Rifter's earlier battle with the Sansha Lord, he was at full "health" when we engaged.

Post battle review:

To begin with, I love my neut! While I would probably have won without it (I had managed to start getting solid hits on the Rifter before his speed dropped, and my dps was higher), he might also have been able to warp off if I had not been able to shut down his prop mods. I need to work on my neut skills, but at this stage there is a massive queue of skills demanding training. It seems like the more I train, the more skills I need.

On the other hand, I did nearly cap myself out by leaving my repper on when I did not need it. Stupid mistake, and one I need to avoid making again.

Looking at my opponent, his mid slots tells me that he was fit for pvp, but his low slots look a little weird. And while I am of course most familiar with the 2000+ hp Punisher, his 860 hp tank seems a little weak.

I'm also confused about how he could take four times his hp in damage from the lord and still be at full health to face me when he did not have an active tank. Perhaps he had made serveral runs; docking for repairs and modifying his fit? I don't know enough about killmails to be sure. Maybe he had a repper, but switched to a more pve based fit to take on the Lord.

Still, the difference between our fits is striking. Despite being of the same "age", and despite my 700,000+ skillpoint investment in pve, I'm still packing mostly T2 pvp gear. Thinking about it, though, I was in a very similar position when I started this blog, but looking critically at each battle has forced me to work on fitting skills that I otherwise would not have invested in, and pushed me to actually purchase in better modules for my ship.

There but for the grace of God, and all that.

Lessons for the future:

I need to pay more attention to which modules are running, and which are not. I have been putting a great deal of attention into my opponent (speed, tracking, mods running, hits/misses, etc), but far less into my own ship. I've got to try and fix that without paying less attention to my opponent.

Hunting safes are also going on my to-do list.