Punisher 12

The fit:

3 Dual Light Pulse II (Navy Multifrequency & Scorch)
5W Infectious Power Malfunction

Cold-gas Arcjet Thrusters
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Inhibitor

Small I-a Polarized Armor Regenerator
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Damage Control II
200mm Rolled Tungsten


The hunt:

I was on a shopping trip to Rens when I saw a can with my name on it.

Literally.

The pilot had been scoping local and picked me out as a likely target. He dropped a can with my name and convo'd me to offer a T1 frigate duel. How could I say no to that?

The duel started out as these things do, with my Punisher and his Rifter falling into orbit. As with my last Rifter fight, I decided to try and cap him out, so I turned on the neut. He webbed me, but I had no trouble keeping him in range and tracking.

Despite the decent damage my combat log was showing, however, I seemed to be only chipping away at his armor. As time went on, this I found that my own armour was being eaten away faster than his, which surprised me, because Rifters are not known for their durability.

I checked the combat logs again, and they confirmed that I was landing solid hits for respectable damage. I opened up my orbit to 5000m and switched to Scorch, and was surprised to see that this actually worked; I had not expected the pilot to let me dictate the range of the engagement. His damage fell off, but he was still far enough ahead that I was in trouble.

I was headed deep into structure, but as the Rifter was capped out, I decided to bail out and warp away. As luck would have it, just as I was entering warp, he got a wrecking hit on me - whereas he had been hitting for about 15 damage a volley, his wrecking shot hit me for nearly 100, which was just enough to take out my last piece of structure. Bad luck!

2011.03.07 19:52:00
 
Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: Strategic Conflicts Incorporated
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Punisher
System: Rens
Security: 0.9
Damage Taken: 2130
 
Involved parties:
 
Name: Transported (laid the final blow)
Security: -1.5
Corp: Renegades of the Dark Crusade
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Rifter
Weapon: 150mm Light AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 2130
 
Destroyed items:
 
Proton S (Cargo)

200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Barrage S (Cargo)
Small I-a Polarized Armor Regenerator
Imperial Navy Multifrequency S, Qty: 3 (Cargo)
Phased Plasma S (Cargo)
Scorch S, Qty: 3
Dual Light Pulse Laser II, Qty: 2
Fusion S (Cargo)
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction
 
Dropped items:
 
Damage Control II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I


Post battle review:

I had a chat with the Rifter pilot after our fight, and it turns out that he was a 400mm plate fit. He had no real speed (hence my ability to dictate range), but had loads of tank (with natural resists against EM).

In light of this, I had made a lot of mistakes. First, I had failed to realise what was happening. The clues were all there, but I did not put them all together.

Second, his tank was pure buffer, so capping him out had zero impact other than causing him to drop his point and web. I should have saved my cap for my repper, and if I had done so, I would have had a real shot at winning this one.

Finally, once I realised that (for whatever reason) I could dictate range, I could have gone out much further than 5000m. Moving out to 7000+ early in the fight would have reduced his damage to virtually nil, and I would have been well within my optimal.


Lessons for the future:

This was a fight that I could have won, and my failure to do so was a result of pilot error, not a lack of skill points. Experience against different kinds of fit will help, but I still could have turned the fight around if I had been thinking more clearly.

I'm also going to drop the neut. The repper and the neut both want to do very different things, and I need to choose one or the other - my little Punisher is currently trying to do to much. For the moment, an efficient active tank seems better than cap warfare.

This messes with my "ideal" fit, because the nos has higher CPU requirements than the neut; I can't move up to EAN plating unless I downgrade something else. EAN gets more bonus from the resistance skills, though, so it might be worth dropping to a named DC. I'll have to play with the numbers.