Punisher 17.1

The fit:

To be honest, while my fit needs a little tweaking (I have some unused CPU that might allow one of my named modules to upgrade to T2) I'm not making that a priority at the moment. I appreciate that I'm not rigging, but I don't particularly want to do that in a T1 frigate, especially as it would mean taking time out from my gunnery training to work on my rigging skills.

Long story short, I'm not going to keep posting my fit. If I try something really different I'll probably include it in the post, though.


The hunt:

After another unsuccessful roam through Minmatar low sec, I decided to take another jaunt through Amarr low sec. The travel time (getting to Amarr) is a pain, and so is the need to waste time moving between all the low sec islands (I wish CCP would do something about that). However, I do tend to have more luck in Amarr space, recently.

After my long trek through high sec, I began looking for targets. I'm getting pretty good with the D-scan, and so when I saw an Omen on the scanner, I was able to quickly narrow him down to a belt.

I had mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the Omen has such a bad reputation that most of the people who use it are very new - older players have better options. On the other hand, the Omen was also apparently ratting, something that in my (albeit limited) experience does not happen very often. Was it bait?

There were about half a dozen people in local, and nobody stood out as being the obvious Omen pilot. I prevaricated for a while, trying to decide whether or not to go for it. I really wanted an above class kill, but the last time I tried taking on a lone cruiser it went horribly, horribly wrong. I also needed four more kills before the end of the Punisher plan (only four Punishers left!) to meet my 3rd quarter goal.

In the end, I threw caution to the wind; I could handle the (expected) loss, but passing up an opportunity like this was too much. I warped in...

... to an empty belt.

During my procrastination, the Omen had moved on. Another scan showed that he was still in system, so I frantically started warping to each belt, hoping that he had simply gone in search of new rats.

On my third jump, I found him.

He was about 20km off the warp-in point, so I overheated my afterburner and hit approach. It was the longest 20km ever. I refrained from targeting him; he might not have noticed me yet, as he was busy with a rat (although he was at full health). I think I may have held my breath the whole way.

Getting into scram range, I hit target, then activated the scram. Locked down! I moved into a close orbit, and opened fire.

Immediately, he switched his T2 drones to me, and his guns shortly after. I was well under his guns, and he did not seem to have either a web or a neut. It simply came down to whether I could tank the drones or not.

I tore through his sheilds, and then began chewing through his armour. My shields evaporated, of course, but I was able to tank the drones while my cap held.

I then received an unexpected boost from the Sansha Lord that the Omen had been fighting. Apparently, the Omen had been drone tanking the Lord, and now that the drones were not orbiting him (they were orbiting me), the Lord was able to actually pop the drone he had been targeting. He then turned his guns on the Omen. This reduced the Omen's dps by a third, and put added pressure on what was left of his tank.

Finally, the Omen exploded! I just sat there at the keyboard, jaw practically on the floor; I had just acheived my first above class solo kill.

2011.04.03 14:59:00

Victim: prinzeugene

Corp: Perkone

Alliance: Unknown

Faction: Unknown

Destroyed: Omen

System: Saminer

Security: 0.3

Damage Taken: 7970

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)

Security: 0.2

Corp: Strategic Conflicts Incorporated

Alliance: NONE

Faction: NONE

Ship: Punisher

Weapon: Gatling Pulse Laser II

Damage Done: 6360

Name: Paradise Cruise Missile / True Power

Damage Done: 1610

Destroyed items:

Multifrequency M

Heavy Afocal Maser I, Qty: 2

Quad Light Beam Laser I

Small 'Ghoul' Energy Siphon I (Cargo)

50mm Reinforced Nanofiber Plates I (Cargo)

Explosion Dampening Amplifier I

Co-Processor I

Small I-b Polarized Structural Regenerator (Cargo)

Contaminated Nanite Compound (Cargo)

Reactor Control Unit I

Dropped items:

Civilian Shield Booster I (Cargo)

Power Diagnostic System I

Defective Current Pump (Cargo)

Medium Clarity Ward Booster I

Infrared M

Cap Booster 50, Qty: 10 (Cargo)

Monopropellant I Hydrazine Boosters (Cargo)

Heavy Afocal Pulse Maser I

Standard M

Fried Interface Circuit, Qty: 3 (Cargo)

Salvager I

Warp Core Stabilizer I

Warp Core Stabilizer I (Cargo)

Tracking Computer I

Damaged Artificial Neural Network (Cargo)

Voltaic Nanite Regenerative Membrane I

Microwave M

ECM - Phase Inverter I (Cargo)

Post battle review:

After grabbing the remaining drones and looting the wreck, I warped to a deep safe. I'm glad I have these scattered all over Amarr low sec, because as soon as the pilot left the system, local spiked. I'm guessing the first thing he did in the next system was alert his fellow carebears to my piracy, and they all started hunting for me.

They actually went so far as to ask me where I was. Apparently, D-scan is not a course they teach in carebear school, or they would have realised I was in a deep safe pretty quickly.

They had a pretty clear grasp of the criminal timer, though, as they kept looking until I was about 60 seconds from being able to leave the system. Then they all left - returning to wherever they had come from.

After escaping back to high sec, I was able to consider the fight.

This was one of those occassions that everything just went "right". I found a target, warped in, got under his guns, and blew him up. Other than being more decisive about the whole matter, I'm not sure what I could have done to improve on things.

Lessons for the future:

Optimisim is (sometimes) rewarded. A perfect counterpoint to my last fight, I very nearly missed this opportunity (and above class kill!) because of my paranoia about "teh blob".

And on another note, my gunnery focus is clearly paying dividends; I had no trouble breaking his tank even before the involvement of the Sansha Lord.