The hunt:
I was out roaming the Molden Heath loop when I saw an Ibis on scan at an obvious safe spot. In the ordinary course of things I would not have bothered scanning down an Ibis, but in this case the safe spot was between two celestials.
I had never tried to break a safe spot without a scanning ship, and I was interested in giving it a try. After narrowing down the range to the Ibis I began jumping from one celestial to another, dropping bookmarks.
Here, the Crusader's speed was strangely detrimental. With a warp speed 9 AU/sec, it is pretty difficult to drop a bookmark with any precision. Instead, I would drop as many as I could and then warp to the bookmark closest to my target range. From there I would warp to a bookmark on the other side of the target, dropping more bookmarks. Rinse and repeat.
After about 20 minutes of this I was within about 2000km, but slight differences between our starting points meant that he was no longer between me an a celestial. Warping would get me no closer, and the remaining distance had to crossed the old fashioned way.
At this point I became greatful for the extra speed the Crusader brought with it. The last 500km, where I was on grid with the Ibis, were the most tense - all he had to do was look at his overview and warp off to make the last half hour a waste of time.
Instead, he remained oblivious right up until I opened fire on him. And at that point, it was already over.
2011.05.07 19:34:00
Victim: RANDY2007X
Corp: State War Academy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Ibis
System: Ennur
Security: 0.1
Damage Taken: 335
Involved parties:
Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -1.7
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Crusader
Weapon: Gatling Pulse Laser II
Damage Done: 335
Destroyed items:
Civilian Miner
Tritanium (Cargo)
Dropped items:
Civilian Gatling Railgun
Post battle review:
While there was not much of a battle per se, I was pleased that I was able to break the safe without a scanning ship. With a bit of practice I could probably do it much faster, and I would want a mwd ship for the last leg of the journey.
Lessons for the future:
Until I appeared on grid with him, casual use of the D-scan would not have told the pilot that I was looking for him. In that sense, it can be dangerous to rely too heavily on the D-scan for protection if you are in a safe spot that can be broken by a pilot with a little bit of time on his hands.
Wow, Fair play. That's the kind of discipline and dedication i lack.. hence my scanning alt. How did you know he was at an obvious safe spot though and not at a POS?
ReplyDeleteWhen I did a narrow beam scan on the nearby clusters there were no other results from that cluster (so no POS).
ReplyDeleteI assumed that it was someone making a pickup from the Customs Office in a disposable ship, so I warped to zero on the CO, but of course there was nobody on grid.
After another set of narrow beam scans, I found that the Ibis was now apparently at the cluster I had just come from. Knowing that this was very unlikely, I knew that there had to be a "safe" spot between the two clusters.
After that it was just a case of determining the range.
So you just kept your narrow beam scan on him to know where to approach him? I can see a 5 degree variance at thousands of kilometers still not putting you close enough off of the opposite axis to your travel axis. Very intriguing.
ReplyDeleteGood show mate that is an amazing display of determination!