Rifter & Malediction v Drake

The hunt:

I was eating dinner when I heard the call.

Was anyone near Atlar? Well, yes, but I was in the middle of my dinner. Better let someone else get this one.

But there was nobody else, and Valgore Muerte had managed to land point on a Drake in his Rifter. He couldn't break it's tank, and he was running low on ammo.

I hate to see a call for help go unanswered, and I also have a soft spot for people that try to kill Drakes in T1 frigates. So I put my dinner to one side,  told Valgore my Malediction was six jumps out, and that I was on my way.

About three jumps before I reached him, Valgore had to drop point and run. He likes shield buffer fits and the Drake had switched to an alternate ammo (we assumed javlin missiles), which increased his dps against Valgore significantly. With his buffer gone, he had been unable to hold the Drake in place.

However, having seen off the pesky Rifter, the Drake seemed in no mood to leave the system, and it warped to a different belt, presumably to go on ratting.

Arriving at the final gate, I let Valgore know that I was ready, and he jumped back in on the Drake. Jumping through the gate, I immediately warped to Valgore and landed my own point. I settled into as wide an orbit as the range on my rockets and nos would allow, opening fire with gremlin rage rockets. I also put up my web, to maximise my dps.


The fight:

The Drake, quite reasonably, seemed to feel that what had worked once would probably work again, so he targeted Valgore first, aiming to strip away his buffer and drive him off. We all traded blows for awhile, each trying to break our target's tank. As the Drake reached about half shields Valgore's EMP finally gave out and he had to switch to phased plasma. Moments after that, his buffer failed and he was forced to retire from the field again.

Alone with the Drake, I began taking significant damage from his missiles, so I started up my repair system. I was gratified to find that I could permatank his damage, albeit with difficulty. To do so, I was forced to drop my web in order to keep my cap up, which gave the Drake far more freedom to maneuver.

He took advantage of this by making abrupt course changes. I think he might have been hoping I would move beyond scram range (In a Malediction? Good luck with that.), but what it actually did was throw me out of nos range. I could not afford to miss any cycles if I was going to keep pulsing the repair system, so I tightened my orbit to compensate. Of course, this in turn brought my speed down and increased the Drake's dps. I needed to strike the right balance between speed, cap and incoming dps, and that meant constantly adjusting my orbit and range.

Some time shortly before Valgore was able to jump back in, I ran out of gremlin rage. Being completely new to the whole concept of carrying ammunition, I had taken some forum advice and stocked up on two reloads of everything, which gave me a total of 300 gremlin rage rockets. This was very clearly not enough, but it's all I had on board. I switched over to foxfire rage, and continued firing.

With neither of us able to target the Drake's resistance hole, we knew there was no longer any chance that we could handle the Drake on our own. With all the other Tuskers in Hevrice, it was time to reach out to the locals. Gunpoint Diplomacy was the obvious choice.

In addition to being home to several former Tuskers, Gunpoint are generally very good pilots. You don't need to roam Molden Heath very long to realise that the RANSM ticker means a great deal; good fights and good players.

So Valgore contacted the Gunpoint pilots he knew, and I sent a message to Dian Lung; although she had recently left Gunpoint, she was back in the area to roam with her old corpmates for the day.

The responses we got were generally positive, and we were told that help was on the way. Then things got very, very quiet; someone up the chain had taken charge, and plans were being made that did not directly involve us.

As we continued trading blows with the Drake, Valgore got a bit of a break. The Drake was focusing everything he had on me, and his maneuvers became more erratic; if I suspect he knew that at this stage we would have called for backup, and that his days were numbered. Unfortunately for him, I was able to continue tanking his damage. Active tanks for the win.


The flight:

Finally, local spiked. I couldn't tell how many players had entered the system; my chat window only holds about 15 entries. Anything more than that to a low sec player is "way too many".

Everyone knew something was about to happen, but Valgore and I were not quite sure what. And then, all of a sudden, my overview was filled with flashy red; Gunpoint had arrived!

Which of course meant that we were potentially in deep, deep trouble.

Other pirates, I suspect, will instinctively understand what Valgore and I were thinking, but not all of my readers are pirates, so I'll try and explain.

High sec pilots often view low sec pirates as a co-operative block, but this is simply not the case; we fight each other all the time. I've tried (unsuccessfully) to take on Gunpoint pilots in the past, and they have tried (unsuccessfully) to kill me on a number of occasions too.

Admittedly, there is a certain level of mutual respect among some of the (better) pirate corps, but it's more professional courtesy than any kind of alliance. Equally, co-operation is not unheard of when targets too large to be dealt with alone present themselves. However, this co-operation is not to be taken for granted, and whether intentionally or not, we had not been given any reassurance that we were not also targets.

With a massive Gunpoint fleet landing on us, Valgore's orders were simple. "Get out. Get out." Any thought of an orderly handover of point on the Drake went out the window; I simply warped to the sun, and then bounced to a safe spot.

As I warped out, I saw hell being unleashed on he hapless Drake. I've never seen a carrier hotdrop, but I imagine it feels a lot like what I saw. There was no escape for him.

2011.05.22 19:35:00

Victim: Celestis 234
Corp: Empyrean Warriors
Alliance: The Obsidian Front
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Drake
System: Wiskeber
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 63753

Involved parties:

Name: Valgore Meurte
Security: -9.7
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Rifter
Weapon: J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Damage Done: 18546

Name: Willem Revolati
Security: -10.0
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Deimos
Weapon: Hammerhead II
Damage Done: 9095

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -5.5
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Malediction
Weapon: J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Damage Done: 8078

Name: FeistyOne
Security: -9.9
Corp: Twisted Inc.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Proteus
Weapon: Proteus
Damage Done: 7304

Name: CraftyCroc
Security: -9.8
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Stabber Fleet Issue
Weapon: Stabber Fleet Issue
Damage Done: 5435

Name: Chewlookinat
Security: 3.6
Corp: On The Cloth
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: Hurricane
Damage Done: 3295

Name: Dian Lung
Security: -3.7
Corp: Ikaruga.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Caldari State
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: Hurricane
Damage Done: 2217

Name: Alex Medvedov
Security: -10.0
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Jaguar
Weapon: Jaguar
Damage Done: 2130

Name: Shtang Lord
Security: -10.0
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Zealot
Weapon: Zealot
Damage Done: 1893

Name: Vanderie
Security: -9.7
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Guardian
Weapon: Warrior II
Damage Done: 1519

Name: Slamby
Security: -0.2
Corp: On The Cloth
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Harbinger
Weapon: Harbinger
Damage Done: 1390

Name: Thorasine (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 858

Name: masty
Security: -8.3
Corp: The Executioners
Alliance: Capital.Punishment
Faction: NONE
Ship: Lachesis
Weapon: Warrior II
Damage Done: 596

Name: Xulgar
Security: -9.4
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: Hurricane
Damage Done: 562

Name: Laktos
Security: -9.4
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Harbinger
Weapon: Harbinger
Damage Done: 488

Name: Dirty Protagonist
Security: -10.0
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Guardian
Weapon: Warrior I
Damage Done: 347

Name: Angel Impaler / Archangels
Damage Done: 0

Name: Ariartus
Security: -10.0
Corp: Gunpoint Diplomacy
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Sacrilege
Weapon: Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II
Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

Invulnerability Field II, Qty: 2
Damage Control II
Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 192
'Malkuth' Heavy Missile Launcher I, Qty: 5
Ballistic Control System II, Qty: 2
Large Shield Extender II

Dropped items:

Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 1049 (Cargo)
Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners
Warp Disruptor II
Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 32
Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile, Qty: 192 (Cargo)
'Malkuth' Heavy Missile Launcher I, Qty: 2
Ballistic Control System II
Large Shield Extender II
Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 129 (Cargo)


Afterthoughts:

Giddy with excitement after our narrow escape, (well, I was giddy, Valgore may be made of sterner stuff) Valgore and I waited in my safe until Gunpoint had left the system before heading back to Atlar for fresh ammunition. It had been an awesome fight, with highly technical flying and an exciting finish. Valgore was especially pleased that he had managed to put the most damage on the Drake while flying a Rifter, and I was quite happy with the number three spot.

Ammunition is clearly something I need to carry more of, though. While two reloads might work against frigates, taking on larger targets requires deeper reseverves, so I will probably move up to four reloads of rage rockets.

I am very happy with the Malediction's ablitiy to tank the dps put out by the Drake, although I have to weigh that against the Crusader's ability to go on shooting without reloading for about an hour. In this case the ability to keep a point on the Drake was key, though; my ability to dps was secondary.

I'm also impressed with Gunpoint's ability to muster such a large response at short notice. While obviously overkill (one battle cruiser would have done it, frankly), as displays of power go, it was pretty effective.