Vengeance v Rupture

The hunt:

As with the Crusader and the Malediction, I was keen to put my Vengeance through it's paces and find out what it was made of. When I saw a Rupture ratting in a belt, I checked local for his reinforcements (he was in a local pvp corp) and jumped into the belt. He had called his ship "shieldruppie", which practically guaranteed that it was armor tanked. Still, I went with foxfire, just to be safe. If I got under his guns I could always change ammo later.

I landed right on top of him, and immediately established point. I also turned on my afterburner and moved into a 500m orbit to try and disrupt his tracking.

He turned on at least one neut, a webifier, and launched a wave of Warrior II drones. I started webbing and shooting his drones and he began trying to hit me with his main guns. I knew that the repper would not be much help, so my hope was to clear the drones and then keep under his guns while I wore him down.

I tried to keep up with all the different targets and all the info I was trying to process. It was a lot to take in, though, and I was sloppy. In trying to keep up with all the different targets I accidentally targeted him from time to time rather than his drones, which slowed the rate at which I cleared his Warrior IIs.

While I was able to keep my afterburner going, I was able to make him miss about half the time, and give him poor hits the other half. Once my afterburner dropped, however, he began to consistently land poor hits. I did not turn my afterburner back on, because I was hoping to get off a repper cycle; even with my incomplete skills, my cap regen is pretty good.

Somehow, though, I never managed to get off rep cycle, but I did clear several of his drones before I reached half armor. He recalled his remaining drones, and then relaunched them, along with the additional ones in his drone bay. I clumsily got back to work on clearing them.

I finally managed to clear the drones just as my armor gave out. I turned my attention to the Rupture, but his lowgrade hits were adding up, and fell into structure; I did not last long after that.

2011.06.05 08:47:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Vengeance
System: Hrokkur
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 2645

Involved parties:

Name: Aeth Gemulus (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Hatchery
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Rupture
Weapon: Dual 180mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 2645

Destroyed items:
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 60
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
1MN Afterburner IICaldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 400 (Cargo)
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 400 (Cargo)
Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 688 (Cargo)Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 400 (Cargo)

Dropped items:
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 60
Damage Control II
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Small Armor Repairer IICaldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 400 (Cargo)Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 348 (Cargo)
Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)

I warped out, dropping an enthusiastic "gf" in local.


Afterthoughts:

I really wanted to know about this fight from the other side, so I convo'd the Rupture, who was happy to chat.

It turns out that he was using two small neuts (staggered) which is why I never got a rep cycle off. With only one, my cap regen probably would have pulled me through. Still, I should have reacted better when I saw I was not getting rep cycles off and reengaged my afterburners; it would have cut down on the damage I was taking from his guns. Apparently, with capless weapons and an armor buffer, a Rupture can maintain two small neuts indefinitely, so it's something I'm going to need to take into account when attacking cruisers.

I was very, very clumsy when it came to selecting and executing targets, and that is something that I HAVE to work on, but I suspect it will come with practice. I'm certain I could have cleared all his drones before half armor if I had been less of a mess and actually overheated my guns (I had been saving overheat for the Rupture).

However, targeting the Rupture, even accidentally, did provide me with some more food for thought. I tore through his shields without even trying, and even got about 15% into his armor. With more time, and better skills, the fight was very winnable.

And skills is the issue. With my current fit and all skills at V, my Vengeance is cap stable at 52% (even with only a T1 cap rig), has 9937 ehp, a cruising speed of 818 m/s and a dps of 92. With my skills, it has only 5.75 min of cap, 9165 ehp, a cruising speed of 762 m/s and a dps of 84. So, cap aside, I'm flying my Vengeance at only 92% capacity.

While I won't know until I try it, I suspect that it is very, very difficult to keep a top skilled, cap rigged Vengeance capped out. Assuming I learn from my mistakes and keep my afterburner on, my higher speed will make me even more difficult to hit, and increased dps clears drones faster and kills my opponent more swiftly.

So despite the loss, I'm actually quite encouraged by the whole thing. The Vengeance went up against a pvp fit cruiser and did nauseatingly well, despite my poor skills and atrocious mistakes.

I think I'm going to like Assault Ships.