Vengeance et alia v Arbitrator et alia

The hunt:

There are any number of different ways to describe a handful of combat pilots working together; gang, squad, wolf pack, etc. Because of the way Tuskers fly, I refer to a fleet of 2-5 Tuskers as a small gang.

A small gang is quite different from a formal fleet, at least in the Tuskers. Each pilot is free to roam as they see fit in a vaguely agreed direction, looking for fights. When a target is spotted, that Tusker makes a judgement call about whether to solo the target or call in the rest of the gang.

If a call for backup is made, the person making the call (and who is therefore on scene) is the default FC for the fight unless they hand the role over to a more experienced Tusker. If backup is not called for, the other Tuskers continue to roam while the engaged Tusker tries to take down the target.

In my admittedly limited experience, this is an excellent way to operate. With each pilot out looking for targets (rather than sitting on a gate or in a safe waiting for the FC to chart their course) it's fairly easy to find fights. It also allows Tuskers to move quite aggressively against targets they might otherwise avoid because backup is fairly close at hand. All told, it's a good balance between mutual support and independent action. Of course, it only works if each member of the gang is capable of operating solo; hence the Tusker's entry requirements.

It was working in one of these small gangs when I spotted group of ships on D-scan; an Arbitrator, two Rifters and another cruiser, which I think was a Thorax (although I am prepared to be corrected on this point).

This was obviously a case where backup was needed, but as the fleet (they were moving as a unit) had been jumping from celestial to celestial, I did not want to risk them getting away, so I jumped in immediately rather than wait for the slower battle cruisers to arrive.

I landed almost right on top of them and decided that the Arbitrator was the one that I most wanted to see on a killmail. Hitting with him with my scram, I saved my web for the drones that I knew he would be launching, and fired my rockets (loaded with faction Foxfire) to encourage him to send them out.

The gang's reaction surprised me. The Arbitrator, obviously, was not going anywhere, so he launched his drones and started neuting me. The Thorax also lumbered about and started giving me a broadside or two. The Rifters, however, bugged out. What they were thinking, I don't know, but despite the overwhelming odds in their favour, they immediately decided to get out.

Fortunately for me, this started a bit of a fail cascade, as it caused the Thorax to rethink its position. This I could understand; while most combat pilots will respond to violence with violence, a moment's thought would suggest that assault frigates don't typically jump into small fleets unsupported unless they are expecting backup to be arriving. A quick look at the corps in local would easily confirm that I was not alone, so when the Thorax left, I think he was making a judgement call rather than just acting on instinct.

I say "fortunately for me", because the Arbitrator pilot was good. I've attacked drone ships before, and the difference between a casual drone pilot and dedicated drone pilot is significant. In addition to dedicating skill points to drone dps skills, he'd obviously taken some drone durability skills, because I was having a really hard time even killing his drones (in fact, I stopped targeting them altogether and started shooting at him). He'd also timed his neut cycles perfectly; no sneaking repper cycles in against this pilot.

As I watched my armor drop alarmingly, I was very glad to see Konig and equincu warp in and open fire. The Arbitrator fought the good fight but, abandoned by his colleagues, his ship folded before he could finish me off.

2011.07.23 17:56:00

Victim: Vamun Re
Corp: Kagan-Kincaid Enterprises
Alliance: Subspace Exploration Agency
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Arbitrator
System: Jovainnon
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 6691

Involved parties:

Name: Konig Dreizehn (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.6
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 1005


Name: equincu ocha
Security: -9.9
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Harbinger
Weapon: Harbinger
Damage Done: 2909

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -9.8
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket
Damage Done: 2777

Destroyed items:

800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
10MN Afterburner II
F-90 Positional Sensor Subroutines
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction, Qty: 2
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II, Qty: 2
Scan Resolution
Medium Egress Port Maximizer I, Qty: 3
Hammerhead II, Qty: 5 (Drone Bay)


Dropped items:

Damage Control II
50W Infectious Power System Malfunction
Medium Capacitor Booster II
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction
Cap Booster 400, Qty: 2
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Cap Booster 400, Qty: 20 (Cargo)

Afterthoughts:

Warping to a safe, we all exchanged gfs in local. Striking up a conversation, I asked the Arbitrator why the Rifter's had bailed. I freely admitted that I was not likely to have survived the fight if they had stayed and contributed some dps. He agreed, telling me that they were trainees, and that there would most certainly be an after action review of this fight.

Looking back, I was very lucky to survive the battle, and I don't want to get into the habit of relying too much on luck. My tank rocks, sure. But not when I have no cap, so jumping into this particular fleet was tempting fate. Without the unexpected reaction of the rookies, I would probably have a loss mail to post.

Once again, I also underestimated just how slow battle cruisers are, and how long they take to align and warp to my location. Part of the problem is that I have never flown a BC. Perhaps if  I just start thinking of them as armed haulers I'll be better able to judge their reaction speeds.

Vengeance et alia v Hurricane

The hunt:

A small Tusker fleet had formed to do battle with a fleet of enemy battle cruisers. We were jumping and maneuvering around Jovainnon when we were joined in system by a neutral Hurricane. While my fleet mates were tracking the movements of the enemy fleet, I managed to scan down the neutral 'Cane. I jumped into his belt, and landed right on top of him.

I established point, and had to make a snap decision. On one had, I was pretty sure I could solo him; there did not seem to be a neut, and he couldn't hit me. On the other hand, the system was full of hostiles, and they could jump in at any minute.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I called for backup so we could finish the neutral quickly.

2011.07.23 16:36:00

Victim: Jason Hardwick
Corp: Nova Ardour
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Hurricane
System: Jovainnon
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 19101

Involved parties:

Name: Konig Dreizehn (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.6
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 5594

Name: Ronan Jacques
Security: -9.6
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Harbinger
Weapon: Harbinger
Damage Done: 5484

Name: Suleiman Shouaa
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Harbinger
Weapon: Harbinger
Damage Done: 4244

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -9.8
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket
Damage Done: 3031

Name: Serpentis Chief Watchman / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 748

Destroyed items:

Invulnerability Field II
Damage Control II
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I, Qty: 2
720mm Gallium I Cannon, Qty: 5
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Cap Recharger II
Shield Power Relay II
Power Diagnostic System II
Large Shield Extender II
Phased Plasma M, Qty: 6
Warrior II, Qty: 4 (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:
Gyrostabilizer II, Qty: 2
Tracking Enhancer II
720mm Gallium I Cannon
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Phased Plasma M, Qty: 30
Phased Plasma M, Qty: 9286 (Cargo)
Warrior II, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)

Ironically, I missed out on the following fleet action; there was simply never a good time for the FC to call me in. All the BCs had long points, and it was a battle of maneuver. My Vengeance could not have kept up, and I would have been easy pickings for the long ranged guns of the enemy fleet.


Afterthoughts:

I have no doubts that I made the correct tactical decision regarding the 'Cane, but I do wish I had been able to solo it; I love those David v Goliath type fights.

More importantly, though, this episode beat me over the head with the fact that while the Vengeance is a fantastic solo hull, it's pretty dire when it comes to fleet actions. While I'm not going to deviate from my Vengeance skill plan, I will throw together a ship that can actually contribute in a fast moving fleet action. I will also make sure that the next ship I max out can participate fully in a fleet.

Vengeance v Rifter & Falcon

The hunt:

One of the more common Tusker roam routes is the loop that runs from Hevrice to Essence and back. It passes through Aeschee and Old Man Star, which are both pvp hotspots, if a bit blobby.

It was on one of these solo roams that I noticed a Rifter looking for a fight in OMS. I decided to oblige him, but we spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find each other; I'd jump in on him as he was jumping in on me, etc.

On a few occassions, we would warp into the same belt, but at different ranges. I would burn towards him, but he would warp out. He was obviously looking for a fight, so I was a bit puzzled by this behaviour; why not just engage me directly? It's not as if my Vengeance could kite him.

Finally, we both managed to land together, and we started to engage. I had Foxfire Rage loaded, as thermal damage is generally the best damage to have loaded if you can't be sure of a shield or armor tank.

Rather predictably, I started winning. Most Rifters can't even break my tank, so I'm definitely the favourate. However, this was not some fool pilot that did not recognize the limits of his ship; he had a plan. And that plan uncloaked about 20 km from me - he had brought a Falcon as backup.

Suddenly, his pre battle maneuvers made sense. The Rifter couldn't just burn towards me because the cloaked Falcon would not have been able to keep up. Interesting.

Of course, I immediately lost my lock, and I reacted by sending out a call for backup. The nearest Tuskers were a few jumps away, though, so I had to hold out until they arrived. Fortunately, the combined firepower of the Rifter and the Falcon did not seem to be enough to break my tank. The real danger was that they could call for backup faster than I could.

I don't know much about Falcons, but this Falcon was not able to lock me out completely. About every third or fourth cycle his jammer would miss, and I would be able to target something. The first time this happened I continued pounding away at the Rifter; I was obviously not going to be able to grind down the Falcon between cycles.

However, with backup en route, I decided on another strategy, and turned towards the Falcon. My goal was simply to land point, and hope that this coincided with the arrival of more Tuskers. That way the Falcon, the true enemy, would get his just desserts.

This clearly occured to the Falcon pilot too, as he warped out when I got within 5km of him. This left me alone with the Rifter, and I turned my point and (overheated) guns back to him. Predictably, the Falcon warped back in at range, but by the time he did so I had the Rifter at less than half armor.

Jammed again, they continued to chip away at me, struggling against my tank. I kept my focus on the Rifter, though, orbiting him tightly. When the next cycle failed, I threw everything I had at him and watched his armor disintergate before I bit deeply into his structure.

The next jamming cycle hit me, and I lost the lock with the Rifter hanging on by a thread. I cursed; he was bound to warp out now, and I would lose the kill. But rockets are funny animals, and I had forgotten that they had a travel time. One last volley had left my launchers as the jammers hit, and a half second after I had given up hope, they slammed into the Rifter's hull, sending it to Hades.

2011.07.17 13:33:00

Victim: Page Amatin
Corp: The Legendary Conquest
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Rifter
System: Old Man Star
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 3356

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.7
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Foxfire Rage Rocket
Damage Done: 2935

Name: Serpentis Soldier / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 421

Destroyed items:

Damage Control II
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 40
Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Fusion S, Qty: 70
Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Fusion S, Qty: 768 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

'Malkuth' Rocket Launcher I
Small Armor Repairer II
Fusion S, Qty: 140
150mm Light AutoCannon I, Qty: 3
Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 1473 (Cargo)

Now I could focus on the Falcon.

I turned towards the Falcon, knowing that I had to deal with it before the Rifter reshipped into something bigger. The Falcon seemed uncertain; I was still unlikely to win, but things had definitely not gone the way he had planned. His mind was made up when my backup arrived in system - I give him full points for alertness - as he warped out immediately.

Gfs were exchanged in local, and  I thanked my backup for their timely arrival.


Afterthoughts:

This was the first 2v1 that I have survived, let alone killed someone and survived. As a result, I'm just going to bask in the happy glow of not exploding rather than pick apart (my undoubtedly flawed) performance.

Draco Victor

The Dragon wins.

(And yes, I've wanted to be able to say that for a long time)

Vengeance v Thorax & Pilgrim

The hunt:

I was passing through Aeschee when I saw a Thorax sitting in a belt. Warping in to say hello, I found him sitting at zero in a rat free belt. If I was a smarter pilot, I would have suspected a trap right away.

Instead, I moved under the Thorax's guns and cleared his drones. At this point the Thorax - who could not hit me - would have been an easy kill but, to my dismay, a friend of his uncloaked a Pilgrim as I started into the Thorax's armor.

He started neuting me, of course, and unleashed a far more dangerous set of drones. I responded by targeting his drones, but he had no shortage of them and he kept the pressure up.

Being capped out, I also found it hard to keep my modules running, and losing my web and afterburner let the Thorax start landing hits. I fought the good fight, but eventually succumbed.

2011.07.17 07:12

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Vengeance
System: Aeschee
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 3747

Involved parties:

Name: Saikron
Security: -1.7
Corp: NME1
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Gallente Federation
Ship: Thorax
Weapon: Thorax
Damage Done: 2978

Name: Karl Reese (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.4
Corp: Crazy Leftist Loons
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Pilgrim
Weapon: Hammerhead II
Damage Done: 769

Destroyed items:

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Standard Missile Launcher I, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Flameburst Light Missile, Qty: 353 (Cargo)
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Piranha Light Missile, Qty: 39 (Cargo)
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Dropped items:

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
1MN Afterburner II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Damage Control II
Piranha Light Missile, Qty: 353 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Light Ion Blaster I (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 588 (Cargo)
Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 252 (Cargo)
Damage Control I (Cargo)
Phalanx Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 1200 (Cargo)


Afterthoughts:

Traps like this happen. As I've posted before, I would rather fall into traps from time to time than never engage for fear of a trap. That said, the trap should have been pretty obvious when I landed, and I should have started making an escape ASAP. Of course, it's easy to say that with the benefit of hindsight.

Overall, though, I think my reactions were good. I didn't panic or shut down when the Pilgrim appeared, and I kept up as valiant a fight as was able to. I could have taken either of those ships on their own, but I would need near perfect skills to have any chance of taking them together.

The reason, incidentally, is not the neuting bonus on the Pilgrim, but rather the shear number of neuts. My cap regen is good enough that I can keep all my modules running under a single neut, or even one medium and one small neut. However, once there are two or more small neuts, I can generally only keep my scram running, because the time between neut cycles prevents significant cap regeneration.

So where dps is low and neuting is high (Pilgrim) I can maintain point and rely on my buffer as I wear them down (or counter their dps). And where neuting is low and dps is high (Thorax), I can evade and repair. But the combination of the two leaves me no room to maneuver.

Vengeance v Vexor

 

The hunt:

I don't actually go out of my way to scan down mission runners, but I do like to have a scanning ship available when a corp mate needs a hand. As it happened, I had just returned from lending this kind of assistance (it was a bust - they saw the probes and docked up) when I saw a Vexor in Hevrice.

As he was clearly running a mission - he was surrounded by wrecks - and I was already in a scanning ship, I decided to try scanning him down. Managing to get a fairly fast lock, I reshipped to my Vengeance and popped in to say hello.

As luck would have it, the Vexor was not too far from the acceleration gate, and I was able to establish point before he warped out. Knowing the Vexor combined turrets with drones, I settled into a tight orbit and set to work.

Now, it may seem that I approached this fight with a rather laissez-faire attitude; after all it was only a series of happy coincidences that had led me to the fight at all. However, I take drone ships very seriously. One of the reasons that I settled on rockets as my weapon of choice is because I am pretty obsessed with destroying drones; they've killed me far too many times, and now I owe them.

So I did not immediately turn my attention to the Vexor, and I had not loaded Rage rockets. Instead, I maintained point on the Vexor, and used my web and faction rockets to take out the drones. And there were a lot of drones. Waves and waves of them, in fact.

Fortunately, they all seemed to be Warrior drones, so they were hitting my best resists and my tank seemed to be able to handle the incoming damage. In hindsight, I might have been able to ignore them completely, but I don't like taking risks with drones.

The drones dealt with, I reloaded Phalanx Rage and turned my attention to the Vexor. It did not go down quickly, but without drones, it was only a matter of time.

2011.07.16 20:17

Victim: Balaam Balak
Corp: Federal Navy Academy
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Vexor
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 8129

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.63
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket
Damage Done: 4854

Name: Gistii Hunter / Angel Cartel
Damage Done: 3275

Destroyed items:

Limited Neutron Blaster I, Qty: 2
Salvager I
10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Thorium Charge M, Qty: 955 (Cargo)
Guardian Iron Charge S, Qty: 958 (Cargo)
Warrior I, Qty: 3 (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Guardian Iron Charge S, Qty: 18
Salvager I
Thorium Charge M, Qty: 124
150mm Railgun I
Stasis Webifier I
J5 Prototype Warp Disruptor I
Damage Control I
Small I-a Polarized Armor Regenerator
Warrior I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)

I also managed to snag the pod, which I destroyed when no ransom (of any kind) was forthcoming.

A little while later I saw the same pilot in local, so I took a chance and jumped back to the mission. I managed to catch him in a Tristran.

2011.07.16 21:11

Victim: Balaam Balak
Corp: Federal Navy Academy
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Tristan
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 2284

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.69
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket
Damage Done: 1199

Name: Gistii Ruffian / Angel Cartel
Damage Done: 1085

Destroyed items:

Flameburst Light Missile, Qty: 39
Salvager I
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 115
Civilian Shield Booster I
1MN Afterburner I
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 380 (Cargo)
Hobgoblin I (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Standard Missile Launcher I, Qty: 2
Light Ion Blaster I
Piranha Light Missile, Qty: 39
Damage Control I
Piranha Light Missile, Qty: 353 (Cargo)
Flameburst Light Missile, Qty: 353 (Cargo)

I managed to catch his pod again; in fact, I caught it several times. Eve kept crashing, you see, so we would both auto warp, and then I would log back in when the server was up again. I'd wait patiently at the mission site, and a few minutes later his pod would come warping back in as he logged on. It felt a little like playing fetch.

Any way, we had a long talk about life in low sec - seems this chap is aiming for pvp, and is running missons to put together some cash. I gave him my standard chat about jump clones, D-scan, cheap ships, etc. I also pointed him towards Blood Money Cartel, which, given that they closed down soon after, was possibly not the best advice.

Finally, I let him go and he jumped out.


Afterthoughts:

I was pretty pleased that I was able to take on a Vexor, albeit one piloted by a fairly new player. I felt I handled the drone situation well, which has been an area of weakness for me in the past.

My instinctive warp to the mission point served me well, too. This is the second time in a month that simply paying attention to who I had actually scanned down resulted in an extra kill.

As for Balaam, I hope he find success in pvp. Eve is a rough game, especially when you are starting out, and he took his losses well.

Vengeance & Dramiel v Tengu & Navy Caracal

 

The hunt:

This fight actually starts with Kishin.

Kishin, zipping around in a Dramiel, had found a FW plex in Jovainnon that had spawned beyond scan range from any of the celestials in system. This meant that nobody warping to the plex knew what was waiting for them.

To Kishin's great joy, a Tengu had jumped in, and Kishin had established point. I imagine that Kishin might well have had a go at soloing the Tengu, but unfortunately the Tengu was not alone; a Navy Caracal jumped in right after the Tengu landed.

Kishin's shields began to crumble under the sustained assault, and he started calling for urgent backup - he doubted that he could hold point much longer.

By happy coincidence, I had just logged into Eve and, seeing nothing happening in Hev, had jumped into Jov. This meant that I was able to immediately jump to Kishin's location and land a secondary point on the Tengu. I don't know how long we would have lasted if the larger ships had kept it together, but we stumbled into a stroke of good fortune.

Some idiot started shooting at me.

Their combined fire power was crushing Kishin, despite his Dram's ability to speed tank much of the damage. If they had continued shooting at him they would have destroyed him, or at least driven him off. That would have left me all alone, and I would probably have died a slow, frustrating death.

Instead, they chose to split their fire. I turns out that Kishin could speed tank either one of them just fine, and it also turns out that I could perma-tank either one of them just fine. I was perfectly content with the situation, looking forward to being part of my first T3 kill.

Kishin, on the other hand, thinks bigger than me. Instead of just trying to hold on to the Tengu, there was now a real possibility that we could hold both ships, and Kishin ordered me to switch my point to the Navy Caracal. Laughing, I did so.

By now, other Tuskers were starting to arrive and we were joined by Konig in a Hurricane. Kishin called the Caracal as primary, and we burned him down fast.

2011.07.16 18:09:00

Victim: Agent FSB
Corp: Abyss Walkers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Caldari State
Destroyed: Caracal Navy Issue
System: Jovainnon
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 16441

Involved parties:

Name: Konig Dreizehn (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.3
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 3732

Name: Kishin Hattori
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Dramiel
Weapon: Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket
Damage Done: 9200

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -9.6
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Rocket Launcher II
Damage Done: 3509

Destroyed items:

Sensor Booster II
Scourge Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 51
Cap Recharger II
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I, Qty: 3
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Qty: 2
Large Shield Extender II
Armored Warfare Specialist (Cargo)
Scourge Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 5372 (Cargo)
Havoc Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Warrior II (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Invulnerability Field II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Targeting Range
Scourge Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 51
Ballistic Control System II, Qty: 2
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Qty: 4
Nanofiber Internal Structure II, Qty: 2
Thunderbolt Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Warrior II, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)

Turning our attention back to the Tengu, we were joined by Ka Jolo in a Drake. With the four of us focusing on the Tengu, it was just a matter of time before he exploded.

2011.07.16 18:10:00

Victim: Agentsha FSB
Corp: Abyss Walkers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Caldari State
Destroyed: Tengu
System: Jovainnon
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 42557

Involved parties:

Name: Ka Jolo (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.9
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Drake
Weapon: Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 8360

Name: Konig Dreizehn
Security: -9.3
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: Hobgoblin II
Damage Done: 22343

Name: Kishin Hattori
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Dramiel
Weapon: Hobgoblin II
Damage Done: 9690

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -9.6
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Gremlin Rage Rocket
Damage Done: 2164

Destroyed items:

Invulnerability Field II
Tengu Offensive - Accelerated Ejection Bay
Tengu Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers
Tengu Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I, Qty: 3
Scourge Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 54
Tengu Defensive - Supplemental Screening
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Qty: 4
Tengu Engineering - Supplemental Coolant Injector
Large Shield Extender II
Thunderbolt Precision Heavy Missile, Qty: 880 (Cargo)
Scourge Precision Heavy Missile, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Scourge Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 9351 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Inertia Stabilizers II
Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II
Scourge Fury Heavy Missile, Qty: 36
Ballistic Control System II, Qty: 2
Heavy Missile Launcher II
Large Shield Extender II, Qty: 2
Nanofiber Internal Structure II, Qty: 2
Small Shield Extender II, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Widowmaker Precision Heavy Missile, Qty: 940 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Havoc Heavy Missile, Qty: 400 (Cargo)

We managed to snag the Tengu's pod, but he only spoke Russian. Google translate told us that he was not interested in a ransom, just calling us dirty names, so we blew him up.


Afterthougths:

After the fight, I warped to a safe to wait out my criminal flag, but by doing so I missed a faction cuiser that jumped in to the other three Tuskers on his way to the plex. He was finished before I could warp back, so I missed out on a nice killmail there. Kishin seems to be surrounded some kind of improbability field; expensive ships practically throw themselves at him, begging to be destroyed.

This fight really underscored the importance of communication in pvp. If the Tengu and the Caracal had coordinated their attacks, the result would probably have been very different. Instead, a simple targeting miscalculation cost them both a great deal of ISK.

It was also a fight that I really enjoyed. Heavy tackle is a role my Vengeance fills really well. While not a spot typically useful in the fast moving, organised gangs Tuskers favour (and I think I am going to put together a Malediction fit for more organised roams), the Vengeance has incredible staying power when you need to hold a point until backup arrives.

With no ransom, the profitability of my first T3 kill was a little disappointing. Still, basic loot resulted in 8 million ISK for each pilot involved, and Kishin has salvage from the Tengu worth about 70 million ISK that will be split when it is sold.

And I also got a deep safe out of the whole incident - by book marking the plex I was left with a safe spot outside of scanning range from any celestials once the plex despawned.

Vengeance v Thrasher

The hunt:

I hadn't actually been looking for the Thrasher. My true target was a Caracal, and the Thrasher was unexpected.

You see, a couple of us had spotted a flashy Caracal sitting on a station. Despite being in frigates, we were pretty sure that we could take him, but we knew that if we all attacked at once that he would simply dock up. I therefore volunteered to sit on the station and see if he would initiate combat. If he did, the others could jump in and help burn him down - hopefully faster than he burned me down.

So there I was, sitting on the station, eyeing the Caracal and wondering if he would take the bait.

From out of nowhere, this Thrasher lands. I don't know if he was hunting me or if he was just planning on docking up, but he instantly targeted me and opened fire.

I'll admit that docking up never even occurred to me, although it probably would have been the best move under the circumstances. Instead, I returned fire and alerted my fleet mates.

Unfortunately, the Thrasher was not flashy, so my none of my backup could risk the station guns. Instead, I overheated my launchers and repairer and made sure that my scram and web were firmly on the Thrasher. From here it was a race; I could neither out range or out track the destroyer, I just had to hope I could out tank him.

Still keeping an eye on the Caracal, I watched as my opponent hit armor, and then structure, before finally exploding.

2011.07.13 18:44

Victim: Teh Tripple
Corp: Saltire Industries
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Thrasher
System: Ladistier
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 3511

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.5
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Foxfire Rage Rocket
Damage Done: 3511

Destroyed items:

Phased Plasma S, Qty: 222
200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 4
Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Warp Disruptor II
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Phased Plasma S, Qty: 2041 (Cargo)
Hail S, Qty: 52 (Cargo)
Proton S, Qty: 10960 (Cargo)
EMP S, Qty: 2964 (Cargo)
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I, Qty: 2

Dropped items:

Phased Plasma S, Qty: 555
200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 3
Hail S, Qty: 2689 (Cargo)
Titanium Sabot S, Qty: 2942 (Cargo)

In the heat of the moment, I forgot all about the station, and targeted the pod with my scram. When the station guns opened fire I assumed it was the Caracal, so I destroyed the pod and warped out, giving the engagement order on the Caracal.

Of course, the Caracal had not engaged me, and he simply docked up when the Tuskers landed. Then we all had a good laugh at my noobishness.


Afterthoughts:

There was not much strategy here; it was a straight up brawl. Fortunately, my Vengeance excels under those conditions, and I was carried through the fight on the back of a decent fit and decent skill investment.

I still have not truly absorbed the gate gun mechanics, probably because (as a frigate) I so rarely engage under them. I'll see if I can't do something about that - if for no other reason than because these mechanics are so fundamental to low sec pvp.

Tavern talk

As  I roam through New Eden, there are any number of little things that don't fit into the "one fight, one post" format of this blog. These little items of "tavern talk" are the sorts of things that I imagine pirates might chat about over a pint at their local den of iniquity.

Popping cyno ships

I'm still popping cyno ships whenever I get the chance. I  don't write about it, of course, because I've got it down to a pretty solid routine by now.

However, I was "defeated" for the first time, recently. I warped in on the cyno ship in the usual way, and stripped away it's shields. I started into armor, tanking the gate guns as I did so, when the ship was suddenly back at full shields!

For a moment, I wondered if I had burnt out my rockets. After checking that I hadn't, I assumed that Eve must be experiencing a bug of some kind. However, after another moment I realised what had really happened: the carrier had started remote repping the cyno ship.

Even without the station guns, there was no way I could break the cyno ship's "tank", so I warped out and congratulated the carrier pilot on her ingenuity. We both had a good laugh about my initial befuddlement, and the pilot's quick thinking.

In another cyno run, I tried using Rage rockets over faction rockets, and they worked much better. I could easily have taken the pod as well, but I started to warp out through force of habit before noticing that I had barely dipped into armor before destroying the cyno ship.

Next time, though, I'm trying for the pod too.


The hunter gives way

I was on the trail of a one month old Hurricane pilot when I was forced to give way to a fellow hunter. He was flying a Sacrilege, and we almost landed on each other a couple of times as each tried to catch the Hurricane (who was oblivious to what was going on as he warped from belt to belt).

The Sacrilege nearly got me, but I was just a hair too fast for him. Realizing that I could not take on the Hurricane before the Sacrilege arrived, I gracefully gave way to the mightier hunter.

I had a chat with him, though, because the Sacrilege is a ship I have my eye on for the future, despite it's poor reputation. He told me that he had found the Sacrilege to be an awesome solo ship, and the people who criticized it simply did not understand it, or how to use it.

While he did not elaborate, I was heartened by what he had to say. While it is a long way off right now, I'll eventually be moving on to a larger ship, and the Sacrilege looks like it builds on all the skills I'm maxing out for the Vengeance.


Impossible ransoms

I have happily embraced the Tusker tradition of ransoming new players for a joke or a song, but they seem far less happy about it than I do. Despite having offered several ransoms of this kind, not a single one has been accepted.

It baffles me. It costs people nothing but a little bit of effort, yet they "can't think of any". Well here's a hint. You're at a computer. Open google, and search for a joke. You can even cut and past the damn thing. It's that easy.

It's almost like they want me to pod them.

Vengeance et alia v Jaguar et alia

The hunt:

I had been out on a roam with Kishin and Khronin, who often seem to be on at the same time as me. The blobs were out in force in Aeschee and Old Man Star, so we had decided to head up towards Anamake to see if we could find something our frigates could handle. Kishin was in a Hawk, Khronin in a Rifter (with tracking disruptor) and I was flying my Vengeance.

Our trip to Anamake was not as eventful as we had hoped; there seemed to be a large gang coming down the pipe behind us and nothing up ahead. By the time we finally reached Anamake, it was late and we were spoiling for a fight.

Kishin was most familiar with the area, and he saw a Jaguar and Ares working in tandem. From their corp he knew that they would also have backup nearby, but we agreed that if we worked fast we might be able to get in and get out before backup could arrive.

Kishin waped into a belt, and waited for the locals to show up. It did not take them long; the Jaguar and the Ares both warped in, and he signaled for us to join the fight.

Kishin called primary on the Jaguar; the Ares seemed to know his stuff, and was keeping well out of range while keeping me locked down. Ordering an immediate overheat, we burned the Jaguar down.

2011.07.12 20:14

Victim: SithLordSidious
Corp: Failed Diplomacy
Alliance: B A N E
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Jaguar
System: Amamake
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 3894

Involved parties:

Name: Kishin Hattori (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Caldari Navy Hookbill
Weapon: Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket
Damage Done: 2073

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -9.5
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket
Damage Done: 1175

Name: Khronoin
Security: -9.4
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Rifter
Weapon: Rifter
Damage Done: 646

Destroyed items:

150mm Light AutoCannon II
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 35
Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 435
Gyrostabilizer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 269 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 1981 (Cargo)
Small Core Defence Field Extender I, Qty: 2

Dropped items:

'Arbalest' Rocket Launcher I
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Qty: 2
1MN Afterburner II
Medium Shield Extender II
Warp Scrambler II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Damage Control II
Barrage S, Qty: 2500 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet Fusion S, Qty: 2378 (Cargo)

Ever since my first flight with Kishin I have been impressed with his skills as a pilot. On this particular roam he also impressed me with his skills as a squad leader; in addition to fighting his ship and acting as FC, Kishin was also conducting short range scans of the area, so he was able to warn us that a Bellicose would be landing momentarily. I have difficulty simply maintaining all my modules under pressure, and I'm not afraid to admit that multitasking at that level is beyond me.

Sure enough, though, just as the Jaguar started venting atmosphere, a Bellicose landed. Kishin called the Belicose as the new primary, and we went to work. The cruiser and the Ares decided that I should be primary, probably because I was the only T2 frigate. That worked for us, though, as I also had the best tank.

In addition to taking dps, I was also being neuted. It was only a single neut, though, so I was able to keep all my modules running, including my repper, with a little effort. Kishin and I began clearing the drones while Khronin hit the Bellicose with the tracking disruptor.

It was slow going on both sides. They couldn't break my tank - I was hovering about half armor - but the Bellicose seemed to be fit like a brick wall. The shield was no problem, but the armor gave way with agonizing slowness. So far from home, time was not on our side.

Finally, though, the armor gave away, and we started on the Bellicose's structure. Unfortunately, we were struck by a double disaster. First, Kishin and I needed to reload, which meant a ten second dps stop. And just as we started reloading, Kishin reported a Cynabal on route.

The fight looked pretty unwinnable at this point, and Kishin gave the retreat order. As the Ares had me pointed, and the Bellicose had Kishin pointed, this really meant telling Khronin to save himself.

When the Cynabal landed, it added it's own dps to the Bellicose, who was no longer suffering from the tracking disruptor. My rockets started firing again, and it was a race between my armor and the cruiser's structure.

Sadly, it's a race I lost. The Jaguar pilot had managed to reship and landed on us in a Hurricane. Vengeance was his, so to speak, and we were unable to take the Bellicose with us into Hades.

2011.07.12 20:17:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin

Corp: The Tuskers

Alliance: Unknown

Faction: Unknown

Destroyed: Vengeance

System: Amamake

Security: 0.4

Damage Taken: 3621

Involved parties:

Name: Anabaric

Security: -10.0

Corp: Heretic Army

Alliance: B A N E

Faction: NONE

Ship: Bellicose

Weapon: Bellicose

Damage Done: 2456

Name: claire xxx

Security: -2.3

Corp: Heretic Army

Alliance: B A N E

Faction: NONE

Ship: Cynabal

Weapon: Cynabal

Damage Done: 1040

Name: Endureth

Security: -10.0

Corp: Heretic Army

Alliance: B A N E

Faction: NONE

Ship: Ares

Weapon: Ares

Damage Done: 125

Name: SithLordSidious (laid the final blow)

Security: -10.0

Corp: Failed Diplomacy

Alliance: B A N E

Faction: NONE

Ship: Hurricane

Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II

Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

Damage Control II

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2

Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)

Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)

Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)

Small Anti-Thermic Pump I

Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)

X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator

Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Adaptive Nano Plating II

Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 36

1MN Afterburner II

Dropped items:

Small Armor Repairer II

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2

Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 200 (Cargo)

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)

Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)

Phalanx Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)

Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 992 (Cargo)

Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 108

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Afterthoughts:

Wow, what an awesome fight! While we were (willfully) deluding ourselves that we were ever going to be able to take out a Jaguar and a kiting Ares before their backup arrived (could any of us even catch the Ares?), we did not come out too badly, trading two ships for their one.

We came tantalizingly close to taking the Bellicose with us; I've talked about flying the Vengeance at 90% efficiency in the past, and how much difference that last 10% can make. This was a perfect example of that in action; with just a bit more dps, things could have turned out very differently.

It's also worth noting that the Cynabal had no neuts; if we had finished off the Bellicose, my tank would have been back to full almost immediately, and we might even have given him a run for his money. Right up until the  Hurricane landed, that is.

Assault ship roam

 

Prelude:

I have been on a number of corp roams, now, and I have never before posted about them. This is largely because I seem to suck at gang work that involves more than a couple of other pilots, and I die, stupidly, every time.

I know why I die; it's because I find it difficult to strike a balance between my own initiative and the fleet commander's instructions. Once the FC starts giving orders I try, really hard, to just do what I'm told. This means suppressing my own natural inclination to explore and generally follow my whims, hunches and gut feelings. The FC needs to know where I am and that I am available to move on his orders right away.

This is fine when the FC is completely on top of everything, but if he gets a little distracted and he forgets to tell me to do something (or assumes I will do it without being told) things can go horribly wrong.

One early example involves me scouting ahead of a gang in Molden Heath back when I was still flying Punishers. I jumped into the system and immediately reported a flashy Hurricane sitting 150+ off the gate. I then sat there, waiting for instructions while my cloak expired. At which point, the artillery fit Hurricane simply blew me away.

It turns out that the FC had been consulting a map to determine which gate to send me to next. When people asked me why I didn't just warp to a planet or a safe, I had no good answer. The truth was, I didn't warp out because nobody told me to. I was so busy telling myself to do what the FC told me, I didn't think to do something (pretty basic) that the FC neglected to mention.

That's pretty typical of why I die on fleet roams.


The roam:

With the above in mind, I signed up for an assault ship roam through low sec. I won't give you a blow by blow, but I will give you some highlights.

First, both Ka Jolo and I suffered a disconnect while trying to jump through a gate. There was a hostile frigate/cruiser gang tailing us, and we were both pointed and attacked before we could log back on. Jolo's Ishkur was lost in this way, but my Vengeance was made of tougher stuff; because I'm cap stable with the repper, I often leave it running when I'm not at a safe. This meant that the gang was faced with my full tank, despite the fact that  I had been disconnected. I was able to log back on and jump through the gate before any serious damage was done.

As everyone else, apart from Ka Jolo and our fast tackle, was flying Jaguars, I was used as bait during the roam, but to no avail. Targets were actually quite thin on the ground, and we only managed to bag a Hurricane and a Rupture.

Part of the roam involved crossing high security space to get to a low security island, something that only frigate gangs can really do. I understand from my corp mates that gate guns seem to have received a tracking boost; ships that were easily running gate guns a month or so ago are now taking a few hits as they pass through.

I wouldn't know, though. I'm used to taking a beating from the gate guns, no matter what I fly. Of course, the beauty of a Punisher or Vengeance is that you can be repped back to full by the time you land on the next gate.

At the end of the night, which actually happened to be early the next morning, we chased some plex runners out of a plex in Aeschee. As they had done about half of the work, we all finished running the plex and were rewarded with a faction large armor repair system, which was easily the most profitable part of the roam. It's awaiting sale, but the loot split ought to do wonders for my profitability this month.

There were two side effects of running the plex, though. First, it reminded everyone involved why we are pirates and not care bears; the plex was deadly, deadly dull. Second, and more amusingly, everyone's sec status took a "hit". There were no -10's in the fleet by the time the plex was finished.


Afterthoughts:

I had set out on this roam with the goal of not dying. I'm happy to say that I managed to meet this very low standard, and even get in on a killmail or two. Although I don't have any specific examples, I did feel that I managed a better balance between my own personal initiative and obeying the FC, which made me feel a lot more comfortable with the roam; I'm looking forward to the next time the corp does something like this.

Vengeance v Cyclone

 

The hunt:

I'll say it right now: I got a bit carried away.

My early days in Hevrice had been so successful that I began playing a little fast and loose with my self-imposed rules of engagement, and when I saw the Cyclone at a plex, I simply hit the warp to zero button and only then started trying to arrange backup.

When I landed, I immediately got under the Cyclone's guns and began clearing drones. The Cyclone, of course, started neuting me. So far, so standard.

However, flying a Vengeance under these circumstances means managing a load of different modules and tasks all at once, and I dropped the ball here.

Sure, I was able to give Tsubutai directions to the plex. Sure, I began clearing the drones. And sure, I even managed to get off a few cycles of my repair system through the neuting.

What I did not do, however, was continue to manage my range. At some stage my point dropped and I did not notice. Rather than warp out, though, the Cyclone activated it's mwd and pulled range on me. My afterburner was also out, so I was moving quite slowly, and I did not notice the increasing range as my attention was absorbed by the drones.

Eventually, my transversal dropped sufficiently for the Cyclone to give me a full broadside or two, and my little Vengeance was no more.

2011.07.09 16:59

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Vengeance
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 2500

Involved parties:

Name: Anni Bonney (laid the final blow)
Security: -2.8
Corp: Negros United
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Cyclone
Weapon: Hobgoblin II
Damage Done: 2500

Destroyed items:

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 4
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 42
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 516 (Cargo)
Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 564 (Cargo)
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

Dropped items:

Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 42
1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Phalanx Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Gremlin Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)

All was not lost, however. The Cyclone stopped to loot my wreck, which meant that Tsubutai landed right on top of her. Very few things survive Tsubutai warping in at zero, and the Cyclone was no exception.

2011.07.09 17:03:00

Victim: Anni Bonney
Corp: Negros United
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Cyclone
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 20539

Involved parties:

Name: Tsubutai (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.7
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 18510

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -9.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Capsule
Weapon: X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Damage Done: 2029

Destroyed items:

Invulnerability Field II
1MN Afterburner II (Cargo)
Barrage M, Qty: 375
Large Shield Booster II
Medium Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I, Qty: 2
Navy Cap Booster 800 (Cargo)
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Qty: 3
Small Armor Repairer II (Cargo)
10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Damage Control II (Cargo)
F85 Peripheral Damage System I
Gyrostabilizer II
Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M, Qty: 1702 (Cargo)
'Malkuth' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I

Dropped items:

Barrage M, Qty: 745 (Cargo)
Warp Disruptor II
Barrage M, Qty: 250
LADAR Backup Array II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II (Cargo)
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Qty: 2
Medium Energy Neutralizer II
Caldari Navy Terror Assault Missile, Qty: 870 (Cargo)
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
Caldari Navy Terror Assault Missile, Qty: 96
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I (Cargo)
Gyrostabilizer II
'Malkuth' Heavy Assault Missile Launcher I
Republic Fleet Titanium Sabot M, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet Fusion M, Qty: 850 (Cargo)
Adaptive Nano Plating II (Cargo)
Medium Standard Container (Cargo)
Cap Booster 800, Qty: 11 (In Container)
Navy Cap Booster 800 (In Container)
Nanite Repair Paste, Qty: 100 (In Container)


Afterthoughts:

Managing my various mods under a neut is probably the most difficult thing about piloting a Vengeance. Unlike most other frigates, I actually have the ability to keep most of my mods going, but it requires constant attention, and I'm not very good at it. This fight was perfectly survivable, if I had not dropped the ball.

Keeping my afterburner on would also have made a difference, and I need to wake up to the fact that my armor repper (which I did manage to keep running) is not my only source of tank. Indeed, in many situations it's not even my best source of tank.

Writing as I do, two weeks in arrears, I recognize this as a recurring issue, and one that I am determined to deal with.

Vengeance v Harpy

The hunt:

I've been getting more comfortable with some of the "bad neighborhoods" near my new home, and I've been spending more time around Aeschee and Old Man Star. The blob-factor is high, but there are still some good fights to be had as long as you don't rush into things.

It was during one of my trips into Aeschee that I noticed a Hawk on Dscan, and I spent some time trying to track him down. At one point I thought I was going to get a fight out of him - we started burning towards each other across a 100km difference, but the pilot changed his mind at about 20km, and warped away.

However, our pseudo-engagement had attracted the notice of a Harpy, who soon landed nearby. Turning my ship, we closed the distance and prepared to engage.

Now, I already had Caldari Navy Gremlin loaded for the Hawk, so my ammunition was fine (although comments by FNG and subsequent testing tell me I would have been better off with Gremlin Rage), but needed to re-evaluate my plan of engagement.

I knew that Harpies used often used blasters for solo pvp (the nickname "Blarpy" was bouncing around my head), and that the range on blasters was generally poor, albeit long range T2 ammo is available. So when we approached scram range, I quickly webbed the Harpy and settled into a 5km orbit, knowing my speed and our maneuvering would carry me out to about 6km.

To my total shock, this seemed to work perfectly. The Harpy could not touch me, while my EM rockets were tearing him to pieces. Fearing a last minute escape, I set my orbit to 500m when he was at half armor - I did not want fancy piloting to throw me beyond scram range.

The difference was staggering. Once my orbit dropped, I started taking massive damage from his blasters. My shields evaporated, and I don't think my repair system would have been able to keep up with the damage. Fortunately, though, his window of opportunity was small, and I soon destroyed his ship.

2011.07.09 15:28:00

Victim: DllinnoUh
Corp: State Protectorate
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Caldari State
Destroyed: Harpy
System: Old Man Star
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 3072

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket
Damage Done: 1669

Name: KoBapcTBo
Security: -2.5
Corp: Bad Balance
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Gallente Federation
Ship: 
Weapon: 150mm Railgun II
Damage Done: 1403

Destroyed items:

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator II
Overdrive Injector System II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Void S, Qty: 222
Null S, Qty: 4948 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Warp Disruptor II
Stasis Webifier II
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
Light Neutron Blaster II, Qty: 3
Void S, Qty: 74
Void S, Qty: 2964 (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 10000 (Cargo)

The killmail is a little odd, as there was no third party in our engagement, and the Harpy was at full "health" when we started. Presumably this was from an earlier fight.

Afterthoughts:

After the fight I started chatting with the other pilot. We discussed his fit - the choice of mwd over afterburner on a close range ship was an interesting one. With this fit, he had no way of closing that last 4km between scram range and blaster range. Although he had Null in cargo, he also had not loaded it into his weapons. Given the reputation of blaster boats as close range monsters, I'd probably carry null in my blasters as standard.

Despite the unusual fit, I was still really pleased with the result. This was my first assault ship v assault ship fight, and I had managed to anticipate my opponent's weakness and take advantage of that.

I'm even more pleased with the fact that I decided to get in close before the fight ended; while it did not cost me the fight, it did leave me with a healthy respect for the Harpy as a brawler. Kiting this particular fit was so easy that there was a real danger I would underestimate the next Harpy that I met; that is unlikely to be an issue now.

A shift in focus

Settling in

I love Hevrice.

For reasons that  I don't really understand (although I suspect it has something to do with the Tuskers), Hevrice is very different from most of the pirate bases that I've encountered.

To begin with, there are no gate camps in Hevrice, or in either of the adjacent systems. I saw another corp try to start a camp, once, but Tuskers get all giddy at the thought of people deliberately grouping up and sitting at a celestial to wait for a Tusker response. The camp lasted exactly long enough for the local Tuskers to reship into something appropriate for camp busting.

There is also no competing pirate corp in Hevrice. Despite being a gateway to highsec (albeit a bit of a back door route), and the presence of a second station, you don't find any pirates staying in the system long unless they are flying the Tusker colours.

Similarly, there are very few POS in the system, which makes using the Dscan very easy; there is no clutter for targets to hide in.

But most importantly, and perhaps because of some of these other factors, there is a steady stream of traffic from high sec. So much so that if I don't have time for a proper roam, just sitting at a hunting safe in Hevrice stands a good chance of bringing me something interesting.


Spoiled for choice

Because of this steady traffic, I have been kept very busy recently. I'm averaging about 20 kills a week, although many of those will be pods. At one post per week day, I can't possibly cover all of the fights, so I'm going to have to be more selective about what I post.

As I look through my kills, and prepare my posts, I note that many of the more interesting kills involve other Tuskers, and it occurred to me that it might appear that I have given up, or at least throttled back, on solo roaming. This is not the case.

It is simply that a group of players, even in frigates, can take on far more interesting targets than a single player in a frigate can. So it's not terribly surprising that when fights are selected for their interest, a disproportionate number will involve a small gang.

While I never thought I would be able to say this, some kinds of kill have become routine. A pve Thorax here, a Rifter there; these fights no longer push me as a pilot and there is really not much for me to say about them; these are simply fights that pay the bills.


Turning a profit

This leads me on to my next point. Flying with the Tuskers has also made me realize that self-sufficient piracy is an attainable goal, providing you approach piracy like a business. Every piece of loot and every ransom helps guard against the inevitable fights that I lose. I want, very much, to make my piracy pay for itself, so I'm not about to pass up these "routine" fights, despite the lack of challenge.

I also need to recognize that the big hauls are usually the result of teamwork - the 100 million ransom from the Pilgrim pilot, for example, involved several Tuskers beating a couple of frigates and a recon ship into submission - not something  I could have handled on my own, even with perfect skills.

So the business side of piracy requires me to engage even those who are unlikely to challenge me, and also keep up a certain level of gang work.

Although I won't be doing anything nearly as detailed as Kishin, I will be including a very rough and ready report at the end of each month relating to profitability. It will look, in fairly rough terms, at what I brought in from loot and ransoms, and compare that to ship losses and other costs for the month. I'll also try and look at where my profitability is coming from, and what I can do to maintain that profit.

Vengeance v Caracal

 

The hunt:

A small Tusker fleet had formed up to chase down a Lucifer's Hammer fleet spotted in Aeschee. In the end, we never actually caught up with them; they briefly clashed with another corp and then retired from the field.

However, while we tried to pin them down, I noticed a Caracal a belt, and I told the others I was going to take a run at it - I wanted them to know that I would be occupied for the next little while.

I warped in on the Caracal, and landed only a few kilometers away. I quickly pointed the cruiser, and then moved into a wide orbit, opening fire and activating my web.

I had chewed through most of its shields and had taken very little damage in return (I think I was at 75% shields) when I was asked how I was doing. Without thinking, I said "I've got point on it". After all, half the battle for a Vengeance is actually catching something.

About 30 seconds later, several of my corp mates land, and unleash utter hell on the poor Caracal.

2011.07.06 17:07

Victim: Jawls Rohn
Corp: Science and Trade Institute
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Caracal
System: Aeschee
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 7090

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin
Security: -8.8
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket
Damage Done: 4426

Name: CannibalCorpseZor (laid the final blow)
Security: -7.2
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Machariel
Weapon: 800mm Repeating Artillery II
Damage Done: 1705

Name: Kishin Hattori
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vagabond
Weapon: Vagabond
Damage Done: 810

Name: Serpentis Wing Leader / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 149

Destroyed items:

Widowmaker Heavy Missile, Qty: 50
Heavy Missile Launcher I, Qty: 3
'Benefactor' I Ward Reconstructor
Medium Shield Extender I
Small Shield Booster I
Widowmaker Heavy Missile, Qty: 1346 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Widowmaker Heavy Missile, Qty: 75
Heavy Missile Launcher I, Qty: 2
10MN Afterburner I
Medium Shield Extender I
Small Armor Repairer I
Overdrive Injector System I

I snagged the pod, and asked if anyone would like to try to ransom him. Cannibal told me to pod him, though, and I remembered that my hesitation against the Dram had nearly cost me my ship (see my last post), and I did not want to make that mistake again. Aeschee was absolutely full of hostiles, including at least one battle fleet, and we needed to get back to a safe.

So I podded him. Right before Kishkin told me to wait. Apparently, it is a tradition in the Tuskers to ransom new pilots for a joke, or a song, or something like that. I thoroughly approve of this tradition, but I had been unaware of it before now. Too late for poor Mr Rohn.


Afterthoughts:

This fight was absolutely full of fail on my part, and my lack of gang experience really showed through.

Sure, I found the Caracal, and I made sure that I did not go off without telling the fleet what I was doing. I'm even pretty pleased that I managed to effectively solo the Caracal. After that, though, it goes down hill.

First, my response to the fleet's enquiry was sloppy. When a frigate declares it has point, that's typically the trigger for the fleet to jump in and start dps, so my careless reply was interpreted as a request for backup - which is not terribly surprising given the Caracal is a renowned frigate killer. The fleet could not know I was soloing the cruiser because I did not tell them.

I feel quite bad for the Caracal pilot. Losing ships is part of low sec, but to be stomped on quite so hard (we dropped a frakking battleship on his head) is pretty discouraging. For his sake, as well as bragging rights, of course, I would have preferred to keep the fight just between us.

I compounded my error by being over hasty on the pod kill. Tuskers have no clear chains of command; each Tusker has to be able to operate completely independently, so we're not a corp full of guys that need or want that kind of structure. However, this can mean - as in this case - that the first response you receive is not necessarily authoritative or indicative of any kind of consensus.

I suspect that Canibal, not unreasonably, was keen to get his battleship out of the belt with an enemy fleet nearby. If I had a little more situational awareness, I could have recommended that the others warp to a safe while I sort out a ransom/release. That way, only my ship was in any danger of being blobbed.

This should have been a fight that I was proud of, soloing a Caracal. Instead, it's a fight that I deeply regret; my coms performance was poor and my situational awareness was nil.

We are not a corp that drops gangs with battleship support on noobs in cruisers. Except when I screw up, apparently.

I can't change what happened, but I can try and make sure it does not happen again.

Vengeance et alia v Dramiel et alia

The hunt:

I tend to wake pretty early in the summer; once the sun's up I just can't stay asleep, so I often have some time to kill before work in the mornings. Sometimes, this means I log on to Eve in a timezone that I don't often see.

While early morning (Europe) is not a busy time in New Eden, I do get to see Tuskers that I otherwise would not meet or fly with. On this particular morning I was the only one online, so I went on a short roam, but it seemed that all of Verge Vendor was asleep.

Coming back to Hevrice, I warped to one of my favorite hunting safes and began getting ready for my day while watching local. One by one a few Tuskers logged on and things began to pick up.

In addition to two other Tuskers active in local, a number of new faces appeared. A quick chat in corp told us that we were the Vengeance, Taranis and Slicer, whereas the Dram and Tristran belonged to other pilots. There was an additional pilot in local that we could not pin down, but he might well be in a station.

The Dram and the Tristran appeared to be working together. At least, they often appeared together on scan, and neither seemed to have engaged the other. We formed a quick fleet, and our Taranis pilot, Arcuate,  agreed to establish initial point on the Dram.

Finding the Dram was not hard; he was looking for a fight just as much as we were. When Arcuate jumped into the belt the Dram was 100km off, but immediately started burning towards him. The distance closed very quickly, and Arcuate called "point" over Vent. Etuura, in the Slicer, and I both began warping to Arc's position.

The Tristran landed before we did, and he started to engage Arc. Etuura landed next, and established secondary point on the Dram; we needed to burn that ship down as fast as we could.

It turned out, though, that the Dram was speed tanked only, and with two fast ships on him he was going down quickly. As I dropped out of warp I faced a painful decision; get in on the Dram kill and risk the Tristran warping off, or miss out on the Dram and make sure the Tristran did not get away.

Cursing the ill fortune that would see me miss out on a killmail, I pointed the Tristran and moved into orbit, opening fire with my rockets. I had Gremlin loaded for the Dram, which was probably not great against the Tristrans armor. Given that it was a about to be a 3v1, though, dps was unlikely to be a problem.

The Dram went down, and the Tristran quickly followed. I managed to snag the pod, and I contacted the pilot for a ransom. Our conversation was just getting started when a Pilgrim landed.

I suspect he started warping in as soon as we landed on the Dram and Tristran, but his slower warp speed meant that he got there too late to save his friends. Not too late to avenge them, though.

Here things get a little fuzzy for me; so much happened at once. I had been tasked with negotiating the ransom, and the pilot had agreed that he was interested in buying his pod. Things had just become a lot more complicated, though, and I hesitated.  I didn't want to blow up a ransom if the situation was under control, so I asked for direction and I was told to simply pod him. So I did.

However, the hesitation had cost me, and the Pilgrim had me pointed. My cap simply evaporated, and his drones began targeting me. I'm not sure whether the other two had warped out and then returned, or whether they had not yet hit warp when I announced that I was pointed. What I do know is that they did not abandon me to my fate, and for that I am very grateful.

Instinctively, I moved into a tight orbit around the Pilgrim. In hindsight this was not optimal; it brought my speed down and that made it easier for the drones to hit me. However, I was just reacting at this point - a tight orbit seemed like the aggressive thing to do.

I then started blowing his drones out of the sky as fast as I could. Gods, I love rockets. I also managed to maintain a point on the Pilgrim, which was soon followed up by points from my corp-mates. I tried to stay alive, and they tried to burn down the Pilgrim. Assuming the Pilgrim was neuting them too, that can't have been easy; both of them required cap for their weapons.

Indeed, it was slow going for us, but even slower going for him. To everyone's surprise, I actually seemed to be putting up a fair old fight, wiping out wave after wave of drones. I even managed to throw a few rockets at the Pilgrim between waves.

Still, the outcome was by no means assured. The tide finally turned in our favour when Ka Jolo logged in. I can't remember for the life of me what he was flying (although his killmails from that morning show he was flying a Drake), and he was several jumps out, but when he landed at the fight the Pilgrim decided that his chance of making it out was now close to zero. Ka Jolo negotiated a ransom - 100 million ISK - and we let him go.

What a morning!


Afterthoughts:

This fight would have been a lot tougher if the Dram had not blown his approach. Despite being speed fit, he approached right into Arc's scram range. Perhaps he thought his momentum would carry him through, or perhaps he misjudged their relative speed. Which ever it was, he turned a tough fight into a savage beating.

This, in turn, condenmned his buddy in the Tristran. The Dram simply needed to kite long enough for his backup to arrive and the odds would have been very even. By blowing it while his friend was in mid warp, he forced the Tristran to land in what was effectively a 3v1.

That meant that by the time the Pilgrim landed, all three of us could focus on it exclusively. A Pilgrim is a dangerous ship, but not because of it's dps. Instead, it simply shuts down the ships around it. If the Dram and Tristran had been able to contribute dps on top of the the Pilgrim's neuts, I doubt any of us would have made it out with hull intact.

So it seems to me that the Dram pilot did not properly appreciate his role. All he had to do was act as an interceptor; establish point and survive until the fleet lands. Perhaps he was simply caught up with the awesomness of his ship, but whatever his reasons, he started a chain of fail that proved very expensive for him and his friends.

I have been discussing Vengeance fits with other Tuskers, and we largely agree that dual rep fits are not the way to go; it is far to easy for the enemy to disengage, and our dps suffers.

However, there is a general trend towards fitting for dps over tank. Without trying too hard, a maxed skill Vengeance can rep 90 ehps (with a deadspace repper), leaving it with a dps of 150+. However, my fit reps about 120 ehps (143 with a deadspace repper), and has a dps of about 105 with perfect skills.

What we have not discussed, though, is the inadvertant effect that this has on your buffer. The Vengeance is resist tanked, so lowering the hps also lowers the buffer. In this case, even though my repper was shut down, my buffer was sufficient to keep me alive.

I also managed to keep point, despite the Pilgrim's best efforts. My cap skills are good, but not maxed out, and I only have a T1 cap rig on my ship. With maxed skills and an a T2 rep, I suspect that most ships without a neut bonus would have a very hard time shutting down any of my modules - even my repper.

I won't know until I get my skills up and test it, but I will gladly trade some dps for being highly resistant to neuting. I'll have to mess about with things until I strike the right balance.

Combat Graphs

In a recent post I mentioned Kaal pointing me to a website that graphed combat logs, and I had several requests for a link. I'll try and do one better, and give the whole process a walk-through.

The website can be found here. It's a very simple front page; just direct it to the combat log on your computer, and the website does the rest. In theory, it's very easy to use.

In reality, nothing is quite that simple, so let's start from the beginning.


What are combat logs and where are they?

Eve creates combat logs, selective records of the conversation between the client and the server, and stores them somewhere on your computer. How Eve organizes the combat logs and where it stores them is a matter of the preferences set up on your computer, and you may need to dig a bit to find them.

For me, the combat logs are kept in C:\Documents and Settings\Taurean\My Documents\EVE\logs\Gamelogs and each one covers an entire play session. Kaal tells me that his client stores them in a similar location, but that it generates a new log every time he has a session change. This is probably the result of different log settings.

Once you find your combat logs, you need to isolate the one you need. The easiest way to do this is to arrange them in date order (you may need to select the "details" view rather than the "icons" or "list" view). Then look at your kill/lossmail, and find the first log with a time and date after the fight (dates are created when the log is closed, not when it is opened). This is the file you should be linking to the website.

Another clue will be the size of the log. Empty logs tend to only be 1KB, but logs with combat in them are usually an order of magnitude or so larger. The logs are saved in text format, and you can open them with note pad and edit them to a certain extent. This is a very useful feature, because it allows you to compare the combat log with the graph, and better understand what you are seeing.

Graphing the combat log

Once you have identified the log you need, you simply need to select it with the log tool on the website. With the correct log selected, hit "Graph It". As an example, I have graphed the combat log that contained the cyno-ship kill at the end of my first day in Hevrice.

Pretty disappointing, huh?

A couple of things to note right away, though. Although my log does not start with a fight, the graph does. So it ignores everything until the first combat damage. Equally, my log does not end with a fight, but again, the graph does. So it ignores everything after the last combat damage.

Because I happened to take some damage from a belt rat, the graph covers a long period of time, which has compressed the information. I could deal with this by creating an edited combat log that only contained one combat, but the easier thing to do is simply click and drag on the graph over the desired time frame. The graph automatically zooms.

I shall focus on the cyno ship kill, which gives me a zoomed in graph that looks like this.

Obviously, the annotations were added by me after the fact. If I want to zoom out, I just hit the button marked (rather intuitively) "Zoom Out".


What the heck are you looking at?

In order to make sense of the graph, we need to understand the way that the program actually functions, and the limitations we are working with. Dps, or damage per second, is an average of damage over some period of time. The formula is simple: Total damage within a certain time frame divided by the length of the time frame. So if I do 100 damage over 10 seconds, my dps is 10. Simple, right?

Well, not really.

Suppose I looked at that same fight, where I dealt 100 damage, but now decided to average that over a whole minute. Now, my dps is 100/60 = 1.67. Or suppose my rate of fire is once every five seconds. If I look at a three second period within the fight it may well be that my guns don't fire at all, so my dps is 0/3 = 0 dps.

So, choosing the right time frame is quite tricky. Clearly, a smaller time frame allows you to observe changes in dps more easily, while a larger time frame gives you more accurate averages. The creator of this program had to make some decisions here.

While I have no programming skills, a little reverse engineering on the numbers tells me the program works (roughly) as follows.

After detecting a combat, the program checks the log every second. It can't do this more often, because the log is only accurate to the nearest second. Each time it checks the log, it also looks at the three seconds before and the three seconds after the time being checked. It adds that damage together and takes an average.

DPS (time) = [T(-3)+T(-2)+T(-1)+T(0)+T(+1)+T(+2)+T(+3)]/8(ish)

Note that although the program is looking at seven different points in time, it divides by a number close to eight, rather than seven. This is because the combat log rounds to the nearest second, so when it looks at the point 3 seconds away, it actually captures everything up to 3.5 seconds away. So the time frame starts with a 1 second interval, looks 3.5 seconds ahead, and then 3.5 seconds behind, covering a total of about 8 seconds.

Of course, this is probably not the actual formula used. The accuracy of this formula changes slightly over the course of the battle, which suggests that the programmer used at least one additional variable. However, it is enough to give us a rough understanding of how the program works, so we can make sense of what we see on the combat graphs.


Interpreting the graph - my dps

Now that we understand the formula, we know that we have to take the dps calculated at the start and finish of each fight with a grain of salt. This is because the program is calculating the dps by looking at periods of time where I was not actually in combat, which of course pulls my average dps down. In the graph I posted above, I marked these periods as (A). When I look at the actual combat log, I can see that my first several shots at the Kestrel all hit for the exact same damage (as you would expect from missiles), despite the differently reported dps.

Now let's focus only on my damage for a moment.

The period marked (B) corresponds very roughly with the period where I was shooting at the Kestrel's shields. The transition will not be neat, for two reasons. First, there is likely to be one shot that "straddles" the shield armor transition, and second, the program looks ahead three seconds, so a pending drop in dps drags down your apparent dps slightly early.

The period marked (C) roughly corresponds with my shooting at the Kestrel's armor. Although I was using Caldari Foxfire, which is a good "all-rounder", it is still slightly less effective against armor, so I saw a dps drop. Again, the rise and fall do not correspond exactly, for the same reasons I mentioned before; there is likely to be a straddling shot, and the coming dps rise prematurely improves my apparent dps.

The period marked (D) roughly corresponds with shooting the Kestrel's structure. With no resists, my dps goes back up, subject to the end combat dps drop that is a function of the way the dps is calculated. Equally, part of my last shot is likely to be "wasted", as not all of the potential damage is required to destroy the Kestrel.

So, with a bit of effort, I can learn to read the story behind my dps graph, and this is also a useful basis for comparison with other strategies; when I next gank a cyno ship I will try to do so with Rage, and I can compare the dps values that I achieve.


Interpreting the graph - the station guns

Perhaps more interesting than my own dps is the dps of the station guns. Their dps is calculated the same way mine is, so it appears to be too low at the beginning and the end of the fight (marked (A)).

The section marked (B) roughly corresponds with the station guns hitting my shields, whereas the section marked (C) corresponds with armor (I never reached structure). You can see the drop in dps when they begin hitting my better resists. However, something else is also happening. My resists do not change throughout the fight, so the steady decline in dps must be the result of something more than hitting my armor.

Thinking back to the fight, I know that I opened fire and then began aligning to a celestial for a warp out once I could see that the Kestrel was going down - and the combat log confirms this. The section marked (D), then, roughly corresponds with my increasing transversal velocity relative to the gate guns.

This is very interesting; I was able to knock about 30 dps off the station guns simply by getting a little transversal velocity. I've wanted to start hitting pods for a while, and could it be that getting up to speed before opening fire buys me the time I need?

The danger with that strategy is that I might be carried out of range of the target before they are destroyed. Ideally, the celestial would be beyond my target so that I am first approaching them. That requires some setup, though, and I would lose the element of surprise.

Still, something to keep in mind if I naturally find myself in a situation that lends itself to that strategy.


Other issues

Although not demonstrated by this graph, there are one or two other things we know to expect from the program.

First, weapons with a slow rate of fire will have very spiky looking dps as the program looks at time periods that first contain several shots (or perhaps only one) and then time periods where fewer shots are included (or even none at all).

Second, weapons with travel times will also show erratic dps against fast moving targets, because the dps is not arriving smoothly. This will also create spikes, as some hits land closer together, and others further apart. That's not the programs fault, though; they are genuine dps variations based resulting from travel time.


Appendix - the combat log

I hope the walk through has been useful. I've included a cut-down version of the combat log so that people can compare it to the graph themselves. Equally, you can cut and paste it into a txt file and graph it yourself.


------------------------------------------------------------
  Gamelog
  Listener: Taurean Eltanin
  Session started: 2011.07.03 18:01:55
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 2011.07.03 18:02:27 ] (None) Jumping to Stargate (Hevrice) in Muetralle solar system
[ 2011.07.03 18:09:08 ] (None) Jumping to Stargate (Muetralle) in Hevrice solar system
[ 2011.07.03 18:12:56 ] (None) Jumping to Stargate (Hevrice) in Jovainnon solar system
[ 2011.07.03 18:17:09 ] (None) Jumping to Stargate (Jovainnon) in Hevrice solar system
[ 2011.07.03 18:19:59 ] (notify) Interference from the warp you are doing is preventing your sensors from getting a target lock on GASPAH's Kestrel.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:04 ] (notify) Orbiting GASPAH's Kestrel (500m)
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:04 ] (notify) For initiating combat your security status has been adjusted by -0.1353.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:04 ] (notify) Taurean Eltanin: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:06 ] (notify) You have started trying to warp scramble GASPAH (Kestrel)[UGHZ]<N0VA>.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:07 ] (combat) <color=0xffbbbb00>Your group of Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket hits GASPAH (Kestrel)[UGHZ]&lt;N0VA&gt;, doing 199.8 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:07 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun barely scratches you, causing 132.5 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:07 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun hits you, doing 185.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:09 ] (combat) <color=0xffbbbb00>Your group of Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket hits GASPAH (Kestrel)[UGHZ]&lt;N0VA&gt;, doing 198.0 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:09 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun aims well at you, inflicting 214.9 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:09 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun aims well at you, inflicting 237.9 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:10 ] (notify) Aligning to Hevrice - Star
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:12 ] (combat) <color=0xffbbbb00>Your group of Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket hits GASPAH (Kestrel)[UGHZ]&lt;N0VA&gt;, doing 137.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:12 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun places an excellent hit on you, inflicting 98.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:12 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun places an excellent hit on you, inflicting 102.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:14 ] (combat) <color=0xffbbbb00>Your group of Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket hits GASPAH (Kestrel)[UGHZ]&lt;N0VA&gt;, doing 137.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:14 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun barely scratches you, causing 43.5 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:14 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun hits you, doing 60.9 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:17 ] (combat) <color=0xffbbbb00>Your group of Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket hits GASPAH (Kestrel)[UGHZ]&lt;N0VA&gt;, doing 157.3 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:17 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun places an excellent hit on you, inflicting 102.2 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:17 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun hits you, doing 69.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:18 ] (notify) For your part in the destruction of a Kestrel your security status has been adjusted by -0.5414.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:18 ] (notify) Taurean Eltanin: You have foolishly engaged in criminal activity within sight of sentry guns and must suffer the consequences.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:19 ] (combat) <color=0xffbbbb00>Your group of Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket hits GASPAH (Kestrel)[UGHZ]&lt;N0VA&gt;, doing 249.7 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:19 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun lightly hits you, doing 54.2 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:19 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun aims well at you, inflicting 92.8 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:20 ] (notify) J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I deactivates as GASPAH's Kestrel begins to explode.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:21 ] (notify) Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket deactivates as the Item it was targeted at is no longer present.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:22 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun hits you, doing 62.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:20:22 ] (combat) <color=0xffbb6600>Gallente Sentry Gun lightly hits you, doing 50.4 damage.
[ 2011.07.03 18:21:36 ] (notify) Loading the Rocket into the Missile Launcher Rocket; this will take approximately 10 seconds.
[ 2011.07.03 18:34:15 ] (info) No Character can be found with 'habarad' in the beginning of its name.
[ 2011.07.03 18:36:58 ] (notify) Warping to Hevrice V - Federal Freight Storage prior to making docking attempt
[ 2011.07.03 18:37:40 ] (notify) Requested to dock at Hevrice V - Federal Freight Storage station
[ 2011.07.03 18:37:40 ] (notify) Your docking request has been accepted. Your ship will be towed into station.
[ 2011.07.03 18:37:41 ] (notify) Your ship is realigning its magnetic field, please wait a moment.