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.