Vengeance v Caracal

The hunt:

I was passing through Hevrice when I saw a Caracal in a FW mission plex. I warped into the plex, only to see the Caracal warp out.

She was clearly warping to the sun, however, so I immediately started trying to warp to the sun at zero. I called the Caracal's position over vent to see if someone could be there waiting for her, but nobody was in a position to intercept.

Despite my align time and the Caracal's head start, I landed within a few km of the cruiser. I (rightly) guessed that the pilot had decided that she fancied her chances against me, and was letting me "catch" her.

As we pointed each other, I settled into a 5km orbit to keep my speed up, and set about destroying her drones. I had loaded Caldari Gremlin, trying to balance damaging her drones with wearing down her shield.

The Caracal also opened fire, and also started hitting me with a neut. The cap hits were large, and the cycle time fairly long, so I guessed that it was a medium neut, which suited me just fine. After destroying her drones, it turned my rockets onto the ship itself.

As I slowly chipped away at her tank, I began devoting myself to managing my modules. I could keep almost everything running unless it happened to coincide with the next neut cycle, and then I needed to reactivate the module as soon as I had some more cap. I also managed to pulse my repair system fairly often, but I had to be careful not to deactivate something else when doing so; I needed my afterburner for tank and my web for dps.

I was walking a very fine line and, frankly, I was losing. I tried increasing my orbit to 7.5km, hoping to out range the neut ( I could not for the life of me remember the optimal of a medium neut, and I did not have time to check). All this achieved was letting the Caracal get out of point range. If she noticed, she chose not to leave, probably because she was winning.

I brought my orbit back in to 5km, resolving to upgrade to a T2 point.

Some offers of assistance started to come in from the other Tuskers in system; they had heard my initial call out over vent and could see us both at the sun. I declined however - this fight was just too close, too awesome to spoil by involving anyone else. Win or lose, it would by mano e mano.

As my launchers approached empty, I ceased fire and ordered a reload to Gremlin Rage. After ten seconds of agonising silence, I reengaged my weapons, and was gratified to see that the additional damage was making a significant difference. At this stage I was nearing the Caracal's peak regen, and I needed all the dps I could muster to break her tank. I set the launchers to overheat.

I had been whittled down to about half armor, but I knew I was only one or two missed cycles away from structure. I had hoped that the Caracal would cap itself out using a medium neut, but the pilot was clearly managaing her modules well; she must have been riding her peak cap regen.

Unfortunately for the Caracal, it was not enough. With Rage loaded and the launchers overheated I finally managed to break her tank. Cutting the overheat, I continued into the Caracal's armor, and then structure, before she finally exploded.

2011.07.25 19:02:00

Victim: JESSKABAL
Corp: State Protectorate
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Caldari State
Destroyed: Caracal
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 13923

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.8
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Gremlin Rage Rocket
Damage Done: 9765

Name: Federation Praktor Harpago / Gallente Federation
Damage Done: 4158

Destroyed items:

Invulnerability Field II
Assault Missile Launcher II, Qty: 2
Bloodclaw Fury Light Missile, Qty: 52
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I, Qty: 2
Piranha Fury Light Missile, Qty: 500 (Cargo)
Bloodclaw Fury Light Missile, Qty: 1564 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Warp Scrambler II
Assault Missile Launcher II, Qty: 2
Bloodclaw Fury Light Missile, Qty: 52
Stasis Webifier II
Ballistic Control System II, Qty: 2
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Medium 'Gremlin' Power Core Disruptor I
Large Shield Extender II
Sabretooth Fury Light Missile, Qty: 500 (Cargo)

Afterthoughts:

This was one of the most exciting solo fights I've had in a while, and JESSKABAL apparently agreed; we had an enthusiastic chat about the fight after the fact. JESS had seen my point slip but had been enjoying the fight too much to leave.

She remarked that her cap and shields had not been at full when she warped out of the mission, and that had this not been the case the fight would probably have been hers. With everything being as close as it was, I was not willing to disagree. An excellent fight that pushed us both to our limits.

As for my performance, I'm happy with my module management. It's something that I've needed to work on, and the effort I've put in seems to have paid some dividends here. I'm also grateful to my fellow Tuskers for not just jumping in uninvited; JESS and I would have missed out on an awesome showdown.