Tuskers v Stone Circle & Back to Yarr (part 2)

 

The hunt (continued):

As I said in my last post, trouble was brewing back in Hev. That trouble took the form of Xirad, and a massively tanked Amarr battleship.

Xirad was camping our station. Again. His ship, in itself, was not a problem; despite the massive buffer tank, we had enough firepower to destroy him before he could deagress and dock up. However, Xirad is almost always acting as bait for a larger fleet - sometimes a MUCH larger fleet.

So our fleet held position just inside the first wormhole while another Tusker undocked from the station to act as bait. Once Xirad opened fire on our ship, we jumped into Hevrice, and immediately warped to the station.

When we saw local spike half way through our warp, we knew that Back to Yarr was not planning on disappointing us. We landed slightly ahead of them, but not so early that it made a difference; roughly eight heavy ships - battlecruisers and battleships - landed around their compatriot. Once the drones launched, I felt like I was swimming in a sea of red.

I would love to tell everyone that my masterful tackles turned the tide, but the truth is far more embarassing. I initially pointed Xirad, but our FC - not unnaturally - felt that the bait ship was a poor choice of primary, and named a new target. By coincidence, he happened to name the ONE ship in the enemy fleet that was not an outlaw, and I pointed it without thinking. I was immediately eaten by the station guns.

2011.08.29 22:27:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Malediction
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 1317

Involved parties:

Name: Enigma B (laid the final blow)
Security: -3.8
Corp: 4CPO
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: Hornet EC-300
Damage Done: 0

Name: Gallente Sentry Gun / Federal Freight
Damage Done: 1317

Destroyed items:

Core Probe Launcher I
Damage Control II
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Small Targeting System Subcontroller I
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 141
Small Ionic Field Projector I
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 829 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Rocket Launcher II
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Warp Disruptor II
Core Scanner Probe I, Qty: 8
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Micro Capacitor Battery I
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Some guy with an uncontrolled ECM drone got himself on a killmail.

Mortified at being removed from the battle so quickly, I warped to a safe (I figured that trying to dock to reship was probably a mistake). The remaining fleet drove Yarr off the station, although without destroying the bulk of their force.

Recovering my mods, I logged out for the night. My part in the story was over; my fleet ship had been destroyed, and it was late - I had been returning to Hevrice to log off when I saw the initial cyno go up outside the wormhole.

An anticlimatic way to end a tale with so much promise? Sure. Back to Yarr was still threatening Hev and Stone Circle still promised riches beyond imagining to those who dared to invade their space. But this is New Eden, and a pirate's life is full of anticlimatic moments. I left those adventures to other Tuskers.


Afterthoughts:

This was my first real test of my fleet tackler, and I am generally pretty happy with the results. I felt that I actually played a useful role in and around the wormhole, and if I had not gotten myself blown up at the station, I probably could have added a +1 to Yarr's casualties just by holding one of them in the fight.

For those looking at my fit, I know it's far from ideal. That's because my interceptor fitting skills are far from ideal. General improvements aside, there are some changes that I would like to try with my next interceptor.

I would like to try a sensor booster over the sensor rigs. When I was trying to snag scout ships, I did not need the extra range, I needed the extra locking speed. A sensor booster would allow me to adapt my pointing setup in response to those circumstances - sacrificing some range for boosted lock times.

I had also been talked out of putting an armor repair system on my interceptor, and for good reasons. However, this made me far less useful over the course of a long engagement. Holding the Cynabal while waiting for the fleet nearly put me in structure. I then needed to take a break to go back to the station for repairs - but only after waiting out my GCC. This put me out of action for about 20 min.

If I had an armor repair system, even though I could only pulse it, I would have lasted longer, and I would also have been back to full strength within a minute or two of the fight ending. Much more useful. An alternative would be a MSE, which regenerates naturally. Right now my armor skills are so much higher than my shield skills I think I will go with the repair unit, but as my shield skills improve, I'll probably go with the MSE as it is cap independent and leaves me low slots for speed mods. It does cost me an ewar slot, though.