Things are changing

For the longest time, I've been a huge fan of my little Vengeance. It's a ship with the same strengths and weaknesses as me; slow to react but highly resilient and doggedly determined. It's allowed me to ease into New Eden without pushing myself as a pilot; I can focus on learning how to actually play the game.

More and more, however, I find myself dissatisfied with my Vengeance. I appreciate that my timing is poor - they just decided to buff assault ships - but there it is.

The problem, you see, is that I am losing ships to bad luck, rather than bad piloting. When I screw up, I'm happy  (not really happy, per se, but you know what I mean) to suffer the consequences. But when I just randomly lose ships to "circumstances", it drives me crazy.


The hunt:

Yesterday, I was flying around in a frigate gang, and we had gone roaming up to Anamake and the surrounding area, looking for a fight. We hadn't had much luck, and we were heading up towards where the Sinners live, because we were sure we would find some trouble there.

So, I jumped through the next gate in the sequence and loaded grid. I saw a neutral Curse sitting on the gate with his drones out. The Curse is not the tankiest of ships, so it seems an odd one to camp with, but that did indeed seem to be what the Curse was doing.

After alerting the following gang, I considered my options as I sat in cloak. He was 14 km from me, and I could either burn back to the gate or try and warp off. Being neuted and webbed while I tried to get back to the gate seemed pretty poor, so I decided to try and warp out.

Turns out, though, that the Curse was of the insta-lock variety, and I was pointed as soon as I broke cloak. I tried to burn away, but I was capped out immediately, and  I moved a grand total of about 3km before I went  down.

2011.10.09 14:48:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Vengeance
System: Eszur
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 2389

Involved parties:

Name: Zinto Risingsun (laid the final blow)
Security: 5.0
Corp: Tribal Core
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Minmatar Republic
Ship: Curse
Weapon: Caldari Navy Bloodclaw Light Missile
Damage Done: 2389

Destroyed items:

Damage Control II
Coreli C-Type Small Armor Repairer
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 100
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Small Bay Loading Accelerator II
Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
1MN Afterburner II
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Titanium Sabot S, Qty: 7 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Medium Shield Booster I (Cargo)
Salvager I, Qty: 3 (Cargo)
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
200mm AutoCannon I (Cargo)
Power Diagnostic System I (Cargo)
4th Tier Overseer's Personal Effects (Cargo)
280mm Howitzer Artillery I (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Warp Scrambler II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 100
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Titanium Sabot S, Qty: 1560 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 500 (Cargo)
Small Armor Repairer I (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
200mm AutoCannon I (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
280mm Howitzer Artillery I (Cargo)


Afterthoughts:

Because of the Curse's fit, neither of my options would seen me survive the encounter. And as I warped my pod out, I could not help but think how differently this would have worked out if I were in my Malediction. When I face gate camps in my interceptor, I simply align to a celestial and activate my mwd. I then start spamming the warp button.

Even if I'm instantly capped out, the 10 seconds or so of mwd cycle I get moves me about 40km, which is beyond the range of all but the most insane points. So even when I'm instant locked, I'm typically clear of the camp after a few seconds, and none of the heavy hitters stand any chance of catching me.

Yes, my Malediction is fragile, and I die a lot. But when I die, I die because I screwed up, or because I don't have enough SP invested in my ship. And I'm alright with that.

This loss is not just a "one off"; many of my September losses were due to similar camps, or to being kited, or whatever. Encounters where my only chance was to hope that my enemy screwed up. And I seem to have competent enemies.

For various reasons, October is not going to be a very active month for me, but by the start of November I should have Covert Ops V trained, and a few Purifier hulls to play with. I'll also probably get Interceptors to V, along with some of the nav skills I've been neglecting. I want more control over my encounters, now, and hopefully the Malediction and the Purifier will offer me that.