Vengeance v Taranis

The hunt:

I was cruising around the Hevrice area when I ran into Taranis in Meutrelle. Now, it was a while ago, so my recollection on this point was a little fuzzy, but I think he asked me for a 1v1. I refused, of course, but did mention that I was going to be hanging about at the 2nd cluster for a while. This kind of loose talk gets me into trouble from time to time, and this was no exception; he decided to jump in on me uninvited!

The fight was not the graceful dance you might expect from a frigate fight. We were both close range brawlers, and we went at each other hammer and tongs. I had heard of the Taranis's face melting dps, but I had assumed that it would not, as a mere interceptor, be able to significantly threaten my Vengeance.

I don't think I need to trot out the old cliche about assumptions, do I?

He was AB fit, and he was packing a web, so he was able to dictate the range. Shockingly, he decided to get right up close so that his blasters could do their work.

I counter webbed, of course, but mostly as a dps boost. As he wanted to get in close I decided to oblige as it would (possibly) mess with his tracking, but it would also keep his speed lower than if I tried to pull range. Lower speed is good for my rockets.

It did not take me long to realise that I was going to lose this damage race, so I overheated my launchers (which I had loaded with faction, rather than rage, because of his high speed and low signature) as well as my repair system. I also popped a synth exile, all the while wishing it had been a standard pill. Was it enough to shift the momentum of the fight?

Barely, as it turns out.

Fights like these do not require great piloting skills; you simply set your ship in motion, turn on everything, overheat the important stuff, and then wait to see if it was enough. In this case, it was. But it was a close call.

2011.10.08 17:13:00

Victim: Yuri Zhirkov
Corp: FLA5HY RED
Alliance: The Defenders of Pen Island
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Taranis
System: Muetralle
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 1688

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket
Damage Done: 1688

Destroyed items:

Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
Light Ion Blaster II, Qty: 2
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Corpse (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 306
Damage Control II
Light Ion Blaster II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II, Qty: 2
1MN Afterburner II
Void S, Qty: 910 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 538 (Cargo)
Miner II (Cargo)

We wished each other a good fight and went our separate ways.


Afterthoughts:

I know blasters have a bad reputation, and I rarely see blaster boats about. But whenever I run into one they give me a much closer fight, hull for hull, than any other kind of weapon system. If I had not been flying a maxed out, deadspace fit, syth supported ship, I would have been toast. The fact that the Gallente interceptor can pull a trick like that against an assault frigate is very impressive.

In fact, there's a chance he could have turned it around despite my best efforts. Probably out of habit, he seemed to set his orbit to 500m or so. This brought his speed down, which improved my dps. If he had instead set his range to something slightly higher (assuming his blasters could continue to operate in optimal) he would have increased his speed and my damage would have fallen slightly. The fight was so close that this sort of thing could have potentially swung the result.