Crow v Bellicose

The hunt:

This was another fight that happened because I let someone engage me on a gate. Flying an Interceptor, I'm pretty much immune to all but the best gate camps in low sec, and I'm certainly not going to be caught by a random encounter on a gate unless I'm unlucky or not paying attention.

In this case, I was happy to let the fight happen. I knew I could not kill the Bellicose, as if things went wrong for him he would just deagress and jump out. That said, I wanted to see how I would do - I'm still interested in seeing how large my engagement envelope is.

He could not hit me worth beans, so I played tag with his drones. He kept pulling them in and putting them out, so it was slow going. The lack of web means that while I can still hit drones, I hit them for far less damage. It also makes it easy for him to recall injured drones, so only managed to kill a couple.

At about 30% shields, I decided to leave. There were no celestials directly away from him, so I chose one on a tangent and hit warp. My change of course carried me into medium neut range, however, which canceled my warp and shut off the mwd. That allowed him to hit me with a scram, and I was done.

2012.01.08 10:12:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: None
Destroyed: Crow
System: Ladistier
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 4125

Involved parties:

Name: Remus Starwinder (laid the final blow)
Security: -1.4
Corp: Rep-X
Alliance: Bringers of Death.
Faction: None
Ship: Bellicose
Weapon: Piranha Light Missile
Damage Done: 4125

Destroyed items:

Rocket Launcher II
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I
Salvager I
Warp Disruptor II
Thorn Javelin Rocket, Qty: 597 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Thorn Javelin Rocket, Qty: 150
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Catalyzed Cold-Gas Arcjet Thrusters
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Medium Shield Extender II
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 552 (Cargo)


Afterthoughts:

This was a pretty safe fight for both of us, although my own margin of error was lower than his. It's not so much that Remus (gotta love the handlebar mustache, btw) did anything clever to beat me, he just remained alert enough to take advantage of my eventual screw-up. And good for him, too.

In these little ways I'm learning that the habits I developed flying an Assault Ship don't always carry over well to Interceptors. The truth is, Assault Ships are very forgiving, with beefy tanks and significant dps, and so your piloting does not need to be as clean as it does when flying an Interceptor, where your piloting is your tank.

This explains why I did not enjoy flying Interceptors when I first tried them; whereas AFs require high character skills, Interceptors also require high player skills, and it's only been in the last few months that my player skills have been high enough to actually make good use of the Interceptor's strengths.

Evidently, though, I've still got some room for improvement.