Crow v Rifter et alia

The hunt:

This particular fight went down when I was heading back to Hevrice after salvaging my wreck from Crow v Slicer, and I saw a flashy Rifter sitting on the gate. I was not interested in fighting, as I had a load of loot and salvage, but he jumped through with me, with the obvious intention of engaging me on the other side.

He broke cloak first, and was 10 km from me. I tried to remember if an overheated scram reaches that far, but it had been so long since I used one I couldn't remember. To be safe, I decided to align to a celestial and activate my mwd - my initial speed ought to ensure I was carried out of point range. It seemed to work, so I activated my own point and began to orbit him outside of scram range. He'd done me the favour of aggressing, and I was not about to waste the opportunity. Opening fire, I began to chip away at his tank.

That's when a Catalyst and a Velator jumped through the gate, and started targeting me. No, that wasn't a typo, I was ambushed by a Velator. I don't think the three ships were all together, but for some reason, whenever I'm fighting someone on a gate (or elsewhere, for that matter), any third parties are guaranteed to target me first. I have no idea why this is.

The newcomers forced me to break dps (ie, effective range) on the Rifter for a few moments while made sure I was not going to get into scram range of the other two ships. I resumed dps, but the pause was enough that the Rifter survived long enough to deagress and jump out. Damn it!

I then turned on the Catalyst, noting that while I had been keeping range on the Rifter, the Catalyst had managed to strip my shields away. Now that I was able to focus on avoiding his dps, however, I managed to stay in high amour and so I began returning fire. He was not tanked nearly so well as the Rifter, and he went down fast enough that I was also able to hit the Velator.

2012.01.07 18:27

Victim: Tod Aldent
Corp: BlackBird Technologies
Alliance: None
Faction: None
Destroyed: Catalyst
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 3204

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: None
Faction: None
Ship: Crow
Weapon: Thorn Javelin Rocket
Damage Done: 3204

Destroyed items:

150mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannon, Qty: 4
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 21
Cold-Gas Arcjet Thrusters
Damage Control I
Nanomechanical CPU Enhancer I
Small Armor Repairer I
Plutonium Charge S, Qty: 2488 (Cargo)
Hobgoblin I, Qty: 4 (Cargo)
Small Ancillary Current Router I, Qty: 3

Dropped items:

150mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannon, Qty: 4
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 35
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 3032 (Cargo)

Afterthoughts:

My first 1v3! Although I obviously had ship quality on my side, both Rifters and Catalysts are more than capable of taking on an Interceptor solo, let alone in a gang. It was really quite exciting, trying to evade all those pilots while putting them down one by one.

This is part of what makes flying an Interceptor so different from flying an AF. While my Vengeance might have been able to tank all the incoming damage (or it might not), I certainly would not have been able to out manoeuvre my opponents in this way.

I wish I'd managed to get that Rifter, though. I probably would have if I'd overheated my launchers early in the fight. Something to consider for next time.