Vengeance et alia v Ashimmu

The hunt:

It started when I encountered a Daredevil flown by a pilot named Vim. Now that I have more experience with being kited, I tend to engage kiters on gates whenever possible; the increased danger of "adds" is worth the ability to just disengage and leave.

Vim had engaged me on the gate, and we had spent some time dancing about. Thanks to my Javelin rockets, I could hit him just fine. In fact, I could easily burn him down. But with a 90% web on me, I couldn't make him stick around long enough to kill him.

Eventually, he either called for backup, or a number of other faction frigates coincidentally showed up to help him out. I popped an exile booster, turned off my weapons, and simply tanked their damage for 60 seconds before jumping out.

I moved on with my roam, and some time later ended up hitting a mission runner with a few other Tuskers. While the frigates were still waiting out their GCC, I spotted Vim again, this time in an Ashimmu.

A quick discussion ensued, and, while none of us had ever fought an Ashimmu before - the Tusker recruitment drive means there are a fair number of newer players in corp right now - we agreed that we could probably take him. 90% webs and bonused neuts meant that he would probably take one or more of us with him, but we should be able burn him down. It was, we decided, a worthwhile sacrifice to take down a pirate faction cruiser.

Well, I probably don't need to tell most of you how this ended. Like lambs to the slaughter, we jumped the Ashimmu at a belt. It turns out, no matter how dangerous 90% webs and bonused neuts seem on paper, it's far, FAR worse in real combat.

Against the Daredevil, 90% web simply meant not being able to hold him or escape. Fine, we thought, we'll kill him quick and accept that we can't escape. Against the Ashimmu, however, it means you take full damage from his cruiser class weapons. Oh, and your tank no longer works.

2011.09.22 19:26:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Vengeance
System: Costolle
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 2349

Involved parties:

Name: Vim (laid the final blow)
Security: -3.6
Corp: Spiritus Draconis
Alliance: NONE
Faction: Gallente Federation
Ship: Ashimmu
Weapon: Focused Medium Pulse Laser II
Damage Done: 2349

Name: Serpentis Chief Watchman / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Damage Control II
Coreli C-Type Small Armor Repairer
Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Warp Scrambler II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 56
1MN Afterburner II
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I
Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 288 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 581 (Cargo)
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 784 (Cargo)
Synth Exile Booster (Cargo)
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 420 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 56
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 536 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 484 (Cargo)
Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 560 (Cargo)

Deeply traumatised, I warped my pod out and wished Vim a good fight. While he clearly understood his ship better than we did, he had not batted an eye at being jumped by three assault frigates.


Afterthoughts:

I can't speak for the others, but I felt really, really stupid afterwards. The fight had been so one sided that I couldn't believe we had thought we stood a chance. Lesson (painfully) learned.

My little Vengeance kept on giving, though. In addition to denying Vim my deadspace armor repair, I also received an Intact Armor Plate when I brought my Malediction back to salvage the wreck. In a bizarre twist, I had actually turned a profit on my foolishness.

Fixing Eve: Bounty Hunting

I'm generally pretty optimistic about Eve, and very much enjoy flying in New Eden. That said, I do recognise that certain things could work far better than they do now. I've largely kept my thoughts to myself because I don't have nearly the same level of play experience that many other pilots have, and my own focus is very narrow: small ship pvp in lowsec.

However, people like Jester, FNG, and some members of the CSM, have been very, very constructive, underscoring game flaws and coming up with ideas and fixes that seem (at least to me) to be workable and easy to implement. For what it's worth, I intend to throw my own ideas out there from time to time in the hope that I contribute something useful to New Eden.

This is my first foray into "fixing Eve", and the subject is Bounty Hunting.


The problem:

Bounty hunting (players, not rats) is broken, and everyone knows it. If someone puts a bounty on you, you reship to a noob ship/blank clone and get a buddy to blow you up. You split the proceeds. For this reason few people use the bounty system, and rightly so.

Any fix to the Bounty Hunting system needs to pass a few key tests, though.

1) Is the system secure? In other words, can the proposed target extract a benefit? This is a test the current system easily fails.

2) Does it actually offer the person placing the bounty value for money? Another test the current system fails. Even without collusion, the bounty does not guarantee a commensurate loss to the target.

3) Is the system safe from abuse?

4) Is it easy to implement?

With those questions in mind, I've tried to come up with a solution.


The proposed fix:

Suppose that instead of being able to put a bounty on anyone, you could only put a bounty on someone if you had kill rights for - in fact, placing a bounty would use up your kill rights! This would prevent the much stronger bounty system we are putting in place from being abused by wealthy characters.

When a kill right has been obtained, a bounty can be placed, but only up to the damage inflicted by the target. So if they blow up your Rifter you are going to be limited to a much smaller bounty that if they blew up your Dramiel. In the case of multiple attackers, though, you could place a full bounty on each of them! There is no safety in numbers.

Once the bounty is placed, it persists until it is collected, but it can only be collected by registered bounty hunters! These bounty hunters would need to meet certain requirements before they could become registered with Concord. The exact nature of these requirements would need some looking into, but it should include a fairly high security status, which would prevent pirates from also being bounty hunters.

Bounties can also only be collected in Empire space - high sec or low sec. Concord has no jurisdiction in null sec, and can't/won't pay out bounties for null sec kills. This prevents null sec corporations from abusing the system in the course of their wars for sovereignty.

Now, once the bounty hunter has found a target with a bounty (or more likely, roamed through low sec killing flashies on the assumption that many of them will have bounties), he receives a payout.

However, this payout is limited to the value of the ship the bounty hunter has destroyed. Any unused bounty remains on the target! This means that the target cannot easily escape the bounty by letting himself be destroyed in a cheap ship. Bounty hunters will pursue the target until they have cost him as much as he cost his initial victim!


Applying the test:


1) Is the system secure? In other words, can the proposed target extract a benefit? The system is secure, even if collusion occurs (which will be difficult) because the target must suffer a loss equal to the bounty before any payout occurs. At best, the target is put back into the same position that he was before the loss. As an extra measure, there could be a percentage modifier to the payout; ie, the bounty paid out is only 90% of the damage done.

2) Does it actually offer the person placing the bounty value for money? Absolutely. The payee can be sure that a 100 million bounty will cause at least 100 million in damage to the target, assuming the Bounty Hunters catch up to him - and there is no expiration date on the bounty!

3) Is the system safe from abuse? It seems secure, in that the bounties can only be collected by a group of niche pvpers who are required to confine their pvp to targets that do not affect their sec status. Equally, the conditions under which a bounty can be issued and paid are quite restrictive.

4) Is it easy to implement? I'm not a programmer, but the main programming change seems to be a series of if/then statements relating to a preexisting interface.

Have I missed anything?


Edit:

As originally proposed, the system worked against bounty hunters that wanted to track down targets with a non-outlaw sec status; these targets could only be attacked in low sec without triggering Concord, and they also gave the bounty hunter a sec hit!

Instead, in exchange for meeting the registration requirements, the bounty hunters would become agents of Concord and therefore able to engage ANY target with a bounty without triggering a Concord response (including a security status penalty) or gate aggression. Equally, no killright would be awarded to the target, meaning they could not then turn about and place a bounty on the bounty hunter.

This is why I feel that the registration requirements should be fairly strict, and should include a high sec status. Bounty hunters of the type envisaged are more like Judge Dredd than they are like Boba Fet; they are given the power to break some of New Eden's unbreakable rules, but are accordingly required to uphold the laws they enforce.

I would even go so far as to say that a bounty hunter should be unable to gain sec status while a bounty hunter, to prevent them just grinding their sec status back after a gank. However, having never had a high sec status, I can't know how easy or difficult it is to push your sec status to the upper levels. Hitting -10 certainly takes a fair amount of effort.

And now for something completely different.

The fit (Malediction):

3 Rocket Launcher II
Salvager I (offline)

Catalysed Cold-Gas Arcjet Thrusters
Warp Disruptor II
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

Damage Control II
Nanofibre Inernal Structure II
Small Armor Repairer II

Small Rocket Fuel Cache Partition I
Small Hydraulic Bay Thrusters I

The idea here was to create a platform that I could practice mwd kiting with. With the range rigs I could theoretically hit out to 17 km with Javelin (20+ if I had my range skills at V), and the extra range on my point gave me lots of room for error.

The web was for those ships I might encounter with an mwd rather than an afterburner; they would be unlikely to have a scram, but would be better able to try and slingshot me. The Armor Repairer was not really intended for heavy use, but rather to top me up after clearing drones, etc.


The hunt:

I started my roam in Hev, of course, and almost immediately I saw a faction warfare plex open up. I warped to the beacon, eager to catch my prey. Landing on the acceleration gate, I activated it and overheated my mwd.

Just as I was hitting warp, I saw my quarry land behind me! I had forgotten about the increased warp speed on an interceptor; I had landed at the plex before him! Needless to say, he did not follow me into the plex. An opportunity wasted.

My next destination was Aeschee, where I saw a Thrasher on scan. I had been hoping to test the waters on something a little less, well, perfect for killing me, but I had wanted to shake things up and this was an opportunity to do so. With faction rockets loaded (NOT Javelin), I jumped in.

I landed just outside of disruptor range, but my mwd quickly made up the distance and I landed point on the Thrasher. I wanted to get a feel for kiting so, I set my orbit at 20km. This would give me a 7km buffer between my orbit and his escape or scramming me. Plenty of time to react. I also set my "keep at range" default to 22km; I could use "approach" to close distance quickly, and I wanted something to open distance quickly.

In the mean time, the Thrasher was also testing the waters. Clearly mwd fit, and equally clearly fit for close range brawling, neither of us bothered to open fire while the range was too great. This was a strong tip off that I was dealing with someone who knew what they were doing; less experienced pilots would have just opened fire regardless.

After getting a feel for the Thrasher's speed, I started closing my orbit, first to 18km, then 16km. At 16 km I switched to Javelin rockets - I had determined that I would be able to control the range even with the loss of speed - and opened fire. Unfortunately, a 17km range is a theoretical maximum, in practice a fast target can add several km to the effective range, and the Thrasher was moving fast. I would need to get closer.

As I closed the distance I ended up with an orbit of between 13 and 14km; I was just outside of overheated scram range and this is where I expected the trouble to start, especially as my rockets were now hitting the Thrasher.

Overheating her mwd, the Thrasher lunged for me several times, but each time I was able to pull range before slowly circling back in, relentlessly chipping away at her tank.

Finally, the Thrasher succumbed.

2011.09.18 08:18:00

Victim: Amanda Shepard
Corp: Republic University
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Thrasher
System: Aeschee
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 4333

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Malediction
Weapon: Gremlin Javelin Rocket
Damage Done: 4333

Destroyed items:

200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 4
Warp Scrambler II
Gyrostabilizer II
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Small Projectile Ambit Extension I, Qty: 2
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Damage Control II
Barrage S, Qty: 480
Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S, Qty: 979 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet Fusion S, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 3
Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Barrage S, Qty: 360
Barrage S, Qty: 160 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
It had been an exhausting, but exhilarating, fight - I had been kiting for over 8 minutes. With my hold stuffed with loot, I left a "gf" in local and returned to Hev.

After dropping off my loot and grabbing some more ammunition, I slipped back into space. Almost immediately I saw a Catalyst ratting in a belt; I wasted no time jumping in.

With a better understanding of my effective range, this fight did not take nearly as long as the first, but it very much followed the same pattern; start with a wide orbit and gauge the enemy. Then, circle in for the kill, being ever ready to pull range if they make a lunge. I destroyed the Catalyst, and the pilot's pod.

2011.09.18 08:33:00

Victim: Joshua Baker
Corp: Deep Space Corp
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Catalyst
System: Hevrice
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 4692

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Malediction
Weapon: Thorn Javelin Rocket
Damage Done: 2619

Name: Serpentis Chief Scout / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 2073

Destroyed items:

Overdrive Injector System I
125mm 'Scout' I Accelerator Cannon, Qty: 5
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 160
100mm Reinforced Nanofiber Plates I (Cargo)
Civilian Shield Booster I (Cargo)
Small Energy Transfer Array I (Cargo)
Small Hull Repairer I (Cargo)
Photon Scattering Field I (Cargo)
Small Shield Booster I (Cargo)
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive (Cargo)
Medium Inefficient Armor Repair Unit (Cargo)
Tungsten Charge M, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Plutonium Charge S, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge M, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Warp Scrambler I (Cargo)
Remote Sensor Booster I (Cargo)
400mm Reinforced Steel Plates I (Cargo)
Kapteyn Sensor Array Inhibitor I (Cargo)
Uranium Charge S, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Medium Hull Repairer I (Cargo)
100mm Reinforced Titanium Plates I (Cargo)
Tungsten Charge S, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Medium Remote Armor Repair System I (Cargo)
100mm Reinforced Steel Plates I (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Small I-a Polarized Armor Regenerator
Civilian Shield Booster I
50mm Reinforced Steel Plates I
125mm 'Scout' I Accelerator Cannon
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 80
Stasis Webifier I
Light Ion Blaster I (Cargo)
Letter of Recommendation (Cargo)
Tracking Link I (Cargo)
Small Nosferatu I (Cargo)
1MN Afterburner I (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge M, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Iridium Charge S, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Small Remote Armor Repair System I (Cargo)
Small Inefficient Armor Repair Unit (Cargo)
Passive Targeter I (Cargo)
100mm Reinforced Titanium Plates I (Cargo)
Acolyte I (Cargo)
Tungsten Charge S, Qty: 200 (Cargo)
Cargo Scanner I (Cargo)
Hobgoblin I (Cargo)
Medium Capacitor Booster I (Cargo)
Hornet I (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge S, Qty: 2291 (Cargo)
Thorium Charge S, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
ECM - Spatial Destabilizer I (Cargo)

The pilot was a new player, and he had fought bravely. He was also polite in the ransom channel, and did not try to make any excuses for his loss, nor make any pleas for mercy. I liked his style, so I sent him a million ISK after I destroyed his pod. With insurance, that ought to be enough to ensure he turned a small profit on his loss.

Returning to Aeschee, I saw Amanda, the Thrasher pilot from my first fight, in another belt, flying another Thrasher. I decided to try my luck a second time, and jumped in.

What followed was one of the most intense duels of maneuver that I have ever experienced. We chased each other across the system, from celestial to celestial. I was trying to jump in 20km off Amanda so that I could immediately point her. She was trying to land right on top of me so she could use her scram. We jumped dozens of times, breathlessly waiting for grid to load so we could find out which of us was the hunter and which was the hunted.

It was intense, and I knew that the winner would be determined as much by luck as by skill, and that I should break off. Sometimes, though, you just have to see something through to the end.

In the end, my luck ran out first, and I landed within a few km of Amanda. I wasn't going down without a fight, though!

I immediately started burning away, and threw my web onto the Thrasher; I needed as much relative speed advantage as I could manage. My launchers were next, going straight to overheat, and spewing death at the destroyer.

My mwd shut down almost immediately, but I had received enough of a speed boost that I was still faster than Amanda was with my overheated web active. She opened fire, and I turned on my repair system, which now had plenty of cap with the mwd shut down. More critically, she saw what I was trying to do, and overheated her own prop mod, making her that little bit faster; I had reached 9.9km before she managed to start closing the distance; she must have overheated her scram.

With escape now impossible, it was a straight damage race. Unfortunately, that's not something the Malediction excells at, and I exploded with the Thrasher at 25% armor.

2011.09.18 09:21:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Malediction
System: Aeschee
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 1639

Involved parties:

Name: Amanda Shepard (laid the final blow)
Security: -0.2
Corp: Republic University
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Thrasher
Weapon: 200mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 1639

Destroyed items:

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Damage Control II
Small Hydraulic Bay Thrusters I
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 64
Small Rocket Fuel Cache Partition I
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Vespa EC-600, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Thorn Javelin Rocket, Qty: 608 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

Rocket Launcher II
Warp Disruptor II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Salvager I
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 32
Small Armor Repairer II
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Vespa EC-600, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Gremlin Javelin Rocket, Qty: 605 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 450 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
An amazing duel - well worth the loss. I dropped a hearty "gf" in local as I sped my pod to safety.


Afterthoughts:

Well, I certainly feel like I learned a LOT about kiting. I had been put off kiting ships because my manual piloting is so poor, but creative use of the "approach", "orbit", and "keep at range" functions seems to work.

These fights also highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of kiting ships: excellent range control and weak dps. If you maintain control of the range you are unkillable, but if you lose control, for any reason, you are doomed.

Incidentally, I've realised that I could potentially have escaped the Thrasher if I had overheated my mwd; it would not have burned for any longer, but there is a very real chance that the added thrust would have carried me beyond scram range.

Of course, timing was everything, and there was no time to overheat once I landed; my thrust time was measured in fractions of a second. But, if I had pre-overheated my mwd in warp, I could have had the extra thrust without the time cost. Something to keep in mind.

I've now got a stack of Maledictions in my hangar. I'm not going to fly them often, but it helps to have an interceptor available for fast tackle, and I'll mess about with different fits; there's a shield tanked Maledicition that I'm especially interested in trying. Being fast enough to reach wrecks easily, it will also be my go-to salvaging platform.

A common thread.

Recently, I've suffered a series of losses. Although individually unremarkable, I'm fairly alert to trends in the way I fly, and I feel that these losses, as a group, are significant.

I've already posted about this fight. Toothslayer got the jump on my Vengeance in his Sabre. Although I did not try to escape, actually doing so would have been very difficult; I'm not in a fast ship. In hindsight, though, Tsubutai is correct (no surprise there); hitting him with an overheated scram and web while burning for a celestial was my best shot.

On the other hand, this fight was one that simply escalated beyond my control. You can probably guess exactly what happened just by looking at the lossmail. Again, by the time things went bad, and the battlecruisers had landed, I was too committed to escape.

This, on the other hand, was not even a fight; just a massive fleet sitting on the other side of a gate. While I can evade casual camps as well as any frigate, that much manpower means that someone is going to have an instalock, and there is too much dps to be able to burn back to the gate, especially once the webs start landing.

My most frustrating loss is this one. I jumped into a FW plex with a Kestrel in it. He began kiting me, and then a million of his friends jumped in on us. Only a few of them got on the killmail, though, because as soon as local spiked I started burning away from the warp in; most of his friends could not reach me before the fast ones killed me. Lag got my pod, too.

The common thread here is that I was too slow to evade fights I could not win. This is part of flying a Vengeance, and I'm not complaining; all ships have their pros and cons. However, I clearly need to be more cautious, as I've lost over 60 million ISK of ships this month to situations I should have simply avoided.

Part of the problem, if you can call it that, is that I'm winning pretty much every fight that is anything remotely close to "fair". I'm taking down virtually every T1 frigate, destroyer and cruiser I meet, and most T2 frigates as well. As a result, I've grown pretty easy to bait with these ships (see the FW blob), and less alert to danger generally.

I need to do something about that, and part of that process is going to involve breaking out of the slight rut I seem to be in. I'm going to move to my upgraded fit earlier than intended - the extra cost ought to keep me alert! - and I'm also going to start testing the waters with boosters.

Equally, though, I'm going to mess about with some mwd ships. This is something I've avoided, but it's going to be a critical skill for me to master for my bomber and any interceptors that I fly. To begin with, I'll throw together some Maledicton fits and take them out for a spin. I'll also give that mwd Vengeance FNG recommended a try.

So expect the occasional departure from your regular programming.

Vengeance v Rupture

 

The hunt:

Encouraged by my recent above class kill, I decided to jump in on this Rupture when I otherwise might not have. I found him in Jovannion, which is a fairly quiet system, so I thought would have the time to wear him down.

Jumping into the belt where he was ratting, I landed close enough to establish point right away. I then moved in under his guns and waited for the million ISK question to answer itself: did he have a neut? Apparently not.

After killing the drones, I had all the time in the world; he couldn't hit me except with his missiles, and I easily tanked those. Eventually, he went boom.

2011.09.04 16:30:00

Victim: Stoakes
Corp: Starfinger INC
Alliance: OUTER SPACE ASSHOLES
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Rupture
System: Jovainnon
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 12120

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Phalanx Rage Rocket
Damage Done: 11059

Name: Serpentis Safeguard / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 1061

Destroyed items:

Medium Inefficient Armor Repair Unit
Bloodclaw Light Missile, Qty: 58
Phased Plasma M, Qty: 194
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I, Qty: 2
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I, Qty: 2
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Assault Missile Launcher I, Qty: 2
Medium Projectile Ambit Extension I
Warp Scrambler I
Sabretooth Light Missile, Qty: 360 (Cargo)
Phased Plasma M, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
EMP M, Qty: 2603 (Cargo)
Hobgoblin I (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Dual 180mm AutoCannon I, Qty: 4
Phased Plasma M, Qty: 194
Damage Control I
Bloodclaw Light Missile, Qty: 174 (Cargo)

I also managed to catch his pod and we had been on the verge of agreeing a 15 million ISK ransom when a Sabre jumped in! It was my old friend toothslayer, and he wasted no time in engaging me.

Well and truly caught by surprise, I did my best to rally. I destroyed the pod, primarily as the fastest way of clearing my targeting, while moving into a tight orbit around the Sabre. I had no idea if that was the right move or not; I knew nothing about fighting T2 destroyers.

Clearly, it was time to overheat everything, and I started chewing into the destroyer. However, I had rat aggro, and in a dps race like this the small delay in getting my guns on target was telling. Ultimately, I was unable to overcome that initial handicap.

2011.09.04 16:32:00

Victim: Taurean Eltanin
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: Unknown
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Vengeance
System: Jovainnon
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 4711

Involved parties:

Name: toothslayer (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.9
Corp: Guild of Assassins
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Sabre
Weapon: 125mm Gatling AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 2060

Name: Stoakes
Security: -2.8
Corp: Starfinger INC
Alliance: OUTER SPACE ASSHOLES
Faction: NONE
Ship: Unknown
Weapon: Warp Scrambler I
Damage Done: 2037

Name: Guardian Initiate / Serpentis Corporation
Damage Done: 614

Destroyed items:

Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Foxfire Javelin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Small Anti-Thermic Pump I
Gremlin Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Warp Scrambler II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Foxfire Rage Rocket, Qty: 776 (Cargo)
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 5
1MN Afterburner II

Dropped items:

Thorn Rage Rocket, Qty: 800 (Cargo)
Rocket Launcher II, Qty: 2
Caldari Navy Thorn Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Phalanx Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Damage Control II
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 432 (Cargo)
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket, Qty: 600 (Cargo)
Phalanx Rage Rocket, Qty: 15
Small Armor Repairer II

Still, I managed to get my pod out, this time.


Afterthoughts:

From the safety of, well, a safe spot, I congratulated toothslayer on his ambush. I also told him about the ransom he had cost me, effectively doubling the cost of my loss.

Initially, toothslayer did not feel that the loss of the ransom was significant one way or another, but I pointed out that piracy was my sole source of income - I have no second account. He had, effectively, managed to do the equivalent of gank a pirate while missioning! Surely this was an occasion for lols all round; that kind of irony does not happen every day.

While some people try very hard to shrug off their losses ("meh, I didn't really like that carrier anyway", "I've got five more in the station", etc), I'm generally pretty happy to give the winner his due. Equally, toothslayer has always been a courteous opponent, so I have no problem letting him know the true extent of his victory. I've never seen much mileage in trying to misrepresent my situation - especially as I'm just going to be blogging about it in a week or two anyway.

However, in this case my after battle chatter had an unexpected consequence; toothslayer dropped 30 million ISK into my wallet to reimburse me for the ship and the lost ransom. Apparently he likes blowing me up so much, he wants to make sure I keep undocking!

On a more serious note, though, I think Mara summed it up well in her recent post: "be gracious win or lose; you never know when unexpected random acts of kindness will come your way."

It's as true for carebears as it is for pirates; yesterday I sent a million ISK to a noob I killed because he fought well, made a sensible ransom offer (which I declined), and was courteous throughout. Assuming he insured his ship, he actually turned a profit on our fight.

A question of timing.

The hunt:

I'm breaking the chronology here, and delaying the post that I had originally planned for today. Instead, I'm going to talk about last night, because it was a pretty frustrating night, and sometimes you just have to get something like that out of your system.

It started when I logged on after work. Wherever I went, the systems were empty, but reports of enemy action would pour in from somewhere else. By the time I reached somewhere else, all would be quiet, and the action would be elsewhere.

In particular, I missed out on a 95 million ISK ransom because I was still one jump away when the fight ended. That's when I became certain that I was going to lose my ship that night.

I seriously considered logging off , but decided to see the night through. It's easy to pvp when everything is going right, but pulling through the tough spells is what helps you grow as a pilot.

Not too long after the missed ransom, I ran into a large fleet sitting on the Onne - Aeschee gate; I had wanted to join a fight that had broken out Adirain, but I didn't make it through the camp.

Heading back to Hevrice to reship, I got a report of a missioning Brutix in Melmaniel. By the time I had reshipped, however, the large fleet was moving through Hev and towards Melmaniel. We all sat tight and gave them time to move on. Twenty minutes gone.

Eventually, I reached Costelle and sat on the Melmanial gate with a couple of other Tuskers. Difficulties with our prober lead to more delay. When the Brutix was probed down, we all jumped into the system, but for some reason the "squad warp" command didn't take. That meant our prober ended up warping to the mission alone.

Whe she landed, we all warped to her, but in the intervening time the Brutix had moved 30km off our warpin (there were no rooms in the mission). He simply warped out as we burned towards him.

Demoralised and frustrated, I called it a night, and made my way back to Hev. Just as I was about to dock, however, Suleiman told us he had a ratting Loki in Oulletta, so I turned around and started back the way I had come. The other Tuskers from the Brutix attempt were closer, of course, so they make a go of it before I got there. Unfortunately, the Loki slipped point and escaped.

I reached the Oulletta gate, and sat there with the other Tuskers, waiting for the Loki to venture out again. A flashy Falcon and Hurricane jumped into us, and we engaged.

We assumed that the Falcon would just warp off, so I pointed and attacked the Hurricane first. When the Falcon jammed us all, however, we switched primary to him.

As we battered the Falcon, the Hurricane neuted us out and started trying to pick us off. Bartomeu, flying the largest ship on our side, lost his Rupture to the larger vessel. Struggling to manage our mods through the neuts, and tanking the damage from the Hurricane, we nevertheless managed to down the Falcon just as Suleiman (who had been baiting the Loki) jumped in.

2011.09.15 20:06:00

Victim: Nicoletta Modena
Corp: Fairlight Corp
Alliance: Rooks and Kings
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Falcon
System: Melmaniel
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 8856

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Phalanx Rage Rocket
Damage Done: 1260

Name: Bartomeu Sosimo
Security: -7.1
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Capsule
Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 3543

Name: Khronoin
Security: -9.9
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Jaguar
Weapon: Jaguar
Damage Done: 3277

Name: RedBerret
Security: -9.6
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Jaguar
Weapon: Jaguar
Damage Done: 713

Name: Suleiman Shouaa
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Arazu
Weapon: Arazu
Damage Done: 63

Destroyed items:

Large Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Sisters Combat Scanner Probe, Qty: 8
Medium Particle Dispersion Projector I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Cynosural Field Generator I
Expanded Probe Launcher I
Sisters Core Scanner Probe, Qty: 4 (Cargo)
Warp Disruptor II (Cargo)
Liquid Ozone, Qty: 143 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 480 (Cargo)

Dropped items:

BZ-5 Neutralizing Spatial Destabilizer ECM
'Umbra' I White Noise ECM, Qty: 2
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
Damage Control II
200mm AutoCannon II
Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 120
Enfeebling Phase Inversion ECM I, Qty: 2
Nanite Repair Paste, Qty: 50 (Cargo)
Core Scanner Probe I, Qty: 5 (Cargo)
Liquid Ozone, Qty: 207 (Cargo)

We immediately turned our attention to the Hurricane, but the neuts and the damage began to add up. We still would probably have carried the field, though, until the Vagabond jumped in. At that point we lost Khronin's Wolf.

The Hurricane was hurting, though, and we had broken his shield tank. However, when the Vagabond started bumping people, in combination with the Hurricane's constant neuting, they both were able to make good their escape.

Completely burnt out, I returned to Hev to log for the night, while other Tuskers worked on salvaging the wrecks.


Afterthoughts:

Not a great night, really. I lost another Vengeance, which hits my profitability, and I missed several other opportunities for lucrative combat.

In hindsight, I'm still glad I stayed online, though. Even on bad days, I love playing Eve and flying with my fellow Tuskers.

Vengeance & Firetail v Rupture

 

The hunt:

I was roaming around Essense when I spotted a Rupture on Dscan. It's been a while since I tried to solo a Rupture, so I decided to jump in and say hello.

It was a fellow flashy, a pilot around the same age as me, and he was keen to fight too. As we moved towards each other I slipped under his guns, and began working on his drones. Fortunately, he had no neut, so I was able to buffer tank the drones and his guns (which were landing glancing hits) long enough to clear the drones and let my active tank repair the damage.

At this point, the fight was a foregone conclusion if nothing changed. He could not break my tank, and it was only a matter of time before I broke his. However, I was very conscious that we were sitting at a celestial in a busy system. I also knew that next door, in Aeschee, there were about 15 other pirates, and at any moment I might find that I had company.

So, when Valgore wandered by and asked if I wanted a hand, I decided that waiting (and hoping) for a solo killmail was not good business sense. Better safe than sorry, and all that.

Even with our combined firepower, it still took us a long time to break his tank, but we got there in the end.

2011.09.04 12:27:00

Victim: Torrinar
Corp: Lion's Den
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Rupture
System: Adirain
Security: 0.4
Damage Taken: 20578

Involved parties:

Name: Taurean Eltanin (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Vengeance
Weapon: Phalanx Rage Rocket
Damage Done: 14655

Name: Valgore Meurte
Security: -10.0
Corp: The Tuskers
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Republic Fleet Firetail
Weapon: Republic Fleet Firetail
Damage Done: 5923

Destroyed items:

200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 2
Damage Control II
Republic Fleet Fusion S, Qty: 2
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I, Qty: 2
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
OE-5200 Rocket Launcher
Barrage S, Qty: 2000 (Cargo)
Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 1926 (Cargo)
Hobgoblin II (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

200mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 2
Republic Fleet Fusion S, Qty: 2
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I, Qty: 2
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Warp Scrambler II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 72
OE-5200 Rocket Launcher
Republic Fleet Fusion S, Qty: 1120 (Cargo)
Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 436 (Cargo)

We did manage to point his pod, but he declined a ransom.

I handled the loot split, paying Valgore 3.5 mil for his half (and I must remember that for the monthly accounts).

Afterthoughts:

Looking at the killmail, the Rupture's tank was just nuts; TWO 1600mm plates and two Trimarks. Ugh. No wonder he took so long to kill.

Even without a solo killmail, it felt great to be soloing above class ships again. I've been quite conservative with my target selection, but this kill, against a pvp fit Rupture (albeit, one with no neuts), has encouraged me to widen my engagement envelope. Of course, targets are as much chance as anything else, but hopefully I'll have the opportunity to take on some more cruisers solo.

With several alternative fits in my Vengeance's future, I'm also looking at my fights to see which kind of fit would have served me best. Here, the DPS fit was probably the weakest fit; I needed my buffer to tank his dps while I killed the drones, and then some decent remote repair to restore my buffer and tank the remaining damage.