Crime & Punishment

Nice writeup. I chuckled at the long drones lock times.

At 5% he ejected?

why not bring a alt and take the ship? free money :P

or why not try and ransom him see what he would have paid.

So after a very long shift at work I hopped on to see if I couldn't find some action this morning.

Off to the motherland of Eglennaert I went for a few mission flips before bed.

I was eager to try out a new fit I'd cooked up for a Vengeance so I set my scanner to work.
In a matter of minutes I'd found a few possible playmates and warped my shiny little rocket boat in on the first of what would turn out to be many, a Typhoon. As soon as I landed on grid he scooped his MTU and got the heck out of there. I felt a moment of sadness and then warped off to the next prospective customer, a Domi.

The Domi was merrily popping Amarr navy npcs, so I decided to get in on the fun... well, at least the loot. After scooping up half the tags in the mission the pilot politely informs me that he doesn't really need any help with the mission. After a little bit of good natured teasing it's pretty apparent he's not gonna bite. So off to the next... another Domi?

This one was a bear of a much surlier breed. After swiping a few metal scraps he gives me the old carebear stare. Fine, Omar don't scare. Besides, he has some shiny faction drones out. I bump him and begin to orbit. That special beep rings out as he goes red and it is on! I maul a few of his drones and start to realize that my Vengeance fit wasn't really suited for swarms of bonused drones, so I align out and proceed to warp off with my tail on fire. As I do an Ishkur lands on grid. Oh really?

I reship into my own Ishkur, The Lusty Chihuahua, and warp back to the site. The Domi is gone, but the Ishkur is still there... for a second or two. He buggers off pretty much as soon as I land on grid. This will not do. I set my scanning slave to work on finding him. He bounces around a few times but I end up getting a fix on him at The Sun.

I land pretty much on top of him and it's on. We both pop drones and tackle each other. The guy is good. He manages to kill half of my drones before his last Hob II bites the dust, after that it's just a matter of time.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/47311332/

Good fights were exchanged, and after taking a hard look at his fit I'm pretty sure the fight could have gone either way if he'd had another flight of light drones instead of the salvage drone. Still, it took much of the sting of a bad day at work away.

(There were others I visited, but they were boring and did little other than scamper off, so they were omitted.)

Actually it took longer to get within scram range of that guy than to take him down. The Kronos aggressed at about 90km away. I started to head right at him and was immediately put into deep armor, so I turned to increase transversal velocity with him. He was good with his guns and kept clipping me with the occasional shot. Every time I started to get close he would MJ away, but I'm as persistent as I am stupid sometimes, so I kept coming at him while trying to keep an angle so he wouldn't just volley me off the field. I noticed that the gap between us kept shortening a tiny bit with each jump.

After about 45 minutes of this being repeated, the gap between us was shortened to the point where I had about 15 km or so before his next MJ cycle, so I overheated the afterburner and the scram and made for the final push. Once I managed to land the scram on him things got serious. He used bastion to keep me from scramming him, but kept dropping it in hopes that he'd get a shot at jumping away. OCD and a certain fervent mania kept me spamming the scram button on him, so every time he dropped bastion he was immediately repointed.

I was inside his guns, and while I don't recall whether or not he started with any drones, I can say for certain that after a minute or two he surely had no more. Itty bitty neut was applied and I switched to void as I began to administer the 'Death of a Thousand Cuts' to him. Very very very slowly his tank began to crack, as 'cap stable' came face to face with the notion of 'cap stable enough?'. Once he hit low structure I was informed very sternly that he had commenced self destruct sequence.
Dafuq?

Okay, fine. Sure enough, he went kaboom... and then promptly sat there in his pod. Irked as I was, I summarily sent him back to his med bay to contemplate where he went wrong. At any point in the 45 minutes I was chasing him he could have simply warped off. Once his ship went boom he also could have simply warped off.

Judgement is a thing I guess.

Ah now I want to come to Eglennaert and "play" too. Does Leffy Skaramour still afflict that system with his presence?

Eglennaert is a pretty active system.
If you do go there to play expect some competition, and by competition I mean potential free fights.
I haven't seen Leffy there in a while, but others of his crew I've spotted a few times lately. He has a few other watering holes he hits up regularly, so he might just be busy there.

And Zappity, I couldn't agree more. I'd rather do something stupid and fun than play it too safe and be bored. Usually I have the sense to GTFO if things go sideways, but there are occasions where I'll stick it out even though I know I'm not likely to win.
This is especially true when I'm playing with someone who's relatively new and they call in other newbie friends of theirs to help. Sometimes it's worth it to lose a frig just to know that there's a few people who're squealing like excited schoolgirls on the other end of the screen.

So! Not really a yarry uber pirate story but a story about a bit of combat I had.


So I log on this morning, and I was promised a fight from one of my wartargets. I planned on giving him a fair one v one, but since I was at war with other Mercenaries at the time. I logged on my two other alts, a Combat Toon, and a Link/scout to guild be though space. I was moving from Amarr down to Gal space and had to pass by on of there home systems. They were German based and were fairly active during the morning times so I knew I was risking my lovely ships.

So I brought two Gila's and a Loki. Located the Target and began my trek through Caldari space and avoiding the home system of the German Mercenaries. I had thought I had made it passed them unawares as I was now slow plodding along through Udema. However, Either they had taken an interest in me and located me, as I had early popped a Daredevil of theirs. Or they have a rather active scout network, but all of a sudden two Wartargets enter Hatakani, just as I hit my out gate.

I may have freaked out a little bit at that point. I warp my two combat alts to a station and sit on it as my cloaky linky low key loki checks the gate I just came in from. I see two Cynabals sitting on the gate. Which is great. With the two Gila's I can't out run them. They warp faster than I do. I can't ***** out either, that isn't fun and I'm not about to let two people make me stop playing my game. Right? So I jump my Loki into Hata to see if there are more than just the two Cyna's and see a very odd looking Tengu land on gate. It's got the Warp speed Prop Sub on it. So again can't out run it. But oddly enough it's running the Subsystem that let's it run the 8 mid slot set up.

Now I know that the German using a Armor Cyna, 200mm neut, dual points and sebo'ed, and by looking at the Tengu all I can guess from it, is that it's some sort of heavy-tackle/chase Tengu? I've seen Tengu's set up before with the warp speed sub. But never actually fought one before.

Bascially I had the choice of logging off. (AKA Bitching the **** out) Or trying to fight.

This whole time, the two Cyna's are still sitting on the gate. They want me to leave the station. So I'll see if I can split them up. I warp my two combat alts to two differnt parts of the systems. Planets or something. Then warp them both to Algogille, along with my links. One of the Cyna's land with me however and I know as soon as I jump gate I need to engage or I will die once they catch range.

I jump in, and wait for them to decloak.

Luck being in my favour one of the Cyna's decloaks 13km from me. I quickly activate my links, and point/web and dps. And I do the same with my alt. As I do this I notice a legion fly pass my Loki. OH COOL. They have links to. And it was probably cloaky. I sadly didn't catch the name of the Legion, as the Germans started throwing Rep Fleet EMP into my face.

So the thing with triple boxing. I'm new at it. And I make mistakes sometimes. I managed to get all my mods active. BUT I managed to split my dps between the two Cyna's. and don't notices until about halfway through the armor of both of them. Two Gila's shooting two different Cyna's. You can see how it's easily confused? Both where losing HP about the same rate...so...yeah. WHOOPS.

By his point, one of the GIla's in about 75% Shields, and is quickly being neuted out. I focus my DPS onto a single Cyna. Which allows the second Cyna to pull range from me. Now Gila's DPS is absolutely horrible to deal with. Specially a 900 DPS HAM gila and another 700 DPS RLML Gila. The Cyna melts, as it hits hull I have enough presence of mind to point the Tengu.

Now the second Cyna has wisely pulled range to 70km and the Tengu deargo's and start slowly burning towards the gate which during the fight we have manage to pull about 15km away from it. I throw both my webs on it and being to chew into it's shield. It's shooting back at me, and surprisingly neuting me to. One of my Gila's Cap is dry and I lose tackle on it, but my second alt is still happily pointing and webbing away.

So then I remember to overheat. *facepalms*

RIGHT

SO

Overheat Missile launchers.

Oh..

My RLML is about to reload.

So the Tengu is clawing it's way to the gate. Repping as best it can, but like I said before. Gila DPS is like having an extra cruiser with you.

The Tengu dies. And I am sitting with about 40% shield and the other Gila untouched. WOO. Good fights are exchanged, no **** talk or anything which was really nice. I leave the loot for the Germans to pick up as I am a nice guy like that. And Dock up in system. Feeling pretty good about myself. And suddenly coming under the understanding on how overpowered the GIla's are. Like really 3v2 in any other ship I probably would have lost at least one ship. But 70k EHP 1000/800 DPS Overheated and 1800m/sec.

Regardless, GF ^.^

https://zkillboard.com/related/30004972/201506231200/ < Battle report.

So i start the night off in my trusty duel web republic fleet firetail. I check my ammo to make sure its topped off and set a course for Tama from Gultratren.
A couple of jumps in, I encounter a lone Throax sitting on the large in Todifrauan. Without question i order my ship to warp to the plex at zero. You see, Im a crazy fool who hunts for those famed outmatched fights. The thorax should make short work of my ship with duel webs and blasters, coupled with tech II drones.
Im a fool for attacking him. But there is no room for fear when your a Black Jakcet.
I land right on top of the thorax and quickly tell my ship to orbit at 500. One cylce of mwd lockes me into close orbit fast, and i lay in with republic fleet fusion and nova rockets. I only put one web on him though and a scram. He launches drones, and i quckly switch my aggro to them. web, ac, rocket, BOOM. Web, ac, rocket, boom, web ac rocket boom, webacrocketboom warb! Now the thorax is defenseless against me. He is shield tanked. I neglect to load em ammo.
I get him down to low armor and a hookbil lands on top of me. So i let loos one web ac and rockets on him. Again without switching ammo. https://zkillboard.com/kill/48004280/
The fight is lost, with the thorax in deep armor and the hookbil's shields stripped away. If only i had switched to em or therm ammo.. Owell.

Determined not to let this derail me, I pick up a retribution from Gultratren and head back twords tama hoping for a rematch. I didnt find that thorax and hookbil duo.. but i did find a beutiful death.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/48004678/
On my way to Tama, I find a Rifter and Hawk in Arnher. The details of how the battle begain are fuzzy to me, but i do know i found two of em at the large outpost. I warped in at 100, turned 180 and burned away. then a third laned, and a fourth, and a fith. They seem like they wanted the fight. Their FC chanting taunts in local. my tactic is working. In a bid to catch me, they are all burning at me at dfferent speeds. The Tristan was the fastest. He got within 30km and the next closest opponent was 65km. I shut off my mwd, and wait for it to cycle. Then i turned and burned with an overheated mwd right at him. I know that with that speed, he is set to kite. He is cought well off gaurd with my retribution 1km off his tailpipe resculpting his hull quickly with conflag. Im able to pull off shooting conflag at him, which usuly kills tracking, because i know he wants nothing more than to get away from me. He does pull out to 11k twords the end of the fight, and im forced to fit scorch and oh mwd and scram to catch him again.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/48004587/
The next fastest is a Rifter. I fly away from the blob after my first kill with my micro warp drive screaming.
i pull a 30k separatioin on the rifter, and use the same move to slingshot back on top of him, conflag heated and ready to go. It takes all of two orbits to completly destroy him.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/48004616/

Burn away from the bob you fool! oh yea!

I pull straight up and light the MWD again. this time. This time, i notice the kestral and punisher are far enuff away (90km) for me to have a nice long fight with the hawk. So i turn back onto him. The hawk does nice bits of damage to me, but my pulse lasers and conflag coupled with approach and some manual piloting to keep my nose pointed right at him melt away his shields. I hear an alarm and look down. My armor is 20%! so i have a moment of weakness, load scorch and start to pull away with the intent on leaving the fight. Its not going well though, as he has a web. But i notice his shield stopped repairing. I had tasted victory, I needed only to turn back into him to ensure my destiny. Conflag loaded, i burned all the way out of scram range in order to cycle my mwd and approach. It works nice! I swing right at him passing 500m from his bow. as i pass, he showers me with a beutiful explosion!
https://zkillboard.com/kill/48004638/

Im really hurting at this point, but i want them all. With less than 5% armor i turn and burn for the Kestral, who is within 20k of a punisher. I know i probably wont survive.. but i dont care. I never care.
I make a running pass at the kestral while really working my way into a tight orbit on the punisher. I know i can get under his guns. Punisher is the primary target, but i wont ignore the kestral while i have a shot on him. I pass the kestral at 1.3k peppering him with scorch on the approach from 14 to 6k and conflag from 6k to 6k and finaly scorch again from 6k to 9k on the opening vector. He, to my suprise, could not handle the attack and melted.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/48004668/

my move works well, Im right up next to the punisher just like i want to be, But sadly cannot establish an orbit like i want because of my lack of ab or web. I started the fight in 40% structure after the kestral, and got the punisher down to under 10% structure.. One more shot!!! but it was not to be.. With 40% structure and sevier heat damage to all my mods, i was out of tricks. Great Fight!

The guys are really cool about the fight, and i explain to them not to be discouraged. Ive been doing solo for years, and designed this ship to fight sivpuls. We chat in local a bit, many good fights where exchanged and i learned that the FC(hawk guy) was getting people to folow him to lowsec to pick up fighting. I offer to pay for all their losses, and make some new friends... well. such as friends are for me.. Im likely to shoot my own tail if i can ever catch the damn thing.

But but but!.. T3 dessy op and you can't kill one with five t1 Des. Lol. :). Good job man

Ive seen a tengu killed by a firetail