Bad Weekend

Well let's see I more or less got instapopped by a geddon while messing with him on a gate.  For shits and giggles I will lock people up even though I have no intention of fighting just to get them to aggro.  In this case I bit off more than I could chew and got popped.  I attribute this to lag because I was spamming the jump button, but instead I saw my shields and armor disappear and of course I ended up in my pod.

My second incident was a challenge local to a duel.  I didn't respond I figure I just undock and start fighting, of course it would have worked better if I'd had my guns before I undocked and started to fight.  Oh well brain cramps, we all get'em.

Third incident I get into a fight with a Republic Fleet Firetail and actually win.  At first I was concerned because a Vaga warped in, I'm thinking, ok you've been here before, he's going to interfere and your going to go pop.  But I was pleasantly surprised when he didn't engage, although he did lock.  So what makes this an "incident"? I kill the Firetail but I don't get a KM.  I'm almost positive I got the kill.  The only other ship present at the time was the Vaga, but as far as I know my target wasn't blinky red to anyone except me.  Of all the things that happened this was probably the worse.

Oh and the fourth incident was a loss in Amamke.  Not really an incident, but it hurt because I don't like to lose.

Beat to quarters and clear for action!

22nd Black Rise Defensive Unit v Rifter

Good fight, I here it often enough but when you're in a t1 frig fighting or in my case trying to survive a Pilgrim, Sader, Ares, Blackbird and two Rupppies, gf is the last thing you want to here. I mean it wasn't good for me mainly because I didn't stand a chance and characterizing it as a "fight" is reaching. I would rather here some smack than gf.

I'm coming out of warp and land on the Aeschee gate in Ladistier. An Ares is right behind me and lands on the gate a second or two after I do. I do my usual and start to lock him up trying to talk him into taking a shot. He returns the favor and locks but doesn't shoot. After a few seconds he decides to jump through and I promptly follow. I thought there might be a gang on the other side waiting for me but I didn't really care, maybe I'm being overly aggressive or just bored. When flying solo it's hard to pass up the possibility for a fight. The Ares seemed open to the idea so I figure it was my duty to provide him another opportunity. I'm through the gate, the Ares is on my overview, so I start moving back towards the gate just in case. Again we lock and dance around a bit, he is orbiting at 25 km and I'm sitting on the gate waiting for him to make a mistake. As it turns out I didn't have to wait long. He starts to engage and drifts into scram range. No problem he's locked up and my mods are firing. His shields and armor start to disintegrate and it looks like another inty will fall to my guns. But it was not to be. His gang shows up to save his ass and I get to warp off with my pod intact.

I did make one huge mistake, I forgot to overheat and I should have used faction ammo instead of barrage. As he was orbiting me I switched to barrage thinking this would be a ranged fight. But once he got in close it was a different fight altogether. In this case I would have liked to finish him off as soon as possible, because an inty for a t1 frigate is a better deal. I knew I was going to die to his gang, but I wanted at least one kill for my troubles. I think by overheating and using faction ammo I could have been further ahead dpswise resulting in a dead Ares. I wasn't concerned about a gang on the other side. This is the life I've chosen gangs are just a fact I have to live with. My only comfort is knowing that another inty would have fallen had I been allowed to finish the job.

For this particular fight my fit was a little different.

[Rifter, 400 DPS]
Gyrostabilizer II
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Small Projectile Burst Aerator I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I

This is an attempt have both a tank and dps.

Most 400 fits I've seen or used have a DCU or SAR in lieu of the gyro. Rigs were mainly trimarks or resistance. In this case I opted for dmg rigs, its kind of like having two gyros instead of one. The armor rigged version was very slow, this version is significantly faster even without overheating my AB. Because I have a tendency to attract gangs I wanted a little more tank to help me make it to the gate or while I try to deaggress. I wanted the extra dps to speed things up, again focused on a quick fight and quick getaway. I've adopted the practice of fitting a neut (when passive tanked) or nos (when active tanked). The neut acts like an extra web, especially useful against inties fit with AB. Of course against active tanks or weapons that use cap the neut makes the whole process a lot faster. No enemy tank means more dps for me, no dps from my opponent means more tank.

Well another loss hits the books and another Rifter is fit to take its place.



Beat to quarters, clear for action!

Lords PilotKiller (Crow) vs Rifter

Lords PilotKiller @ 01:27
Vertigo Sun [SpaceMonkey's Alliance]
Crow, Uuna, The Citadel, 0.4

Interceptors are one of my favorite targets, especially on a gate. When I "allow" an inty pilot to catch me at a gate I know in their minds they are already posting a killmail. I say fine, think what you want but I'm going to make you earn it. In this particular fight I can't really say what happened other than I engaged a Crow, he took my shields, started to scratch my armor, then all of a sudden I see his pod on my overview and watch as he warps off. I'm thinking to myself did I kill him or did the Brutix that dropped out of warp a few seconds ago kill him. After Lord's pod warped off the Brutix started to engage. I was fortunate enough to be about 16 km away and I figured he had a warp disruptor since my attempts to warp where somewhat lacking. No problem I'm out of web range all I need to do is stay cool, align to something, overheat my AB and extend my range. Anyone who knows what I'm talking about can appreciate what happens next. I warp off and leave him less than satisfied.

Lessons learned during this fight? Not much really, as fights go the most exciting part was escaping the Brutix. So did I get the Crow, I sure did. Posted the KM and checked his fit. I'm no expert when it comes to fitting a Crow but I thought his fit was a little lacking. For example no t2 weapons, not even best named. As far as I know Arbalest mods are supposed to be the best when it comes to missile mods. To be fair he did have faction ammo and as I said I know diddly and squat about fitting a Crow.

Executioner/Merlin v Rifter

Vincent Lorrene @ 00:40
Mentis Fidelis [Circle-Of-Two]
Executioner, Mannar, Everyshore, 0.3

Chadilac @ 00:41
Mentis Fidelis [Circle-Of-Two]
Merlin, Mannar, Everyshore, 0.3

A fight is more exciting when there are multiple targets, needless to say I was somewhat excited. So I'm on another very long roam over 50 jumps and I'm doing my usual, jump into system, check local, do some scanning, fight or move on. In this case I jump into Mannar where there's no more than four in local including myself. There are two ice belts and three roid belts. I figure what the hell and jump to the bottom belt. Not expecting to find much I drop out of warp and to my surprise not one but two ships present themselves. Vincent in a Merlin and Chadilac in the Executioner.

So I beat to quarters and clear for action. The Executioner is the closest so I focus on him, mods are activated and the Executioner is locked. It didn't take long to take his shields and armor, of course his hull was no match for my faction ammo. During the executioner engagement I made sure to not lose situational awareness in regards to the Merlin. I don't remember if the Executioner ever took my shields, a quick glance and I felt I was in good shape. The 400 RTP and three trimarks are a lot to chew through. I was hoping Merlin was rail or blaster fit in which case my neut would come in handy, as it turns out he was rail fit. I really didn't have a tactic vs the Executioner, but I did have one in regards to the Merlin. I know that some pilots like to fit blasters so my first order of business was to gain some separation which I did. After looking at his fit I realized he was fit for ratting, at least that's what it looked like to me. He had an active shield tank in which case my neut proved to be even more valuable.

It was a gf from my perspective, I think if they were a little more coordinated in their efforts they would have had a chance. I also think I surprised them which accounts for their somewhat slow reaction. Chatting with Vincent after the fight revealed his partner was fairly new so I threw them 50M to get them back into some ships. In the end I'm not really a pirate, I don't ransome or rely on my kills to make iskies. I prefer to fly alone and lowsec is the best place to solo, it requires more skill especially in locating targets. Besides I like being blinky red.

Crow & Punisher v Rifter

bozoKaido @ 02:05
SEPTAGON TRANS-ILLUMINATI CORPORATION
Crow, Kurniainen, The Bleak Lands, 0.1

Thephasdin (Final blow)
SEPTAGON TRANS-ILLUMINATI CORPORATION

After an earlier altercation with Veto I thought I needed to get back in to the win column. After an emergency resupply by my alt I decide to take a roam to a lowsec hotspot. I check the Dotlan website and choose Kamela 21 jumps from my current location. Overtime I've built up a huge library of bookmarks which are scan spots. These spots are fairly close to a planet that has a lot of belts clustered around it. My criteria for making these BM's is fairly loose, if I jump into a system that has targets in local and a decent number of belts I'll make a BM. So I jump into Kurniainen, local shows about six potential targets and I have one scan spot already in my BM folder.

My initial scan showed two potential targets, a puni and a ranis. I didn't care if they were together I figured in a fight I'd get at least one of them. One of the problems when hunting other hunters is they don't stay still. In this case my targets kept moving. So I switch tactics and start running the belts myself. I start with the first belt in the XII cluster and find nothing but rats, although one was a BS. In the previous belts I'd visited there were wrecks so I figure maybe my targets were ratting. I also thought that at some point they would find that BS rat which would be hard to pass up. So I warp to planet XII and drop a scan spot BM about 400k from the planet. Well as it turns out I didn't have to wait long. I wanted to move back to me scan spot and focus my attention on the belt with the BS rat, but as I start to align I see a Crow dropping out of warp. I got lucky and halted the ship just in time and of course the Crow very conveniently ended up well within my scram range.

So I beat to quarters and clear for action. Guns on overheat, web, scram and neut, target is locked and well within range of all the mods that mattered. He quickly takes my shields while I very slowly start to eat away at his shields. Now he's eating away at my armor, his shields are just about gone. In warps the puni to add his weight to the fight. Crow has no shields and all of a sudden I start to take his armor, at this point I'm into structure due to the extra dps coming from the puni. Crow's armor is gone and in a sec his hull is to, so I turn my attention to the puni. For a split second I thought I might have a chance if I could neut his guns dry but it was not to be. I'm not sure if he was cap injected, his guns continued to shoot. The only thing that could have saved me was range. In any event I died an honorable death. Although I didn't like the outcome it was a gf. The only thing I could have done better is deal with the puni a lot sooner than I did, maybe extend my range just in case he was fit for close combat.

Noblesse oblige (Rifter) v Rifter

Victim: Noblesse oblige
Corp: The Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre
System: Amamake

Another dry spell brought to an end. Amamake is always a good place to pick a fight, in this case I got lucky. Picked up two Rifters on scan so I figure I had a good chance of for contact, didn't care which one as long as I could work on improving my sec status. Instead of trying to scan them down I decided to simply roam the belts, which is where Noblesse and I met.

Jumped into the belt and found her ratting, it was a jood warp because I landed within scram range. I beat to quarters and clear for action lock, scram, web, guns and my neut for piece of mind. Guns and AB were overheated although once I got into a tight orbit I shutoff the AB. I'm pretty sure she didn't notice me because she didn't respond to my aggression, maybe the rats were distracting her. Once the rounds started flying I knew she was shield tanked. I knew once I'd gotten through her shields the fight would swing my way. I wonder how things would have went had she been paying attention.

AhuraMazdah (Tristan) v Rifter

AhuraMazdah @ 19:04
SOLAR SWIFTS [Varangians.]
Tristan, Otosela, The Forge, 0.2

Hunting in Otosela decide to move on, jump to Uemon gate where I find a willing opponent in a Tristan. This was a very uneventful fight, that lasted only a few seconds. After reviewing his fit it was apparent he knew very little about fitting his ship. Three kills over the weekend not bad, two of them were crap kills, this one and a destroyer I didn't even waste time on. The other fight was well worth the weekend, will team up with Rematotusen the next time I'm in Amamake.

rematotusen (Rifter) v Rifter
Evati, Metropolis, 0.2

Jump to the gate don't remember which one and another Rifter is coming out of warp. He is blinky red which means free shot for me. So I decide to engage, of course I remember the last time I engaged on a gate, gang warps in and goodbye Trinity Nova. I don't care I need a good fight and I'm glad I engaged because I got one. Fight starts off pretty slow, at least for me. He takes all my shields and starts eating into my armor, and I've barely begun to scratch him. I find out later he is shield tanked with three core defense extenders, so I had a good bit of shields to eat through. To make matters worse the rats on the gate start to engage and to top it all off a third party (Punisher) decides to add his own DPS, afterall I'm blinky red as well.

So I'm fighting this Rifter, got rats pounding on me and a punisher. I see a Merlin drop in but for some reason he doesn't engage. I'm loaded with RF EMP and I'm overheating, needless to say once I'm through his shield tank things start to look up. Now that I've taken care of the Rifter I turn my attention to the Punisher. I've lost all my shields and over 90% or my armor and the rats aren't going away, so I decide to break contact. In my mind I didn't think I would make it, I neuted the puni and started to align and lo and behold I started to warp off. I'm not sure if it was the neut that saved me or if I drifted out of scram range I think it was the latter.

The fight with rematotusen was close although I think my triple trimarked tank, overheating, bigger guns and neut made the difference. Although he wasn't active tanking I believe the neut shutoff his dmg control. He had a pretty standard shield fit BUT he also had mwd fit. I used to think that mwd was a must but in lowsec I don't think it's crucial. Very seldom do I have to chase someone when I do they either aren't fast enough or they want to engage. I can warp fast enough so escaping gatecamps isn't an issue either. In his case a dead mwd meant that I had total control over range. TBH I had a lot of things going on so my range control wasn't the best. I had a slightly better range advantage with bigger guns but that advantage was to small and the margin of error was so big I couldn't manage it properly especially with that puni trying to kill me as well.

It was a great fight probably the best one I've had in awhile. In my mind I validated my fit and feel very comfortable fighting it. The neut is a critical part of my fit and there's no way I'd fight without one.

Minmatar Republic v Rifter

Rifter, Kourmonen, The Bleak Lands, 0.4
Damage Taken: 2,307

Moved from Atlar to Amamke the previous night, ended up docking in Auga. The following day I decided to take a trip to OMS, jumped through to Kournomen where I see a Claw piloted by Garr Anders (Thukker U). He's not flashy red, but I am, so I proceed to lock him up hoping he will engage. Once again being flashy red in a t1 frig is enough to talk most pilots into taking a shot.

The initial fight wasn't going well, I overheated my guns but he was to far away, we were both out of range. So I make a run for the gate thinking he may pursue which he did. I know that a fast ship is hard to control my hope was that he would wander into scram range which he did. Now the fight was on. I cycled everything scram, neut, web and overheated my guns. At this point I had him, that is until his gang showed up. I can only assume it was his gang, but I could be mistaken. 11 ships started to pound on my Rifter and of course I knew how this was going to end, all I wanted was that Claw for my Rifter. Not sure if it would have been a fair trade. I'd rather fly a Rifter on any given day and twice on Sunday. But a t1 ship for a t2 one would be a win in anyone's book. No surprise I popped and left him in 15% structure. I wonder how much longer it would have taken to kill him, maybe if I had two or three less ships pounding on me things would have been different.

Can't really comment on the tactics. I started out behind in the dps race but I quickly caught up and surpassed him getting him into structure even as his gang pounded on me. From my perspective things worked out up until the point when his gang showed up. Yes it's risky to engage ships on a gate but that's the life I live. I'm a solo pilot I fight whenever and wherever I find a willing partner.

I was flying a 400mm RTP with 3 x small trimarks and I took a hell of a pounding. I think its a good fit. Need to improve on my dps as well as my ship "integrity". Trinity is still young but still competitive, it's all about choosing the right fights.

Cleric Pain (Punisher v Rifter)

Gate baiting works. Show up at a gate all blinky red lock up a target but don't activate any mods and wait til they decide to engage or not. In this case Cleric decided to engage.

Evati, Metropolis, forget which gate.

Both of us were the same age, both t2 fit. The puni was t2 fit with blasters, nos, passive tank, no web, no rigs.

I had a few advantages:
1. Ability to control range with web and a faster ship.
2. Range, I was deep into blaster falloff.
3. I had capless weapons he did not.
4. My neut was able to keep his dps at a manageable level that plus the range were deciding factors.

Decent fight, not sure what he could have done differently other than fit some rigs. I think I took more damage than necessary, for this fight I had RF EMP loaded, maybe barrage plus another two km range would have been a better choice.

Aeonimus Kvaerner (Rifter v Rifter)

This fight took place in Ladistier one jump out from Old Man Star. Pretty blah fight considering I was fighting a 3 yr old toon with a t1 Rifter fit. I checked his stats on BC and it looks like he mainly flies Gallente, but for some reason I caught him in beginner's Rifter.

About two jumps prior to Ladistier I tried to get him to engage me on a gate, since I'm flashy red it would be totally legal for him to do so. But he refused and went on his merry way. I jumped into Ladistier with 12 in local so I warped to one of my scan spots where he shows up on scan. I didn't think much of it because there were two gates on scan as well so I figured he was still moving. I couldn't isolate any one gate because they were two close to each other and I was to far away to get any separation between them. So I warped to the OMS gate where I thought he would be waiting. Instead he wasn't there so I took the opportunity to scan the other gate, again no target. So I started scanning nearby belts at which point I located him. I warp-in and I'm about 10k away, he is ratting, but it's apparent he's seen me because he starts to move away very quickly, which made me believe he was mwd fit. I would later learn that I was right in my mwd assessment.

He was about 40k away and aligned with another belt so I decided to warp to that belt then warp back in at 30k, to my surprise he followed me to the other belt but I was in the middle of warping as he came out of warp so I missed him again. So I did the same thing warped back to the belt and passed him on the way to our original belt. This time I waited just in case he decided to comeback, but he didn't.

So I warp back to where he was ratting and land about 10k away, by the time I closed to within 7k I knew I had him. He was scrammed, webbed, and my guns were hot. I used Hail for this engagement deciding that a point blank fight was doable. Once I hit his armor I noticed he started to rep so I fired up the neut and put an end to his repping. I manually operate both my repper and the neut which IMO is the best way to manage cap especially with those cap hungry mods.

Without the ability to rep coupled with my higher dps output it didn't take long for him to melt. As a bonus I took his pod, after all I'm still reaching for -10.

His Rifter fit was almost the same as my own except he lacked rigs, t2 mods, and did not fill his last hi-slot. Well I guess without the rigs it's a significant difference. I'm sure he was pissed, I'm always pissed when I lose a ship, especially when I could have gotten away. In this case he decided to stay and take his chances which in the cost him his ship.

Dry spell over!

Well the dry spell is over. I'm always seeing threads about solo pvp mostly from newer players who can't seem to find a good fight. GF meaning they have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. A lot of advice revolves around cruising systems like Amamke or Old Man Star. My personal favorite is the long roam. More often than not I will go on roams that exceed 40 or 50 jumps. Mainly traveling the pipe between hotspots like Amamke or OMS. I figure the more systems I hit the more likely I will find a fight. And to day it paid off.

Both fights are what I call the classic Pirate or Outlaw fight. Scan down a target in a belt, jump in and start shooting.

GiFoyle (Coercer v Rifter)
There are certain ships that I will attack without hesitation the dessie class being one of them. The only thing about these ships that would give me pause is the age of the pilot, especially Thrasher pilots. I figure Thrashers are a bigger threat due their AC/Arty weapons. In that case I'm more concerned that they can match my range, neutralizing one of my advantages. But Coercers are blaster ships. I knew the key to this fight would be maintaining range.

GiFoyle Assessment:
1. Not keeping an eye on overview. From my perspective it was a slow tackle from over 10km away. Not sure if he could have gotten away but it was worth a shot.
2. I'm not an expert on the Coercer but it looks like he was setup for PvE which is what he was doing, BUT in lowsec I think it's better to be PvP fit regardless of the activity.

Self-assessment:
1. My initial range was to far, over 5km. I was not having a good effect on the target. I attribute this to my high transversal, once I turned off my AB I had a much greater effect on the target.
2. Once he hit armor I thought my SAR + cap management was pretty good. I was never in any real danger during the whole fight.
3. In the end I took his ship and pod. Of course I have to put this in perspective, he was a new pilot with what appeared to be no experience whatsoever.

Jajat (Punisher v Rifter)
Arguably two of the best T1 frigs in the game. Jajat is a little older than TN but I didn't know that prior to the fight. T1 frigs are another class of ship that I do not hesitate to engage. When I jump into a system if there are ppl in local I will always hit my scanner (which stays open while I fly) just in case there's a target of opportunity nearby. In this case Jajat was nearby but the first place I checked, a belt, was empty. So I hit the nearest planet. I was lucky to land within about 8km of him and immediately activated my mods and started my approach. I treated him like he had blasters and figured as long as I was over 3km away he'd be into his falloff. It was the right call because he hardly dealt any damage.

Jajat Assessment:
1. Don't linger at a planet for any length of time.
2. I can't comment on his fit because I believe it was a standard for a Punisher. I know that it's popular to fit AC's to a Puni but in this case he was fit like an Amarr.

Self-assessment:
1. Jajat is an older toon with what appears to be a std Punisher fit so I was very pleased with the outcome.
2. I need to get my dps skills in order, I'm fighting with the bare minimum.
3. I also need to get my nav skills in order as well.

Lessons Learned:
1. Always pay attention to local and your overview. Losing situational awareness puts you at disadvantage, seconds of dps could prove to be decisive.
2. My habit of setting up safes near planets really helps when it comes to scanning. Planets are generally in the center of belt clusters. If you are near the center belts are less likely to "bunch" up. I consider belts to be bunched up if my 5 degree scan still shows both belts, in other words I can't isolate a single belt on the scanner because it is to close to another belt.
3. Learning to use the scanner fast and efficiently is an essential pvp skill regardless of what space you are in.

In the beginning

Ok folks just another solo Rifter pilot roaming lowsec looking for customers. Thanks to Kriger for his wonderful banner artwork, convo him ingame for all your artwork needs.

Been on bit of a break while I finish up my learning skills. Like many people I started off with learning skills then quickly moved to something more relevant like pvp and support skills. Now that I've skilled up enough to fit a decent Rifter it's time to close the learning gap. For those of you who are just starting out take a look at this site Skills Roadmap to learn more about skills and what they have to offer.

Although I'm fairly young I've already racked up 26 kills with 30 losses. I must admit that some of those losses were of my own making. For example undocking while still blinking getting concorded, afk in lowsec, etc.

Unaccompanied Souls KB

Battle Clinic KB