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.