The start of this month was not a good one for me PvP wise. The Loki I lost really p155ed me off and generally I was dying more than I was killing. Grrrrrrrrrr! My efficiency was under 50% for the month, not good at all. Sometimes when on a losing streak you should just give up and go for a pint! Trying to break that losing streak will probably only get you killed even more! In these cases - Stop. Think. Adapt. Don't Leeroy.
Anyway at the weekend (weekends for me are different days to those in the West, Sundays are a working day) my PvP has put me in a better "Eve mood". Most of it is due to two engagements I had.....
I'd gone afk a bit and came back to find I still had Drack logged on. I was about to log him off and do something else when I quickly checked local. I saw we had a single war target in system and thought I'd just give him a quick try. I undocked and warped my Hawk class Assault Ship to an open plex.... and there he was.... sat on the acceleration gate...... in a Megathron. My immediate worry was he might be a smart-bombing battleship. I mean why else would he be sat on a gate that he cannot activate with that fat-arsed BS. But a quick look at his hull showed he wasn't smartbomb fit, he was blaster fit! Phew! (Also not sure you can activate smart bombs when sat on top of an acceleration gate anyway).
I got onto comms looking for help but given the time it was very quiet. Luckily a member of SoTF was 'there' in more ways than one. He was not only on comms, but also in a Recon cloaked off the Mega also wondering what to do about it! As we discussed what we could do he warped off. We watched him go to a cluster in Nisuwa with several gates, so we each warped ourselves to a different gate to see which way he was going.
"He's not at these two gates."
"Odd he's not at this gate either."
"Mmmmm he's on D-scan to the station?"
"Warping to station, but he must be safed as he cannot dock at the station."
"HE IS AT THE STATION!"
We never thought he'd warp to station! Why would he? The Gallente Militia own Nisuwa and as a member of the Caldari Militia he won't be able to dock. I warp to the station at zero but he's still 40km off me as I'm the other side of the station having warped to a stargate first. I dock and instantly undock and now he's only 15km off me. I hit the afterburner and get point. He does nothing. The SoTF guy undocks a neuting Abbadon. The Mega does nothing for a while. I'm slamming rockets into him as the other guy neuts him down. Finally he launches a flight of EC-300 ECM drones and sets them on me. That is a major problem as I'm the one holding point and ECM drones generally work well on frigates which have lower scan strength than bigger ships. Thankfully my Hawk eats drones for breakfast with its stasis webifier and rockets. I keep the scram on the Mega whilst killing the drones with the web and rockets. As the last one pops he launches a fresh flight of EC-600's and starts to neut me. Another SoTF toon has undocked a gank Naga now that we are sure he's low on cap and as I'm popping his drones the Mega goes. I originally thought "Why didn't he neut me from the start as he could have warped off when I dropped point when capped out?". Then seeing the kill mail it was a NOS he had, not a neut.
He had a bit of a moan in local that for some reason he couldn't dock. At a wild stab in the dark, but you are new to Factional Warfare aren't you?
A couple of days later and I'm on early evening so I go sit on the outside of a plex in Hirri and wait on the acceleration gate. My plan is that in a Caldari owned system the squids that I get coming to the plex will be looking for a fight, not just running the plex down in speed-tanking ships with no guns. My first PvP "client" is an Incursus. I think its a solo kill but after he pops I see someone else had been fighting him since his last session change. Damn!
Next up is a Merlin. I get moaned at in local for flying a Thrasher. I'm used to being moaned at in local for flying a Falcon, but never a Thrasher before! Sorry for not being inside the plex with all the rat agro too! Should I swap to an Ibis as well? Mr Picky or what!
Then a Hookbill lands, but he immediately activates the gate on landing and warps into the Plex before I can get point. I'm spamming scanner to see what he does. He disappears just as a Cormorant enters my 200 million KM scan. Now, I love a threesome as much as the next guy, but can I acheive satisfaction with these two partners, a Cormorant and a Hookbill (assuming that the Hookbill bounces back)?
What the hell, its only a Thrasher and who dares, wins eh? The Cormorant lands and engages, as expected, the Hookbill is not far behind. Tracking disruptors are the name of the game in Factional Warfare currently and I'm utterly fed up with them. Those are what caused my "generalised dying" that I referred to at the start of this post. Squid double-teams of a destroyer for DPS and a frigate with TD's are fairly common through the war zone lately. Not sure if these are two people working together or single players that are dual-boxing two accounts. I'm not complaining, its legitimate tactics as far as I am concerned. This is Eve, if someone has a tactic that annoys the feck out of you, come up with a counter and go and MURDER THEM IN THE FACE!!!
This time, I'm prepared. I've changed my fitting. I've adpated to this new squid tactic.
This Thrasher is a test. I've armour tanked it allowing me to fit a tracking computer with tracking speed script in the mid that is usually holding a shield extender module. The Hookbills TD's are not having much effect on me thanks to the TC as I chew through the Cormorant. Thankfully the range we are at means his blasters are not having full effect on me whilst my projectile shells, with the better fall-off, are doing the job. The Cormorant pops and I swap to the Hookbill who goes down in short-order. I assume he thought the TD's would protect him having a much smaller sig radius than the Cormorant. May be he had effects turned off so he didn't see I had a tracking computer active. Or did he assume I was shield tanked and I was about to die as I was in low armour? Whatever he was thinking, he died thinking it.
I scooped the loot and had to GTFO of there before anyone else landed. My HUD was a mass of red. I was at 2% armour and many of my mods were sizzling from my overheating, particularly the autocannons which were particularly damaged.
I wait at a safe to get some shield back before limping back to Nisuwa to unload and more importantly repair. I am pretty sure that if I'd been in one of my other 3 clones I'd have died. Luckily I was in my "Armour tank and gun damage" clone which saved my ass.
But nice to see that there are some pilots in the Caldari miltia up for a fight!
Anyway at the weekend (weekends for me are different days to those in the West, Sundays are a working day) my PvP has put me in a better "Eve mood". Most of it is due to two engagements I had.....
I'd gone afk a bit and came back to find I still had Drack logged on. I was about to log him off and do something else when I quickly checked local. I saw we had a single war target in system and thought I'd just give him a quick try. I undocked and warped my Hawk class Assault Ship to an open plex.... and there he was.... sat on the acceleration gate...... in a Megathron. My immediate worry was he might be a smart-bombing battleship. I mean why else would he be sat on a gate that he cannot activate with that fat-arsed BS. But a quick look at his hull showed he wasn't smartbomb fit, he was blaster fit! Phew! (Also not sure you can activate smart bombs when sat on top of an acceleration gate anyway).
"He's not at these two gates."
"Odd he's not at this gate either."
"Mmmmm he's on D-scan to the station?"
"Warping to station, but he must be safed as he cannot dock at the station."
"HE IS AT THE STATION!"
We never thought he'd warp to station! Why would he? The Gallente Militia own Nisuwa and as a member of the Caldari Militia he won't be able to dock. I warp to the station at zero but he's still 40km off me as I'm the other side of the station having warped to a stargate first. I dock and instantly undock and now he's only 15km off me. I hit the afterburner and get point. He does nothing. The SoTF guy undocks a neuting Abbadon. The Mega does nothing for a while. I'm slamming rockets into him as the other guy neuts him down. Finally he launches a flight of EC-300 ECM drones and sets them on me. That is a major problem as I'm the one holding point and ECM drones generally work well on frigates which have lower scan strength than bigger ships. Thankfully my Hawk eats drones for breakfast with its stasis webifier and rockets. I keep the scram on the Mega whilst killing the drones with the web and rockets. As the last one pops he launches a fresh flight of EC-600's and starts to neut me. Another SoTF toon has undocked a gank Naga now that we are sure he's low on cap and as I'm popping his drones the Mega goes. I originally thought "Why didn't he neut me from the start as he could have warped off when I dropped point when capped out?". Then seeing the kill mail it was a NOS he had, not a neut.
A couple of days later and I'm on early evening so I go sit on the outside of a plex in Hirri and wait on the acceleration gate. My plan is that in a Caldari owned system the squids that I get coming to the plex will be looking for a fight, not just running the plex down in speed-tanking ships with no guns. My first PvP "client" is an Incursus. I think its a solo kill but after he pops I see someone else had been fighting him since his last session change. Damn!
Next up is a Merlin. I get moaned at in local for flying a Thrasher. I'm used to being moaned at in local for flying a Falcon, but never a Thrasher before! Sorry for not being inside the plex with all the rat agro too! Should I swap to an Ibis as well? Mr Picky or what!
Then a Hookbill lands, but he immediately activates the gate on landing and warps into the Plex before I can get point. I'm spamming scanner to see what he does. He disappears just as a Cormorant enters my 200 million KM scan. Now, I love a threesome as much as the next guy, but can I acheive satisfaction with these two partners, a Cormorant and a Hookbill (assuming that the Hookbill bounces back)?
This time, I'm prepared. I've changed my fitting. I've adpated to this new squid tactic.
This Thrasher is a test. I've armour tanked it allowing me to fit a tracking computer with tracking speed script in the mid that is usually holding a shield extender module. The Hookbills TD's are not having much effect on me thanks to the TC as I chew through the Cormorant. Thankfully the range we are at means his blasters are not having full effect on me whilst my projectile shells, with the better fall-off, are doing the job. The Cormorant pops and I swap to the Hookbill who goes down in short-order. I assume he thought the TD's would protect him having a much smaller sig radius than the Cormorant. May be he had effects turned off so he didn't see I had a tracking computer active. Or did he assume I was shield tanked and I was about to die as I was in low armour? Whatever he was thinking, he died thinking it.
I scooped the loot and had to GTFO of there before anyone else landed. My HUD was a mass of red. I was at 2% armour and many of my mods were sizzling from my overheating, particularly the autocannons which were particularly damaged.
But nice to see that there are some pilots in the Caldari miltia up for a fight!
Good fights. And nothing gets the blood boiling again like a good fight or two.
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