I have a Heavy Interdiction Cruiser (HIC) sat in my hanger. It is not a common ship for a low sec faction war pilot/pirate, but I do have one. In my past I have lived out in NPC Null Sec and Sov Null Sec and this HIC has travelled with me far and wide. Plus I was in Drunk 'n' Disorderly so going after supers was a common thing in the later year I was in there. I have flown it before, but the tarps for the supers have never worked when I was there. I have never 'infina-pointed' anything with it! Finally, last night I got my first kill with it!
My Devoter class Heavy Interdiction Cruiser is set up for killing supers ideally. It has a infina-point (scripted warp bubble generator), 3 small NOS, 1 medium NOS and a cyno in the highs with a cap booster, MWD and a ECCM in the mids. Why small NOS' and not something larger? Because of the tank! This thing uses most of its available power grid on providing survivability.
The lows are a DCU II, EM, Kinetic and Thermal C-Type Energised Membranes, Imperial Navy EANM and TWO 1600mm rolled tungsten plates.
With a half decent head and Legion boosts it gives you.............
200,953 EHP!
The reason for this is when you are using the infina-point you cannot receive remote reps or cap transfer. This fit is ideally designed to work as part of a team. One gets the initial point and uses the NOS to keep the point going even when under heavy neuting. As the enemy slowly crew through that epic tank, you drop point as another HIC takes over. When your point is dropped, you get reps. The DPS has probably shifted to the other HIC so when his armour is getting low, you get point back on the target so your HIC mate can deactivate his infina-point and get repped back up! Simple! o.0
So onto last night! It wasn't a super carrier but it was a HIC kill.
I was in Oinasiken running a plex in an Incursus. A Daredevil had just been 'persuaded' to leave when I got a Typhoon on scan. Strange for a Phoon to be so deep into low-sec alone..... unless he's a smartbomber!
We do get a lot of smartbombing battleships in the warzone. Many of us are flying smaller ships like frigates and destroyers and have decent pods. So some epic l33t pilots fit up a BS with a full rack of smartbombs and a full low rack of warp core stabs. Then they sit just off a gate and wait to get a ship on short scan. They then set off the bombs and hope the victim flies through it. They can be very hard to catch as to be in scram range puts you near the bomb radius and with long points, you're going to need 8 or 9 ships to snag him. Well, that is unless a HIC gets a point on him.
He was on scan to the Abune gate for far too long. Very probably a smartbomber. He then entered Nisuwa and someone reported seeing him fire a smartbomb.
Final bit of intel before I decided to act was "He just jumped into Notoras!"
A dead-end system off our home system! I said I was reshipping to a HIC and that we needed DPS on the gate to that dead-end system NOW!
Less than a minute later we have a small gate camp set up. He was a neutral so we'd take gate guns but we were all well tanked. Looking back this is when alarm bells should have started ringing in my head. Unfortunately it was late and the Strongbow had dulled my "Hang on a second o'meter' and I didn't twig that if he was a smartbombing battleship why was he positive sec-status?
We had cloaky eyes in system who D-scanned him down to a small faction war complex. Ideal spot for a smartbomber. Only frigates and destroyers warp there. So I jumped and warped to the plex. He was gone. Damn! Must have been aligned and saw me coming. I went back to Nisuwa and re-approached the gate. I was about to say we should call it quits as he's seen we have a HIC and we've got some expensive ships sat on the....
"DRACK! JUMP IN AND WARP TO PLANET 5 BELT 1!!!!"
I did without thinking "Why would he do that?". If he wanted to hide surely he'd dock up. There are three stations in there. No point going to smartbomb in a 'roid belt in low sec as not usually anyone there.
"HE'S SAT AT ZERO NOT MOVING!"
A double plated Devotor turns like a cart horse. Eventually I'm in warp. I land 10km from him and get point whilst burning to 20km. I announce point calmly.......
"POINT! GET IN HERE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
And the DPS turns up a minute later. He hasn't even bothered to shoot at me. All is going well, he's not really doing much damage to us and he is dropping fast. Well of course his DPS is low. He had to leave a high-slot free for that cyno. Wut?
CYNO!!!!!!
He has lit a cyno and I can already see in my minds-eye my very expensive HIC dying horribly in a fire. I align out to something that will keep me in point range but get me facing somewhere I can warp to. Smeg this thing turns slow. Sooooo slow. Hang on, shouldn't we have seen my impending doom jumping in by now? Nope..... still nothing...... nothing at all? We decide it was a last ditch effort to scare us off, there is no Calvary coming to save him, it is not a trap. He simply had one fitted and thought lighting it might make us run away.
He goes down quick after that and we look at the killmail. Whoops! Nope, he wasn't a smart bomber, just some random neut ratting deep in low-sec in a battleship. We (mostly me tbh) put two and two together and made 4,692. I suppose with all the stabbed ships in Black Rise recently I'm starting to assume everything has them fitted. There was no need for my HIC but I guess it was good practice!
Oh well, the is no BS kill like BS over kill!
Final bit of intel before I decided to act was "He just jumped into Notoras!"
A dead-end system off our home system! I said I was reshipping to a HIC and that we needed DPS on the gate to that dead-end system NOW!
Less than a minute later we have a small gate camp set up. He was a neutral so we'd take gate guns but we were all well tanked. Looking back this is when alarm bells should have started ringing in my head. Unfortunately it was late and the Strongbow had dulled my "Hang on a second o'meter' and I didn't twig that if he was a smartbombing battleship why was he positive sec-status?
We had cloaky eyes in system who D-scanned him down to a small faction war complex. Ideal spot for a smartbomber. Only frigates and destroyers warp there. So I jumped and warped to the plex. He was gone. Damn! Must have been aligned and saw me coming. I went back to Nisuwa and re-approached the gate. I was about to say we should call it quits as he's seen we have a HIC and we've got some expensive ships sat on the....
"DRACK! JUMP IN AND WARP TO PLANET 5 BELT 1!!!!"
I did without thinking "Why would he do that?". If he wanted to hide surely he'd dock up. There are three stations in there. No point going to smartbomb in a 'roid belt in low sec as not usually anyone there.
"HE'S SAT AT ZERO NOT MOVING!"
A double plated Devotor turns like a cart horse. Eventually I'm in warp. I land 10km from him and get point whilst burning to 20km. I announce point calmly.......
"POINT! GET IN HERE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
CYNO!!!!!!
He has lit a cyno and I can already see in my minds-eye my very expensive HIC dying horribly in a fire. I align out to something that will keep me in point range but get me facing somewhere I can warp to. Smeg this thing turns slow. Sooooo slow. Hang on, shouldn't we have seen my impending doom jumping in by now? Nope..... still nothing...... nothing at all? We decide it was a last ditch effort to scare us off, there is no Calvary coming to save him, it is not a trap. He simply had one fitted and thought lighting it might make us run away.
He goes down quick after that and we look at the killmail. Whoops! Nope, he wasn't a smart bomber, just some random neut ratting deep in low-sec in a battleship. We (mostly me tbh) put two and two together and made 4,692. I suppose with all the stabbed ships in Black Rise recently I'm starting to assume everything has them fitted. There was no need for my HIC but I guess it was good practice!
Oh well, the is no BS kill like BS over kill!
Bwahahaha!!
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