Tuesday, July 1, 2014

A Hookbill crashes the party

Frigates! Breacher, Merlin, Rifter. How hard can it be for the magnificent rail Comet? Well, not hard at all when they don't land at the same time. The Breacher went down first with the Merlin landing just as his hull was almost finished. I switched the scram to him and repeated the process, only to see the Rifter land just as the Merlin died.

Breacher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23193835
Merlin: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23193836

I had a little more trouble with the Rifter. My stupid repper wouldn't activate even though it was only 92% damaged. It took me a moment to realise that my guns were also not working. Capped out! Well, there was a lot going on. That's my excuse anyway.

I set my drones on the Rifter and manually activated the guns when possible. If he hadn't been a new player I would certainly have died.

But I didn't.

Rifter: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23193837
Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23193838

The Rifter pilot convoed me after the fight. Naturally I sent him the lecture link - but he had already read it! What's more, being an avid reader of the thread he KNEW I would be the Comet pilot and was actually warping in to help me!

I felt bad then. Under the circumstances I reckon it would have been much better if he'd managed to kill me. Anyway, it was a great little skirmish regardless.

Next time out I was watching (isn't it funny how informative dscan is when you get used to it?) an Ishkur hunting through the same systems that I was prowling through. I spotted him on short scan and had loitered long enough to ID the pilot. Hmm, the name looks familiar... Aha! He's the pilot of Atron and pod fame from post #176 (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4708882#post4708882)! Definitely gotta get him now.

He was clearly heading back down the pipe toward Ish so I hopped ahead and quickly switched to an Enyo in my home station. By the time I undocked, my intended victim had already entered the system. Even though there was nothing yet on scan I initiated warp to the Small plex, thinking it the most likely target for an Ishkur to start with.

I landed just after him. He did not have enough time to get clear and I snared him good. However, shortly after I started on him a neutral Hookbill landed on top of us. I think he was expecting us to be inside the plex and no doubt got a shock when he was scrammed and webbed by the Ishkur! I think the Ishkur knew that his own ship was lost and figured that he might as well take someone with him.

I quickly switched my single faithful Accy (yes, Hobbie has been ditched for a different damage type now that drones have been rebalanced) just to get on the Hookbill mail and watched both ships drop fast.

And then I hatched a cunning plan! I watched the Hookbill carefully and, when his hull was low, quickly switched my guns over. He popped in a single volley - a total of 239 damage received - and I stole his mail! Then I switched straight back to the Ishkur and, adding insult to injury, killed him too.

Hookbill: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23195957
Ishkur: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23195962

Haha! I linked the Ishkur pilot the Hookbill mail out of courtesy but for some reason he didn't respond. Unfortunately, I didn't get either pod but I did get a video of it for your enjoyment.

Video: http://youtu.be/aoO9hYI3UzQ

P.S. I have decided to add annotations to some of the new videos to describe what I am trying to do during the fight for noobs. I don’t think they appear on mobile so if they annoy you watch them there.

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