I always liked the Firetail

I quite like the Firetail. I’m sure I ALWAYS liked it. Who wouldn’t like the speed, selectable damage type and all those mid slots? Only a fool!

I have been getting a bit uppity lately and chasing entirely unsuitable targets. Today’s Unsuitable Target #1 was a Thorax. When I landed in a Medium and saw him at 30 km I thought he would be rail fit and already pressing F1 to pop me. Instead, he warped out before I could get into scram range. I followed him to the gate. He loitered indecisively. A good sign.

I locked him, aligned back to a plex and aggressed before warping to shed gate guns. By the time I got back to the gate he had jumped through. Disappointing. But I followed him through when my timer expired and quickly scanned him down at a cluster of gates. I guessed which one was most likely and gave chase. I guessed right!

I shadowed him for five jumps, hoping to see him at a plex until I finally caught up to him on a gate. He loitered again. This time I gave him a bit of time to aggress me. He targeted me and launched his drones but did not aggress so I eventually did the gate gun warp again. He jumped. By the time I could hop through I had pretty much given up.

Frustrating!

But there he was, 30 km off the gate. He instantly locked me when I decloaked. I locked back and approached at an angle with afterburner. He aggressed! I moved into orbit before he could blap me and immediately set to work on his drones. I orbited at 5 km to keep my speed up and webbed the little buggers before swatting them with my guns. I kept getting mixed up with my webs, accidentally turning off the one on the Thorax.

After I had worked through a few of them he de-aggressed and starting moving back toward the gate. Uh oh. I blasted through his shield with EMP and switched to Fusion for the armor. Things were going quickly now, although the gate was getting closer. Hull! Half hull! And then he jumped out. I had forgotten to keep him webbed to delay re-approach!

Bugger.

I again waited for the infernal weapons timer, hoping against hope that he would be foolish enough to hang around. When I hopped through I immediately saw his pod on dscan, located with an Incursus. He typed in local, "Zappity, this ****** stole your kill!"

"Noooo!!!", I yelled. I was not happy. But then I got a chuckle when he typed, "Kill him for me, will you?"

So I did and then sent him the mail. Incursus: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23477449

Here is the Thorax kill even though it is screwed up: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23477438

I was annoyed to lose the mail but interested to see the fit. He was rail fit after all! He missed his best opportunities, probably through lack of confidence.

Video of the first bit: http://youtu.be/Ysmpg5jY-ik

Doing justice to the Stabbed Vexor of Shame

I quite like the Vexor. I fly it like the Stratios without a cloak and a bit less DPS. And a lot less ISK. I was wandering about looking for someone to kill.

[Vexor, Vexor brawl v1]

Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

10MN Afterburner II
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II

Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I

Gecko x1
Valkyrie II x2
Acolyte II x1

612 DPS, 36k EHP

Three Caracals were loitering in the system, behaving oddly. They were sitting at perches off gates then splitting up and warping off to celestials before regrouping at the next gate. I woke up Innocent Scout, probed them down, and warped Zappity (who was sitting at the gate nearby) onto them.

Admittedly, not a great survival strategy! But it didn't matter since they scarpered instead of fighting. I thought I had caught one - very close - but I was left sitting in his exhaust, disappointed.

Next up I found a Caracal and a Vexor sitting in a Medium plex. Suspiciously similar names directed me to the killboard where I saw things which still give me nightmares. Especially the stabs on both cruisers. But I know a cure for stabs!

I docked, switched a web for the spare anti-farmer scram that I carry, and warped in. I expected both ships to be at the edge of the plex sphere, ready to flee at a moment's notice. But they were sitting right on the beacon!

Now, whenever I fit a stab (e.g. a travel fit) the last thing I want is to get into combat. Of any sort. Stabs gimp your fit too badly to be useful so I strongly suspected that the killboards had led me astray and that I was confronted with two combat-ready cruisers.

Oh well. What can you do? Keep calm and carry on, that's what. So I slapped everything on the Vexor (who was closer) and started laying into him. He melted in a most satisfactory manner! Unfortunately I couldn't kill the Caracal because he ran away too fast.

Vexor: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23470925

Video: http://youtu.be/wod8iJJAc-U

And then he told me off. Apparently:
1. I must have a pathetic life and he feels sorry for me.
2. PvPers are just wasting their time because it is only internet pixels.
3. He can make that loss back in five minutes of plexing anyway. (I translated this to “I didn’t want that Vexor anyway. Sniff.”)
4. And anyway, why do I bother? It is just for a scrap of ego boost.

In return for this valuable feedback I told him that he was wasting a slot with the omni for medium drones. He didn't respond. To be honest I haven’t really mastered smack talk. I then asked him what his primary game activity was if not PvP. I didn't get a response to that either. Instead, I was told that I had padded my killboard enough and should go away. I think he was sulking.

Unfortunately, my next move did not really cover me with glory. No, really, you'll see. The next cruiser I found was an Ishtar. I figured that I would probably die since my guns were shooting into his resists (and because Ishtar) but decided to have a go anyway. I scanned him down and sent the Vexor into warp.

I noticed that he was next to a customs office (or something) as I landed but I was more interested in tackling my target than watching the scenery. I landed the scram and webs while my intended victim just sat there, entirely unperturbed. He locked me back and started killing me.

And so did the sentry guns. Yes, the "customs office" was actually a station. Oh my goodness, I was so embarrassed. Thankfully, a gaggle of his corpies instantly undocked and started laying into me too. So I can clearly chalk this one down to being mercilessly blobbed rather than noobishly aggressing on a station.

Loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23471230

Revised view of the Firetail

Firetail! I caught I Hurricane at a large plex. First I killed his drones, then I repaired myself, and then he escaped because I wasn’t watching my cap carefully enough. It was a very frustrating loss, mostly because it was entirely my fault.

Video: http://youtu.be/OvvLo0d9sZo

I consoled myself by killing a dual-MASB Breacher (http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456187). Next, Ciba Lexlulu spotted a Thrasher and an Algos in a plex together so we warped in together and murdered the Thrasher while the Algos ran. I think he was multiboxing, panicked and lost his pod for good measure:

Thrasher: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456185
Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23456186

He convoed me afterward and promised to get his revenge. Another entry for the nemesis list!

But I’m getting distracted. Firetail! I next stumbled across a Comet but since his idea of a good fight was actually plus another Comet and a Daredevil I decided not to play. Next, I came across a Procurer in a belt. Naturally, I thought it was bait. And naturally, I bit. His drones immediately sprang into action but I saw they were T1. Hmm, maybe this isn't bait after all. I quickly chewed through them using my webs to slow them down enough to land solid hits.

Then a Merlin appeared. The pilot had previously been sitting in a Venture at the same belt and I guessed that this was a multiboxer. I stuffed up my range control and lost point on the Procurer. Still, the Merlin died quickly enough and I reapplied the scram as soon as possible.

Merlin: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458023

A flight of Hornets was dispatched just as fast as the earlier bunch and I settled down to a nice quiet meal of armour and hull. It took my little 150mm guns a while to cheese through. Just as I was getting close to a yummy pod dessert (yes, I am optimistic) another Merlin appeared! He had reshipped and come back for seconds.

I reasoned that he was probably blaster fit like the last one, and that I was considerably faster due to the lack of web on the Procurer. So I slapped one web on the Merlin and increased my orbit on the still-webbed Procurer. The Merlin followed me around, left ineffectually in my wake, while I finished off the miner.

Procurer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458024

And then I caught the Merlin and killed that, too.

Merlin #2: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23458025

Hehe, good stuff. I traded the loot back to my noobish victim, sent a few appropriate fits through, and dropped a little isk to encourage him to keep exploding. I gave him The Lecture (of course) and advised him to try some quieter systems if he really wanted to mine in lowsec.

Video: http://youtu.be/DSUAyk4XBR4

So, revised thoughts on the Firetail? I really like its speed. I really like double webs for multiple target control. I really like the selectable damage type. I just need to find some more worthy adversaries to test it against. And I should probably play with a dual prop fit some time.

Hunting a nullbear that wasn't

I was determined to find more Firetail fights. Absolutely determined. Until the aptly-named Innocent Scout found a wormhole leading to nullsec. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to poke my head in there?

I have been getting a little bored with my routine lately. It is so easy to get solo small ship fights in lowsec that I have lost my hunting edge. I rarely need to go more than a few quick jumps to find a fight. Sure, I manipulate fights around plexes but those are with (at least somewhat) willing participants.

Actually, come to think of it I'm not sure I ever had a hunting edge to start with. I used to be adept at probing sites down but never really used those skills to hunt people. And the last time I found myself behind some combat probes it took FAR too long to get a result.

Innocent Scout hopped through the hole and found herself surrounded by drone sites in Outer Passage (a most unfortunate name). Brothers of Tangra - aren't they renters? Whatever. Zappity followed shortly after in her Stratios.

Oops! Once away from the colourful overview bustle of Ishomilken I noticed that Zappity was flashing a most conspicuous yellow icon in local. Hmm. I guess they wouldn’t be very used to that around here. And sure enough, the couple of Caracals I had spotted on dscan had already tucked their tails between their legs and run back to their station. I decided to cloak in their system until the timer had worn off.

I used the time to check Dotlan for a nice ratting system. The region looked pretty rubbish to my admittedly uneducated eye but at least there was a system a couple of jumps away with a few hundred recent NPC kills.

With Innocent Cheetah scouting the route Zappity's slower cruiser evaded most of the nasty bubbles. The destination system was fully bubbled on entry with half a dozen pilots in local. Maybe I should put Innocent in an inty to help with this sort of thing. Or perhaps put Zappity in a nullified Proteus.

Anyway, I slowboated both ships out of the bubble under cloak and took my time checking out the system. Of course I forgot to do all the sensible things like check for wrecks and suitable sites. Instead, I watched a mining fleet on dscan warp away from their site.

Oh well. I wandered to the other side of the system. Where I saw a Gila. Surely he would be safe at a moon. But I needed the practice so I warped the Cheetah out of dscan range, dropped some probes, and scanned him down. I got him on the second scan and the Cheetah, already aligned in the general direction, soon landed at 20km range.

Oh. Not at a moon and a 2008 character. I closed to 5km range and launched Zappity. The Cheetah was safely at a safe long before Zappity landed. I deactivated cloak a few seconds before landing to shed the lock delay. An overheated scram snared the Gila before he could scarper.

Now I will admit to not being too sure about my chance of success. I have checked the Gila out in PYFA and it is a nice ship. But what is the point of having a Stratios if you aren't going to explode it in some stupid way!

The Geckos started hammering him pretty hard. But his Hammerheads weren't doing too badly at all and my shield disappeared almost immediately. I was surprised to see that I wasn’t very effectively controlling range and wondered about his fit. I finally broke through his shield when I was already bleeding through into hull. Not a moment too soon!

Gila: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23459022

Ha! And as you can see, that is a PvP fit, not a ratting fit. I'll be honest now and say that I probably wouldn't have taken him on if I had realised that. Is his fit bad? I am going to go ahead and say that it must be. This is because I read that the Stratios is bad and anyone who flies one is bad and should feel bad about being bad especially because of the cloak which is useless for PvP. But apparently the Gila is OP. So I'm confused because he died and I didn't.

Anyway, I was quite proud of that kill until I remembered all the things that I should have done differently. What damage do people usually apply to those drone rats? What do people fighting them tank against? And where was my mobile depot for repping up after the fight? Why was I in my mid-grade snake clone? It should have been clean, or at least the slave set for an extra 10k EHP! Oh dear, what a noob.

Still, all's well that ends well. So back to Ishomilken for some well deserved TLC on the old armour. And hull. I am glad that I kept the double webs on my Stratios fit. The drone tracking whatsit only improved the Gecko damage by about 5% on SiSi so I chose to keep them plus a cap booster.

Video: http://youtu.be/86kffEony5U

Baiting a highsec bear

The astute reader (that’s you) would have noticed that my stories tend to be a few weeks out of date. This is because my playing time is irregular and I try to do my best to keep you entertained with at least a modicum of regularity. But you will also have noticed that Zappity is currently a shameful NPC poster. This deserves some immediate explanation.

Things had become a bit stale for me in lowsec (entirely my fault - I am lazy) and I had a growing desire to visit RvB in highsec. You might remember that I started this character in RvB before diving into lowsec. It was great fun and a good way to get used to the initial PvP shakes. I found myself wondering how accurate my recollections from that time were now that I have a little more experience.

I left a note on the Stay Frosty forums (because I was sure I will be back before too long - it is a truly magnificent corp for, amongst other types, the casual solo and small gang player) and clicked Apply on Blue Republic, which had fewer members than Red Federation.

At this point I have to give serious props to CCP for the tags for sec feature. A few short jumps from Jita and 250m isk (or thereabouts - I wasn't paying much attention) later, I had jumped from -9.0 to 0.5. I wanted that extra bit of buffer above -2.0 because you never know when the urge to commit a crime will become overwhelming.

I’ll post more about my short RvB adventures later but in brief, I got bored again and decided to give wormhole life a try. Thinking that my clones all looked far too shiny for space with bubbles I trained up Advanced Infomorph Whatsit a few points and hopped into EACS to drop a few new clones around the map.

And here I am, kicked from EACS after the allotted time and awaiting acceptance to Stay Frosty’s sibling wormhole corp. It is taking a while. Maybe I am a security risk.

But before we return to scheduled programming, here is a highsec story. I decided to take advantage of Zappity’s newly acquired security status by baiting some mission runners. Sounds like a job for the Incursus! I figured that the T1 frigate was not going to be threatening for your average highsec bear and the reps are very impressive.

[Incursus, Zappity’s dual rep v1]

Small Armor Repairer II
Small Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 150
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Acolyte II x1

Now, before we go any further please note that this fit didn’t actually work so please watch for revisions.

Zappity and Innocent Scout made their way to the nearest NPC kill-rich system. Gnosis on dscan - good enough. I renamed by Incursus to the not-so-subtle “Loot Sweet Loot” and was soon in warp.

The Gnosis character was from 2007 and showed his confidence by yellow boxing me as soon as I landed in his mission. Two seconds after I looted the nearest wreck he red-boxed me! We’re on! I angled in under afterburner and was soon in a tight orbit. His drones and the nasty NPCs were both hitting me pretty hard and by the time I reached him a decent chunk was missing from my armour. I activated the reps which I really should have just started immediately and spent the next five minutes managing cap, reps and drone targets.

I was at a slight disadvantage because I had lost my overviews with the recent Hyperion patch and had forgotten to set up a Drones tab. But that was not the fault of my opponent. The Gnosis and the NPCs managed to get into my hull at one point, so most of the fight was spent with the Incursus wrapping a smoky trail around the Gnosis.

Things finally settled down after all his drones were dead. So I settled down for the long haul, plinking away at his passive shield tank. Unfortunately, my opponent was wise to the ways of the highsec mission baiter and continued killing the NPCs to reduce the incoming damage.

It soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to break his tank, especially since my guns were already crispy from earlier overheating. I stopped firing and tried to repair them only to realise that I didn’t have any nanite paste in the hold. What a noob. I toyed with the idea of getting Innocent Scout to drop some off but thought better of it and, instead, started up a ransom convo!

I felt a bit bad about that because there was no way I could have actually killed him and my threats about being satisfied with the killmail if my demands were not met were quite empty. Regardless, he bit on the offer and we negotiated the princely sum of 40m. He paid and I immediately warped away. We chatted for a while longer and I confessed that I might not have been able to break through his regen. He agreed but said that I had done so well to manage his drones (with a smoking hull, what’s more) that I deserved a reward. I agree!

That was a lot of fun but I suspect it was a case of beginner’s luck with how easy it was to get a rise out of my target. And I clearly need more DPS. Props to Quathette for taking the fight - good stuff.

Killed by a Firetail

Another day, another Stratios gank:

Caracal: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23432601

Hardly worth mentioning to be honest. He wasn't even a PvPer by the look of things. I even caught his pod despite the enormous cruiser lock time.

Pod: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23432602

I spent a while looking for fights in the 250mm rail Thorax but nothing doing. Eventually I jumped back in the Comet and murdered a kiting Slicer by keeping him interested long enough to slingshot him. I have found that by delaying use of the armour repper until I am nearly in hull sets the hook deep in a kiter. And then they die if I manage to land a scram:

Slicer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23448297

Then I got my comeuppance in the form of a Firetail. Yes, a Firetail killed my Comet:

Loss, Police Pursuit Comet: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23448481

Well, I didn't think that was possible with the Comet reps. I can't remember the last time a Firetail killed my Comet and, to be honest, I didn't take it seriously.

Needless to say I am now interested in the Firetail again, despite the scorn I poured upon it a few posts ago. Unfortunately, I didn't record the fight but he used 150mm autos and a vamp. Also, I couldn't pull range even with overheated afterburner and an attempt to sling away. It was almost certainly a double web fit and this meant that my tracking was rubbish. Finally, I noticed that it was active armour. So that pretty much limits things to something like this:

[Republic Fleet Firetail, 150mm dps]

Gyrostabilizer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II

150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
Small Nosferatu II

Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
Small Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I

Rigs are more or less to flavour but I figured I would want a bit of extra reach (ambit) for when I was scram kiting and a bit more tracking (metastasis) for close orbits and drones. I am going to lose a few fits like this before deciding on the Firetail (again). Anyway, Jita prices just crashed through my long term low buy order so I now have hundreds of them! The Minmatar farmers are still driving prices down so I'll probably have them for a while, too.

Zappity's first miner gank

I had just finished posting in a thread entitled “Random Kindness in EVE”, saying that I was usually kind to noobs in lowsec because I didn’t want to scare them away, when a call went out for people to go and gank a Hulk in our 0.5 highsec border system, Usi. I was only three jumps out so I hastily changed the route back to Ish. I had a few Catalysts fitted in station (not specifically fitted for ganking but close enough) so I put them up on corp contract and joined the correct fleet.

Now, I have never ganked anyone before (not unless you count farmers) but have always wanted to at least once to get a bit of perspective. It was with excited anticipation that I formed up on the gate and waited for the order to jump into highsec. Ugh…highsec. I don’t like the nasty “You are a criminal so bugger off” message that pops up when I jump in. And I REALLY don’t like the fact that I can’t just shoot whoever I feel like.

Except just now, of course :)

We held cloak and were fleet warped onto the target. Really, four Catalysts was overkill for this Hulk but they are cheap at just over a million each so who cares? I tackled him and started firing! He exploded long before the rozzers showed up. Unfortunately I missed his pod but easily got my own capsule away.

Hulk: https://zkillboard.com/kill/39845875/

Whew, that was a rush! But I can’t imagine it holding my attention too long - it wasn't even as challenging as killing a farmer. Anyway, I did manage to capture my first gank for posterity:

Video: http://youtu.be/qqKugHn4h5Q