Stormy May Day

April is done and dusted and was by far my best month yet! Here's a quick summary of the month:

Kills: 55 (0.99B)
Losses: 19 (0.32B)
Efficiency: 75.27%

Essence has been kind and I had a lot of fun shooting noobs with a few good fights in between. On the first of May however, I found myself in Minmatar space. Dal to be exact. It was two days after killing the Vengeance and I was determined to get another kill in the Wolf.

I found a few faction warfare pilots on my roam, all of which ran at the sight of my mighty Wolf. I decided to try and camp the warfare plex, hoping to prey on unsuspecting pilots that warp in. I was barely there when I noticed a Stabber Fleet Issue on scan. There was no celestials on d-scan so I figured it was going to land in the plex. I had little time and was desperately trying to answer a simple question: "Fight or flight?"

An SFI is very fast, so it would be kiting I figured. Bare in mind that I had, and still don't have, any solid info on SFI's. So I figured if it landed on top of me I could shoot it down up close. My decision was made, if it lands close to me, fight. Long distance from me though and I'll be warping to a pre-aligned celestial.

It landed close enough and I immediately locked up and activated my pre-heated modules. He responded by activating his modules too and launched a fleet of drones. Webbed to a standstill and being torn apart by medium AC’s and Warrior II's, I realized in dismay that "flight" was the better option. Needless to say, my Wolf didn't make it.

The next day I jumped back into my clone in Essence. There I had some luck, together with Sorn, ganking a noob who wandered into low sec. I was looking for something a little more thrilling though, and soon found what I was looking for in the form of an Ishkur. I warped with my Malediction and engaged the Ishkur. After the fight, I realized that I could easily have run away. This was something I rarely thought of in the heat of battle and could've saved me a lot of ships in the past. Definitely something to work on.

After that loss I decided to jump back into the good ol' Rifter. I headed into Tusker turf, and asked for a 1v1. Abellona accepted my challenge and soon we battled. It soon became very apparent that she was kiting. I didn't even get a shot off before I got popped. I was in scramble and web range for a brief moment in the beginning of that fight but I forgot to lock on to my opponent and missed the chance to get close and personal. This too is something to work on as I find myself locking on way too late in a fight. Abellona, being an honourable pirate and all, said she felt dishonorable for kiting in an arranged fight. I told her that it was all good, but soon she asked me to dock and gave me a fitted Rifter. Not one to turn away a free ship I accepted and went on my way.

After a few more noob killings in that Rifter, I headed back to Heild. There I hopped into a Rifter and went out looking for a fight. Sid Afraldir, a corp mate, reported that he saw a Drake ratting in his system but needed more DPS to take down its beastly shields as he was only flying a Rifter himself. I was the only one close and responded to the call, hoping for a fail fit on the Drake. On my way over he reported that the Drake docked. Soon after he saw an Incursus in system too, and as I arrived at the neighbouring system, he called point on the Drake. I hurried over, but as I was warping to Sid's location he died thanks to the Drake and Incursus teaming up. I landed on station with them and Sid's wreck. I locked up. They did the same, but didn't engage. I grabbed Sid's loot and warped to the sun.

The Drake landed and I started an orbit that would keep my speed high as to avoid missile damage. The I started working on the drones. I dispersed three Hobgoblin II's and was working on the fourth when the Incursus landed. Here is the point where I made my biggest mistake. Instead of dropping aggression on the drone and immediately working on the Incursus, I tried to finish off the drone first. The Incursus was webbing me and hitting the drone became tough. The Drake's missiles started hitting hard, along with the blaster assault of the Incursus. The fourth drone went down and I immediately engaged the Incursus. By now my armour buffer was getting thin and I was racing to at least kill the Incursus. It was low in armour, but my Rifter finally gave in to their battering.

I left that fight with a big smile on my face. That was the type of fights to be losing. My mind was racing with the "what if's" and "I coulda's." The big question was whether I could have relieved the Drake pilot of his drones if I had killed the Incursus. It wasn't doing much damage with its missiles before I got webbed and if I survived the drone fleet, could I have taken the tank on the Drake? Not if it was well fitted, but you never know. I docked and got into another Rifter, but I didn't find anything else that night.

The next day I teamed up with Sorn. We both wanted to try out our Hurricanes, and decided it would be best if we teamed up and had a little roam. Judge Sarn also joined us a little later but our roam ended back in Heild without us finding anything.

Then, after some discussions about ship fittings, me and Judge traded. I gave him my Jaguar for his Wolf. Once I had the Wolf fitted I decided it was time to get it a kill. Me and Judge was warping around the system chasing stuff, until I found a Vexor at the local plex. I engaged, but knew he had a fleet in system. I was hoping to get rid of the Vexor before they warped in. Judge, knowing about the fleet was hesitant to warp in, and I also recommended him not to. The fight went horribly wrong as I hit his armour and wasn't able to dent it at all. As I got destroyed, Peri Simone, another rebel, landed and engaged. This too ended in a loss to him and then Judge, probably after taking another shot of whiskey, valiantly charged at the Vexor, with Sorn also on his way in his Hurricane. I docked, grabbed the only thing I had fitted, a Rifter, and hurried back to the plex. Judge went down. I landed and saw Sorn shooting at the Vexor with more success than us. I also engaged but then the Vexor's fleet dropped. Sorn's ECM drones kicked in just in time for him to make his escape. Then my little Rifter got raped.

It was only after the fight that I remembered that the Vexor pilot had a linky alt in a Legion in system. Ugh, I hate those, but all's fair I guess.

After that me and Judge had a little Rifter showdown. Judge in his shield fit and me in my armour buffer fit. Thinking he'd try and get range on me, I switched to Barrage mid-fight. That was probably the worst thing I could have done and Judge came out the victor. We docked up and headed straight for the pub. With a whiskey in his hand and a brandy in mine, we discussed fittings and strategies for our favourite ship, the Rifter. As I passed out on my bed I remember wondering if May would stop kicking my ass soon...

Vengeance at last!

First of all I want to start the post by linking this:

 >>>>AT LAST!!!<<<<<

The Vengeance has eluded my killboard for quite some time now. I've always known my Wolf can take one down with relative ease, but the circumstances never played out right. This one was piloted by a fairly new pilot and he still gave me a run for my money. Especially because I forgot to turn on the afterburner...but screw it, I'm taking this kill and putting it on my hall of fame!

Now I still need to bring down a Harpy...not the easiest of assault frigates to bring down, but doable. I’ve managed to drain its capacitor before and barely made an escape. I’ve learned much since and keeping range (not easy with a wolf) while draining its capacitor should do the trick, if I remember to fit the right ammo.

Also on the Wolf hit list, I managed to snag two Wolf vs Wolf kills against an older pilot than myself. I was filled with immense pride but somehow I didn't ever post about them.

The first one was when Vavie asked for a 1v1. I wanted to say no, but felt inclined being a rebel and all. I undocked, fully expecting to lose my Wolf. Battle commenced and I came out the victor!

The second encounter was when I saw Vavie again, this time docked with me without his usual fleet standing by. I undocked and so did he and we duked it out right there. It looked bad for my Wolf, but my nuets soon took its toll on Vavie’s capacitor and his armour repairer couldn’t save him from my projectile assault.

I’ve had moments of intense stupidity too, most of which I’ve blogged about. My three worst cases of total retarded behaviour was losing ships to sentry fire. I lost a rupture when killing a cyno and subsequently got stuck on the station. I lost a Wolf when I forgot about my GCC and undocked while my attention was away to load some songs for my planned roam. My last one was when I ordered my ship to warp and jump into a high sec island while I was helping Creed to scan down a battleship. I was reminded that my ship was hanging in high sec by the screaming alarms of a dying shield. I tried to warp out but it was in vain, the ship exploded and my mood was sour.

In other news, my Hurricane sleeper destroyer worked out fine. The only problem was getting into range with my autocannons fast enough as Sorn’s Drake could hit from far away. I might fit some artillery cannons when sleeper hunting with Sorn to speed things up on my side. The tank held brilliantly though and soon we did about 4 sites before being chased out of the hole. The rewards was pathetic though as we only managed to salvage 4 nanoribbons.

I’m starting to find little to no targets in Essence these days, and seeing as Hadozeko houses my only remaining Wolf, I have jumped there to find some targets. I might even go planet side for some good old fashioned hunting in between my pirating lifestyle. I enjoy roaming around in dense woodlands with nothing but an old-earth 12ga Shotgun. It relates to a primitive form of hunting noobs in space.

I doubt that I’d be writing about my hunting excursions anytime soon though, and hope that my next post will be full of awesome spaceship kills, and not about any derpy sentry gun losses.

Taking no Bull in 2012!

Have you heard? Or maybe you’ve seen it? Most certainly you’ll soon feel it! What the hell am I talking about? I’m talking about Bull 2012! Jet cans spreading the word have sprouted up everywhere. You must have at least noticed them, surely? Or the increase in Concord patrols? No? Man, you gotta wake up and read the news brother!

Don’t worry man, I got your back. Here, have a flyer:

Now run along and warn your loved ones. Things might turn violent soon. You have been warned...

Rock you like a Hurricane

Recently I made a return to wormhole space along with Sorn Nordvind. You can read about our exploits on his blog post here. Needless to say, the crave for sleeper wrecks and glorious nanoribbons have returned,  but I wasn’t happy with my Hurricane fit.

I reread my old posts and reviewed old lossmails. I remembered Immortalus, my old workhorse, and how fond I was of its passive shield tank. I then read in one of my posts that its passive shield tank didn’t hold under heavy sleeper fire. I loaded the simulation of the old fit and started tweaking.

[Hurricane, Immortalus]

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I

Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Extender II

Experimental 10MN Afterburner I

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Gyrostabilizer II

Power Diagnostic System II

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

This is the old fit. I immediately noticed the huge EM hole and the less extreme Thermal hole. I need to take care of these holes first but also wanted to up my overall resistance without messing up the passive recharge time of my shields. After a lot of trial and errors, I came up with this:

[Hurricane, Aegis]

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

425mm AutoCannon II, Phased Plasma M

Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I

Salvager II

Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Extender II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Gyrostabilizer II

Damage Control II

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

I swapped the Power Diagnostic system with Damage Control and added another Invulnerability Field in the place of the afterburner. This boosted my overall resistance. The lack of prop mods is concerning, but I can create a bookmark 150km off the centre of the sleeper site and warp to and from it to get into range of the sleepers. This also means I’m a little safer as I’ll always be aligned to a celestial or my bookmark. Should I receive visitors the instant warp should save my life. It just means I’ll have to do some extra scouting beforehand. (thanks to the Ministry of Inappropriate Footwear for that suggestion). I also plugged the EM hole by removing one Field Purger Rig and swapping it with an Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer. Yes, that messes up my recharge rate a bit, but I’m counting on the plugged hole to make up for it.

Now my only concern is the frigates. I think used to be able to shoot them (at least I said so in my posts) and my Gunnery skills have improved somewhat since back then. Should it be a problem I could always swap the Gyro for a Tracking Enhancer or switch to smaller autocannons.

Once I was happy with my new creation and I shipped the parts I needed into low sec, I took it out for a test flight. I wanted to pop its cherry on a battleship rat but I just warped to a belt when Sorn reported a Harbinger ratting. I turned the heavy battlecruiser around and warped back to the station to get into something fit for the job. Sorn declared point with his Rupture and I was just about to dock when I suddenly realized that my Malediction wasn’t going to dish out nearly enough damage. Sorn had point, the Hurricane’s got DPS...I’ve already wasted a lot of time, I flung the ship around again and warped towards Sorn.

“How you holding up?”

“Not good, might have to disengage soon.” I didn’t have any warp jamming device and had no prop mods, if Sorn left, so would he.

“Did he point you?”

“No,” said Sorn as I was about to land, “Warping out.”

I landed next to the Harbinger and Sorn was already gone. I locked him and unleashed the full fury of my 425mm Autocannons. To my surprise he locked me up and had me pointed. The shield tank held brilliantly, I never went lower than 70% shields and his armour buffer was running out. If we don’t point him soon we’ll surely lose him.

“Can you come back and point this guy? Think he might warp out soon.”

“Already warping in.”

Sorn landed, but so did another Hurricane. Now I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I decided that if I was going to go up in a ball of flames, so was the Harbinger! The Hurricane locked me, but didn’t aggress.

“Did the Hurricane point you Sorn?”

“Yeah.”

This was great news...for the Hurricane at least. With the Harbinger about to go down and me already aligned to a celestial, it meant I could get out of the fray. I declared my intension to flee and pretty soon the Harbinger was destroyed. I barely entered warp when Sorn reported a fleet of battlecruisers just dropped. I bounced from the celestial to the station and offered to pay half of his loss. Comms was quiet for a while, then came Sorn’s calm voice:

“I got out.”

We both burst out in laughter and docked up. We drank a few rounds at the bar to celebrate while we waited out our GCC.

***

We tried the same strategy yesterday against a Prophecy. I was tackling in my wolf and Sorn brought DPS in his wormhole Drake. It was soon apparent that my wolf wouldn’t make it as the drones bit hard while I was webbed down to a standstill. I couldn’t hit them either and it was all too late when I realized that I was flying in a straight line towards the prophecy, allowing him to get heavy hits on my Wolf’s armour.

The Drake arrived just in time to see the Wolf pop. I went into station to find another ship to help Sorn with. Sorn reported two Hurricanes landing on him and there was nothing I could do.

I donated some money towards a new wormhole Drake for Sorn as I feel like I could have done a better job tackling that Prophecy. I'm hoping to get into a wormhole soon. With Sorn in a Drake helping me, I'm sure we'll make large amounts of ISK.

Thou shalt smite them with Malediction!

Droooooooool....

Malediction
Hull - Executioner Class    
Developer - Khanid Innovation
Role - Interceptor

Interceptors utilize a combination of advanced alloys and electronics to reduce their effective signature radius. This, along with superior maneuverability and speed, makes them very hard to target and track, particularly for high caliber turrets.
In addition to robust electronics systems, the Khanid Kingdom's ships possess advanced armor alloys capable of withstanding a great deal of punishment. Generally eschewing the use of turrets, they tend to gear their vessels more towards close-range missile combat.

It’s not only a nice looking ship, but also an effective brawler. I’ve finally finished training for this beauty and soon had it fitted for combat.

[Malediction, Batwing]

Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket
Small Nosferatu II

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator

Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Damage Control II

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Nanobot Accelerator I

I've decided on a repper fit as the plates would slow me down considerably. I’m still not too happy using the armour rigs and I’m currently experimenting with missile rigs to increase speed and DPS at the expense of repair amount. Its armour is paper thin though, so repairing damage effectively and resisting incoming damage is essential to survival. The DPS output of the rockets are low, so facing an active tanked opponent will probably leave you shooting at an unbreakable wall.

vs Firetail
Once fully fitted I asked Sorn for a structure race against his Firetail. We headed for the nearest planet and engaged. I decided to orbit at 5km, allowing my nos to fill my capacitor as the armour repairer would suck it dry once activated. Sorn wasn’t hitting too hard though and I thought this fight would be over soon. Then I noticed my ship take a straight line away from  the Firetail, and projectiles ripped huge holes in my armour. He was approaching me directly, giving my auto pilot a tough time finding orbit. Thinking fast I started manual piloting, flying in a rough square around the Firetail. Unknowingly, I was entering and exiting nos range, and his armour repairer was eating his cap while I only had to burst mine. We soon ceased fire as Sorn hit structure, and I was pleased with my new toy.

vs Helios
Sorn was flying a Rupture while I sported my Malediction. I was scouting one system ahead when I noticed a Helios appear on D-scan towards the sun, along with his probes. I warped to the sun but the Helios was gone, but his probes was still sitting 40km from me. Time to see how fast this thing can go I thought and I overheated my afterburners and headed straight for the probes, hoping to uncloak the Helios. It burned down the distance quickly and the Helios uncloaked, I locked up and pre-engaged the scrambler. The scrambler did not activate however, and I watched in dismay as the Helios warped off. This glitch has caused me to lose a pod before, annoyed I continued looking for something else.
To my surprise I found the Helios pilot again and I managed to scramble him this time. I held him and waited for Sorn to come along so we could destroy it together.

vs Rupture
After the Helios kill we didn’t find anything to shoot at. Tired and bored we headed back to our base where I asked Sorn for another quick scrap. He didn’t want to lose any of his T2 drones and he didn’t activate his neuts either, so I won’t call this one a victory. I did however manage to tank the incoming damage from the medium autocannons.

Malediction and Rupture vs Rupture
After we were done fighting each other we noticed Sgt Hunny in local sporting a Rupture. We soon landed on her. Sorn took the heavy hits from Sgt Hunny, leaving me to deal with the drones. We decided that I’d take the drones out while Sorn worked on the Rupture. Pretty soon though, Sorn declared that he was in structure and about to explode. I decided I’d stop shooting the drones and focus on the Rupture. Sorn had him low in armour by this time and I overheated my rockets, my afterburner and my nos. Sorn exploded soon after and I was left facing the Rupture alone...or what was left of it at least.
The drones were already stinging hard, and though the Rupture wasn’t hitting me for much damage, the nuets were devastating my capacitor. I overheated my nos, getting just enough juice to keep my scrambler and repper active. With my afterburner down I started taking more damage from the Rupture’s autocannons, but it was too little too late as the Rupture succumbed to my rockets.
Still, this guy did very well considering he faced two opponents. Reviewing the killmails I noticed I landed on Sorn’s lossmail because of our earlier engagement.

vs Harpy and Rifter and Blackbird
To make a long story short, I decided to fix up my Malediction before heading off to bed. I noticed a fleet which I knew was overpowering. Saftsuze, also in local declared that he’d try and split them up. Me being brave decided that I’d do the same, and got caught by a Harpy after some dumbass flying on my part. The Blackbird landed soon after and I couldn’t even fire a rocket before getting my ass handed to me.

vs Exequror
Found this guy mining and decided to kill it before I jump cloned. Got his pod too.

vs Harpy
I realized how well the Malediction ran 2/10 angel plexes and was on my way to run the Heild plex when I noticed a Harpy on scan. Not knowing what my Malediction can do, I warped in and engaged. I won’t even describe the fight as it was mere seconds till I turned and ran for my dear life. Luckily he didn’t scramble me as I would’ve been toast if he did. I didn’t even dent his shields.

vs Vengeance
These have been a thorn in my side for some time now. I found this one while hunting a mining Scythe and Skiff (I caught the Skiff twice but it was stabbed, and the Scythe was pre-aligned and warped almost immediately). I engaged the Vengeance and we danced the danced...and we danced...and danced....and danced. It was apparent that we were in a stale mate of sorts, and after I left my rockets overheated till they melted, decided to disengage. We’ll call this one a draw.

vs Scythe
This was a new player that entered system after the other Scythe and Skiff pilots logged. I landed on grid, he warped to planet and I intercepted.

vs Wolf
Plexing in Hrober almost certainly meant an encounter with DPSka. I was expecting an Enyo, but she came in with a Wolf. Another short fight, the Wolf’s damage output combined with its nuet proved deadly.

vs Pilgrim and Ares and Stiletto and Nemesis
For some reason I decided it a good idea to poke my nose into null sec. It was soon apparent that there would be no targets to face in my Malediction and I headed back to low sec. It was the last gate before freedom and I got pulled into a bubble. I was 40km off gate and the pilgrim started locking. I overheated my afterburner and got my transversal up high, soon the rest of the fleet landed. I was making good progress to the gate, by golly I was gonna make it! The Stiletto got close...and I decided to take a shot at him. Not doing any damage I arrive at gate. I even got cocky in local by saluting. I tried jumping but nothing happened.
It suddenly dawned upon me that engaging in combat leaves you unable to dock or jump for a minute. The big guns weren’t close yet so I entered orbit of the gate, de-aggressed and hoped to avoid getting exploded for a minute. It was going great, but my capacitor was running low from the use of my repper. No worries though, I can just use my nos on the Stiletto...one facepalm later I was warping off in my pod. While sitting in a safe I decided that the fastest way back to a ship is with the destruction of my pod. I charged into their gatecamp and waited to enter my new body.

I built up a new Malediction...made it blingy. I’ll probably regret it when it ultimately explodes, but I want better range on my nos. Now I can keep an orbit of 8km while using all my modules. Hopefully it works...just won’t attack any Assault Frigates any time soon...

A Century of Kills

100 kills under the BRRC flag! As a cherry on top, my 100th kill was a solo reaper kill! Thank you to Sorn for offering to sit that one out, allowing me to have my "golden killmail"! Ryuu McLoud wasn't all that happy to lose his Procurer and started whining in local. Me and Sorn put an end to that. (technically that was my 100th kill, but don't kill the mood you technical bastard!) We started a fleet of rookie ships consisting of me (Reaper), Sorn (Inquisitor) and Tomba (Velator), but didn't find anything to shoot at.

Miura Bull, leader of our merry band of thugs, started writing a series of all the BRRC blogs out there. We’ve got about 25 or so bloggers in corp. My blog also appears on the post and I thank you Miura for the great advertisement and the excellent review. Go over there and read about the other great bloggers in our corp.

My dormant wormhole addiction has resurfaced, but with Creed Corbett out of action for a while, I’ll have a tough time probing for myself. I've loved exploration since the day I launched my first probe! I'm determined to make it my main source of income. Sorn Nordvind and I have started talking ship fittings for C1 and C2 wormholes, he even went and bought himself a Prophecy. I'm very tempted to jump into WH space myself over the weekend...

...but I'm getting my first Malediction Saturday...

...will my next post be about PvP or exploration? I don’t know! Guess you and I will both have to wait and see.

Clash of Rifters

I’ve been flying in Essence a lot recently. Sorn Nordvind (he just started blogging himself, go read it – here) suggested that Essence was a good place to find fights so I went up there to see for myself. He was right, and there wasn’t any lack of BRRC presence either. Whenever me and Sorn fleet up we are soon joined by fellow rebels to join in the good times.

This morning while flying alone in my Rifter, I found a fight that had me on the edge of my seat. I was on my way to drop off the Rifter in Vitrauze, my makeshift base of operations, when another outlawed Rifter pilot landed near me. I decided to engage him, and he did the same. He was just out of my scramble and web range, my bullets didn’t touch him while he was slowly punching dents into me. I was being kited, and knowing the 400mm plates on my Rifter was slowing me down considerably, I cursed myself for engaging my turrets too soon, cutting off my escape route through the gates.

Then I noticed the 15km distance between us turn into 14km, still just out of my range. I overheated the afterburner and soon he was within overheated web and scramble range (yeah, everything was overheated). The distance closed quickly then and my overheated turrets devastated his Rifter. My speed fell dramatically as he activated his web on me. He went into structure first with me close behind him, but he was pulling distance from me and I wasn’t hitting as hard anymore. It was nail biting as we hit deeper into each other’s hulls. Then disaster struck me. I was still overheating my web and my scrambler, and the web melted completely. I watched in dismay as he pulled away from me. Soon I was warping my pod away.

GF’s was exchanged in local and we discussed our mistakes. I didn’t turn off overheat on my webber and scrambler. He in turn didn’t overheat his afterburners, which allowed me to catch him. This explains why he was pulling distance from me after I got close. It felt good to have an experienced pilot tell you he was on a high after the fight. I too was feeling renewed love for the ever trusty Rifter, and imported 10 fitted Rifters from Jita immediately after.

What lessons can I take from this fight?

• Gate/Station engagements needs extra care. When the fight started my itchy trigger finger cost me a quick escape plan through the gate. In a recent post I explained how I lost a Wolf when I engaged at a gate. Here again was the perfect opportunity to drop a blob on me (and yeah, people do that to a Rifter). Also, if he did overheat his AB then I would have had no chance to fight at all, escaping through the gate would have been my only option.
• Think about your ammo. Yes it takes 10 seconds to load, but I’m almost sure I had ten seconds to change ammo while I was chasing him. Though I’m unsure if Barrage would have saved me at all in this encounter. I was doing much more damage than he was up close with my Republic Phased Plasma. If I was loaded with Barrage, that would not have been the case. From a distance he would have had better DPS even if I did have Barrage loaded, simply because he probably had rigs and modules to increase his falloff.
• 400mm plates are heavy. With a max speed of eight hundred and something, I should stop thinking I’m fast at all. 200mm plated fits and shield fits are all faster than me. I should enter the battle with the mindset that I don’t control the fighting distance, and adapt to whatever they orbit at (unless they don’t fit webs). By adapting I mean change ammo, I’m sure my increased buffer allows me the 10 seconds to change ammo. I’m also thinking about trying lighter fitted Rifters again, might even try kiting...
• Watch the heat. Duh! But this point should actually be: SNAP OUT OF THAT STUPOR AND CHECK EVERYTHING! In a fight I usually stare at the opponent’s hit points verses mine and adjust accordingly. I need to check more things in the heat of battle, but this is easier said than done. More fights like this one would help a lot.
• Hit record. I have been less prone to forget to record fights recently, but alas, this happened too fast for me to remember. The information gained when reviewing a battle is invaluable and I’d recommend anyone to do it.

Now all I have to do is remember what I said here when I engage my next target. Wish me luck!