In my quest to destroy every boat I own, I turned my gaze towards my large Rifter supply. I headed over to Hulmate, grabbed one and patrolled around Essence. I was hanging around in Adirain for a while, waiting for Jax Spade to arrive in his Mammoth to carry my loot to Jita when local comms caught my attention. Dark Magni requested a T1 frigate 1v1. I obliged by starting a fleet and inviting him over to a safe spot. I knew he was flying an Incursus so I loaded Barrage, figuring I'd stay out of blaster range if I could, and waited.
He arrived on grid and the battle was on and I was plowing through his armor. He responded by repping up the whole time while my 400mm plates were wearing thing from blaster fire. Things were looking good however and I was fully expecting a win when he started moving out of range. My autocannons were now struggling to hit him and he repped up his armour fast. Taking a risk I approached him directly. Unfortunately he was also moving back into blaster range to finish me off, and soon my lack of transversal made his job easier, turning my Rifter into a flaming husk.
After I safely escorting Jax to and from the Adirain station with my precious cargo, I headed back to Hulmate to jump into another ship. Looking through the list of ships I had docked up there, my attention was directed to my Procurer, or the Trojan Turtle, as it was dubbed when I created it.
Not having had any luck baiting in roid belts I decided I'd take a more direct approach, the mission is exploding all my ships after all. However, a few jumps from Hulmate my heart sank as I was ganked by gate campers. I headed back to Hulmate in my pod again, a trip with which I'm familiar by now. I opted to continue working on depleting my Rifter stock.
Akidagi has become my favorite hunting grounds. Faction warfare pilots are pvp fitted and the plexes makes finding frigates a hell of a lot easier than roaming through systems. I had barely arrived when I spotted an Incursus in one of these plexes and I rushed over for battle. Again I loaded Barrage as I was afraid of being kited, this was a decision that I soon regretted as our confrontation was close and personal. Marcel72's Incursus ripped chunks from my armor plates with his neutron blasters. Though my autocannons were now doing low damage due to the Barrage, I still worked through his shields and armor fast. This fast and furious brawl was ending in a structure race. I sighed of relief as the Incursus exploded. My Rifter was spitting flames so I docked up for repairs after grabbing the loot. Looking at the killmail I realized how lucky I was to win this fight. The Incursus didn't have any form of tank and the cruiser rat did 15% of my job for me. If not for these factors my Rifter would have been toast.
With a few rolls of ductape my Rifter was ready to roll once more. I found a Kestrel sitting at a plex and I warped in to find him sitting at the warp in gate. Realizing the potential for a kite fit I was happy to be within scram and web range. The fight was soon over. I don't fully understand why you would fit a MWD and a scram, but hey, what do I know.
Next on the list was an Atron, another likely kiter. I tried to keep range, but he still hit hard (only later I learned of the falloff bonus Atrons gets). I got carried away with range at some stage, deactivating my webber in the process. He was deep in structure at this time and I was low on armor. What happened next I only noticed while watching the recording I made of the fight. I noticed the web was deactivated, once inside web range again I clicked on the webber again, slightly dragging the module instead of activating it. Unaware of this I closed range to finish him off, only now my transversal was low, and his was still high. I went from hero to zero in a matter of seconds, and soon I was taking the usual route back to Hulmate in my pod.
Back in a Rifter at Akidagi, I engaged a Merlin. Not long after engaging his fleet showed up and, you guessed it, I was heading to Hulmate in my pod.
My next fight came in the form of a Condor. Most definitely a kite fit. I loaded Barrage as I headed to the plex. As soon as I landed the Condor used the acceleration gate, and I followed. I smiled as I entered warp, this fight was going to end in two ways, and it would all depend on how it started. Either he would land and mwd away fast enough to open a gap from the landing spot, or I'd land soon enough to still catch him at close range. I loaded phased plasma again and waited to land. I was within scram range and stopped him in his tracks. Kite fits aren't notoriously good tankers and it was all over pretty soon. Once again though I noticed a scram together with a mwd on the killmail. Could someone please explain what this is about?
Another Kestrel appeared in a plex. I headed over and as soon as I landed noticed the 15km distance between us. It was a slow frustrating death. One day I'll catch me a kiter though!
It was a new day and I decided to fit the Slasher. I came up with something...let's just call it experimental. High speed and a tracking disruptor with only an armor repper for tanking I headed to Akidagi full of hope. I noticed a Merlin and a Breacher at a plex. Hoping that the pilots weren't friendly towards one another I headed in. I arrived at the scene of missiles and hybrid turrets firing at each other. I decided I'd jump right into the fight and ganged up on the Merlin. It soon exploded (the Breacher pilot got the killmail and didn't post it) and only me and the Breacher remained. I made another mistake here, when switching targets I disengaged the autocannons that was still in a cycle after firing its last shot, thinking that I engaged it. Not noticing that I wasn't shooting till I attempted to overload, I soon fell behind on the dps race and, to make matters worse, I noticed another Breacher on dscan within 1AU. Deciding to save my Slasher, I aligned to a celestial and burned out of his point. I warped away as the second Breacher arrived.
After repairing the damage to the modules I overloaded, I headed back to Akidagi. There were no viable targets to be found, only a Stabber in a medium plex. Having limited flying time at that stage (I was needed planetside) I decided to engage the Stabber. Once again I realized the potential for a kite fit, but I reckoned that a cruiser kite would be much easier to catch than frigate. Luckily it didn't come to that as I landed pretty close to the Stabber. I opened fire and activated all my modules. Webbed, scrammed and tracking disrupted, there was little the Stabber could do to hit my agile Slasher. His two neuts were destroying my capability to keep him pointed though, but he didn't warp off during those few moments while I lost point. The fight was only going on due to the nosferatu I fitted. After a bit of shooting, the Stabber exploded. He was using 425mm's though, and I can't help but wonder how 180mm's would have fared in the fight. I'm sure I would still get the chance to find out someday.
After all this fun my stockpile of ships looks like this:
Malediction - 5
Rifter - 15
Hurricane - 2 (After all the fun I had with frigs, I might decide to sell these and buy more frigs)
Imicus - 1 (Not really in the mood to fly this into battle, will remove from list)
Firetail - 1
Vigil - 2 (Not really in the mood to fly this into battle, will remove from list)
Tristan - 1
Rupture - 2
Merlin - 4
Probe - 1 (Not really in the mood to fly this into battle, will remove from list)
Slasher - 1
Incursus - 1
Wolf - 1
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