Last night I logged on late and found Sir Easley of Thames chillin in Yong. He had moved some ships there in high sec, and I cloned up to Torrinos to get there for some pirating.
I burned from Torrinos to Yong with a ceptor, and switched out for a Drake. Easley came in Cynabal, and we headed to Kor-Azor.
First system we came into is a low sec trough of sorts, surrounded on all sides by high sec. First was a Covetor in a belt, followed shortly by an empty Itty IV.
Not too exciting.
Then we headed into Gademan. Flashy Crow on gate, who warped off. Easley checked out Panaman. Flashy Crow's buddy in a Drake 100km off the in gate. Easley burned him out and got point on him.
I was in Gad on the Panaman gate at this time, and jumped in. I immediately realized that it would be pointless to try and burn him out, so I warped to a nearby celestial and back to Easley.
30km off the Drake at this point I started dropping Scourge Fury on him. Easley had been doing steady damage but it was slow going, as he was kiting the Drake way outside of optimals for a Cynabal. Lucky enough, the Drake was HAM fit, which means short range.
Once I landed Easley switched out for EM and went close range.
He wasn't able to do anything but put drones out, which Easley tanked no problem. He didn't have gate guns on him since Easley aggressed first, but since he was an outlaw we didn't have GCC either.
The Drake practically melted as soon as he moved in close.
Not a horrible fit... T2 on some of the fittings would have helped him quite a bit, such as the invuln field, LSEs, Ballistic Controls, etc. but you live and learn (or train the skills).
Remember that a Cynabal can do around 1k with afterburner, and well over 2.5k/sec with MWD. Most are dual propulsion fit to maximize survivability.
Also remember that rarely is someone alone. They will usually have help coming. Its just a matter of how long you have to try and kill them before their buddies arrive. That and how many buddies they have compared to how many buddies (if any) you have.
In our case after the Drake melted his buddy came onto grid in a Tempest. We thought about taking him, but he was out of range of gate guns and without their help it would have been difficult to drop.
We played around in Daran for a bit, but couldn't find any targets. The Tempest joined me on station in Daran but didn't aggress till his buddy in a Harbinger showed up (sad, as we had agreed that if the Tempest aggressed on station we would kill him). So I sat, waited for the Tempest to aggro, which he did. Harbinger landed on station and aggrod as well. My tank was doing well, and the Tempest wasn't hitting me for much. I suspected he may have only been cycling some of his autocannons. This is a common tactic, one that I use from time to time. You lull your target into thinking their tank will hold, and when they aggress you(keeping them from docking/jumping) you turn on the full DPS and they die. So I aligned and warped off.
Yes, I warped.
How you ask? Oh, although they were shooting me they decided a point wasn't necessary I guess.
I commented in local "nice point bro". To which I got a response along the lines of "you were at 0km on a station who cares".
Seriously?
I responded with the obvious "Why even bothering to shoot then? Because instead of docked in a kickout station I am now on the outgate jumping. Later"
Never assume the enemy will dock if you shoot them. Noobs may panic and do that... but someone with even a bit of common sense will notice they aren't pointed and vacate the system. Just as a target on the gate at 0 needs to be forced through (i.e. pointed so he can't warp off) to the gang on the other side, the target on a station needs to be pointed to keep him on/in the station.
So they GCCed for no reason and we left before they called in more buddies.
I decided to bring an RRBS down from Torrinos after our low sec playtime. At this point it was 4am and downtime was in an hour. I was watching Russell Brand (a comedian), whom I had heard of but never heard stand up wise. Needless to say I was laughing hysterically (this was on my laptop). I glanced up every 10 seconds or so to continue my 26 jump trek from Torrinos to Yong.
Then the pattern changed.
I jumped into some system (can't remember) and noticed damage and warp disruption messages flash across my screen as I looked up.
Hmmm.
My Geddon was triple trimarked triple plated, but had no local rep.
It was a Cyclone, and he was fit with 425 atuos. Doing decent damage (plus he had been hitting me for 15 seconds without my DC2 on) I aggressed with short range ammo and Hammerhead IIs. Cyclone can fit a mean active tank and I didn't have time to cap him out at this point. If I had a heavy neut instead of RR I would have melted him.
So after aggressing for a minute I realized that I was in a bad situation. The guy was tanking well enough (which he would have done till he ran out of cap charges) and my armor was slowly whittling away. So I pulled drones and de aggressed.
Good choice. His buddy showed up in system as I was spanking the jump button, and this buddy was in a Falcon. Had I not de aggressed (even if winning) the Falcon would have de cloaked and jammed me, saving his friend from death and sealing my own fate.
So I sat on the gate... armor dropping. 50%, 45%, 40%.... at 20% I got the magic session change and one system dissapeared to be replaced by another. To my relief there was no waiting committee on the other side. I immediately initiated warp to a station. As I was approaching warp velocity the Falcon jumped in. I held my breath, waiting for the Falcon to instalock and point. Warp hit and I was off to the station, exhaling as I flew.
Good call. As soon as I docked to repair in came the Cyclone pilot along with two new war target friends. Falcon was gone... but I know how these guys operate.
See, Interstellar Brotherhood of Grave Diggers was a major corp in Privateer Alliance. They recently broke off and formed an Alliance called The Orphanage (or something like that). So they will operate on similar protocals, which is members looking for targets in certain choke point systems in empire and calling for help when they tackle something. You never know how far away their friends are, and aggressing what may look like an easy kill may get you killed instead. They aren't neccessarily the best PVPers skill wise, but they catch lots of idiots trucking through empire in haulers and expensive ships. I got lucky tbh, flying around half asleep late at night.
Needless to say I am at work, running on 3 hrs of sleep (thanks EVE). I need a nap.
That is all.
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