Back in the Sabre

Yesterday I headed to Catch. I picked up a Sabre in Agil (I lost my last one weeks ago) and headed through HED-.

Convo'd by some INIT renters who were camping the SV5 gate. They were interested in sorting standings, so I got some important diplo types involved and let them run with it.

In the mean time, these neut guys were camping with Cane, Drake X2 and Flycatcher. They also had Cynabal running around the system somewhere. Psyco and King Curt were there shortly after I arrived, and together we moved into SV5. Flycatcher tried to catch me, but I had already broken cloak and recloaked in my Sabre before he even loaded grid.

We moved to WD- gate, and Castlekin joined us. Castlekin is an industrialist (miner) who got thirsty for blood and is PVPing more than half the "PVP"ers in corp at this point.

The Flycatcher had jumped in twice in the past couple minutes, bubbling both times for stuff (but not catching it). So we set up on HED- gate and sure enough, red bumped local and in comes the Flycatcher. Loki decloaks and cloaks (if I was bubbler I wouldn't have even tried, 9/10 times in null sec hes nullifier fit). Yet the Flycatcher bubbled way late... game time.

I broke cloak and immediately warped in the Flycatcher's bubble aggressing him. Decloak delay meant it took 10 seconds to lock his ass, but he sat in the bubble not moving. I aggressed him again as the 3x bombers decloaked and lit him up. He started to realize the problems facing him at this point, and tried to burn off. I was able to lock him at this point, however, and a scram/web combo kept him still.

His buddy in a Drake came through, which I expected (I had eyes on the other side), but his DPS was minimal. The Flycatchers tank was starting to break at this point.

Then I noticed blue drones hitting me. Hard. wtf???

I knew that INIT had these guys blue and that tomorrow they would probably be blue... but for now, they were neut. I switched overview and a blue INIT Myrmidon was beating the hell out of me.

I started burning off, fast, outranging the Hobgoblins that were eating me alive. Flycatcher popped, I was in low armor. Volley of heavies slammed into my Sabre, sending me into structure. I kept burning, overheating MWD. Align and warp was impossible; I would get volleyed. I saw a flight of heavies coming towards me... slowly. I held my breath, in the hopes I would outrange the bastards. Closing every so slowly, distance approaching 70km from Drake... my mail flashed.

Dammit!

The most annoying shit in this game is the insurance mail appearing before your ship even "dies".

So I warped my pod off, while dropping a wtf in local to the INIT Myrmidon. Without his dumbass, that would have been a clean kill. Looking at the lossmail (Sabre) he dealt 57% of the damage. In my calculations I hadn't planned for a blue Myrmidon to shoot me. Standings issues in 0.0 are always a concern, but I stick with NBSI 100%. Even in gangs where some of the guys aren't blue, I will say "Hey, if hes neut to you, we hold back go have fun". Gentleman's law.

That guy screwed up, and after some discussions he realized the grave error. He mentioned alcohol, but the simple fact was that I was still blue. So I got a new Sabre and fittings... which was nice... but the thing I disliked the most was a lossmail that shouldn't have been on my record. Oh well...

Shortly after I snagged a Manticore that came into 9KOE-. He was smart in burning off when he saw Sabre, but he burned straight up with no transversal, so I ran him down and decloaked him.

While we were messing around with the wreck, we got a new neut. Ares on scan... he landed. I jumped through before he landed and cloaked up. Sure enough, he came right on through. I decloaked and bubbled... bam. He stopped moving completely. I burned him out, spamming lock waiting for my decloak delay to finish.

Still wasn't moving.

Finally he started reapproaching but it was too late, as scram/web ensnared him. Gang was jumping through, but his died instantly. His Ares was carrying some random goodies of goodness, which we snagged on got safe.

Another new neut in system... Everyone cloaked up except for my cov ops alt. Sabre on scan... interesting. He landed on gate with my decloaked cov ops, but jumped through. So I jumped the cov ops too.

On the other side he was a bit more ballsy. He reapproached the gate, pre cursor to a decloak attempt. I broke cloak with my alt and started moving... he bubbled. Funny part was, the bubble was 8km short of even catching me. Yet he tried to burn me out anyways, but I was already moving away from his trajectory. He kept burning and aligned to the outgate.

As he was burning off I jumped my Sabre in. As I bumped local he warped off, and I called gang in while spamming warp in my cov ops alt to aggress him.

"everyone to the out gate, everyone go go go"

My Sabre landed on the outgate and sure enough, there he was at 0. I immediately bubbled and he was trapped. I tried to warp my alt again for good measure and dropped web/scram on the Sabre.

"light him up!"

We did.

After what seemed like an eternity his Sabre popped. I was excited... the little maneuvering had worked and due to his incompetence (sitting on a gate when you have aggression is dumb. the gate, to you, is basically a locked door). My enthusiasm was dampened when I found out PG had died. He had landed at 0 on the Sabre and tried to burn off. Next time he will know that in that situation he needs to align off, spank mwd and cloak. Once at safe range (15+km) he could have decloaked and started firing, as he would have been out of the range of the Sabre, and since the Sabre was scram/webbed he wouldn't have been able to pursue.

The Sabre was double MSE fit, which explained why he took so long to go down. Bomber for a Sabre was an okay trade... but I would have rather we had no losses.

Next door an Important Internet Spaceship League black ops gang was on scan, but not really doing anything.

We reset and waited. Then a familiar name popped into local... Dark Templari. Nothing on scan...

We waited... and waited...

Prorator on gate. I decloaked and jumped with him. Loading grid the Prorator decloaked... 5km off of me! I saw where he started burning to and decloaked aligning the same direction. 1...2.....3 seconds went buy and BAM got him! I overshot and he started reapproaching. He managed to cloak back up but I decloaked him a second time, and this time one of the bombers got a lock on him too. As we were sitting in system with 11 hostile IISL (black ops gang) I instructed everyone to overheat to take the Prorator down. After what seemed like forever the cloaky transport popped.

"Cloak cloak cloak everyone off cloak!" I instructed, assuming the neuts in system would be on the way. I popped the pod in my Sabre and burned off the gate.

The neuts never even came to check it out.

Prorator was empty, sad day. Those things are pretty hard to snag too. Managed to snage one more bomber before gang was getting sleepy, and then I popped a pod too. Eyes getting droopy, I logged off for the evening as well.

Heres to more kills in Catch :-)