Thrasher

And so, recently I completed training my skills to fly a Thrasher to level IV across the board. I boldly then boarded the noble craft and headed out of Aralgrund station in search of booty and conquest, Yarr! At first impression she aligns and accelerates seemingly slower than the Rifters I am used to but nothing too serious.

This is the fit I’m using right now:

H: 7 x 200mm Autocannon II
H: 1 x Small Energy Neutralizer II

M: Medium Shield Extender II
M: 1MN Microwarpdrive I
M: J5b Warp Scrambler

L: 2 x Gyrostabilzer II

R: 3 x Small Core Defence Field Extender II

Puts out about 250 dps with faction ammo.

On my first trip out I found a few targets upon which to test my wrath, entering Wiskeber the local population was high and warping to a scan spot I notice a mix of frigate and cruiser hulls from the same corp. Decided not to test my chances on them I moved to Mateber and sighted a Merlin in a belt. As I warped in the Merlin warped out as a Malediction interceptor landed with me, was this a TARP? I certainly thought so at the time, valiantly trying (and failing) to catch the Interceptor I noticed I had forgotten to bring any Barrage S as local spiked heavily, as I was chastising myself for ineptitude a Cheetah appeared in the belt who died incredibly fast to my guns as I don’t think I even pointed him. I aligned out of the belt as the ships I had seen in Wiskeber descended around me, at one point I had 5 points on me, but thankfully no scrams. Then I was perma-jammed, with nothing else I could do I overheated the MWD and very nearly burnt it out before I got out of range and lived to fight another day.

On my way to Todifrauan I normally swing through Brin & Halgatlid (typo?), In Brin there’s a Stabber and a Punisher, the Stabber is new player, the Punisher is an outlaw. Sighting the Stabber at a belt I go in and engage, but wait, whats this he has a Scram! Pretty unusual for a Stabber. So I’m stuck against a faster ship unable to close range. We are tearing into each other when the Punisher lands. I align out and it seems that the Stabber has the same idea, I escape with around 120 structure, the Stabber in armour. My shields recharge quickly and the Punisher is still in space so I go and sit at a nice obvious Planet. Soon the Punisher lands and it’s game over for him before he really knows what hit him, he perhaps thought I would be a soft target with zero armour and practically no hull. Turns out when talking about the fight in Corp chat that my victim was the room-mate of one of my corp-mates!

My last fight of the evening, other than nuking a macro pilot’s pod on a gate was against a Harpy that was at zero on a planet. A fellow pirate, we engaged as I landed and it was pretty close. I emerged victorious, though with just 10% shield remaining. Feeling very pleased with the Thrashers performance I headed home with my hold full of booty, optimistic about the adventure the ship and I are sure to have.

A change of scenery

Since last weeks post I have now trained Thermodynamics to III, it will be at IV in less than a day. This can only be a good thing and I plan to use it masses when flying some of the cheap throwaway ships that i have. Ive been clone jumping around quite a bit this week too, I now have a stable of ships in The Bleak Lands which is smack bang in the middle of Minmatar / Amarr faction warfare. I've also been around my Heimatar "home" as that's where my Thermodynamics skill book was. I've been in on 8 ship kills this weeks, which while not masses I am happy with considering i have only had a single loss.

I have been pleased to see now that my sec. status as others see it is now at -10.0, whilst I know that it isn't a true -10 it's still nice to have obtained this level of criminal standing.

Lets review the weeks activity:

Vexor
This fellow was hopping around the belts and seemed to be leaving some wrecks in his wake, I assumed that he was ratting. When I eventually saw him i noticed that he was mining too. Now he was a toon of a reasonable age, and many folk always warn about engaging Vexors in frigs but my experience has only perhaps once ever fought a Frig killing Vexor fit, so I engaged and he died. He paid a ransom to save his Pod and was allowed to go free. We chatted a little in local afterwards where I managed to blind him with science regarding the directional scanner and how i had found him.

A day or so later, I can't quite recall, the pilot was in local again and this time in a Thorax. I engaged him again to find I had sprung a tarp! Ohnoes! His friend, who was only young jumped in with a Vexor. I soon had 10 Hammerheads chasing after me plus the ships guns. In retrospect I utterly failed this fight and should have opened up a wide orbit to kite and kill the drones and then move into the ships, but i sat in close orbit and got nuked to hell. But credit to them both for having the stones to come back to low-sec and bait the pirate. I really hope to meet these guys again. They were also so pleased that they killed me and got some T2 mods.

Rifter
I had seen this pilot in a couple of systems and managed to get the drop on him in a belt, he was young and appeared to be looking for a fight so I obliged, It was a good fight which whilst I think it was only going to go my way unless I did something stupid wasn't completely demoralising for him overkill and-blow-him-to-bits-in-5-seconds. Since the fight I have exchanged a few eve-mails with the pilot where we talked about the reasons he couldn't do full damage on me whilst i could on him and several other points. I wish him luck should he decide to go the fully fledged pirate route.

Hurricane
In a gang merrily roaming across the faction warfare zone, this Hurricane and a Brutix were spotted in a complex, as we warped in the Brutix was popped as it appears they were fighting and not working together. I made towards the ship, but had it's full firepower turned on me so moved out of range as my shields were stripped along with half my armour, once someone else was under fire I moved back in by which time he was in serious trouble as the rest of our gang had engaged. The pilot was not amused by the loss of his ship.

Arazu & Jaguar
Entering Amamake, now there was an experience. Talk about a hornets nest. Our bait went into a belt and found a whole host of evil stuff. An Arazu decloaked just near him and he pointed it, the rest of the gang jumped in heedless of the rest of the evil stuff there too, this was going to be a hit and run. The Arazu melted fast and so too did a Jaguar that strayed too close to us. As they popped a bunch of battleships landed, 3 Armageddons were sat together on my overview, scooping what loot we could we bugged out for no losses to our side.

Stabber
Back again in Heimatar I had a Stabber on scan, whilst he appeared to be at a belt on scan, he was not to be found. He must either be in a mission or perhaps a cosmic anomaly, doing a quick 30s scan, a single anomaly appeared. Smiling to msyelf I headed there post-haste but no! He's 60km away salvaging, I make maximum burn for him using my new overheat ability! I probably didn't need to as he didn't react to my presence until I started shooting him. I took 5% shield damage in the whole fight, after his ship was destroyed the language barrier proved too much for him to understand a ransom request so I podded him, not a moment to soon as there was a Jaguar landing as I exited stage left.

Catalyst
Back in faction warfare space within five minutes this guy was in a complex, he was a 2007 character so i though twice about engaging. I warped into the plex and he warped off. I chased him around a little then went to a deep safe, a couple of minutes later i went back to the complex to find he had returned. I took some heavy hits from his railguns on my way in but once under their tracking made short work of him. The pilot refused a ransom and was another corpse added to the collection.

Harpy
A small gang of Tuskers was now formed and a report of tackle on a Harpy was received. Two additional Rifters plus an Arazu went in, The Harpy took out the first two Rifters then started on me, making good ingress into my armour before he popped. He dropped a rather nice Faction Shield Booster plus we recovered all the modules from our fallen comrades wrecks. A nice net gain!

This time next week i'll be preparing the next character review, they do come around fast.

First T2 Ship Kill

Well, I can't take all the credit for it unfortunately as the Angel Cartel had a hand in it also. Noticing a Harpy on Scan under the command of a 3 month old player I felt that I had a fighting chance of walking away, especially so if he turned out to be PVE fit (which he didn't turn out to be).

I couldn't find him in a belt but had noticed some Angel "mission type" rat wrecks on scan. Doing a scan with the system scanner picked up a couple of Cosmic Anomalies, warping to the first at 100km I notice him looting some 107km away. I warped out to warp back at zero to find him gone. I guessed I had spooked him. Despite that he was still on scan and again not at a belt so I decided to try the second Cosmic Anomaly, warping to zero this time. He was there engaged with some cruiser rats and a couple of heavy launcher turrets. Wasting no time in chasing after him I had him pointed, but he seemed to be faster than me so I became worried that he would get out of scram range. The Angels had taken around 30% of his shields by the time I fired. He was soon into my armour, biting deep with his use of a web while I was chipping away at his shields. My armour rep working overtime, I chewed through a couple of 200 booster charges to keep everything working and it was terribly close. I had already selected my pod warp point when he popped with me sat on 9% structure with a damaged AB, I think I had managed to get a Rep cycle in just in time to save my sorry ass.


Good fight was exchanged in local and I proceeded to wait out the GCC. Closest fight yet and my first T2 hull kill. I got some nice module drops too which will nearly pay for an entire new Rifter.

A little later in the evening I snagged a newb in a Rifter who entered a system while I was tracking down a bigger target, Quickly locating him I was quite surprised at how quickly he died. At least I was before I saw the fit. But hey, he was fresh out of the pram. Taking out his Pod too I at least now give him the opportunity to refit another Rifter.