What's in your Hangar?

This is the question asked at EVOGANDA

The question has two parts to all intents and purposes:

Q1. Do you follow a naming convention, if so what is it?

A1. Yes, I like to try and follow themes. Occasionally I'll throw in a wildcard but I tend to follow a theme. I started naming my ships after Dangermouse characters but soon found that I ran out, I'm currently naming ships after well known cartoon characters and thinking of naming them after Pokemon next for a laugh. I need to keep themes with plenty of names as I do tend to get through rather a lot of ships due to the nature of the piracy beast.

Q2. What's in your hangar right now?

A2. Lots of ships

Betty Boop - Rifter (Artillery fit), plus two un-named spares.
Calvin - Rifter (Gank fit)
George of the Jungle - Thrasher (Armour tank), plus un-named spare.
Grape Ape - Jaguar (Gang fit), plus un-named spare.
Green Giant - Rifter (Artillery fit).
Grimm - Rifter (Gank fit), plus fourteen un-named spares.
Hagar the Horrible - Jaguar (Solo fit), plus un-named spare.
Heckle & Jeckle - Rifter (Cookie Cutter), plus two un-named spares.
Hello Kitty - Thrasher (Shield Tank).
Hobbes - Rifter (Gank fit).
Homer Simpson - Wolf.
Huckleberry Hound - Thrasher (Shield tank), plus two un-named spares.
Imperial Navy Slicer - Un-named as I can't actually fly it.
Private Pile - Republic Fleet Firetail.
The Grinch - Thrasher (Artillery fit), plus un-named spare.
Zephyr

These are spread amongst three hangars with the majority being at home base. All my ships including spares are fully fitted and rigged.

I hate to fly a ship when I don't have a spare of the same fitting. Hopefully another Wolf will be in my hangar soon.

So, what's in your hangar?

Kill of the Month: February

Yes I know, it isn't February anymore and no it isn't a typo.

Recently a monthly challenge was started on The Tuskers forums where throughout the month the killboards are scoured and kills are put forward for consideration as kill of the month. Last month my Drake kill in a Rifter was a contender.

There were five engagements voted on:
Tressin takes his toll on a destroyer gang in his Rupture
Bart takes out two Ishkurs in his Vexor
My Drake kill in a Rifter
Sonbalins Thorax snags a Vagabond
Latro takes out a Hurricane & Celestis in a Wormhole

As the votes rolled in it ended up as a a close run thing between my Drake kill with corp-mate SonBalin's Vagabond kill in his Thorax. The votes fell in a my favor and my prize, a shiny Imperial Navy Slicer. Granted I can't fly it but will do one day!

The high & lows of heat

Last post I stated how I now could use heat, prior to actually being able to overheat modules I almost percieved it as a simple concept, overheat -> kill opponent however after using heat a few times its not quite so easy and requires some careful micromanagement. My initial observations:

1, Overheating individual modules by pressing the green bar over the module itself asks for trouble. It's too easy to overheat the module but turn it off in doing so. This cost me a Thrasher kill and lost me a Rifter in the process.

2, Trying to click on those small overload rack buttons is not what I want to do in combat. Keyboard shortcuts help a lot here, I have mapped CTRL 1-3 to overload my racks.

3, At Thermodynamics III the heat damage taken by my modules was pretty high, now I have it at IV it seem much better. Being careful not to burn out your modules is a fine balance. I find it awful as I'm colour blind to red & green which isn't a great combo when we consider the colours in play on the modules during overloading...

I can however sum up and say that heat does change to outcome of fights, my engagement with a Coercer this morning convinces me thus, more details below.

I haven't been in so many fights this week as I wasn't online Sunday - Thursday due to some OOG commitments, my usual synopsis below:

Coercer
This fellow landed on Noir at a Faction Warfare complex, Noir unfortunately got caught on the gate and called for aid, myself and Ka Jolo were in system and hurried to him, sadly we didn't arrive in time to save him but I managed to scram the Coercer and engage, I popped as he was at 15% armour, leaving Jolo to finish him off. My first engagement against a well setup Coercer and I can say that they are nasty!

Raptor Rasta the Caracal master?
This fellow the Tuskers had quite a few fights against last weekend, I think in total he lost at least 5 Caracals & was podded three times. I chalked up two Caracal kills, here & here. and his Pod once too. There is talk that whoever kills him the most times in our curent campaign is in line for a 10m isk prize, I'm currently joint top at the moment so if this becomes a reality I should be in with a shot!

Catalyst
I happened upon this fellow by accident. I had jumped into the system and found a Rifter on the gate with me. I wanted to Rifter to chase me so warped to something obvious, a nice faction warfare mission. I used the gate as I landed but alas he hadn't followed but entering the room there was this Catalyst. He warped out on seeing me so I tried to pursue but he evaded me. I went back to the FW mission to find a Stabber Fleet Issue on the gate with a regular Stabber just landing. I used the gate and re-entered the mission as the gate only allowed T1 frigs, destroyers and Indys. Less than five seconds after I landed the Catalyst came through too. He died quickly and my Rifter was never in danger.

Coercer
This morning I had an epic fight with this Coercer, he jumped me at a Faction warfare mission gate as I was going for a Rifter & Slicer inside. I took tremendous initial damage and only overheating my armour repairer kept me going while I closed to point blank range. Once the damage was holding I overloaded guns, and gradually removed his armour and hull. I finished the fight on 50% structure. I would have finished the fight ahead of this but had somehow managed to switch off my armour repairer, god knows how as it hadn't burned out. My victory was bittersweet though as after I repaired and dropped off my loot (which was plentiful) I got caught by the very Slicer I was after and kite-killed.

I hope tomorrow to be posting my latest character review.