May 2012 Character Review

Is it just me, or did the last month fly by seemingly very quickly? Straight down to business then with the statistics for the last month:

50 Ship kills (31 Solo)

16 Pod kill (13 Solo)

2,559,261,053 Isk cost to victims (140,637,816 Isk received in loot)

8 Ships Lost

0 Pods Lost

211,192,519 Isk lost in value of ships destroyed

(70,554,703) Isk lost for the month

As you can see from the kills & losses above I've been far more active in game this month than I was the previous month, something I'm very pleased with. I have also flown far more recklessly which shows in the losses. Despite losing isk in the month when comparing kills & losses I've had a lot of fun in the process and that's what matter ultimately to me.

The ships I lost were:

1 x 400mm plated Rifter, a great 1v1 against a Merlin. In an effort to streamline my hangar I've been flying some ships with old fits that have been gathering dust. Despite this I've found some great fights, like this one.

1 x Suicide thrasher, a took a little part in the early stages of Hulkageddon. Actually I lost three Thrashers but 2 don't count in Corp as they were killed by Concord. I can't say I "enjoy" ganking but it was an interesting change for a day or two.

1 x Hawk, I engaged a Prophecy in a belt and whilst the brain said he's likely bait I wen't for it anyway. My Hawk died swiftly to him.

1 x Hurricane, Going back for revenge on the Prophecy I land with him, unfortunately for me he calls in a couple of Tornados to help leaving me buggered. Can't blame him and a fun twist.

1 x Vengeance, my first outing in the Vengeance was with a potential new Tusker, we roamed down to Heimatar where we ended up in a 7 vs 2 engagement. This tough little nut amazed me and we didn't go down without one of the best fights I've had in recent memory.

1 x Rupture, lost in when I managed to land right on top of a Talos. Quick and messy loss.

1 x Vigil, pretty lolfit. One evening a few of us went out in frigates for fun and I decided to try and lose this contraption which I did by getting one-shotted by a Thrasher.

1 x Stabber, on a long roam I ran into an EVE University gang in Heimatar. Jammed scrammed then deaded but this Cruiser amazed me by taking out an Enyo!

Here's what Kirith's skill chart looks like this month:

These are the skills that Kirith has completed training of this month:

Gallente Drone Specialization IV
Minmatar Battleship IV

Minmatar Battleship is still cooking and gets finished on Friday, right on cue for the roam I hope to take out. Might even buy something silly to lose on it, it's only isk right? Anyone have any thoughts on Fleet Tempest & Machariel fits out there.....?

After Minmatar BS V completes it's on to Heavy Drones all the way to V which will take me just about into July all being well.

I haven't prioritised trading this month, netting just 66m in profits. The market scene is still all over the place I find when not looking at it daily. My future capital pilot diversified into PI some more and has trained for an Iteron V to make the process easier. Now done with that she's back to training for the Thanatos. Speaking of which I've taken the first steps towards acquisition of the ship so more on that one day in the future. PI though is my carebear activity of choice and I'm pleased with the returns I'm getting which is the main cause of my lessened focus on station trading.

Total Ransoms Received: 555,360,662.30 Isk (5m Isk received in the month)
Battleclinic Rank:  447 (+25) 

June 2010 Character Review

It's a couple of days late, for which I apologise.

June has been a weird month for me, it kicked off with the Alliance Tournament which seems like oh so long ago. Then I was swept up with the Dramiel whirlwind and destroyed a host of ships with it. Since the loss of the Dramiel though I have struggled to find the inclination to fly. Tonight for example I was determined to get out there and fly. And I did just that, but only for 25 minutes. In that 25 minutes I managed to lose Blog Moar!, the Wolf which I have talked about a couple of times. It was lost valiantly tackling a Myrmidon whilst a corp mate attacked it with his Ishtar. Now I am logged off again feeling a bit "Meh, can't be arsed". The biggest factor in this for me is that June also saw my trusty laptops graphics card overheat and completely wreck my laptop. I have been attempting to fly on my desktop PC but I just can't get my mojo using a desktop. Fortunately though my new laptop is scheduled to arrive on Monday so I should be back to my pillage & plundering ways soon enough.

After some catch up on the Rifter plan for having diverted to the Dramiel I had three level V skills to catch this month before getting myself into the interleaving of plans. Motion Prediction, Rapid Fire & Sharpshooter are now all resplendent at level V, Hull Upgrades V has only two days remaining now. 229 days remaining on the Rifter plan. I don't expect much progress on that plan through July as I will be getting Medium Projectile Turret to V along with Medium Autocannon Specialisation to IV. Maybe just squeezing out one or two Rifter skills.

I have purchased my first Cruiser hulls already in anticipation. Five Ruptures & Stabbers, Two Bellicose & Cyclones and a single Hurricane. A drop in the ocean in numbers as I will have another five Ruptures, eight more Cyclones & nine more Hurricanes joining them soon. Moving them is a logistical "challenge" but I do like to keep a very well stocked hangar.

PS. I also plan to buy a Scythe for my comedy collection.

Kirith sits at 16.3m SP right now, major gain in the month is clearly to Gunnery. I did have to train Target Painting up for the Tournament, but other than that blip things went to plan.


My trading alts profits dropped again this month to 104m from 138m the previous month which is disheartening. Following the "free" 100,000 SP's from CCP (Thank you)I chucked a load into trading skills for my Hulk pilot to make him a much more effective trader. It early days of course as this was only a few days ago, but early signs are good. My probing alt as has been mentioned previously has now finished getting his skills to a good standard so i have moved onto my Freighter alt which again is an isk sink to train up even without the actual purchase of the Freighter!

Some stats:
Tuskers: Rank 20 on Battleclinic
Kirith: Kills 678(188 in June), Losses 108 (4 in June)
Kirith: ISK Destroyed 18.9Bn, Lost 1.1Bn

What's with all these entertaining fights lately?

It seems that this last week has been one of the best in my EVE experience as a pirate. I've had some very fun and interesting fights. A small showcase below:

Rifter & Thorax
I had warped to the gate after spotting a lone neutral Rifter sat 10km away, I was trying to get him to aggress me but he was having none of it, as I was merrily orbiting him a second flashy Rifter piloted by Eviwyn, of Hellcats notoriety landed and locked me up and engaged, just after she engaged a non-flashy Thorax landed and also locked me up and engaged. Yikes! Unlocking the neutral Rifter to avoid getting accidentally gate-gunned I set about the Rifter and made good progress in destroying it. By the time the Rifter was down I was into around half-armour, I switched focus to the Thorax and his drones. Without the added pressure on my tank of the Rifter I was able to effectively speed tank the Thorax and his drones taking him out efficiently.

Busting a small low-sec ratting gang
Entering system, this gang were at the only belt immediately on scan, by the time I had warped there they had left, so using the gold old pirate initiative I selected the next belt I thought that they would go to and warped to zero. Landing amongst a Kestrel, Tristan & Caracal I decided to take out the fastest first. So the kestrel went down, followed soon after by the Tristan. The Caracal had not warped out to my joy and was trying to avenge his corp-mates by spamming Heavy Thunderbolt missiles at me. He didn't last long with my fire switching to him. I bet they must have been scratching their heads wondering wtf just happened afterwards. PS. Ignore the Osprey on related kills, I found that later.

OPM Holdings
I'm sat safed in Adirain and see a Kestrel ratting in a belt. I warp in pop it, and pod the pilot. Return to safe spot to wait out GCC and the pilot returns in a Stabber, goes to the same belt again so I warp in pop the ship and pod him again. Return to safe to wait out GCC. Pilot re-enters local in a Stabber with a friend in a Rupture, I warp in pop the Stabber and his pod but am gallantly gunned down by the Rupture. Fortunately I jettisoned my loot at my safe before engaging. I return to base to reship. I return to Adirain again to find him back again! Ratting, again! This time he's in a Rifter so of course I go in, pop his ship and pod him again. Way too funny.

The Typhoon 50 jumps away
Bourreau, a corp-mate says on vent that he got a Typhoon tackled piloted by a three month old. Problem is that he's 50 jumps away! In for the long haul Bourreau sets to work. I decide to jump clone to Aralgrund, jump in a Rifter and speed for his location some 11 jumps away. Bourreau notes that another pirate has entered local. I eventually arrive after probably ten minutes and rendezvous with my friend in his Jaguar. We soon have the Typhoon in low armour as a Rapier decloaks 175km away and starts to MWD towards us. Bourreau bugs out to save his Jaguar but I want this guys ship killed so I hang in as the Rapier closes. As the Rapier gets within 17km from me the Phoon explodes and I align out only to be webbed, pointed and have Warrior II's sicked on me. I shoot down a number of the Drones and the Rapier bugs out \o/.

Another Corps low-sec op ruined by Kirith
So last night I'm minding my own, cruising around look for something to pewpew. I sight a gang of four ships ratting together. A game of cat and mouse ensues and I eventually land amongst them and catch their Thrasher while the rest of them bug out, I pod him too as there's another Thrasher looming. Once my GCC is up I set off in search of the other three, two systems out I find them but see a Brutix on scan too. Hmm, I drop off my loot at a station then undock to go for no guts no glory kamikaze style madness. I warp in on the Rupture, Rifter & Caracal. Boom, Rifter goes down first then the Rupture and his Pod, finally the Caracal. Battle report here. As I finish off the Caracal the Brutix appears and a Dramiel is on scan. I align out and burn away from the Brutix escaping before returning to loot the field.

The Rifter truly is a ship to fear in the hands of a madman who does not care so much about losing it! Who said solo piracy is dead!

Rifter Solo's Drake!

Well, the title of the post indicates what the highlight of my week has been. Detail of the fight is further down the post, needless to say I was extremely pleased with the result and my corpmates would attest that I wouldn't shut up about it for a while!

I had spent a fair amount of time in the Bleak Lands on our current campaign recently and was getting a bit disheartened by the difficulty in soloing effectively in a Faction Warfare zone in a Rifter, so many blobs around. The one time this week I found a Minmatar Militia Rifter doing a complex I got jumped by a five man Amarr Militia gang before I could kill the Rifter who sadly got away.

Noticing that I have lost a number of ships of late and not sold on my hard fought loot drops means that my isk balance has hardly moved. This made me start to think about other ways I could earn isk fairly easily. I moved my hauler alt to Rens to have a go at some small scale trading, as she's on the same account as Kirith I invested a few minutes only on training Trade I to increase my orders from 5 to 9 so as not to take away much precious training time from Kirith. Starting with a cash balance of only 300k isk 4 days ago i now have increased her value in buy & sell orders to over 10m isk, not bad for a few days work. I do some order management before and after I log off Kiriths sessions and usually in a morning too for ten minutes before work. I'm still finding my feet with what to buy & sell but things look good! I've also been looking at the feasibility of using a 21 day free trial to make a mission runner and see how much isk I can bring in during those 21 days, the down side of course being using the mission runner means I can't pewpew with Kirith. Jury is still out on that one.

The weeks combat review, Battlecruiser-tastic! As I mentioned getting a bit disillusioned with Bleak Lands I jump-cloned "home" to my old stomping grounds, I've had some good fortune since doing so...

Parting shots in Bleak Lands
Noir and I were hanging around in Huola and noticed a Harbinger zipping around, we both set out to find him and eventually Noir caught up with him at a planet. Calling in any corp mates in system to assist, Jolo undocking a Dominix heading on over as I too headed in, I was in an Arty Rifter which really was designed as something of a fast fleet tackler not suited to a DPS role. Noir's Thrasher went down and I soon started taking more damage than I could handle from drones as another Harbinger along with a Myrmidon & Kestrel had joined the fray. I had to bail, so warped out then back again after I had repped up. Jolo was doing an awesome job, having taken down a Harbinger and being well at work on a Myrmidon as I re-entered, again drones were sent after me but I went down as the Myrm did. The second Harbinger warped out just before the Myrm popped. I'd managed to get a point long enough on the Kestrel before I went down for Jolo to get one too so he didn't escape either.

Rifter Once, Rifter Twice
This chap was unfortunate enough to be caught by me twice on consecutive days. The fights were straight forward enough and he ran away as I warped in both times, only to return to ratting afterwards. On the second time of me jumping back in however he would turn and engage me, not that I'm complaining at all but....why?! He did it both times aswell so perhaps some folk don't learn.

Rifter kills Drake, Solo!
This kill has to be my most satisfying yet. Entering the system there is only me in my Rifter and this fellow in his Drake, he's ratting. Now normally any sane person would think, it's a Drake so why bother trying to crack it's tank. But I thought, might aswell have a go, I'll be able to gtfo if I need to. He's enagaged with the last rat as I land and makes no attempt to leave as I close, could it be a trap I wonder? Still deciding that I can bug out if I need to I engage. During the ten minute fight a number of pilots came and went through the system but none came to investigate our engagement, thankfully. My first priority was taking out his 5 Drones as they were doing a bit too much damage and had I left them alone I would have succumbed. Now to the formidable tank, I slotted in a magazine of EMP S and let loose, slowly but surely his shield was depleting until around 1/3 shield left, peak recharge. His damage to me was inconsequential and easily tankable with speed, I barely had to even pulse the SAR II. I overloaded my highs and pushed through his peak recharge into his armour. At this point I asked him for 70m isk for me to stop and save his ship and Pod, say that he didn't have it I proceeded to remove what remained of his ship. His damage had stopped on me by the time I killed him, looking at the KM it appears that he ran out of ammo, how embarrassing! Such a tremendous feeling when it went pop and put me on a high for the whole evening. I renamed my Rifter "Drake Bane" in honour! The fit on the Drake was not a bad one either, sure not T2 fit but still I am very pleased to have taken down this mighty tough ship piloted by a character older than I with a lowly Rifter.

Caracal
There's a Caracal sat on a gate to highsec, hmm looking for a fight I imagine. I warped to 200 from the gate and he jumps to high-sec. I decide to go sit in a safe to see if anyone else enters the system when the Caracal comes back. I went to sit at a planet to make myself easy to scan down, sure enough in he comes. I could be asking for trouble if he's assault launcher fit but I'm game anyway. Turns out he's Heavy Missile fit and can't really pose a threat to me so it's a simple matter of reducing him to a wreck. Later in the evening the pilot came back looking for me for revenge (his words), sadly he didn't get chance as he jumped into a belt and was ganked by a small four man gang. Pity

Rupture
Considering the very young age of the pilot, this thing took some killing. He was ratting and I engaged him, he took the rats out then started on me, I was taking a fair bit of damage as he kept spitting Warrior I's at me, each time I killed them he sent more. Well eventually he ran out of Drones so I could actually fire on him and he went down along with his Pod. Looking at the fit he had small weapons fitted which explains why I was taking more damage than expected.

One unhappy Cyclone pilot
While waiting out GCC after killing the Rupture, this Cyclone entered system and started, yep you guessed it...ratting. Still high on my earlier Drake kill I went in and was rewarded with the kill in quite short order, though perhaps it seemed short order as I was glued to my D-scan due to the high local population. After the fight the pilot convo'd me telling me to give him the 23m to replace the ship, when I explained to him that wasn't how piracy worked he was less than impressed and now vows to hunt me down for all of eternity, super I look forward to our next clash!

Stabber at a Gate
This fellow was keeping a low profile in system, hugging gates between warping to safe spots. Eventually his willpower failed when I had been sat at a gate for the best part of 5 minutes. I was 200km from the gate when he landed so was able to warp back and land close to him. I had 17km to cover to be able to catch him, approaching at overloaded max speed with overloads mid's I caught him with my scram and killed his MWD taking a ton of damage on the way in but once within 1200m of his and orbiting it was game over for him and I barely took a scratch from that point. Once he was down I then made a mistake and shot his Pod out under the gaze of the Sentries, figuring I could escape. Alas it was not be and my Rifter got toasted. I came back later in another Rifter and recovered all the loot so not too bad on the whole.

Harbinger
I really don't know what this was about. I had spotted this ship at a safe early in the evening. Returning some hours later it was still there, I asked my nearby friend in his Helios if he would mind finding it for me, which he did in a minute or so. The Harbinger appeared to be dead in space not moving. I warped in and took it out without even being shot at, so I assumed the pilot to be afk. Waiting with glee to see the contents I was very disappointed to find it an empty ship. Venting my frustrations on the pilot's Pod. The only thing I can think of is that it must be an insurance job wanting someone to nuke the ship, but they could have self distructed it to do that. Who knows...

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.

You know when sometimes...

You know when sometimes you just shouldn't say some things.

Like when you say "This vase has been in our family for generations"

Then you turn around and knock it off the shelf, smashing it into tiny pieces. Well, the last few days since I posted about the Cap Boosted Rifter have been a bit like that. You see, I almost knew it would happen too, and that from the moment I sang its praises it was doomed. So here follows the highs and lows:

I'm watching local and see a pilot in system in a Rifter, I recognise his name as someone I killed a few weeks back and thus decide to go play tag with him. I eventually locate him as he must have been docked up. He's in a belt with a Catalyst and a Stabber. None of the belts occupants were Tuskers so I report the activity to the Corp and jump on in myself. The Catalyst had popped by the time that I landed and the Stabber was engaging the Rifter. The Rifter pops as I'm 30km away from the Stabber. I report this to the corp too incase anyone else fancies a look. The Stabber engages me and I maintain a distance around 20km to attempt to wear down his cap through his use of the MWD. I'm taking a fair bit of damage but coping well enough until a couple of corp mates lands in the belt. The Stabber is taking damage fast and I want to get on the KM so hit . . . approach. Like an idiot. Certainly enough my dear old Rifter went boom and I was kicking myself. I'd also failed to attempt to use any hostile effects on the Stabber with him being so far away so didn't get on the KM either. Bah! At least the Stabber died.

The "Macro haulers" that pass through Hevrice have a new tactic it seems, they are posting noobships at the gate and setting them merrily dawdling off 340km from the gates to scout for their haulers. Of course being that far from the gates, the gate guns can't hit an aggressor. So I set off after one of them in a cheap throwaway fit, unfortunately as I'm 50km from the gate a couple of frigs jump in and decide they don't like me. They MWD after me as I'm trying to warp away but stop me in my tracks. The Rifter catches me first and is taking a fair toll. I think I could have perhaps taken him out if it weren't for the Tristan catching me tackling and setting his Warrior II on me as I had the Rifter down to half armour. Another Rifter down the drain.

Later in the evening I'm on a roam with a corp fleet and we find a mission running Megathron. He's a 2004 character but his fits is nothing short of appalling which has to suggest that the account can't have been either his all that time or active all that time. After a bit of dodging some larger fleets that were in the area we jumped in and took it down very fast. The pilot lost his Pod too, unwilling to pay the ransom.

Logging in yesterday I set off shooting the noobships that are on the gates taking out three Impairors and the pilots Pod twice too. Afterwards a gang is formed up and we head off. This gang ultimately ends up in a fight outside a station, first our "bait" blows up an Arbitrator before the cavalry arrives (I missed the KM), what happens next is rather strange as a Curse appears in front of the station and agresses. Again I don't target him before he is gone in a pretty explosion followed by his Pod, apparently the pilot lost around 2.5bn in implants from full +5% hardwirings along with a high grade slave set! I missed both KM's again though, Grrrr! The Curse pilot says that lag killed him, but I swear I have never heard that lag spikes launch your drones? The pilots in the station however won the day by undocking in one, then two and then three battlecruisers which ripped our small ship gang to pieces quick smart before we could effect an escape.

Last thing before logging last night we encountered a small gang of Zealot, Dominix, Guardian & Pilgrim on a gate. They agressed us and the Zealot went down, but not before the pilot BBQ'd my Rifter in around 4 salvos, along with Noir's Rifter soon after. We didn't have quite enough in our gang to break break the guardian so a tactially withdrawal was ordered.

Hail the cap boosted Rifter!

First and foremost I do have to say how much I am pleased with my decision to join the Tuskers, its been really enjoyable so far and I don't see any reason for that changing.

I've gotten in on a few skills since my Christmas day post, so without further rambling here we go:

I'm following a pilot in an Iteron "Mark something" who isn't a macro player out of the station and he appeared to warp to a belt. I follow him and sure enough he is trying to turn around and warp somewhere else. I waste no time in locking him and tackling him. At 30% armour he warps away, so he must be stabbed. However a look at local shows the pilot is no longer online. I decide to wait in the belt for him to log back in as local is predominantly friendly. I soon notice a Stabber on scan and the ship designation doesn't match any I am familiar with. I suspect that he is weighing up his options as to whether he can jump to the belt and kill me before any help can be sent to my aid. A minute or two later he lands in the belt with me and engages. I kill his drone first and then its a matter of whether indeed he can kill me before help arrives. My little Rifter is doing an admirable job of repping back the damage aided in no small part by its cap booster. It holds out long enough for both the cavalry to arrive and for us to take down the Stabber. Had I been without the cap booster I would have lost this fight and the cavalry may not have arrived in time to take out the Stabber. Although we didn't get a returned "gf" in local afterwards, I did get a mail later on commending the Tuskers and giving that "gf".

A Rifter is spotted in a neighbouring system who seems to have cottoned on to the fact that we are trying to pin him down. The pilot hunting him leaves the system and I jump in to see if I can get him to engage me in another Rifter. The pilot acknowledges my presence as a blogger in local immediately. I warp around the system a little and he states in local that I can come fight him at the Sun, I am in warp to a belt at the time and local is quiet so I warp to the sun, find him and we tackle each other. I report this to the other two fleet members sat on the other side of the gate and they are soon on their way to me. I'm asked not to kill him before they arrive so I turn off my weapons which gives him time to rep from 30% armour back to full while I still tank his damage (hurray for the cap booster again). The fleet lands and I resume fire, it's looking close and he pops while I have 40% hero tank remaining. The pilot comments that it wasn't fair as he thought he would only fight me, I am confident that had I not ceased dps to await the fleet he'd have died much quicker and it wouldn't have been close at all. He was unfortunate enough to lose his Pod afterwards, we did not attempt a ransom as local spiked and we decided to GTFO so he was sent express style to the clone vats.

A Catalyst was spied in the home system, we get quite alot of them. A corp mate and I determined to find him located him after a couple of minutes at a belt. He and his Pod died swiftly.

Logging in last night I picked up a Myrmidon on scan as I exited the station, thinking he must be in a mission I warped to a scan spot to confirm, I joined a fleet in a neighbouring system incase I found the Myrm and wanted backup. The fleet were busy finishing off a couple of pilot's at the time. Rubbing my eyes in disbelief a couple of times as it appeared that the Myrm was ratting. I went straight in after it, the pilot was pretty young. He was tackled quickly and I reported it the the fleet. I kept fire on his drones when they were deployed. applying some damage to his ship when I could. His Drones would probably have killed me before backup arrived were it not for my beloved cap booster keeping my tank running (<3). Backup landed and the Myrm went down quickly to the 5 Rifter based hulls assailing it. The pilot decided to mess around with the ransom request so was sent quickly to his clone bay of choice.

Being the only Tusker pilot in our home system as another Catalyst decided he wanted to go ratting I felt it my duty to defend the belts from the evil Catalyst, the pilot may have been new, but clearly required educating. It didn't take long to find, destroy and Pod him.

Two things are clear in my mind after I have written this;
1, The new fleet finder system is great for corp fleets.
2, The cap-boosted Rifter may lack a web but its survivability as a tackler is excellent.

Ambushed!

So I log in and depart the station in the accustomed fashion. In my home system there is a Rifter piloted by a Corp mate of the Rifter I destroyed last night, he's skipping about between belts, apparently not ratting thus I decide that I think its a trap. Lestaways, I find him and attack, once I attack local is increased as the pilot from last night enters the system. I finish off the Rifter as the Rupture arrives on scene. I lock and destroy the Rifter pilot's Pod for good measure before switching to the Rupture. I am heavily pinned down by the Rupture and taking heavy damage as I was already at 60% armour after the fight with the Rifter. Sure enough my Rifter explodes and I warp my pod back to home base for a ship swap. Exiting the station I attempt to find the Rupture, but its at a safe and soon warps out of the system.

During the course of the day I see the duo again on several ocassions, unfortunately for them their ambush trick won't work a second time.

On my roam I find myself in another system bordering high security space, a young pilot in a Thrasher enters the system just as I am about to leave. Deciding to stick around I scan him down to a belt and warp on in, he's under fire by a rat so I tackle him and have soon destroyed the Thrasher without a scratch due to his artillery fit. The pilots gets his Pod out very fast.

Still waiting out the Global Criminal Cooldown timer another pilot enters the same system in a Stabber, again they're quite young so after a spike in local clears I track them to a belt. I get them tackled quickly but then get rat agro. Switching from killing the Capsuleer I take down the rat in short order before coming back to them. It doesn't take long for the Stabber to be destroyed and I manage to snag the Pod and destroy it too bringing me ever closer to that -10.0 security status.

1st proper Cruiser kills

Today had been very quiet, that is up until around 5pm. Truth be told I was getting a bit fed up as I had been roaming around all day without so much as a bite of action. This evening though I have been chasing frigates back and forth and killing cruisers, yes that's right more than one cruiser!

The first cruiser I killed (Scythe) was ratting in a belt with a buddy of his, who I recognized as a regular hauler pilot in the system. My initial guess was that he was mining with his buddy along in a Stabber to kill the rats. I was wrong though, the Scythe had been combat fit as was the Stabber. I primaried the Stabber but it was able to outpace me in my current Rifter which lacks a web so I swapped targets to the Scythe as I had only taken 30% of the Stabber shields off. As the Scythe went to low shields the buddy bugged out and docked up so I kept the pressure on. The pilot was saying "stop" to me in local but made no offer of a ransom payment. His ship went boom and I locked the pod. Asking him how much it was worth not to pod him I didn't get a reply in sufficient time to I blew his sorry ass back to the clone vat.

Later on in the evening I happen upon a normally quiet system which is really quite busy. Spotting a couple of newer pilots in local I see about tracking them down, one jumps out of the system so that decides who I focus on finding. My quarry came up on scan in a Rupture though I thought I had spooked him as he vanished form scan. Jumping between safe spots I found him again at a belt. Warping in he is engaged with a battlecruiser rat 35km away. I head for him as fast as my AB will carry me hoping he doesn't notice me (yeah right), 25km out he targets me! Then disrupts my warp drive!! Awesome news, the fight is on. I settle into a happy orbit as he very slowly picks away at my shields. The rat had already taken care of his shields for me so I set to it on the armour. At half structure he remembers that he has a web and uses it to pull some range but its too little too late and thereafter follows a pretty explosion with the cherry on top being his pod going pop too. I scoop the corpse and start looting his wreck when a Falcon decloaks 35km away, damned if I could stop the adrenaline shakes I just manage to click the warpout button before the Falcon gets close.

My third cruiser kill of the evening was another Rupture, doing a little research ahead of the engagement via battleclinic it seemed that he used drones and neuts. Now I don't like drones and I especially don't like neuts. All that said though I engaged anyway! After a little game of "chase through the belts" I caught him thanks to the fact that I can align quicker than he. It was my longest fight yet and boy did he like his neut. Without my cap booster I would have been dead as a Dodo. Several times my scram couldn't activate for lack of cap but he didn't capitalise. I took down his drones first as they were the biggest threat to me after the neut, thankfully they were T1. We then set about the dance of taking the rest of his ship away to get another pretty explosion \o/. I attempted to ransom his Pod for 100mil as this was no noob character, but he didn't pay so he went back to the vat.

To top it all off on my way to dock up I came across a Bellicose, seemingly mining in a belt as it had a mining drone out. Warping in I arrived some 40km away so again had to hope that I wouldn't get spotted on the way in. Somehow I managed to get to lock range without being noticed and really that was the end of it. The pilot must have been afk at the start of the fight as once in low shields they tried in vain to make a run for it. Unfortunately I didn't snag the pod on this occaision. Reviewing the killmail I have to say that the weapon loadout qualifies for a "lolfit".

If only I had gotten that Stabber earlier in the day I would have killed the full set of Minmatar cruisers in one day!

2 vs 1

Having a fairly long and dissappointly peaceful roam it was that I found a Stabber at a belt, He was looting some wrecks he had created until I warped into the scene. I set about the (very) slow task of depleting his shields, he had an active shield tank so I tried making best use of my nos to reduce his cap. Eventually I broke through the shields as a fleet of 4 NPC rats warped in along with a pilot in a Vigil from my targets corp. The Vigil lit me up with a target painter, not that their damage was a problem, though the rats were moreso.

I warped out when I saw the Vigil only to turn around and warp straight back. I wanted to take down the Vigil first. Arriving back in the belt I could not for the life of me catch the Vigil the so switched back to the Stabber. He was soon in low structure but somehow got away. Still scratching my head about that. I continued to try and get the Vigil in vain so after a further warp out/in to try and snag it gave up as the Stabber warped back in. I just didn't have enough ammo to do it all over again!

Tomorrow heralds a new era for Kirith as he gains access to T2 guns & ammo, something which will increase mighty Rifters prowess.

Afk Stabber

By chance this evening I stumbled across a Stabber sat afk at a planet. I was sure he would be in a belt but alas it was not be, thinking to myself that he can't be at the planet I checked to make sure. There sat some 50km from my warp in point was said Stabber. Approaching at full burn there was still no reaction. I left targetting to the last minute so as not to scare him off and land my point. Settling into orbit I starting pecking at his shields, they went down very slow, incredibly so in fact. I actually wondered if I could break them with my measly 27 (I think) DPS. I noticed then that he had started boosting... so he was there. Chewing to 75% took one full hopper of EMP ammo, things starting going quicker down to around 60% when after calling for help in local he realised we were the only two pilots in the system. He asked me how much to leave him alone so I switched off my guns but holding the point web & nos, I countered asking what he would offer. After receipt of my 8 million isk I let him go about his business.

Quite a profitable evening