I hate the blob....

So after roaming for a lil while, I got bored and got a conversation going with a guy who was flying a stealth bomber. In my punisher, I wasnt sure if I could take him and he wasnt sure if he could hit me. So after some cat and mouse, I figured out I couldnt get within targeting range to prevent him from cloaking up. I switched to a slicer, and soon his corp mate showed up in a rifter. Now, I dont mind this, because I was looking for a fight.

What bothered me more is my issue with setting optimal range. I recently upgraded to t2 ammo (scorch) as well as the t2 gatling lasers instead of my regular tier 1 DMLs, so the range differences with the smaller falloff was an adjustment for me throughout the fight. I got the SB down to 7 armor before he was able to warp off. I almost had him, but I was half armor also! I was pusling my MWD (recently switch from an AB) and my cap was going down much faster than I was used to as well. I think I got the rifter down to about 1/4 or 1/2 armor before my ship exploded and I warped out in my pod. The PoS damage is from when I was exploring the planets and moons and warped in a little too close, barley escaping with my ship in tact.

Slicer Fight

Now, after my thrilling loss to a couple of awesome pilots, I decided to go mining. In low sec. I activated my alt account up, got my orca and a covetor out there for my alt to fly (cuz hulk is exspensive). By the time I was situated, no one was in local except me and my alt. A few randoms would come and go, but no one stayed long enough to probe me out it seemed. I grew complacent in my little world of mining and moving ore from cargo hold to corp hanger to ore hold. That was a mistake, because I hadnt noticed a pilot named Max lingering in local. Im guessing he was a scout, because when I noticed a yellow pop on grid, I was already aligned, however, Orca's are extremely slow to gtfo. Mining barge made it out to safe spot. Orca, not so lucky due to being webbed/scrammed before I finished getting to warp speed.

Drones were attacking, trying to distract the pointer to no avail, and soon enough, 2 more reds popped on grid. Then there 5...8...10...15 and finally 16. Several battleships, a Legion, and a few battlecruisers. Yeah....so about that mining I was doing. Apparently, these guys live out in this wormhole that had popped into this section of space. I guess, I dont really know. All I know is that my overview quickly and rapidly filled with reds. My foreman links had been turned off, with my shields going as I aligned to safe spot. I kept trying to gtfo, but was still scrammed hardcore with no chance of escape. Good bye, my dear Orca, you were my first loss for a ship of your type.

Orca Lost to the Blob

So, yeah, I hate the blob. I dont even want to be a part of it. There were more than 16 people on grid when my ship went boom, but several of them were not able to target before it did. That doesnt seem like much fun to me. Also, does it really take 15+ battleships or bigger to take down a simple miner in lowsec? Seriously, at least when it was just the cruisers or one or two battleships, I may have been able to handle myself or escape with ship in tact. I offered a meager ransom to them to not blow me up, to no answer. I lost my cool when the ship exploded and as I warped out, said a word or two in local to them and it wasnt GF.

I hate the blob!

Biting off more then you can chew.....

So I while I typed out the previous post, a few people had joined us in local. I decided to try again to get a good fight. Sending a message to Face612, I invited him to a t1 frig fight, hoping Id get my wish. Well, I did. We agreed to no podding, and I mentioned I had just fought a guy who had no defenses, so I prompted him to at least equip some. He did just that.

I warped into the first belt, waiting for him to arrive. Soon enough, he did, in what I took to be a rifter at first glance (soon to be found out a Jaguar). We set range at about 9km, not out of my range. This varied down to 2km, back up to about 7km throughout the fight as we each tried to set range. Got him to almost to armor, then my old friend showed up from the previous fight. I was quickly scrammed and jammed, and I could do nothing. I turned on my repper to maybe kill the Jaguar if there was a lull in the ECM. There wasnt, and I got to 40% armor before I tried to escape. It wasnt happening, even with my AB going to get out of range. My ship blew up and I warped out. Even with the previous no pod agreement, I couldnt be sure the other 3 people who warped in midfight would honor it, since the t1 frig agreement hadnt been honored.

At this point, I realized I had bit off more than I could chew and I limped out of the system, back home again.

http://wialliance.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9566564

Condor-ated!

So I spent about an hour or so roaming through space. I set my destination for Aldali, as Ive seen a few people there before. On my way, I can flipped a few miners in hopes of some combat. None obliged, even the ones with drones. I guess these miners are smart enough to not have aggressive drones! Anyhow, I made my way to Aldali finally. With only 5 of us in the area, I decided to check whos docked up. Wow, 3 others were docked. Well, where is this other guy? I undocked and dscanned him down, in an Iteron Mark 2 or something. I kept losing him, so I guess he was jumping between safespots to the gate out, which is where I finally lost him.

In spite of my massive amount of fail in getting in trouble, I was still determined to find a fight today. So I messaged the only person who was a 2010 toon in the area. She took a minute to accept the convo, but when she did, I asked politely if she was interested in a 1v1 t1 frig fight. She promptly declined and closed the window. Well crap, that only leaves the 2004 toon and the 2006 people. Not something I wanted to fight in their preferred ships. So I undocked and was about to give up when one of them undocked also. I was happy at this new encounter. He was about 10km away when we both undocked, so I hesitated long enough to see he was flying a T2 ship, so I departed to a safe spot.

Mid flight, I decided to fight him. I knew Id lose fighting his T2 cruiser, so I wasnt even interested in doing that. I was however, wanting to fight an old character. So I sent a convo invite, he accepted. I boldly said I would fight him if he dropped to a T1 frig, as I refuse to engage in an encounter I have no chance of winning. My thought process on this is that even though he is in a frig also, he has higher SP than me by a great deal. So he should have the advantage, but not enough of one to completely negate my chances of winning. I warped back to the station at 100km to see if he was there, and he had docked up. Well, he decided to look through his assets and after a minute or two, he said lets me at the first belt. I obliged him by warping in at 10km after he undocked.

I guess he warped in at the same distance, as he was only 2km away when I arrived. Locking him quickly, I AB'd to orbit around 5km. I knew he had seen my ship, so I thought he might use something to drain my cap, so I turned off the AB once I got range set. Somehow, he cut range to 3km, 2km. I turned off lasers, switched to multi crystals, and lit him up. I was taking damage this whole time, but with my DC2, and an unneeded pulse of my repper, I was ok. Couldnt say the same for him though.

This pilot was down to structure. I was thinking oo, Im gonna get a pod kill! He blew up and as I was about to target his pod; I changed my mind. I decided not to pod this pilot because 1) he had switched ships to provide a more even fight. 2) He could have easily tricked me and used a bigger ship, but he didnt. So for these reasons, I chose not to pod this pilot. He was well within range too, for several seconds, during which I was debating on getting the pod kill still. Warping to a safe spot, I removed myself from the temptation, thanking him for a good fight.

A moment later looking at the killboard, I realized he had given me this win by not using any defense modules whatsoever. I dont know if he thought he didnt need it and his guns alone would be enough to kill me before my guns killed him, or what. Either way, I feel like this was yet again a cheap win. A win nonetheless, but cheap also. Link to the killboard follows:

http://wialliance.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9566227