Flying Bricks and Other Things

Yay, Ive finally acquired enough funds to get two Vengeances with a nifty fit. I also have enough left over to fit a few punishers if I need to fall back on those. I chose to finally leave H.UNG. Several reasons why can be attributed to this choice. Things like my gameplay style basically going pure pvp now. I dont want to mine unless I really need to. Making my own riggings, ships and modules is pretty handy, so mining wont be eliminated from my gameplay entirely, just hopefully reduced.

Also, with the fall of the NC, WIDOT alliance is becoming a corp part of the GSF. Nothing against Goonswarm on my end. H.UNG's home is now somewhere out in Fade; with me in Molden Heath, I dont want to move out to nullsec again just yet. And finally, I never visited the H.UNG forums, rarely read the corp emails (due to it being mostly conversations that could have been private) and I just was not part of H.UNG. Fleet ops were often for mining and some pvp once in awhile, but I was almost never available for them, so thats an issue on my part, not theirs. Overall though, I really enjoyed being around the people of Wildly Inappropriate and Hysterically Unforgiving. Almost all of them answered questions when I asked and when completely lost, nudged in the right direction to find the info for myself. Great group of people that I learned a bit from.

Now, on the to the exciting stuff! I fought a Dramiel. I get really bored of looking for people to fight, scanning them down and such after 3 or 4 hours of roaming unsuccessfully. So I tend to ask in local if anyone wants to fight. So far, its worked out better than roaming. However, one thing that bothers me with doing this is that the opponent knows what ship Im flying and basically that Im armor tanked. They know how to prepare for how to beat me. With surprising an opponent, they dont and cant counter on the fly. So I am going to attempt in the future to be more persistant in my roaming and figure out some ways to lure people to me that I want to fight.

So with my Dramiel fight, I had shouted in local. Got an offer for a 1v1 and accepted. We fleeted up and met at a safe. After looking at this opponents history, I knew he would have a great advantage over me with skill points, being an early 2007 character. Also, being a Dramiel, I already had the attitude that Id lose against a ship like that. Fitting my best stuff in hopes of pulling something out of a hat, we began our duel.

When I warped in, I warped to zero to attempt to set range throughout the fight. Scramming and webbing immediately, I turned on my guns and nos. The Dramiel quickly chewed through my shields as expected. He hit my armor, I started my repper. My Navy crystals werent doing much to him, so I set my range to about 2k instead of the 1300. I hoped a wider arc would help. It did, but not enough to help me. So I aligned, preparing to lose my first Vengeance. Then, I popped my secret weapon that no opponent thus far has expected on my fit: ECM.

It scrambled the Dramiel's targeting on the first cycle, turning off his guns AND warp scram on me. It took me a second to notice, as my armor came back from structure, but once I did, I was quickly hitting the warp to shortcut key. Yeah, about this new UI..... If the overview isnt the focus, then shortcut keys like warp to and align to DO NOT WORK. Fun little bug, yes? Well, in the heat of combat, it wasnt. Luckily, I had clicked a stargate and with it as my select action window focus, hit the button to warp out. Also luckily, the Dramiel pilot was like "wtf, how did you get away?" in fleet chat.

Apparently, ECM is an unconvential setup and even an experienced pilot can get thrown off track. I was in structure, and Im sure he thought he was lagging when his guns stopped shooting and his target was cleared. So, ECM is a great tool, at the loss of an AB, I didnt mind.

My rifter fight was against a similar aged opponent, but he had just got back from a small gang killing a drake, so I offered to only fight to structure as he was fit for webbing and logistical stuff I spose. Anyhow, I only went ahead to fight this guy because I wanted to see if I could tank a rifters dps, and I was definately able to tank this Rifters, even though he wasnt setup for it. I popped him to structure and turned off my lasers. With lasers off, nos, web, scram, dc, and repper going, I was somewhat cap stable around 40-50%. I dont have the missile skills to take advantage of the weapon bonus of a Vengeance, but the cap stability made me feel good about my fit and will only improve as I increase my support skills.

So I quickly learned today that support skills are a massive help. The Dramiel pilot said afterwards he had maxed all gunnery skills, explaining how he deftly defeated my armor. In this fight though, I was able to control and set the range, very good for the gatling lasers, as I did not go over my optimal and into falloff range. My rifter fight was more of a confidence boosting fight after getting handidly defeated by the Dramiel, with nothing to learn here except that I need to invest some time towards increasing cap stability skills.

Great past couple days in my opinion.