The New Merlin and why I think it Rocks

I saw Merlins being used in the first match of the Alliance tournament and I thought I'd like to write my thoughts about them down because since they got rebalanced I really like this little ship.

The Merlin was one of the frigates together with the Tormenter, Rifter, Punisher and Incursus  that was changed in CCP's ship balancing project. 

Being interested in flying cheap ship for learning PvP I was curious at the changes and did some EFTing with them. 

The Merlin caught my eye the most in its new form. I can't even remember the old bonuses it had I think it was a shield resist bonus and a rocket velocity bonus.. forgive me if I am wrong. Anyway.. CCP made it into a little brawler with a 5% shield resist and a 5% hybrid damage bonus.

A resist bonus screams active tank to me and especially the Ancillary shield booster (ASB) so I EFT ed a fit with one and came up with the fit below.

When theorizing about a possible fit I like to find a balance between the DPS it can apply to its targets and the DPS it can absorb before exploding. I found a very nice balance in the following fit;

 [Merlin, Neutron blasters active tank AB]
Damage Control II
Tracking Enhancer II
Reactor Control Unit II

Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 50
Stasis Webifier II
1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

With all skills at lvl 5 the stats are: 

DPS:155DPS , (178 OH)

EHP: 3627 or 1563HP

SHIELDBOOST: 146HP, (170HP OH) for 10 cycles = 1460HP (1700HP OH)

Velocity max: 1043m/s

Optimal: 1.3km

Falloff: 4.1km

Lets look at the tank with the ASB.. and to compare lets calculate the HP not the EHP. 

The basis is 1563HP ad the cycles of the ASB to that overheated because that is how I use it always.  The ASB can take a lot of overheat compared to the other modules, almost 4 minutes which is much longer than a fight will last.

So total tank= 1563+1700= 3263HP. Compare that to a simular buffer tank with a medium extender (2876HP) and you will see that the ASB give you more survivability. But for a short while ofcourse.

My oppinion is that the DPS is pretty good for a T1 frig. The problem is as with any blaster ship is applying the dps onto the target. The optimal is very short and so is the falloff with Antimatter ammo. Getting in close which you need to do can give problems with tracking but fortunately the Merlin can fit a web and a scram. 

The choice for Neutron blasters was not really for the extra DPS because they don't an much more (about10) but for extra range and they fit of course. I put the tracking enhancer in there as well to get more range out of the turrets and better tracking as I am not really sure if the blasters will track well enough. I am still learning what works best but as I mentioned I want to make sure I can apply all that DPS on target. High DPS is no use if you can't hit your target. 

Even with null ammo loaded the DPS is not too bad (123 and 140OH) and I personally would prefer having null loaded over antimatter so I can start applying damage as soon as possible. Unless I was sure that I would be on top of my target in no time.

The speed is alright , nothing to write home about but not too bad. You can exchange the Afterburner for an MWD without changing anything  on the fit which is convenient. Till now I have flown it with a afterburner but I keep a MWD in the cargobay if I change my mind.

So all in all I think this ship rocks in its current state with the ASB and even without it. I have had a couple of fight in it vs Rifters (the former king of t1 frigs, excluding pirate and faction frigs ; ) .

I took one down relatively easy and of another ended undecided. I had to leave grid though when my booster charges ran out.

BTW don't be afraid to comment or correct any kind of mistakes I might have made in my calculations. I am still learning a lot of how this all works and how I should interpret the information I get from EFT or Pyfa. Also and advice you may have is welcome.

Three Rifters, a Thrasher, one good fight.

This sunday I probably had my most successful solo fight of my career so far.

Roaming Syndicate late in the evening in my artillery Thrasher I ended up  in JH-M2 . Different gangs were roaming the area and I was following the most traveled routes using an IGB tracker website (I'll link it below).

At one of the gates I found a group of Agony T1 frigates.  I guess waiting for information from a scout or something, I don't know, but it was a perfect opportunity for me to try and get get a good fight.

So I warped to the gate at about 30 or 50km,can't remember exactly. I just know that I didn't want to get too close to them while also wanting to be close enough to be an interesting target. Having experienced Agony members before in fights and knowing they were in a gang I assumed they would not find my single Thrasher too threatening. 

My plan was to burn from the gate as they would give chase and pop as many of them as I could before the would get close and swarm me. If they could get on top of me  it would be game over for my ship.

Unfortunately a heavy interdictor landed at the gate at the same time as I did. Apparently he also having a mind to catch a few T1 frigs. Soon to be followed by a small battlecruiser gang consisting mostly of Hurricanes. So it was time for me to bail and warp to a tac on the same gate.

The Agony gang jumped when the dictor arrived, I think. They lost 1 frigate in the process if I recall correctly. They still had a Ares on the grid who decided it had an appetite for Thrashers. In other words; it was going fullspeed for my ship :). Gotta love those interceptor pilots who burn 250km to a target.

Nothing much came out of that fight between me and the Ares. Except for me having to leave the grid. I did my standard protocol flying this type of ship when he approached> align, keep my distance as long as possible and let him fly into my DPS but that didn't work with this guy. He changed course after getting hit a few times and evaded the rest of my shots. Time to warp out. I had mistakenly overheated my MWD to long and it burned out. Time to leave and repair.

A few minutes later, Round2. AT the same gate I warp to my tactical bookmark and an Agony Rifter arrives at a tac on grid as well. I figure his friends can't be far off so I warp to the gate and jump, guessing he will follow with some friends.  I burn from the gate right away to get some distance between me and my attackers when they come thru and set my modules for overheated operation.

Moments later the Rifter arrives and starts to burn right towards me. Perfect. When in range (30km on those arties :) yay!) I open fire and he pops. 2 of his friends jump in, in Rifters, as well. They give chase and I lock em up and they pop .. that went faster than I expected. But in the mean time more people arrived thru the gate, the Ares , an Incursus and 2 Merlins.. I go for the Ares first but can't get enough DPS on him. He evades my guns and when he comes closer he scrams me. I switch to the Incursus thinking I might be able to take him down before my ship blows up. He is coming dangerously close.. 15km.. and closing. I get him to structure before I get webbed, and he is orbiting me soon after. The fight is then over for me. 

My Thrasher pops and I warp my pod to safety. When checking my killmail/lossmail I noticed a few cruisers had been present as well, I never noticed them :D. That tends to happen to me more often. 

Three kills in one fight, best I have done so far. The sacrifice of a Thrasher was worth it to me. And four kills in one ship (1 Ranis and the 3 from this fight), pretty sweet. To bad I didn't get the Incursus but hey, there is always room for improvement. :-)

IGB Tracker Link

Battleclinic

Fights in a Malediction and an artillery Thrasher

I have been having a little more luck this week as far as kills vs losses are concerned.And I must say that I am very happy about that. It is great for my morale.

First off I got a unexpected kill when making new bookmarks in 6-CZ46 (my old ones had been compromised by Agony earlier in the week). While bookmarking a little Rifter started hanging around the Reblier gate. I was in a Malediction so after I was finished making my bookmarks I though what the hell, lets go for it. He obviously wanted to fight. I warped to him as he was sitting near a warp disruption bubble set my orbit , scrammed his ship and started shooting.

I expected him to have autocannons fitted so my idea was to orbit a 5 km , keep him scrammed and webbed and tank any damage with my small armor rep. The 5km would make sure I could keep my Nosferatu  running to fuel the rep while decreasing his DPS on me by staying at the edge of his turret falloff (about 7km). And the wonderful range of rockets allowed me to do full DPS on him at the same time.

This all went surprisingly well and the Rifter popped rather quickly while I didn't have to use my repper once. And as it turns out he was artillery fit. That is one of the the wonderful things about EVE I think,  people fly all kind of exotic fits:). I just never really know what to expect, I just always assume the worst.


A couple of days later I took a Thrasher out to play which had been sitting in my hangar for some time. It is artillery fit and I stole the fitting from Iczer X01 who made a video a while back using it. Here is the link: Link to Iczer vid Soloing PVP v2. Go check it out I think its really good.

You don't need glasses, the image is blurry ;)

The tactics involved with this fit are very simular to that of the Coercer. The idea is to keep distance between the ship and the opponent as long as you can and kill it before it can get too close to scram and orbit. It something catches you you are dead. The artillery turrets will never track anything orbiting close.

The Thrasher has the advantage over the Coercer of having a warp disrupter so I can prevent ships from warping away when they notice they are loosing and its faster as well. The DPS is not that good though: 150 (with my skills)  and 175 overheated. Primary target of this ship are frigates and slower destroyers. I can't imagine it taking on cruisers and such. But I can be wrong.

What I would do when presented with an opponent is to wait till they approach then align to a celestial and  fly as fast as I could away from the target while they try to intercept. When in range it is a matter of activating the turrets and see what happens and manage heat of course.

This way I managed to down a Taranis with the Thrasher in 6-CZ49. I think the person was surprised by the arty fitted as most Thrashers are shield tank autocannon brawler as far as I have seen in Syndicate. He engaged very aggressively and  noticed to late what was happening I assume.  By the time he did it was too late. It took 5 salvo's to take it down. The alfastrike of the artillery guns was impressive to see and the Ranis had little tank of course. Got some nice loot from his wreck too. Sweet.

Killboard Link

Cormorant MkIII - Ancillary shield boosted

Yep another Cormorant.

Just when I thought I had a fit that I liked and I could not improve upon I saw Kovorix video Everlasting II . Which is another very good video of his and probably his best one so far. Go and check it out if you have not.

What caught my eye in this vid is the last fight. 2 Maelstroms take on a  fleet and beat them without to much trouble so it seems. Kovorix seems to quit easily tank the incoming DPS and the reason seems to be that he is using 2 XL Ancillary shield boosters. 

Now the ancillary shield boosters are new modules that came with Inferno. I have never used them before as I have never been into shield boosters and I wanted to keep things simple while I was learning PvP with as few active mods as possible. But seeing Kovorix use them with such effectiveness I got inspired. I wanted to see if they could work on smaller ships. I wanted to see if a ancillary shield booster would work on a Cormorant. 

Till now I had never played with this new module but I got a real good impression on how they worked from watching the video and Kovorix also showed how they could be used effectively. Most importantly , what was new for me to see in that is is that you can use the booster gradually. You don't have to use all the boosters all in one activation. I kinda had the impression before that you just had to turn it on and that was it. You can for instance use 1/2 of the charges and them stop tanking and continue tanking when needed. Which allows controlled tanking as with any other armor rep or shield booster. 

From what I understand a ancillary shield booster is basically 2 modules put together; a shield booster and a cap booster. It is like an shield booster with its own cap supply. You load it with cap charges as with a cap booster and when you activate the booster it will consume the charges while boosting your shields without using your ships cap. The downside is that is has limited charges so it can be used a limited number of times this way before it needs to reload it's charges which takes 60 seconds. So after  a short time the fun is over  or... you can still run the booster but it will use your ships cap and it will drain your cap real quick.

So basically you got a limited amount of time where you can get a very decent amount of shield boost after which there is a long reload time.

This is one of the fits that I have come up with so far.

[Cormorant, Solo blaster Web Active tank]
Damage Control II

Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 50
Limited 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II

Light Electron Blaster II, Void S
Light Electron Blaster II, Void S
Light Electron Blaster II, Void S
Light Electron Blaster II, Void S
Light Electron Blaster II, Void S
Light Electron Blaster II, Void S
Light Electron Blaster II, Void S
Small 'Knave' Energy Drain

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Stats (all skills at V):
Tank: 5200 EHP

Boost: 92 EHP (120 overheated) for 30 seconds = 2750 (3600 OH) extra EHP

DPS: 285 (327 overheated)

CAP: Stable

Velocity: 1531km/s (2141 OH)

I have been testing this fit and another variation of it on sisi and so far it seems to perform better than my older versions. If it is good enough .. idk yet. I got 10 hulls on the production lines in Dodixie as I write this to test them in the wild on TQ . I hope I will be able to take them out for a spin this weekend.

I also noticed that with the tracking bonuses of the destroyer class in combination with the web that the tracking reduction of Void isn't much of a factor anymore. So I have switched to Void for its better DPS and its longer optimal over faction antimatter ammo.

The NOS is still something that could change out for a few Ion blasters. It is there now to help me in prolonged fights when my booster runs out and I'll be boosting on my ships capacitor. I am not sure yet if will be useful.

Three days of fighting

This is a summary of the fights I had last week. I have lost a lot of ships , didn't kill many , well.. 1, a Rifter. But I had fun most of the time. And I learned a few things.

Side note: My apologies for any spelling mistakes or incorrect English grammar. I didn't feel like spell checking today :-).

03 June

Fight 1, Jorund starsystem, Curse region: Cormorant vs Vagabond, Tornado, Vigilant.

I jump into Jorund  form Hemin ( I don't use a scout btw which makes jumping into systems a surprise every time) and find the above 3 ships at 0m from the gate. So then  I need to decide what to do: burn for the gate or try to align out and warp to a celestial. Unfortunately I do not have a insta bookmark on this gate (a bookmark that is directly in front/in line of the gate so I can warp quicker). I have some time until I will decloak so I take as much as I need. I don't think that it will matter much though.

Flying back to the gate doesn't seem like a good idea as I will fly right into their DPS so I align and try to warp. To no avail, they are paying attention and my ship dies a quick death. POOF!

Nothing  I could do about that.

Fight 2, 6-CZ49 starsystem, Syndicate region: Rupture vs Eagle, Wolf, Rifter, Jaguar

I jump into 6-CZ49 (Syndicate entry system) from Reblier. I hold my cloak and see that a Wolf ,  an Eagle and a Jag are sitting at tacs about 250km away around the gate while a Rifter jumped into the system with me.

I decide to burn from the gate MWD running and target the Rifter (easiest target and the only one in range). The Wolf then warps onto the Rifter, or so I believe and the Rifter almost goes down but manages to warp off before he pops.

My ship is taking fire from the other 3 by now and its going down. When my shields are down and my armour is dropping  I realize I am not aligned to anything so I align to a planet to warp out . But... then my cap goes dry.. and I don't warp.. wtf?! Prob have been burning my MWD too long. My ships stays on grid and it dies.

Lesson learned:

• Align to something when burning away.That surely would have saved my ship I was well aware  that it was going down. A few extra sec would have made all the difference.

04 June

Fight1, 6-CZ49 starsystem, Syndicate region: Cormorant vs Rifter 

This time I am in my webby Cormorant fortunately. As I jump into 6-CZ49 a Rifter follows me from Reblier. I hold cloack to look at the situation: 2 Thrashers are sitting at tacs around the gate. Not too bad, it seems they are all from different alliances./corps so less chance of getting gang raped. I decloak and so does the Rifter. To my surprise he attacks aggressively closing the distance fast to apply his DPS. Not the wisest choice on his part but brave. This is what my Cormy was made for so we brawl and he pops.

I got 25% shield left, to little to take on a Thrasher so I decide to warp out without looting the wreck.

Fight2, 6-CZ49 starsystem, Syndicate region: Cormorant vs Thrasher.

A few minutes later me at the same gate me and a Thrasher are at a tac. I warp to the Rifter wreck from before to persuade him to follow.

He does and lands 20km away from me. We approach each other (for a moment I suspect a Arty fit but he is not and happy to approach as well) and brawl. I make the mistake to come too close while I would have been better of at the edge of my optimal (2km). His DPS is way higher than mine and my ship dies.

Not much more to say really. A simple fight. I should have managed my distance better, that is all. 

Fight 3, 6-CZ49 starsystem, Syndicate region (not really a fight though): Cormorant vs the blob

I jump into 6-CZ49 from Reblier and find a blob at the gate. To many ships to count really. My overview just filled up with all kind of ships sitting on the gate.  I type something in local chat expressing my disappointment with my current predicament and  decide to burn for the gate not expecting to make it. My ship dies quickly.

I do make the mistake here to not declutter my overview  before burning to the gate (I got a tab that will only show celestials, should have switched to that ) So I could not find a place to warp my pod to once my ship was down  in time and so I lost my pod as well. Bummer..

11 june 

Fight1, 6-CZ49 starsystem, Syndicate region: Cormorant vs Sabre and a Falcon

This fight has a predictable result :-). I find the Sabre at a tac on the Reblier gate. Alone which is suspicious enough ofcourse but hey.. I am there to fight so what the hell, lets do it.  I align to the gate and consider playing the innocent 'just traveling through' act by jumping thru the gate and coming back a few moments later. But he takes the initiative and warps almost directly on top of my ship. Which is fine by me. I approach and we brawl . Mine and his shields go down evenly until the Falcon decloaks and and jams me. That is the end of the fight for me. My ship and later my pod get webbed and die in the interdictor bubble.

Maybe I could have done better here if  I could  have kept burning to the gate instead of approaching the Sabre and brawl. That might have given me more options.

Fight 2, 6-CZ49 starsystem, Syndicate region: Coercer vs Taranis

Me and a Ranis played around a bit at near a station. I warped to the station and found him there lurking about. He approached me several times while  I would fire when he got within my lazors range. Then he would  fly away again out of range. I got him into structure and I was happy to see that the turrets were able to apply damage even when he got within 10km.

It was never enough to destroy his ship though and he didn't make any mistakes. I couldn't keep him in range as he is much to fast.

After doing that for a bit I warped to a planet to see if he would warp in at a close range to give me time to apply enough DPS to finish him off but no such luck. The fight ends undecided.

Fight3, 6-CZ49 starsystem, Syndicate region: Coercer vs Stabber Fleet Issue, Ishtar, Taranis.

I warp to my tac near the Reblier gate and find the Stabber, Ishtar and the Ranis are on separate tacs around the gate. The Ranis is the only viable target for me of the three so I hope they send him after me. There might be a chance then that I could take him out.

So I align my ship to a planet (having learned that from my Rupture loss) to warp out quickly if needed. And see how the situation develops. But.. I then click on the Taranis in the overview  to see what his location is in relation to mine so I loose the planet as my selected target.. that is a mistake. The Stabber then warps to me a few seconds later.

I then realize my align/targeting mistake and try to find a warpout point which I fail to do being somewhat startled by the Stabbers warp. I am pretty stressed at that moment. I am sure that it is useless to fight the stabber. His tank is probably to strong, He's to fast and his friends will be on me in moments. I frantically try to find and click on the celestial that I am flying towards.

The Ishtar and Taranis warp on to of me as well moments later and my ship dies. In a last resort I  target and try to kill the Ranis but that didn't work. Damn. But alright another mistake and another way I can improve my game ;).

What is interesting about this fight to me, btw, is that they seemed to find my bookmark almost instantly. I realized later how they did that. 

When I had jumped into the system earlier and checked my directional scanner I noticed that there we 5 or 6 combat probes on scan.  When this is the case it usually means that the probes are close by.  I assume that these were from a pilot flying with the Stabber, Ranis, Ishtar (from Agony Unleashed in this case, I ran into these guys/girls a lot this week) .  So they were probably scanning the whole area around the gate all the time when ships warp in.

They scanned me down real quick and had there cov ops ( I assume) warp to me and then the rest of the ships in their fleet could follow and land right on top of me. Very smart and something to look out for next time. I will also need to make new bookmarks around the gate preferably
 more than 1^^.

o/ High5
 

Cormorant MkII

I am very fond of the Cormorant at the moment so I have been playing around in EFT trying to make it better than the earlier fit that I already liked. Yesterday after a few pretty bad fights this weekend and losses I logged onto Sisi to test a little bit and. I found, to my surprise ,  I had a fit from a weeks ago in the hangar there that is actually a little better than my previous MkI fit. 

[Cormorant, Solo blaster Web]
Damage Control II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Limited 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II

Light Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Electron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small 'Knave' Energy Drain

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Core defence Field Extender I

In comparison tho the other fit that I discussed earlier it has 1500EHP more but 30 DPS less.

I also traded the TD for a web. More on that later.. 

Personally I prob prefer this for over my earlier one. It has more survivability than the MkI and the 1500 EHP is prob. more beneficial than the extra 30DPS of the MkI. For instance If I am fighting versus  an opponent that does around 250 DPS  which is about what a AF or Dessy can put out (aprox.) then that is 6 seconds extended  life for my ship.

I have tried to calculate what the  effect would be of the reduction in DPS and if the MkI could do more DPS before it died than the the MkII but there are just so many variables that it is just really hard to take all of those into consideration. And it is all very  theoretical.

Now , about the web.

First of all I feel I need to say that I am still very much finding my way in what works on pvp fits and not, how certain modules and ammo work in fights and in what situation they work best. I am learning this by trial and error. This was also the case with the web/TD choice.

As much as I love the TD I think, judging from my experience in the last few days, that the web is prob the wisest choice because it is more useful in more situations. I am pretty sure that I would have killed that Crusader a few days ago if I had a web. So for smaller, faster stuff it is better than having a TD I think. Stil figuring this out though.

My impression now is that  the TD is great for things like the arty Wolf/Thrasher or a slicer and other small things that try to kite where I can force them to come close by cutting down their optimals/falloff.  So the web is prob more useful in general hence I put in on there. Anyways.. still more experience needs to be gained :). I will still fly with the TD, there many arty Thrashers out there you know.

Can't wait to try this fit, lets see how it works out.

Yeah I cheated , I put a speed rig in there ;-)

Combat log 020612

Starsystem: ZNO-SR

Cormorant vs Crusader, Vengeance, Rifter, Drake

I ended up in this system earlier today before downtime while roaming. There seemed to be some activity there judging from the map but when I arrived no targets of interest were in space. Just a few people in local. I docked up and called it a day .

This evening I logged in again to find the number of local had increased to 20+ . Usually I don't like that many in local especially when many of them are from the same corp or alliance but I had the impression from my earlier experience in this small pocket in Syndicate that the occupants were more into carebearing than PvP. Although I expect that if people carebear in null that they also have experience in PvP, At least some as they need to defend their ' territory'  on occasion I assume. 

I am usually pretty careful when it comes to picking opportunities to roam and fight but this evening I felt more reckless and thought what the heck lets loose a ship. If it happens it happens, I just really wanted to get some action. 

So I undocked expecting ships  to sit at the undock and ready to hit 'shift - space' and redock if needed. But noone was there so I started to warp around celestial to scan for ships. I spotted several. A Bestower, a Crusader , a Drake and a Naga. So I used my scanner to locate them and found the Drake at a gate.  I warped to the gate wat 100km ( I didn't have a tactical there) I just wanted to have a look and see who the Drake pilot  was, let my presence be known and maybe lure the Crusader in if they were from the same corp ofcourse. Which I didn't know at the time. So I hung around the gate at 100k while nothing  really happened. The Drake didn't move and nothing appeared on scan. 

The next thing I did was warp to a planet.  A planet that is one of the farthest from the sun so it is Cristal clear that I am warping to that particular planet if the Drake pilot was paying attention. In this case it had only one belt I believe. If anyone was interested in catching me he would know where to look (assuming again that these people are talking to each other on comms).

So I arrived on the planet and F***^*&%$#@ fly right into the customs office. I HATE that because I usually bump of it in some unexpected direction and then it costs me valuable time to align to something else. If I was being chased I needed that precious time to get away. This almost always happens when I warp to planets even when I warp to other distances than 0m. I find it very annoying to say the least. Anyways, rant over lets continue..

When I arrived at the planet a Bestower appeared on scan. It wasn't there before so I know its not at a POS or something, there are no POSSES on scan..  could it be that he has warped to the office to deliver or pick up PI goods?? And yes, he has. Moments later he arrives at 0m from the CO right beside my little Cormorant. I can't believe my luck .. I lock him up as fast as I can ... and that is that.. his tank drops quick and a few moments later the hauler is a molten wreck. Happy days:). Ofcourse his friends are not pleased I assume .. and the crusader and a Vengeance show up on scan.. It is time to decide.. Fight or flee?

I stay to fight. And fly away from the CO as fast as I can. I don't want to end up in a blob as they start arriving. I am assuming at that moment that  the Crusader and the Vengeance are the first of many that will arrive soon.  

As I mwd away the Crusader arrives. I decide that I am going to focus on that ship. To kill just one of them would be a plendid victory for me. And I don't expect to make it out with my ship. 

He locks and approaches. He even comes withing scram  range. I lock him back, scram, activate TD and my guns. He goes down quick but manages to increase the distance between me and him. I give chase but to no avail, he is way faster. He passed 4 km and the damage I do stops when he has 20% structure left. He is prob active tanked and I see his armour go up again a little. I pray for 1 more hit on his ship to finish him off but the vengeance and a Rifter  are upon me. I didn't even notice the Drake until I saw my loss mail. Apparently he had arrived as well.  A few moments later my Cormorant pops and I warp my pod to safety.

So what could I have done better. What is there to learn from this experience? Well I did everything right I think up until I started having tunnel vision about killing the Crusader. 

I lost situational awareness there. I didn't notice the Drake come in but ... that didn't matter at that time anyway. Once the Drake arrived the frigs were on top of and me there wasn't much that  I could have done that would have made any  difference to my survival, I think. And I was unlucky with the crusader. 1 more hit would have ended him but hey that is life in EVE.  Gratz to him for surviving.

Battleclinic

Aftermath:

After the fight I logged off in my noobship thinking I would save myself the trouble of undocking after I logged in next time and get out of the system quick. Unfortunalty , and this was my mistake, a timer was still running when I logged to my ship was still very visible on scan for I expect 15 min. The locals and the Hauler pilot decided to get some payback and probed me down. When I logged back in I was it was in a new clone 35 jumps away from syndicate..

That didn't feel to good.I won't make that mistake again though :).

High5