12 June 2012

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
 

3 comments:

  1. Concerning your fight #1:
    there is no instawarp after a gatejump. After jumping you are unaligned to anything. No matter which direction you go, aligning will always happen first.

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    Replies
    1. Hey Norbert, thanks for your comment. I am not sure what you mean. Ar you saying that it will always take the aligntime to warp out? No matter what your position/direction after the jump? Let me explain what I do and what I understand. What I usually do when making (insta)bookmarks at gates is jump thru, not move and then accelerate to max. velocity. I make the bookmark when I have flow about 250km straight from the gate. When jumping thru the gate again I am aligned to that bookmark, all I have to do is accelerate to warp speed (3/4 of max velocity) which does take a few sec because the ship has mass. So it is not that insta, but fast. The one thing I am not sure about is if I do need to align to something if the alignment is instant like a turn on the spot or that it takes more time. I assume that it does but I am not really sure about this mechanic.

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    2. It will always take your align time to warp out. If you are stopped, it will still take your align time. This is always true at stargates. Align time or 3/4 speed, whichever comes last, determines when you can actually initiate warp.

      The reason you can have insta undocks at stations is because when you get ejected, you are already aligned and at speed.

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