Thursday 2 April 2009

Slice Like a Ninja, Cut Like a Razor Blade

Yesterday morning was great and the evening was just as good.
I scanned down a couple of Rifters ratting at a belt in Siseide and warped to them. Targeting the one that was closer, I settled into the usual 7.5km orbit and activated my tackling gear and guns. The second Rifter reacted slowly but eventually targeted me and started helping his mate.
I could deal with two of them, but then the third one warped in and joined the party. My overheated armour repairer could not catch up with the damage they were dealing and the lack of capacitor charge forced me to start pulsing it instead of running the module nonstop. Fortunately for me, my first target soon exploded, after which I quickly moved the tackle onto another frigate and moved away from it into an orbit where my Barrage ammunition would give me distance advantage.
I kept my guns overloaded and continued pulsing the repper, but was already taking hull damage resulting in the familiar flame and smoke. About halfway into structure, I managed to get rid of the second Rifter.
When I faced the last opponent, I had virtually no armour and no cap left. Suppressing the urge to try and run away, I once again ordered my ship to widen the orbit and, as soon as cap regenerated a little, activated the afterburner, the web and the scrambler. That helped me reduce incoming damage and start repairing my armour bit by bit. The third Rifter turned out to be the weakest one, but just as his armour was giving up, a flashy red Maller showed up at the belt and sped towards us, releasing a pack of Tech 2 drones.
Seeing no chances to survive a fight against the cruiser, I aligned to another belt and overheated my midslots. I did not expect to get away quickly, but suddenly my warp drive was free from disruption and I was in the safety of a warp tunnel. Turned out I finished off the last Rifter while trying to flee. Checking out my ship stats I noticed I had 19 percent structure left.
Extremely satisfied, I docked my own Rifter for the night as soon as my criminal timer expired.

3 comments:

  1. Now that's the way its meant to be done! Top work my friend!

    A word to the wise. Overheating an armour repairer makes it cycle faster. Fine when you have lots of cap but if you're having to pulse it or running low then the slightly slower cycles of the non-overheated module might favour you.

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  2. Thanks for the tip. I was under the impression that since the repairer does its actual job at the very end of the cycle, it was better to keep it running fast. And to avoid running out of cap, I just switched it off immediately after activating so only one cycle would take place.

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  3. Excellent work! Lucky for you that the final Rifter was the weakest.

    Man, I miss Siseide and the surrounding area.
    Great area to solo. Many targets, and everyone is willing to fight.

    Keep up the Rifter pew!

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