Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

My time in Faction Warfare coincided with the peak of the nano-frenzy, when everybody and his brother was in a Vagabond going so fast that the game engine could barely cope. Our Caldari blob of Drakes and Ravens and Caracals was often hard pressed by these fast-movers, and we developed a considerable hatred of them. Every now and then we’d get a kill on one of those boys, and there would always be much rejoicing.

Of course, that was long ago, and there have been many changes since then. But still.

There was a TEARS roaming op tonight, another wormhole dive in search of unwary targets. I joined up some two and a half hours late, due to a conflict with my dinner hour and some quality family time. By the time I joined, the FC sounded weary and rough (I think he’s been sick).

I found a wormhole, and the gang converged on me. The FC jumped in to scout for targets. He found at least two POSs there, along with various parked ships and (he said) a piloted Orca, sitting safely inside POS shields. After just a few minutes scouting, he declared the system free of targets and announced that the op was over. Then he jumped out, docked, and logged.

Well, for me the op was just beginning, so I jumped in (in my stealth bomber) and began snooping around for something to shoot at. I figured if I found something, I could get a few other TEARS guys to jump in after me and help kill it. I was specifically hoping that the Orca might do something stupid. Not very likely, but in EVE I’ve found that you sort of have to make your own luck. It might be true that “there’s no way to get a kill in this ship against that target” if the other guy doesn’t screw up, but in my experience, the other guy often does screw up, and if you aren’t hunting him when he does, you won’t get him.

Great minds think alike, and it turns out that Khalia Nestune and Lian Xander from Suddenly Ninjas were similarly interested in spending more time in this wormhole. They were flying a Malediction interceptor and an Ishkur assault frigate.

We snoop around. No sight of the Orca, but there’s a guy in his pod somewhere, and various unpiloted ships inside POS forcefields. A couple of haulers, and once I got a Helios on scan, which explained the combat scanner probes visible on the directional scanner. We were directional-scanning, since none of us had combat probes available.

After about ten minutes of random warping around and snooping, we decided there was nothing to be found without combat scanners, and it was agreed that I’d go out to known space and pick up my Buzzard covops. I entered warp to the wormhole.

At that moment, Khalia began shouting that the Helios at the wormhole and (miracle!) pointed. Turns out he warped in uncloaked (why?) and Khalia was able to burn over and point him (about 30 kilometers from the wormhole, again, why?) before he could cloak.

I’m not sure where Lian in the Ishur was — also at the wormhole I think — but they were already burning the Helios pretty hard by the time I came out of warp. I was able to lock and get a volley of torps launched, but the Helios popped before my torps ever arrived:

2009.05.18 02:43

Victim: MulaSoldats
Corp: The Dark Tribe
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Helios
System: J103716
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 1954

Involved parties:

Name: Lian Xander (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.33
Corp: Suddenly Ninjas
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Ishkur
Weapon: Light Neutron Blaster II
Damage Done: 1954

Name: Khalia Nestune
Security: 0.2
Corp: Suddenly Ninjas
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Malediction
Weapon: Warp Disruptor II
Damage Done: 0

Name: Marlenus
Security: 1.3
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Manticore
Weapon: ‘Arbalest’ Siege Missile Launcher
Damage Done: 0

Destroyed items:

Cap Recharger II
Warp Disruptor II
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
Inertia Stabilizers II
Co-Processor II
Core Scanner Probe I, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Combat Scanner Probe I, Qty: 4 (Cargo)
Hobgoblin II (Drone Bay)

Dropped items:

Combat Scanner Probe I
Combat Scanner Probe I
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Expanded Probe Launcher I
Survey Scanner II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Co-Processor II
Core Scanner Probe I, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Combat Scanner Probe I, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron (Cargo)

Nice! I can’t imagine what MulaSoldats thought he was doing, but I don’t much care. Of course we tried to catch his pod, and of course we failed. And right then…

A Vagabond (which, for any of you fortunate few who don’t know, is a very expensive and very fast and very deadly T2 heavy assault cruiser) dropped out of warp right on top of Khalia and Lian, who by this time are close to 50km from where I am, which is right on the wormhole.

Now, a fully T2-fitted and rigged Vagabond chattering autocannons at you from point-blank range can be a terrifying thing when you’re in any frigate-sized vessel. So, I don’t blame Khalia for shouting at us to run away. I think he’d have warped out himself, only, he was pointed. So of course he began burning away from the Vaga. I said “no, kill him!” (easy for me to say when I’m parked on the wormhole for quick escape!) and began launching butt-slow torps. Lian attacked with drones and guns.

From there on out everything happened very fast. My torps started arriving, Khalia was speaking urgently of where in armor he was, I noticed the Vaga was finally targetting me, I was praying for one more volley to hit, somebody was saying “I’m in structure, I’m gone”, I got volley of torps that hit for more than 2k damage, there was lotsa yelling, I heard “I’m dead!” and then the Vaga was a wreck.

It turns out, Khalia had less than 20% structure left on his interceptor. I think (not sure) that he got out of scramble range and was using his speed to tank (badly but well enough) the Vaga’s guns, which presumably were in deep falloff by then. If Khalia did have a chance to leave and didn’t take it, I’m very impressed. Brave!

I’m not clear whether we ever had a point on the Vaga, or whether the pilot was just overconfident and planning to melt faces. I believe Lian had a point, but I’m not sure if the Ishkur is fast enough to keep a Vagabond pointed for long — I just don’t know. Like I said, it all happened very fast. Whatever the details, I was pleased to see that we suffered no losses, except maybe in the soiled-underpants department.

We speculate that maybe the uncloaked Helios was a badly-set trap; I’d been cloaked at all times and they may have thought they could bait the other two frigates and kill them both with the Vagabond. If so, they timed it badly (considering how fast the Helios popped) and were surprised by my bomber. But still, they should have had tactical initiative at all times, and I can’t figure out why they squandered it the way they did.

No matter, here’s the killmail, complete with faction remote armor repper:

2009.05.18 02:45

Victim: Garreden
Corp: The Dark Tribe
Alliance: None
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Vagabond
System: J103716
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 8605

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Manticore
Weapon: Caldari Navy Juggernaut Torpedo
Damage Done: 8171

Name: Lian Xander
Security: 1.3
Corp: Suddenly Ninjas
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Ishkur
Weapon: Hobgoblin II
Damage Done: 434

Destroyed items:

Barrage M, Qty: 140
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II
Warp Disruptor II
Large Shield Extender II
Gyrostabilizer II
Overdrive Injector System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Core Defence Field Extender I, Qty: 2

Dropped items:

Barrage M, Qty: 35
Coreli C-Type Small Remote Armor Repair System
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II
Large Shield Extender II
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Gyrostabilizer II
Overdrive Injector System II
Barrage M, Qty: 3520 (Cargo)

I suspect the pair of large shield extenders didn’t do him any favors when my torpedoes began striking home. I am fitting a target painter, and against his shields, I was doing between 440 and 720 points per volley. My sixth volley, which broke into his armor I think, landed for 945 points; and my seventh volley did an astounding 2096 points. I wonder if he may have pulsed his micro-warp drive, giving him the sig radius of a small sun? Then my next volley landed for a thousand points (taking him to half structure) and my last volley popped him.

All in all, the best fight I’ve been in lately, and the best killmail I’ve seen since my FW days. All thanks to Khalia and Lian!

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Salvage Notes, Today In Ironfleet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.