Last night I began with my usual circuit in my Rifter. There was very little to see. Even Old Man Star was deserted. In fact, it was so empty that I actually got distracted on a gate while fiddling around with our communications systems. The quality had been poor so I was tuning them up for better performance. Anyway, bloedriver from the 22nd BRDU engaged me and, because I’d only been alerted to his presence by the fire of autocannons I jumped out rather than fight on the back foot. I never turn down a Rifter duel, though, so I quickly jumped back in and offered him a proper fight. He agreed and we went to a safe location. A short and brutal frigate duel followed. My guns hit his tank hard but he repaired the damage well. All the while my own systems were doing their best to limit the incoming damage. I eventually overcame his tank and his Rifter exploded. A very good fight and yes, bloedriver, I did catch it on film. Looking back at his fitting the high damage was due to a gyrostabiliser while his damage control unit gave him a good structure buffer while he tried to repair his armour. Sadly for him the extra plate I carried gave me plenty of buffer to make up for the fact my guns were less potent.
Later on I thought I’d mix it up by undocking my Rupture as part of a gang we had going. To cut a lot of running around missing targets short we ended up ganking a Myrmidon in Aeschee and in Adirain I engaged a Rupture and Thrasher only to bail when a Ferox arrived on the scene. The Rupture was later destroyed and I was kindly sent the killmail.
Back in Hevrice there were a Crow, Rupture, and Myrmidon hanging around and camping the station undock. Now I don’t like campers. Especially not ones with interceptors. There was only one way to deal with this pain. But first I needed some bait. My eyes drifted across my hangar as if drawn by some higher force until they rested on Angel Interceptor. My face lit up with a grin.
“I’m going to bait them boys,” I said into comms.
“Oh. What with?” came the reply.
“Just a little something I have lying around,” I responded.
Sure enough the Dramiel drew both the Rupture and Crow onto the station undock and a long, boring game as I tried to get them to aggress me. After a long time and a yawn in the local channel they finally started shooting. First the Rupture and then the Crow. Bingo. I docked up and grabbed my Rupture again. The seconds ticked down while my crew got the ship ready to undock and soon I was in the undock passage. Please please please let them be there still.
They were and I sped up and shot towards the Crow. He must have forgotten he’d aggressed me because he made no attempt to get safe. Autocannons, neutralisers, and warp disruption fields shot across the empty space between us and I vaporised the interceptor. Next up was the Rupture but he docked up as soon as he started to take major damage. Damn it. I hate station games. Yes, I know I use them to get aggro but that’s all. This popping in and out is just pathetic. Fight or don’t fight.
Anyway, I digress. This is when things get interesting. A Chimera undocked from the station and began neuting my cruiser. Hmmm. Now I was taking damage but Antilles had undocked his Archon and was repping me. Now the station games got silly. With carrier support there was nothing I could do against the Rupture or Myrmidon but equally nothing they could do against me. Our numbers slowly grew but without getting them do engage we’d have to deal with sentry aggro. Lots of bumping attempts followed and several Tuskers picked up sentry fire. Support for the campers arrived in the form of a Rokh and another battleship. By now their firepower and the sentries meant that Antilles was having real issues juggling his repair systems. I was in the process of heading back to dock up but it was too late. Having taken over 30,000 units of damage my Rupture gave up the ghost and exploded. Damn. Still, a Crow for a Rupture isn’t a bad swap.
I’ve never played around with carrier support. It was lots of fun but we were massively disorganised. If we’d stopped to think things through a bit more we’d have been able to come up with a more co-ordinated attack on our visitors.
