Rifter Drifter

Its been a while since I’ve stepped into my pod so slipping into one of my beloved Rifters felt good after the break. It was time to head out and look for some trouble. Thankfully trouble can be pretty easy to find. Especially in Old Man Star.

As I jumped into the familiar system I engaged my scanner. Plenty of ships on scan. Instinctively I filtered out those that I knew were sitting idle at starbases. There was a Crow somewhere. There’s nothing quite like a bit of interceptor hunting to shake off the rust. I quickly narrowed him down to one of the stations in system and warped in to investigate. After a couple of nudges he sped away and lit me up with his targeting systems. I began to give chase and he opened fire. As the second salvo of missiles slammed into my shields I realised that there was no way I was going to be able to catch him so I docked up and hoped to use the aggression timer to get the jump on him when I undocked. No such luck, he’d already warped off.

I warped back to a safespot and began investigating my communications channels while keeping half an eye on the scanner. Nothing much was happening. The Crow was sitting with a Thorax and Curse and I couldn’t see any other targets. As my attention drifted I was quickly jerked back into reality as a red spot appeared on my combat overview. It was closing rapidly and the Crow dropped out of warp alongside me. I quickly gave the command to begin targeting routines and began to activate all of my modules. My web and warp scrambler engaged and the Crow was pinned down. In my haste, though, I’d forgotten to instruct my ship to close down the target and I sat there stationary while the Crow began to retreat. By the time I realised it was too late and although I was able to get a web on him again he sped away and I turned my ship to warp out before he could come back. Damn. My lack of attention had cost me a kill and very nearly my ship too. A lucky break I guess.

A short while later I noticed that there was a Caldari military complex in the system. Even more interestingly there was a Taranis and Cormorant on scan in its direction. Without a second thought I engaged my warp drive and headed in to investigate. There was no sign of the Cormorant but the Taranis was sitting on the acceleration gate and I quickly webbed and scrambled him while instructing my ship to move out to a wide orbit. With Barrage loaded and my ship rigged for extra range I was soon able to outdistance his rounds of Null ammunition and began the process of whittling down his ample structure buffer. Just as he began to explode a Crusader landed and without a second thought I switch over my web and scrambler and began to work on this second target. He wasn’t alone, though, and support began to arrive quickly. My poor little Rifter was quickly overwhelmed and the Crusader lived to fight another day.

Not being one to be put off by this kind of death I was soon back in another Rifter. I wanted action and there’s no denying that this seems like a good place to get it. After a while idling in Old Man Star there was nothing that I could engage and I decided to move next door to Heydieles, a system that I’ve found some good fights in lately. As I warped to the gate I saw a Cormorant idling. Instinctively I locked it up and began to settle into an orbit to see if he’d return fire. An Incursus landed and they both locked me up and began firing. Hmmmm. As I was deciding what to do a Vagabond arrived and I decided it was time to beat a retreat back to the gate.

As I jumped I saw the Vagabond follow so I sat in Heydieles waiting for the stargate to settle down. As soon as it was prepped I burnt back to it preparing to jump back to Old Man Star. The Vagabond decloaked and I allowed him to engage me. His weapons cool down period would keep him pinned this side of the gate for a while. I jumped back and immediately set a course for the Incursus. He was flagged as a valid target and I knew he had a web and scrambler. If I was going to win this engagement range and speed were vital so he was my primary. His simple fit didn’t stand a chance as my rounds of advanced autocannon ammunition tore into his hull from a safe distance. With the frigate down I turned my attention to the destroyer. My combat logs revealed that he was using basic blaster cannons so I set up an orbit to keep him at range and rained Barrage onto him. It wasn’t long before I breached his hull and he died in a satisfying explosion.

By now a Caracal had landed on the gate and I decided to hang around to see how he was fitted. My combat log showed that he was firing light missiles and I decided it was time to call it a day. I was too late, though. As I punched the warp command an Ishkur landed on the gate and was able to lock me with his warp scrambler before I could get away. Damn damn. Now the Caracal had me locked, a Drake was landing, and the Vagabond had jumped back in. Come on. Warp. Warp! WARP! Damn.

I sighed philosophically as my pod warped back towards Hevrice. I’d come looking for good fights and I think I got them. I’d lost two frigates but I’d enjoyed both fights and handled myself pretty well. I guess it comes down to what you expect from a fight. If I’d been out to make a profit I would have been much more cautious and not hung around. Instead I was looking for an adrenaline hit and I definitely got that on all three occasions. Thanks to NibbleTek for making Old Man Star a fun place again. I will be back with more Rifters…

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5. Last Week: Part Four