Rifter Drifter

Seeing as plenty of people have been offering up the contents of their hangar I thought I should probably join in. My hangar in GE-8JV contains the following ships:

• Rifter: I have about 15 of these kicking around with a couple of fits that I am trying out. They are usually just called Rifter but at the moment I have one called Freki after the alliance tournament prize and one called Agincourt after its victory over the French in Curse.
• Cheetah: Called Peek-a-boo and used mostly for probing exploration sites. My probing skills are terrible and I use the exploration sites to get some practice. Honest.
• Claw: I have two of these both confusingly called Claw and it takes me a couple of attempts to tell them apart. One is fit with an active tank and the other with a buffer tank. Not a ship I regularly solo in so the active tank ship gets more use in interceptor packs.
• Stiletto: My staple fleet ship. I currently only have one of these because they die pretty often. She’s called Point! and my fit is pretty standard for a tackle interceptor. Sometimes I like to put on explosive shield resist rigs when I’m tackling for a small gang.
• Hound: When I run frigate gangs I tend to FC from the safety of my stealth bomber. Hound is fit to be able to use torpedoes and bombs and the cloak makes it a good ship to lead from.
• Republic Fleet Firetail: Currently unassembled my Firetail is waiting for me to come up with a fit that I like before I take her out hunting.
• Dramiel: I have two of these sleek and popular Angel frigates. The hefty price tag and status as flavour of the month has put me off flying them. I should really sell them while their price is at a peak but I like having them around.
• Thrasher: This is probably my favourite ship to fly at the moment and I have seven in my hangar. Three of them are fit; one with artillery, one with autocannons, and one with an experimental setup I have yet to try. All of them are called either Sabre or Thrasher except the test one which is called Brick.
• Sabre: This is the most recent addition to my hangar and one that I am just getting the hang of flying. She’s called Sabre and has been out on a couple of gangs now.
• Rupture: Another staple and a ship I have been flying in solo a lot recently. I currently have two fit in my hangar. Freki is fit as a nano ship for pretending to be a Vagabond in and Rupture is a pretty standard armour tank fit.
• Muninn: A pretty standard sniper HAC that hasn’t been used in far too long. Named Muninn in case you didn’t spot the general theme here.
• Vagabond: Another staple of any Minmatar hangar. Eponymously named Vagabond she comes out in small gangs.
• Rapier: I haven’t actually used her in anger but she’s there for when I need her. Until then Rapier still has the manufacturer’s shrink rap on some of her controls.
• Scimitar: Because I only have Logistics IV I haven’t played with Scimitar much. She’s fit for roaming PvP gangs but I’m still adjusting the fit until I’m happy with it. I do sometimes fly logistics for alliance fleets but in those cases I use official alliance-fit logistics ships.
• Hurricane: I have just one of these called, imaginatively, Hurricane. She’s fit for damage and hasn’t seen the light of day for quite a while.
• Tempest: Machariel is my fleet fit Tempest for when DPS is the only thing we need. I prefer to fly in support roles but lately there hasn’t been any point so the fleet battleship has been brought out. Despite being a small ship pilot in general I have had fun flying Tempests in small gangs with some of my old pirate friends. I tried a nano fit but it died due to over confidence or lack of ability. Hopefully I’ll try another before too long.
• Typhoon: This is my ratting ship. I lost her predecessor due to accidentally turning off all my hardeners so this one is called Pay Attention. I don’t use her much these days because my alts provide most of my income.

As you can see, Wensley’s hangar is fully focussed on PvP. The Wolf, Jaguar, and Cyclone are noticeable by their absence at the moment but I’ll probably buy some soon. I like to be stocked for any eventuality. In general I tend to solo in the T1 ships and use the T2 variants in gangs and fleets.

The An’Har family, by contrast, have a selection of shuttles, a Prowler, and a Mastodon to their name. They’re saving up for a Fenrir but that is probably a little while away because Wensley loses ships at a phenomenal rate.

Well my move is finally complete. Wensley now lives out in Catch with his new corpmates in GE-8JV. Moving out to join a large alliance is a bit of a culture shock. Having only ever been part of small corporations in past I was in danger of suffering from overload with all the new information I had to assimilate. I took my time over it and eventually managed to find all the key posts on the alliance forums, get to grips with the jump bridge network, find the right intel channels, sort my out-of-game channels, meet my new corporation, and get some ships. Phew.

By the second day I was pretty much up to speed. Most of the alliance wee away on a call to arms (CTA) that I had been excused from I took my new Typhoon down to my corporation’s constellation and set about the local Sansha ships. The first belt I warped to contained a faction spawn that dropped a True Sansha Large Armor Repairer worth 125 million ISK. I could get used to the riches of nullsec…

As the alliance came back from their operation things were pretty quiet and I settled into the carebear system and got used to my new battleship. Alliance channels lit up with reports of a friendly mothership tackled in a belt. I was too far away from them to be able to rush down and help but it seems a gang formed to save him. Why anyone would choose to rat in a mothership on the border with hostile territory is beyond me. From what I gather the rest of DKOD were equally unimpressed.

A little bit later a home defence gang began forming and I headed back to GE-8JV to grab my newly fitted Muninn. The FC had called for sniper HACs and I was looking forward to trying out my new toy in anger. I’ve never flown in a sniper gang before so the whole thing was going to be a good learning experience. By the time the gang had formed the invaders had left and the FC decided to go to northern Catch and play with the Providence holders who lived there. Our fleet was 8 HACs, 2 recons, a Caracal, 3 interdictors, 9 interceptors, and a bomber. At first it took me a while to get used to the fact that intel was being relayed in Russian and fleet commands were taking place in English and Russian but after I while I was able to tune in and even began to learn some of the Russian commands – this came in useful later on when things got hectic.

We moved around pretty quickly and ended up ganking a lone Drake in E-YJ8G before moving on. In CBL-XP we killed a Rifter before heading into CB4-Q2 with the intention of cutting off a whole constellation. An enemy fleet was spotted in N-8BZ6 and we were ordered to jump in and warp to the station. Most of their fleet was able to dock but we picked off a Slasher, a Rokh and an Armageddon. As we withdrew from the field the enemy gang jumped into CB4-Q2 where they set up a camp on the gate.

The decision was made to break through their camp, burn out to snipe range, and engage. Just as the call was being made my client crashed and I had to log back in again. I missed the main fleet jumping in and had to chase after them, getting caught in a bubble in the process. I burnt out of it and warped away as my shields took a pounding. I quickly returned to the fray and experienced the true joy of a sniper HAC gang. Their fleet of about 30 or so battleships and battlecruisers hung on the gate as we picked off as many of them as we could. They had strong remote repair and most of them were sensible enough not to aggress our gang so actually taking them down was hard but we were able to get 12 kills for just the loss of our tackle. Eventually the decision was made to disengage and head home but we were too slow and they camped us into CB4-Q2. Their jump bridge network allows them to get ahead of us and set up roadblocks. By now their gang was too large for us to break through safely and we retreated to a safespot.

A second gang began forming to come to our rescue. They set up snipe positions in EX-0LQ while we waited for a chance to break out. While we waited they had a small skirmish with part of the hostile gang but didn’t have the numbers to make any impression on them. Eventually the hostile bubble on our outward gate dropped and we leapt into action. The fleet warp to the gate, jumped, and warped to safety before returning to join the relief force. Another small skirmish followed but we were only able to kill a Megathron before they disengaged and jumped out. Three hours after we set off the road home was clear and we all headed back to GE-8JV and the comfort of our quarters.

All in all I’ve had a pretty good first couple of days in my new alliance. It already looks like I’m going to get exactly the kind of action that I was hoping for and I haven’t even begun to look at the possibilities for small gang and solo work. I’m going to need to spend a bit of time earning some ISK for ships and ammo but that’s to be expected. The bilingual nature was definitely a culture shock but I’m getting over it and really looking forward to lots of action over the weekend. There’s still lots that I need to learn.