Luca Moves Back North to Pick Some Fights

[Luca Goh]

As my EVE life increasingly drifts towards PvP I’m trying to do so in as wide a variety of settings as possible and reflect thereafter hopefully to productive ends. The following are two short informal roams that represent just the kind of thing I’m hoping to do more of in the greater LSC area. Feedback or advice is quite welcome!

A few days ago I hopped into Ouelleta in one of my new beam-fit Maulus Navy Issues looking to pick a fight. Seeing a Sentinel sitting in a small plex, I did what I always do with ships I’m unfamiliar with and looked it up on the Uni wiki. My initial impression was that I did not want to pick a fight in my active armor-tanked frigate against a ship that could neut me out from well beyond my tackle range (would love to hear others’ thoughts on whether or not this fight was in my favor; one of the things I’m really hoping to improve upon is my knowledge of favorable or unfavorable matchups).

As I weighed the prospects of taking a potentially unfavorable fight in the name of experience I decided to ping fellow Unista Oskar Dallocort who was also in the system. When I told him I was trying to figured out whether I could take this Sentinel sitting in a small plex in my Maulus, he laughed and said that he was wondering if this Maulus on his D scan was going to come into the small plex he was sitting in and fight his Sentinel.

Oskar and I joined up to go on a small roam together. In Heydieles we saw a Crow at a plex and both went to tackle it. It turned out to be sitting off the gate. We managed to take it out as his friends landed. Neither of us were able to escape.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63920221/ - +36.86 mil
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63920227/ - -39.65 mil
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63920220/ - -40.56 mil

I was happy to make that trade when it happened but obviously the isk numbers make it look bad in retrospect. I suppose I’m erring at present on the side of just getting some action. And in any case it was a new experience to be on the receiving end of being blobbed. Not something I want to make a habit of, but there was a small dash of pride in getting wrested down by superior forces.

This was a good reminder that I can always benefit from gathering intel: are there corp mates in this system? Who else is how far away from us? Etc. I’m pretty sure the Crow’s friends were in already system given how fast they landed on us. I was definitely a little over-eager to take this fight.

Oskar and I reshipped into Tormentors but he unfortunately had to sign off before we could break them in. (Thanks for flying with me, Oskar! It was quite fun.) A little while later I found a Punisher sitting alone in a Novice plex. I was not psyched about taking on that large tank, but the intel I pulled on the pilot encouraged me to err on the side of aggression as their killboard was not too impressive. And as stated earlier, my preference is to gain experience right now, rather than simply aestheticizing my killboard.

We squared off toe to toe for a relatively long amount of time. I was managing my reps well and avoiding over-repping, which started to give me an edge. Unfortunately I had chosen this opportunity to practice my manual piloting, and in the middle of finally gaining the upper hand the Punisher managed to warp off, just I believe as they were exhausting their nanite paste in their presumed SAAR.

It stung to lose an increasingly-flailing prey but I was glad I prioritized practicing my skills over just landing a kill. In future fights I’d like to still practice some manual piloting but perhaps be a bit more conservative with the distance I’m flying from them once I start gaining the upper hand. We gf-ed in local amiably. Next time, my friend.


Last night I came back out looking to get into some more trouble. Sone Eto responded to my inquiries in LSC chat seeing if anyone was interested in roaming together, and then did a good job of rustling up a few more participants for our merry band. In the end we were a motley crew consisting of a Merlin (Sone), Tormentor (myself), and two Tater Tot (TM Reise Amatin) Incursises (“Incursi”?) (Shyena Shavier and Phoenix Omega Cesaille). In the midst of this gathering I found myself in the unanticipated role of informal FC. Unexpected, but here’s to trying something new.

We found a Punisher sitting at a plex in Eha. Sone managed to snag tackle and the rest of us joined in. The Punisher had a buddy land in a Tristan not too long thereafter.

My instinct the moment the Tristan landed was to switch targets and call it primary. I know Punishers have a beefy tank and felt it likely that the quickest way to reduce their joint DPS was to target the Tristan first. But I erred on the side of caution in the heat of battle and kept urging everyone to focus on the Punisher since we’d already applied a fair bit of damage to it and didn’t want to momentarily reduce our efficiency in applying DPS. Any more experience FCs’ thoughts on this particular situation and on the idea of switching targets in general? The Punisher has taking hits but still had more than half its EHP left.

In the end we downed the Punisher. I had been primaried and was well into hull before the Punisher fell. I had thought about warping off but had prioritized landing the kill. A second or two earlier and I would have made it.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63942819/ - +6.61 mil
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63942856/ - Punisher Pod
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63942820/ - -14.69 mil

Luckily the guys were able to revenge me on the Tristan.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63942831/ - +12.03 mil

This was a fun fight. While the numbers were in our favor the trap was theirs as was the mild element of surprise. I was glad to find a fight like this and felt it in itself made our small roam worth it.

Phoenix let out a whoop or two and said that this was his first “real” (non tail end of a blob) kill. That made my newfound FC heart glow.

We played hide and seek at a few other points but couldn’t find a fight we liked. At one point there was a small Comet gang that tried to bait us but I didn’t think the matchup favored us. In general I was glad to see that my recognition of ships and sense of favorable matchups was already improving. It felt good to see something pop on D scan and know instantly what the ship was and whether it was something I wanted to fight.

A few times we came across apparently-solo Vexors and I admit I was tempted. But our combined DPS was probably ~500; the number didn’t seem enough especially given the likelihood of one of us going down. Any thoughts on this.

Finally in Reitsato Sone found a Venture in a medium plex. Bait if there ever was. But we had wandered for a while at this point and everyone was game so I thought it would be fun to try, if not actually “worth it” given the likelihood of reinforcements and the difficulty in tackling a Venture.

The Venture ended up being 50 km off the beacon in the plex. No bueno. I started to give the scatter command when Shyena called that he had been caught at the gate. By a Magus. Emote

We warped off and I presumed Shyena was being left to die alone. But 20-30 seconds passed and he was still intact, albeit in a bad way. This was an interesting experience as FC: do I prioritize the welfare of the others or attempt a rescue? In the end I again decided to err on the side of picking fights for the sake of experience and called for us to warp back in.

It didn’t go well. I believe the four of us could easily take on a Magus in the right conditions, but these were not those. Shyena went down, we started to scatter as a Condor landed as well. Sone also didn’t make it out.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63943253/ - -7.87 mil
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63943262/ - -5.29 mil

So in the end we had just a few fights, some not great numbers, but a lot of fun and a lot of solid learning experiences. Honestly I knew it would all be gravy after that first fight and getting Phoenix his first kill. I have also been bitten by the FC bug so we shall see if I pursue that further.

Kills: 18.64 mil
Losses: 27.85 mil
Net: Down 9.21 mil /// 40%

If you see me out in Placid or Black Rise, let me know if you want to roam together! That’s why I’m there. Very excited to have more experiences flying in a small gang.