06/10/18
While taking my Crusader for a Spin for the "Syndicate Crusade" challenge before they get nerfed in the October Balance pass, I found this seemingly lone explorer sitting ~30km off the gate in null sec. I burned out to him, tackled and killed him. While I was killing him, a Gnosis appeared on dscan (there were 3 neuts in local) so I started to align out when I was locking up the pod. I started shooting that as well, but I was pulling range fast, even with prop mod off, and didn't have time to turn back for better application when the Gnosis landed on top of us. I warped out with the pod with ~20% hull left. I bounced and found the Gnosis not locking shooting the pod when I got back to the gate ~40s later, so I assume it was bait.
Kill #1 - Crusader vs Imicus
07/10/18
I bought a bunch of Crusaders a few weeks ago in order to get more familiar with scram kiting setups. I never really used them much, though, so I decided to give them a try. Made my way from Stacmon to Heydieles, where there were a few ppl local. I spotted a Crucifier Navy Issue kill another frigate in a Novice (forgot what kind) and the CNI pilot seemed to linger, so I thought I'd try to fight him. I realize now that it'd wouldn't have been a solo kill since the other pilot would have been on the killmail too, but in the moment I didn't think of that. Anyway, I warped into the plex, found it empty when I landed but spotted a Rifter on dscan instead. So I set up ~8km from the warpin and waited. Rifter came in, we started shooting each other. I let him get a bit too close early on and forgot to turn the SAAR on until I was in deep armor, but when I pulled more range and started to rep the fight turned. I overheated the repper and my guns, but the Rifter pilot noticed how the fight was going as well. He also noticed the Atron on dscan, which I didn't. So the Rifter aligned and, because I didn't adjust my direction fast enough, managed to leave scram range and warp off in ~10% hull and ~30% armor. Having changed my direction now but not being aligned, I was too close to the landing Atron and he killed me in short order, since I only had ~60% hull and ~40% armor left with my SAAR out of paste. He podded me as well for good measure.
Loss #1 - Executioner vs Rifter & Atron
Loss #2 - Pod
Not sure if this counts towards anything, but apparently the Atron pilot hunted down the Rifter pilot a few minutes later:
Sweet Karma #1 - Rifter
I woke up in PC9 since I forgot to change my medical clone location, so jumped into a Crusader like the day before and went roaming through Syndicate. In FD-MLJ I saw a a cyno that didn't appear to be near a station or structure, lit by a Tayra, which had me curious. As you can imagine, curiosity killed the cat, and even though I thought myself smart by warping in at range to the Tayra, I ignored the POS structures on my dscan since I didn't see a forcefield and thought them offline. I was pretty sure it was a trap, with 5 others in local and a bubble on dscan as well, but what could happen to me in an interceptor, right? Anyway, I was busy trying to figure out how the trap works, when it hit me like a revalation: the guns aren't offline! I noticed this when they actually hit me, and I was dead in 2 hits while getting scrammed from the POS modules.
Loss #3 - Crusader vs cyno/POS trap
Next I reshipped into an Executioner again and headed off for Black Rise. In Vey, I saw a Condor inside a small plex. I warped there but an Algos landed outside at the same time I did. I took too long to align, trying to see what weapons he had (forgot that it doesn't matter much, since he ahs drones) and got tackled. Died quickly.
Loss #4 - Executioner vs Algos
Not to be deterred, I took another Executioner and went to Heydieles. There I fell for yet another trap. I found a Merlin on dscan inside a novice, and the pilot didn't even change the ship's name! A sure sign of a noob, so I felt confident that I could pull range once inside and out range his customary blasters. I checked the pilot's stats from local and indeed, a fairly new player (but new enough that I'd feel bad for killing him). Instead I warped into the same player the had 3rd partied the fight with the Rifter earlier. Has was set up properly inside the plex and burned me down before I could pull range, while I didn't even get him into half shields.
Loss #5 - Executioner vs Merlin
I got out with my pod and reshipped in Heydieles into a Magic Merlin from a fleet earlier this week. I thought "what that guy can do, I can do too" and so I set up shop inside a Novice and waited. And what do you know, not even 10 min later I saw the same Merlin that killed me appear on dscan. Deciding to give it a try anyway, I waited and engaged right away when he got in. I overheated my guns from the start and just hit approach, aware that this would be a pure dps race. I thought I was doing fairly well as I ate through his shields a lot faster than he managed to damage me, so I turned off the overheat on my guns when he was in half armor, trying to make sure I didn't forget and burn them out. The guns were at ~60% heat damage at this point. That's when turned on his SAAR
I overheated again, but it cost me 2 cycles of cold guns. In the end I died with him telling me in local gf and that he had 1% structure (and ~40% armor) left...... so while keeping an eye on heat damage is a good idea, I shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch and rather err on the side of more dps when in a dps race.Loss #6 - Merlin vs Merlin
