Then finally I scan down a Harbinger. I'm already pretty confident I can kill this guy, my neuts on my newly fitted out Hurricane should shut off his guns long before he gets me down to even half armour. I fit it out to defend against EM/Therm damage, then switch back to my Magnate to enter the mission area. I hit an acceleration gate and head through.
When I landed on the grid I opened up the info screen on the pilot, Nekohacks. He was a new player, starting on the 2nd January 2012. I guessed to be in a battlecruiser by now, he must have missed out quite a few support skills (like cap skills), and I seriously doubted he would have T2 drones, tank or guns by this stage. (I was starting to get overconfident here and it almost gets me killed later).
Expecting this relative noob to not think twice about shooting me once I stole from him, I grabbed some tags from a nearby gallente frigate wreck. Within about three seconds he had started locking me, and a few seconds later he started firing. I smirked behind my screen and warped back to station. I had already started laughing with my corp and I fully expected a Harbinger killmail within the next five minutes.
I docked up, grabbed my Hurricane and headed back out. I jumped through the acceleration gate and landed around 20km from the Harbinger. I locked him up, hit my afterburner on and reloaded my guns with RF Fusion ammo (stupidly I still had RF EMP loaded). I got about 15km away before he launched his drones (Hornet I's, like I thought :P) and started locking me in return. I launched my drones, started up my guns and...
My internet disconnected. My jaw dropped. I could not believe this was happening now. I was fully aware of the new logout mechanics, and I was terrified my Hurricane would get melted before I could log back on. Losing my PvP fit battlecruiser to a newbie fit PvE Harby would also be incredibly embarrassing, no matter how it occured. Not very PvP god-like.
I was back on around four minutes later, my fingers crossed as I logged in. To my relief my Hurricane was still alive, all my drones still in my bay. Excellent. I was back in the site, but no sign of the Harbinger. Not so excellent. Maybe I had scared him off :(
Then I realised he would be back to complete the mission eventually. I warped out, realigned and aimed my D-Scan at the site. I had eight minutes left of aggression on him. Six minutes. Five...
Harbinger back on D-Scan. YES!
I warped straight away, then realised we might meet on the gate and tried to cancel it. Too late. And as I landed on gate, he was already warping in. Damn, he must have seen me. I followed as fast as I could, and landed almost on top of him. My connection was steady now, so I was fully confident I could nail him. I switched on my two neuts and started shooting while heading out to my optimal. His shields took some time to drop and I was worried I should have used Phased Plasma instead, but by now I was commited. I fought on.
Then I had a nasty shock. His armour was around 70% by this point, guns still firing and rep still going despite my two neuts. My armour was at 50%, and I was buffer fit. I started getting worried. If his cap didn't die soon, I would probably die unless I warped out, and that would let him escape. I aligned to the station and prayed. At around 18% armour his guns stopped. Jackpot!
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| Thank god his guns stopped (The second time) |
But I had forgotten that I was aligning away from him, and my neuts dropped range. I panicked, at this point my armour would not survive a few more volleys from those lasers, they were doing surprising damage (I think I need more tank).
I turned around and burned back to him as fast as I could. His lasers started to fire as my neuts got back within optimal and I almost fled. But I tried to hold my nerve and stay on the field. He'd barely had any time to get some cap back, and by the looks of his armour, he'd wasted a cycle on his repper. My armour was at 10% before he stopped firing again and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wore him down again, and before long, he exploded.
Then I saw the fit. Full Tech II tank and PvP fit (web and disruptor). No way was this a random noob, this must be an alt of a PvP player. I was just lucky he didn't have Weapon Upgrades IV by this point, a Heat Sink II could have probably given him enough DPS to nail my Hurricane.
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| Pretty lights :) Oh god the armour... |
Also his rigs gave him a decent resistance to my Fusion rounds, which would explain my frankly lackluster DPS against his armour. However, I was quite pleased that even with all this against me, my strategy (if you can call it that) of "Neut the living daylights out of him" worked in my favour, and no doubt saved me from an embarrassing lossmail.
Ironically until I had seen the fit, I felt quite bad for killing what I thought was a noobie player, but the moment I saw the PvP fit, I didn't care. Nice to know I have standards.
Anyway, scan them bears out, but remember, some of those buggers are grizzlies :)
Tl;dr Good planning can save your life :P
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