Throw money at him! Maybe it'll clog his lasers...

* Warning, lots of text here, I like to describe the build ups to my fights a little. Makes the killmail far more interesting in my opinion :) *

So as I mentioned at the bottom of this post, I have an extremely expensive faction fit Vengeance kicking around my hangar in Amarr which I've only really used for ship spinning. The closest it's got to combat is when I fitted some rocket launchers to it about a week ago. In a mixture of fear, lust and expectation, I've let it gather dust while I try to find a fight that would challenge it (e.g there's no point attacking mining barges in LowSec, even if I could catch the damn things) but not to the point where it would get annihilated if I screwed up a little. Obviously chances like this were few and far between, until yesterday evening.

I was jumping randomly around LowSec in one of my cheaper Vengeances which I don't mind losing, when my corp chat tab started flashing. Bored out of my mind from a total lack of targets (I swear Amarr LowSec is either dead or full of Russian blobs), I docked up in Nebian and started chatting to my corpmates while watching Local for any sign of a potential fight.

Hide yo miners, cos he rapin erryone out here

Not alot was happening until one of our corpies mining out by our LowSec POS reported a Retribution in system with him. At the time I was around sixteen jumps away, and thought nothing of it. By the time I could get there, the Retri pilot would be long gone. I started heading back to Ami to drop off my drugs before jumping back in HighSec, when Jake (the miner near our POS) said the Retribution had warped to the belt he was mining in. (I'd just like to point out to you Jake, yet again, neutrals in Local should make you warp back to the POS right away, not when they appear on top of you). However Jake managed to warp before the Retribution could close the distance and scram him, the lucky *******.

At this point I was much more interested, as the Retri pilot was likely to want to stick around for a potentially easy kill. Jake started acting like a dumb miner in Local (atleast I think he was acting) while I had a look at the pilot's killboard. It looked promising to my suspicious eyes, and as I flew to Amarr, I was forming vague plan in the back of mind to fly over to our POS and have a go at murdering that Retribution. PvP has been in short supply for me recently. Unfortunately, I had nothing lying around in Amarr that could both kill an AF and cover thirteen jumps before the Retri got bored and left (my current Vengeance fit had pretty low EM/Therm resist, because most people just think "durrr armor tank, fire explosive rounds", so it would die pretty fast to those lasers).

Or so I thought until I saw Project K just chilling at the back of my hangar.

Almost immediately I had a massive self-argument over how insane it was to risk this ship in PvP. Despite my attempts otherwise, my carebear side is alive and well, and it pretty much screams in pain everytime I undock in something even slightly expensive with the intention of losing it in LowSec. Undocking in a frigate worth over a quarter of a billion was not going down well. But it was the only ship I had that close by would have a chance of catching that damn Retribution.

I started heading over to the POS as fast as my little Vengeance could fly me, starting to panic a little as I realised just how insane this was. Jake kept up the idiot act, and the pilot was sticking around system still. After about three or four minutes, I was only a couple of jumps out and Khan (another corpmate) had just signed in. We quickly filled him in, and he grabbed a Merlin for some extra tackle. Luckily he was already in system, so it was just me that needed to get there.

A few minutes later I had jumped in. Jake said the Retri was still in the belt, so I crossed my fingers and warped in. I landed around 15km from him, and remembering the extended range of my faction scram and web, I tried to use both while burning towards him. He started to align out, so I spammed the keys for my tackle even faster. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that my web was in F1, instead of my scram (as it usually is). So he warped much faster than he should have, and I was left sitting in the belt feeling like an idiot. Oops.

Local


Ratoskr Itaka > web me in Warp?
Ratoskr Itaka > realy?
Seraph Minayin > wrong button XD
Seraph Minayin > thought scram was F1

Ratoskr Itaka > :-P

Seraph Minayin > shame, wanted to test my new fit :(

For some reason though, the guy stayed in system. Apparently he had a GCC, because Jake had mentioned he was flashy red when he first saw the Retri. I assume he couldn't risk the jump back into HighSec incase he got nailed by the gate guns. I started to tail him him via D-Scan as he warped around system, hoping to catch him at a planet. Jake decided instead to force the issue and warped back into the belt to get his drones.

Local

Jakee Sabezan > you leave my drones for me?
Ratoskr Itaka > come and get them :-P
Jakee Sabezan > i am
Seraph Minayin > WTF get back in pos ( I was in warp to the belt at this point)
Jakee Sabezan > ohh found you
Ratoskr Itaka > hihi
Jakee Sabezan > no drones tho. i go home
Seraph Minayin > the shit is wrong with you?!


I had landed only a few kilometres off Jake, and about 40/50km from the Retribution. Khan landed a few seconds later in his Merlin. We hovered around Jake until his lumbering Osprey had warped off, then proceeded to try and tackle the Retribution. What then followed was about five or ten minutes of us trying to pull the Retribution close enough to hold him down. He had a MWD, but Khan only had a long point, so if he tackled him at range the Retri would simply burn off and warp away. Instead we tried to coax him towards us so I could scram him down. Without his speed he was dead (or so I hoped).


Either by pure luck or by accident, the Retribution flew a little too close to me, and my faction web caught him at about 15km away. Khan pointed him before he could warp off, and within seconds we were on top of him. We started ripping through his armor, but the Retri had started shooting Khan the moment he got pointed, and Khan's Merlin soon popped :(

The lasers were then turned on me, and I was worried about how my tank would hold up. I shouldn't have even second guessed myself. My resists were high enough ( i.e all 80% or more ) that the little DPS hitting me was easily being repped away. My Mjolnir Rage rockets were cutting through his tank, and after about twelve or thirteen volleys he exploded.

\o/ First blood!

The rush I got from this fight was way more than I usually experienced, probably because of the pure ISK investment, and I shakily typed "gf" in local. That faction web and scram defintely got me the kill, without them, we would never have caught the Retribution :P

Local

Seraph Minayin > gf
Ratoskr Itaka > Jup, was fun :-)
Khan Uitra > gf :)
Seraph Minayin > nice flying though
Ratoskr Itaka > you too :-)
Jakee Sabezan > o/
- Ratoskr leaves system -

So I've finally tested my ISK sink in combat, and it performed even better than I expected. Even so, I don't plan to use it in "true" LowSec until I have some better skills, and with Assault Frigates V being trained and Rocket Specialization V following behind, I should soon have my tank and gank near maxed out! ( The only things to train after that would be missile support skills, capacitor skills and then armour compensations). After my Vengeance is pretty much perfectly skilled, I'm planning to switch to Minmatar Assault Frigates and try those out in PvP too. I've got my eye on the Wolf right now, and if it's anything like the Rifter I'm going to have alot of fun with it :P

But this fight has got me wondering, what's the Retribution like to fly? Maybe I should bring my Small Pulse Laser Specialization forward a little...



And of course, thanks to Korvus for his "Pimp Fit" Vengeance!