One of these days I found myself in Drone
Lands. Checked map and went to mess around in an alliance that tends to be very
active. When going to very active places I have a strategy. Keep 1 toon with cloaked
eyes near the entry point for the pocket I’m going to poke, in order to see if
I’m getting camped and to insure that my entry/exit point is clear. My other
toon goes into the pocket getting noticed but without worrying too much about
engaging inside the carebears pocket.
Upon my arrival there was a mass exodus to
local stations, with 3 systems having around 20 in local each. It was feeling
like a mini-Provi area… Carriers were hugging the stations, people would undock
in ships, only to re-dock and undock in something different. This is pretty
much a sign that the locals have no idea on what to do and that an FC is being
called in coms to guide them.
Eventually some brave fellas started to kite
from stations towards me, in order to catch me. This is a sign that ranks are
getting sorted and that some coordination among my prey is getting achieved.
Now I need to try achieving a very delicate balance. I need them to feel confident,
but still mostly disorganized, while being able to make some distance from the
main fleet being assembled. Once I saw that local in my entry system was rising
by 10 and that people were being brought by jump bridges, it was time to leave
and make them chase me a bit.
I jump out from their pocket as 1 stiletto
tries to catch me. Already outside the pocket 1 or 2 jumps away, I wait on a
gate far their entry point, while also trying to keep cloaky eyes on their
movements. Right now, my backup Brutix is more important as an intel tool
rather than anything else! My local climbs by 10 and I notice my foes have a
spearhead of around 6 tacklers, 1 Caracal and 1 Cerberus, but their main fleet
seems to still be away, unsure for how long though. I notice that ships warping
to several gates, so they do not know where I am exactly. I just need to wait a
bit and hopefully they’ll get to me fast.
A Caracal appears on my gate, and having
limited time I engage. Yes, I know he can take the careful approach and jump
out, but my opportunity window is closing by the second, so I just do it and
hope he gets overconfident. Also, I can easily tank half a dozen interceptors
for 1 minute and jump out If needed.
He aggresses me back. Cool! My Tank Brutix can
kill a Caracal fast enough without backup, so I keep my DPS Brutix cloaked in a
strategic place for intel. The Caracal dies and a Stiletto scrams me while all
other frigates only long point me. I consume my Improved Drop Booster, try to
keep him at range 4km in order to have better tracking and kill it fast enough.
The Cerberus had warped at range and is closing in. I overload my MWD and try
to catch him. He noticed the Brutix trying to ram him and warped off.
About now local climbs by more 15, up to a
total of 25, so I align out, hit my MJD, warp off and cloak. I had not managed
to kill anything really juicy like the Cerberus, but having killed 2 ships in
such a limited window of opportunity felt nice. Now I was camped and had to
wait.
It seems that I had roamed here recently, and
some of the locals still remembered me as well as the fact that I was a cloaky.
Being a cloaky is really handy and it does annoy my foes a lot too. Me and my
foes both smacked local a bit, but no one was really offensive so it was all
good. My foes decided that isk making was important than camping me, so they
went their way and so did I.
I headed out to another pocket that seemed to
have some activity and used somewhat the same tactic. Kept DPS Brutix in the
entry to the pocked cloaked and roamed a bit with my Tank Brutix. I quickly
noticed these guys were nearly not as active and my previous foes. Local had
about 5 guys, saw 1 PVE Paladin in an escalation site on D-Scan (therefore I
needed combat probes to get him and I had none) and mostly some mining ships on
POSes.
Here I made a decision that would eventually be
costly… Even though I did not feared much getting camped or having a large
fleet amassed to kill me, I opted to keep my backup DPS Brutix in the same
spot, instead of trying to get both ships closer. Reason was mostly to avoid
intel but then again, is always a delicate balance. Have both ships nearby but
let your foes know what you have, or have them a bit further apart and manage
to get a good surprise effect?
As I’m moving around, an Ashimmu and a Crow
land on my gate and aggress! Before I decided to aggress I needed some quick
intel. The icon notifications above the HUD are wonderful. They allow you to
know who’s doing want to you, and by how much. By hoovering on my icon
notification I saw that he had 2 Nosferatus on me and only 1 Web and a Long
Point. This pretty much means that:
1 – He has somewhat “limited” neuting power,
even taking in account the nasty bonus it get to nosferatus and such. It would
still be a LOT worse if he had 2 neutralizers.
2 - By having only 1 web I can probably still
keep range control on him, applying blaster DPS decently.
3 – By having only 1 web he’s going to have a
capacitor booster… Combined with 2 nosferatus it means that my own Energy
Neutralizer is probably a waste on him and I should probably worry more about
saving my own capacitor by not activating my own Neut.
I decide to engage, sending out ECM drones and
not activating my neutralizer to save capacitor. At same time I try to bring my
backup DSP Brutix a couple jumps out. While fighting I realize it’s an active
tank Ashimmu… That’s bad… My Tank Brutix has somewhat limited DPS to break an
active tank ship, especially when I’m on the wrong end of Capacitor warfare. I
look at my other screen to see if my 2nd Brutix is still far and…
..And the damn ship is still cloaked!!! Oh come
on! I failed to decloak him properly and warp. I decloak him and warp outgate.
Fight is ongoing and the Ashimmu is doing fine.
I still have lots of tank left, but capacitor going down. Soon I’ll be dry. I
look at my other screen again to see how long for my backup toon and…
… AND THE FREAKING SHIP IS STILL YET CLOAKED
AGAIN!!! SERIOUSLY?!?! FREAKING KIDDING ME?! Did I just messed decloaking my
ship 2 times in a row? I’m starting to think that I should lose this fight...
I FINALLY decloak it and set my way. Pleniers
is about to die, so I jump in in hopes of saving him and…. No one is at the in
gate…
W……T…….F……!!!!!!!!!
This is where another interesting feature comes
into play… Local pocket has many connections. All nearby systems are connected
to 3 or 4 other systems, so my autopilot pretty much messed up, meaning I
jumped in the right system from a wrong location, far from the engagement. I
have to make YET another warp.
As for my Tank Brutix fighting the Ashimmu,
things are not going too well. Even though I did managed to jamm the Ashimmu 3
times, bloodlust was kicking and I did NOT wanted to warp off. I still had a last resort in the form of the
MJD, as long as I had 200 GJ of Capacitor. That limit or
“point-of-not-getting-away” was crossed as Rtb was jumping into local. I
decided to not bail, only to realise too late that my backup had jumped into system
but from a gate far away. Things got worse as a Paladin and a Svipul come in,
providing backup to the Ashimmu, increasing the damage by a lot. The Paladin alone
made 20% damage and was on grid for the shortest time.
Pleniers dies and a few seconds after Rtb
arrives. Hell, the Ashimmu is already in bad shape so I go for him. I would not
leave without my prize! The increased DPS from Rtb is enough to break the
Ashimmu’s tank and he dies. Under fire from the Paladin and long pointed by the
Crow and Svipul, I activate my MJD to bail.
Even now I managed to mess up. I had not
aligned to absolutely nothing before activating my MJD, so once I teleport
100km away, I am not ready to warp off and Crow starts coming at me moving
5000+m/s. Geez… is it possible for me to mess up any more stuff?! There is an
anomaly near my direction, so warp to it at 100km range. As I land I try to
warp off immediately, but the Svipul comes in at 30km away from me and long
points me!
Ok, I have no choice, I need to kill it. I
Overload all my mids, and rush towards him. The svipul pilot, either not
realizing the threat or forgetting to overload his MWD or changing to
Propulsion mode, is caught by me and dies shortly after. Seems like I was
managing to turn all this mess around a bit.
Afterwards they try to catch me with 2 Cerberus
and 1 Onyx, but the fact there are so many connections between systems plays
against them this time, and I’m able to escape easily. Still pondered on trying
to kill one of them, but my only alive Brutix was fairy damaged and was getting
late for me. I returned back to Thera and called it a day.
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