In one of my random roams I headed up to a dot
in map that showed about 5 guys active in space. Upon arrival I realized it was
not a station system and got pretty disappointed. Reason is simple.
In a system without a station, locals will have
no more than a handful of ships, mostly dedicated to their PVE activities. Not
only that, without a “Central Place”, I cannot get myself easily known to the
locals. By having a station, the locals can poke their heads in and out until
they properly outnumber and outclass me, as they’ll only leave theundock once
they are confident enough. Also, people are more likely to have PVP ships ready
in a station rather than in a POS.
If a system has no station, I’ll try to grab
some less aware carebear in a mining or ratting site, but if I fail to catch
anything within 1 minute, it’s usually time to move along. If I warp to a POS,
guns will shoot on me, so yeah, not an option.
In this particular case I failed to catch anything
in an anomaly, but as I was leaving a Caracal and a Stabber land on my gate!
Well hello…
They had around 6 in local, so not that many
guys, and by bringing T1 Cruisers directly to a gate they are pretty much
saying: “Hey there neutral Brutix! We’d like some action and we’re willing to
lose these cheap crappy ships!” I jump out and they follow.
Before we proceed, it’s important to realize
that people never play “fair”. A Stabber and a Caracal are no match to a
Brutix, so them having some sort of backup is to be expected. Sure, those ships
are mostly kiting ships, probably planning on staying away from the Brutix
Blasters, etc etc, but my gut told me they’d have some backup. The plan: Engage
these 2 cruisers with my Tank Brutix and only bring the DPS Brutix once their
backup revealed itself.
As we all decloak, I managed to catch the
Stabber. As the Stabber was dying, local gets +1. My hopes of having a new
juicy target decloak got washed away as it proves to be only a Crow…. Meh… As
the Stabber dies I also manage to get a Scram on the Caracal.
I keep hoping for more backup on their part,
but nothing… As the Caracal reaches 50% shield I just decide to bring in the
DPS Brutix to help kill the Caracal faster, as well as the Crow that had
decided to come into my scram range. The faster I kill the Caracal, the less
damage I have to repair later on, as repairing structure takes some time.
As my DPS Brutix lands, an Ishtar jumps in an
decloaks! That’s exactly the juicy fat fish I was hoping to catch!! I go
immediately for the Ishtar, but it warps of in a hurry!! ARRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!! By
bringing the 2nd Brutix too soon I ended up scaring my most valuable
target… Even more annoying, all pretty much unfolded as I predicted, but
because their backup took so long to show up, I was not expecting it anymore…
Anyway, Caracal and Crow end up dying and I had
still around 80% structure left. The fact I was Hull Tanked took them by
surprise. One of the pilots posted something in the lines of “What’s the deal
with that freaking structure?! Is that something from last patch?!”
Feeling somewhat frustrated for scaring the
Ishtar, I’m about to move along with my Scout Tank Brutix to look for a quiet
system to repair, when a Cynabal lands on a Ping on my gate, 300km above!
Well hello…
It looks like they wanted a Round 2. “Rounds 2”
are very very bad things and are most likely to go very wrong my way. In any
Round 2 I will have forfeited any surprise advantage I had, and will have no
idea what they are going to bring. Not only that, one of my Brutix has already
more than 20% damage and I have no time to repair.
They
pretty much had baited me with 2 T1 cruisers and had tried to drop a HAC on my
tail to “win easily”, but it didn’t turned out as expected for them. Now, with
a Cynabal in a ping they are saying “Ok, now we’re being more careful and we’re
just going to overpower you my deceiving little prick!”
Round 2 are awful things to be had… but then
again, Cloaky Hull Brutix aren’t the best idea either, so I decided to keep
around a bit more and see what developed. I cloaked up my DPS Brutix nearby
anyway. Sure they know it exists, but they might feel a little bolder to engage
just one ship and thus make some mistakes.
Shortly after, a Phobos comes to the gate at
0km and the Cynabal warps down to 0km too. Very well… Phobos has a huge tank
and a 30km Scram, but limited DPS. It’s really not a ship that worries me too
much right now. Anyway the plan: Jump out, catch Cynabal, kill Cynabal and then
bail out, either by deagressing and jumping out or jamming them and warping
away.
I jump out, they follow, we all decloak but I
fail to catch the Cynabal, (even with the MWD overloaded) as it kites away.
Phobos Scrams me and I try to slowboat back to gate, not aggressing anyone.
Phobos is just too resilient for me to try kill it before their backup
(whatever it might be this time) arrives.
As I was slowboating back to gate, something
weird happens…. The Cynabal comes directly at me, into my Scram range! How cool
is that!? Something went wrong on his part for sure, because I don’t really
believe he did it on purpose, but nevertheless, EVE is about making the best
from your foes mistakes. I aggress the Cynabal and bring in my backup Brutix.
Cynabal melts and dies. Ishtar comes in at same
time, and I decide to try catch it with the Brutix not scrammed by the Phobos.
Unfortunately it also kites away and makes range on me… I decide to get back
onto the Phobos and focus on it with both Brutix. Not many seconds after a
Caracal shows up… then a Dominix!
Ok it’s time to bail! There’s too much for me
to tank and I already killed a Cynabal in Round 2 so I’m happy. I deploy the
ECM drones from both Brutix into the Phobos, and try to get away. ECM drones managed
to jamm the Phobos in their 1st cycle, so I MJD away to get rid of
any long points and warp off to a random celestial!
I could hardly believe it worked my way,
exactly like I planned initially!! This is the main reason why I push my
engagements too far! Sometimes you’re able to pull some stunts and when it
works its great and makes up for the times stuff backfired on your face! Had my
ECM drones failed to kick in I would have lost Pleniers, but the Cynabal kill
would still made it somewhat decent…
The Cynabal pilot reshiped into a Vagabond. For
a moment there I still wondered about a Round 3, but then they also brought a 2nd
Dominix, so it pretty much settled this engagement for me. It was time to leave
while I was ahead and continued roaming leaving them sitting on a gate.
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