Engagement Report 14 – Dual Hull Brutix

I log in and look at the map, wondering where I could go roam close to Curse. During previous couple weeks I had roamed around Pandemic Legion space, Infamous space, Inglorious space, Methodical Alliance space, Short Bus Syndicate space, Horde space, Black Core space, Slyce space, Test Space, RANE Space, Zero-Four Ops Space… Who was I missing nearby?... Ah yes, Only Pixels space! Why not?!

About 2 jumps away from their home system I spot one of their FC’s in local and an Orthrus on D-Scan. I just hold on ingate and cloak up my DPS Brutix in the previous system, close to the gate. Orthrus make range on me and aggresses at 50km away. Of course I’m not going to try catch him, but knowing he’s an FC, I’m sure he’d call for backup. I jump out and back in to avoid getting too damaged. After all, I cannot really repair mid fight, so need to preserve the most of my EHP possible.

As I jump in an Onyx arrives the gate. Both the Onyx and Orthrus aggress me, but I’m able to burn back to gate easy and jump out. Too bad they both aggressed me. I was hoping for the Onyx to jump with me and engage it, away from the gate, with my 2 Brutix. Engaging an Onyx 0km on the gate is useless as it can probably deaggress and jump out.

Nevertheless I was willing to engage those 2 guys at same time. The plan: jump back into them, kite 1 MWD cycle away from the gate in order to lure the Onyx away from the gate, bring in DPS Brutix, kill Onxy, MJD away from Orthrus. If needed, I could even put my ECM drones on the Onyx to mitigate incoming DPS and warp off before I even killed it. 

As I jump into the Onyx and Orthus with my Tank Brutix a Devoter shows up… Ah crap… My beautiful plan just got washed away into the dirt… I hate when this happens. Upon a better look the Devoter is not a Only Pixels guy, but is a Memento guy, so blue to them, as they talk in local about teaming up to kill me. I need to re-assess this whole mess, and as more time passes by, the worse for me it will be… I probably missed the engagement opportunity window already… 

Anyway, right now it’s time to get safe. I don’t want to get scrammed by 2 HIC away from the gate, so I pull the “Burn back to gate and cloak trick”. Once they saw me cloak, local exploded! Oh boy, they start to call me all sort of names and insult me… I got to the gate and jumped out while the Orthus follows me. Here I messed up...

The Orthrus follows me and sees my backup Brutix decloaked. I had forgotten to re-cloak it once I decided to not engage due to the Devoter arrival. In fact, during the previous local smack talk they asked where my “Remote Repairing Alt” was. They were expecting for me to bring my old traditional Augoror backup, but now they could see I had 2 Brutix instead. 

What really surprised me now was the Orthrus warping away in a hurry, instead of pulling range and tackling me! Were they afraid of my 2 Brutix having 2 HIC and an Orthrus themselves?! I mean, they could easily scram me 25km+ away from my Blasters and still apply DPS, but I decided to take on the opportunity!

I jumped back into the 2 HIC, only to see the Onyx warp off in a hurry and the Devoter to sit on the gate unwilling to aggress me! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! As I was trying to think on what to do, both my ships stopped responding to my commands... Sigh… Here we go again…

SOCKET CLOSED!

Hell of timing as always… It would be a matter of time before they’d call for a prober, so I better get back in fast! Fortunately my machine was not lagging too much and I log in before they probe me. As I land back onto the gate with both toons, I realise they brought a couple more guys…

Now they had 2 Orthrus, 1 Onyx, 1 Devoter, 1 Cerberus and 1 Cynabal. I land 6km away from the gate, but they fail to bump me as some of them aggress me, so I reach the gate, jump and even managed to warp off. It really shows how disorganized these guys were, because there’s no way I should have been able to get out of that mess so easily. Unfortunately it was way too much for me to handle, even considering I had managed to split some on the gate. 

I happened to warp off to a ping at the LBC- gate and the ones that were un-aggressed  follow me to that same gate. As I land on the ping I cloak up. I was really not comfortable on how fast all this had turned around, and needed a few moments to settle down.

My foes see me cloak and local smack talk explodes again, with no insults on my person being spared. I should point out that not everyone insulted me, it was really only a couple guys in their fleet, rest kept it civil. I also confess… it feels well to piss of people sometimes, and after a day’s work, some venting in local actually feels nice, so I also flamed away a bit too… The flesh is weak XD.

During this time I noticed an important factor. Cynabal and Devoter were Memento guys, rest were Pixels guys. Pixels guys soon realized it was not worth staying around with me cloaked, so left local back to their home. On the LBC gate, away from the direction Pixels left to, I had the Cynabal at 0km on the gate and the Devoter at around 30km away from the gate. A plan quickly formed in my head.

The Plan: Deloak, warp down to LBC gate, jump out, wait for Cynabal to follow, catch it, bring in backup Brutix, apply ECM drones on the Devoter and warp off before Pixels guys (who would be burning back to my location from almost reaching their home system once these Memento guys cried for help), had the chance to catch me! Simple huh?! What could go wrong?!

So I set the Plan in motion and you know what… it freaking worked!!!!! MUHAHAHAHA. I managed to kill the Cynabal and warp off before backup arrived, but some details developed indeed a bit differently than planned:

1 – Cynabal was lightly tanked and only 1 Brutix was used to kill it;

2 – The Devoter NEVER EVER aggressed me…  He targeted me for ages and I was well within his “Focused Mega Scram” range. I was really puzzled on that one! Was he afraid that my 2 Brutix would kill him before backup arrived?

3 – Backup arrived faster than expected and I even got long pointed by an Orthrus, but my MJD saved the day before all the other guys showed up.

In the end, my safety was achieved due to the Devoter’s unwillingness to aggress. Had he Scrammed me, there’s a good chance I would have lost one of my Brutix, but even then, it would have been a decent trade for an Arty Cynabal.

Engagement Report 13 – Dual Hull Brutix

I log in one day and I feel the urge to go HED-GP. A true magnet for every kind of adrenaline seeker capsuleer. Solo, small gang, large blobs, cloaky campers, hotdroppers, hi-sec suiciders, “elite” linked kiters, 3 day old brawlers… You name it, they go there! On top of that, local station was Freeport, so great way to repair my Hull Brutix fast.

Upon arrival I jump in with my Tank Brutix and cloak up my DPS Brutix at the HED-GP gate, orbiting at 5km. It might indeed get decloaked by some random traveller or gang, but being close by to provide fast backup surpasses that risk.

Inside HED-GP scan shows around 20 in local and about 10 frigates towards Kebers gate, as well as a crapload of bubbles. I warp to a ping in order to draw their attention. As expected they are camping the gate with bubbles, and as soon as I arrive, some of them start warping to their own pings close to mine to catch me. These guys are in full out in blind bloodlust! Good… Bloodlust people are prone to overconfidence and mistakes.

Enyo, Enyo, Rifter, Crusader, Worm, Hawk, Stilleto and I think they also had a Garmur as well as a couple more interceptors. I don’t want to be caught at this location, so need to act fast.

Option A – Warp to the safety of station and take a few more minutes to play cat and mouse games, in order to see if there is more than meets the eye, like a Falcon, Recon or just plain DPS ships holding back;

Option B – Warp to the SV5 gate at 0km, try to split them and get hostilities going as I decloak my backup Brutix.

Taking in account they looked completely disorganized, I went for option B. Let’s go to the gate and see what happens. Surely enough, they were already at the gate when I arrive, but with them comes a Tengu!! Oh crap…

A properly PVP fitted Tengu can, alone, engage head on both my Brutix with ease… I might be in bigger problems that I expected. Some of the frigates have already Scrammed me but keeping cool for a few extra seconds I look at the Tengu’s weapons. There aren’t any! Ufff… that’s a relief… It’s a Links Tengu… Sure Links will be annoying to deal with, but nowhere compared to a beastly faction fitted Neutron Blaster Tengu or a Heavy Assault Missile Tengu.

Ok so, all on gate, some aggressing me. I jump out, most of them follow. Some aggress me too inside SV5- as I burn back to gate. Good, now they’re split among both systems. I jump back into HED-GP and it’s on! Primary targets are the Scrambling frigates to make sure my MJD can activate properly when the time comes. I bring in my backup Brutix and then…. Greed takes over me… What if I used my Backup DPS Brutix to kill the Link Tengu orbiting the gate? The hell with some crappy frigates, I’d prefer to have a T3 Cruiser kill any day!

I split my own fire… Tank Brutix focus on frigates, DPS Brutix focus on Link Tengu… But the frigates don’t go down fast enough. The Link Tengu pilot is also probably realizing he’s under fire and he can just jump it out at any time. With this much going on, there’s no way I got the awareness to try bump him off gate. If I continue down this path, there’s a good chance I’ll lose 1 Brutix over nothing! I must control my greed with a strong leash or it’ll get the best of me.

As the Tengu was reaching 50% shields I decide it’s time to get back to the original plan and focus on teaming up both Brutix properly for maximum effect. From this point onward I focus both Brutix into the same target and surely enough, the frigates start to go down at good pace. Eventually my Tank Brutix reaches around 10% structure, but having killed all the Scramming frigates, I MJD and get him safe while my DPS Brutix kept on field clearing the rest of the fellas that didn’t warped off already. I was able to kill 2 Enyo, Rifter, Crusader, Worm, Hawk and Stilleto, but most of all, I was pleased with my decision in mid-fight of keeping my bloodlust under control and ignore the Tengu, assuring a better outcome of the battle. 

From here I went to run the Catch-Querious pipe. Usually a slow place, but map showed some dots, so went to investigate. Warping at range on a random system belonging to Infamous guys (when Infamous lived in Catch), I see that a Hurricane Fleet Issue is undocked. There’s about 10 in local and I know some of the local names. They usually like to fight and tend to organize fairly fast, but at same time they are also prone to make mistakes fairly easy. This combination means that I might have a chance of scoring a good kill here.

The Hurricane Fleet Issue is aligning towards me, and slowboating away from station. This is a sign of aggressive stance, and knowing these guys, he will not engage me alone. I warp off to a gate, but keep spamming D-Scan. As I warp off, I see in D-Scan a Falcon and a Crusader. Auch.. ECM… Even with 2 Brutix this could go wrong, but I’m still willing to engage. Let’s see what develops. I land on the gate with the Crusader and decide to try ninja it. I aggress it on the gate and he aggresses back, but unfortunately Falcon lands and jamms me before I kill it. As the Crusader gets safe, the Hurricane Fleet Issue and a Curse land on the gate, both aggressing me too.

Well, I had already faced a Rook and Curse some time ago, and it went terribly wrong. Even with 2 Brutix I would have very slim chances to score a kill, especially considering the Crusader pilot is probably going to reship into something sturdier. I deagress, jump out into safety and go repair in a quiet system. I might not be able to kill them, but they also messed up a perfectly good chance to bait me properly and kill me.

Moving on to Querious, I dwelled into a pocket in the south. For me, the biggest problem in entering these closed pockets is their ability to control intel. If I show up I have 2 Brutix I lose my edge, but if my backup is too far away I miss on good kills or I die.

Anyway I move in the pocket and an Ishtar follows me at range and warping to pings on my gates. Me and Ishtar pilot talk a bit and he was always polite. He tells me to leave the area because they would not fight and I’d be wasting my time in an area with no content. In my experience, people will fight if they think they can properly overpower you, so I press on around. After all, they had more than 50 people among 2/3 systems…

Eventually, while jumping a random gate, I’m greeted by a Kestrel, Crow and Crucificier, all at range. They aggress me without coming close to me, so I warp off to station at range. This seems promising but I need to see what they have prepared for me. Archon, Myrmidon and Vexor at the undock. Good. I start to think where I want the engagement to take place, and best spot seems to be at the ingate for several reasons:

1: From station to the ingate it’s about 60AU, so somewhat far. Any heavy backup incoming from station will take a bit to arrive;

2: Previous system was empty. I can cloak my backup Brutix really close to the ingate for a fast backup. I can only hope for their intel toons to not spot him while he gets in position.

While my backup Brutix gets indeed in position they post in local something in the lines of “hey, tell your mate to come in” and “your mate is lonely out there”. Unwillingly, they’re giving me some insight. The fact they are calling my backup Brutix my “mate” means they don’t realize it’s my alt, so aren’t probably researching my killboard, and the fact they did not bragged about knowing he’s also in a Brutix, convinces me they don’t know what he’s in. Most likely only saw one guy in their local moving around and that’s it. Good enough for me.

Once I’m ready on both toons, I go sit with Tank Brutix at the ingate and wait. Kestrel, Crucificier, Crow and Atron engage me and I kill the Atron pretty easily. Meanwhile, in the previous system, my cloaked DPS Brutix sees the Ishtar pilot jumping into fray. It’s the perfect opportunity for a juicy kill. I stop messing with those kitting crappy frigates, reaproach gate, load void, recall my drones back, overload my mids and prepare for the Ishtar to decloak. As it decloaks I manage to catch him, easily. I bring in my DPS Brutix and also join for a quick kill.

As the Ishtar is about to go down, Myrmidon and Vexor arrive at range and hit my Tank Brutix with sentries. As the Ishtar dies I MDJ and warp my Tank Brutix away, but I need to decide what to with my DPS Brutix.

The Myrmidon was exactly 100km away from Rtb in the DPS Brutix… I could just MJD on top of him and kill him fast! I mean… he’s EXACTLY at 100km from me. The Universe wants me to kill it for sure! They don’t have anyone with Scrams in the field, I expect that Vexor and Mymidon to be PVE and range fitted, and these guys are fairly inexperienced, so what could possibly go wrong!? I play the “Cocky” card and MJD on top of the Myrmidon.

He’s completely taken off guard and he does not even tries to move. Then I realize he actually has a 1600mm Plate on that Myrmidon, my “ninja” kill is taking a bit longer than I’d hoped for… Then a Hawk lands just on top of me and Scrams me… Somehow I have the sense this is all going downhill... Even though I cannot MJD anytime soon, I might need my MWD mobility sooner than later, so I change focus from the Myrmidon into the Hawk and hit D-Scan as they might have more backup incoming.

Archon on scan… Just wonderful… I keep my focus into the Hawk, but he’s not dying fast enough. How did I manage to get myself in this mess again?! Ah yes, I remember, I got cocky…

Archon arrives and the Hawk pulls some range on me, enough to drops is Scram. I use this opportunity to start kiting with my MWD overloaded towards a random celestial, but I still need to survive for more than a minute as my MJD cools down while I’m long pointed by the Crow. Fortunately their inexperience surfaces once more and the Crow fails to maintain a long point on so I’m able to warp off.

It was getting late, and with my surprise advantage gone, an Archon in the field, and 1 Brutix in low structure, It was time to call it a day and log off. I chatted with the locals a bit as I moved away, but even though they were not happy for me to be there (after all I was harassing them in their home) they kept it civil.

So, I moved my ass to HED-GP…

Well actually I moved to Keberz, the hi-sec system 1 jump out, but we’ll get there.

Anyway, why did I moved from K-QWHE and Curse region? 

In reality, I kinda “moved out” in 2014, when my 1^st kid was born. Having a baby/child with some sleep issues (and even other natural needs), forcing me to go AFK unexpectedly every hour or so, I restrained myself from FCing or joining fleets and instead focused in roaming far away alone with a cloak on every ship of mine. Ever since, I only return home once I get my ass podded and stay around for long enough to get into another ship and go someplace via Thera or even gates as the Southeast has been a good place to catch targets for last couple years.

…And what changed? Why not continue to use K-QWHE as home and roam the stars. It suited me for the last 3 years!

Because I’m burning out at current my playstyle… I love roaming but after 3 years of roaming alone I went to all the dark corners of EVE, met all sort of players and tactics and tried to make the best of all the nastiest situations I’d gladly put myself into. If you have been following my blog I can hear you say:

“No wonder, you been using the same Dual Hull Brutix for more than a year, what do you expect?! Just roam with different stuff!”

Hard to explain, it’s not really about the ship I flew, because even using the same setup, I’d get lots of different engagements. It’s all the attention/stress related to roaming:

1 - Countless of click Jump/Warp;

2 - Always taking attention to slight changes in local because it has a crucial effect on either I kill or die;

3 - Having extremely limited window of opportunity to kill something before I get swarmed or before everyone docks up;

4 – Being unable to reship easily to counter the guys that geared up to counter me!

5 – Wanting to tone down on EVE (not quit just yet) and go away more often and still being able to get the occasional engagement.

After looking to the last batch of 50 Brutix I bought I said:

“Nope, time for a gameplay change, let’s look at the starmap and pick a place where I can camp and relax!”

I can hear you scream already… “Oh my god Pleniers, you used to be cool! What happened to you?! Are you going to get a Falcon too you wannabe dirty gatecamper?” Top Secret… I’ve always had a Falcon and I am not afraid to use it. I’m only against ECM when used AGAINST me, not BY me, but I’m looking for a more original approach (we’ll get there too).

Why not just go home and camp K-QWHE… After all, I got corp mates living there (I can join comms for small periods of time), billions and billions of assets, bookmarks, intel and backup from some other blue alliances that live nearby! I’m going to digress here a bit…

 

Fact is, Aegis Sov and jump drive limitations messed up Curse region a lot, and probably other NPC places too. Before the jump drive nerf bat hit, every bozo could swoop around the EVE Universe in less than 5 minutes. This also meant that people would deploy often into NPC null.

Bored? Let’s go Curse or Syndicate for “fun” and “good fights”. 

You lost your home or were kicked from your previous alliance? Let’s go Curse or Syndicate for “fun” and “good fights”.

Want to brag about being a badass in EVE? Let’s go Curse or Syndicate for “fun” and “good fights”.

We even had an inside joke in A4D… Want to kill the whole universe? Easy… Just wait a bit and the whole universe will eventually deploy within a couple jumps. Everyone and their freaking mother would deploy to Doril, Utopia, Litom, Hemin, HLW, D87-, RA-, XX9-, etc ect. Every month we’d have a new duck to shoot for a limited period of time, from entire coalitions to lone corps.

After Agis Sov, people live in their dense populated mini pockets and hardly move more than a couple jumps. Don’t get me wrong, this is awesome for roams all over the Universe, but Curse did lost much of its charm due to it.

I recently had a small glimpse of the “Old Curse” when Test and CO2 along with their pets deployed to Doril/Sendaya for a couple weeks! Oh the joy! Within 4 jumps of home I had loads of targets!! Loved busting their gatecamps, loved camping their citadels, loved teaming up with local mates again and loved being able to reship quickly to adapt to a new situation. My baby starts to cry? All cool, just dock at the station in local… No need to put a cloak on a Brutix, or whatever I’m using. I wanted that feeling and sort of gameplay again as well as play EVE in a more semi-AFK status.

Wanting a more target rich environment I looked upon HED-GP… 

HED-GEP is a very special system, mostly because it’s a Null system adjacent to Hi-sec in an active area while also having a reputation in EVE’s collective mind as a place to go for some action. 

Test, Brave, Co2, Proviblock and Goons live close by, and it’s an entry point to the Southeast of EVE, so all sort of people, from hi-sec carebears looking for a new experience to veteran PVPrs come this way looking for prey. This is a very rare combination in EVE!

Because HED-GP is Null Sec Sov Space I cannot just dock there… I mean, I could if I joined the “owners” of the system, but then I’d probably be blue to a third of all freaking EVE, so, no thanks… I treasure my targets very fondly!

Keberz, the adjacent Hi-Sec system has no NPC station and putting billions of ships into a POS is just a risk I was never willing to take. 

Then Citadel Age comes into play… Now, I can use one of the crapton Freeport citadels in Keberz pretty much risk free. Citadel gets destroyed or my entry rights revoked? It’s ok… I’ll move all my stuff for free to another Freeport citadel nearby after a couple of days! Unless someone decides to go in a Holy Crusade against Freeport Citadels in Keberz for some crazy reason, I’ll be just fine… Up until now, I had never collected any benefits from the Citadel Age (other than occasionally bumping off the tethered AFK poor soul), but now, I can effectively move into someone else’s Freeport Citadel in Keberz, almost risk free.

So, right now I can have my assets safe in hi-sec and enjoy a charismatic (and decently active) Null Sec system, while being able to reship in under 1 minute and keeping a very limited list of blues. This new location is still very close to my home in Curse so I can go back and forth real fast between Curse and HED-GP.

I don’t know how long I’ll be around HED… 1 year? 1 month? Regardless, it seems to have been the proper choice as I’m actually enjoying a lot of engagements I would never have while roaming Sov space.

Engagement Report 12 – Dual Hull Brutix

As stated many times in my previous engagements, I try to rejoin both my toons once one of them dies. Travels are usually smooth, but sometimes an opportunity arises for a good Solo Hull Brutix engagement.

Pleniers had died previously, and while traveling to rejoin Rtb in his Tank Hull Brutix, a Pandemic Legion Phantasm landed with him, at 0km on Litom gate.

Now before screaming “CYNO BAIT!!!!” let me share my initial assessment and the experience we, in A4D, have with Pandemic Legion, considering they were living 3 jumps away from us at the time.

1 – PL small gangs (2 to 10 guys) in subcaps are rare…. Very rare! They might happen in at corporation level, but we’ll find those like once per month or so;

2 – PL solo roamers are quite usual. Those guys probably get seriously bored, so pretty much every day there’s some poor fella that decides to go out alone in a solo loot piñata;

3 – PL kiting loot piñatas don’t have Cynos;

4 – PL brawling loot piñatas probably have a Cyno, but even then we’ll be just fine with a Falcon on standby to allow us bail out. Anyway, they don’t tend to hotdrop the locals… Can’t even remember last time they tried hotdropping us.

So, taking in account those guidelines, I expected that Phantasm pilot to be roaming solo, to not have a cyno, to not have any sort of backup and to be somewhat inexperienced at solo. As for the fitting, I expected the Phantasm to not have a Capacitor Booster and to have a long point and web.

Phantasms have a huge bonus to Afterburning, meaning that pinning down one in blaster range with only 1 Brutix (fitted with 1 Scram and 1 Web) is hard, especially if the Phantasm would web me back! From the start I knew that my only chance would be to win the “Capacitor Warfare”! My greatest asset, and the key to victory, would not be my scram and blasters, but my Medium Energy Neutralizer.

We both jump, decloak and I rush towards him MWD overloaded. Catching him was fairly easy, so I apply my Blasters, damage drones and Energy Neutralizer, and as expected he has a Long Point and a Web.

Surely enough, he steadily makes range on me, and I need to stop overloading my MWD… As he leaves scram range, I switch ammo to Null, so that I could apply some damage up to 18km range or so. Important to say this fight took place after Energy Neutralizers rebalancing, so even at more than 10km, I was still managing to Neut something out of him, even though completely unsure by how much. There is a good chance I’d be Neuting myself more than him, but having a BC does has the advantage of a somewhat bigger capacitor than a cruiser.

He somewhat managed to maintain a 10-20km range away from me, while I’m spitting Null, trying to Neut him and having my own MWD on. This is a really ridiculous position for me… I hate aggressing people that are not in my Scram range, and usually I just deaggress and burn back to gate in those cases, but in this peculiar fight I was still making some faith in my Neutralizer, as he’d get close enough for some brief moments.

As I’m reaching 20% capacitor and entering 75% structure, the Phantasm’s Afterburner deactivates. I need to grab this chance and get on top of him again within my optimal blaster range! Phantasm never again regains speed, and explodes.

Pretty much about the same time a random PL Svipul lands on a ping on our gate, they talk about teaming up in local and the Svipul comes at me. Well… 1 lone Svipul is really not a match to my Brutix and ends up dying.

After the engagement ended the 3 of us chatted a bit, and I was able to understand better how I caught the Phantasm and Svipul. Reason was a quite simple, one that I often forget about it. They both came in close to me in order to make sure I would not run away, assuring they could deliver that final blow as I was getting deeper into structure, only realising too late that I’m Hull Tanked and therefore “bait”. It the end, it was the “Hull deception” and not so much my Energy Neutralizer (even though it was very important to keep the Phantasm capped out and pinned down in the end) that allowed me to score 2 kills in a row.

A few days later, in pretty much around the same location, a PL Vengeance and a Magus aggress my Tank Brutix near a gate, so I engage them confident to be able to kill them quickly. Expecting them to have a few more guys with them I bring my backup Brutix, but  the only backup they seemed to have was a Confessor that bailed.

At this point the pilots stated in local they will ship up a bit higher into cruisers, willing to give my 2 Brutix a “fair fight”. I don’t believe in “fair fights” in EVE and I HATE arranged fights, so I pretty much disregarded what they said at this point. I did needed to repair so I kept my ass around for a bit. Not long after, they return…

Well… I don’t like the fact they know I have 2 Brutix instead of just one, but since they’re here, might as well take a look on what they got. I warp around a bit and nothing on D-Scan… Ok… I’m starting to like this cat and mouse game… Still, with no intel I won’t engage, so I devise a plan.

1 jump out from Litom is Jamunda system, a pipe with only 2 gates. Litom is ingate, 1P- is outgate. I cloaked up Rtb in the DPS Brutix at the ingate and warped Pleniers to the outgate. Let them chase me and show themselves at the gate as they jump in.

1^st guy to jump in is a Pilgrim… Nasty as it focus onto one of my biggest vulnerabilities… Lack of cap injection.

2^nd guy is a Huggin. It’s actually a ship I don’t worry too much about. Sure it can slow me down, but usually also means his gang will try to rely on Long Points, therefore I can probably just MJD away from harm, as long as I have enough cap.

3^rd guy is not jumping in just yet… Still, he’s not too much of a problem right now, because it means he’ll be a bit far away. That suits me fine too!

I jump into 1P- with my Tank Brutix and hold cloak. Pilgrim and Huggin follow. In order for me to succeed I MUST primary the Pilgrim with BOTH my Brutix, there is no alternative. This means I must time everything just right! As I hold cloak, I warp my DPS Brutix from Litom gate to 1P- gate. I only decloak when DPS Brutix is about to land the 1P- gate.

I take the cautious approach. Let them engage me and take it from there. Pilgrim aggresses me with long point 2 Energy Neutralizers and 1 Nosferatu. My backup is landing on gate and Pilgrim is close enough so I go for him! After applying some damage into the Pilgrim he starts repairing up. That’s good news for me, because those self-repair armor mods are going to be a huge strain on his capacitor, and he’ll be quite fragile.

Pretty much at same time the 3^rd guy comes to join the engagement and I managed to see he’s on a Proteus. Auch! A PVP Proteus is more than enough to take on both my Brutix at same time, not to mention that I’m already taking a huge hit in my Tank Brutix’s capacitor. I decide to escape and get both my toons safe.

I talk to the fellas in local “Sorry guys, Proteus is just too much for me”, as to what they reply something like “yeah, but was the only thing I had, so sorry about that. Thanks for trying to engage anyway, it was a nice fight we had with the frigates a while ago. Fly safe! \o”

OH, COME ON!!! STOP BEING SO DAMN NICE AND CUDDLY TO ME IN LOCAL!!!!! You’re supposed to be pissed that I ran away to keep my sorry ass safe, in order for me to be happy because I managed to piss off some nerds across the planet due to something that did not happened with virtual pixels!!!!! Wonderful… Now I feel bad about myself…

Ok… I don’t want to suicide at their leisure, but maybe, just maybe, I can pull this out. It’s getting late anyway and I’m not going to find any more targets easily so I warp back to their location. I can’t believe I’m doing this…

As always, I need a plan. Kill the Pilgrim, jamm the Proteus with ECM drones, MJD away from the Huggin. If possible, split them on a gate. Simple, easy and pretty doable I’d say.

Proteus aggresses me at 0km on gate. He as a Scram with more than 15km and…. 250mm Railguns… That is awesome news!!! I suppose I should have checked his guns before really, because a railgun Proteus probably has no cap injection (I might be able to shut him down with my own Neuts), won’t have the DPS that blasters would and I might even avoid some damage orbiting him at 500m, depending on how many webs they have…

I stick to the plan and jump out, Pilgrim chases and I do manage to get both my Brutix on his tail, killing him. Proteus comes in after the 1 minute aggression timer and charges at me. Good because I need him away from the gate, in case he pretends to deaggress and jump out.

The Huggin didn’t showed up this time and with no backup, the Proteus is going down nice and steady. He quickly realizes to be in trouble and tries to get back to the gate, as expected. I need to bump him away from the gate, so I decide to do it with the Brutix with more capacitor left. After all, the Pilgrim had almost neuted completely one of my Brutix and he was not yet fully recovered.

Don’t ask me how I did it, but instead of bumping him out, I was able to bump him a whole 15km back INTO the gate, holding softly his hand as he jumps out into safety…  How come I always find a way to mess up a perfectly easy situation?

We chatted and bit more and went our separate ways.