Sooo..my planned total hiatus isnt going as smoothly as i figured.The alliance and hence Aurelius Fed. is at war..i think it became active not 3 or 4 days into my holiday…whats a fellow to do?…sit idly by whilst your comrades are slaughtered by the merciless aggressor..stand and watch while they pillage and loot all that you hold dear?….or break out the rusty old armour and ride out to defeat the foe?………actually so far its been a bit of a damp squid..theres less than 10 “targets” and maybe a 1/3rd of them have already left their Corporation!
Be that as it may i have gradually been sucked back in the last two days…yesterday i broke out all my Manufacturing and Invention gear and decided to start up a few jobs..will knock out some Caldari Elite Frigates…a nice little earner if i can run out a couple of dozen or so and sell them on the open market in low-security and today logged in to see if there any war action happening..none…and got roped into two different “roams” around the neighbourhood.First one passed without incident..i was a latecomer to this and really just tagged along for the last 45 minutes…i almost took out the Scorpion for its first “action”(in Empire space anyway) but boated up without checking what the rest of the fellas were flying and took the Falcon as this can do two things…ECM Jamming and Recon work because of its ability to warp while cloaked up…wish id taken the Scorpion tho’ as when i arrived at the System the rest were at i saw that Cmdr GAT had brought a Falcon too and was doing the Recon thing.
The Scorpion is Battleship sized hull but i guess any pretensions at being a mighty death-dealer halt right there.Its a pure Electronics platform with 8 Middle slots for fitting the tools of your trade.All well and good…ECM Jammers..yawn…couple of Shield extenders just for psychological reasons and a Gravimetric ECCM module in case i run into any nasty Falcons with a top-skilled pilot.Its the High slots that im dying to fire up for real…3 T2 Heavy Energy Neutralisers and 3 Large Smart Bombs..i desperate for a couple of Interceptors to burn towards me and try snagging me..if some drones get tossed out too id be a happy fellow.
But, i never took it…and the next “roam” was as part of a “Stealth Bomber” gang…oh my!…i could certainly have done with the Scorp. on this one…….
5 of us set off from our home systems in Stealth Bombers..i took the Manticore..a great little boat that ive had some fun with and has got me out of a couple of tight situations when i have it set up for speed/recon stuff but this was a bombing roam so it was on with the bomb launcher and load up the torpedoes.Its pretty straightforward to set up except when it comes to a couple of the 4 mid-slots..a microwarpdrive for sure..a target painter for the Torpedoes…i go with a Sensor Booster with Res. Script for fast lock times as you dont want to be hanging around in this thing then the 4th..hmmm.I did have a small shield extender fitted but mainly because it was just a not-thinking fitment..someone suggested a Sensor Dampener which is a possibility but then i thought about fitting an ECM Burst module..something ive never considered before being as how they generally suck compared to the regular targetted ECM Jammers range wise.But, on checking out the Info. and “EFTing” it i saw that with my “Splendid” ECM skills i get a very nice increase(50%) in its optimal range and its strength goes up by more than a 1/3rd….what do i want it for?…in case any interceptors burn to me super fast and lock me down..i figure that with range out to 15km or so and strength just under 10.0 im gonna have a decent chance of breaking any lock from a burning overshooting Interceptor and being able to high-tail it..probably with about 10 % structure remaining but i should get away.
A journey of about 11 or 12 jumps took us to the System HED-GP….haha the first time i ever went into this system my bowels nearly opened there and then.You go from the relative emptiness of 0.0 space..maybe pass one or two “Blue” gate camps on the way…and all of a sudden Local is full of “Reds”..10..20…30…40..omg more.
This time it was no different tho’ there was the added bonus of jumping through the gate into a bubble with around 10 red boats(that you could see) sitting round waiting for the unwary or the foolish.One by one we go through..jump..align..cloak…realign..start burning towards the outside of the bubble keeping an eye out for cans,wrecks and the red Vagabonds burning around.With luck all of us made it through unscathed tho’ we had to watch as a friendly pilot came through just after us and was snared..ship destroyed and podded.
A warp over to the only other gate in system and it was 10 minutes to get ourselves all positioned ready for launching a salvo of bombs at whatever juicy targets presented themselves.10 minutes…20…30…40…50…nada…nothing worth opening up on….we were literally seconds from engaging a Taranis that spent 10 minutes orbiting the gate…apparently whilst he Red to us he also Red to the Locals so he was baiting them…..then the bugger jumped through the gate after leaving a cargo can with a message for the natives.
By this point we had been joined by the pilot who had previously got podded in the bubble..Midnight Wyvern rolled him into our fleet and he ended up on station with us in his Stealth Bomber too.
NolDevin went to have a look at the Bubbled gate..the Bubble was down and there only 4 Reds present uncloaked..wrecks and cargo cans were scattered all around but it seemed like there was at least 2 boats we might have a chance of taking down with a bomb volley so it was all warp over and get in position.Unfortunately one of those things happened which..how can i put it….suck.Right on the cusp of engaging i see NolDevins Boat uncloak so im off with the cloak too and let fly an Electron Bomb…but NolDevins uncloaked by default..hes disconnected and his Boats done so automatically..hes not there to launch.Hes just off to my port side(or was) and the 2 Reds are burning to the spot at thousands of m/s..now im in their direction of travel so its easy for them to get a lock on me in seconds..aha i thinks..im gonna be fine as i hit the ECM Burst then start hitting warp..but no..im not going anywhere and the Manticore just melts around me.
I wake up in Amarr Emperor(2nd time this month!) to the sounds and reports one after another of the rest of the Squad getting laid out-tho’ the fellow who joined us shot down someone with a single Scorch Bomb…those who saw it said it was very well done.
Soo..i not too sure about the efficacy of this ECM Burst module..because the boat melted in seconds i couldnt really tell if it was working correctly..whether the Intys were in range or not or because it the first time ive even fitted one whether its “Burst” comes at the beginning or end of activation.
Oh aye..and looking at the Killmail what did i see also involved in my demise…a bloomin’ Falcon pilot.
lol.. devin and his disconnects
You’re a good guy Ajax, has anyone ever told you that?
Just do not forget we’ll always be here waiting if you do take that hiatus, no one will forget ya, I’ll make sure of it!
And yea, that is an awesome battle blog, I’m gonna plug it in my THIS WEEK section
Yeah man I’m really sorry about that >_> worst disconnect timing EVER.
For anyone considering it-further reading shows that the ECM Burst is pretty much useless!!I have read some comments that the mod. is broken and is in line for a fix and also that even if it does work as it should it only breaks the lock and the pilot targetting you can immediately re-apply it even though the Burst mod. is still going through that particular cycle….so now its Sensor Damp 2 ftw instead.