Friday 2 September 2011

How not to fly a Crusader... (Twice)

So new corp, new rules*, ooh shiny medal for killing things above your class, AND an Alliance solo kill of the month thread. Well Anabaric LOVES shiny things, so in my quest for fame, glory, and a large dose of Epeen swinging, I undock in my trusty Rifter....

Hold on a minute..
Dude where's my ships?


Quickly logging in the alt and looking in the carrier's hold, oh look a pile of rifters...
One station trade later....

Where was I, undocking in my trusty rifter, I start to prowl the local belts hunting for shiny things to kill. Amamake is a fun place to be, its busy and there is always lots of militia and local pirates to hunt. Finding a Crusader in a belt I chase him to the sun landing 100km away, he suddenly gets brave and starts to burn directly towards me, his speed quickly rises to 3500, cool I think, all i need to do is get him within 13km and... I wait till he's at 35km, then with overheat already applied to my web/afterburner I launch myself towards him, the fast accleration of the rifter is unexpected, and his orbit attmept fails as my web latchs on, followed shortly by the scram, its a quick kill for the rifter.

About an hour later I see the same chap, in another crusader, he's back in Amamake checking local I don't see any obvious friends, but with the short warp between gates that doesn't mean he's alone.
Its a rifter, I've got a supply in my hanger, so I'm a sucker for bait when flying them.
The fights at the belt this time, he expects my rush tactic and manages to settle into an orbit and quickly boils the shields off, the armor starts to bleed, and I turn on the rep. The whole time I'm constantly changing direction trying to slingshot him back into web range, my cap gets low, cap runs too low and I start to bleed structure, just at that point I switchback and the web catches him. He gets away this time, but is forced out into a wide swinging orbit, I switch back just as he hits the apex, the web lands, on goes the scram, the nos, and finally some damage. With the 150's overheated his ship soon explodes.

Too many people think that orbit at 20km and hit mwd means that an AB ship can't catch them. Manually piloting your ship, switching directions speed, coupled with a bit of luck and a overheated web prove otherwise all too many times.

Did I mention earlier I'm a sucker for bait

*I did mention on my App I was a pirate didn't I... 

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