Thursday 17 March 2011

Molden Heath - Tastes like....victory

Logging on a few hours later, I carried on back towards Oddedulf along the Molden Heath loop. With it only being 3 jumps away, I popped a pizza in the oven, figuring I would be docked in the 20 minutes it would take for it to cook.

Jumping into Heild, local was at 10, with no ships on scan. Warping to the sun at range, there was still nothing on scan. A closer look at local revealed several members of the same alliance in local. With the only location still off scan being the Bosena stargate, my outgate, I warped my alt at range to see what the situation was like before committing my Battlecruiser.

Sure enough, they had a small, neutral gang sitting there composed of a Drake, Incursus, Jaguar, Wolf and a Vagabond. Warping my alt off, I noticed local spiking with another gang jumping in, either from Bosena or Aedald. With nothing appearing on scan in Aedald and the new arrivals going criminal judging by local, I warped my main to the stargate at 50 to see what was going on.

As I warped in, through my directional scanner I could see the composition of the new gang - Armageddon, Curse, Cynabal, Drake, Stabber Fleet Issue, Tempest and Zealot - this was going to get interesting!

Landing 50km off the main brawl, I started locking up the GCC gang whilst moving in, not wanting to have sentries against me as well. With their Drake in low shields, I burnt towards him but alas he warped off before I could secure point. With both sides locked, I could tell the neutral gang was getting thrashed. A matter of seconds later, their Vagabond got exploded, with their Incursus already down. They started warping off, leaving the field whilst I remained behind.

Burning off, I could see the entire flashy gang going for me, with their Cynabal in the lead keeping me pointed! Overheating my MWD for a single cycle, I put distance between the majority of their gang and me whilst lighting up the Cynabal. With them realising they couldn't catch up, they let their MWDs turn off and waited until the Cynabal got 150km from them and they could warp to him. Whilst this was a smart decision, the speed at which the Cynabal and me were travelling meant that everytime they warped to him, by the time they landed we were 50km or more off.

Meanwhile, the Cynabal was getting torn up keeping me tackled. Once he slipped into low shields, I overheated my Heavy Pulses, MWD and Warp Disruptor and brought him down when he was 20km from me, his final resting place 300km from the stargate.

The Cynabal, Faction Cruiser with extreme speed

With his wreck 20km off me, with their Stabber Fleet Issue rapidly approaching with the rest of them 80-90km off, I was about to engage the Stabber when my alarm went off - pizza ready!

Warping off, I docked and hurried to get my pizza. Returning to my laptop with my food, I posted the killmail before digging in. When it processed, I could hardly believe that Cynabal had a Republic Fleet Warp Disruptor and it had dropped, the module being worth 150M or so!

Angry, I quickly repaired my damaged modules whilst getting a warpin with the alt. Whilst most of their gang was no longer on the stargate, they were still in local with a Zealot sitting ontop of the Cynabal wreck. Bookmarking it and then warping my alt off to my main, I fleet warped him to the wreck at 10km.

Landing 20km off the Zealot, I quickly warp disrupted him and started chewing through him whilst he did the same. Unfortunately, he was armor tanked and not shield like I had hoped - I can kill an shield Zealot in mere seconds with my Harbinger whilst armor takes significantly longer. Kiting him was fairly simple - I was both faster and more agile, whilst him with an armor tank was only scratching my tank:
[ 20:16:47 ] Focused Medium Pulse Laser II belonging to Motty 007 hits you, doing 342.6 damage.
[ 20:16:49 ] Focused Medium Pulse Laser II belonging to Motty 007 hits you, doing 316.3 damage.
[ 20:16:49 ] Your group of Heavy Pulse Laser II hits Motty 007 [SCONE](Zealot), doing 528.9 damage.
[ 20:16:51 ] Focused Medium Pulse Laser II belonging to Motty 007 hits you, doing 349.1 damage.
[ 20:16:52 ] Your group of Heavy Pulse Laser II hits Motty 007 [SCONE](Zealot), doing 519.4 damage.
[ 20:16:52 ] Focused Medium Pulse Laser II belonging to Motty 007 heavily hits you, inflicting 441.6 damage.
[ 20:16:54 ] Focused Medium Pulse Laser II belonging to Motty 007 barely scratches you, causing 211.4 damage.
[ 20:16:55 ] Your group of Heavy Pulse Laser II is well aimed at Motty 007 [SCONE](Zealot), inflicting 631.4 damage.
With the Zealot at half armor, his gang finally arrived. Luckily, due to me pulling range they were still 30km off and thus for the most part out of weapon range.
[ 20:17:52 ] Dual Heavy Pulse Laser II belonging to Rain Al'Thor misses you completely.
With their Curse closing in on me, I finally finished off the Zealot. With the Curse neutralizing my capacitor and warp disrupting me, I didn't even try to fire on him in order to conserve capacitor for my one chance at freedom - a single overheated MWD cycle to try and burn fair enough away.

Whilst the Curse held onto me, their longer range ships had finally started landing, including an Artillery Maelstrom, who well, hurt.
[ 20:17:58 ] Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile belonging to Jack Dant hits you, doing 1548.4 damage.
[ 20:18:00 ] 1400mm Howitzer Artillery II belonging to Pere Madeleine hits you, doing 4260.9 damage.
[ 20:18:04 ] Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile belonging to Jack Dant hits you, doing 972.6 damage.
Entering low armor, my shields gone from the constant pecking of the Zealot, my MWD finally finished it's cycle, allowing me to punch it! Entering low structure, I was jammed by a swarm of ECM drones, confusing me as I thought I had died since I was unable to lock anything. But no, I still had a sliver of structure left, my capacitor empty as I hammered the warp button and......
[ 20:18:04 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:05 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:05 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:05 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:05 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:05 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:05 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:06 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:06 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:06 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:06 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:06 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:07 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:07 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:07 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:07 ] 220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II belonging to CraftyCroc misses you completely.
[ 20:18:07 ] Dual Heavy Pulse Laser II belonging to Rain Al'Thor misses you completely.
[ 20:18:07 ] Mega Pulse Laser II belonging to Rain Al'Thor misses you completely.
[ 20:18:07 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:07 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:08 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:08 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:08 ] External factors are preventing your warp drive from responding to this command.
[ 20:18:08 ] Warrior II belonging to Jack Dant misses you completely.
[ 20:18:08 ] Warrior II belonging to Jack Dant misses you completely.
[ 20:18:08 ] Warrior II belonging to Jack Dant misses you completely.
[ 20:18:08 ] Warrior II belonging to Jack Dant misses you completely.
[ 20:18:08 ] Warrior II belonging to Jack Dant misses you completely.
[ 20:18:08 ] You cannot do that while warping.
And then

Close one!
I didn't even have enough capacitor to make the warp to the Customs Office I was aiming for, instead landing in a shallow spot 1.5AU from the stargate I escaped from. On D-Scan you can see what their gang had.

Docking up, I finished my pizza whilst I followed two trains of thought - how close I was to dying, whilst the second was - Who looted that fricking Warp Disruptor??!