Sunday, July 26, 2009

The Curse


The sensors immediately began seeking my corp mate's ship as I got clearance to undock in my new Amarrian Force Recon ship, a Curse. The complete ship cost well over 100,000,000 ISK, most families are lucky to make 10,000 ISK in a single standard year, which equates to 10,000 standard years of labor (for them) and a few minutes for me.

That being said, it would be silly to fly this cap draining ship immediately into combat. None of my main line ships have ever been so radically different from my Blasterz n' Dronez approach to PvP. Thus, a corp mate had agreed to do a few test duels with me.

In short, Antigone's Revenge was kitted out as follows:

[Curse, Eater of Capacitors]
Damage Control II
Overdrive Injector System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field I
Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Cap Booster 800
Warp Disruptor II

50W Infectious Power System Malfunction
50W Infectious Power System Malfunction
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction
5W Infectious Power System Malfunction
Improved Cloaking Device II

Core Defence Field Extender I
Core Defence Field Extender I


Hammerhead II x5 [x2]
Warrior II x5 [x2]

As Brick0Joe's Harbinger landed on me, I ordered a long range orbit of 25 Kilometers to minimize his damage while I neuted him.

A few seconds later, I was comfortable orbiting him, taking minimal damage from his lasers while his drones nibbled away at me. I began locking them, only to find out I had a 10 second lock time per drone. Note, drop the cloak, not terribly useful for solo fights.

However, my neuts kept cycling off, as I would continually wander out of their current max range (26 km). In a real fight, I'd have lost point by now, but I'll need to practice staying within certain distances from a moving target, although Recon Ships IV will be done in 2 days, so that should help in gang fights.

As my shields dropped to about 20%, I told Brick that his sole flight of drones were now destroyed, as it would be poor etiquette to actually destroy them in a test fight. By now, my neuts were taking noticeable effect. Brick's lasers had stopped firing, and he had slowed down considerably.

I engaged my MWD and closed into a tight orbit of 500m. I deactivated my 2 medium neuts and began to cycle to two small neuts I'd use to keep him capped out. Suddenly, beams lashed out at my ship, taking a large chunk out of my shields. I immediately reactivated my other two neuts and pushed another 800 charge into the core. This time, I didn't turn off my medium neuts until I was certain he was actually dead in the water.

It wasn't too long before Brick was forced to concede the fight. Although, I've learned a few valuable lessons before I take Antigone's Revenge into a real fight.
1. Drop the cloak, makes it harder to tackle and attack drones.
2. Fit a medium SB, to take/harass out drones.
3. Drope the Overdrive II for a PDU II, the extra grid, cargo for cap charges, shield, cap, and cap recharge are all more usefull than 125m/s.
4. Work on MWD/range micro
5. Guestimate how long each ship class should take to cap out. I put out about -50 cap/sec at range and -32 cap/sec close up, or -82.5 total cap/sec.

Frigates- 1 cycle pretty much
Cruisers- circa 1400 cap = 28 seconds at range, 43 sec close up, 17 sec in omfg mash buttons!
BC's- circa 3000 cap = 60 seconds range, 93 seconds close up, 36 sec in omfgmb!
BS's (probably a bad idea to begin with)- circa 7k cap= 140 sec at range, 218 seconds close up, 84 seconds in omfgmb!

Soon, very soon, Antigone's Revenge will slip out into the dark of space... seeking revenge.

1 comment:

Spectre said...

2 days until I can hop into a Pilgrim/Curse as well. We'll have to get some recon neut gangs going.