- Xun Zi
After a bit of a dry spell in the sucker department, I had a fairly good weekend all told. I bagged my first (two) faction battleships, and one of them was kind enough to fit himself with some faction loot for me. What a sweetheart, right?
The Victim:
It started at the end. I had been scanning down missioners all day on Sunday and I was just about to log off when I happened upon two Drakes and a Navy Issue Scorpion doing a Damsel in Distress mission. I ship scanned all three and saw that one of the two drakes was obviously higher SP and had a very decent fit, and the scorp had very nice selection of faction mods on it. Hoping they would bite, I went to work.
Now I both love and hate the folks who run missions in a posse, because they are far more likely to shoot at you, but it is always an iffy situation with that many ships. You have to make sure that none of the ships has a point or anything, as ninja traps are common in situations like these, and you have to make sure you can tank the damage that they are able to put out. I am confident with the tank on my Sleipnir, but even drakes can burn me down if there are enough of them and they are fit correctly.
Combine that with the fact that I usually end up missing out on the expensive ships, and it's doubly iffy. The majority of time I end up fighting tooth and nail and end up just killing a battlecruiser or something because the bigger ships will bail as soon as they take a shot.
Anyway, so I flew around this mission for a while in my vigil, looting and salvaging what I could, which if you have ever done this mission, isn't much (as the wrecks all salvage into heavy metal parts). I had pretty much decided that no one was going to shoot me after a few minutes so I figured I'd make the best of this and grab my super-duper ninja stabber to properly loot and pillage this usually fairly lucrative mission.
Turns out, a cruiser was a juicer target than a frigate, and the three stooges almost instantly shot at me.
I burned back to the orca, grabbed Steve (the sleip) and was back just in time to see one of the drakes warp off. The Navy Scorp however, was right on top of me. I locked him up, pointed him, and began to unload. I noticed that between the remaining drake and the scorp my shields were dropping really fast and I was barely able to keep up pulsing my x-large booster and burning through cap booster 800 charges. I had considered trying to get in range of the drake to put some pressure on him to make him leave, but he was almost 50km away, and I didn't want to risk having the point on the battleship drop.
I burned back to the orca, grabbed Steve (the sleip) and was back just in time to see one of the drakes warp off. The Navy Scorp however, was right on top of me. I locked him up, pointed him, and began to unload. I noticed that between the remaining drake and the scorp my shields were dropping really fast and I was barely able to keep up pulsing my x-large booster and burning through cap booster 800 charges. I had considered trying to get in range of the drake to put some pressure on him to make him leave, but he was almost 50km away, and I didn't want to risk having the point on the battleship drop.
So I gritted my teeth, overheated my guns, and kept shooting. Around the time I managed to get him through shields, the third friend reappeared in a Republic Fleet Firetail. My heart lurched when he popped up on my overview. Luckily though, he stupidly warped to his drake friend (40ish km out) rather than the scorp. If he had warped to the scorp he would have been close enough to establish a fast orbit and I could have been in trouble. After landing, he burned straight at me (transversal is hard) so I stopped shooting the scorp and turned the guns on the firetail. One volley got him to half armor, but the 2nd missed as he was close enough to start orbiting at close range. Luckily however, that first volley really hurt him, and I had small drones out. So I put the drones on him, and with no armor left he pretty much completely panicked and warped off.
At this point I put the guns back on the scorp and around the time he hit structure, the drake warped out. The fight was over at this point.
I tried for a ransom, admittedly aiming a bit high.
Oh well, perhaps 250 was a bit overzealous. Can't win em all.
And with a boom and a LOL, he went all explody. Killmail
All told I made about 150mil off of his loot, and the 840 mil value of his ship padded my killboard nicely. This was my most valuable kill to date, and was a mighty fine end to my recent dry spell.
Oh, and not to forget... when I was looting his wreck I couldn't help but notice that, luckily, the damsel had survived:
The random militants, ship's crew, and various other male denizens of the SuperFun Concetration Daycamp hangar were *very* enthusiastic about the new guest.
Good times.
-Vil
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