During the three months of my absence from EVE, I’ve redistributed my ship and fitting assets from older hangers, mothballing them in preparation of the time that I’d return to the game. After the interesting discovery that Sard had been banned during my absence, and the two days it took to get him back in action, I was in the perfect position to return to my bread and butter of EVE: lowsec PvP!
Raxip Elamp had set me up with the coordinates of an awesome lowsec system, Goinard, which is less than a dozen jumps from the major lowsec areas in EVE while itself only a jump from highsec space. Having a hanger there also allows me to quickly join Raxi for PvP, something I’d been looking forward to in the time since our last venture together. I quickly assembled a Rupture, deciding that I needed a hastier option than my normal battlecruiser arsenal to explore the lowsec regions I had set myself to conquer.
Raxip’s approximations about the richness of the area didn’t disappoint: three jumps after undocking I arrived in the Angatalie System, to a duo of battlecruisers who couldn’t possibly be up to any good. I grew a grin, gave the mental shrug of the borderline insane and launched my ship into alignment towards one of the gates in the system. The Harbinger/Myrmidon pair didn’t disappoint, immediately locking me up and placing disruptor points on my Rupture. Without missing a beat, I returned the favor to the Myrmidon, matching his point while loosing a volley of Barrage M.
Before the fight was underway, I had quickly formed a few guidelines to make victory possible: keep the Harbinger at 20km distance or greater, as well as keeping the Myrmidon within 15km. These distances would allow me to engage without the withering effects of turret or possible capacitor warfare modules affecting my ship, as well as drawing out the Myrmidon’s bonused drone flight to a distance where it’d be difficult to recall them back to their bay before myself or the sentry guns annihilated them. Fifteen kilometers is also the distance where my loadout of ACs do roughly 50% of their maximum damage; enough with sentry turret fire to wither a dual MAR Myrmidon down given enough time.
Putting my plan into action, I angled my ship away from the Myrmidon, and moved to establish a distance that placed the Myrm directly between myself and the Harbinger, as well as away from the stargate. Autocannon fire glittered from my ship, creating a lethal trail of ordinance as my Rupture nimbly maneuvered from the stargate into position, occasionally connecting with a member of the drone swarm hastily approaching my ship. Tense seconds passed as I switched overview settings to lock up the majority of the enemy drone flights: my Rupture didn’t have an armor repairer fit, and any incoming damage that could be avoided had to be hastily neutralized for me to survive.
Sentry turrets cycled off my battlecruiser aggressors to aid with the near dozen of medium drones buzzing around my ship; between my own drones, ACs with webifier and the damage from the sentries the drones were subdued, at the cost of a third of my armor. With that threat out of the way, I settled into position to hammer at the Myrmidon, while bursting my MWD to keep the Harbinger at an arm’s reach. It was around this time another combatant decloaked his Nemesis 25km away from my cruiser, firing a volley of torpedoes to at least contribute to the fight. His ill planned gesture ended on a bright note.
Fortunately for me, it seemed the battlecruiser duo weren’t expecting the war of maneuvers that I was giving them. The Myrmidon was shield tanked, meaning that I was able to afford drifting a few kilometers closer to it than planned, as I had no additional enemy tackle to worry over. Both enemy ships were fit with afterburners instead of MWDs, which meant I was easily able to keep the Harbinger at range, while tantalizing the Myrmidon with being *just* out of reach. After traveling several dozen kilometers from the gate, the Myrmidon began to slow, until reaching normal velocity. It then turned tail and began a slow crawl back towards the stargate.
With the Myrmidon’s will and capacitor broken, it now became a game of keeping the Harbinger away from the Myrmidon so that he couldn’t cover his ally’s retreat to safety. Once again, good fortune smiled on me, as a glance over to the Harbinger’s armor reserves suggested that the pilot neglected an armor rep in his fittings: he had roughly 60% remaining, slowly whittling down as gate sentries cycled from the Myrmidon to his ship. I switched my drone flight from the Myrmidon to the Harbinger, exacerbating his worry until finally forcing the Amarr BC to warp off towards a nearby celestial and flee the field. I was finally alone with the stricken Myrmidon, and turned the full force of my weapons to bear upon him.
Overheating my ACs saw the last of the Myrmidon’s shield reserve destroyed, and it was a hasty matter removing the unresisted plate underneath. With the Myrmidon destroyed, I set out to locate the Harbinger, who was still in system. Several minutes of chasing later, I moved on to repair in an adjacent system as he had opted to warp to a midsafe instead of engaging my damaged Rupture. Unknown to him, I had my alt ready for the occasion a mere four jumps away, and within minutes had him probed down and finished the damaged Harbinger in the deadspace of his manufacture.
I happily scooped loot from the wrecks strewn about the system, and returned to Goinard for repairs and munitions. While I still disagree with Raxip that Molden Heath is a dead region as far as PvP goes, I have to admit that his slice of space definitely has a nicety of action to it!
OMG Le Post! Awesome dude, and nice write-up. Hope to see more mebbe?
ReplyDeleteGood to see you back, sounds like a fun fight :)
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