Friday 6 January 2012

Fourth Rifter Down

Fit


3x 150mm Autocannon 1
1x Small Nosferatu

1x Stasis Webifier 1
1x Warp Scrambler 1
1x Afterburner 1

1x Damage Control 1
1x 200m Tungsten Plate 1
1x Small Armour Repairer 1





Today I ventured back into my pirate haven of Otou. Opening up my D-Scanner I noticed the same Reaper I saw yesterday, as well as a number of other ships that I spotted earlier. I'm not sure if it's a glitch as there were more ships in system than people shown in local.


I warped to my regular safespot and checked out the locals. Only one real outlaw pirate in system, everyone else was minding their own business.


As I spent some time in Otou I created a few more safe spots, I tried making a safe in range of all major areas like stations and asteroid fields. This will be very helpful when I need to spend some time scanning down a particularly crafty target.


I was in system for around 20 minutes without any realistic targets to go after, then I noticed an Ishkur on my scanner. Low and behold it was the same pilot that had popped me oh-so easily yesterday.


Jumping at the chance to prove myself again I scanned him down to an asteroid field and warped to around 30km out. There he was in the asteroid field, probably trying to scan me down as well. I quickly turned on my damage control and armour repair modules, then I locked my target and went to town.


Once again he ate through my defenses like they were paper. I definitely lasted much longer than I did during our first encounter but it was still a very short engagement.


I got him down to about 1/4 shield and I ended up popping.


Post Battle Thoughts


I feel a lot more confident in my abilities to target, orbit and activate important modules now. Although I totally forgot to scramble him I know I won't forget in the future. I'm even starting to use shortcuts on my keyboard to make my job easier (if anyone knows how to quickly change orbit distances it would greatly be appreciated). 


What was once mind boggling in the D-Scanner I can now use with little to no problem. I'm starting to progress the little skills that make a pirate, even my anxiousness during battle has subsided to an extent. I feel more confident than I did when I first began PvP.


Extra Notes


The Ishkur pilot messaged me 5 minutes after battle and we talked a bit. He said the fight was unfair as he had major SP advantages over me. He told me he had roughly 58m SP compared to my 1m SP. He was also an experienced outlaw.


He told me a bit about Otou, he said that it was hard to find a fight there and that the battles were usually unfair (groups against one pilot, etc). 


He was a genuinely nice person to talk to, he said if I wanted to, he would declare war on my corp and we could arrange 1v1 Frigate duels in highsec as practice. I'm going to have to think about this but what the hell, it could be very good experience for me.


I also bought a PLEX the other day, I figured I work for my money so it's not totally undeserved. I sold it for about 460m, half I gave to my alt that will be a pure trading account. I hope this investment lasts a long time, I should be able to increase my net worth exponentially if I can make some good trades.


I'll be fitting my Rifter with a few tech 2 items. Currently I can only use named modules so my next fit will be including those.



8 comments:

  1. If you go to somewhere like Bosboger you'll see 50 odd ships on scan. They're most probably sat inside a pos with no pilot in them. Thus showing on d-scan. You usually get a picture of what is pos trash and what is not by spending time in certain systems.

    MB.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah, thanks for that. I had no idea they could show up in D-Scan.

    I'm starting to recognize a few faces in Otou, some are pirates and some are just minding their own business.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Also, I know you're busy learnin a bunch of other stuff, but manual piloting best piloting. Seriously, no bullshit, no joke.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good start, I added you to my blog list for my personal stalking of you =D

    ReplyDelete
  5. Otou can be a tad blobby sometimes. Keep an eye open for the Russian Drams.
    Also, the plex can be run in a pvp rifter. If a small shield booster drops you can make a nice pile of ISK.

    Good luck and good hunting.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Excellent blog! Keep up the adventures!

    I'm not good either (even with T2 modules in my rifters) and have many of the same challenges that you do.

    One thing I've done to make things simpler is line up the buttons for my modules in the order that I use them. Guns, scrambler, web, and nos. The buttoms are movable (click on one and hold down the mouse key to move it) - which was something that took me a while to discover.

    So when I'm in a fight I just have to target my opponent and then mouse-click on the four buttons (or hit F1, F2, F3, F4). Works for me (even though the results wouldn't make you think so...).

    Good luck! Come over to Auner sometime for a 1v1.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Changing your default orbit distance doesn't really have a shorter method (i.e. right click the button and type the new orbit distance).

    However you can generally get better range control by using more than just the orbit button. First of all, make use of your approach and keep range buttons - I'll usually set keep range to the maximum range I can hold without losing tackle. You can then use approach and keep at range to decrease or increase range respectively, and then type in your new orbit distance while your ship is already reacting. Obviously this only lets you approach or pull range directly towards and away from the target - once you get the hang of manual piloting that should let you be a little more flexible.

    Of course, part of the need to quickly adjust orbit distances disappears once you get a better feeling for how enemy ships will perform at various ranges - usually I'll set an appropriate orbit distance before the fight starts, since I know what range I need to be at to have a good chance of beating my opponent.

    If you haven't seen them already, my Know Your Enemy articles might help on this front, particularly the frigate/AF articles:

    http://www.evealtruist.com/search/label/know%20your%20enemy

    ReplyDelete
  8. This fifth rifter is doing well...
    Updatez!! :)

    ReplyDelete