Saturday, April 6, 2013

Grand Master NanoFiber

Today I have nothing to say about bombers. Instead, I was rummaging around in some of my video files looking at some older clips, of small gang fights. I came across something pretty fun. Now not many people know this, but other than bombers- the caracal navy issue / cerberus / caracal are some of my favorite ships.

Any member of EvE University reading this now, knows what my CNI did to your 'low sec fleets' while you guys attempted to kill off the pirates living in molden heath. But for those of you that don't know let me explain. Back before all of the HML and Drake nerfs, I found myself flying a ton of drakes. Now i loved the drake as much as the next guy- and found myself mostly flying the POODLA dual web drake when I was soloing. Now at the time the drake was a fine ship. But it lacked the agility  / speed I really needed and wanted while soloing. Caldari (and missile users in general) really didn't have a HAC. The drake was thought of as the pinnacle for missile platforms. Now this was in the days before the T1 cruiser buff, so the caracal was simply not usable. The cerberus is just too slow, and HML fit really didn't do anything better than the drake. So I thought that I was at a loss, and stuck flying the drake forever.

However one summers night, while sipping some absinthe- I came across something brilliant in my EFT lab. The caracal navy issue. Now many people dismissed this ship as a joke ship- but they were wrong.

CNI, Fire Walker

Heavy Missile launcher II
Heavy Missile launcher II
Heavy Missile launcher II
Heavy Missile launcher II
Heavy Missile launcher II
Heavy Missile launcher II

10MN Experimental Microwarp drive
Large Shield Extender II
Stasis Web II
Stasis Web II
Warp Disruptor II

Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Bay loading Accelerator II
Anti-EM Screen II
Anti- Thermal Screen II

Now to me- this fit had everything. 150K range with HMLs, Simmilar DPS to a drake, 2.3K+++ Speed- but the best part was this: Align time with MWD on was 3.9 seconds. Yes you are reading that correctly. This ship with an MWD on is more agile than most frigates, and is on par with interceptors. That coupled with the dual webs, made this ship the caldari HAC in my eyes. It shredded frigs, and could handle anything else.

I have killed talos, BC's, even vagabonds with this fit. It was simply astounding. I loved the performance, and the best part of all was- people underestimated this ship- big time. People thought that it was a joke ship, and at times would just throw themselves at me. But of course they didn't realize what this little thing could really go.

But enough talk- let me just show you :) Hope you enjoy. I am FC'ing this fight- but sadly I was not picked up on my audio capture. However my fleet mates responses you can clearly hear. Read the video description for more details.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYElqXIuI28

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Like a well oiled machine

Finally- I had made it. Down into C5/C6 space. It took some time, but now that I was here- I couldn't be happier. Sites down here netted a ton more isk. Add cap escalation into the mix- and you have a perfect storm.

Thankfully I didn't have to wait long for the tide to turn my way. I had been probing a string of C5 holes- when I finally found something active. Not only was it active, but they also had the cap ships out. It seems that they were running 'The mirror' using two moros, and a thanatos to ensure a good pay out on their end. Like clockwork, all of the sleepers were cleaned up, and the cap ships returned home to the safety of the POS. Which left me- sitting alone inside of a wreck field littered with sleeper BS wrecks.

It didn't take long for our noctis salvaging hero to arrive. I watched as he collected all of  the wrecks, and the second he had finished, uncloaked and rained hell.

Boom

It was a nice paycheck, and as I slithered back underneath my cloak- almost chuckled to myself. Why did I leave wormhole in the first place?

I thought that would be it from that corp for the rest of the day- but it appears I was wrong.

I continued on down the chain of holes, where there was a C3 with a high sec static. I took up camp around the high sec hole, and decided to see if anything fun would come out. However I should have been more concerned with what was already inside. It seemed that I was not the only person to have discovered this highway to known space. An itteron V and a bestower had warped from inside the C3 to the high sec hole. Checking their bio's it seemed that they were part of the corporation who I had just recently relieved of a noctis.

Looking back in hindsight- what I was about to do was completely stupid. (Explained later)

When the two hauleres came back through- I uncloaked and targeted the Itty V. It went down quickly.

http://shieldbattery.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16982449


Just as I had finished cleaning up the pod- a tengu decloaked and started to target me. As missiles slammed into my hull- I noticed that they were HAM's. Couple this with the fact that the tengu had a cloaky sub system, and was also using a seebo- and I knew that this pilot would be easy prey in my bomber.

I pulled out of his HAM range and started to kite him. I took my strong crash booster (and didn't get any side effects thank god) And let loose my heated 730 dps (Which thanks to my crash booster, 5% implants, and T2 Explosion velocity rigging was nearly all applied to the tengu)

Needless to say he didn't like that. I forced him out of the hole in 50% structure. SO CLOSE TO HILARIOUS KLL MAIL! However it was not meant to be.

For the time being, I repped up my heat damage, and flew back to the original C5 hole where I had snagged that juicy noctis and promptly went afk.

Remember how I said 'completely stupid' in the above post? Well here is why: When I came back after a few hours, I hit the Dscan and notice that they are again running a site, cap escalating it the same way with two moros and a thanatos. Except this time something was different when they brought the noctis in for salvage.





Yes that's right- A scorpion with all mids fitted with jammers. I still tried to get the kill. But sadly- only could get two torps off before being perma jammed. I attempted to bump tackle the noctis, but missed after only two or three times- and it escaped. I hung around for a bit longer, enjoying the fact that there was a scorpion doing nothing but jamming me, and two moros shooting pot shots at a frig. Thankfully the scorpion did miss a single cycle, and I had a chance to at least shoot it. I wish it would have missed two- because two torps out of my tubes dropped the battle ship into armor. However once the jams kicked in- i burned out, warped off, and started probing out greener pastures.

Ohh well you win some you lose some.