So, two updates thus far. Firstly, I've lost a third Punisher to another stupid mistake. I had fit it out with more tank by upgrading my resist to an EANM II, but this meant dropping my nos for a neut. I hadn't tried them before, but it was all that would fit, so I put it on there figuring if I didn't need it I would just not switch it on. At least that was the idea.
Later on I met the same Rifter pilot featured in a few of my previous posts. I knew he had beaten me before, so he was at least a better pilot than I was, and I knew he liked to fight alone, so I wasn't likely to get swarmed. As it happened, we agreed to a 1v1 on a nearby planet, which we hadn't bothered with before but it probably made sense on his part as I recall a few other Blue ships around (one even came to watch) who might have felt like intervening in an unofficial match – something they tend not to do if you have an agreement.
We warped to the planet and engaged. I believe I overheated my guns at some point, and of course activated all my modules. I actually turned on my rep a little early, because I hadn't taken as much damage as I expected. I think I was just in the process of shutting off my AB when I realized my cap was sinking dramatically. Like, a lot more than usual. I had heard this guy mention he had a neuting fit before so this didn't surprise me much, but here is where I went horribly wrong:
It had been a few hours since I fit the ship. I didn't remember my exact plan for it and, in the heat of the moment, had activated my neut thinking it was a nos. With my cap drained horribly, I kept turning it back on without ever cluing in to the fact that I was effectively committing suicide – I'm not even sure a Rifter has enough cap to completely neut out a Punisher, but either way I was making its job easier. Everything but his web (I've determined for sure that he doesn't bother to scram) and neut was cap independent.
As it happens, what I had done was turn it into a DPS-v-Tank war, and with his ship actually being fit that way in the first place, he won. It was closer than I expected, but my failure was complete and fairly spectacular. He offered me my stuff back, but I was off to get a different ship, and suggested he sell it to recover some of his repair cost. My fits so far never seem to hit even 5 mil anyway.
My next ship, and the one that wouldn't be using those old modules, was a Rifter. Yes, I finally gave up wanting to be different (for a little while anyway) just to see if I could at least be adequate. Also, Minmatar does have most of my skills, and I flew Rifters enough that I'm comfortable with them.
On this Rifter I fit three of the biggest not-big guns I could find: 200mm AC II's. Its mid slots were the usual AB and Scram I've been using for ages, plus one tech 2 tracking computer with a tracking script. Here I'm probably going to get a few funny looks if anyone ever reads this, but there's a purpose to it and I'm getting there.
The lows were a 200mm tungsten plate, an EANM II, and a SAR II, which I'm not sure whether I'll include if I use this fit again. I guess it could have been more useful in another fight. My rigs were one to RoF, and two to tracking.
My ammo was entirely tech II, Hail and Barrage. I'm still not sure if that was a better idea than faction ammo, but it was cheaper, did a little more damage, and with all these tracking mods, plus skills and the ship's bonus to tracking, my tracking was 0.6-something even with it loaded. To compare, I think the new small blasters track at around 0.5 without mods or bonuses (but with my skills). I might have overdone it a little to be honest, but all the tracking disruptors had become annoying and I wanted to see if I could get revenge.
Before I even had a fight someone in my corp wanted people to shoot his Cyclone and test his tank. He asked for cruisers, and for battlecruisers, but there were no takers. After using bookmarks to tease someone who likes to kite in a Slicer, I fired at the BC for a while and did about as little damage as one would think. Still, maybe he got some idea out of it, and I always carry too much ammo anyway.
I then bounced around the system looking for things, and at things, because after downtime is always slow. I saw some people chasing that familiar Rifter pilot, but though I saw him warp out I avoided giving them pointers on where to find him since they seemed to want to ambush and attack with much superior ships. Good for them, but they could hunt for him on their own. I did relate to them that he tended to fight alone, though, as they seemed to think he was bait for some BC's they'd seen in a neighbouring system and that appeared to be encouraging them to use overwhelming force.
Later on, the BC threat and resulting paranoid defenders seeming to have both evaporated, I came across the same pilot again. We orbited for a while, locked, but in a bizarre twist nobody seemed to want to shoot first. He only looked around a bit more before coming back, and I offered to fight him again at the same planet as before. Someone else asked too, getting in a moment late. He accepted and off we warped.
I activated my tracking computer in warp, and overheated my guns (which I no longer group). Both landing at 0 (we knew we both had AC's fitted so this was the obvious choice) we immediately locked and engaged. Actually, I locked so immediately that one or both of us wasn't out of warp yet, and I had to try again, but no time was actually lost and we were soon tearing into each other.
I took a look at the EWAR he was using, even going so far as to mouse over it(!) and noticed that while I had a scram and no web, he had a web and no scram. Purely a RvB duelling fit, by the looks of it. He was also neuting me, something I became painfully aware of as my entire capacitor was eaten away before I even needed my SAR II. The rest of the fight, to me, was mostly trying to click fast enough to keep my scram and tracking disruptor on. Would have been a great time for my guns to catch fire...
That wasn't what happened though. They were about the only things that didn't catch fire, but they kept chattering away reliably. We were both down to armour, then at the end of armour. He entered hull first, but it looked like he had a DC fitted. I entered hull, and in a few hits I was at around 25%... and then with an odd sound and a puff of light, his ship exploded. I was actually surprised it wasn't mine, what with only a few seconds during the actual fight for it to sink in that for once he had less hitpoints remaining than me.
It was a VERY close fight. I had anticipated a different kind of opponent entirely, and had been unable to use an important part of my tank even once during the engagement. We may have had the same kind of plate, or his might have been bigger, but either way I'm certain he had higher resists (mainly because mine plain sucked with only one module). I could have checked his loot, but at this stage I was falling asleep and barely thinking. I did pick it up and gave it to him on BHQ before logging out, noticing an awful lot of cap booster charges in the process.
If I can find the killmail, I may edit this to show what he had.
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