Monday 12 January 2015

War Record: College Boys

So back in the saddle at last.

I went out on patrol in my Xiphos Executioner. Simple scram range kiter, with a single ancillary armour repairer for defense.

It would be fair to say the Executioner is one of my favourite frigates, and hardly qualifies as Amarrian at all. Yes it has lasers, and the shiny hull, and yes it prefers an armour tank. But it's design focus is downright Minmatar.

A slim profile, and basically all engines with pulse lasers attached, this ship is designed to control range and apply firepower. Not much for cheap tricks (although I do have a couple of ideas that might surprise), but a very capable skirmish ship, fighting out in scram range.

A laser boat that can dictate range is king. Your weapons have phenomenal projection in warp jammer ranges, and very strong damage output. A speedy ship with lasers on it needs some kind of unusual strategy to counter it, be it dual propped Firetails, sensor damped kiters or neuting Slashers.

A little interesting fact, tracking on pulse lasers being what it is, you'll hardly ever want to switch from Scorch. Unless you ca be sure of an orbit at 4km, you'll be far more effective using Scorch. Less than 4km, and you'll be hitting nothing anyway.

And also... have you seen this thing in Matari space?



Crimson metal... I love it!

I warped out of Hek and entered the warzone.

A few jumps in I saw my first complex. A novice, with apparently some Rifters sitting in it. I eyed up local, and it was full of people doing things.

Nothing else for it... I had to check and see if they were friendly, and jumped in to the plex. Damn the odds, I've got a job to do!

Neutrals.

After a fashion.

I locked them up, and orbited at 8km, lasers blazing away in the void. Shields stripped quickly on both sides. Armour Rifters, meaning this was going to be a close fight. And 2 vs. 1 meant the tough was all on me.

Bullets rained in from all sides, but the Rifters could not close distance on me. The first one popped, and although my nanite paste had run dry, my little Executioner hadn't broken a sweat!

It was close between myself and the last Rifter. My capacitor eventually depleted, and he got away,

The plex was mine! But with weapons overheated and nanite depleted, I was in no position to hold it. I warped out to my perch.

Good fights were exchanged in local, and the two neutrals showed themselves to be some fresh faced university graduates trying out the Warzone for fun. Not a particularly grand victory, but not bad for two on one!

I gave them some advice then went to find some extra nanite paste. This ship was not allowed to make it back to Hek. And of course, this kill puts me no closer to getting to the next rank in the militia. Still have some work to do!

Good luck in the future Gardner Khronnus and your buddy whose name I didn't catch! A little more training and you would have had me. I recommend switching to Slashers right now. Rifters are excellent with Barrage, but if you can't use it, the knife fighting Slasher is a little easier to use.

Review

Never underestimate the enemy... but equally, never forget how capable you are.


Wednesday 7 January 2015

Nation Warrior

The first rank of the TLF is Nation Warrior. The pin itself has a short inscription:

"Though free I am bound by the chains of my brothers."

Short and simple reminder of why we do what we do.

For my stint as Nation Warrior, I'll be using whatever is laying around in the hangar, an eclectic mix of attack frigates, Breachers and Rifters. I'm not too picky. At this rank I'l be focusing on burning stock rather devising tactics. I know how to use the ships already, so a tactical focus would be a waste of brain power.

Not that I'm using much brains for strategic focus either. My running orders look borderline suicidal, and a little out of character for me:

Standing Orders

Fly into combat zone.
Eliminate opposition.
Find and occupy first novice complex seen.
Find and occupy first small complex seen.
Come back in a pod.

The last one is important. When I spend a lot of time planning a ship and specific mission, I tend to make myself skittish about unknown variables. It's not fear in a normal sense, but more a case of not wanting to look stupid. Giving myself this objective for every ship sent out mitigates that somewhat.

It's simply formalising the "I didn't want that ship anyway" flying philosophy. It sounds bad, but for me it's getting me to take more risks, rather than fretting about how to mitigate them. That's the development I need at this point.

I'm also going to be ignoring my killboard for this entire rank for the same reason. I'll do a tally of victories and losses after I've ranked up. The idea here is to role-play impetuous youth again, with scant regard to loss or consequence.

Of course, I'll be posting any interesting stories along the way. That's the point of my blog after all!

Saturday 3 January 2015

Re-write

I recently wrote about how you need to make your own story. I think my own story came to a bit of a halt for the past few months. Well, half year.

I've spent the holidays trying to write a new narrative for myself. It ranged from the melodramatic to the maudlin, and frankly, was more exhausting than it was worth.

So, I'm re-writing my story.

Yes, simple as that.

And simple is the story I'm re-writing.

I'm leaving the pirates to re-enlist with the militia. The Republic again. I've got a fondness for Hek that goes beyond rational thought. It'll feel good to be part of its defense force.

As a change of tactic, I will also take my rank progression a little more seriously.

Before, I was mostly concerned with perfect fights. I'd sped a few days crafting a ship with tactics to go with it, and then go test it out. I spent a great deal of time on single fights, and analyzing them afterwards.

Valuable, but exhausting.

This time, I will focus on progressing through the ranks of the Republic militia. This is a much broader success criteria, meaning that fighting is just a small part of my overall development. Capturing outposts, mission running, I-Hub sieges... all these are important to success in Faction Warfare. And that's not to mention the logistics of supplying the front.

I fooled myself into thinking that capsuleer combat was all there was to New Eden. This is not true, and frankly, life would be boring if it was. Simple ship to ship duels are just a tiny part of the universe, and I did myself a disservice by focusing on that small section.

But enough rambling. Leaving pirates. Joining militia.

Looking forward to putting down some slave murdering zealots.