[2020-08-20] Thera Roam - #6: Carrier kill + lots of fun
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2020 3:00 am
That was the blast!
- Comp
- Cynabal, Phantasm, 2 Succubus, Jackdaw, Exequror NI, Caracal, Dictor, few ceptors
- What did you do?
To start with, 2 connections to Thera got expired and many people had to travel a big deal to get to Thera. I got an idea: if we could only get to Thera through this connection, chances are many other folks will have the same problem. So, why don't we camp the hole and see if we catch anything? Patience is not my strongest trait but after just a few minutes of waiting we got Scythe FI: he warped from Thera to the whole, landed in a bubble, jumped out of Thera, was forced to get back, and got killed:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86504719/ +140M
Further, we went to Etherium Reach. Before continuing, I'll mention that in the last few weeks I did not catch any ratter. Botters, ratters that watch intel: everything was escaping me. This time, system had positive NPC kills delta and 2 guys in local, not on d-scan. I randomly warped to a site just 0.5 AU out of dscan range and landed 45 km from the Nighoggur.
While I was exiting warp I was thinking if I should take overclock for more speed or don't waste time and just get a tackle on it. Luckily I secured the tackle, called fleet to join, pinged FWeddit for extra DPS, and here we go:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86504937/ +2,570M.
This is the 2nd carrier which I caught and the first which was killed by my fleet (the first one I caught was killed by 3rd party and my fleet would not be able to break it).
After we tried to go to Slyce's staging, but met a fleet of Harbies and Zealots with support. I believe someone got caught but the rest escaped. After some hesitation I decided to go to Horde's staging and on our way, we met a gang of Shadow Cartel Stabbers with some support.
Somehow Falcon pilot was almost 2 jumps ahead of the fleet and got caught in a bubble:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505471/ -352M
I baited all Stabbers on my Cynabal, jumped through the gate and while they all were still engaged got fleet on them. We lost a ceptor somehow (William, how did they catch you?) and a flycatcher (also, I feel that is unnecessary loss: drop you bubble and cloak up, or jump through the gate) but killed a Stabber and a Sabre. Other Stabbers escaped, but somehow eventually all landed on the sun, where we finished them all with the ceptor.
Was FUN!!!
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505497/ -57M Raptor
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505504/ +51M Stabber
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505514/ -98M Flycatcher
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505515/ +57M Stabber
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505524/ +98M Sabre
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505553/ +46M Stabber
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505555/ +38M Stiletto
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505559/ -97M Sabre
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505560/ +56M Stabber
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505563/ +51M Stabber
We did not finish looting the grid near the sun, when someone reported a Horde's Typhoon looting "our" loot on the gate, we warped back, tackled and killed it, but lost a bifrost:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505583/-107M Bifrost
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505590/ +270M Typhoon
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505594/ +21M Pod
Quite a few unnecessary losses, but hope people got fun and some experience.
After we went towards R1O, but did not find anything better than cyno Iteron on the KS.
Never not take a bait:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86505774/ +6M.
Though, it was not a bait, but while killing it, quite a few ships did drop tethering and we got some fight. But hordelings undocked 2 faxes, so we retreated.
During this shenanigan, someone reported about roaming Vagabond and Machariel. Shortly after, someone tackled Kestrel 1 jump from R1o.
I called to kill Kestrel first (luckily there was someone to help ceptor finishing it)and we went to hunt for a Mac+Vaga.
I was asked: why the heck we are wasting time on a Kestrel when there is bigger fish to kill?
The answer is simple: Kestrel is nearby and already tackled, while Vaga is few jumps away and... probably also is looking for a fight. So let's secure the kill and move on. Thanks!
It was lots of confusion until I realized that Vaga+Mach are our very own Rex and Sid who got bored and decided to engage me on the gate!!! WOW!!!
But, why not to take a fight. I was hesitant, as we had literally 4 DPS ships nearby and I was skeptical a) we can tackle them and keep tackled to kill, b) we have enough DPS survived to break Mach or even Vaga.
So after some hesitation, I decided to give it a try.
Fight was very interesting. Differently from many other guys I fought before, Sid and Rex did not sit close to each other and allowed us to fight them separately. I was afraid they will play sitting ducks and waiting for someone to come close to kill. But apparently they were quite mobile and quite distant from each other which allowed quite a big area for maneuvering.
I'm quite happy for everyone today: even though we lost quite a few ships in the process including myself (Sid wanted to headshot me for sure, I know), we were able to kill both Rex and Sid.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506000/ -94M NOsprey
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506072/ +456M Vagabond
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506084/ -207M Cynabal
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506093/ -91M Sabre
At some point folks lost faith in our ability to break Mach and got distracted by Sigil jumping into us:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506112/+1M Sygil - shame?
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506119/ -101M Succubus
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506133/ -58M Raptor
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506149/ -101M Stork
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506169/ +862M Machariel
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506185/ +6M Magnate (Sid's reship:) )
https://zkillboard.com/kill/86506195/ +7M Pod
An interesting thing, it was Caracal, Exequror Navy and Phantasm that eventually broke Mach (he ran out of charges for cap booster)
A strange thing: we had a Keres on grid, but I did not see damps on the Mach... ?
Funny: Sid had cap boosters in his Magnate... was it possible to get them from the cargo? I guess the trick he tried to do was to switch to magnate, eject boosters switch back to Mack, pick up those... could have worked
Overall was fun hunting so +1 another good fleet - Positives
- Good turnaround
- Many kills
- Some challenging fights
- Lots of learning experience
- Negatives
- Many unnecessary losses. Too many, TBH. Hope people will keep coming and learning.
- What to improve on
- Dunno, open for suggestions.
- When we were finishing Rex I saw Sid is warping in and new I will go down soon... but decided to sacrifice myself to secure the kill. I could have survived should I preheated MWD and prealigned...
- Also, I probably should have started spiraling out, not just pulling range to reduce transversal...
- Anyone can add their own lesson learned?
- Battlereport
Totally killed: +4,636M
Totally lost: -1,363M
See you next time!