Tussling with Tuskers in Adirain

Starwalker sat down to look at recent combat history with a whiskey in hand. However, after a few moments he gave up knowing that the concentration was not there to the job justice. It would have to be done later, the siren call of space was too great and another new active armour fit Rifter was in the dock needing a maiden voyage.

So, taking the controls of the Rifter, Starwalker smoothly exited the dock and warped into the dark space. Roaming around Starwalker came across Zodiac Black chilling in Adirain and Zodiac noted that Tuskers were in system. Naturally the hunt was on and soon Zodiac called “x”.

Starwalker arrived to find two Tuskers in Rifters with Zodiac in trouble but also doing well against Jaxley. Starwalker engaged Jaxley with scramble and weapons and targeted Tressin Khiyne. It was not long before Jaxley succumbed (http://r1fta.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10366298) to the combined firepower of two Rebel Rifters.

Starwalker turned his attention to Tressin Khiyne as Zodiac bugged out in structure. Starwalker didn’t seem to be doing much damage and within seconds capacitor empty warnings were being relayed by the ship’s computer. Starwalker’s active armour fit Rifter lost all propulsion, scramble and ability to repair. Starwalker aligned out and it was over, another shiny new Rifter exploded into a fireball (http://r1fta.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10366297) of burning metal and death. Starwalker spammed the warp button and his pod got away.

Returning to Adirain later, Starwalker found that Tressin Khiyne was still in system and he challenged Starwalker to a duel. Starwalker had no illusions that he would very likely lose as Tressin was a much older pilot, with more experience and many kills. However, he was curious how the shield fit Rifter would do and how close it might be. So, Starwalker engaged and... it was not close. The capacitor was depleted very quickly and the autocannons seemed to barely scratch the opposing Rifter. Soon yet another shiny new Rifter was a burning (http://r1fta.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10366667) heap of scrap metal.

Starwalker made a mistake with the pod by aligning out manually and then reselecting a new align-out point in the overview for the warp. The pod was scrambled and Tressin initiated communications to ransom the pod. Before Starwalker had a chance to agree or refuse the pod was destroyed (http://r1fta.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10366737). Tressin noted that he had burnt out his scramble and in the panic he fired first and asked questions later. Starwalker was back in the clone vat.

Starwalker was not disappointed with the way the fight had gone but it highlighted that:

1)    Micro-management of modules, checking overview and space for situational changes was a weakness (Starwalker did not even know the capacitor was being drained or later that the scramble had dropped)

2)    Reacting to new information or changes was also a weakness. Within seconds of the duel starting it showed that Starwalker was doing very little damage to the Tusker shields. That information should have triggered a change such as trying to run away

3)    Capacitor is really important and the ship becomes helpless when the capacitor is empty, especially an active amour fit

4)    Getting away in a pod is important and aligning out when losing is a basic start to getting away and then spamming warp. Not doing this has resulted in Starwalker losing another clone and set of implants