T1 - Kestrel Kites Tristan to Death

Rebel Gul’gotha Der’vash issued a challenge in chat for a T1 Tournament duel – Starwalker accepted. It was agreed that it would take place in Auner and Starwalker undocked in his especially prepared Kestrel.

Gul’gotha arrived in system with his Tristan and Starwalker approached. Targeting the Tristan and settling into an orbit of 15km the missiles started to crash into the Tristan and inflicting damage.

As expected there was little or no return fire as the range was simply too great for most close combat ships but the Tristan had one trick to pull which was to release a Hobgoblin I drone. However, a single drone unassisted was simply no match and a couple of bursts of missiles destroyed it in short order.

The missile assault on the Tristan restarted and it looked like the Tristan could neither run away nor close the distance to catch the Kestrel. The only question that remained was would the firepower be sufficient to overcome the Tristan tank. It was time to overheat the missile launchers.

Unexpectedly Gul’gotha had an opportunity to escape as the Kestrel capacitor ran out and point dropped. Starwalker boosted the capacitor and reapplied the point. It was all over now unless the Tristan could pull off some fancy flying. It couldn’t or didn’t. The Tristan armour was stripped away and then its structure – it was helpless and exploded (http://r1fta.griefwatch.net/?p=details&kill=2634) in a fireball of death and destruction.

Good fights were exchanged and Starwalker reviewed the combat log to see the course of events in terms of dps:

It was clear to see the key stages of the fight

1. Missiles start applying damage
2. Hobgoblin I attack unassisted provides a tepid response with some hits and misses
3. Drone is destroyed and attack on Tristan then continues
4. Missiles are overheated with a noticeable impact in applied damage

This had proven to be interesting and Starwalker wondered whether there was a case for taking the Kestrel out into the wild. It could clearly take down a T1 frigate but could it do the same against a frigate with a T2 tank? Similarly, a Rifter had the opportunity for above class kills by getting under their guns but the Kestrel was more likely to be picked off at range. This was something else to think about.