Jaguar Put To Sleep

Starwalker was roaming around looking for trouble in another brand new assault ship – a Jaguar. This one had been fit like a super Rifter with a 400mm armour plate and double webbers. The intent was to catch and stop fast ships and then blast them to the smithereens. Nice and simple.

It was a simple plan and d-scan showed a Dramiel at the sun piloted by UKC. Checking out UKC revealed a good pilot with lots of kills and in the top 1000 BattleClinic killboard. Starwalker would normally move on and look for another target but no guts no glory. Also, the Jaguar was fit to catch fast ships so surely a good test.

Starwalker warped to the sun just as UKC arrived where Starwalker was and both knew that the fight was on. A few seconds later and UKC arrived back at the sun around 100km away and Starwalker burnt towards him.

The ships locked each other and then the real fight started at around 1500m with the double web applied. However, it became clear quickly that the Dramiel was easily tanking the initial damage. The Jaguar autocannons were overheated as the Hobgoblin II drones entered the fray.

Starwalker switched the attack to the closest drone and applied one web to it but just as it entered structure they were all recalled. Starwalker switched back to the Dramiel but the situation was rapidly going south. The Jaguar armour had been ripped to shreds and the Dramiel was barely scratched.

Starwalker decided to try and disengage by heading for a random location knowing that even if the ship could not make it out it was important to save the pod and the +4 set of implants. The drones were released again but Starwalker left the guns trained on the Dramiel – it would not matter whether one or two drones were destroyed the Jaguar was being injected with a lethal dose of firepower and was about to be put to sleep.

There was no chance to escape – the range was still well within scramble and as the Jaguar entered structure Starwalker hit the warp button repeatedly to ensure the pod escaped. The Jaguar exploded and the pod got away.

Starwalker knew that he had been completely owned, it was not close at all. Whilst he had exchanged a good fight in local he was simply the lamb being brought to slaughter. The Dramiel had barely shown any red at any time and certainly was never in any danger.

Starwalker noted that actual DPS was around a third of that shown in EFT. Similarly, whilst the Dramiel was putting out less DPS it had clearly demonstrated a better ability to soak up the damage. The Dramiel was obviously active tanked versus the Jaguar’s buffer tank but one key was whether more of the nominal DPS could be applied in practice such as using Keep at Range.