Maiden Flight of the Hawk

Starwalker was looking at the new assault ship changes and was wondering what he would try first – Wolf, Jaguar or Hawk? He liked the DPS of the Wolf and the flexibility of the Jaguar and the recent changes would only emphasise their strengths. So what about something new - time to try the Hawk.

Starwalker considered the two main fitting approaches: a brawler based around rockets and a kiter based around small missile launchers. Starwalker decided to try out the kiter as a somewhat unusual fit. It would be ideal against afterburner fit brawlers but would itself be kited by fast(er) ships as it had no means of catching them.

Starwalker went to the local Angel complex in Heild as he had now learnt about the warp mechanic. He liked the idea that he could be easily found but also avoid being surprised by any gang warp in by simply being 250km or more from the acceleration gate. This was a useful tactic to use as needed.

It wasn’t long before a Dramiel, piloted by Nergalion (again), appeared at the complex and started to burn towards Starwalker’s Hawk. No need to worry about ammunition – that would be kinetic, and range and orbit were set for 21km. So, finally Starwalker set his main modules to overheat and waited.

The Dramiel got closer and Starwalker engaged with Trauma missiles hitting for what appeared to be miniscule damage. The Dramiel for its part could not seem to get closer than around 15km and was doing no damage at that distance. It was a stalemate. Starwalker knew that he could not hold the Dramiel and the Dramiel decided it could not get close enough and just warped away.

It was then that Starwalker noticed he had burnt out the Salvager I module from the adjacent missile launchers and the launchers, shield booster and capacitor booster were nearly burnt out. Starwalker had been consciously managing overheat of the launchers and micro warp-drive but had not paid enough attention to all of the modules.

Starwalker was not overly impressed with the Hawk’s damage output but that was against a very fast ship and the targets of choice were afterburner fit brawlers. Similarly, Starwalker would have liked to get the kill but knew before the fight started that he could not hold the Dramiel even if it did come into range.

The good news was that the Hawk had survived its maiden flight. The potential bad news was that this fit might not survive as Starwalker contemplated changing it to a brawling rocket fit.