Cyno Up Ship Down

Starwalker was roaming around when he noticed a cynosural field beacon appear on his overview. It was 18.2 AU away and so out of scan range but Starwalker decided to investigate in his Merlin anyway. If warping in and away again immediately it was usually quite safe.

To create the cynosural field requires the ship to be stationary and so guarantees that it will not runaway if disturbed. If it is alone and disturbed it usually relies on station guns to provide a defence. They take a few seconds to start firing and so disappearing quickly usually results in little damage. Starwalker arrived at the scene to see an Executioner, piloted by BlackNecro, and a station and he warped away again.

It was a tricky decision, the tank on the Merlin was pretty good but the guns would destroy it quite quickly if it stayed in the vicinity for too long. Of course, the temptation was too strong and Starwalker decided to risk it and warped in again with guns overheated. Locking up the Executioner and firing it was not long before the station guns opened up and the first volley removed half of the Merlin's shield.

Starwalker aligned out, the executioner disintegrated into a ball of fire and he warped away as the second volley took him into armour. Cool. Starwalker waited out his GCC and moved on and as chance would have it BlackNecro appeared again in local and another cyno went up. Starwalker warped in again with a certain deja vu but it was a little different this time.

There was what seemed like a mobile gun tower - had BlackNecro come for revenge? Starwalker decided that there was no point in hanging around and locked up the second Executioner and started to fire as the mobile tower also opened up. The Executioner was going down but Starwalker's Merlin was taking a lot of damage and it was getting too close to call.

Starwalker aligned out on the basis that he needed to warp immediately but he waited as he also wanted to see the executioner go down. It was too close, Starwalker could wait no longer and he hit warp as the next volley took him deep into structure. However, as he left the blasters got off a final shot and the Executioner exploded. He had survived yet again and this time it was even cooler as BlackNecro had tried to set a trap but it had failed miserably.

It was perhaps this exuberance that led Starwalker to see if he could spiral in on a Talos from around 30km out. He knew that the tier 3 battlecruiser would be fit for range, would have good alpha and had a tracking bonus. But whilst his Merlin's speed was low so was his signature and surely that would help. It didn't, it was too ambitious and the Merlin crumbled very quickly. Well, Starwalker would know better next time and there was bound to be a next time.