30 September 2012

Moved from Fensi to Gultratren

Starwalker had spent a short while based in Fensi and roaming from the edge of Kor-Azor into Genesis and as far as Aridia. It seemed far too quiet for his taste and when he had been out and about it had seemed close to deserted. This prompted Starwalker to move his base from Fensi to Gultratren as he had intended to use that system as a base. In short, he would have bases at Covryn, Gultratren and Egbinger, with Egbinger really being chosen because it would soon be R1FTA HQ.


He had chosen Covryn and Gultratren because they were geographically separated but each was in a faction warfare area and seemed to have quite a few active locals (and fewer gate camps). Both had easy access to other nearby busy areas such as Black Rise, Verge Vendor, Metropolis and Molden Heath and if wanted they were within striking distance of nullsec: Syndicate, Pure Blind, Geminate and Etherium Reach.

The good news about keeping operational bases with only a few ships was that it was easy to move (again) with one Mammoth trip. Whilst he was moving from Fensi to Gultratren with his Merlin he noticed another Merlin on scan at a minor outpost and decided to investigate. The pilot, hanabal drake, did not seem to have noticed that Starwalker was approaching and so he waited before locking until he was less than 20km away. Lock achieved and then scramble applied.

Starwalker had expected a fight but the Merlin went down without firing a single shot, hanabal drake had literally not been paying attention and his ship had no guns fitted. It was all over and Starwalker looted the wreck, although it was hardly worth it. After waiting out his GCC, he repaired and continued on his way.

However, it was not long before he had another ship on scan - a Slasher. Starwalker was not sure if he would catch a Slasher as that was the fastest attack frigate and indeed he was looking at that ship himself in EFT as one to try soon as a fast brawler. Of course, calling an attack frigate a brawler might be too grandiose given that they generally had little or no tank.

Starwalker loaded null, expecting the Slasher to try and kite outside of blaster range. He was wrong as the distance closed to point blank and worse than that the Slasher was laying down the hurt far more effectively than Starwalker's neutron blasters with null ammunition. This was the second time he had loaded the wrong ammunition against a Slasher, next time he would stick with Caldari Navy anti-matter.

The Merlin's ancillary shield booster was not keeping up with the incoming damage and Starwalker wondered about that as in theory the Slasher would only do around 100-120 DPS before resists. Presumably the Slasher was firing EM rounds and they were hurting badly. In fact, it was so bad that Starwalker's Merlin burst into flames with the Slasher barely breaking a sweat and certainly no damage worth talking about. Its ancillary shield booster had easily kept pace with the null ammunition.


Starwalker warped his pod away and was a long way from Fensi but returned there to get an Enyo and tried again to make it to Gultratren but he decided that this time he would not be distracted by chasing T1 frigates. That goal was also helped by the fact that an assault frigate could not enter minor complexes. Without the distraction of chasing FW pilots he made the second trip and it was much less eventful and more than that he arrived in Gultratren with his ship still intact.

No comments:

Post a Comment