Wolf Engages Hookbill in Plex

Starwalker was returning to Eugales in his Wolf after his null-sec roam with Kaeda Maxwell and Vincent R'lyeh. Passing through Ashitsu, he saw a Caldari Navy Hookbill on dscan. It was too good an opportunity to miss so he looked for it and scanned it down to a plex.

Warping in to the plex Starwalker saw the Hookill more than 70km away and started to burn towards it with his afterburner fit. It seemed unlikely that the Hookbill would stay for the fight as surely the Hookbill would have a hard time against a Wolf. As the distance closed the Hookbill remained in the plex.

Starwalker watched the distance close to less than 30km and couldn't decide whether the pilot, di14juni1983, was stupid, brave or oblivious. He waited to less than 20km and then started the lock, which surely would alert di14juni1983 to the imminent danger. The Hookbill engaged first! Starwalker was surprised but pleased and tried to close into point blank with the auto-cannons spitting out their venom.

The distance did not close to less than 8km and Starwalker wondered whether he should switch to barrage or simply keep firing as the Hookbill was going down nicely. The incoming damage seemed anemic and was also being supplemented by some of the rat's fire but Starwalker's shields were holding very nicely and he hadn't even started the armour repairer yet.

The Hookbill started to gain some distance and the Wolf point dropped but strangely the pilot did not automatically warp away and maybe he hadn't realised the point was gone. Or possibly the Hookbill was aligning out, however, the Wolf did its thing and the final volley blew through the remaining armour and structure to destroy the Hookbill. Starwalker was pleased with the kill but forgot to collect the loot, even though he had to wait out the GCC.

Starwalker noted afterwards that he should have tried to observe the fight directly rather than watch the overview for maintaining situational awareness, in partcular to pinpoint when the Hookbill was moving out of scramble range. Similarly, Starwalker messed up getting the pod and so he should emphasise that final approach when the enemy target was about to explode to increase his chance of getting the pod too.