Need for Speed

Starwalker had been wandering around Molden Heath in his Enyo looking for targets rather fruitlessly. He was generally solo and sometimes went to Heild to see what was in the deadspace complex and to look for a fight, however, with lots of other R1DER pilots in system many potential targets probably thought he was fleeted.

Whilst that was occasionally true Starwalker spent much more time looking for solo kills and to that end he had wandered towards Metropolis when he ran into Vincent R'lyeh. Vincent noted that a small gang was heading into null-sec soon and it was Assault Frigate only. It was an opportunity too good to miss and so he headed over to Egbinger to get into fleet with Vincent, Kaeda Maxwell and Peri Simone.

The trouble with having fully fitted ships was that he had no real ability to change his fit on the fly. Going into null-sec and engagements there would generally benefit from micro-warp-drives (MWD) being fitted for the extra speed. Starwalker was about to be reminded of that lesson the hard way. 

The form up in Egbinger was with the intent of entering Great Wildlands via B-VIP9 and whilst waiting at the gate the gang was engaged by a Hurricane and Rapier. For Starwalker it was almost over before it started as he started to engage the Hurricane he was suddenly capless and without any capacitor nothing worked, including his small repairer. The Enyo was destroyed within seconds.

Undeterred Starwalker got into another identical Enyo and the small gang reformed, heading off into null-sec via Etherium Reach instead. It was a long roam with some gate games and some near misses but this Rupture was caught at one gate. Starwalker and Vincent had aggressed one side of the gate and it had jumped through into Kaeda and Peri who got point. The Rupture's drones were hurting them and were being targeted first but both Starwalker and Vincent had to wait out the timer to use the gate.

Suddenly the gate was open again and Starwalker was through and targeting the Rupture. The drones had been dealt with so he concentrated on doing a metric tonne of damage, something that the Enyo does well. Soon, the Rupture was down and after a GF in local the gang moved on, but without Vincent who had to return to base.

Later, it seemed like a major fight had gone down and capsules started to stream by in system. It was the perfect opportunity to setup a small mobile warp distruptor (bubble) to catch stragglers. Indeed it worked, as a Drake came by but it managed to jump through and although Starwalker and Peri gave chase it got away. Kaeda though had engaged the next target and called for the gang to come back to take down the Tornado.

Starwalker and Peri burned back to the gate, jumped and then burned towards the Tornado but for Starwalker it was all far too slow as he missed destroying the ship and had almost missed the pod too. The gang retreated to a perch to wait for the next target and then a Sabre and Hawk came in. Somehow Starwalker landed more than 50 km from the fight and as he slowly burned towards the Sabre it died. He then refocused on the Hawk but more of the enemy had arrived and quickly it was time to bail.

But it was too late, Starwalker had been too far away and too slow to get into the fight and once there was far too slow to get away again and had been scambled. Before long there were multiple ECM drones on the field and what damage he had been doing was stopped immediately as he lost lock. Without a lock it was all over and the second Enyo of the night went down along with the Jaguars of Kaeda and Peri.

Peri and Kaeda self destructed pods to return to base but Starwalker had implants and so the following day he headed back to Gultratren. On the return journey, he landed in one bubble and had to slow boat more than 50km at 187m/s - painful, but finally his pod returned to base uncscathed.

In retrospect, Starwalker could have done some things better:

• Have ready a defined fit for null-sec and the modules needed. Null-sec really required a MWD to burn through bubbles or get to the fighting fast. Last night Starwalker had seen the need for speed
• Engaging gangs in null-sec would likely involve engaging larger ships like cruisers and battlecruisers. He needed to consider how to fit his ship regarding capacitor warfare either decide to fit boosters or energy vampires or run the risk that his blaster boats would be helpless to energy destabilisers
• Starwalker tended to take a do or die approach to engagements and yet he could and should have disengaged earlier for both his Enyo losses. Trying to disengage might not have saved his ship but it would have been worth a try
• Starwalker liked the sheer brute force that the Enyo had but as a minor tweak to the fit should he reconsider the choice of rocket and overdrive modules

He had also recently purchased a Vengeance and completed the necessary training - he loved the look of the Vengeance, especially the embossed hull. He would start flying it soon.