It was one of those days, Starwalker could do no right and his ship losses reflected that sad fact. In the financial world there was the concept of a "stop loss", if a position (or bet) was going badly then to stop any further losses a stop loss was executed or the open position was closed.
It was a painful decision to close the position and take the loss as it meant that there was no hope for a recovery or to make a profit but more importantly it prevented a bad situation getting worse. It was a decision to put reality before hope and limit the loss.
Typically, Starwalker would remain docked as soon as he had lost three ships in a single day - to stop his losses. However, this time he decided to keep flying and the losses mounted:
- Amenophis I had lost his Tristan to Starwalker's Merlin and he had re-shipped to an Incursus. The implicit challenge was accepted and the repaired Merlin landed for a close range brawl. As the fight progressed Starwalker was surprised to be capped out as he was theoretically cap-stable and he was neither neuted nor was there another other ship on grid. With the capacitor dry the fight stopped and the Merlin exploded
- Starwalker re-shipped to a Coercer and undocked to find Mark Yanning in a Catalyst (again) at the undock. The Catalyst wasted no time and engaged, Starwalker responded in kind but fighting on station is rarely a good idea. Mark Yanning had brought friends this time - a Thrasher piloted by Sybian Silk Silk. As the Thrasher undocked and engaged it was inevitable that the Coercer would be destroyed and unfortunately he didn't take the Catalyst with him
- His second Coercer was undocked to find Sybian Silk Silk still on station but around 30km away. Starwalker could see Mark Yanning in local and so he simply warped off - just as Mark Yanning arrived in a Vexor. Unfortunately, that extra lease of life for the Coercer did not last long as he went in at range to a complex with a Wolf and Slasher. The arty Wolf engaged but was soon trying to escape and he was helped by the Slasher who established a scramble. Poor piloting had allowed the Wolf to escape and the Slasher to get a tackle, Starwalker switched target to the Slasher and inevitably the Wolf came back to help finish the kill and the Coercer soon became another space wreck
- Next a shiny new Enyo was taken into space and foolishly Starwalker decided to engage a Tristan that was setup to kite at the edge of point range. It was soon accompanied by a Kestrel with light missiles. The Enyo eventually succeeded with a slingshot on the Tristan but in the process it burnout its MWD. The scrambled Tristan started to go down but the Enyo had taken too much damage was still taking damage, and soon it was gone
- Not content with having lost four ships in quick succession Starwalker undocked in his Taranis and ran into the same kiting Tristan. Given that he had successfully got the slingshot earlier he thought he would try again, even though he was fit with an afterburner this time. It did not work after multiple attempts. Starwalker was low on armour and so he tried to run, and got to 34km away but the Tristan still had point, it was either very expensively fit by Gluecksbaerchi or linked. In desperation he tried to kill the drones but he was too slow and had waited too long to start on them - the Taranis became his fifth fireball of the night
- The Tormentor would hopefully do better than the Taranis, surely his "luck" was about to change. Sturgeon Rowe in his Tristan was also kiting at the edge of point range and after a couple of attempts to slingshot Starwalker gave up and started to work on the drones. It was then he realised how feeble the DPS was for the Tormentor and whilst it had a great tank its DPS was abysmal. It was far too low for Starwalker's taste and whilst he lamented the lack of firepower the Tormentor finally gave up its structure in disgust at this pilot's poor handling of the ship's merits
- This time would be different, Starwalker undocked in his third Coercer and chased a Talwar around. He eventually caught it in another complex but only because the Talwar wanted to be caught - he had another friend waiting there in an Algos. The Coercer did not last long after the trap was sprung
- Deterred but sure his luck was about to change Starwalker undocked in his final Coercer, in a triumph of stupidity over common sense or probability. The Coercer chased a Republic Fleet Firetail around and he had a sense of deja vu. The sinking feeling was cemented as he entered a complex and was engaged by both the Firetail and a Hawk. The Coercer was scrambled immediately and as soon as the Firetail thought it was in danger it scampered away to safety and let the Hawk finish the job
Starwalker returned to base in an Ibis and docked up. He had lost eight ships in one day, a new record that he would have preferred had not happened. He was disappointed but tomorrow would be another day.
Starwalker had been enjoying the benefits of a higher security status than -5. In particular, this meant that he could wander around low-security star gates with minimal risk of being engaged, unless the aggressor was willing to tank the sentry gate guns. Very few aggressors did this as it was easier to simply wait for the next outlaw (flashy-red) pilot.
The trouble was that Starwalker enjoyed the kill and consequently his security status was back down to -5.4. It was only two weeks ago that it was -0.5. The good news was that pilots would be able to engage again without fear of repercussion from sentry guns at stations or star gates.
This very mechanic had tempted a Catalyst pilot when Starwalker (deliberately) undocked in his Coercer and slow boated towards it. Whilst Starwalker had wanted to tempt the Catalyst he had moved a little too close and the Catalyst had nearly succeeded in destroying his Coercer before it erupted into a fireball.
The bad news was that he would be very vulnerable to gate camps. Whilst his record over time of surviving a gate camp had improved considerably, he still lost ships. He had not yet taken out some of his shinier ships but the time would come. He would need to steel himself for the inevitable (and disappointing) loss of a shiny ship to a gate camp.
Whilst Starwalker contemplated these mechanics he decided to create a simple reminder of key timers for his life in low-sec space...
- Session Change Timer (SCT) lasted for 10 seconds and applied in many situations, in particular
- Jumping through a stargate, so could not jump back during SCT
- Undocking, so could not redock during SCT
- Joining fleet, so could not start another SCT like jumping whilst the SCT was active
- Undock Invulnerability lasted for 30 seconds if no module was activated, movement initiated or target locked
- Station campers could be avoided by stopping the ship and simply waiting for the SCT to complete to redock
- Gate cloak lasted for 60 seconds after jumping through a stargate and the ship was invulnerable whilst the gate cloak was active
- Weapons Timer (WT) lasted for 60 seconds after shooting (or using drones) or using any offensive module (scramble, web...) on another pilot. WT prevented jumping out of system or docking
- Suspect Timer (ST) lasted for 15 minutes and allowed anyone to attack a suspect, including podding, without repercussion from Concord. ST was acquired by attacking another pilot, stealing from them or having a kill right activated
- Kill Right was obtained by target pilot when they were attacked illegally i.e. attacker obtained a ST
- Criminal Timer (CT) lasted for 15 minutes and was acquired by attacking a pilot's pod or assisting someone with a CT. If a CT was active in hi-sec space it prevented the pilot from warping or jumping and Concord destroyed the ship
- Limited Engagement (LE) between pilots lasted for 5 minutes and was created by any pilot freely being able to attack another pilot with an active ST or CT, or the pilot was an Outlaw (-5 security status or lower). Once the LE was active both pilots could freely engage each other
Starwalker had roamed towards Covryn when he scanned some frigates at a small complex, usually he left on the basis that he did not know whether he would find a fight in progress or a small gang waiting to destroy the next idiot coming in blind. Having idiot tendencies himself from time to time Starwalker warped in to find an Incursus, Malediction and Executioner still fighting inside.
It looked like the others had left or were destroyed. Starwalker locked up the Incursus and Executioner as they were close by and started firing at the Incursus. He assumed the Incursus would kill the Executioner given it was so close but the Executioner actually slipped away leaving Starwalker in his Hookbill to kill the Incursus alone.
The Incursus was tanking like a champion, it was partially in structure and it must have mistimed the capacitor booster reload cycle as it went from Incursus to wreck. Starwalker collected the loot and carried on, when he scanned a Coercer in another complex. He was unsure whether it was a good idea to go in but he went in anyway and was greeted by the Coercer at over 20km establishing a lock and firing its lasers. Not a good start.
Starwalker tried to get the Hookbill into a close orbit but the damage kept coming in and just as he got in to around 7km his ship exploded. He had sustained too much damage coming into range and belatedly Starwalker cursed the fact that he had not used his tracking disruptor sooner and that he had not spiralled in. If he had done both of those things then perhaps he might have got into a close orbit but he would never know.
A Merlin themed Rebel fleet left Adirain with Patrick Kasper as the FC and the fleet ended up getting some nice kills in a complex, where each of these ships pretty much arrived individually Vexor, Blackbird, Atron and Caracal. Apart from the Vexor they seemed like they all wanted to spectate at range but ended up landing in the middle of the fleet, which the fleet found hugely amusing.
A little while later, the Rebel fleet found themselves out-numbered by another frigate fleet waiting at a small complex but after dropping loot the Rebels went in anyway. The fleet targeted a Wolf and it went down and then this Rifter but Starwalker's Merlin did not last much longer as it went down in flames shortly afterwards. The roam had been great fun.
It was less fun how he lost his next three ships. Starwalker warped into a complex thinking a fight between two Merlins might be going on - it wasn't and they easily killed his lone Merlin. Similarly, in another complex the engagement started off as a Caracal versus Caracal fight that Starwalker was winning but it ended in a 3 v 1 that saw his Caracal bite the dust. Finally, this Merlin died to an insta-locking gate camp when he was on his way to join a Rebel roam.
Those recent losses had depleted his available stock of fitted ships and so Starstepper undocked his Mammoth in Hek and delivered some more Merlins to Covryn, Lisbaetanne and Gultratren. It was an easy choice, blasters were his favourite weapon system and T1 frigates were very dispensible. He also thought that it was time to try the Harpy as it shared the Merlin hull and love for blasters. Strangely, given his predilection towards the Merlin and blasters he had never flown the Harpy.
Starwalker only had a Merlin left after losing this Kestrel to gate camp and this one to a Merlin. It was his current favourite ship as Starwalker liked the sheer firepower that the Merlin could bring to a fight. Its tank was reasonably good for a brawler and when attacking cyno ships it was clear that the shield resistance helped to mitigate sentry gun damage, much better than the default resistances seen in the Kestrel.
Starwalker favoured damage over tank and that was reflected in his Merlin fit that employed two magnetic field stabilisers, cranking out 223 of kinetic and thermal damage with Caldari Navy Antimatter.
[Merlin, MSE2MFS]
Micro Auxiliary Power Core II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II
Medium Shield Extender II
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
It was a good brawling ship and easy to set the orbit to 500m and unleash hell. It was also able to deal with cyno ships quickly and get away - sometimes on fire. Starwalker undocked and given that this was now the third attempt to get to the TESF (Target Everyone Somebody Fire) roam in Eugales he was determined to not be distracted. The only thing that would stop him would be a gate camp.
Starwalker got to Eugales and was pleased to join the roam, something he was rarely able to do given its regularly scheduled night. The roam itself was FC'd as usual by Peri Simone with Kane the Black (Merlin) and Kohana Maxwell (Arazu) scouting. It was good with some nice kills:
Starwalker enjoyed the Merlin but was thinking that the Kestrel might make another good T1 frigate to fly. He needed to buy some more ships, as he deliberately kept very few fitted ships at any one time, and the Kestrel would be on the shopping list.
