R1DER Roams

Starwalker had enjoyed the regular R1DER roams: Peri Simone's TESF (Target Everyone, Somebody Fire) and Patrick Kasper's Super serious roam of rules and regulations (name pending), which seemed to have resolved to being named the prosaic Monday Night Roam. Generally, the TESF roam was bring a frigate and the Monday Night Roam was themed around a particular ship or tactic such as Droneswarm. Both were great fun.

 

In addition to those two roams Patrick had started a regular suicide ganking roam and last Friday it was based out of Jufvitte. All of the ships (Catalysts and Thrashers) with fittings and ammunition were supplied and most importantly - scouts. It was a very successful night as various Hulks and Mackinaws were destroyed, along with an assortment of mining barges (Covetor, Retriever and Procurer). Mining ships destroyed tallied to over 3 billion ISK, not including the pods. Whilst Starwalker was keen to get pods too he was far too slow and only managed to get one pod kill the entire night: Sylcyon.

This podding was despite the fact that he had just made another attempt to raise his security status, primarily on the basis that his recently acquired shinier ships would not be very vulnerable to gate camps. He had also rationalised that occasionally farming the clone soldier tags for security status would not be that hard or boring. He started the Jufvitte suicide gank roam at -0.5 and was -3.4 at the end of the night, with the podding being particularly penalised by CONCORD. 

Starwalker had come to the conclusion that unless he reformed his character there was no chance he could keep his status above -5 for any protracted length of time. It was clear, going below -5 again was inevitable and so he would need to fly his shiny ships soon and lose them in fights or simply accept the risk that some of them would be destroyed to an inglorious gate camp.

Surviving Gate Camps

There was a time that Starwalker was almost guaranteed to have his ship destroyed by a gate camp and he had lost various frigates and cruisers over time. His flashy red status or security status of lower than -5 meant that anyone could engage him in sight of sentry (gate or station) guns without any CONCORD repercussion. Brilliant for a gate camp - it could simply wait and pounce on the flashy pilot.

Long experience, including a more recent Daredevil, had burned in some lessons and he now seemed to be generally surviving the simpler or more ad-hoc gate camps. His general approach was:

• On entry to a system with a gate camp or ships at the gate - hold cloak
• Just because ships were on the star gate it was not always a gate camp. It could be a fleet waiting at a gate or ships about to jump through or warp away
• Take time to check the type and position of the gate camp ships
• Usually it would be 12km back to the star gate
• One or more ships would be less than 20km away
• After about twenty seconds align to the entry star gate and burn back, using overheated propulsion
• One key reason to wait is to let the session timer expire to be able to jump back through the gate
• If locked, turn on defensive modules (damage control, boosters or repairers...)
• It might be a gate camp but they want a bigger or shinier ship.
• If not locked, when at the gate, align to the out gate and warp away
• Watch distance to gate and hit jump when less than 2.5km from it

The key decision - commit to return to the entry gate. On the occasions that Starwalker had attempted to make a run for it or to warp to the out gate or a nearby celestial - he had been caught. When he had been caught it generally seemed to be too late to try to burn back to gate. Those vital first few seconds mattered.

Even so, crashing the gate was not guaranteed to work, in particular:

• Insta-locking ships with high alpha or simply a single volley destroying the ship
• Stasis webifiers being applied very quickly and preventing the timely to return to the gate
• Neutralisers removing the capacitor charge and completely disabling the ship
• Ships on both sides of the star gate that are part of the same gate camp

Security status tags offered Starwalker an alternate approach to surviving a gate camp - raise his security status above -5. It was also a treadmill to maintain it above -5. However, Starwalker was contemplating it again as he now had another reason to want his security status above -5. He had recently bought shinier ships (Deimos, Stabber Fleet Issue, Megathron and Hyperion) and he did not want to lose them to gate camps. Losing them in a fight - no problem. Losing them to a gate camp - no fun.

Use of Tactics

Starwalker was a proponent of brute force when it came to combat. It was not subtle, it was not devious and it was not crafty. It was typically a do or die approach, get in close and shoot - rely on firepower to solve any tactical problems. A key virtue was that it was simple to execute.

Given that propensity it was no surprise that Starwalker favoured blasters as a weapon system and flying the Merlin, which provided an excellent combination of tank and gank.
His 1v1 frigate fights tended to fall into one of the following categories:

1. Close range brawl (1km - 3km) where the slugfest was to destruction. Typical brawlers were the blaster fit Merlin and Incursus
2. Scram range kiting (7km - 9km) where the fight was decided by who had range control. The brawler needed to get into close range and the kiter needed to maintain scram range. Typical kiters were fitted with rockets, railguns, lasers, auto-cannons and artillery such as the Kestrel, Breacher and Tormentor
3. Point range (16km - 24km) kiting where the fight was also decided by who had range control. As usual, the brawler needed to get into close range using a slingshot manoeuvre or a sharp interception turn. Typical point range kiters were fitted with light missiles, artillery or lasers such as the Condor and Imperial Navy Slicer

Each ship had the option of fitting a short or long range weapon system and the approach to selecting that system was a choice based on what range the pilot wanted to fight at. Consequently, range control was critical to a fight but a tactical advantage (or disadvantage) could come from the ship fit and its use of modules, for example:

• Stasis webifiers to slow down the target for range control and application of damage (rockets)
• Tracking disruption to reduce the optimal range or tracking speed of a turreted ship and so reducing incoming damage
• Sensor dampeners to reduce the target lock range of a ship and potentially to break the lock
• Energy neutralisers to drain the capacitor and consequently disable much of a ship's functions (propulsion, electronic warfare, blasters, lasers, active armour repairers, hardeners...). Not all modules would be affected such as rockets or auto-cannons
• Electronic counter measures (ECM) such as drones (EC-300) or a ship (Griffin) that will remove a target lock and consequently prevent any offensive action being taken

Tactics then tended to revolve around range control and module management and losses could come from loss of range control, being over-powered by tank and gank, being tactically disadvantaged by one or more modules and human error.
 
Occasionally a pilot would use more sophisticated tactics and when Starwalker's Merlin found Cynthia Nezmor's Merlin in a deadspace complex he witnessed that use of tactics. Starwalker had described the tactic in Butterfly Effect on Ship Fit but he had not used it - when one of the two brawlers starts the fighting at range and then closes into close range when the target switches to ranged ammunition. In short, deliberately varying the range of the fight.
 
The fight started around 10km with modest incoming damage but Starwalker was pointed and despite trying to slingshot into close range the range was being maintained by Nezmor. Starwalker switched to Null ammunition and that was the cue for Nezmor to come in close and in the final seconds of the fight he destroyed Starwalker's Merlin whilst still having around 50% of his own structure left. Nezmor had made good use of tactics to vary the range of the fight and so tipped the odds of winning decisively in his favour.

Losses and Lessons Learnt

Starwalker had been in New Eden for well over two years but still managed to lose ships in decidedly non-clever ways. He had lost the most ships in a single month - 27 - and the losses had seen the full range from good fight to good grief, what just happened. As always, he wanted to learn something from each loss to mend bad habits, improve situational awareness or more positively to respond to the target environment with updated ship fits or new tactics.

 Losses and lessons learnt:

1. Overconfidence
• Trying to catch fast (MWD) kiters with afterburner fit ships, especially a slow afterburner fit Enyo. Recognise limitations and act accordingly - the Retribution started 200km away and it was going over 4.5km/s. There was plenty of time to leave with the ship intact
• Attacking a ship without really knowing what the ship could do. This Incursus was lost to a neuting Crucifier - those neutralisers were a complete surprise and the Incursus was totally disabled by it. The other two ships joining in for the kill did not tip the outcome of the fight, which was already lost
• Attacking a ship knowing what it could do, that it was better and that it was likely to win. For example, taking on a Federation Navy Comet in an Incursus was being extremely hopeful and similarly, taking on this Algos in a Merlin. To tip the balance in favour of victory required some tactical surprise or situational advantage, neither were present in these cases
2. Situational Assessment/Awareness
• Checking local pilots in system was a good idea to see whether any pilots belong to the same corporation. This Incursus might have been more prepared for the Kestrel at a Deadspace complex to be joined by his partner - a Merlin. Better yet, it could have taken action such as flying away from the warp-in point. The additional time for the Merlin to arrive at the fight might have made a difference
• Checking short scan for new arrivals to a fight would have potentially saved this Harpy that was winning a fight against a Jaguar but the arrival of re-inforcements tipped the balance towards destruction. Assessing the threat of new arrivals was critical to deciding next steps and when this Falcon arrived, Starwalker should have left with his Merlin immediately
• Leaving a fight was a valid course of action such as when tank was too strong, such as a T1 frigate taking on a dual repairer Incursus. It makes sense to leave whilst the going was good, leaving in good time was critical to making that escape and this Merlin left it too late. The arrival of the second Incursus was simply to get on the killmail. This Moa was unable to effectively hit the two assault frigates attacking it at the star gate and should have simply de-aggressed and left. By the time that decision was taken it was too late
3. Module mismanagement
• Not checking when a finite resource has been used up. This Incursus needed its capacitor to be replenished to allow everything else to work, the capacitor ran dry even though there were two booster charges ready to go in the capacitor booster. Without the armour repairers working the ship was totally defenceless and consequently was unnecessarily destroyed by smart-bombing battleships
• Overlooking the use of a module. This Merlin had a shield booster that was fully charged and ready to start work, except it was never used. Starwalker was so used to flying a shield extender fit Merlin that he had forgotten to start the medium ancillary shield booster

The good news for Starwalker was that he felt he was making fewer mistakes generally. He was sure that he would continue to make mistakes, especially when experimenting with new ships and fits but he would learn from that.

Security Status Treadmill

Within hours of raising his security status Starwalker was doing his best to reduce it again. Initially it was a Test pilot that insisted on relighting another cynosaural beacon despite his cyno-ship having just been destroyed. Indeed, the next cyno-ship was destroyed with the pod and then repeated only a few minutes later. Starwalker's security status had fallen from -3.7 to -4.5 and he hadn't even visited Hek yet.

So Starwalker had to do some ratting and then handed in another security tag to reduce his security status back down again to -4. It was not fun and Starwalker realised that he had been too hasty, he had increased his security status without fully realising that he was putting himself on a security status treadmill. Every time he killed something he would need to kill one or more rats, or buy the requisite security tags on the market, primarily Transporter tags.

The big issue for Starwalker was that each act of combat aggression had a bigger impact on his security status than each act of law enforcement. On average he would need to kill four low security system dwelling battleship rats for each act of aggression and each podding would dramatically increase the number of rats (~40) required.

The alternative would be to buy Transporter tags, which was around 40m ISK each at current prices, in short, it would be very expensive to maintain a security status above -4.5. Traditionally null-security system rats (battleships) had a bigger improvement to security status but Starwalker could not be bothered to check it.

Starwalker was completely unsure that he had either the will or the desire to maintain his security status above -4.5 and so he decided that he needed to move his Megathrons from Hek to Hadozeko immediately. He put together a simple battleship fit to make the short journey. He had not yet completed Large Hybrid Turret V training, so he fitted some medium blasters as a temporary measure rather than waste ISK on meta level large blasters.

He felt that the chance of being tackled on gate was quite small and so he took the risk, especially as a non-flashy pilot. The two battleships were successfully moved to Hadozeko without incident. Starwalker had also purchased a Hyperion in Evati and since he was moving battleships he decided to move that one too and it was shifted to Gultratren. That short journey was also similarly uneventful.

Whilst he had every intention of losing these three battleships he was not quite ready to fly them yet, he still wanted to complete Large Blaster Specialisation to at least III or IV and perhaps one or two other skills before letting them die in a fire.

Given that the battleships had been moved out of Hek there was no particular reason for Starwalker to be concerned about maintaining his security status above -4.5. Indeed, whilst he was flying backwards and forwards moving some battleship equipment he had three separate fights (Slasher, Rifter and Incursus) in Hadozeko and he even managed to pod the Slasher pilot. Strangely his security status decreased but it did not seem to reflect a podding.

In hindsight, Starwalker should have considered his security status more deeply, to avoid unnecessary repetition of increasing security status he would need to stop shooting other pilots. That was not going to happen. So, using security tags was useful for a quick one time increase in security status but given that Starwalker would continue to shoot ships and pods it was not a good solution for him. He should have paid Black Frog Logistics or similar to move his battleships, that would have been a more effective use of time and ISK.

Security Tags for Security Status

Starwalker had spent a long time as a "red flashy" pilot, whose negative security status was -5 or less. For some that was a status symbol and perhaps part of a desire to achieve -10 but for Starwalker it was simply a result of shooting ships and pods. He had no special desire to be excluded from high security space, he just wanted to kill ships and pods.

It was because Starwalker could not enter high security space that Starstepper was born, to provide a means of purchasing and moving equipment around in high security space and then eventually delivering it to a low security station. Whilst Starstepper offered a level of convenience, it also meant that he had minimal skills (~320k) and could only just about fly a Mammoth with cargo expanders.

This transportation limitation presented a minor problem for battleships, Starstepper could not transport them due to a lack of space in his Mammoth. Whilst Starwalker had not yet flown a battleship he would want to do that at some time in the near future. Indeed, he had recently purchased two Megathrons for just that purpose.

There seemed to be four main options:

1. Increase Starstepper's skills to be able to fly freighters and so transport the battleships
2. Pay for a transport service like Black Frog Logistics (or similar)
3. Take advantage of corporate facilities/mates (if available)
4. Increase Starwalker's security status and occupy his strategic base at Hek (0.5)

All of the options had pros and cons but Starwalker liked the idea of getting to Hek and being able to fit his ships there and to enter low security space from that station:

• Hek held a few billions worth of his ships, equipment and ammunition
• Hek had two simple paths to low security space and entry at Auner or Resbroko
• On the downside - Hek traffic to low security space was vulnerable to a gate camp at Hadozeko on the Resbroko gate. That might be a significant problem

Another benefit of increasing Starwalker's security status would be to avoid transporting ships and equipment on a regular basis, and doing repeat runs because some equipment item had been forgotten.

Starwalker had obtained some security tags from ratting clone soldiers and also one from the cargohold of a ratting Retribution. There were four types of security tag:

1. Clone Soldier Trainer Tag - 4 tags were needed to go from -10 to -8 security status. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 2m ISK
2. Clone Soldier Recruiter Tag - 6 needed to go from -8 to -5. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 6m ISK
3. Clone Soldier Transporter Tag - 6 needed to go from -5 to -2. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 40m ISK
4. Clone Soldier Negotiator Tag - 4 needed to go from -2 to 0. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 35m ISK

Starwalker took a selection of tags (4 Trainer, 6 Recruiter, 2 Transporter) to a Concord station in Aulbres, Placid and exchanged his security tags for security status and an additional fee of 46m ISK. His security status went from -9.8 to -3.7.

With his new security status of -3.7 he could enter 0.5 - 0.6 high security space with impunity and in particular Hek (0.5):

• Pilots with better or higher than -2.0 can enter any system
• Pilots with -2.0 or worse or lower cannot enter 1.0 systems
• Pilots with -2.5 or worse cannot enter 0.9 systems
• Pilots with -3.0 or worse cannot enter 0.8 systems
• Pilots with -3.5 or worse cannot enter 0.7 systems
• Pilots with -4.0 or worse cannot enter 0.6 systems
• Pilots with -4.5 or worse cannot enter 0.5 systems

Starwalker had noticed that killing the clone soldiers had given modest security status boosts but podding in particular had been a heavy hit to security status. He was unclear as to why there was such variation in security status losses but presumably that related to some combination of location, engaging only, firing on and destroying ships and pods

Whilst he was undecided as to whether he would try to get his security status any higher, he knew that he would continue to pod people when given the chance. He had his collection of corpses where he had recently added Grimmjow Jaggerjaques and Redo Arnes and fully expected to continue to grow it.

Smartbombing Battleships

Peri Simone was leading his regular TESF (Target Everyone, Somebody Fire) roam, from Adirain this time and a motley collection of frigates headed off into the space lanes of New Eden seeking targets of opportunity or fun and kills. It seemed like a quiet start to the roam when a Typhoon was spotted in Agoze, piloted by LadyShu.

The Rebels swarmed in with their dozen frigates but the Typhoon was not alone and soon the grid was being shared with a Scorpion, Cynabal, Vexor, Cormorant and another Typhoon. The Rebels had just brought a knife to a gun fight and were severely outclassed. Starwalker tried to get away in his Merlin but he didn't make it.

With some Rebels having lost their ships the fleet reformed in Vey and continued on to Maut. Starwalker had reshipped to an Incursus as his nearest available ship. He had not flown a dual repair Incursus for some time due to its lack of range control, even though it had an excellent tank and a very good gank factor. In short, this fit could not hold a target and relied on the target staying in range to the bitter end.

The Rebels were waiting on a gate as the scout did his thing in the next system when three battleships arrived. Patrick Kasper pointed out that they had no guns and consequently were probably smartbombing battleships. To a small fleet of frigates this represented a significant danger as smartbombs were easily capable of destroying frigates and pods very, very quickly. Their key tactic was to be in very close range. The usual counter-tactic in this situation was to orbit outside of smartbomb range (up to 6km).
 

In addition, the Rebels were in jump range (<2.5km) of the gate and it was possible that the smartbomb could hit the gate, which would then retaliate against that battleship. Peri Simone called the target and the Rebels went to work on Nivie Chryl's Tempest. The combined firepower of the frigates and some friendly fire brought down the Tempest. Peri called the next target and Starwalker moved in closer to establish a 7km orbit.

More friends of the battleships arrived and Peri called for the fleet to get out. Starwalker aligned to the sun and hit warp but nothing happened - his armour repairers had depleted the capacitor and in all the excitement he had not noticed. However, now that everything had turned off the capacitor was recharging and as he spammed warp the warp-drive went active. Starwalker was not pointed - he would escape... However, the warp-out was not instantaneous and before he warped his ship was destroyed by the next smartbomb wave and his pod followed almost immediately afterwards.

Back in Covryn in a basic clone, Starwalker went into his usual routine:

1. Upgrade his clone to avoid losing skill points the next time he was podded
2. Pause the training queue to plug-in implants
3. Plug-in a set of implants
1. Basic set of +3 learning implants to speed up training by about 10%
2. Zainou 'Deadeye' Small Hybrid Turret SH-603 for +3% small hybrid turret damage
3. Eifyr and Co. 'Rogue' Evasive Maneuvering EM-703 for +3% agility
4. Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link for +5% speed bonus
5. Inherent Implants 'Lancer' Gunnery RF-903 for +3% rate of fire on all turrets
6. Zainou 'Deadeye' Rapid Launch RL-1001 for +1% missile launcher rate of fire
4. Restart training queue
5. Get into another ship and insure it

Medium Turrets Tracking Frigates

Roaming through Placid Starwalker had spotted a few cruisers and battlecruisers and so he had decided to re-ship into his Moa. The Moa was fit with blasters and two large shield extenders and boasted some impressive statistics for a cruiser: 493 DPS and 47.5k EHP. Less impressive was that the capacitor lasted less than two minutes with everything going and it aligned in 8.4 seconds.

[Moa, ION2LSE]

Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Large Shield Extender II

Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M
Heavy Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

Warrior II x3

In the cargo hold Starwalker carried a web for fighting frigates and the three warriors were also there to help. As he jumped into another system a non-flashy Jaguar arrived on gate and then waited. Starwalker held cloak deciding whether to engage, he was fit to fight cruisers and he would have to be aggressed first. He de-cloaked - the Jaguar had no hesitation and engaged immediately, applying a scram, tracking disruptor and energy vampire. He was aggressed and decided to fight.

Starwalker fired back and initially had some success in applying damage but as the range closed to less than 2km his fire became ineffective and virtually no damage was being applied. A Retribution landed on grid and also started firing at the Moa too. It became clear that with the medium turret tracking and without a web he was unable to hit the close orbiting frigates effectively. He tried to align to the sun to reduce transversal but it had minimal impact, so he decided to de-aggress.

He wasn't sure if he could make it back to the gate in time as the damage was depleting his shields fast but he headed back in a desperate attempt to save his ship. As he hit low armour he was within range and hit jump but the gate denied access, the aggression timer was still running down. Starwalker was running out of structure and time and he hit jump again but with the same result, his ship exploded.

It was an object lesson in how easily a frigate could take down a cruiser by getting under the guns. Starwalker had an impressive tank for a cruiser but all that really meant was that his ship took longer to explode. Unfortunately, he had decided too late to de-aggress and he had even completely forgotten to deploy his drones, although he suspected that would have made no difference.

Merlin Intercepted Atron

Starwalker was cruising in his usual afterburner fit Merlin when he spied an Atron at a complex. Soon he was warping in looking for the kill. The Atron was around 30km from the warp-in and when it engaged it maintained a range of 18km to 20km. It was kiting in point range and was clearly MWD fit given it was going well over 3km/s. 

Starwalker decided it was time to try some tactics and he broke the point and warped to the sun at 30km. The intent was to catch the Atron at the sun assuming it would warp-in at range. The tactic failed as the Atron warped in still 40km away. 

 

The Atron seemed too cautious for this chase-me type of tactic to work so Starwalker decided to engage anyway and see if he could get in range with manual piloting. The slingshot manoeuvre was tried twice but it was not quite enough and the Atron continued to plink away.

Starwalker had recently seen BlakPhoenixx explain an interception based on turning towards the target's flight path. So, he watched the Atron and guessed where its orbit would take it and turned sharply to that location. It was something like a 90-120 degree turn rather than 180 degree turn for a slingshot and... it worked. 

This manoeuvre had exploited the flight path of the Atron and suddenly the Atron was in scram range and from there it was simply annihilated. Starwalker was ecstatic, it was the first time he had successfully pulled off that interception manoeuvre. He would definitely be trying that one again. 

Falcon Turns the Tide

Starwalker and Jameson2011 had met by chance in the Bleak Lands and decided to journey together towards Essence. Starwalker was in his favourite Merlin and Jameson2011 was sporting a Federation Navy Comet. Both ships were very competent frigates and capable of putting out significant damage.

Jameson2011 spotted an Enyo at an asteroid belt and warped in with Starwalker following closely behind. The Enyo, piloted by Aranoch Firestone, was there but not ratting and soon Starwalker was in close with blasters hammering away on the armour. The Enyo looked like it was in trouble and going down, so Aranoch decided it was time to pull out an Ace. There was a reason the Enyo was not ratting and that reason decloaked, a Falcon, piloted by QxReyha, appeared 44km away.

If Starwalker had been solo he would have left immediately but with Jameson2011 still there trying to take down the Enyo he also stayed. It would be a close run thing as to whether the Enyo would succumb to the combined fire of the Comet and Merlin or the Falcon would turn the tide. 

Then the bad news started - the Comet was jammed as the Enyo entered low armour. Starwalker was fully overheated and using keep at range to maximise damage, the Enyo entered structure but then the Merlin was jammed too.

As soon as that second jam hit the chance of destroying the Enyo dropped to zero and soon it was all over. The Comet was destroyed and the Falcon still had the Merlin jammed so no further damage would be done to the Enyo, even though it was in structure. Now that there was no chance of a kill the only question was whether the Merlin could escape. Starwalker aligned out and made a run for it but it was no good, the Merlin was destroyed.