The Kestrel was a good ship and Starwalker liked the ability to select damage types, something he missed about flying Rifters after he had moved to the blaster Merlin. Earlier in his career he had liked the simplicity of not choosing the damage type of ammunition to use and blasters had fitted that simple philosophy well.
The question that he had with rockets was whether to use Caldari Navy Faction rockets or Rage rockets. In general, he used faction rockets against all T1 frigates and most T2 frigates too. He knew that there were multiple factors involved such as explosion velocity and radius, ship speed and signature but he had not really gone beyond the general rule of thumb.
He had seen the ammunition guide from Sulieman Shouaa and in particular:
Scourge Rage - Does Kinetic damage. Use against targets larger than you, although can be used against targets the same ship size as you if they are webbed. Can be used on smaller targets if you have a target painter or two as well as a web on the target.
Starwalker knew that the slower the ship was moving the better for rockets and intuitively the guidance made sense but he just wanted to check it and so he turned to the missile damage calculator.
The chart from this calculator showed that for a frigate, with a signature radius somewhere around 35m, that if the target frigate was going faster than around 400 m/s then the faction rockets applied more damage.
As the signature radius increased so did the speed such that with a 50m signature radius the crossover point was around 500 m/s. Starwalker needed to pay more attention to the speed of webbed frigates.
Starwalker periodically checked Battleclinic and top solo pilots for their fits, that was how he knew about Loren Gallen and that he was ranked the number 1 pilot in New Eden:
He had also seen that he flew and lost mainly the Incursus, at least recently. The fit was very standard with neutron blasters and an armour tank. So when Starwalker saw Loren Gallen in local and found an Incursus on scan it seemed very logical to link the two. The next logical thing was to be easily found, in his shield tanked blaster Merlin.
Sitting in a complex a little away from the warp-in point seemed like an obvious invitation and soon Loren Gallen was there too, in an... Incursus. Starwalker started to burn for the Incursus and was going to simply brawl. He wanted to see how the fight would go and whether Loren Gallen would pull any range tricks.
As the range closed to around 12km the Incursus opened fire and Starwalker had a sinking feeling that he was about to be kited by a railgun Incursus. However, the incoming damage was very minor and the range closed to a point blank slugfest, with the Merlin slugging away like a champion.
The Incursus was doing comparatively little damage in return and the thought crossed his mind that he might actually win this fight. The Incursus armour repairer was kicking in and the armour seemed to be going down very slowly, too slowly. The Incursus had switched ammunition and was now applying the hurt.
Soon the Incursus was winning the DPS war as the Merlin's shield gave way and the Incursus was still only in low armour and not in structure. The Merlin was finished, and the Incursus smashed through the last bit of structure to grab victory. Good fights were exchanged and Loren sportingly noted that it was close but Starwalker knew better, he had been convincingly beaten in a straight up brawl.
The tale of the tape showed that Starwalker had gotten off to a good start because Loren had incorrectly guessed that the Merlin was rail-gun fitted. However, the Incursus had managed to survive the onslaught and absorb nearly 4,600 points of damage, which must have required Exile or something similar to not even enter structure. The Merlin had taken nearly 4,300 of damage and had been destroyed.
On entry to a system Starwalker received a call for help from fellow Rebel Cutter Sense, who was chasing a Hawk in his Atron. Starwalker was in his gank fit Merlin.
[Merlin, AB2W]
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
1MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
The idea behind this ship was simple - brute force; catch the target, hold it close with the dual webs and blast it in the face up close and personal. The downside for this fit was that it epitomised the glass cannon and if the target could weather the initial storm then the Merlin would not survive under fire for very long.
Starwalker entered the complex and the Hawk and Atron were nearly 100km away, so he started the slow burn towards them. Before he had gone very far a small gang had jumped in behind him and an MWD fit Incursus was approaching very quickly. For some strange reason when he tried to warp away he was unable to and so he decided to go for the Incursus.
The Incursus was in a tail chase so as it reached 15km away Starwalker turned his Merlin towards it and engaged. He knew that he only had a few seconds before the rest of the gang arrived and the Merlin would be destroyed, so he had to make those seconds count.
With the blasters overheated and some implants the Merlin was putting out close to 300 DPS and as the range dropped to around 1km those blasters tore away the shields and started on the armour. The armour repairs started but they were not keeping pace with the incoming damage and as each second passed the blasters worked their way further into the Incursus structure.
The Incursus was on fire as rest of the gang arrived and they were trying to save their comrade by killing the Merlin faster than it was killing the Incursus but it was too late - the Incursus exploded in a blaze of glory followed shortly afterwards by the Merlin.
It was a little while later when Starwalker looked at the killmail that he had gotten a nice surprise revelation. It was a dual armour repair fit.
[Incursus, Takeda Kashada's Incursus]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Small Armor Repairer II
'Refuge' Adaptive Nano Plating I
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I,Cap Booster 100
Light Neutron Blaster II,Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II,Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II,Void S
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
On previous occasions when he had tried to kill a dual repair fit Incursus he had simply not been able to. Typically those (T1) frigates had hit for somewhere between 150 and 200 DPS, perhaps a little more with overheat. This time was different, in short, the Merlin firepower had overwhelmed the Incursus active tank and that was important to know as this was perhaps the strongest (T1) frigate tank and comparable to some of the T2 frigate tanks.
This knowledge was then used to take on what appeared to be another dual repair Incursus but with a different result - the loss of a Merlin. It was not a dual repair fit, presumably the extra armour buffer, combined with the afterburner speed allowing more damage mitigation made the difference. The only good thing was that another Incursus came in to get in on the kill and killed the offending Incursus.
Starwalker liked to experiment a little with his ships and their fit, sometimes it seemed to work and at other times it failed miserably. Similarly, he liked to see what a ship could do in a certain situation even if that meant losing the ship that he was flying. He saw this as the cost of experimentation and learning and he had no qualms about losing ships.
Whilst he was not afraid to experiment and lose ships that did not mean that he wished to throw away ships in a useless attempt to beat the odds. It was a blurred line between what was a stupid decision and when that decision to experiment was good. The cost in lost ships was simply a necessary part of learning about ship capabilities.
Starwalker had recently lost a Breacher to a Daredevil to see if the dual tank made any real difference to the fight - it did not. When flying this Daredevil it was lost when Starwalker decided to engage an Algos, a fight he could easily have avoided. He had known that taking on an Algos with a T1 frigate was a very difficult proposition and consequently he had avoided them generally. The question he wanted answered was would the DPS powerhouse that was the Daredevil fare any better - in short, no.
The Caracal had a reputation of frigate killer with its Rapid Light Missile system and Starwalker jumped into a small frigate gang at the sun to see what would happen. He was scrambled very quickly, which shut down the micro warp drive. Without a working propulsion system all that Starwalker could do was to attack the nearby frigates. This Breacher went down along with an Incursus but despite a good tank the Caracal was destroyed.
The brawling Merlin that Starwalker was flying was just ambling away from the station scanning the nearby complexes when an Incursus arrived and docked up. A short while later it undocked and then started to pursue the Merlin. Since it was travelling just under 1300 m/s it was clear that it was afterburner fit and had speed modules fitted. It was a simple assumption from there that it was railgun fit.
At this point the decision was to stay and fight or to leave before the Incursus caught up. Starwalker decided to stay, to see if the Merlin could get in close despite the speed disadvantage. The Merlin applied some modest damage but despite overheating the afterburner the range stayed around 7km and it was not long before the Merlin was a wreck.
A far more questionable decision and one based on an invalid assumption was to engage a Harpy in a Kestrel. The intent was that the Kestrel with its dual web fit could leave the fight based on range control. This notion was soon destroyed when the Harpy engaged with its point and railguns from 20km away. Whilst Starwalker had previously fitted a Harpy as a brawler not everyone did so. Burning in with the afterburner was incredibly slow and despite briefly getting into scramble range the Kestrel was doomed.
Starwalker was out and about in his shiny Wolf. It had been fitted out with auto-cannons, in line with his preference to fly brawling ships and fitted with brawling in mind. This particular Wolf also took advantage of the extra CPU that came with the implant set of Genolution Core Augmentation CA-1 and CA-2. For Level V skills only, then the Tracking Enhancer would be downgraded to the meta level 4 version:
[Wolf, MWDEVSAAR]
Damage Control II
Explosive Plating II
Gyrostabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Small Projectile Ambit Extension I
The demise of this Wolf was unfortunately not a glorious death in a fireball of destruction after a close battle. It was foolishly caught by a light missile Condor. Starwalker had been distracted by picking up some drones and his drone overview did not show any ships. In short, he had not seen the Condor arrive - until it had established its lock, and then started to fire. Those were potentially very expensive drones.
Whilst the Condor started to peck at the Wolf's shield it also applied a tracking disruptor and Starwalker knew that his only chance was to escape, if possible. With the tracking disruptor applied he was applying no appreciable damage and whilst the incoming damage was modest it was working its way through the defences. It would only be a matter of time before the tank was overwhelmed.
The first slingshot failed and his small ancillary armour repairer was running low on charges, the second sling shot failed and his armour repairer was exhausted and it had started its reload cycle. It didn't matter, that reload cycle would never finish as the proud Wolf was going down and it died with a whimper.
That was EVE with its Rock Paper Scissors philosophy at work. The Wolf had met an asymmetric opponent, where the Wolf was designed to brawl the Condor was designed to kite. In theory the Wolf could strike the Condor at any range up to 30km away but the tracking disruptor stopped that. If the Wolf could scramble the Condor it would die but if it could maintain its range control then the Wolf would die.
It was a similar story to how Starwalker's Daredevil was killed. He had moved in towards a Tristan without taking a simple precaution - what guns were fitted. The Look At function would have shown a Tristan with no guns fitted and therefore almost guaranteed that it was fitted with a trio of energy neutralisers.
The Daredevil found out the hard way that its on paper over-heated damage of around 450 DPS (and nearly 500 DPS with a couple of implants) is zero when it has no capacitor. Like the Wolf this Daredevil exited EVE with a whimper too.
Starwalker saw the pilot was old (2005) and that he was in a Daredevil. Usually he would pass on by as that was too ambitious in a T1 frigate but today he thought he would try his luck. He wanted to see how this dual repair fit Breacher got on against the DPS powerhouse that was the Daredevil.
The Daredevil was waiting at the warp-in to the plex, which was a bad start as the range was around 2km, ideal for blasters and not ideal for the Breacher. Couple that with the 90% web that the Daredevil had and it really signalled the beginning of the end.
Even though the fight was almost over before it had started Starwalker launched his drones anyway and set his ancillary shield booster going. His only real hope now was for a poor fit or some pilot error. As expected, the incoming DPS was enormous and he had to almost instantly start his ancillary armour repairer too. However, the extra tank seemed to make no significant difference, as the Breacher entered deep armour the Daredevil had only just lost its shields.
It was over within seconds and Starwalker was so surprised at how quickly the Breacher had been decimated that he was too slow to warp his pod away and he lost that too for good measure. It had only recently been fitted with the Genolution implants, so it was a shame to see 100m in implants destroyed but that was low-sec and being podded was an occupational hazard.
Starwalker was not worried about the loss - losses happened, he simply got a new clone and fitted another 100m ISK worth of implants. It had never been a good idea to engage the Daredevil in a Breacher, it had always been just a roll of the dice and this time it had not worked.
Starwalker was feeling experimental and the recent buff to active tanks (ancillary shield boosters and ancillary armour repairers) beckoned enticingly. The Kestrel could easily be fit with both modules:
[Kestrel, Duality]
Damage Control II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
1MN Afterburner II
Warp Scrambler II
Stasis Webifier II
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster
Rocket Launcher II,Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket
Rocket Launcher II,Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket
Rocket Launcher II,Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket
Rocket Launcher II,Caldari Navy Mjolnir Rocket
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I
The cost for the dual tank was to lose the Ballistic Control Unit and consequently the already low DPS dipped to around 100. Starwalker found a Breacher and it seemed the ideal opportunity to try it out. The Breacher had a bonus to active shield repair but he reckoned that he could use the extra range of rockets with the Kestrel or if in close kick in the armour repairer.
Dark Magni was waiting and the fight started immediately at around 3km and despite trying to pull some range the Kestrel was never able to pull any further away. Worse the incoming damage was really hurting and the Breacher was winning the DPS war. As Starwalker's Kestrel dipped into armour he set the ancillary armour repairer going.
Despite overheating both modules he hit structure first and the Breacher was only in armour. As the Kestrel structure was stripped away the Breacher entered structure but it was too late for the Kestrel it exploded with the Breacher still having around 30% structure remaining.
Starwalker wondered if he had fit a Breacher with a dual tank would that have turned the loss into a kill. So he fit a Breacher with a dual tank and went out to see what happened. Unfortunately, the Atron that established a point on his dual tank Breacher was a kiting rail fit that maintained a range of around 20km and eventually the Atron got the kill after having done more than 9,000 damage to the Breacher.
[Breacher, Duality]
Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster
Rocket Launcher II,Inferno Javelin Rocket
Rocket Launcher II,Inferno Javelin Rocket
Rocket Launcher II,Inferno Javelin Rocket
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I
It seemed Murphy's law had struck again, if he had been in the Kestrel the longer range of the Javelins would have probably forced the Atron away but the Breacher Javelins could only reach out to around 15km.
So for one last time that night Starwalker set out in another dual tank Kestrel and the Tormentor that he found was looking for a fight too. The fight started and stayed around 7km. To Starwalker's surprise the Tormentor seemed to be incredibly tough and he was finding it a problem to kill it, both ships entered structure and they both marched towards zero in almost lock step. Another Breacher entered the fight and it would get an easy kill as both the Kestrel and Tormentor were on fire.
The Tormentor exploded and Starwalker tried to warp his Kestrel away with just 4% of structure left. It was too late, the Breacher had fired its rockets and they destroyed the burning hulk that was barely still recognisable as a Kestrel. The Kestrel exploded.
Starwalker was enjoying his Kestrel, especially in the afterglow of a battleship kill. A Condor arrived to find the battleship wreck being looted and took the opportunity to get a lock on the Kestrel. It started orbiting at around 20km and its light missiles began to chip away at the Kestrel's shield.
Starwalker tried an initial slingshot but it failed with the range only dropping to around 16km and so he switched to Inferno Javelin rockets for just such an occasion and started to return fire. The Condor started to take some damage but it stayed in the fight as it was still trying to collect the kill.
It was clear that the MWD Condor could leave at any time against the afterburner fit Kestrel and so Starwalker waited for his opportunity to escape. He knew that if the Condor thought it was in any danger of being destroyed first it would simply leave. So he aligned towards a cluster of celestials and watched the Condor orbit.
As the range started to increase from around 16km he overheated his afterburner and as the range passed 24km the point dropped. The Condor had not overheated his point to increase the range to 28km. Starwalker was ready with a random celestial selected and almost immediately warped away to within 70km of that asteroid belt. Even if the Condor rightly guessed which of the five celestials he had warped to he was very unlikely to guess the range too. The Condor pilot didn't guess right and it was a clean escape.
Some time later Starwalker saw a Merlin at a deadspace complex and warped in with his Mjolnir rockets loaded for EM damage. As he approach the acceleration gate his scan revealed that the Merlin had left but as he arrived at the gate he was met by a Republic Fleet Firetail. The hunter had just become the hunted.
His main concern was that he had fit a J5 Prototype Warp Disruptor I. This was fine against his intended prey of afterburner fit frigates as it allowed his point to be maintained beyond normal scramble range and his Caldari Navy rockets would continue to apply damage to around 13km - 15km. The trouble was that many Firetails seemed to be MWD and artillery fit and so the Firetail would be able to establish range control.
The Firetail locked and opened fire quickly and despite being webbed was soon moving to around 12km to 14km away. The Kestrel rockets could still hit the Firetail at that range but the incoming damage was worse than the outgoing damage. The Firetail entered armour around the same time as the shield fit Kestrel but the Firetail started to repair its armour damage and it was clear that the Kestrel would be destroyed. It exploded and the glorious battleship killer was just a wreck.
Starwalker was roaming through towards Adirain in leisurely preparation for Patrick Kasper's Rebel Roam themed around the Moa. He was looking for distractions as he was going as he had plenty of time to get there and there was no hurry. He noticed one other pilot in local and a Tempest on scan.
Starwalker checked the pilot information and saw that he was less than a month old. It seemed too good to be true as he scanned the Tempest down to an asteroid belt near the sun. It would be an excellent kill for his Kestrel if he could do it and there was only one way to find out.
As the Kestrel landed at the belt he was within 10km of the Tempest and immediately Starwalker applied the web and point. The Tempest had been ratting with some beaten up Hobgoblin Is and these were turned onto the Kestrel but they were easily dispatched. The Tempest was getting some glancing blows with the Kestrel orbiting by default at 7km and Starwalker tightened the orbit to 2.5km.
The meagre incoming damage disappeared and the Kestrel rockets slammed into the Tempest's shield whittling them down very slowly. Starwalker had to reload his rockets when another pilot appeared in local, and he wondered whether that pilot had come to assist the Tempest. He kept an eye on the directional scanner but nothing came in to assist.
The Tempest pilot initiated a conversation but Starwalker could not understand the Cyrillic characters. The Tempest desperately released two more drones but they also were destroyed and it was clear that the Tempest was helpless against the Kestrel that had now reached its armour defence. The pilot decided it was all over and initiated self destruct.
Starwalker had to reload yet again and he tried to overheat his missile launchers to get the kill before the 120 second self destruct completed. The Tempest went into structure and at 50% its self destruct blew it apart. The killmail was still very sweet and was accompanied by the pod too. A solo battleship kill in a T1 frigate - it was a great feeling.
Afterwards, Starwalker found out that he had been awarded a medal for that sensational kill - Black Rebel Torpedo. It was the icing on the cake, especially as this was the first time he had killed a battleship solo and in a frigate as well. This was the stuff that dreams were made of but the killmail proved it was no dream. Starwalker was one very happy pilot.
Starwalker wanted to buy some Reactor Control Units and they were a few jumps away in Barleguet. It seemed very straightforward to simply go there, pick them up and come back again. He jumped into system and saw a cyno beacon and had automatically started to warp towards it when he noticed that local had 102 pilots.
The direction scan showed many war ships and he decided to cancel the warp but before he could do so the warp had initiated and he was on his way there. As he feared the cyno location was at a station that was seething with ships looking like they were station camping.
Starwalker docked up immediately, knowing that he was lucky that the cyno was on the station docking ring and not 10km-30km away. As an outlaw he doubted if his Kestrel would have been able to escape if he was 30km away from the station. The problem now was that he had been an innocent bystander but he was as much a prisoner in the station as all of the other pilots in the station.
After a couple of hours of rest and recreation at the station Starwalker undocked but he suspected that it would still be station camped as local had gone up to 126. This was in a system that he rarely visited but when he did it had been quiet with less than half a dozen locals and sometimes zero. The station was still surrounded by many ships and so he docked up again, he was going nowhere for now.
