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. 

Over Confident Hookbill and Breacher

Starwalker scanned a Tormentor and Atron at a medium complex and decided whether to go in. It was possible that they were fighting or more likely that they were lying in wait for their next victim. He looked at the Caldari Navy Hookbill and decided that he would go in, what was the worst that could happen - loss of ship and pod?

He arrived at the warp-in and noticed that there were two flashy pilots but then the Tormentor disappeared and Starwalker assumed it was either destroyed or warped away and had left its Hobgoblins on the field. He targeted the Atron and engaged and surprisingly it seemed to be doing really good damage as the Hookbill shield went down fast.

Before Starwalker really knew what was happening his shield was gone and then the Tormentor reappeared but it was too late for the Hookbill as it exploded. It was only when he looked at the killmail did he realise that more than half of the damage had come from the drones. He was baffled as to exactly what (or how) that had happened.

 

After returning to base Starwalker undocked in a Breacher, for the first time. He wasn't sure whether he really liked the scram kiters, although he really respected what the Hookbill could do. The ship only lasted a few minutes after landing at zero on a Merlin, which proceeded to murder the Breacher in short order.

When Starwalker lost a brawler to a kiter he felt like he should try a kiter himself. When he lost a kiter to a brawler he wondered why he was trying the kiter as he favoured brawlers. This time was no different and he decided to get a new delivery of Merlins to the station, he really liked the neutron blaster fit. The other Breacher that was in station was returned to Hek, it had been a short flirtation with the ship.

Hookbill and Hawk Meet Their Maker

Starwalker had been enjoying the success of his Caldari Navy Hookbill in his recent engagements. It was bound to end at some point and it was with a little bit of over-confidence that he engaged an Algos at the sun. He had expected to simply burn through the Algos tank before the drones could break his shield. That was not the case and his fine Hookbill became a heap of space junk. For the next Algos fight Starwalker rectified that mistake and went for the drones first but in killing the drones he lost the scramble. So Nathan Irythia escaped with his ship but not his drones.

Starwalker undocked at the helm of a nice Hawk, which was a bit slow in comparison to the Hookbill but it was still a good ship. He spied a Federation Navy Comet at a complex and warped in. The fight started as expected, the Comet was being murdered by the Hawk but then an Incursus arrived and the Comet started to pull range. The Incursus fired on the Hawk. Starwalker suspected that they were cooperating and then noticed that they were both part of the B O R G. The Comet left the fight in deep armour and the Hawk started firing at the Incursus instead but it was easily tanking the damage.

The Comet came back along with a Dramiel and the fight had just turned decisively against Starwalker. He realised too late that tactically he should have moved from the warp-in point as he had made their job much easier. With three frigates in close proximity pounding on the Hawk it was not long before it too became an inert lump of metal and joined its maker.

Back at base Starwalker undocked in another Hookbill and took to the space lanes again. An Atron in a small complex was looking for a fight and surprisingly had the idea of taking on the Hookbill. He started 40km away but edged his way closer feeling out the range. At first Starwalker suspected a kiting fit because he deliberately stayed out of scramble range but then he seemed to change his mind and moved into an orbit of around 8km

This was an opportunity too good to miss and the Atron soon regretted coming in so close as the rockets tore through its structure. Starwalker moved on and spied a Rifter and Tristan together in a medium complex. He decided to engage and as he warped to the gate the two T1 frigates were waiting together for the fight.

Starwalker obliged and went for the Rifter as the closest ship and before long the Rifter was in armour and trying to disengage - it was soon out of scramble range and carried on to go about 30km away. The incoming damage was low and so Starwalker turned his attention to fight the Tristan and before long it too was in deep armour. For some unknown reason the Rifter decided to come back and help his fleet mate but as he got to within 10km the Tristan exploded. The Rifter turned around to run away but Starwalker overheated his web and afterburner and the Rifter died in an explosion shortly after the Tristan.

Starwalker had engaged in a 1 v 2 fight and won, he was very happy with the result even though it was not really a tough fight.

Hookbill has the Speed

Starwalker had been flying around with his Caldari Navy Hookbill with a new appreciation for the benefits of speed in a brawler ship or at least a ship fighting in scrambler range. He was still waiting for an opportunity to confirm if he could reliably slingshot fast (MWD) kiters in an afterburner fit frigate, when he spied a Breacher on scan.

The Breacher as a Minmatar missile ship was usually fit with rockets so that probably would not be a test, until he noticed that the ship's speed was definitely indicating an MWD fit. Starwalker moved towards it and as the distance closed to less than 30km he overheated his afterburner. The intention was to try and take advantage of the Breacher overshooting its orbit range during the initial few seconds and establish a scram.

It either worked or was completely unnecessary as the distance closed to less than 10km. Starwalker wasn't sure which reason was correct but that did not stop him from engaging with his rockets. It was clear very soon that the Breacher was active shield tanked, taking advantage of its bonus and the amount the shields recovered looked like dual ancillary shield boosters.

Starwalker knew that the active tank would not last much more than 20 seconds and then the Breacher would be toast. The incoming damage was manageable and soon the Breacher was a spreading mass of debris. He tried to get the pod as well but it was away too quickly. Checking the Breacher fit revealed a MWD and scram, so Tarkathanas was always going to come in close and was really fit to catch Faction Warfare pilots, like this AFK Atron, with three warp core stabilisers.

The MWD and scrambler combination would always lose range control to an afterburner and scrambler combination and this range control gave an option for the pilot to leave the fight. That was exactly what Starwalker did when his Hookbill engaged a Jaguar 50km off the complex acceleration gate and it became 2 v 1.

The Hookbill easily established range control at around 7km, which would and did blunt the main damage from the 125mm autocannon fit Jaguar. However, the fight was still close as the shields for the both ships marched down to zero. It looked like Starwalker had the better of it when the Jaguar pilot, SUICIDAL Larsen, brought in a Blackbird or called in a fleet mate. Starwalker almost instantly lost his lock and so he aligned out, overheated his afterburner and escaped. It was good that the Hookbill had the speed to simply evade destruction in this trap.

Choice of Ship and Fit

Starwalker had been finding some fights and kills in faction warfare sites such as this Atron and Slasher. This cyno-ship was just unlucky in that Starwalker had attempted to kill it but he had been chased off by sentry fire. When he returned there was a Machariel standing guard so he quickly left again but the cyno-ship was killed by a Loki shortly afterwards.

However, more generally, Starwalker had recently either been chasing ships that were far too fast to be caught or had to escape when he was unable to get into scramble range. There was a third alternative and that was the kiter was driven off by factors such as incoming damage, stalemate or new entrants to the fight.

The key problem for Starwalker was that he was unable to get into scramble range when he was in an afterburner fit, brawling frigate and coming up against fast or MWD fit frigates like the Condor or Kestrel. They maintained point and range control of around 16km - 24km away. He had now tried many times to slingshot ships into scramble range (10km with overheat) and whether it was poor manual piloting or not the end result was the same he either had to escape or be destroyed.

The upperhand and therefore choice was always with the faster ship as they could either stay to the bitter end or leave if things started to look bad. Starwalker had recently fought against a Kestrel and whilst the drones from his Tristan had inflicted damage the Kestrel could simply decide to leave when it was in any danger, which is what it did. This escape option would always be open if Starwalker was unable to establish a long point (warp disruption) or scramble.

The fight with the Maulus had a similar outcome to the Kestrel in that the Hawk's Javelin missiles could chase it away but without a long point the faster Maulus would dictate how long the fight lasted. So damage projection was useful both offensively and defensively but to get the kill required warp disruption. Starwalker was enjoying the Tristan but he needed more speed.

To go faster, Starwalker needed to either fly faster afterburner ships or use a MWD fit, which would mean giving up range control against any afterburner fit frigate that got into scram range. Speed was not the only factor and key factors such as damage projection and tank needed to be combined into the choice of ship(s) and fit to fly.

It was a dilemma and no matter what ship (frigate) or fit was chosen there was always a counter that would destroy it or something that would be faster or have better damage projection and so on. The key for Starwalker was to select a ship and fit based on what he expected to encounter or fight against and also was prepared to fly and lose. It was about establishing relative superiority to the potential target, which was possible. What was not possible was one frigate and fit that could beat every other frigate in combat.

Starwalker's recent experience was that he was encountering a lot of fast ships and he did not know whether a ship going around 1.2km/s was any better at doing a slingshot than a ship going at around 1km/s. In short, he would either need to spend some time looking at fast afterburner ships like the Condor and Breacher or fitting a MWD to a combat frigate like the Merlin and Tristan. Those choices did not even include some of the other excellent frigates such as the Caldari Navy Hookbill or Hawk - so many choices...

Mistake on Gate

Since Starwalker had a MWD Merlin fit from the TESF roam he decided to go into Syndicate with it and to see what fights he could find. He went to TXW-EI as it seemed it was not camped or at least had very few pilots in it from the map. He got to Vestouve and found a Malediction and Tornado on scan, they appeared to be together so Starwalker ignored them and jumped in to TXW-EI.

The system was camped and he had landed in a bubble with multiple ships but in particular a Sabre and two Vagabonds were close by. Close enough to get the scramble and kill. Starwalker did not panic and looked at his position and theirs relative to the gate and decided to run back to the gate.

He set his MWD to overheat, waited a little longer and then hit align and the MWD to get to the gate before he lost his propulsion module. The Sabre and Vagabond reacted quickly and he was locked and fired on but he was not scrambled and it was clear that he would make it to the gate as he had only lost 25% of his shield. He jumped.

The Malediction and Tornado were around 20km off the gate and Starwalker decided he needed to make a run for it so he aligned to a planet to the right and hit warp. There was no point in waiting as he could not go back into TXW-EI. The longer he waited the worse it might become as other gang members in TXW-EI jumped through. 

The Malediction was too far away to get the scramble and Starwalker felt that he had a good chance of either escaping or getting some distance and possibly killing the Malediction. The warp engaged and he was gone before either ship even targeted him. As he landed at the planet he warped immediately again to the sun - just as the Malediction came in. Local started to increase and Starwalker decided to get out of Dodge before he left in his pod.

Starwalker was pleased with himself for escaping and reshipped in Covryn to a Tristan, he was going to roam low-sec and wanted to be in an afterburner fit frigate. There were a number of gate camps around, especially in Heydieles and Old Man Star but they simply let his frigate go through. Presumably they were looking for bigger prey.

Starwalker scanned down an Atron who seemed to be ratting but when Starwalker jumped in it was nearly 300km away. The same thing with the same Atron happened at another asteroid belt and this time he burnt towards it hoping he was looking for a fight. He was. The Tristan released its drones and engaged. The Atron was held at 5km as the Tristan started to take damage. The repairer could not keep up as the armour melted and the first slivers of structure were exposed. But the Atron was suffering much worse under the relentless drone fire and it exploded first.

Starwalker was feeling very happy with himself and felt that he was really starting to improve. It was at moments like these that fate then plays it tricks - Starwalker was about to make a stupid mistake on a low-sec gate. The Incursus at gate was not red and he knew that he had to wait to be fired on before engaging it, however, Starwalker managed to convince himself that he had been fired on and engaged with his drones. The gate guns opened up and Starwalker knew that he had made a mistake and he aligned out and hit warp. He might just make it in time - if he was lucky.

The Incursus pilot could not believe his good luck and simply applied a scram and started firing but really just to hold the Tristan there. Starwalker could not warp away and the ship exploded within seconds from the gate gunfire. Baali Tekitsu asked why he had been aggressed, Starwalker had no good answer he had simply made a mistake.

If that mistake was using drones too early the next fight was using drones too late. He had arrived at the acceleration gate and warped through into the waiting Coercer. It was going to be a difficult fight anyway but Starwalker made it harder by launching his drones too soon i.e. not out of warp yet and of course the command was then simply ignored. Starwalker only realised that his drones were not fighting when his shield were gone - that was far too late for this Tristan.