Crow Engages Drake

Starwalker had sold his data cores on the way back from the suicide ganks near Kador Prime. It netted around 13m ISK and had hardly been worth the effort. The only positive from that trip was that it had placed him near Kador Prime.

Returning to Ishomilken in a Crow was reasonably fast but Starwalker was considering selling the Crow as although he liked the speed he wanted ships with more gank. He jumped into system to see a flashy red Drake loitering 25km away from the gate. The pilot, GaRDoN Cezar, was likely to be bait as local had 10 pilots - far more than usual.

Starwalker looked at the pilot and then looked at his Crow. It was possible to kill a Drake with a Crow if it was not well fit and its tank would succumb to the mediocre damage coming in, however, that was unlikely to be the case here. The sensible decision was to leave but Starwalker was feeling ambitious and wanted to see what would happen. He locked up the target and fired.

The Drake seemed to be active shield tanked or had a good regenerative tank as the initial damage, whilst very modest, was simply absorbed and disappeared. The Drake decided it was time to stop playing and released a flight of Acolytes.

Starwalker had only occasionally fought larger ships and their drones and had not fared well. This time was no better, he had killed the first three and nearly had the fourth down but he was into armour. He still had Javelin and Spike loaded and that did not help and he cursed the fact that he had not changed to close range ammunition earlier.

It was not going to end well and Starwalker knew what was coming next, so he aligned out just as a heavy missile from the Drake shattered what was left of the Crow. Another Drake arrived as Starwalker's pod sped away and its pilot, Icuwarrior engaged. He was the lucky recipient of the R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N blob and he felt compelled to rather pointlessly complain about it in local. 

The Crow was gone but Starwalker was not unhappy. He had not really expected to take down the Drake and he was already considering his next ship. 

Crow versus Stilletto

Starwalker was enjoying the nebulae in The Citadel when a Stilletto came up on scan. At first, he thought it was a recon ship but then realised it was an interceptor. In either case he expected to be kited to death in his Merlin and so decided to reship to a Crow.

Before he had warped away from the Sun the Stilletto was there, piloted by RogueCorsair. It was a bit more information to know who the pilot was and so, looking him up on Battleclinic, Starwalker could see that his killboard looked impressive and it would probably be an easy win for RogueCorsair. Of course, that was no reason to run from a fight and it would be good experience to see how things actually turned out.

Starwalker returned in his Crow and waited patiently at the Sun, very confident the Stilletto would be there soon. RogueCorsair was still in system and it was not long before the Stilletto was at the Sun too. The Crow closed the 300km very quickly, one of the joys of an interceptor - sheer speed - and set orbit at 20km. The Stilletto had a completely different idea and closed in to 1km.

It was a complete surprise and Starwalker started firing his rockets but he had preloaded Javelin. It seemed that they had no effect and Starwalker paid the ten seconds reload time and changed to Rage rockets. His launchers were already over heated and he tried to overheat his MWD to get some range, knowing that his damage was affected by ship speed and not range. However, he wanted to try manual piloting and doing it under fire.

The manual piloting had no success as the few manoeuvres tried only temporarily increased the range to 6km but the Stilletto went right back to 1km. Worse still Starwalker had not paid enough attention to his modules and burnt out everything. Helpless, he then had to wait as the Stilletto finally destroyed the Crow.

Starwalker had been surprised by the Stilletto tactic and that had turned out to be an excellent decision by RogueCorsair as he was not ready for it psychologically and his ship ammunition was pre-selected for range. 

More importantly, it had solidified for Starwalker that whilst he liked the speed of the interceptor he was not really a kiter. He liked to get up close and personal and kill or be killed. Dancing on the edge of point range and doing less than 100 DPS was not really his idea of fun.

Crow is Close but No Cigar

Starwalker was out in the Crow cruising around and looking for trouble. He was still very new to Interceptors and was not clear on what he could engage, what was ambitious and what was impossible. He still needed to train Interceptor V too.

A Wolf was at the sun and Starwalker did not hesitate to engage it. He knew that the artillery fit Wolf was very common but he wanted to see what would happen. Spiralling in the Crow arrived at around 20km away and the Wolf started landing solid hits - artillery fit with 280mm Howitzers. 

The Crow shields dropped very rapidly and Starwalker decided to leave as it seemed like another few shots would destroy the ship. As soon as he decided to hit warp Starwalker changed his mind and decided that getting under the Wolf guns would be best. However, it was too late, by the time Starwalker warped back the Wolf was gone.

A little while later at another sun Starwalker engaged an Enyo and decided to orbit around 18km as he wanted to avoid both the very likely blasters and being slingshot into scrambler range. The Enyo was unable to hit the Crow but seemed to be tanking the rocket damage just fine and Starwalker wondered whether he could break the active tank.

He decided that the best way to achieve that would be to continue to plink away and see if the capacitor died in the next couple of minutes. However, he was not checking the range closely enough and the problem with the selected range was that it bumped very close to the J5 Warp Disruptor range of 20km and the Enyo managed to get away.

Starwalker was not really sure if he could have killed both Assault Frigates but he felt that he should have:

• Moved in close to the Wolf as soon as he realised that it was an artillery fit
• Moved closer to the Enyo or used Warp Disruptor II for a 24km point

Impact of Drake Price Spike

The Drake price over the last few months had spiked dramatically:

Starwalker had intended to fly the Drake next and had trained Battlecruiser V but given the price rise though it had now moved to a less affordable level as Starwalker fully expected to lose many more ships.

Whilst flying a battlecruiser would be postponed Starwalker was definitely enjoying flying around in the Crow and given what was happening with ship prices he guessed that he would continue to fly around in frigates for a while longer. The Crow price had seemed to remain reasonably static:

However, Starwalker was also considering flying more of the T1 frigates, for example, he had never flown a Tristan and it looked like a fun ship. The issue as always was that he would need to do some more training, in particular Small Hybrid Turrets. Most of Starwalker's skills were in missiles and small projectile turrets. So much training and so slow!

Two Rifters at the Sun in Tama

Starwalker was cruising around The Citadel in his Crow and enjoying flying at interceptor speeds ~3km/s. Jumping in to a new system a Kestrel was around 50km off the gate and Suzu Fujibayashi asked whether the Crow was an SML or Rocket fit.

After considering the question for a moment, Starwalker replied "Rockets" and went to the Sun.  His thinking was simple - if the Kestrel was missile fit and could successfully kite then he could simply run. If the Kestrel was also rocket fit then it should be a victory. The Kestrel arrived at the Sun 100km away and Starwalker burnt towards it.

The Crow started orbiting and firing away with the rockets at around 18km and the Kestrel started to lose its shields. After a few seconds the Kestrel simply decided to leave, gained distance and warped away. Starwalker was surprised that the Kestrel could get away so easily and wondered if he should have approached or used a tighter orbit to make the Kestrel's escape a little harder.

Starwalker moved on, was soon in Tama and warping to the Sun. Two Rifters were there around 100km away, piloted by Cyberkilll and Gerhard Faust. Starwalker hadn't scanned the sun beforehand and so it was a surprise to see them there but he did not hesitate and simply charged straight in.

The first Rifter was locked and being orbited at around 16km with the Crow's rockets tearing away the shields. The second Rifter was closing fast and was around 10km away and applied a web very quickly. Starwalker tried to keep the second Rifter at distance but it didn't work and suddenly the Rifter was at 3km with a scram applied.

Starwalker thought it was looking bad but he kept his overheated rockets on the first Rifter and it exploded. The incoming damage was very low but he had no time to think about that and quickly switched targets. The rockets now pounded at the second Rifter and as that Rifter started to crumble he noticed that very little damage had been received or was being received despite the fact that the Rifter was still close. It too erupted into a ball of fire.

Starwalker had won his first 1v2 even if both victims were new. Whilst this was the first time that he had engaged two ships solo and won he considered his mistakes. He had not:

• Considered positioning his Crow to engage one at a time, he had simply charged in and set the orbit
• Reacted to the second Rifter soon enough, he had not watched the second Rifter approach and he should have tried to keep it at range earlier
• Seen the relative positions of the ships, he had watched the battle through the overview and HUD and so was never aware of relative position, only relative distance 

Whatever the faults of the fight, Starwalker was please to get some kills and looked forward to flying in the Crow again. That reminded him, his training for Battlecruiser V was now finishing, he would complete Destroyers V next and then do Interceptor V.

Oracle and Friends Flee from Crow

Starwalker cruised around the sun in a Crow and scanned for local targets. An Oracle, Harbinger and an Abaddon. It was not clear if they were together but Starwalker wanted to get close to the Oracle and destroy it.

Warping in to a nearby Customs Office Starwalker found the three ships, they seemed to be POS bashing. The Oracle was nearest at around 70km away and Starwalker hit approach but changed it immediately to spiral in. He knew that the Oracle would likely be able to destroy the Crow if it could hit it with zero transversal and with the micro-warpdrive going, which increases the signature radius.

The Harbinger and Abaddon warped away immediately but the Oracle stayed to take a few pot shots. Starwalker closed in to around 43km but the Oracle was not hanging around and before a point could be established it warped away. This was the first time that ships had scattered from Starwalker and he was faintly amused by it. 

Wolf Catches Crow Murdering Merlin

Starwalker was cruising around setting up a bookmark when Kazzard20 called for a frigate fight at the top asteroid belt. A second invitation was not required and Starwalker warped in to find Kazzard20 in a Wolf around 70km away.

Despite trying to approach the Wolf, the Crow was having trouble moving around in the asteroids and before Starwalker had made any real progress towards the Wolf a Merlin had arrived too. The Merlin, piloted by Geodeath came in close to around 11km and Starwalker's Crow engaged it,  immediately gaining some distance to get out of web range. It worked and the distance settled to around 17km. The rockets were firing and applying modest damage but more importantly the point was established, so the Merlin was going nowhere.

The Merlin shields started to drop and the Wolf disappeared but Starwalker doubted that it would be gone for good, it was probably afterburner fit and looking for a warp in point. Starwalker overheated the rockets to get the kill and soon the Merlin's armour and structure was exposed. The Wolf arrived at only 3km as the Merlin exploded. It locked the Crow, applied scramble and started firing its 200mm auto-cannons.

Starwalker made a mistake by first approaching the Wolf rather than spiralling away immediately. He had briefly forgotten that he was flying an interceptor and not a brawler frigate. That decision was reversed quickly and as the Crow started to gain distance it was a race as to whether the Crow would break free or break apart. It broke apart at 15km away.

Starwalker had lost his Crow - no doubt more would be lost. More importantly, he had realised that fighting in an asteroid belt was very dangerous for an interceptor. It was simply far too easy to lose all speed as the Crow tangled with the asteroids rather than the target.

Maiden Flight of the Crow

Starwalker had completed his frigate training and was now the proud owner of a brand new Crow - Interceptor class frigate. The Crow was undocked and slipped out into space with the engines whisper quiet. It then shot away to a safe.

The asymmetric hull shape was not to everyone's taste but Starwalker was more interested in what it could do than how it looked and set off around Molden Heath. After setting the default orbit distance it was time to test the top speed and see just what a Caldari interceptor class frigate could do.

It was fast and agile but no test would be complete without some action to test the weaponry as well. Starwalker moved from system to system but it seemed pretty quiet and then at the next star gate an NPC Angel Legionnaire was lurking. It seemed an ideal opportunity to test the weaponry and so he moved in, whilst keeping an eye on d-scan.

The first surprise was the overshoot on the approach. It seemed like the Crow simply came in too fast and the orbit of 16km was quickly reduced to 12km. Against a real pilot that might have resulted in being webbed and then scrammed. However, before long the Crow was in a 16km orbit spitting out Javelin rockets. 

The second surprise was how slow the battlecruiser went down or how little damage the rockets were actually doing. Perhaps the problem was the size of target engaged or more likely unrealistic expectations but whatever, many rockets were consumed, including after the switch to Rage.

The final surprise was how the capacitor worked it's way down and whilst it seemed to pause around the 30% mark it still dropped through that too. Starwalker had assumed that any fight would be long finished before the capacitor became an issue but that was not true against this bigger target. 

The good news was that the battlecruiser was completely ineffective and the Crow received very little damage at all. The only time that any real happened was when the speed dropped as the Crow got tangled with the gate. Eventually, the Angel Legionnaire succumbed to the inevitable.

Starwalker didn't usually shoot rats but he considered that it was useful from time to time to test a ship. He also considered whether he should move his security status back to less than 5 so that he could move through high security space. If he did that, then shooting rats would perhaps be a simple way to do it.