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.

Stilletto Tackles for Gang on Arzad Gate

Starwalker prepared to set off again for Pure Blind after his previous attempt ended in being podded in 93PI-4. Another new Rifter was pulled into service, the last from this station, and the journey started.

It started uneventful and Starwalker started to read the EVE News as the jumps blurred into one another. Then arriving at a star gate there was a Stilletto, a well-known interceptor ship, providing tackle for a gang. Starwalker jumped through to Arzad and the Stilletto followed, piloted by Wynning Blodtann.

Starwalker waited, holding cloak, as there was nothing else on the other side except for the Stilletto but just maybe the Stilletto was on its way elsewhere. It was not flashy red so Starwalker was not about to attack it. If it was part of a gang then no doubt the gang was inbound.

Starwalker attempted to warp away and the Stilletto engaged, establishing a fast scramble. Starwalker did not hesitate and went for the Stilletto, if he was going down he wanted to take the Stilletto with him.

The Stilletto quickly entered armour and started to burn away looking for escape, the rest of its gang hadn’t arrived yet and was taking longer than expected. Starwalker chased the Stilletto and overheated the mid-slots but the Stilletto was too fast and moved out to around 20km as his friends arrived.

Starwalker started to burn towards the gate as the gang was starting to engage at range. A Thrasher tried to establish a point as the Stilletto came back in and damage was starting to arrive from the Thrasher’s 250mm artillery and jjohnpaul’s CN Scourge heavy missiles. Zenton Karvash’s Tachyon Beam Lasers were missing and that might have made the difference as Starwalker’s Rifter entered deep armour damage.

Starwalker starting firing at the Stilletto again and it entered structured but Starwalker had forgotten to reapply scramble and the Stilletto warped away in deep structure. However, it was the Stilletto that had Starwalker’s Rifter scrambled and as he warped away Starwalker was also able to warp away trailing fire. He had escaped! Starwalker was pleased at how well his “heavy tank” Rifter had performed under fire.

Very soon Starwalker was continuing his journey after applying copious amounts of nanite paste to the badly overheated modules. Fortunately, the rest of the journey was uneventful as Starwalker chose to dock up before entering Pure Blind and then entered cautiously at a quiet time.

Starwalker made his way to the Pure Blind station that had his Caldari Navy Hookbills, delivered by Starstepper. Starstepper had narrowly avoided destruction from gate camps in EC-P8R from Torrinos whilst Starwalker was doing the tourist thing in New Eden.

The Hookbill, a new ship for Starwalker and one that he was looking forward to flying – its sleek black lines would look good in flames.