Stop Loss

It was one of those days, Starwalker could do no right and his ship losses reflected that sad fact. In the financial world there was the concept of a "stop loss", if a position (or bet) was going badly then to stop any further losses a stop loss was executed or the open position was closed.

It was a painful decision to close the position and take the loss as it meant that there was no hope for a recovery or to make a profit but more importantly it prevented a bad situation getting worse. It was a decision to put reality before hope and limit the loss.

Typically, Starwalker would remain docked as soon as he had lost three ships in a single day - to stop his losses. However, this time he decided to keep flying and the losses mounted:

1. Amenophis I had lost his Tristan to Starwalker's Merlin and he had re-shipped to an Incursus. The implicit challenge was accepted and the repaired Merlin landed for a close range brawl. As the fight progressed Starwalker was surprised to be capped out as he was theoretically cap-stable and he was neither neuted nor was there another other ship on grid. With the capacitor dry the fight stopped and the Merlin exploded
2. Starwalker re-shipped to a Coercer and undocked to find Mark Yanning in a Catalyst (again) at the undock. The Catalyst wasted no time and engaged, Starwalker responded in kind but fighting on station is rarely a good idea. Mark Yanning had brought friends this time - a Thrasher piloted by Sybian Silk Silk. As the Thrasher undocked and engaged it was inevitable that the Coercer would be destroyed and unfortunately he didn't take the Catalyst with him
3. His second Coercer was undocked to find Sybian Silk Silk still on station but around 30km away. Starwalker could see Mark Yanning in local and so he simply warped off - just as Mark Yanning arrived in a Vexor. Unfortunately, that extra lease of life for the Coercer did not last long as he went in at range to a complex with a Wolf and Slasher. The arty Wolf engaged but was soon trying to escape and he was helped by the Slasher who established a scramble. Poor piloting had allowed the Wolf to escape and the Slasher to get a tackle, Starwalker switched target to the Slasher and inevitably the Wolf came back to help finish the kill and the Coercer soon became another space wreck
4. Next a shiny new Enyo was taken into space and foolishly Starwalker decided to engage a Tristan that was setup to kite at the edge of point range. It was soon accompanied by a Kestrel with light missiles. The Enyo eventually succeeded with a slingshot on the Tristan but in the process it burnout its MWD. The scrambled Tristan started to go down but the Enyo had taken too much damage was still taking damage, and soon it was gone
5. Not content with having lost four ships in quick succession Starwalker undocked in his Taranis and ran into the same kiting Tristan. Given that he had successfully got the slingshot earlier he thought he would try again, even though he was fit with an afterburner this time. It did not work after multiple attempts. Starwalker was low on armour and so he tried to run, and got to 34km away but the Tristan still had point, it was either very expensively fit by Gluecksbaerchi or linked. In desperation he tried to kill the drones but he was too slow and had waited too long to start on them - the Taranis became his fifth fireball of the night
6. The Tormentor would hopefully do better than the Taranis, surely his "luck" was about to change. Sturgeon Rowe in his Tristan was also kiting at the edge of point range and after a couple of attempts to slingshot Starwalker gave up and started to work on the drones. It was then he realised how feeble the DPS was for the Tormentor and whilst it had a great tank its DPS was abysmal. It was far too low for Starwalker's taste and whilst he lamented the lack of firepower the Tormentor finally gave up its structure in disgust at this pilot's poor handling of the ship's merits
7. This time would be different, Starwalker undocked in his third Coercer and chased a Talwar around. He eventually caught it in another complex but only because the Talwar wanted to be caught - he had another friend waiting there in an Algos. The Coercer did not last long after the trap was sprung
8. Deterred but sure his luck was about to change Starwalker undocked in his final Coercer, in a triumph of stupidity over common sense or probability. The Coercer chased a Republic Fleet Firetail around and he had a sense of deja vu. The sinking feeling was cemented as he entered a complex and was engaged by both the Firetail and a Hawk. The Coercer was scrambled immediately and as soon as the Firetail thought it was in danger it scampered away to safety and let the Hawk finish the job

Starwalker returned to base in an Ibis and docked up. He had lost eight ships in one day, a new record that he would have preferred had not happened. He was disappointed but tomorrow would be another day.

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.

Merlin Tormented in Tama

Starwalker had been cruising around Placid in his Merlin and was not finding much trouble to get into. The closest time had been when a Tormentor had arrived on gate and Starwalker had orbited it for a couple of minutes but as it was not flashy Starwalker had to wait for it to fire first.
 
The Tormentor did not fire until Starwalker was about to jump out again and had moved just under 10km back to the gate. It then hit very hard and Starwalker was already into armour before he had even started his ancillary shield booster. He knew that if he re-engaged he would be destroyed before reaching blaster range so he calmly jumped out and then went to a station to repair.
 

Starwalker meandered around for a while longer and then decided to go somewhere where he was more or less guaranteed to find a fight - Tama. He headed over there and within seconds of arriving in system he was challenged by Rakaar to a duel. Rakaar was -10 and a top pilot but that had never stopped Starwalker before from accepting a duel and this time was no different - he accepted.
 
Rakaar had spotted Starwalker in his Merlin at the gate when he was in a Jaguar and so after he had issued a challenge he went to change ship. Starwalker knew that he had just given him two advantages:

1. The opportunity for a top pilot to get an easy kill against a low ranked pilot
2. The opportunity to select a ship that would be the perfect counter to a Merlin

Despite that Starwalker was unconcerned as losing a T1 frigate was no big deal and he wanted to see how he would do against Rakaar. The short answer was not very well.

Starwalker tried to be too clever with the ancillary shield booster by turning it on and then off to cycle just once. However, he had under-estimated just how much damage was coming in and he had to start the booster again almost immediately. But, it seemed that the fight was almost over before it had started, as his ship exploded with the Tormentor still in at least 40% of its armour.

The surprise at how quickly it had finished was why Starwalker then had his pod caught as usually he was aligned out and spamming warp when the end was near. Rakaar asked about implants but Starwalker declined any ransom and waited to be podded. For whatever reasons, Rakaar decided to let Starwalker's pod go and so he smiled thanks and returned to Covryn with implants intact.

In retrospect, Starwalker knew that he could have improved:

1. Frigate fights are over too quick to worry about managing ancillary shield boosters and trying to get individual cycles rather than bursts
2. Blasters required being close but Starwalker's range seemed to be around 3km and that was not close enough. He should have overheated his afterburner sooner
3. Getting the pod out was a priority, aligning out in armour and then spamming warp should have started as soon as the armour started to give way to structure