Wolf at the Gate

Starwalker had long had a predilection for high DPS frigates like the Enyo and Daredevil, the neutron blaster kings. The Wolf was not far behind in being able to dish out the damage, this brute could do a selectable damage type of 270 DPS before overheat and around 300 DPS with heat:

[Wolf, MWD400SAAR]

Gyrostabilizer II
Internal Force Field Array I
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I

200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
Rocket Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Rocket

Small Projectile Burst Aerator I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I

[Genolution implants CA-1 and CA-2 used for this fit]

In many cases, being able to select the damage type would make a considerable difference to the all important applied DPS. Whilst this Wolf could do around 300 DPS at around 1km it dropped to around 150 DPS at 10km. Applied DPS would be less than this theoretical maximum and affected by many factors, in particular, transversal velocity and target resistance profile.

The intended tactics were simple - get close and overwhelm their tank before they disengaged or die trying. The advantage of a high DPS frigate was that anything that got too close was very likely to be destroyed quickly. This speed was also useful if disengaging before the rest of the gang arrived.

Those were some of thoughts going through Starwalker's mind as he jumped his Wolf into system and he saw a flashy Atron just hanging on the gate. It was clear that the Atron was going nowhere and was likely bait for a gang, the question was could it be killed before the rest of the gang arrived. Normally, Starwalker did not attack on gate as there were too many variables and a strong likelihood of becoming the victim rather than the aggressor but he was feeling lucky.

The Wolf approached with auto-cannons blazing away and established a scramble, the Atron aggressed and Starwalker knew that the gang would arrive soon. If the Atron were alone it would simply jump out as it had no real chance against a Wolf. The gang arrived faster than expected and the Wolf was suddenly surrounded by three Tristans and an Imperial Navy Slicer, that was too much firepower for the Wolf but it was too late to run now, it was committed to do or die.

Two Tristans and the Slicer smartly moved out to around 20km but the Wolf was still surrounded by drones, the Atron and a third Tristan. The Atron went down and Starwalker caught the third Tristan before it could also pull range. The incoming damage was fierce and the Wolf's armour tank was in deep trouble, the small ancillary armour repairer only had two charges left and most of the armour was already gone. With two frigates down and three more still fighting it was not looking good.

The Slicer was closest and Starwalker turned his attention to getting into scramble range with a quick blast of the MWD. The Slicer was caught and with the blistering fire from the auto-cannons it melted quickly. The Wolf was bloodied and dying and it made a last desperate attempt to get a Tristan but as it leapt forwards the final blow was delivered and it crumpled into a lifeless wreck.

Rebel Roam to Lantorn

The weekly Rebel Roam had Peri Simone as the FC and Brink Albosa as the scout. The destination was chosen as Lantorn and the fleet was composed of a mixed bag of frigates. The roam started from Adirain but it was not until Heimatar and faction warfare space that any action was found.

The three target frigates in a Novice complex were frightened away by the arrival of the Rebel T1 frigates and one hapless victim chose to warp to the sun at zero. The unfortunate Republic Fleet Firetail landed at the sun in the midst of the T2 frigates and it quickly exploded, with Starwalker's Wolf putting in a satisfactory amount of the damage.

The Rebel fleet moved on to Lantorn and the scout spotted Radzak87 in system. Starwalker immediately recognised the name as a top pilot that he had died to previously. Peri chose from his extensive tactical playbook - wait at the sun, and the fleet warped in to zero. It was soon joined by an Augoror Navy Issue (ANI), piloted by Radzak87, and the Rebel fleet went to work on it.

The ANI was not alone and a Hawk, Kitsune and Caldari Navy Hookbill tried to pick off individual Rebel targets but the Hawk got caught and went down. It was clear that the ANI was very well tanked but after its drones were cleared it was also going down, unless it could get more help. The Rebels continued to rain fire on the ANI, which held for a long time but with no further assistance coming onto the field of glory it exploded into a fiery ball of shattered metal.

The ANI had taken more than 68,000 points of damage, its damage control, two 1600mm armour plates, two EANM II and 3 tri-mark rigs had given it an impressive tank. It had been a good fight and "GFs" were exchanged in local. The fleet collected its loot and moved on.

The next few kills were rather strange:

• This Kestrel was more than 100km from the dead-space complex warp in point and it started to burn towards the Rebel scout's Claw. The Kestrel saw the rest of the fleet arrive but continued to burn in. It wasn't going to end well for the Kestrel and it did not
• This Thorax was baiting the fleet on a gate and given that many fleet members were outlaws it could try to pick and choose targets with the comparative safety of gate-guns to protect it from aggression. However, the Thorax pilot got too clever and ended up aggressing the wrong pilots. From there it quickly went downhill for the Thorax and a few Rebels took the opportunity to get onto the easy killmail
• Perhaps Bad Neurone in this Thorax expected help from local but, if so, it never came and the Thorax was caught by Patrick Kasper and with the arrival of the rest of the fleet it was easily overwhelmed

It had been another fun roam and some more kills to add to the count. However, the count that Starwalker was most interested in was the number of solo kills, he had just recently hit 500 kills and that was significant. For some strange reason he wanted to get the medal Black Rebel Lone Wolf to add to his collection. Whilst it was had no real significance as nobody really looked at medals, he wanted one anyway.

Rock Paper Scissors

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. 

Wolf Engages Hookbill in Plex

Starwalker was returning to Eugales in his Wolf after his null-sec roam with Kaeda Maxwell and Vincent R'lyeh. Passing through Ashitsu, he saw a Caldari Navy Hookbill on dscan. It was too good an opportunity to miss so he looked for it and scanned it down to a plex.

Warping in to the plex Starwalker saw the Hookill more than 70km away and started to burn towards it with his afterburner fit. It seemed unlikely that the Hookbill would stay for the fight as surely the Hookbill would have a hard time against a Wolf. As the distance closed the Hookbill remained in the plex.

Starwalker watched the distance close to less than 30km and couldn't decide whether the pilot, di14juni1983, was stupid, brave or oblivious. He waited to less than 20km and then started the lock, which surely would alert di14juni1983 to the imminent danger. The Hookbill engaged first! Starwalker was surprised but pleased and tried to close into point blank with the auto-cannons spitting out their venom.

The distance did not close to less than 8km and Starwalker wondered whether he should switch to barrage or simply keep firing as the Hookbill was going down nicely. The incoming damage seemed anemic and was also being supplemented by some of the rat's fire but Starwalker's shields were holding very nicely and he hadn't even started the armour repairer yet.

The Hookbill started to gain some distance and the Wolf point dropped but strangely the pilot did not automatically warp away and maybe he hadn't realised the point was gone. Or possibly the Hookbill was aligning out, however, the Wolf did its thing and the final volley blew through the remaining armour and structure to destroy the Hookbill. Starwalker was pleased with the kill but forgot to collect the loot, even though he had to wait out the GCC.

Starwalker noted afterwards that he should have tried to observe the fight directly rather than watch the overview for maintaining situational awareness, in partcular to pinpoint when the Hookbill was moving out of scramble range. Similarly, Starwalker messed up getting the pod and so he should emphasise that final approach when the enemy target was about to explode to increase his chance of getting the pod too.

Rebels Run Into Fatal Ascension

Starwalker had missed out on an opportunity to roam within a Rebel small gang for some time and when Kaeda Maxwell setup a roam he jumped at the chance. The last time he had been in fleet with Kaeda it had been a great night with an excellent T1 cruiser battle at the end. This time Starwalker was in a Wolf.

The Wolf spat out projectiles inflicting around 250 damage per second. It was a frigate sized monster, decimating whatever was in its path. Starwalker liked ships with plenty of gank and only wished that high gank ships also had really good tanks but they tended to be glass-cannons. It was either that or compromise DPS for more tank, a perennial choice within New Eden.

Vincent R'lyeh joined in the festivities in his Republic Fleet Firetail and the gang set off deep into null-sec space. It was generally quiet until Kaeda in his Harpy laconically called point on a Jaguar. As Vincent and Starwalker warped in it was clear that the Jaguar pilot also had friends and unfortunately more friends from Fatal Ascension than the three R1FTA pilots could manage.

Fatal Ascension had come to a knife fight with guns and two to one odds, it was a massacre and almost over before it began as their gang of Hurricane, Falcon, Jaguar, Hookbill et al made short work of the Rebel's Harpy and Wolf and only the Republic Fleet Firetail managed to escape.

Kaeda and Starwalker re-shipped into Thrashers and were soon in space again with Vincent. Almost inevitably they ran into the same gang and ended up being chased by that Fatal Ascension gang across multiple systems. Starwalker found it quite exciting to be chased across New Eden and on the receiving end of tactics such as gate camping to keep people within a system. It was another new experience.

Later the Rebels tried baiting a gate camp with bubbles at the EC-P8R gate from hi-sec. Whilst the gate campers were looking for their next victim they clearly did not want to chase nearby targets, too much like hardwork and possibly risky for them. So, despite the high hopes and good intentions, the Rebel gang ended up at the starting point in Tartoken with no kills but they had had a fun time messing about with the residents in null-sec.

Stabber Fleet Issue on Scan

Starwalker was returning to Ishomilken in his pod to collect another Merlin to take to the staging point in Eugales for the Rebel roam. He noticed a Stabber Fleet Issue and Wolf on scan and also Miura Bull in local. Waving to his esteemed leader, he offered to fleet up and see what damage they could do.

Undocking in a Hawk, Starwalker and Miura Bull, piloting a Wolf, looked for the targets but they seemed to have gone elsewhere and so Starwalker returned to station and undocked in his Merlin. The Stabber Fleet Issue was there, outside the station, and Starwalker warped to the sun wondering if it would follow - it did.

It landed 100km away and seemed to wait as the Rebel Merlin and Wolf burned towards it. The Merlin was going faster and arrived first to a wall of incoming fire and drones and it was simply too much for the active shield tank to hold and it died in a ball of fire. The SFI could have made a fast getaway as the Wolf arrived shortly afterwards but it stayed to fight and Starwalker docked up to get his Hawk.

The SFI was active armour tanking the Wolf when Starwalker arrived and immediately engaged with his rockets spewing out. With the combined firepower it was clear that the SFI was going down and it was only a matter of time, shortly afterwards the SFI was another ball of fire in the black of space.

In retrospect, Starwalker thought that he could have done better with the Merlin approach, the ship might still have died but it could have lasted longer:

• Merlin directly approached the SFI and should have tried to spiral in, the early hits from the 220mm Vulcan Autocannons could have been avoided or their damage significantly reduced
• Miura Bull noted that he was struggling to keep up when approaching the SFI and Starwalker should have slowed down so that they arrived together. His overview excluded fleet members and so he never actually knew where the Wolf was beyond the fact that it was behind him
• Starwalker had not expected the damage to start so far out of scramble range, when it did start he should have changed course to reduce tracking, in short react to the new information and reassess the plan of attack

Darkstar Pownyouall catches Hurricane

Darkstar Pownyouall or perhaps DARKSTAR POWNYOUALL was in a Wolf in Tama as Starwalker entered system in his Merlin and warped to the Sun. Very quickly a Vengeance, Enyo and Jaguar arrived on the scene and Starwalker warped away to a nearby gate.

A very short while later the Jaguar and Vengeance pilots exited through that gate in their capsules. Starwalker did not know it at the time but it turns out that Darkstar had taken out the Vengeance and Jaguar.

Starwalker scanned down a Rifter at an asteroid belt and warped in. The Rifter was 30 km away and ready for visitors, it disappeared before he could scramble him. However, the Enyo from earlier then jumped in at around 10km away and Starwalker hit the warp button just as Darkstar arrived in a Wolf.

Turning his Merlin around Starwalker warped back to the belt but the fight was already over. Darkstar, alert from having lots of frigates jump him in the last few minutes locked up the Merlin and fired before realising his mistake. No real harm done and so given that the action was finished Starwalker warped away again with nothing to show for his efforts.

Darkstar, however, was not finished and a short while later he called in Starwalker to help kill a Hurricane that he had pointed in another belt. Not one to miss out on a fight Starwalker arrived in his Merlin and helped to destroy the Hurricane, although it was clear that actually no help was needed as Darkstar was clearly going to solo it.

Starwalker waited out his GCC and nearly got the same Rifter pilot a second time in the asteroid belt but he was simply too slow. So he headed back to base, happy with the kill and admiring the skills of the killing machine that is Darkstar Pownyouall.

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

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.

Dances with Wolf

John Valentine was cruising Heild in his Wolf looking for a duel and spied Starwalker in his shiny Hawk. He initiated a challenge and Starwalker accepted. Very quickly they were in fleet and Starwalker warped into a random location at 70km, just to avoid any tricks like warping to a POS or a gang location.

The Wolf was there alone - so it was a straight up duel. Starwalker moved towards the Wolf but did not engage his micro warp-drive. John Valentine effectively did the same thing so it remained unclear whether he was afterburner fit or not.

At 25km Starwalker engaged the targeting and micro warp-drive and tried to close into scramble range. The Wolf danced away and started plinking from around 18km. Despite a few attempts Starwalker was unable to close the distance. The plinking was not high damage but it was relentless small damage and continually depleted the buffer tank.

Starwalker had tried a few times to get closer with overheating of the micro warp-drive but it didn’t seem to work. By this time the shield was down to 25% and Starwalker decided that it might be time leave as he still had not opened fire and had never been closer than 16km.

So Starwalker aligned out and started to overheat, before long the distance was increasing and then he was warping away. He apparently had warped away just as the capacitor for the Wolf was giving out. Of course, just because the ship might have lost its mobility and point that did not mean it would be destroyed, as that would not stop its auto-cannons from firing.

In retrospect, Starwalker considered what he had not done as soon as he realized that the Wolf would not fight in scramble range:

• Switch to Javelin rockets that could hit out to around 20km
• Slingshot immediately rather than start by overheating the propulsion module and trying that a couple of times

Similarly, whilst buffer tanks were simple and effective their weakness was that they could not be replenished during the fight and would simply drain away over time even with only minor damage. Perhaps it was time to add another module to actively tank, even if Starwalker struggled with all the module management.

Wolf Ravages Hawk in Heild

Starwalker was loitering in Heild waiting out a GCC. The warp in to a complex had gone horribly wrong when the Rebels had arrived individually at the complex and were met by two Stabber Fleet Issues. It was not pretty and as one Rebel noted voice communications would have helped coordinate arrival.

Not content to finish there Starwalker repaired and continued to loiter in Heild. Pilot, hammerof thegods, decided to challenge Starwalker’s Hawk in his Wolf and the duel was accepted with both parties warping to the sun. As the distance closed between the Hawk and Wolf, an uninvited Thrasher arrived, piloted by Randy Leahy. Starwalker left immediately thinking it was a trap.

It wasn’t and so the duel restarted and this time the fight was really on. The Wolf started hitting from a range of around 15km and Starwalker’s Hawk continued to burn in to around 7.5km. The Wolf wasn’t content to sit still and burned out of range again despite having two webs on him. Starwalker pulsed his MWD and got into range again and reapplied the webs and scram.

The fight continued with the range going in and out of scramble. Both ships were suffering but the Wolf was suffering more and was entering low armour and then structure. Starwalker was so fascinated with the progression of damage that he didn’t notice that he had burnt out his rockets. The damage stopped and the Wolf needed no second invitation as Starwalker’s Hawk was now helpless, soon it was in structure and then exploded. The Wolf had survived with 47% structure.

Despite losing his Hawk Starwalker was happy with at least some of his performance – he had reacted to the range changes, he had applied modules and nearly won. He had lost through pilot error again, if he had simply turned off the rocket overheating a little earlier he would have won.

Fly Fast, Shoot First, Do or Die

Starwalker was cruising around Heimatar, with a new attitude - fly fast, shoot first, do or die. It was overcoming risk aversion with more fights and Starwalker was looking for a fight, same class or above class.

He found it in the form of a Wolf in Aliette, piloted by Hogaarr. Starwalker checked the Battleclinic killboard and Hogaarr had lots of kills so this was not an easy fight with a Rifter against a Wolf. Previously, Starwalker would have simply moved on but this time was different.

Starwalker went to a customs office, to be easily found, and started to d-scan for the Wolf location. No need. The Wolf arrived on scene about 50km away. Starwalker started to burn towards the Wolf and wondered if it would possible to get under the guns and do some damage.

Setting the auto-cannons and rockets to overheat the Rifter targeted and engaged the Wolf, setting the range to 600m. The range closed but only to around 1800m and the auto-cannons from both ships spat death at each other. The Wolf shields melted away but the armour was much tougher and Starwalker realized his first mistake – Republic Fleet Phased Plasma.

This ammunition choice was fine for T1 ships but nigh on useless against a Wolf. It was too late to try and change the ammunition and Starwalker could see that the Rifter armour was being riddled with bullet holes. It wouldn’t be much longer. This was when Starwalker realised his second mistake – he hadn’t tried to overheat the afterburner to close into 600m. The Wolf was dictating range and had kept the Rifter from getting under its guns. The Rifter started to burn.

Starwalker aligned out with the Rifter in flames and started to spam the warp – not to save the ship but to save the pod. The shiny new Rifter, now riddled with holes and on fire, exploded into a ball of fire and was no more and out of the dying flames the pod emerged and raced away to safety.

Starwalker had lost another ship – to be expected, every ship would have a fiery death. So what about those other factors for risk aversion?

• Killboard, another loss – so what?
• Target selection, above class fight so not an easy kill but some lessons learnt – so good outcome
• Sense of loss – around ISK 9 million, so not so bad. Lost a ship, sure but that was lost anyway it was only a question of when and how

The pod docked in the home station and Starwalker realized that he had no more Rifters to lose. Well, time to buy some more then and maybe it was time to see what else would look good in flames.

Lone Wolf Killed by Pack

Starwalker was roaming around with Overnauta in the same system when Overnauta called for backup. Starwalker’s Wolf responded without hesitation and was soon in warp to find Overnauta engaged by an Imperial Navy Slicer and Republic Fleet Firetail.

Starwalker swung into action immediately against the Firetail but Overnauta’s Rifter had been overcome by the odds. What was worse was that The Wolf was now facing three opponents as an Ares arrived on scene to join in on the kill.

The Wolf had 150mm auto cannons and two tracking enhancers fitted but that seemed to make no real impression on the Firetail as it orbited at 1500m. Indeed it became apparent that the Wolf was losing the battle against the Firetail alone, never mind any other odds with the Slicer and Ares.

Starwalker changed tactics and tried to burn away to reduced traversal but similarly that seemed to also have no effect and by now the Wolf was starting to enter structure. It was going to be over soon so Starwalker focused on extracting the pod with its +4 set of implants. The Wolf exploded but the pod escaped.

Starwalker headed back to base. It was not losing the ship that was the problem but that the way the loss had occurred. The Wolf fit had been designed to counter fast ships with the 150mm and 2 x TE II. It had simply failed when tested – a surprise and most disappointing. 

A Fool and His Wolf Are Easily Parted

Starwalker was about to call it an evening and dock up when he came across a Kestrel sitting at what looked like a plex. Starwalker decided to go in and kill the Kestrel. He expected to find an acceleration gate coming out of warp but instead the Kestrel was just sitting there.

Approach, target, lock and fire and the Wolf hit the Kestrel hard but suddenly the Wolf was being hit harder. The damage control went on and the Kestrel went down but a few seconds later the Wolf was a pile of wreckage too.

Checking with Rebels it turns out that the beacon was actually a cyno and effectively Starwalker had warped to a POS. It was likely that the cyno pilot was going to jump a carrier or similar into the POS and Starwalker had inadvertently assumed it was a plex beacon.

Initially, Starwalker had felt foolish for losing his Wolf to sentry guns but in retrospect it was probably more a case of being unlucky that the overview had looked like a beacon for a plex but was actually a cyno beacon. Live and learn.

Tuskers Trash Wolf in Egghelende

The brand new Wolf sitting in the space dock had been fitted up to do the horrific levels of damage that only the Wolf can do in the Assault Ship class. The slight variation was to use two tracking enhancers. Starwalker admired his first Wolf, which was less than a day old. Time to get into space and do some damage.

The Wolf was cruising around Egghelende looking for trouble when a Thrasher was scanned down to a station. Arriving on scene the Thrasher decided that it wanted no part of the Wolf and docked up. So Starwalker decided to head off in a random direction to see what would happen.

Suileman Shouaa arrived in a Vengeance and Starwalker hesitated, recognizing the name and corporation but then decided to engage anyway. The Vengeance would be active tanked and a rocket ship so Starwalker decided to engage at range (5-7.5km) to keep up the speed. That range also offered the opportunity to disengage if the fight went south.

It was not to be a duel to the death. Suileman Shouaa was not there to fight a 1v1 and soon after the fight started another six Tuskers arrived together. Starwalker made a desperate attempt to leave but was simply overwhelmed and the first brand new Wolf disappeared in a fiery explosion. Fortunately the pod did get away, saving the set of +4 implants.

In retrospect, Starwalker decided that he should have committed more fully to the fight. To get into a 1km range, where the Wolf would do its maximum damage. In terms of fitting, it might be better to fit a neutralizer rather than a rocket launcher. The neutralizer would kill the active armour repair and perhaps Starwalker could have taken the Vengeance with him.