Black Ops Part 3 (REBORN!)

After the Super Terrific Happy Squad adventure (1 month of WH joy) we had to put the Black Ops down to participate in the CFC wars. But I left my Blops, a jumpclone and alts in Irshah to do some hunting in Providence during 'downtimes'.

February has been Ok-ish. The only really spectacular kill this month was a Paladin sitting idle on a safespot. Another, let's say, remarkable, kill was a Rattlesnake ratting in belts using T1 Warriors. That aside, tens of Battleships and Battlecruisers; the usual stuff.

However, big ISK kills doesn't always make it a good kill, and low class BC's don't make dull fights. More than often it seems to be the opposite.

Flying with the same guys for an extended time has good and negative effects. Blapping kill after kill makes you feel over confident, almost cocky; taking a badly outnumbered fight, taking unnecessary risks (having 2 Interceptor on D-scan can be more threatening than 3 Battleships) and just "fuck it, let's go for it".

Most drops are fast-made decisions. And before you realise it, you're risking 5+bil on the field for a mere 50mil Battlecruiser kill. Why do we do that? Boldness, I guess.

But having a vast knowledge of the game, its ships and its mechanics can also give you a false sense of danger. "That Inty that keeps coming in and out of local COULD warp on top of us, and if he's got a scram our MJD won't work," or, "I saw an Arazu on D-scan earlier, he MIGHT still be in space with a Cyno to counter drop us," "Yeah I've been in local so long, and that Domi is still ratting, he's DEFINITELY bait!" Things like that play with your mind.

So you might be in warp to a Drake, but just when you're about to uncloak and tackle, you see local spike with 5+, some more ships appear on D-scan, and you got to decide if you still want to go for it. "Yes ... Maybe ... well, you know, we can probable melt him in 30 seconds ... Yeah alright let's do it."  And just when you all agree; the Drake warps off a you missed a kill.

And then there are the unpredictable game effects you can't really prepare for. I found 4 Mackinaws beaming around in an Icefield. I bookmarked their location and warp to them. But upon landing I found myself launched out the rocks 3km/s away from the Macks. I managed to keep a long point on them by overheating (I have 1 long and 1 short point fitted on the Loki), but other 3 got out by the time I was back in range. Oh well, to make up for the inconvenience, that one Mack was at least Deadspace fitted.

With most my wingmen being AFK/offline during the second half of Febuary, I tried my hand on some old school solo Blopsing.

I've sat cloaked on a Station in Providence semi AFK for a few hours (RL stuff, dinner, fapping). I knew of some rather clueless people in local, so I hoped they would undock their Navy Mega and Navy Scorpion again. They had warped between safespots for a while but I couldn't pinpoint them before they eventually left and docked. Alas, they did not come back.

Then, when I was about to log off a Raven undocked. Eager for a kill, I waited a bit longer to see what he was up to. He warped to an Anomaly! Rejoice! I followed him, I warped to 10k, he warped to 100k. I kept my cloak but I had to re-warp to get in point range. When I got back I noticed he dropped his drones and a TCU, but there was no sign of a Raven.

I bookmarked the TCU and another 30 minutes passed, sitting idle watching the Station, when he finally undocked again. However he was aligned wrongly; he was heading for a stargate.

Cynoing on gates is particularly dangerous, as it gives a clear and obvious warp-in, and is easy to report for defense fleets. But what's most daring is that you don't know what coming from behind you on the other side. A gang might be forming on the other side of the gate, and jump through by surprise.

Nevertheless, I was tired of waiting and followed the Raven to his gate. He jumped. I jumped. He died. I got rid of his pod using my Smartbombs and then GTFO. Luckily no one followed us through the gate, apart from a Malediction that warped to our gate just when the Raven died. He locked me but didn't pointed me.

I wasn't really in a hurry to leave the system, so I kept both my Loki and Panther cloaked up on a safespot. After things went quiet I noticed how another Raven was still on my scanner all that time. Completely oblivious to the fact I've been in local for 10 minutes, he kept on ratting in an anomaly, which wasn't a particular difficult prey. 2 Ravens, 1 system, 10 minutes. Not bad at all.

Unfortunately no fancy pictures of videos except for a crappy screenshot.

Earlier I said big ships don't make good kills, and small ships don't make dull fights. This is particularly true when Solo'ing. Later that evening I found a ratting Drake. I hate Drakes. But this Drake was a rather exciting kill. My Panther puts out about 1K DPS. That sounds like a good number, but the Drake can tank about 600 DPS. So you 'spend' 600 of your DPS to break it, and then you only got 400 DPS left to chew through 45k EHP. That extra minute to kill it seems like forever, like time slows down, when local spikes, and the guy spams a Defense Fleet-fleet invite in local shouting "GET IN FLEET WARP TO ME". He didn't had a point on me so I knew I could have bailed out at any point. But when a Drake is in low armor, and you see 3 Inties pop up on D-scan you've got a decision to make, and you got to make it fast. But sometimes boldness blurs the risks.

Scrolling through the 'Arby' launchers in my cargo I just looted I was quite satisfied how that worked out. At this point local went from 5 to 25, and D-scan was full of Interceptor and Interdictors. "gf o/" in local gave no response.

Note: Obviously I'm not linking every single kill I'm getting. If you're interested, you can visit my KB over here.