Tuesday, March 11th
I don't know what it is about the NEO finally being over for us, but it has certainly helped the quality of pew pew lately. I've gone 22-4 since my Astarte exploded on Saturday. Which, given my cold and real life craziness, ain't shabby.
Yesterday I decided to jump into a new Slicer and tool around a bit on my own, see if I could find some juicy kills early in the day. After DT is always a slow time, but you can often find some early birds to bait with your worm... and yes, I regret having just written that sentence.
I undock and head over to Jov and no sooner do I hit jump, than another Slicer lands behind me. I know this pilot and figure he may be up for some one-on-one action, so I warp off to the Sun. Sure enough we start talking in local and he warps in about 100k away from my freshly fitted Imperial Navy Dart 'O Death. And we begin dancing. No matter how you fit a Slicer you can be sure of two things, 1) the fight will be fast, and 2) the fight will be close. (Not the same kind of close as Comet fights, which always end with something burned out. A Slicer close fight means either you die or the other guy does - fast.)
The fight only took a few minutes and I knew I had him.
We talked afterwards and he seemed stumped as to how I had beaten him. So I did a silly thing and linked my fit. (No secret really, just look at my killboard.) I'm always open to discussing fights, tactics and fits, so we did that for awhile.
I returned to Hev to repair the Slicer and drop off the loot. He wasn't satisfied and wanted another round. He had given me a good fight and I figured he deserved it, even though this is never a good idea. Why? Second fights are always a bad idea. Now the other guy knows exactly how you fit your ship, what the last fight was like, and now has every opportunity to fit his ship to counter yours.
Sure enough, I ended up dying this time. (This was actually the second Slicer I'd lost already, the first was against a linked and boosted Breacher when his buddy in the Dramiel came to assist.) Nothing against ViRtU0Zone, but I totally derped the fight and simply ran out of cap too soon because I foolishly left my useless disruptor running. But so go the fates. Most fights come down to something foolish.
By this time the Stay Frosty gang is finally waking up and getting assembled. It isn't long before Ciba detects a Thorax ratting in Hevrice. I jumped into my fun-time Exeq and off we go. Ciba Hero tackles the Rax and the ratting Tusker goes down pretty fast for a Cruiser.
Having lost two Slicers I decide to take my new Ishkur fit out for a test drive. Sure enough I spot a Slicer in a plex in Jov and warp in on him. I figure he'll turn tail and run off, but magically I land almost on top of him and manage to get a scram on him - oh look, it's ViRtU0Zone again! His Slicer doesn't stand a chance against my Ishkur and he goes down with a good fight.
Slicer day isn't over yet. We spot an Algos and a Slicer in another plex and go in for tackle. Maybe because it is still early, but the fight was sloppy from the beginning and we all pretty much died. My Ishkur exploded, but we managed to get the Slicer and the Algos in the process. So I think we narrowly won that engagement.
>Bunch of flying around with nothing happening for a bit<
Eventually I end up in my Comet. And catch this Ibis sleeping at the iHub. I do let his pod go for good measure. It's not elite PvP, but keel all the things!
By this time our gang has grown to even greater numbers as we start chasing this missioning Drake around for a bit. He finally just docks up and it looks like our chances to nab him are gone, when another Drake appears in the system next door. We rush to the gate and wait. Sure enough, he jumps right into us. Even though he is positive status, we'd already assembled some cruisers for the other Drake. So the poor guy experiences the full weight of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While my comrades are scouring local for another missioner, I decide to take a peek down the pipe and see if there isn't something tasty down the road. Sure enough, I hit Loes and there are two potential targets in system - both in different plexes. One is an Incursus and the other a Punisher. I quickly decide to go for the Incursus first, he is in the closer plex and will have less time to react to me being in local. Sure enough, I catch and kill him. Was a good fight though and we even talk about it a bit in local.
I figure the Puni has turned tail and run off by now. But lo and behold he is still in his plex, god bless him. He also gives me a good fight, but explodes anyway. Suddenly it is just me remaining in local and I find it funny that I emptied local by killing everyone in it.
It is starting to get late, and my Comet is running low on charges and ammo. Time to get back to Hev and drop off all this loot. As I pass back thru systems, Beirut tells me Nuke Cave (former Frosty pilot and now with the Screamers) is in local with his own Comet. Naturally I pull up to the Gate and wait to see if he'll jump into me.
Sure enough he does and we both lock each other up and have at it. It is a really good fight and it all comes down to the final moments as his ship is the one that explodes in glorious flames. Good fight all around.
So there it is, the good, the bad and the ugly from yesterday. A pretty typical type of day in Stay Frosty. I didn't even mention our Cruiser gang that got pwned by 400 idiots in Heyd while I was afk. Or the dozen or so other near misses, booster alt linked Deimos, gate camps, and other assorted events that happened. Or almost happened, over the course of the day.
It is pretty awesome.