I realized the other day that I hadn't shared any recent PvP stories of my adventures in a long time. Since back on March 12th when I told you the story about the solo Avalanche kill I managed to score in my Nightmare. So today I'm going to tell you a smaller story about a Catalyst and a Thorax.
As always I want to say up-front that I never tell these stories to be mean or disrespectful to my fellow players. I respect any player that engages with me in space, even the ones who blob or gate camp me into submission. It is all part of the game and I totally deserved it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. All I'm doing here is sharing a story about what happened.
After coming back into the game after the FF4A I've been itching to try some different ships. Like anyone, I can get myself into a rut. Plus I enjoy my variety, it has always been something I strive for. I have 35 ships with over 100 kills on them and I'd like that to be 100/100 someday. So yesterday I decided to take a Catalyst Navy out for a spin. Nothing complicated here, pretty typical fit with blasters, scram/web, and armor rep/hull rigs. Not the fastest ship and most likely I'd end up dying to a good kiting pilot eventually.
I almost died right away to a kiting Comet, but like most kiting Comets he was using a long range point and it wasn't hard to get away. There was an annoying Assault Frigate gang of 20+ ships out and about yesterday and they were making it challenging to get fights. So eventually I decided to just hole up in a small navy, where AFs can't slide, and just wait. Eventually someone would come to end me. Hopefully.
This is not my favorite strategy, I much prefer to roam and hunt. But sometimes just chilling can bring fights. Eventually a Catalyst decided to slide into me. Now I had previously slid into this very same Catalyst and he had run off. So why he decided to slide into my Cat Navy is unknown. Once I realized he was using Rail Guns and didn't have a web, the rest was pretty easy. I just got under his guns and boom boom with the insane blaster damage. It was a good fight and I said so in local. But the outcome was not in question.
Things dried up after that. I insta-popped a Cyno Venture on a station. I found an empty Bantam inside a Medium Advanced. But otherwise things were looking bleak. That's when I noticed the previous Catalyst pilot had up-shipped into a Thorax. At that point he was hanging out in a plex with a Coercer Navy Issue and there was no way I wanted to slide into both of those. So I continued roaming around. At one point I jumped into about 20 Exeq Navy Issues, but they jumped before I de-cloaked. Always an adventure.
And then I jumped into another system and there was the Thorax sitting about 42k away from me. On the gate. At moments like this I always imagine that meme with the math equations all around my head. I can't shoot first without getting gate guns, but if he is rail gun fit I'll have a chance. So I de-cloak and start burning for him. Sure enough, right off the bat I get wrecked with 700 dps and go into low shields. He is Rail fitted, my lucky day. If I can survive the journey. So I deflect my angle and overheat my armor rep. A couple more hits and I start bleeding into hull, but those three hull rigs are going to help there. And quickly I arrive with the scram/web and lots of beautiful void bullet pew pew.
The Thorax explodes. Turns out it was a serious glass cannon fitted for max damage - not a bad idea to be honest. But the mistake was engaging my Cat Navy when he already knew how it was fitted from before. In his case, he should have played his sec status advantage and just ignored me, jumped through the gate, and returned to his game play. That would have been the smart play. But, like I said earlier, I do appreciate it when people decide to engage instead. So thanks for the fight.
More adventures await.