20 Jan 2008

Angel Rats Suck Ass Big Time

Lost my hurricane today; just recently commissioned too. I had a shake down cruise only a day ago and was eager to get some kills in it. The fit was still a bit experimental but what the hell. Instead, the ship and most of the crew is in bits floating around the Gusandall gate in Ingunn.

A mixed group had spotted some Firestorm Projects pilots around Ingunn, a hyperion and a raven. Nice duo for us to take down - or so we thought. Tenchu was in his stabber, hovering near the gate when the hyp engaged him and the tremendous firepower killed him. The pirate gang was already in warp to the gate to assist but this was when disaster struck. First, the fleet numbered nine vessels, now eight due to Tenchu's loss, but only two or three appeared at the gate and they all took on sentry fire. The hyperion was chosen as primary but it had a tremendous tank with the FP Raven further out from the gate, about 32km away. Worst thing was: I wasn't even there. I was unable to engage my warp engines. Due to the noise and shouting over the fleet channel, I could not hear ship's computer informing me that 'you're unable to warp due to you being warp scrambled'.

Instead, I thought I was caught up on the belt and had to get myself clear from the rocks before I could fly. However, it was my XO who corrected my false assumption.

"Captain, we're being warp scrambled. Check your overview. The warp core is unable to stabilise long enough to for us warp. " I glanced at my overview and it was clear but I ordered the camera drones to zip out and give me a full 360 degree view of the hurricane. As the drones sped out to a range of 9km, I saw them: Arch Angel hijackers. Cursing, I flipped my overview from a purely ship-only configuration to include the local pirate factions and once enabled, three icons appeared on my overview, all moving at speed. I was a complete fool and I quickly ordered a target lock on the irritants. Meanwhile, the fight was going badly for us, the number of ships we had available was adequate for the task but for some reason, we all entered the fight in a staggered fashion. From the reports the Hyperion had taken down one ship, was in the process of demolishing another and it's armour tank was holding. The enemy raven was sitting at range and providing long range cover for the hyperion.

As the last of the Arch Angel's blew up, I aligned the ship towards the gate - the fight was getting worse and I ordered maximum burn towards the Gusandall stargate. The ship was in red alert and I had this horrible feeling that this lovely hurricane was about to meet its end. The GUI shimmered as energy discharges from weapon's systems washed over my ship as it burst out of the warp and into the fight. I was 12km from the gate, 24km from the Hyperion and 34km from the raven. I hit the micro-warpdrive and powered my Hurricane towards the hyperion, my locking computer picked up that the hyperion was at 55% armour but it was not dropping.

"I have a feeling we shouldn't have picked Hyperion as primary." Observed someone, it sounded like Deathstar but I wasn't too sure. My 425mm auto canons started up and threw EMP shells towards the Hyperion. EMP shells were horribly inappropriate when I had HAIL ammunition so I switched half my guns to the HAIL type, while I continued to fire EMP with the remaining guns. The armour on the hyperion started to drop but the raven had taken notice of me and had locked and started to hit me. I managed to web it so that the others could shoot it but we had precious little to reply with.

I engaged the hyperion up close, suicide really as the hyperion was designed for in-yer-face combat but I managed to get the ship down to hull but it's damage controls were first class and held the ship together long enough to see mine to explode.

"FlashFresh down. FlashFresh Down." I said as I got my capsule the hell out of there.

Good job by the FP guys, I did not return to the fight as I was out of suitable ships but we eventually killed the raven, the hyperion docking up on fire.

2008.01.20 14:17

Victim: flashfresh
Alliance: None
Corp: BLACK-FLAG
Destroyed: Hurricane
System: Ingunn
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 18374

Involved parties:

Name: Yoriks (laid the final blow)
Security: 5.0
Alliance: Capital Storm
Corp: Firestorm Projects
Ship: Hyperion
Weapon: Modal Mega Ion Particle Accelerator I
Damage Done: 11865

Name: narsci
Security: 3.9
Alliance: Capital Storm
Corp: Firestorm Projects
Ship: Raven
Weapon: Juggernaut Rage Torpedo
Damage Done: 6236

Name: Arch Angel Hijacker / Archangels
Damage Done: 273


Destroyed items:

Small Energy Neutralizer I
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
EMP M, Qty: 122
Warp Scrambler II
Medium F-RX Prototype I Capacitor Boost
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
Cap Booster 800, Qty: 8 (Cargo)
Barrage M, Qty: 1500 (Cargo)
EMP M, Qty: 1260 (Cargo)
Hail M, Qty: 1500 (Cargo)
Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Trimark Armor Pump I

Dropped items:

425mm AutoCannon II
425mm AutoCannon II
Small Energy Neutralizer I
EMP M, Qty: 141
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Armor Thermic Hardener II
800mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates I
Medium Armor Repairer II

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well written article.