The final credits for the episode of CONCORD rolled as I stood up from the couch and made my way to the fridge. I popped open a Quafe and made my way towards the hangar where the crew was loading the last crates of bullets and rockets onto my Rifter. I took a seat on a dusty crate of Caldari Navy Antimatter and sipped my delicious cold drink. The crew finished their work, I gulped down the last of my Quafe and admired my Rifter. Let's do this baby!
A Region Away From Black Rise
My usual route through the Isho/Manjo pipe turned up nothing. I had to push out from Okkamon to hit the Okkamon/Pynekastoh cluster of systems in hopes of finding a fight, but again no success. I could either go through Abune and take the Heydelies pipe towards Placid, or go through Hikkoken and take the back way into there. I weighed the pro's and con's of each route and went with the more populated route through Heydelies. I warped system through system, stopping at each to scan around for things to explode but no luck. I reached the fork in Melmaniel where you could go into Placid via Ouelletta or continue down towards the Jov pipe towards Aeschee. I was feeling lazy and didn't wanna venture too far from home, so I turned my Rifter towards Ouelletta in hopes of finding a fight in Placid.
Intaki
I entered the system of Agoze and basked in the ambiance of Placid. Having roamed this region when Black Rise didn't have things to shoot, I set off on my route through the cluster. I jumped into Intaki and it was only myself and another pilot in local. I warped to the center of the system and scanned around. Unnamed Gnosis. Oh baby! After all those systems of nothing to shoot, a big juicy ship was in system! I scanned the plex's, nothing. As I was scanning down the anom sites, I saw a couple Operation Frostline plex's in system. Jackpot! Not knowing what the tank would be for a Gnosis, I loaded Phased Plasma and Inferno rockets and warped towards the plex. My heart beat increased as my Rifter rocked side to side exiting the warp. Nice and easy man! Nice and easy! The Gnosis was sitting about 40km from the warp in with two drones out. With my afterburner overheated I burned towards the battlecruiser locking him and the drones up. His shields were at half strength and I noticed T1 drones around him, but I wasn't going to underestimate them. The Gnosis was slow boating towards the Serpentis rats in my direction. 30km and closing and he still hadn't locked me up! 25 .. 23 .. 15 ... 13 .. 10! I activated my scram and web, and let the guns loose! The guns were chipping away at his shields but they were steadily falling. I held a close orbit and saw that he had railguns fitted as my small nimble Rifter was too fast for them to hit me. I orbited the Gnosis and continued to fire away at his ship waiting for the drones to attack. My autocannons and rockets punched through his shield and were tearing up his armor. That's when the drones came to life and swarmed my Rifter. My shields were holding, but if I wanted to finish off this Gnosis those drones would have to go. I switched my guns from the battle cruiser to the drones and fired away. The pilot's rail guns were firing away but missing my Rifter. Suddenly my shields get rocked! What the!? The damn Serpentis rats were firing at me! One of the cruiser rats landed a solid hit! C'mon guys! I'm one of you! I'm defending you!! I overheated my afterburner to mitigate the tracking of the cruisers. The Gnosis had pulled in his drones as I blew one of them up, so I returned my weapons to their original target and pressed on. Moments later another wave of drones, this time Hobgoblins were out in space and swarmed my Rifter. The cruiser rats landed another solid hit that put me into armor which was followed by a volley of drone strikes. I activated my repper and began shooting the drones again. My tank was holding but my repper was on its last two nanite reps. No! I'm taking this guy down! I shot down two of the hobs and worked on the last one as my repper ran out of paste and began to pump out empty reps. I was managing the overheating on my afterburner as the drones and I continued our dog fight around the Gnosis and other cruisers firing away. The rats had closed in on us which gave my Rifter the advantage of flying under their guns as well. Alright, still in this fight! My SAAR pumped out its last rep as my capacitor ran out which began the 60 second reload of death. The Gnosis was still in armor as another wave of drones entered space. My speed was working to my advantage against the incoming fire. My armor was roughed up a bit, but I finished the last drone and and turned my attention to the Gnosis.
My Rifter was in half armor. The cruiser rats were getting lucky with random hits that rocked me as my guns steadily grinded away at the Gnosis's armor. My repper was about 10-15 seconds from having a full cycle of nanite reps ready to patch up my ship. The amount of heat damage on all my mods made it very dangerous to risk another heated cycle of any of 'em. I watched with anticipation as the reload bar dwindled closer to completion. Yes! REP!! I activated my repper and chunks of armor were brought back to life! The Gnosis was in half armor as my guns continued to fire away. With my Rifter back at full armor, no drones in space, and a couple nanite reps left, I ceased fire and switched to my trusty Fusion ammo and Nova rockets. Time to finish this! The extra armor damage will blow nice big holes into the Gnosis and turn it into a smoldering wreck. The switch worked as planned as my guns were tearing apart the last bits of his armor and sent him into structure. My shields were coming back online, almost at half strength as I zoomed around dodging fire and pounding away at the last line of defense of the battle cruiser. As the Gnosis reached half structure, local spiked by two people. No! My heart beat spiked as I switched between long and short scan looking for any incoming ships. Another wave of drones entered space as the cruiser rats landed a nice blow to ship that damaged my armor. I activated my reps and ignored the drones and focused on finishing off the last bit of structure left in the Gnosis. As I pumped out my last two nanite reps, the battle cruiser was on its last slivers of hull. The drones were slowly damaging my armor as my reps entered their reload cycle. I watched a volley of rockets and bullets hit the Gnosis as it exploded into a glorious flash of light and fire. I was excited to have brought down a big 'ol ship! I looted 'n scooted and warped to a safe. The entire fight lasted almost ten minutes! I thought when those two pilots entered system they would interrupt my kill, but thankfully I never saw anyone but us two on scan. I finished that roam with a close fight with a rail Comet and came out victorious with some zig zagging to close the distance. A couple days later, another big ship fell under the cross hairs of R1FTA's autocannons.
Two Days Later, in Manjo
Amand, Ruthless Chi and myself were flying around the Neighborhood blowing stuff up and getting blown up. After a brawl we made our way back to Isho to reship and head back out. On the way out we spotted another unnamed cruiser, a Rupture. All three of us saw the same thing and spread out to scan it down. We scanned it down at the sun, and Chi was already there in his Slicer. Gotta go help him! Expecting the Rupture to be a big armored brick, Fusion ammo and Nova rockets were loaded. I landed on grid with drones surrounding the Rupture its guns firing away at Chi's Slicer. As I locked up the cruiser I saw that Chi had brought down his shields and was going to work on his armor. My guns and rockets joined the party as we began to put dents in his armor. It was slowly giving way, so I switched my fire to the drones out in space and began to shoot 'em down. Amand landed on grid as Chi's Slicer exploded valiantly. It was just Amand's Firetail and my Rifter left to take down the Rupture. We focused our fire on the drones and the dog fight was in full throttle. As the first wave of drones exploded and the second wave entered space, local went up by one. I checked short scan ... Daredevil. The Rupture had been focusing his firepower on Amand's Firetail leaving me untouched as we shot down a few more drones. The Daredevil was still on short but not on grid, so we continued to fire away at the cruiser. The Rupture pulled in his drones so we switched our guns to the hull. There were no reps as our autocannons were ripping through his armor, followed up with love taps from rockets. The Rupture was in deep armor as the drones came back out. We ignored the drones and focused on punching through its remaining armor to finish it off. The decision led to Amand's Firetail going up in flames, leaving me with a Rupture almost in structure and my Rifter with a full load of nanite reps to avenge my Black Jackets! The pressure was on! My speed plummeted as the Ruptures webs landed on my Rifter. I immediately overheated my afterburner to gain some more speed to out-track its big guns. The Hob's landed their first volley scratching my shields but so far nothing significant from the cruiser's big guns. I punched through his armor as a chunk of hull got blasted off the Rupture. It's Dual 180mm's missed my Rifter. I was under his guns, but my afterburner was midway from burning out. I would have to do as much as I can without burning out my prop mod, or else all this would be for nothing! At half shields I activated my repper to time the incoming damage. The drones were doing their cold thoughtless work strafing my Rifter putting me in half armor, but my tank was holding. The big guns on the Rupture were still missing as he entered half structure. He was nearing the final stretch of structure! I overheated my afterburner (which would surely be its final cycle) and pressed on to finish it off. The rockets spiraled towards the cruiser, causing it to go up in a glorious explosion! We did it! The sacrifices of my fellow Black Jackets were not in vain! The pod was caught amidst the smoke and debris of the wreck, and I exacted final revenge for the ships of my comrades. It was a good finish to that night's roam as we congratulated one another for the combined effort on bringing down the Rupture.
Final Note
We recently had a corp roam that yielded good fights and high octane adrenaline pumping explosions! I had written a good chunk of this post before that roam happened, and decided to finish this one and work on getting the events of that day published hopefully this week. With the next post on the corp roam, I will also work on putting together a vid of the fights from that roam so you can see the awesomeness of one fight in particular. Until then,
Happy Hunting o7
No comments:
Post a Comment