Wednesday 29 June 2011

Rifter heart and soul

Death was Nature's way of telling you to slow down. -- (Terry Pratchett, Strata)

I had been patrolling Eifer for most of the day, won some (Using a Rifter to kill Malediction before his Hurricane friend could catch up and a Dramiel most notably), lost some (Lost my Navy Vexor to Harbinger bait) and had a bit of fun on the hunt.

One particular hunt stands out, a young Hurricane pilot was running a mission out of high security space, employing the services of an associate, the Hurricane was probed in his mission site in short order.

Warping to my associate I could feel butterflies, even a half decent Hurricane would be dangerous to The Cunning Man. Feeling the need for some action I went on in, landing not too far away from where the Hurricane pilot was finishing up, I moved in for tackle, in range and active.

A mixed flight of tech one drones is launched and set about trying to dismantle my Rifter, of course I couldn't stand for that, locked them all up and popped them one by one until none stood against me.

The Hurricane Pilot was trying very hard but his guns just couldn't track my Rifter in its tight orbit. Volley after volley of RF Phased Plasma rounds slam into the shields and armour of the Minmatar Battlecruiser, my speed enough to mitigate all damage.

The Hurricane pilot is smarter than I give him credit for as he moves closer to one of the structures in the mission complex, disrupting my orbit and allowing him to get a few good hits on the Cunning Man with his 425s. Manual flying from here on in Kane as I start to throw the Rifter around.

After a good few minutes I chew my way through the Hurricane's shield, armour and structure and it explodes in spectacular fashion, bits of debris raining against the Cunning Man's beautiful hull. The pilot had all but completed the mission by the time I had commenced violence and his mission objective was left only a few hundred metres away. As he was very young and he tried very hard to fight back, I made arrangements to get the mission objective back to him, free of charge.

I've had quite a bit of fun flying the Rifter again and I hope it shall long continue as I shall try very hard to stay away from the bigger ships and concentrate on Rifter Violence™

Thursday 23 June 2011

Return of the Kane

The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

It has been a long time, the station has been refurbed and my hangar now has an office, not just a few crates for a desk and a makeshift bed in the corner. Someone has spent a lot of money on this and it all looks very pretty but somehow it's just... Wrong.

The Cunning Man floats above the docking platform, I ease myself into my custom built 'pod' and set about making my way into the black, Gusandall, it has been too long.

There's a few pilots showing up on the local comms net, but mostly in bigger ships and quite obviously together and possibly a little too much for a rusty old pirate.

There were a few frigates with them but soon they all jumped out, destination unknown, but I loitered at the usual haunts. A Malediction from the large group re-enters Gusandall, a scout no doubt, I wait for him in the first room of the 2/10 complex. A tech 2 Interceptor vs my Rifter... Well... I know how this was going to end but you got to let people think they're in it to win it.

As predicted, the Malediction appears on scan in the direction of the 2/10 beacon, soon he would be arriving, all systems primed and set to overheat from the get go.

Malediction comes out of warp only a few hundred meters away from The Cunning Man, targeting systems acquire the target, yellow box, then red as the Malediction pilot gets serious.

My guns spin up and ordinance starts flying, the interceptor at point blank range melting with every volley, it explodes, with my shields barely troubled by the missiles it had launched.

This was not about the hunt, as I was hunted, or the fight itself, as it was wholly unremarkable, but how knowledge of my surroundings and the predictability of others led to victory.

And just like that, Kane is back :)