Lost my Slicer

Well, I was plexing in a contested Amarr system when an enemy entered the system. I was flying my slicer, cruising along in a minor fortress.

He rolled up in a fleet firetail, jumped into my area and hesitated for a long time. Then his friend entered the system. I jumped out to a random planet.

I decided to return, however, reasoning that I could take him out before his friend got here.

I jumped in right on top of him, locked him, pointed him and opened fire. I was winning, put a web in and I had him pretty good. Then his buddy jumped in, also in a fleet firetail, and he kited off. His buddy and he dogpiled me, pointed and destroyed me. He was in armor, nearly in structure, when I ran out of cap and went down.

From his post battle derision I could probably have won that if I'd been any better at piloting. It's a humbling experience, and a costly one, as my insurance had expired.

Fortunately, I've got the cash and LP saved up for the Slicer II...but I think I'll mission a bit more before bringing it back out for battle.

The guy who killed me's nom de guerre was duc tayp. Charming, these Minmatar slime.

Fail Night

I tried to do some plexing, went to three contested systems, but couldn't scan out any plexes in any of them. Maybe I need some more scanning skills? I think I'm doing this right, just jump to each planet and scan for cosmic anomalies...I guess I ought to look up a tutorial and make sure I know what's up.

I hung around in Kamela the rest of the night with the other actives in the Amarr militia. Basically an ad-hoc camp that isn't actually a fleet. Whenever someone sees an enemy (or, indeed, any non militia) in system we jump on them. Didn't work tonight, but I'm hopeful that eventually this gets me on a kill.

Back to Faction Warfare

So, to relieve the tedium of the endless missions, I've gone back to Kamela with my beloved Slicer I, and I'm plexing.

Last night I went up to Langorn (or something like that), and secured an enemy minor plex, with active opposition from a pair of enemy craft (though they got distracted midway through, just tired of my jumping around).

Then I went back down to Arra (or Auga? It's 2 jumps from Kamela, one jump from Sosala). And secured a friendly major stronghold.

All told this got me about half way to my next promotion. It was much more exciting and tense than mission running. I think I'll try to finish plexing to a promotion, then X up for a fleet and try and get on a kill for once. That'd be so cool.

Flying the Slicer I, after a whole bunch of time flying the Binger I, is awesome. Fast, deadly...much love for my little slicer. And I've got the money/isk to replace it if and when the minmatar get lucky and take this one down.

Oh

So, I figured out what's going on with the range thing. He's using the equivalent of beam lasers for his faction, and just has t2 ammo and better skills, thereby coming pretty close to my damage. I feel kind of silly about that, I spent a good bit of time racking my brains to find a way to get multifreq damage at radio range. Not happening with the old pulse's.

On another note I've rigged my Harbinger, three cap rechargers. I can run my AB, my web, my DCU II, fire all my lasers and run my armor repair forever. What a load off! On the other hand I'm probably the single least dangerous Harbinger in the galaxy, with only 6 guns online and no heat sinks, but I'm going to fix that, soon as BC V is done training, should be in a couple days.

Something is missing...

So, I was missioning with Mardril, and I just can't account for the lack of range in my ship. I'm using T2 lasers, I've got a battlecruiser, he's doing similarly, though he's actually using a T2 ship, but he has far more range than I, without any noticeable decline in power. What's going on?

He mentioned something about ammo, perhaps there's a crystal that lets mission ships shoot further? Must be. I'm going to poke around and look at fellow Capsuleer's logs. See what I find.

Drone Discrepancy!

It has come to my attention, via the commentary of my fellow pilots, that Amarrian Drones are inferior to the other Empire's versions. This is deeply distressing to me, as my philosophy is to use only local products. I'm uncertain as to how the skill setup is worked out, but this might be a problem for me long term.

It's unthinkable to compromise my patriotism and use another culture's drones, but I need effective drones to defeat the frigates which bedevil my missions. While they don't typically put my Binger in danger the frigates and interceptors of my mission targets severely increase the amount of time it takes to complete my missions, which affects both my bottom line and the amount of good that I can do for the Empire. Distressing stuff indeed.

Killing time...and rats!

So, I'm still chaining level III missions in Ebtesham. Still using the Binger I. All basically goes well. It's a bit tedious, but I remain resolute. Once I finish my BC V (about 2/3 of a month left), then there's just Destroyers left to learn and I'll be set as regards ships for missioning, then I can go back and work on my long neglected basics.

These basics are what's really keeping me out of PVP. The drones, the MWD, the probes and the warp disruptors, basically everything required to engage fellow capsuleers, as opposed to the humans who crew the ships my missions require that I destroy. It's all about the basics, turns out. Once I've got them down, and the isk that I'm making now will let me put them to good use, it's time to finally get deep into faction warfare. For now, and for the forseeable, however, it's missions all the way down.