Thursday 20 May 2010

Project Rifter #2




Project Rifter Part #2
So how’s it going with project Rifter? Rubbish; thus far I have lost the first 6 Rifters for exactly 0 kills in return;

#1RR;
Lost this one going in on a missioning Domi and Raven. A swarm of drones is clearly too much for this Frigate. I tried to get out but as my warpdrive engaged the hull buckled. I think sticking my hand in a meat grinder would have been more fun.

#2RR;
Great fight with this one. I harassed this chap at a gate and he engaged! Brilliant stuff as I already had a comfortable orbit around his Brutix. His drones did most of the damage but they were dispatched swift enough. As I started chewing into his armour my modules intermittently switched of due to cap issues. My down-fall however was that I bumbed into the gate, breaking my orbit and being alpha’d soon after.

#3RR;
After running away from Lady S a few times I decided our duel might as well be done now, knowing his Rifter skill is far superior than mine. The result was expected however I did get him into structure. He was nuet fitted and made short work of my cap, again a NOS would have given me an extra cycle. Also the T2 Rage rockets did near enough no damage.

#4RR;
Chased this chap around for 10 minutes or so, until I found him waiting for me at the gate. He 3 volleyed my Rifter at 23k distance and for lols killed my pod too. How rude.

#5RR;
Excellent fun with these two guys in a Punisher and a Nacy Slicer. I was waiting for them in a Faction Warfare Plex but made the mistake of scramming the punisher first. This allowed the Slicer to get into a comfortable 20 k orbit. The Punisher lived with a mere sliver of hull. Close but no cigar.

#6RR;
Trying to get into a fight sometimes is not as easy as it may seem, and after some time roaming I commandeered my 6th Rifter to meet up with a (unknown) Interceptor and …oops a Myrmidon? The Inty warped off swiftly but the Myrmidon didn’t. I failed to get away in time and instead engaged his 2 sentry dones?! and some other assorted rabble. To be honest my heart wasn’t in it and I just watched number 6 fade into oblivion.

So I have made some pilot errors here and there, but on the fitting side of things I am considering a recall on the remaining vessels to refit them with a NOS. I am confident that Lady S is thinking ‘I hate to say I told you so’ with a big grin on his face. Perhaps I should not have been so stubborn and listened in the first place.

Lucky number 7?
Perhaps so; Hermit and Jabajools organised a little roam and I volunteered Rocket Rifter #7. A bit of a messy roam but I did finally draw first blood for the good of the Project.

No solo achievements perhaps, but some kills nevertheless. This missioning drake was swiftly probed out by Hermit and even faster than that; Lady S got the tackle in his shiny Daredevil. To make sure everyone would sleep a little better that night we ensured everyone in fleet got in on the kill-mail. We did attempt a ransom on the pod but our patience ran out so he got the express way out of Evati.

A few jumps in to our roam our lead scout Lady S quickly found some targets worth scanning out, initially a Drake and a Mealstrom but by the time we had probers in the system they had both disappeared.

Another vessel appeared on scan in Ualkin and with hopes of it being the Mealstrom; Lady S and myself warped in for tackle only to find it was a Hurricane instead. It would have to do and I set to work on the ECM-drones this poor fellow deployed. With the rest of the fleet hot on our heels the Cane didn’t last long.

The trip home was a little unlucky for Jaba, losing his drake (and our 30 mil loot) to a gate-camp. You win some you learn some I guess…

What next
All in all the Rifter is not my favourite ship just yet. I need some sexy kills in it before I can fall in love with it. I have started a partial recall on the Rifter fleet and am refitting them to have a NOS.

A quick thank you to the all that left comments on the previous post and those that have helped or advised so far. Even THE rifter Drifter, Mr Wensley put in his 2 cents.


More on Project Rifter soon…

Watch this space

8 comments:

  1. You've not exactly been making life easy for yourself. A lot of those fights you picked were always going to end badly for you. Remember that when you're in a T1 frigate drones are your worst enemy, closely followed by neuts.

    Your best bet for getting some fights and learning about the ship is to look for frigate-sized targets. Fight some other Rifters, Punishers, Incursuses, Tristans, etc. and learn your capabilities.

    Finally remember never never never fly straight at a ranged ship. Transversal velocity is life when you're approaching from range.

    Good luck with the next 44...

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  2. Wensley stole most of what I was going to say. Mostly my advice is to never give up and pick your targets a bit better, half of winning is being bullheaded about it and the other half is something I haven't figured out yet either.

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  3. lol, yeah he does know what to say doesnt he! I know that some targets where stupid choices however the plan was to attack anything i come across and finding out the hard way myself...

    so far i am finding out the hard way indeed...

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  4. If you attack everything then you're doin it rite IMO. Every encounter so far offered GLORY and your rifters are now in VALHALLA.

    Although like Wensley says, a few frigate duels with the next one would probably be good :)

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  5. /me nods, I shall amend my ways...

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  6. I only ever fly dual-rep Rifters with neutz these days - they are crazy fun and require balls, super careful cap management and a little bit of luck.

    But get a cocky Interceptor pilot up close and it will be lights out sweetheart.


    Might be worth a try.

    Romeo :)

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  7. Ha lol! that sounds absolutely completely batfuckinsane! I like it...

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