Ishkur Versus Incursus : Inches

The other night I was helping a respected Gallente Militia FC try out his pimped Enyo's DPS and tank with my trusty dual rep Incursus that I've used a lot over the past year. He asked if I ever tried the Inshkur instead. I replied that I had trouble making it work the same and he expressed surprise that I would have that trouble.

So I decided to take another look in light of the patch and see what it was that bothered me so much about the possibility of a dual rep Ishkur...

Oh right. I remember now.

Incursus

Ishkur

The Ishkur has less powergrid than the Incursus (52.5 to 56.25) which means at the very least I'm downgrading to Light Ion blasters from Light Neutron blasters. That's not a huge deal as the extra drones make up the raw DPS lost (Ishkur 249 DPS to Incursus 197 DPS), and the extra CPU (193.8 to 168.8) means I don't need to use meta damage control and warp scrambler for better resistances and range respectively. The tank with the improved resistances means the Ishkur is better at taking damage than the Incursus (238 points/sec to 223), and the Ishkur has superior targeting range (59.4 km to 37.5km),, sensor strength (14.4 to 10.8 ), and a slightly smaller signature radius (39m to 42m).

So far, so good: in almost every aspect the Ishkur comes out on top even with a lower power grid.

Then I look at mobility. Incursus has base afterburner speed of 1082 m/s with 4.5 sec align time. Inshkur move max 853 m/s and 6.2 sec align time.

I'm an addict to speed. I fly with low grade snakes and even my afterburner frigates move with a bit of pep. The thought of giving up a 150 m/s  and almost 2 seconds of align time makes me cringe. Overreaction? Perhaps, but its enough downside combined with the prices (fully fit Ishkur is about 4 times the cost of a fully fit Incursus) and the rate I throw my Incursus into any fight with willingness to lose it, I'm not sure I'm ready to risk Ishkurs at the same rate.

Still, I might give it a try and see after my next paycheque.

That's the Ticket!

I missed my weekly Eve night last week due to my escape to play board games, and coupled with not being able to talk about a game I'm in the Closed Beta for due to the NDA (hint: I bought this joystick to enjoy it more), I found a lot of wind taken out of my sails.

Throw on top of that a busy long weekend due to Canadian Thanksgiving, two family dinners requiring two car rides, and general little child rearing of three hyper-energetic (and loud) monsters, I was pretty wiped when I logged in last night.

Can I do it, I asked myself? Can I get the motivation to fly again? IS THIS THE END?

I joined a fleet that was next door in Old Man Star running a plex. Apparently this fleet's raison d'etre was plexing. I wondered if I should go off on my own (or just give up and log off). We finished the plex and moved into Ladister to run another Major outpost.

IS THIS THE END OF KIRITH KODACHI!!?!?!?!

"Tusker in local."

My ears perk up, the haze clears, the senses sharpen. My eyes focus on local and I listen more closely as chattering on teamspeak gives way to intel.

"IK Thel in Arbitrator one hundred klicks off OMS gate, in line with station."

"Roger, warping."

"Point point, warp to me!"

I activate my warp drive and its 14 AUs away. The Arbitrator cruiser goes down fast to our little gang and I arrive just in time to lock and engage my weapons. I do no damage on the kill mail but the blood has started to flow.

Moments later, more intel. "Another Tusker, Naoru Kazon in local, looks like Hurricane." The heartbeat picks up. That name I recognize, he's one of the more proficient pilots in The Tuskers and most likely come to fight.

At the sun one of our gang made a tackle and we went in full force. I was right; the Hurricane was ready to fight and fight dirty. He was setup to fight and kill frigates (which was our fleet comp) and he tried to spread us out but we got multiple webs on him and started to go to work. Sensing he was doomed, he decided to go after me for some reason, probably because I went in early and hard. It was a close thing, but I exploded a second before the Hurricane did.

Ah yes, that's more like it.

I went back to base and got a Vagabond. The fleet caught and killed a couple more ships while I was in the Vaga but I didn't see any action as I covered a gate. Its all good, the blood was flowing now. I was

Later on I went back to Heydieles and saw a pirate Condor 100 klicks off station. I docked and grabbed my Dramiel, perfect for tuning up these upstarts who think the new Attack frigs are "all that". AS I undocked I saw him warp off to the static dungeon called an Abandoned Battlefield. I warped after and after I landed I gave chase. I was fast, but he was a good 700 meters per second faster. I was patiently giving chase, hoping he would try to come into range to fight me when two more Condors landed behind me. Two Condors I would consider engaging in my Dram, three was too much risk. I went back to station and got my Hurricane and rushed back, but they were gone.

I floated around for a little while longer. Then, as I was docking and preparing to log off I saw a war target who I knew was in a Cormorant from intel earlier in local chat. Engaging destroyers can be tricky as a properly fitted one can, well, destroy frigates. So I selected an Arty Thrasher and narrowed down on deep scan the Cormorant to the minor plex in system.

As I dropped out of warp on the plex gate I saw my three 'friends' in their Condors again. Before I could react two warped into the plex and one warped to the sun. After a moment pondering options and chances, I decided to warp to the sun and see if I could take out one Condor before his friends could arrive. At the sun I saw not only the Condor, but the other two Condors and the Cormorant.

Ah what the hell. CHARGE!

I decided to go down swinging at the Caldari foe (because, for the Federation and all that so I accelerated towards the Cormorant with guns blazing. I don't know if the Condors were winning the fight or not but my salvo finished the enemy off. I then blazed in a straight line hoping to drop the transversal of any pursuing Condors. That worked on one of the damaged Condors as one salvo popped him at 19 km away from me.

The other two, sensing perhaps a tougher prey than they could handle, warped off. I beamed. Not only did I get a couple killmails, I survived AND held the field.

God I love this game.

6 Years, 2214 Posts, and 3 Kills

Last night I was hungry for more conflict after last week's stunning (for me) victory over 7 opponents. I undocked in the same Ferox and went hunting but except for a neutral HAC gang with Guardian support there was noting bug enough for me to catch.

I found a couple Caldari plexers in a Merlin and Incursus in Filet next door to my base in Heydieles. They appeared to not be working together so I switched to my "Catch and Release" Dramiel to try and engage them but both were on the ball and warping out just under my long point lock. Sad face.

Then a call went out in Militia chat for a new fleet, one looking for T2 frigs only, assault ships and interceptors. Ah, a birthday present for me? Thank you! I love flying assault frigates; a small fleet of them has the speed to catch a lot of targets, durability to hold one in place until reinforcements arrive, and firepower to take down the bigger targets with relative ease. Add in a couple interceptors for extra fast tackle and you have the makings of a mean little fleet.

I grabbed one of my favourite assault ships, an Ishkur, and we formed up a fleet of 6 and headed out. In Filet and Deven we caught a war target Stabber trying to make a run for it and quickly dispatched it, but two of our pilots were in a corp that had just joined the militia and the Gallente gate guns fired upon them during the fight and took them out. Petition that loss sir!

The four of us that were not GCC'd ran a plex in Old Man Star while waiting for things to get sorted out with our two fleet mates (they opted to log until the gate guns like them again) and then picked up a couple more pilots from militia chat.We chased a couple targets as we roamed toward the forward base at Nennamaila but nothing wanted to fight.

Then we ran into a Caldari interceptor pilot flying a Taranis in Enaluri. We spread out trying to catch it but it was very quick and cagey. I was guarding the Nennamaila gate which is a decent hop from the inner planets, about 35 AU. Suddenly my directional scanner pinged off the Taranis hull and I let fleet know the target was running this way. She landed and we jumped through together.

In Nennamaila there was a number of war targets in local but none on the gate. I approached and locked the Taranis and much to my surprise the opponent did the same. "Great," I figured, "the enemy in local will be landing any second." Nevertheless I engaged my scram, web, guns, and drones hoping to at least take down the inty before retribution arrived.

Except it never did. Local numbers dropped as the other hostiles jumped out and the Taranis was a tasty snack for my assault ship. My fleet mates arrived just as it went down. I don't know if the enemy pilot thought she could take me or she hoped for help from militia members, but on a good day an interceptor is a poor match one on one with an assault frigate. Best hope is to kite it and an Ishkur has drones in that case. Still, kudos to Kitsune kateko for fighting regardless.

We sat on the Enaluri-Nennemaila gate for a few minutes picking off a Thrasher and Cormorant that tried to get through before I decided to log. A decent night for me and September is shaping up to be better than July was at this rate.