Red vs Black & Blue - Appendum

Here is the video from my fight with Connall. Its not very good. I was too frantic to pan the camera properly and the fight was too short and bloody for me to settle down. On the upside, its high def so you can see the carnage I was inflicting on him, and laugh at me as you hear the panic in my voice as I thought I was in low structure instead of low armour.

Red Versus Black & Blue

Last week I challenged Connall Tara, host of the Fly Reckless podcast and ship fitting aficionado, to a duel. When I listen to him on the podcast and his love for analyzing ship fits and theorizing the possibilities I know he is a kindred spirit to me. So it only made sense to challenge the youngster and see if I still had what it takes to win a duel.

Sense I issued the challenge he had the traditional choice of ship class. I suggested we would perhaps wait until after Retribution dropped and use the new destroyers, but he was eager for one on one combat and wanted to exercise his muscles in a larger ship class so opted for battlecruisers.

Before we get to what ship I chose, let's talk about the pilot match up. Connall Tara is a member of Red Versus Blue and thus has a lot of experience in small gang and solo warfare. So while he may not have been around Eve as long as this old pilot has he has the advantage of honing his PvP skills and reflexes a lot more. On Battleclinic he has over twice as many kills as I do and is ranked in the 16 thousands compared to my mid 50 thousands.

On the other hand, I've been around as long as dirt and have cross-trained all the factions' ships and all the weapon systems and all the tanking methods. When facing an arranged duel, one thing you do is to try and predict the possible ship's your opponent will take and for me that its nearly impossible as I fly all the ships; my killboard history has Ferox, Oracle, Hurricane in just the last three months.

In addition to my flexibility, I have been in quite a few duels against notable pilots and I understand that a duel can be very different from normal PvP, and that helps to negate some of Connall's superior PvP experience.

Overall, I think we are well matched on paper.

First thing I did before selecting my own ship was check Connall's own history. I know from the podcast that he flies both Caldari and Gallente now and I could see from the killboards that he has flown a battlecruiser once in the past three months, a triple repped Myrmidon. I figured it was either that or a Drake as I don't think he has trained large hybrids weapons for a pocket battleship and a Ferox is too slow for either a blaster or rail fit in a duel (Ferox is better when your opponent underestimates you).

Whether a Myrmidon or Drake, I was facing moderate damage coupled with heavy tanking. I figured he was going for the former so my initial setup was a kiting Tornado.

Program is Pyfa. Stop asking!

I figured if the drones were a problem (i.e. I could not shoot them down) I might be in trouble but I was fairly confident I could burn away and blast them as they chased. Then kite the Myrmidon down out of his guns' range.

But if he did show up in a Drake, I was going to have a very hard go of it. I feared either way it was going to be a very lopsided victory for one of us. So I looked at options.

I was determined to use a pocket battleship as I wanted the cool factor on my side so I looked at the Oracle. Its a nice ship with good damage projection, but that works better in small gangs or fleets and not so much one on one. I was too slow to maintain optimal against all but the slowest targets and I was sure Connall was not bringing an armour buffer tanked Ferox! So I looked at the Talos and decided to go for overwhelming firepower at close range, hoping it could overcome the defenses of the Myrmidon or Drake before going down.

The Talos has a nice trifecta of nice damage, some tank (33K EHP), and some mobility to catch another battlecruiser. With buffed Void ammo I get a theoretical 1093 DPS with my skills and the drones add another 93. Overheating can push that north of 1300 DPS. The speed is 1282 m/s maximum which should be enough to catch another battlecruiser outside of a fast Minmatar one which I'm 99% sure Connall can't fly (yet). The web and scram should be enough to slow any battlecruiser target down enough to track with Void ammo, but I had a spare mid slot and I decided to further increase my damage application with a target painter which I believe should increase the quality of the hits. The only question is if my damage potential is superior to my opponent's tanking potential.

The Actual Fight

We hooked up in Kinakka in Black Rise which I think is roughly between our home systems and has Gallente control so I can dock and high sec adjacent system for easy travelling to low sec for Connall. Time zone differences meant I logged in on Saturday afternoon so my opponent was not staying up too late.

Once we were both online, we undocked and agreed to meet at planet IV. I saw Connall in a Gallente Myrmidon and I hoped it was a convential setup. I wondered if my Talos gave him any pause but on Skype he said nothing. Maybe the dark skies of low sec was unnerving him. ;)

I landed at planet IV first and launched my drones. The Myrmidon came in and landed right beside me at zero and I breathed a sigh of relief. He locked me up quick and I was webbed and scrammed in short order, my shields half gone before I finished locking. There was those RvB honed reflexes I was worried about. I set orbit to 6500 meters and turned on my web and scram and painter and blasters and told my drones to get to work.

So there we were, both webbed and scrammed to a virtual standstill, blasting away at each other while drones whirled around in a haze around us. No chasing, no tricks to save either of us. Will my damage outpace his tank?

It didn't take very long to find out. With my Talos having 10% armour left, Connall's Myrmidon exploded in a pleasing flash of light.

He had brought a dual repping setup which is solid in usual 1v1 situations against enemy battlecruisers, but against a tier 3 pocket battleship setup for maximum damage application it simply lacks the tank. He could repair a portion of my damage per second but the ship lacked any buffer to absorb the rest and victory was mine. A tripled repped Myrmidon may have had a better chance but even then the damage of the Talos is fierce and fast and may have overwhelmed the ship even then.

Good fight, Connall. Better luck next time. If you take anything away from this little tussle it should be this: train large hybrids.

I Hate The Robo-Blogger

I had big plans today to write a nice post about how yesterday's dev blog by CCP Fozzie about Technetium and Alchemy changes is a nice gesture but ultimately futile, but as I read my feed this morning I discovered that Ripard Teg had already done so, probably with more flair and eloquence than I could have.

Someday I'm going to have to hunt him down and shoot him...

(In game of course)

Loving it up in Faction War

So far I'm loving being in faction war. I was in faction war 4 years ago but that was when the twins were just newborns and I was alone in Eve and simply plexing for standings. Now that I'm joining fleets and attempting to PvP more than plex, I'm having a great time. With Pirates on one side of me
and a hostile faction on the other, there is plenty of opportunity for fights.

Last night I saw a war target plexing in my current base of Heydieles. He was in a minor plex so I grabbed my artillery Thrasher and warped in. There he was in a Thrasher about 85 km off orbiting the beacon... but there was also a neutral Thrasher only 20 km away from my warp in. He engaged and the fight was on. I tried to open up range and kite him but he was faster and autocannon fitted so he got in close and killed me. I reshipped to a tough Daredevil but he was gone (turned out he fought an Ishkur about 15 minutes later and died and I got some undeserved credit).

I warped the Daredevil into the plex and tried to make a run at the war target in the Thrasher who was still plexing but he warped off. I left system and came immediately back and warped to the plex to try and catch him on the way in, but again he was too far and warped off. However, while I was activating the acceleration gate I saw two neutral Hookbills land on the gate. I wasn't ready to throw my Daredevil at them so I reshipped to a Thorax cruiser and warped to the plex gate again. I wouldn't be able to go into the plex, but I was hoping to catch the Hookbills unawares.

Well, the Hookbills did warp in and I gave a run at them but they decided to not fight me and warped off before I could resolve a lock. But as I turned to get back into position three neutrals warped in and I crapped my pants: A Dramiel, Daredevil, and a Kestrel.

I tried to run but aligning and speeding up took too long and they pointed me. Oh well, I thought, I guess I'm in a fight.

I tried to shoot at the Dramiel first but his transversal was too high, so I simply let my EC-600 Vespas work their magic on on the Daredevil and I targeted and webbed the Kestrel figuring to remove his glass cannon DPS first. He went down in a hurry and then I turned my to the slower Daredevil. I was losing armour at a fast clip but the ECM drones slowed the incoming DPS. I overlooked my heating and burned out my point which is too bad because the Daredevil was taking a beating from my web and blasters and decided to bug out. That left me and the Dramiel.

I could not hit the Dramiel even with the webs on while my scram was burned out and I had no nanite paste. So I told the ECM drones to do their magic and hoped while my structure was slowly eaten away. At 23% structure, the point dropped and I wasted no time in warping off. Not the best kill I've ever had, but one of the closest calls. Good fight!

* * * * *

This morning I was coming back from a roam I was on after the fight above (stuff happened, but nothing worth recording) in my own Dramiel when I got a wave in local from a war target named Boge who hangs out in the Ninveah channel. I wasn't looking for a fight but he challenged me to a 1v1 and I am loathe to turn those down. I docked to drop off some loot to an ally and saw Boge in a Merlin. Hmmmmm.... no other war targets or neuts in local so he's not ganglink boosted, in a Tech I frigate, and he still wants to fight me in my Dramiel? He's either very confident or very ready to die... smells like a trap.

But I undock and charge at him anyways. What kind of pseudo-celebrity would I be if I ran from every suspicious fight? I used my MWD to get in close and then switched to afterburner one I got my web on him. I only had one drone in the bay, the other three left behind last night in a quick retreat. He tried to open up range between us, confirming my suspicion that he was kiting fitted and wanted to fight me out of my optimal range (his fit with rails, web, scram, and dual props supports this theory) but my webbed afterburner Dramiel was faster than his webbed afterburner Merlin (especially when I have low grade Snake implants) and I was able to keep very close so that my autocannons and drones burned through his non-existent defenses before he could get through my small armour tank and with 50% armour left on my ship the Merlin exploded and good fights were exchanged.

Loving faction warfare, come join us.

Margin of Error

Over at Voices from the Void podcast there was a contest where one of the hosts, Marc Scarus aka Marcosaurus the Irish Dinosaur, would engage in Tech I frigate duels with four contestants and I was one of the lucky draw winners to be a contestant.

The rules are:

Combat Rules
○ Contestants & Dani will meet in a designated low sec system.
○ Dani will pick a safe and constants will be allowed to warp in at range.
○ Chosen Co-host Marc and contestant will fight until hull destruction.
○ Poddings are not allowed will be grounds for disqualification
○ Hull destruction/podding of the cinematographer will be grounds for disqualification
○ Warp outs will be grounds for forfit.
○ Fitting must be provided to Dani prior to the contest for review (Don’t worry, I won’t share. I hope they lose.)

Fitting Rules
○ T1 Frigate Hulls Only. No faction hulls, etc.
○ Mods can be T1, Named or T2. No officer, deadspace, faction, etc.
○ No ECM mods. All other E-War mods allowed
○ Drones are allowed with the exception of e-war
○ Ammo can be T1, T2 or faction
○ Activating a cyno, ECM mod or E-War Drone will result in disqualification.

Edits:
• Added no faction hulls to fitting rules.

I spent an hour or two looking at a bunch of fittings and considering what I wanted to do which when you have Frigate V for all races and TEch II on all weapon systems is a lot. Try for the close in brawl and overpower him? Super tank and try and kite? Ewar? Neuts? Rockets? GAH TOO MANY CHOICES!!!!!

I should have stuck to my strengths and gone with a close ranged brawler but I wanted to be Mr Fancy Pants so I decided to try and be clever and make a kiting ship. Of course, kiting only works as long as you can control range so I went for the fastest non-MWD Rifter fit I could come up with in a Tech 1 frigate, with some remote sensor dampening to boot.

With my snake implants I could go over 1700 m/s, and my warp scrambler would keep any MWD ship from staying in range too long. The only danger was an afterburner ship equipped with a web and all I had to do was stay out of overheat web range of 13 km in that case. I knew that could be hard but I was up for the challenge. In hindsight, the margin of error when you factor in the limited targeting range of my own ship was terribly small, especially at the speeds involved, but I was too determined to be clever for my own good.

I arrived at the duel and warped in at a comfortable 50 km range which gave me enough room to setup for my range control tactic. Marc arrived in a Rifter as well and I figured he was an afterburner setup based on his top speed around 1100 m/s. Marc tried to close distance but quickly realized I was faster and had the range to hit him. We both knew what was next assuming he had a web, his only option besides forfeiting: The Rope A Dope.

The Rope A Dope. In this case, I'm the dope.

I knew it was coming. I turned around to get back into fighting range and knew I would have to be careful to stay out of that 13 km overheated webber range. I could blame it on my wife asking me what I was doing, or that I was trying to lock Marc while watching ranges, but the fact of the matter was that the margin of error was so small at the speeds were were moving that even if I manged to avoid getting caught this time I probably would have gotten caught the next time. Kudos to Marc for pulling it off so effortlessly.

Needless to say, my tank was all dependent on staying out of his range and as soon as he got that web on me I had no escape. My warp scrambler, a defence against a possible MWD fit, was useless and I was at his mercy.

Fortunately, it didn't take very long.

Also, in the good news department, Marc defeated all of his other three opponents so I'm not the only one.

GF GF

The Art of the Duel

So yesterday I pontificated on the challenges facing the roaming solo PvPer, mostly talking about low sec as the challenges in null sec are different but no less daunting.

Today we will talk about dueling in Eve.

There are three broad categories of duels. There is the spontaneous duel, the improvised duel, and the arranged duel.

In the spontaneous duel, you and your opponent are both out hunting and happen upon each other. There may be some positioning and warping to celestials but essentially the gist is that you both want the fight and go at it with no interference from other pilots on either side and no refitting to specific ships for the fight. There may be some communication in local or private chat along the lines of goading or arranging to meet at a particular spot.

While these fights can be satisfying, they are fraught with risk. Your opponent could be in a fleet with an alt providing significant performance boosts through gang links, or in a fleet with other pilots ready to jump in as soon as you are tackled. Or your opponent could have seen you roaming and put together a specific fit to defeat you.

The improvised duel is a way to mitigate some of the risk. Usually these types develop when someone asks in local for a 1v1 of a particular ship type like frigate or cruiser. If you agree, a chat is started up and a fleet so that both sides can see that the other does not have a booster alt or gang waiting in the wings. There may be additional requests like "only to the pod" or "no ECM" and a hope that suggest agreed to requests are honoured. You meet at a safe spot and go at it.

Like a spontaneous duel there is a threat that your opponent has buddies waiting in the wings with a bookmark to the location or that if he saw your ship earlier he built a setup just to defeat you, but since there is an agreement in place there is more honour in respecting the terms and not cheating. Its no guarantee but in Eve memories can be long and grudges fierce, and honouring 1v1s is considered the basic mark of a good low sec citizen.

Another form of improvised dueling is when a pilot sits on an undock of a trade hub with some ammo in a jet can and waits for a dancing partner to it so he can fire upon them. This is not so much a duel as a trap since even if you are ready for a fight, he may have friends ready to undock if you fire or logistics ships ready to go out of your range. I'd advise you to not take the bait and don't feed the trolls.

Finally we have the Arranged Duel, a hallmark of the blogging/podcasting community that was really brought to the fore by Nashh Kadavr's work with the Celebrity Death Matches of yesteryear. Essentially you and another pilot agree ahead of time to have a duel with terms and conditions set out in explicit detail as to what is allowed and not allowed. For example, tech 1 frigates (no faction), tech II gear and ammo (faction charges allowed), no ECM, warp to bookmark at preferred range, to the pod. A time and place are set and the participants arrive and get ready with some banter and clarifications if necessary.

The big difference in arranged duels is that both pilots have time to plan ship fits to an obsessive degree, piling on killboards to see what their opponent has used before, seeing if any intel on skills or certificates can be found, and in some cases checking out previous duels. Since the terms are set out very clearly, and warping out is an admission of defeat where the goal is bragging rights more so than a kill mail, ship fits can be customized in a manner that normal PvP ships would never be found in. For example, fits without points or fits with Amarr drones (don't laugh, I used them to help defeat Nashh once). Arranged duels can happen anywhere, high sec, low sec, null sec, even in wormholes. For high sec or low sec, players can exchange one unit of ammo in a jet can to become red flashy to each other to avoid a security penalty. Also, arranged duels can be more than just 1v1, they can be 2v2 (see video below) or even more as long as all participants are considered trustworthy.

Having done all three, I can assure you that arranged duels can be awesome as players are more willing to risk bigger ships if they are assured of a fair fight. While a Rifter duel can be fun, a loss is nothing to write home to mother about. But putting a battleship or tech II vessel on the line is a whole different matter.

If you want to dip your toe into the water, don't be afraid to drop me a line. But watch this first :)

Nashh Kadavr's CDM # 16 - 2 v 2

Sunday Night's Alright For Fighting

RECAP: Grudge Match and then Putting Moose beaver To The Sword

So Seismic Stan and I met on the field of battle in the quiet low sec system of Aliette and prepared for our best of five matches duel, starting at lowly frigates and then going to destroyers, cruisers, and if required, battlecruisers and battleships.

Preparation

Since both of us are long in the tooth in terms of skillpoints (and he's a wily old bastard), I knew that trying to counter a specific ship in each class was useless so I went with whatever I felt I could make work.

For frigates, I settled on a dependable low sec roaming Rifter. I considered going for something more exotic or with a bigger tank, but I figured the familiarity of the abilities of the Rifter was key. Pretty much standard 150mm autocannons, a Nos, and active armour tank.

Next, there was no doubt I would take a Catalyst as its my favourite destroyer, the question was merely if I should go with a blaster fit or rail fit. I opted for railguns as I planned to try and stay out of his range and flick him to death, hoping he opted for a shorter ranged Thrasher or Coercer, or a paper thinned hull Cormorant.

I spent the most time working on a cruiser ship. First I thought "gank Thorax" but realized that was better for catching unsuspecting targets unawares and not ideal for a prepared opponent. Then I spent some time planning out a blaster Moa that could tank like a pro and deal decent damage, but I was worried I would be outranged and outran by a well piloted Rupture. So I finally decided to get out of my comfort zone and go EWAR. We agreed no ECM, but that left a lot of other nasty options open like neutralizers and tracking disruptors. I've been eager to try out an Arbitrator for a while so put one together with two medium neuts, one medium nos, and one small nos in the highs, two tracking disruptors in the mids, and a buffer armour tank. All damage would come from medium drones of which I packed 15 (no frigs to worry about). It was a risk; if he brought a missile ship or a drone ship or a sniping ship, I could be in trouble.

On to battlecruisers and this was a no brainer: Gank Talos. I fully expected to die but I hoped the shock of getting hit by battleship weapons would make him panic and mess up. So eight big honking Neutron Blaster Cannons IIs, tackle, a semblance of an armour buffer tank, and a one way ticket to explodey-ville!

If we got to battleships, I wanted to fly cautiously. I wanted something with the best combination of gank, tank, and range. There is no question that Pulse lasers are the answer to two of those questions and the Abaddon provides the bulk of the third. Enter Mega Pulse Laser IIs, 1600mm plates and trimark armour pumps, and enough mid slots to pin down a charging bull (or Megathron). I would try and engage at ~50 km range and let powerful Scorch Crystals do their work. Failing that, Imperial Navy Multifriequency would have to suffice.

The Duel Part 1 - Merlin vs Rifter

Stan ran into a problem setting up. He forgot an important power grid implant and thus his frigate fit was not going to work! I offered to disable a mod to equal terms but he declined, graciously offering to slog it out with whatever he could pull together in station. A true trooper, almost Canadian in his perseverance!

We met at the duel safe spot (apologies to Vsmit who was in system to see duels but we went with security over publicity due to Stan's terror of low sec) and I saw it was a Merlin. I've said before a properly fitted and flown Merlin can be fearsome so I knew I was in for a fight. We barreled into each other at short range and began the dance of death.

I was quickly in armour and out of capacitor, but since warping off was conceding defeat I turned off scram mods and concentrated on pulsing the armour repper whenever I could and keeping that nosferatu running. Slowly but surely I nibbled at his shields and eventually I broke them. It was over soon after that.

Lord Moose Beaver 1, Baron Crumpet Tea 0

The Duel  Part 2 - Catalyst vs Catalyst


For the second duel I warped in and found Stan landing over 100 km away in a Catalyst. And he fired up a micro warp drive meaning two things: 1) we're both fitting long range fits and trying to maintain range and 2) my afterburner fit is sorely going to be outpaced in that department.

In hindsight, I should have never won this duel. Stan had also fitted a remote sensor dampener which combined with the range fit and MWD should have meant he could fight outside of my targeting range of 41 km and prevent me from ever hitting him. I'll need to review the fraps I made of the event but I never once had problems targeting him when he pulled within 41 km so I wonder if he fit the wrong script and was uselessly messing with my scan resolution instead, or just didn't get the mod activated soon enough when in range.

Regardless, the fact of the matter is that his big signature from the MWD meant I hit him pretty hard when he came into range and as he tried to pull back I finished him off.

Lord Moose Beaver 2, Baron Crumpet Tea 0

The Duel Part 3 - Moa vs Arbitrator

I was really surprised to see yet another Caldari ship as I fully expected a dependable and solid Rupture cruiser here. I was really happy when he landed right on top of me as it meant that my tracking disruptors would be most effective in close. We engaged and the battle was on.

Again, this fight was weird. I think he stayed stationary for most of the fight allowing me to orbit at ease. It seemed he was firing upon my drones a lot of the fight too and since I had him tracking disrupted and lots of spare drones, that didn't worry me. I killed his drones right away to make sure my tank was not threatened and sat happily at ~50% armour.

Then something happened as his shield tank broke. I don't know if he opted to start moving differently (which is what the fraps suggested) or if he turned all weapons on me instead of my drones. It became a race into structure but I think my drones managed to save me and kill him while I still had 28% structure left.

Lord Moose Beaver 3, Baron Crumpet Tea 0

Conclusions

I can't help but feel that rust on Stan's part saved me in at least two of those matches. The Catalyst matchup was completely in his favour on paper, and the last one would have required some pretty fancy flying to avoid death had he been doing all throughout the match what he did at the end to start hitting me.

That being said, there is no substitution for victory and close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. My Canadian Honour has been assuaged this time, Stan. Don't make me come after you again!

Overshot

Last night Havegooda, author of the Low Sec Roamer blog, and myself met for a duel in Rens. The agreed upon conditions were tech 1 frigates and no ECM.

In the preparation for the duel I went over the frigates available to me and tried to pick a contender. A quick investigation showed Havegooda was capable of flying Rifters so I speculated I would most likely face one such ship in our duel, so I wondered what would be best to counteract it or something like it. My own Rifter? With no tech II projectile skills (yet) that seemed unlikely to be able to compete. Merlin? Nice big tank but the split weapon system and bonus for only two turrets makes it poor for 1 versus 1 work (CCP, add turret to Merlin, m'kay?).

I considered the Incursus and Tristan as I have Gallente Frigate V and excellent drone and blaster skills, but I was leery of doing a knife fight with an accomplished Rifter pilot. Frigates are not my strong point; I like ships with big asses and big guns.

I decided to gamble and go a different route. Not many frigates are capable of fighting at range but the Kestrel is one of them. I was going to equip it with light missiles and MWD and try to kill him far from his engagement range.


Wait, that setup is slightly wrong: I had two Small Aux Thrusters rigs to put my speed over 2700 m/sec. Oh well, I'm too lazy to fix the image.

Anyways, we met in Rens, I saw he was in Rifter as expected, and we warped to planet 1 to exchange ammo cans for agression, and warped to planet 20 twenty kilometers apart. I immediately moved to my range and it quickly became apparent that his afterburner Rifter would never catch me and my DPS was easily absorbed by his tank. I thought about just waiting until his cap finally gave out (if ever) but instead we called it a stalemate and we docked up to repair overheating damage and tweak the setups.

I knew I was probably done for; he had my measure and would probably catch me in the rematch so I swapped out the shield booster for a tracking disruptor in hopes it would keep me alive.

We warped directly to planet 2 as we still had aggression to each other and I tried to move away again. Sure enough he flew towards me at full speed and my heart sunk as I saw his velocity climb to over 3000 m/sec, more than enough to catch me fast. I tried to overheat my MWD for more time but it suddenly winked off as he got his warp scrambler on me. He first salvo hit and my shields evaporated and I knew the end was near. I spammed the MWD in hopes of some miracle and.... it activated?

Did he run out of cap for his scrambler? I haven't been hit again, is the tracking disruptor that powerful? Nope, neither was true. He simply flew out of range.

In the discussion afterward he told me he overshot me with his MWD on and before he could switch to afterburner and by the time he turned around I had opened up the range again and my missiles plowed into him in a flurry of pain. He didn't get a chance to activate the repper soon enough and his Rifter exploded to my dropped jaw of surprise.

I've seen overshooting a target happen before, hell I've done it myself in an interceptor. This time it proved fatal as my light missiles needed only a short amount of time to catch up to him as he turned around. A good fight and a narrow victory for me.

Rumble In Rens: Result

When I was deciding what ship to use in my third duel with Nashh Kadvar, I went through a lot of options. With my level of skill points and cross training I can fly Amarr ships with lasers almost as well as I can fly Caldari ships with missiles and everything in between. Only Minmatar ships with projectiles elude me still.

So I considered a lot of setups in Eve Fitting Tool (aka EFT). And I did some research on ships Nashh and his alt have been known to fly from kill boards and previous Celebrity Death matches. I came to the conclusion that I was about 75% sure I would be facing a Tech II torpedo Raven and started there by comparing all possible setups to a couple possible setups in EFT with perfect skills.

Eventually I came down to three possibilities:

- Blaster ship: get close and wail away.

- Pulse Abaddon: go to about 40 kilometers, out of range of torps, and shoot from there.

- Sneaky Neut Dominix: get out of range of torps and let drones do the work, using neuts to keep his cap down if he tries to MWD into range.

- Torp Raven: get close and wail away, winner is pretty much whosever skills are better.

At one point I settled on the sneaky Neut Domi and had a shopping list but I changed my mind after soliciting advice from my corp mates and my CEO and a director said to go with the Mega. The blaster boat approach appealed to a visceral side of me and it didn't take much persuasion to abandon all other pretenses and start focusing on the straight forward and simple "approach and shoot".

So why Megathron instead of the Rokh? You all know I love the Rokh and I sing its praises to the heavens all the time, but in a situation like this where I needed to provide my own tackle I had to be pragmatic. The Rokh cannot fit a webber and a scrambler without sacrificing shields and if I went with armour tank on it I'd have to sacrifice damage. The Megathron does not suffer in this regard. Had it been for a gang I would always pick the Rokh over the Mega. I also considered the Hyperion but I wanted to avoid an active tank to conserve on cap as much as possible.

Once the strategy and ship had been decided upon, the setup was very easy: 7 Heavy Neutron Blaster Cannons in the highs; MWD, web, scram, and medium cap booster in the mids; some plates and resistance mods in the lows along with a couple magnetic field stabs. All tech II.

At this point, its a very affordable ship. Insurance covers the cost of the hull and the modules are not very expensive. But now I was faced with the decision to rig it or not which adds about 60 million ISK on to the price tag.

Well bitches, I'm Kirith-fracking-Kodachi, the terrible yet rich PvPer. Of course I rigged it. So my ship looked like this:

2 x Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II
2 x 1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
2 x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Quad LiF Fueled I Booster Rockets
Stasis Webifier II
Warp Scrambler II
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 800

7 x Neutron Blaster Cannon II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator

3 x Large Trimark Armor Pump I

However, I had a great fear. In our Battlecruiser duel many moons ago I took a blaster Myrmidon against his Drake and lost primarily because I could not catch up to him fast enough and when I did an ECM drone broke my lock and he sped away. While I wasn't sporting an active tank this time and no ECM was allowed, I still had visions of chasing him for minutes before I could get within range of the web and scrambler.  To counteract this scenario, I looked into buying a Domination Web with a 15 km range (19 km overheated) which would give me better ability to grab him. And if I am getting one of those I might as well get a Domination Scrambler as well with 11 km range (13 km overheated) to kill his MWD sooner so I can turn mine off and save some cap.

Well, if I'm springing for two faction mods, why stop there? I looked over the rest of the modules and settled on upgrading the EANM IIs to Amarr Navy versions, the extra resistances couple make my buffer tank hold on just that little bit longer that I might need.

I wanted to use Praetor II heavy drones for the EM damage (assuming Raven) but lacked the skills so I spent a week training Amarr Drone Specialization to level IV. And I wanted to reduce the effect of the armour rigs so I trained Armour Rigging up to IV as well.

Then I spent some time checking out Synth boosters and purchased a couple, one to give 3% more capacitor and one for 3% more tracking. They were cheap and have no side effects so why not?

At this point I went a little crazy. With more and more invested into the ship I felt more and more need keep looking for advantages to win the duel. So I went and bought an implant, the Eifyr and Co 'Gunslinger' CX-2 which costs about 200 million ISK and gives a 5% bonus to all turret damage. Now in my defense, this implant is an investment for my empire mission running clone and was not at risk in the duel which was just to the pod and not to the death.

That clone also has an implant for 3% bonus to damage of large hybrid turrets and one for 3% bonus to all turret tracking speed from my days of running missions in the Rokh.

This is the final result:


Now for the actual battle.

We met at Rens I and I breathed a vast sigh of relief when I saw it was a Raven which meant I was probably facing a ship that would stay in my range. We exchanged a unit of ammo and warped to planet II, him at zero and me at 20 km.

The next two minutes and twenty seconds were the most intense I've ever had in high sec.

I quickly jumped on him and got my overheated web and scram and his speed dropped to below 70 meter per second. I switched off the overheat and the MWD as I settled into an orbit of 4000 kilometers. Drones were launched and blasters and neutralizer activated.

My shields were gone almost instantly from his hard hitting torpedoes and it looked like he was not repairing so I think we both realized it was a race to 0 hitpoints. Checked my drones? Not being attacked. Checked his speed? Still almost stationary. Overheat weapons for a cycle or two, turn off overheating before they burn out. Pop cap charge, make sure it reloads. Check his hitpoints, he's down to about 80%. Me? 75%. Yikes.

I got into a groove, checking cap to see if I need to pop another charge, checking heat indicator to see if I can risk another cycle of overclocking, checking range to make sure I was in my optimal, check my damage notification to make sure I'm getting sufficiently good hits, and check our respective hitpoints to see how the battle was faring. Then repeat.

The good news was that his shields were going down faster than my armour as he hit 50% slightly before I did. The bad news was I didn't know how well his armour would hold me off once it was gone and I had no second like of defense.

The hitpoints ticked off slowly as both our big buffers were whittled down. When I say slow, it felt like forever but the entire fight lasted only two minutes and twenty seconds. Time, relative, yadda yadda yadda.

Just as I reached about 25% armour his shields were gone. Now the question is how much can he tank without shields? The answer: not much. As I hit 19% armour left his ship exploded and victory was mine.

Click here for Nashh's report of the fight.

Analysis

On paper (i.e. EFT) the Raven Nashh used has better resists, more hitpoints, and more DPS. Until, that is,  you take missile damage reduction into account. If you run the DPS graph you will see that the signature of the Megathron (400 meters) is lower than Rage torpedoes by enough to give a damage reduction of about 50%. Had he used faction torps his damage reduction would have been only around 20%. My ship, on the other hand, suffered almost no damage reduction from his speed since I had him almost stationary at my favourite orbit.

The missile damage reduction saved my life. A single target painter would have made my life much harder if he could fit it in there.

I feel a little guilty about the faction mods and the expensive implants, but the Domination modules made no difference (he had no MWD) and the Amarr Navy EANMs made only a slight difference on the tank (122K EHP compared to 116K EHP with EANM IIs). As for the implants, well, I don't know what implants he had from his mission running days so I'll call that even.

All in all, a great time and good fight. See you on the flip side Nashh.

EDIT: I renamed my Mega after the fight from "Going for Broke" to "Nashh Kadvar's Bane". MUHAHAHAHHA!

Rumble In Rens Back On

The Battleship duel between Nashh Kadvar and myself that was postponed due to hardware issues is back on, scheduled for tomorrow night at around 0100 in Rens. We will be meeting at planet 1, exchanging a unit of ammo to become shootable by each other, and warping to planet 2 to duke it out.

Observers welcome.

Rumble In Rens Postposed

The duel that was supposed to occur this Sunday with Nashh Kadvar has been postponed as he is suffering from serious hardware issues right now.

When he gets back to a functional platform we'll reschedule and I'll let you all know.

9 Days To Battleship Duel

A lot of people like frigates and cruisers and their tech II and III variants in Eve, and while I definitely appreicate a good Interceptor clipping along at 5 km/sec or a Onyx dropping a bubble on the enemy fleet, I live for the big ships. Battleships, Carriers, Orcas... I get tears in my eyes when I undock in them.


So I'm really really looking forward to my duel with Nashh in 9 days.

I've been spending some free time pouring over EFT and theorycrafting in my head all the permutations this Duel can take on. Unlike the Destroyer duel, I have a lot of options as I can fly Caldari, Amarr, and Gallente all acceptably well and I can use missiles, drones, hybrids, and lasers all decently too. That gives me 9 battleships to choose from; well 8 more accurately because the Scorpion would be useless without its ECM modules which are disallowed in the coming tilt.

Of the ships there are a lot of different options. Hybrids? Drones? Lasers? Missiles? Close up or at range? Active or passive tank? I've looked at multiple setups for all the 8 battleships and each one has something to reccomend it.

Next Sunday will reveal if my planning is all for nought or pays off.

Rumble In Rens

Nashh and I have agreed to the terms of our third and tie-breaking duel:

Here is what I'm proposing for the "Rumble In Rens":

1) Rens is the scene unless your sec status is too low by then. I'm thinking Nov 1st at around 23:59 eve time or 00:30 by the time the kids are in bed and kitchen tidied up. Sigh.

2) Tech 1 Battleships. I.e. no faction (Navy or Pirate) and no tech II (Golem *drool*)

3) No restrictions on mods/rigs, ammo, or drones with the exception of no ECM modules or drones.

4) No warping out. Duel goes to the Pod.

5) Range limitation of 50km.

6) Setup is same as last two duels: we meet and exchange a unit of ammo in a can to become red to each other, and then warp to second planet so we land 20 km apart. As soon as warp bubble collapses, fight is on.

Spectators welcome to join us!