An Update on Minith

"Lame! Lame I say!" I hear you say. Well, I agree wholeheartedly, but it is fun, and profitable. I decided on using an Enyo as my baiting-boat at the start, and I 'achieved' (not that it was difficult) many kills on a range of ships from haulers and barges to battleships. The beauty of can-baiting is after stealing from the can of a barge, they will call in corp-mates in a variety of combat fitted ships for me to test myself against. I did see a few losses here also. Sometimes, my lonely AF would find itself against another AF and a BC or two, or my Vexor against a Raven, etc. But I easily payed for my losses with the gold of the can-baiting world: strip-miners :)

One particular corp I classed as a "regular customer". The corp were "Black Blades Fighters" [BBF], and they held regular, large mining ops in high-sec. During these ops, I would get an interceptor and pinch ore and fly off, and come back and get aggression, and fly off in a complicated and intricate display of flying vaguely nowhere, the end result of which was me having combat rights on one or two ships only, no longer the entire corp. At which time I would swoop down purposfully and engage the hapless caracel, or ferox, or exequror or whatever. I almost always came away with a kill, and many of them lost ships to CONCORD having shot thinking they still had aggression rights.

"Still lame!" you call. I agree still, where's the challenge in taking down a mining caracal, or a rocket ferox? There is none. But one particular string of fights was interesting and challenging, from the same corp. First, I stole a small ammount of Veldspar from the can of one of their corps retrievers. Shortly after, a claw interceptor appeared. I was slightly worried about this, because if she played it right she could outdo the tracking of my blasters, since I din't have a med slot for a web. However she approached and fired, and a few vollies later she was space dust. I looted the can (pre-rev) for some t2 autocannons and other named shiznits. I waited, to see is any more would come, and sure enough, a few minutes later, arrived a caracal. Heavy missiles pounded into my enyo and obliterated its shileds, but of course I'm not shield tanked, and he barely dented my armour before my void-packed blasters melted through his hull. Loot this time consisted of a best-named sensor booster and some nice named shield mods. Again I waited, and again he came, this time in a Moa. Having still got the previous aggro rights I swooped in and engaged, pounding his well-tanked shields. Unfortunately, I quickly realised this wasn't a fight I could this time win. Although the tank on my enyo was nice, it cannot stand up against heavy missiles, medium blasters, and light drones whilst being webbed and medium-nossed. I left my orbit to 15km, and popped his drones, but my cap still couldn't sustain my repper within the nos range, which I needed to combat his blasters. So I sneakily left the system, travelled 2 jumps to my ship store, and hopped in my vexor, recently stocked out with shiny new t2 hammerheads :D (now I'd be far too tight to buy them at 2.5mill a piece :( ). Needless to say, his Moa didn't last very long before he joined that of his caracal and his friends claw. Of course there's always a bigger fish, and shortly after the returned in a raven. I was webbed, scrammed and nossed before I could do much about it, and his torps hurt, and shorty I too joined the graveyard that I had helped convert this belt into. We traded comments and "good fights" and agreed that at a later date we could have a 1v1 in our battleships.

So, very shortly after Kali was released, and after much smack-talk from that guy, we arranged our 1v1 and headed out for our titanic clash. I was piloting an armageddon, whos achievments included killing a scorpion, and forcing a nos domi to warp (the scrambler was one of the things I had to stop running due to cap issues :( ). I expected him to be in his raven once more, and I packed up with EM heavy drones. I found out, however, that he had infact indulged in a new Kali toy, the Rokh. I had heard fearsome tales of these, packing an awesome tank, and usually flying with a combination of nos and blasters, they were reknowned for being a complete nuisance to battleships and smaller ships alike. So, I engaged anyway, not wanting to look like chicken, despite the fact the odds were clearly stacked against me, tier 3 vs tier 1. As predicted, he had at least 4 heavy nos, and my booster was constantly on to support my guns, let alone my armor repairer or scrambler. I had him to around 30% shields when my booster boosted its last boost. After that there was nothing in it. My passive resistances from t2 plating meant he still took a time to chew through my large ammounts of armor, but he did, and my trusty (and expensive) 'geddon exploded to reveal a much smaller and less magestic wreck behind.

So my lame can-baiting and easy kills in small ships lead to my ultimate demise in a much larger and more expensive ship. Like that would stop me :)

Tune in next time for Pt.2.