It was relatively quite last night around my usual hunting grounds, or so it seemed. Maybe the long download time on the patch kept a few people out of the game. Also our current war has cooled off somewhat since the corp (along with a few friends) managed to kill the wts shiny (unfortunately I wasn't involved) so there were no wts online either.
This seemed like a good chance to restart my can-flipping experiments in Jakanerva (hisec wars can be fun but they do make it difficult to engage in non-war related activities), so I fly my Wolf into the system and start poking around the belts. It doesn't take long until I find a can to flip; the previous owner warps off and I orbit the can waiting to see what returns (I'm fit for fighting at range again, so my orbit is pretty loose at 20km). Back comes a Thrasher which turns out to autocannon fit, which seems ideal; we just had time to start our engagement when a Thorax lands on grid. Not so good :) It doesn't take long before the drones are released, which I start targeting and trying to kill. I manage to kill a few but I find it hard enough to keep track of a single target, so taking note of the spatial positioning of multiple targets is more than I can deal with at the moment. It's not long before I'm webbed giving the Thrasher time to get into range and in short order I'm popped again.
It seems the people I'd flipped were out to shoot can flippers (I'm happy with that). Maybe they'll hang around whilst I reship. Unfortunately it's a few jumps off to another (bigger) ship but I go and collect it anyway (losing connection half way, my ISP has been really flaky for the last couple of weeks). By the time I get back into Jakanerva with my Hurricane the aggression timer has expired but I warp into the belt anyway on the off-chance they would want to re-aggress only to find it empty. My cargo can is still there though, so I head off to a tactical to keep an eye on things.It's not long before the Thrasher pilot returns, and he steals the ore back out of my can. It doesn't take me long to warp into the belt and I kill him with two volleys before reflipping the can, and returning to my tactical in the hopes more of his corp would come along to avenge his death. None turn up, but a third-party in a Rifter arrives at the belt and drops a fresh can. I warp at range immediately and land as he's turning red; before long I've made another kill.
After reshipping into a Rifter and checking a couple of the other belts (the FEARing squad guys have killed somebody else in belt V-1; a Merlin by the looks of it; and are still hanging around. Most of their pilots are the same age as me, give or take, but they have a couple of people that are older. One from 2008, and one from 2006 (flying a command ship). I'm sure this intelligence will come in handy in the future) I go back to my tactical to keep an eye on my can.
The Rifter pilot I killed has reshipped into a Hurricane, is back at the belt, and is asking me to go and fight him. He is two years older than me, but I decide to try anyway (I'm pretty sure my artillery fit Hurricane will at least be able to run away if it all goes south). I actually manage to keep at my chosen range during this fight (most of the time!), overheating my warp disruptor and managing some manual piloting to keep my opponent within range. His guns occasionally deplete my shields with glancing blows and his drones aren't doing enough to overcome my passive shield regen. I think this is a fight I can win, even taking time in the middle of the fight to swap ammo; his shields and armour are gone and he's about to enter structure, when my warp disruptor burns itself out (I'd been trying to manage it, swapping between overheating and not overheating whilst trying to maintain an appropriate range, but in the end the heat won) and my cap dies because of too much mwd use. Fortunately he decides to warp off rather than close range (I later discover he burnt his afterburner out at about the same time as my warp disruptor died). I'm happy to call it a draw and it was nice to test my Hurricane out against a better trained opponent.
All in all, it was an entertaining night. The Hurricane 1v1 was fun, and I enjoyed a fight that took longer than my usual engagements. At least I had time to feel like I was engaged in the fight and could influence its outcome. Frigate fights often seem to be too fast and furious to change tactics once the fight has started, so they'd better be the right tactics at the start! Hopefully this will change as I gain experience. Also I think I will do less belt-hopping after finding a can to flip. If the previous owner doesn't take action after the theft, somebody else will be along to do so in time. Flip, wait, and observe will be my modus operandi in future (maybe. I'll probably be too impatient to wait for long in reality :)
Also, I think it's time to rethink my Wolf fit. I don't know if it's just that my piloting isn't yet up to the
strategy I have, or if the combat situations I get into are just
unsuited to the fit (or maybe it's just a bad fit period), but my Wolf
still fails to kill things and dies too regularly - the fit I'm
slightly modifying each time I fit it isn't working for me. I think it's
time to try out a close-range active tanked brawler.
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