Ombeve

I found myself once again patrolling in my Cyclone. I’d bought it on a whim some months ago when playing with Goonswarm in low-security during a wardec, and it was calling to me. “Don’t fly those sexy T2 ships, us T1 ships have something to offer too”.

So I relented, and decided to spend more time in it. They did look cool, and had been a mainstay of the Minmatar fleets until the more refined Hurricane had arrived on the scene. The Hurri was a better choice in capsuleer combat, but the Cyclone became cheaper as a result and it’s still a capable ship.

I bumped into Lord Makk and Shadow Pride as I passed through KBP, and we decided to go to lowsec in order to pay CVA a visit in their new home. They were in Vagabonds, and my lumbering battlecruiser kept up the best it could. We were soon joined by Merkal Aubauch in a Jag.

It didn’t take long before we started running into unseen CVA, who no doubt reported us. Makk jumped into Mamet, while we waited in Valmu. He eventually got a Vagabond to follow him into us, and when he finally decloaked and ran for gate, he moved into range of my Scramber which shut off his MWD but not soon enough. He jumped out. We knew a fight would be imminent. A Huginn jumped in, but he was too far from me to anything but set my drones on, then he too jumped back out.

The Vagabond jumped back in, and we knew this time he’d have reinforcements on the way so he’d engage. Sure enough, he did. We lit him up as the gate flashed. He ran his MWD which took him out of my range as a CVA Cyclone decloaked 11km from me. I knew I couldn’t chase the Vaga so I let our Vagas and Jag chase him down and concentrated on the Cyclone

The Cyclone lost no time in attacking me, he had Warrior IIs out (similar to me, you can squeeze in four medium drones but this leaves you vulnerable to Interceptors). I ejected my Warriors II and loaded EMP ammo, the ten seconds load time was agonisingly slow. My drones rushed over and started orbitting the BC, and this when I had my first inkling of what loadout the Cyclone had. It’s shields were noticeably disappearing already with just drone damage. Hmm, weird.

I was now pretty much on top of him, he was scrammed and neuted. Finally my gun’s status went green in the HUD, and I let rip. EMP shells and Hellfire Assault Missiles battered his shields, my own shields were holding, the Shield Booster pulsing steadily, capacitor dwindling but being replenished by cap boosters.

His shields disappeared very quickly indeed, I fed this back to the others who I think weren’t having much luck with the other Vaga. However, this is when I noticed two things- the CVA Cyclone was firing rockets at me, and suddenly the damage I was doing to him appeared to slow as it hit his armour. He must be armour tanked?! EMP is normally pretty good against armour so perhaps he was plated. Fusion ammo would be perfect about now, but I had fallen out of the habit of carrying it due to the nature of Providence fights.

I told the others and they headed back to help chew through the armour, but now the gate pulsed and more CVA ships appeared. I wasn’t going to get away, so I overheated everything in an effort to take the Cyclone down and the others made the wise decision to get out in their more expensive ships.

Now I had, to name but a couple, a Nighthawk and an Absolution tearing chunks out of my ship, and it was light out. Warning klaxons shrilled as my armour melted and I gave the abandon ship order. One last wistful glance at the CVA BC in structure, and I was popped into space as my ship exploded. I warped my pod away and headed back to pick up another ship. At least I went down fighting and wasn’t jammed, nothing more frustrating then that

No bubbles in lowsec- this meant I could pretty much move about with impunity (as I was sure there were no smartbombing BSs around), and I fed back some intel to Makk and the others as I passed Aralis and some other spread out CVA ships. As I made my way back, I listened on comms as they killed the Huginn, Vagabond and Malediction.

To summarise, fun fight, would love to know what setup that Cylone had. I didn’t see any boosting or repping going on, so my neuting was probably a waste.

~ by Ombey on April 29, 2010.