Almost ruptured

Alinana was waiting for me when I awoke, and this time she had her Rupture, all set up to take me on. Tech 2 weapons and, I think, drones. We fought, with the odds being in her favour this time; just the way she liked it.

I lost, but I think we were both surprised by the result.

She had easily fought off 3 cruisers earlier, and was on a high from that. When she fought me, cruiser against cruiser, I think we were both expecting it to be much easier than it was.

We agreed to the duelling conditions again: first to get the other to 25% armour. Alinana won, but I got her to about 40% armour. It was close.

Again, we bowed, and parted ways.

Why duel, I hear you ask? A lot of pilots disagree with duels. They lead to dishonourable tactics, where the friend of one of the participants warps in and ambushes the other participant. I know these things happen, but you just have to be careful and make good judgements about who you duel with. If you go in expecting to be ambushed, you might end up happy not to be.

It goes back to the golden rule - never fight if you're not prepared to die.

So, aware of the risks, I like to duel, especially against those pirates honourable enough to engage in duels and keep their word. Ultimately, it's about the challlenge of fighting against another warrior. You don't need to die in order to know you've lost. In the process of combat, you learn more about what you're doing, especially if you're fighting those whose goal is to destroy those like you.

Some people advocate duels only with other corp or alliance members, but the problem I see there is that they don't have the mindset of wanting to kill you. They don't have the experience that pirates have, and they don't have the same setups as pirates do. If you can learn how to better fight the pirates in controlled duels with those honourable enough to trust you and be trusted by you, then it gives you a much greater learning curve to engage in combat with those who have no honour at all.

What I've learnt this past few days is that I am slowly becoming a more capable pirate hunter, and it's thanks to Alinana that I've learnt that.

Which is why I've linked her blog on the right there. I hope you enjoy her writing as well. Maybe you can learn something from it. :-)