Everyone needs a goal

We all need goals. I have a few of my own, but the most pressing goal I have right now is to catch up on the losses I've had in the past. For that reason, my goal is to achieve at least 1 kill every day.

It's working so far. :)

It's hard though. As I've mentioned before, the region is very quiet in the lowsec systems. There just isn't as many people as there used to be, ratting and mining and presenting themselves as targets.

But there are still targets here and there, which makes the thrill of the hunt worthwhile.

I managed to make my way through a couple of gate camps yesterday, and discovered that I was a 'fag' because I didn't let myself be killed by them.

I find it amusing that these kiddies who pretend to be pilots don't like it when someone avoids death at their hands. They make me laugh at them as they scramble to chase me through various systems, and fail. I like that. A lot.

I lost a Myrmidon yesterday in a glorious fight. A real fight, not a random fight or a duel.

I was gate camping all by myself, just for the fun of it. No bluemates were around, so I thought I'd give it a go. The battlecruiser was tanked to buggery, so I was sure I could handle a gate fight, against selected targets, of course.

Unfortunately, all the potential targets that jumped into the system decloaked out beyond the range of my warp disruptor each time, so I didn't even bother to engage any of them, as there was no point. I would only engage any target that I could handle alone, and which decloaked inside of my disruptor range.

But no such luck.

And then a couple of cruisers came along and sat at the gate. I approached them, and orbited one of them at my optimal range. I studied their bio's, and saw that they were both members of Electus Matari, an anti-pirate alliance. And here's me, flashing yellow and gate camping...

I watched local, but saw no one else in the system and no spike of newcomers. My 'eyes' on the other side of the gate saw no other alliance pilots there, so I figured these guys were just loners, helping to protect the gate by their very presence. If I engaged anyone, they would have the rights to attack me.

So I warped away, erring on the side of caution.

Now, one of the things about getting into piracy is that you must be prepared to lose your ship at all times. So I decided that I was prepared to lose my ship.

I warped back to them, orbiting them again, and target locked both of them. They target locked me back. Neither of us fired at each other, all of us waiting for the other to engage first and receive the sentry gun fire. But nothing happened, and so we danced.

Since nothing was happening, and I decided I didn't want to fight two cruisers AND gate guns, I warped away again, leaving them behind at the gate.

I mentioned this 'engagement' in the bluemates channel, and one of them pricked their ears up. Anti-pirates? Sitting at a gate in cruisers? Let's get it on!

So they jumped into their own battlecruiser, and the two of us went to a flashpoint off the gate. The cruisers were still there, and not a single other member of their alliance in the system.

Eirelle decided to engage first, and I would warp in on them and attack. The primary target was the enemy Vexor, followed by the Rupture.

I warped in as Eirelle started saying the sentry guns were really hammering into him. I quickly engaged the Vexor and let rip with the blasters. The Vexor very quickly fell, exploding into a billion bits of space dust. I turned my attention onto the Rupture just as Eirelle's ship exploded too, and he went silent as he warped his pod away. Damn!

It was just me and the Rupture, and I quickly engaged. Suddenly I saw a bunch of drones orbiting my ship. Checking the overview I saw that he had engaged ECM drones. At the same time my target lock on the Rupture dropped. Damn!

That was two damns in just a few seconds. Things were not looking good.

I tried warping away, but was scrambled, so I activated the MWD to try and move away, but I was webbed as well. Ah well...

So I returned to orbiting him at my slow, crawling pace, and tried to re-establish a target lock. Repeatedly. But it wasn't happening. His drones damped me down too much, and before too long my own ship was exploding from the Rupture's attack and the sentry guns.

As I warped my pod away from the scene of this battle, I couldn't believe that two battlecruisers had just been defeated by a surviving cruiser...

Looking at the killmail, I saw that Debes Sparre, the Rupture pilot, had only done 7,230 points of damage to my battlecruiser, but sentry guns did about 16,500 points of damage.

It was after this experience that I vowed never to go out without my own ECM drones. Definitely a formidable addition to any ship's complement of offensive weaponry.

If I had ECM drones on my ship as well, I could have deployed them, broken his target lock, and warped away.

The things we learn.

But this was a fight, a real fight. A battle between two battlecruisers and two cruisers. They won because of gate guns and ECM drones, but I have learnt from this, and it won't be so easy for the enemy next time.