Dry Spell....over

I had been having some successes in PvP, mainly against pilots of similar age, though a couple of times I went 1v1 against much older & more experienced opponents and although I didn't win, the fights were pretty dam close.

I've written before about how I keep getting distracted by PI, Exploring, Manufacturing etc or else jump into fights that I know I'm unlikely to win and as a consequence my K:D ratio was pretty bad (not an issue for R1FTA, but it did bother me).

Steps to try an improve things actually saw things get worse as I shipped out to the Placid region.

In fact I went a little over 5 weeks without a single kill to my name!  And this wasn't 5 weeks of me not being logged in, during that same period I lost 12 ships and 2 pods (1 to a gatecamp, 1 to a Uni 10:1 Eve Uni blob).

I was beginning to wonder if PVP was for me.  I had a little moan to my corpmates (now Alliance mates actually since we created the Black Dragon Fighting Society as a R1FTA feeder corp), and I decided that if I couldn't get a kill in a few more days then I should think about doing something else.

Next day I logged in to see alliance chat had some comments from DARKSTAR POWNYOUALL about a gatecamp of some T3 ships and who wanted in?!?

DARKSTAR is renowned for his gun-ho attitude and for pulling off what most people would consider pretty impossible.

So I x'ed up in my Rifter and then sat about near the destination system whilst we all waited for an update.

10 mins later we get he call to warp in and engage the Rapier, which we did, we then shifted our focus to 1st Tengu though I'd strayed a liitle too far away from the ships hull and was soon toasted by the 2nd Tengu. Though he died to the remaining couple of R1FTAs.

I was very pleased with breaking my dryspell, especially with such nice killmails :)

I then teamed up with Miss Carry the next day when she'd grabbed a Firetail  I then shamelessly whored (10 jumps!) on a Drake  that a corpmate had pointed but couldn't kill on his own (I accidentally contributed to the kill of that guys capsule too when I targetted his pod to stop it warping off and forgot my guns were still hot).

A few days later I was challenged to a 1v1 Rifter duel which I duly accepted and won. Next day a coprmate was probing down a Thorax in next system and wondered if anyone else wanted in, I did. The day after a call went up in alliance chat 'Geddon pointed!' - I was 2 jumps out so x-ed up and after some confusion over who received the mail or whether the guy had self destructed, Ethan found the killmail and we celebrated!

Finally, I was out hunting with a new fit as recommended by DARKSTAR and MB when I spotted a Catalyst on dscan.  He seemed to be jumping about but I was patient and kept shifting and scanning.  I then noticed that Rifter and a Slicer had entered system.  I decided to keep trying for the Catalyst and narrowed him down to a belt.

I warped to the belt but as I landed he warped out - I scanned the location he's warped to and picked up the rifter and slicer there too.  I decided not to follow and to see if I could track him down on his own again.  2 mins later the Cat lands about 20km from me and immediately targets me - it's on!

I fired up my AB and headed in his direction, his opening salvo reduced my shields by about 25%, but by then I had closed to short range, established a point and opened up with my guns and neut.  Then the rifter landed, quickly followed by another ship (I'm assuming it was the Slicer, but I was a tad distracted).  knowing I was probably doomed I determined to take out the Cat and OHd my guns and fired my repper up - almost too late as my final armour gave out and I dropped to about 75% hull!  however without plates my repper pretty much fully restored my armour on a single cycle just as the Cat went boom!, I then turned my attention to the Rifter as the 3rd ship warped off when the Cat blew up, I managed to land a few shots but hadn't established point and he warped out too!

I through a gf into local, but everyone else stayed silent :(

So from a 5 week dry spell to 9 kills doing 2.63 Billion isk worth of damage for a total loss of 9 ships totaling 0.05 Billion isk.

My Rifter Plan progress

Back in January I wrote that I was adopting The Rifter Plan, blatanlty ripped off from Kirith Darkblade.

As it's been a few months, I thought I'd post an update;

Rifter Plan update

target comes first in white, my current level is in blue

Electronics
 - Electronics V    V
 - Propulsion Jamming V   IV
 - Signature Analysis V    V

Engineering
 - Energy Management V    IV
 - Energy Systems Operation V    V
 - Engineering V    V
 - Shield Management V    III
 - Shield Operation V    V
 - Tactical Shield Manipulation V    IV

Gunnery
 - Advanced Weapon Upgrades V    0
 - Gunnery V    V
 - Motion Prediction V    III
 - Rapid Firing V    V
 - Sharpshooter V    V
 - Small Autocannon Specialisation V    V
 - Small Projectile Turret V    V
 - Surgical Strike V    IV
 - Trajectory Analysis V    IV
 - Weapon Upgrades V    IV

Mechanic
 - Hull Upgrades V    V
 - Jury Rigging III   III
 - Mechanic V    V
 - Projectile Weapon Rigging V    III
 - Repair Systems V    V

Missile Launcher Operation
 - Missile Bombardment V    II
 - Missile Launcher Operation V    V
 - Missile Projection V    III
 - Rapid Launch V    III
 - Rocket Specialisation V    0
 - Target Navigation Prediction V    III
 - Warhead Upgrades V    III

Navigation
 - Acceleration Control V    III
 - Afterburner V    V
 - Evasive Maneuvering V    III
 - Fuel Conservation V    III
 - Navigation V    V
 - Warp Drive Operation V    III

Science
 - Thermodynamics V    IV

Spaceship Command
 - Minmatar Frigate V    V
 - Spaceship Command V    V


So progress is being made, I still have 275 days to go, should be complete April next year, would have been a little earlier but I broke away from the plan temporarily to get Destroyers and BCs to V as CCP were hinting they were going to change the way those skills worked - this is now unlikely to be implemented this year.


I also did a bit of training to fly Cruisers, but not flown one in anger yet.