Monday, September 12, 2011

Death to Flying Things Campaign Score 1-8

Rupture - Part II

Both of my loyal readers probably remember my losing to a Rupture when I didn't have the drones on my overview.  I was orbiting close enough to the Rupture that its 425mm autocannons weren't able to hit me, but the drones did me in.

This time it was different - but not in a good way.

I tracked down Kmelx's Rupture ratting in Auner.  I turned on the damage control, overheated everything, and warped to zero.  There was the Rupture just 6k away!  YES!

I targeted, scrambed (didn't want him running away!), webbed and turned on my nos.  Then I hit "orbit at 500m" and headed his way with my 150mm autocannons blazing!  And there were drones on the overview- so those would be primary targets once I was safely orbiting the Rupture at a close distance.

20 seconds later sirens, red warning lights, explosions, and I was in my pod.  This time, against this Rupture, I didn't manage to get under his guns.  He destroyed me on the way in.  Those 425mm autocannons are deadly!

In hindsight, I probably should have turned on the overheated afterburner instead of just strolling in under normal power - that might have given me enough speed to survive the salvos as I approached.  Next time maybe I'll remember to try that...

4 comments:

  1. Yeh, using your AB helps ;)

    Also, spiralling;

    Rotate your camera so your ship is over the target and double click in space about half way between the ships and the edge of your screen. After a little while line up the camera again and repeat. How long to wait depends on how far you are from the target, the closer you are, the more often you want to adjust your path. Keep doing this until you are nice and close to your target then hit the orbit button.

    This approach will keep your transversal up and allow you to (attempt to) out track while you get in close enough to orbit. Just hitting orbit will run you straight at the target with 0 angular velocity and therefore straight in to the barrels of their guns.

    While in this case you probably could have got in quick enough to survive if you'd been running the AB (generally you want to hit orbit at about 4-5km off), one initial angled approach for the first couple of km would have helped, even when landing 6km off (which is pretty damn good).

    If you want to practise, make sure you have angular and transversal velocities showing on your overview and target a random object in space (asteroids are good for this). Try approaching from 20-30km away and keeping your transversal/angular as high as possible.

    Good luck with the continuing hunt tho, I'm enjoying watching you progress. You'll get that rupture soon enough. If it makes you feel better, we've all messed up our modules before. My personal favourite was accidentally switching off my guns rather than just unheating them and not noticing for a minute. Then I ran out of cap...

    And I'm sure you have more than two readers :)

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  2. i'm rooting for ya! good luck on the next rupture.

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  3. Here's a Rupture that Kmelx lost recently. You picked a tough one, Jack. Dual Tracking Enhancers, Gyrostabilisers and a Medium Neut. A world of pain for a frigate right there.

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  4. Thanks for the comments. I usually do spiral in on my unlucky victim - but this time I seemed close enough to just charge in.

    I'll set up my transversal and angular velocities on my overview and give it some practice. Thanks for the idea.

    And I did see Kmelx in his pod later that evening and thought he might have met something tougher than my rifter. His fit might explain why he did so well against my fast little rifter when the previous rupture had so many problems tracking me. Interesting.

    Thanks again for the comments - much appreciated!

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