One Morning - Three Fights

It being a holiday here in Seattle (Labor Day), I took some rifters out for morning tours.  They didn't end well, but were fun just the same.

First off I poked my nose into a FW site and found a merlin that wanted a fight.  Things were going well until I didn't notice the heat building up and my guns, web, and scrambler all burned out.  After that my missiles made a valiant attempt at destroying the enemy, but it wasn't to be.  I blowed up.

Back to pick up another rifter and I started chasing around a merlin.

I managed not to catch him, but decided to sit on the FW gate and wait for him to come to me.  That worked out well, but then he just activated the gate and entered the site.  A couple seconds later a dramiel followed him through the gate.  This looked promising.

I waited 30 seconds so that they could soften each other up and then I jumped through to hopefully destroy the survivor.  The merlin pilot was in a pod heading home and the dramiel was all mine - sufficiently softened up I hoped.  Wrong.

I hit all the controls (careful not to over-overheat this time) and started pelting the dramiel with projectiles.  Surprisingly he apparently was undamaged by his fight with the merlin.  I eventually exploded.

In looking over his kill report from the "battle" with the merlin I noticed that the merlin didn't carry any guns!  It was one of those silly "orbit something or other to get FW rewards" ships...  So my clever "let them soften each other up" failed miserably.

Back for another rifter.

A few systems over I came across another merlin in a FW site.  I jumped in and started burning towards him (70k away).  But immediately behind me came a thorax cruiser.  He was only 7k away - so I turned and set my 500 meter orbit to circle in close - hopefully under his guns.

Things went well.  I remembered to turn off the heat on my modules when it wasn't needed and I was taking the thorax through shields and into armor.  I was barely in armor from taking hits on approach and then he wasn't hitting me with either his heavy neutron blasters or his hammerhead IIs.  I thought I had a good chance.

But then he DID start hitting me with his heavy neutron blasters.  I'm not sure why.  I was still orbiting close, but it's possible that in turning off the overheating on my modules I mistakenly turned off the afterburner and it allowed his guns to track me.  Or maybe I ran out of cap.  I don't know (a common theme in my loses...).  But pretty soon, with the blasters tracking me, I blowed up.

GFs were exchanged in local and also this:

   Euscrops Tevyushki > i think my turrets were missing for like 30 seconds
   Jack Dancer > I had hopes then - but eventually it didn't work out...
   Euscrops Tevyushki > i had fears, but those didn't work out either

Three fun fights.  Personal Death to Flying Things Campaign Score: 13-30-1
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And another.  My rifter destroyed by a merlin in a FW site.  A tough day of losses...

Personal Death to Flying Things Campaign Score: 13-31-1