Taranis on Scan!

The taranis has always been scary.  At least to me.  The name sounds too much like "tarantula"...

When I first started playing Eve a couple years ago it was a fast interceptor frigate and I stayed away from them (especially since I was flying T1 equipped rifters that had no real chance against them). 

Last night I popped out of the station in Auner to see if there was any activity.  Sure enough, a rifter and a taranis showed up on scan.  I checked the FW sites and found the taranis (too scary!) but not the rifter.  Then I checked the asteroid belts – still no rifter.  Hmmm… Might as well give the taranis a shot.  My slasher is good against ships with guns and the taranis would probably be equipped with blasters.

I headed to the FW gate with everything turned up to 11.  And a personal sense of trepidation turned up to 11 too…

I landed and jumped.  The taranis waited at the arrival point on the far side of the gate.  The fight was on!

I hit the orbit button, scrammed and webbed him, and started spewing out barrage from around 5k.

Things went surprisingly (I might even say “remarkably”) well.  I tore through his defenses while taking a sustainable amount of damage.  I had the taranis through his shields and far into his armor while I was still comfortably sitting with shield protection.  No need for the armor repper.

Then I had him through his armor and into the hull.  Still no need for my armor repper.  He tried to flee, but I managed to keep close (as we used to say back in the 60s, "Speed Kills").

The taranis exploded!

GFs were exchanged in local and I headed back to the station to drop off the wreckage from the taranis and to repair the heat damage to my modules.  My first taranis kill.

I then went hunting the rifter.  A dscan sweep showed that he was apparently at a “safe” spot somewhere near Planet VII.  I returned to the station and switched to my scanning boat.  Out went the combat scanning probes to find the rifter.

While my exploration alt has excellent skills for finding exploration sites – Jack Dancer is barely adequate at scanning.  It took me three scans (even knowing generally where the rifter was to begin with) before I had a 100% lock.  I bookmarked the spot and went back to the station for my slasher.

I set course to the rifter to land at zero. 

When I arrived the rifter was sitting in his “safe” spot unmoving.  I destroyed him.  Then his pod popped out and since it didn’t move while I was looting the wreck – I shot it too.  Just a lesson to the new player that leaving a ship in space while afk isn’t a good idea.

It was an interesting evening all around.