I find that I tend to neglect Jack Dancer and instead use my limited Eve time to update PI, update station trader orders, and on weekends fly cargo afk around space while I’m puttering around the house or driving around town. Plus sometimes I wander around null sec with my explorer looking for relic sites and trying to escape bubbles on gates.
But I have been getting some thrills with Jack Dancer recently. Mostly fiery deaths – but thrills nonetheless (you can check my killboard for proof!).
Today I updated Jack Dancer's skill queue and noticed that there were a dozen other pilots in Auner. That's a large number and I popped out of the station to see what was happening. There were a couple ships on grid and I zipped out to my automatic undock spot and then came back to a perch near the station to see what was what.
One of the ships on the station (at a station perch of his own) was a rifter. OK, that would work. I was flying a 400mm armor rifter. I checked the local FW complexes and there was a couple on dscan - one medium and one large. I was looking for a small one just to limit the size of ships that could come through. I checked the "probe scanner" tab and there were several novice and small FW complexes that hadn't been activated yet - so I immediately warped to a novice complex to activate it and hoped that the other rifter would see me heading there.
He did and arrived shortly after.
I was loaded with barrage and set up a 6km orbit to take advantage of my ammo. In retrospect, this was probably of little value - with a 400mm plate weighing my rifter down, I didn't have especially good speed and the other rifter would be able to dictate our range.
The battle went reasonably well. Both ships went though the other's shields relatively quickly, but then my large shield started to slow down the other rifter's damage. He was repairing the damage to his armor, but I was marching slowing through it (barrage doesn't do the greatest damage).
Eventually the other rifter exploded while I was about 1/2 way thorough my armor. GFs were exchanged in local and my opponent, Qintes of the Meatshield Bastards (a fun bunch), asked politely if I'd share my build. I opened a conversation with him and passed it along. We chatted a bit and will probably meet again.
In retrospect it was good that I didn't have an armor repairer since Qintes' rifter included an energy sapper and in the future I'll need to remember that a 400mm plate definitely lets the other ship dictate range.
And as a final postscript, I just popped back to the game to get information on Qintes' "5W Infectious Power System Malfunction". After the fight and repairing in station I had left Jack Dancer afk in a deep safe 14.6au from any celestial while I wrote this report. Totally safe since it's not on dscan from anywhere.
Totally safe.
Unfortunately, when I returned to the Eve screen, I was no longer at the safe spot. I was in station. In my pod. Oh oh.
(Editor's Note: This is just a lesson to potential bloggers that blogging can be a very dangerous enterprise...)
I checked the kill report and BraceKirk of the Bastards had destroyed my rifter and podded me (along with my low grade slave set that had done yeoman duty in the fight with Qintes...). It turned out (I chatted with BraceKirk to see how he had managed it) that he also had a deep safe out there and I was the only ship on dscan (of course). He probed me down and then sent in his condor to finish me off. Nice job BraceKirk!
Time to go back to my trader alt to have him put in orders for a new slave set...
Today I updated Jack Dancer's skill queue and noticed that there were a dozen other pilots in Auner. That's a large number and I popped out of the station to see what was happening. There were a couple ships on grid and I zipped out to my automatic undock spot and then came back to a perch near the station to see what was what.
One of the ships on the station (at a station perch of his own) was a rifter. OK, that would work. I was flying a 400mm armor rifter. I checked the local FW complexes and there was a couple on dscan - one medium and one large. I was looking for a small one just to limit the size of ships that could come through. I checked the "probe scanner" tab and there were several novice and small FW complexes that hadn't been activated yet - so I immediately warped to a novice complex to activate it and hoped that the other rifter would see me heading there.
He did and arrived shortly after.
I was loaded with barrage and set up a 6km orbit to take advantage of my ammo. In retrospect, this was probably of little value - with a 400mm plate weighing my rifter down, I didn't have especially good speed and the other rifter would be able to dictate our range.
The battle went reasonably well. Both ships went though the other's shields relatively quickly, but then my large shield started to slow down the other rifter's damage. He was repairing the damage to his armor, but I was marching slowing through it (barrage doesn't do the greatest damage).
Eventually the other rifter exploded while I was about 1/2 way thorough my armor. GFs were exchanged in local and my opponent, Qintes of the Meatshield Bastards (a fun bunch), asked politely if I'd share my build. I opened a conversation with him and passed it along. We chatted a bit and will probably meet again.
In retrospect it was good that I didn't have an armor repairer since Qintes' rifter included an energy sapper and in the future I'll need to remember that a 400mm plate definitely lets the other ship dictate range.
And as a final postscript, I just popped back to the game to get information on Qintes' "5W Infectious Power System Malfunction". After the fight and repairing in station I had left Jack Dancer afk in a deep safe 14.6au from any celestial while I wrote this report. Totally safe since it's not on dscan from anywhere.
Totally safe.
Unfortunately, when I returned to the Eve screen, I was no longer at the safe spot. I was in station. In my pod. Oh oh.
(Editor's Note: This is just a lesson to potential bloggers that blogging can be a very dangerous enterprise...)
I checked the kill report and BraceKirk of the Bastards had destroyed my rifter and podded me (along with my low grade slave set that had done yeoman duty in the fight with Qintes...). It turned out (I chatted with BraceKirk to see how he had managed it) that he also had a deep safe out there and I was the only ship on dscan (of course). He probed me down and then sent in his condor to finish me off. Nice job BraceKirk!
Time to go back to my trader alt to have him put in orders for a new slave set...
