Tales from the spacelanes...

[uua90]

A witchpoint blockade… three GalCop ships, having a tough time with a large group of pirates. Rolling Thunder emerges and as I'm running 'clean', I wade straight in… what a glorious firefight. My presence tips the balance, but it’s close-run, and I take some damage… it’s well worth it, as I get to watch a GalCop Constrictor go up against a pirate Constrictor… so busy am I watching, that I start to take heavy damage from a couple of bandits on my six. I had to light the injectors and duck out of it to recharge… by the time I returned, more Vipers had arrived and GalCop were busy mopping-up the last few baddies, but there was one Cobra Mk III left for me to splash. Then it was head for station space, for some repairs and more ordnance… and a Zaquessoian evil juice or two.

I had a similar fight on my hands today. By some sheer dumb luck, I triggered three furballs in a row going in and out of the station's aegis (pursuing an Asp from the last Furball). I counted twelve Galcop Vipers when the dust cleared. plus a Python and her escorts that got caught in the fray. Never seen anything like it.

[Cody]

Furball combined with ToughGuys 2 can be a bit 'problematic' at times.

[Smivs]

The battle of Ceerti
I'd over-nighted at Gebeti in the far top left corner of G7, and set course for Ceerti, an Industrial Feudal world, TL7.
Being Feudal it was Pirate territory so there was no blockade. I set course for the station. After a while a few flags appeared on the scanner, briefly yellow, soon red. I ID'd them as fast as I could. A Boa Rottweiler and his escorts. And there was something else, a Mk III Cobra, a clean one. He'd hit the Rotti, who fled under injectors, and I helped him mop up the escorts. We got two, two escaped.
Clear skies now, so I headed towards the station. More yellow-then-red flags, lots of them. Too many to ID in one go, so I ID'd the two that stayed yellow. Both clean, and both getting roughed up. I hit the injectors to close in a bit and spotted something big. Another Rotti! A couple of minutes of intense dogfighting later he was replaced by a mess of cargo pods. I'd been taking hits from several directions, so spun round and confronted several Mambas all closing on me. Switching between front and rear lasers I picked them off, one by one.
I was still being pounded, and switching to rear view found the culprit, a Python Blackdog. He was soon dispatched and replaced with another sea of cargo pods.
One of the other clean ships, a Mk III Cobby was still around but in trouble. Another Python, not a 'dog this time but still bad news. However he was soon converted into cargo pods, and the Cobby and myself mopped up the remaining escorts. 11 plus ships dispatched, and more cargo floating around than I've ever seen. I collected over 30t of mixed booty and two escape capsules.
The rest of the run to the station was relatively quiet with just a Sidewinder and Mamba to deal with.
After docking, I remembered the first Rotti, the one that injected away. So I launched again and set course for the witchpoint. It wasn't long before three yellow-then-red flags appeared on the scanner. The Rotti and his two remaining Mamba escorts. I think these put up more of a fight than any of the others, but I was on fire tonight and their fate was sealed. With three more bounties and another 11 tons of booty, I returned to the station for a well earned rest.
I made a cup of tea (Earl Grey, Hot) and logged on to GalWeb Chat to catch up with some friends.

[Cody]

There I was, minding my own ‘business’ along the ’lanes of Ordiesat, one of the anarchy systems in the Sidewinder Expanse (a perilous ‘sector’ in Lara'tan), and I spot this Python harassing some poor traders. As soon as I intervened, he started pleading for help… really, the standards of pirates these days. I gave no quarter… and it was a sweet, sweet kill.

[Smivs]

Don't you just love it when they whimper? Well done, old chap!

[OneoftheLost]

Oh for the love of!

So, I jump into my usual hunting grounds. ( Ive been doing a rather lucrative trade route in G1 involving an anarchy next to a corporate system.) When I see a Rogue frigate! After changing my pants, I engaged my injectors and got right on its tail. It kept launching missles, but was otherwise incapable of shooting me. Or so I thought. Plugging away with my beam laser, I was just noting the engines flickering, when I saw some red bits flying at me. I assumed this was a custom engine sparks, like you would see on a regular ship. Not bothering to dodge, I suddenly noticed my shield-boosted-shields drain completely followed by a Game over Commander.



He was toying with me!

[Smivs]

Plasm turrets, don't you just love 'em?
Frigates are actually an easy kill, providing you keep your distance. They have no lasers so just keep a safe distance and laser them to death.

[Switeck]

Frigates often have a lot of ECM-resistant "hardhead" missiles to make up for their lack of lasers. And if you don't have some sort of countermeasures to deal with them, (basically special antimissile OXPs) you will have to shoot-and-scoot using injectors to avoid probable destruction.

[Zireael]

I shot a frigate down once, without any significant trouble... Must have got lucky...

[Zireael]

I can't take down my hit from RH... He's got 2-3 Worm attack drones and 4-6 goons or escorts. My Viper wingmen are usually somewhere behind me and don't help me at all. How to succeed?

[Cody]

'In fatal terrain... fight!'

[Smivs]

The Worm drones are pathetic....they die real easy and don't seem to do much damage, so leave them alone unless they're being a real nuisance. Try picking off the henchmen from a safe distance...move away and pick them off with the rear laser. Alternatively, locate the mark and concentrate your fire on him. He's the one you're being paid to kill, not the Goons.

[Mauiby de Fug]

I can't take down my hit from RH... He's got 2-3 Worm attack drones and 4-6 goons or escorts. My Viper wingmen are usually somewhere behind me and don't help me at all. How to succeed?

For tough marks, my strategy is usually to locate them, make sure they've targeted you, and then use injectors and run away. You can quite often leave some of the slower escorts behind that way. The mark will usually follow you. Keep an eye on how far back they are, and once they're a fair way behind, you can snipe at them whilst they can't shoot at you. Watch out for ECM hardened missiles, and after you've taken out some more of the escorts, you can take the mark out 1 on 1.

That's the careful way I took out some of my marks. The impatient way is to charge in, ignore all ships except the mark, blast him to hell, and run away as fast as you can and spend more than you earn on ship repairs. Which I choose depends on my mood...

[TGHC]

You can watch the hard hats in your rear view while you are injecting, let them catch you up and then inject away again just keeping ahead of them, eventually they run out of steam. This helps you conserve your fuel.

[drew]

It's on my to-do list to exclude the pulsar from PF, but I need to ponder it a little to maybe make a more convenient way for other OXP-writers to block their planets/moons from PF. Then it'll be a chat with Drew probably...

He he... PF wasn't written when I put Tianve.OXP together...! Let me know what I have to do!

Cheers,

Drew.