Rifter vs. Punisher

My fit:

3x150mm Light Autocannon II w/ Republic Fleet Phased Plasma + Barrage
1xE5 Prototype Energy Vampire

Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
J5B Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Gyrostabiliser II
Small Armour Repairer I
200mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plate


Whilst roaming my usual haunts after downtime I found a Rifter and a Punisher on d-scan. The Rifter pilot hadn't bothered to change his ships name so I easily pulled up his character info from local and did some quick research. He was a couple of months younger than I am and didn't seem to have much of a PvP record. The Punisher on the other hand was aptly named 'derp' and having pinned both ships down to one belt I decided to warp in and try my luck. Hopefully they'd both be fighting each other and I'd get at least one kill should they both turn on me.

I warped to the belt at 0 and the two frigates appeared on my overview. Unfortunately I was about 20km away from the pair who seemed to be locked in combat. Firing up my afterburner I soon got up to max speed but before I could get within scram range the Punisher warped away (though why he wasn't pointed is beyond me!) and upon seeing a new threat the Rifter did as well.

Slightly disheartened I warped back to a safe and booted up d-scan again. Both ships were still showing up but I couldn't pin them down - they must have gone to their respective safes. Fast forward about ten minutes of belt searching and d-scan whoring and I finally pinned the Punisher down at a belt. I warped in and pretty much landed right on top of him.

Within seconds I had him scrammed, webbed and Nos'd and had started a steady orbit of 1000m. At the time I had RF Phased Plasma in my guns and despite coming across a laser boat I didn't think there much point in wasting 10 seconds reloading Barrage so I could open my orbit and get the range advantage. The first thing I noticed about the Punisher was the damage. It was pretty much nonexistant. Throughout the entirety of the fight I never dipped below 90% shields and that's saying something considering I'm armour tanked.

My transversal must have been too high for the Amarrian lasers to track because my opponent only had a handful of volleys hit me throughout the fight. I know that Punishers only have two midslots and it was plain to see that this one had a prop mod and a scram on so my speed wasn't being gimped by a web, which I imagine will have fallen into my favour greatly.

My guns made short work of the Punishers shields and I was soon chewing through his armour although a little slower than his shields. His armour repper was doing its best to stop the molten plasma from my autocannons eating through the Punishers defenses but before long the Amarrian frigate succumbed.

I gave the pilot a gf in local and noticed that not long earlier he'd said "haha oh no" in the channel. That must have been when I pointed him. One thing I noticed immediately after his ship popped was the lack of movement or urgency to flee in his pod. Seeing the opportunity I spun my guns up, locked and pointed the pod and blew it into oblivion.

Overall I was happy with the fight. I checked the pilots details after the fight and found he's only been playing for a couple of months and was only using T1 modules but I still think it was a good kill.


2011.07.30 12:10:00


Victim: Viscer Raholan
Corp: Universal Freelance
Alliance: CONSORTIUM UNIVERSALIS
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Punisher
System: Aeschee
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 4329


Involved parties:


Name: Cable Udan (laid the final blow)
Security: -2.5
Corp: Kagan-Kincaid Enterprises
Alliance: Subspace Exploration Agency
Faction: NONE
Ship: Rifter
Weapon: 150mm Light AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 4329


Destroyed items:


Small Nosferatu I
Small Armor Repairer I
1MN Afterburner I
Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners (Cargo)
Warp Disruptor I
Adaptive Nano Plating I
Multifrequency S
Dual Light Beam Laser I


Dropped items:


Damage Control I
Standard S, Qty: 3 (Cargo)
Medium Remote Armor Repair System I (Cargo)
Medium Capacitor Booster I (Cargo)
Cargo Scanner I (Cargo)
Capacitor Power Relay I
Multifrequency S, Qty: 2
Dual Light Beam Laser I, Qty: 2


And the pod:


2011.07.30 12:11:00


Victim: Viscer Raholan
Corp: Universal Freelance
Alliance: CONSORTIUM UNIVERSALIS
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: Capsule
System: Aeschee
Security: 0.2
Damage Taken: 250


Involved parties:


Name: Cable Udan (laid the final blow)
Security: -3.4
Corp: Kagan-Kincaid Enterprises
Alliance: Subspace Exploration Agency
Faction: NONE
Ship: Rifter
Weapon: 150mm Light AutoCannon II
Damage Done: 250

Exploring the more dubious side of wearing an eyepatch....

Yesterday I lost a Rifter to a Merlin piloted by a 2003 player. I D-scanned him down to a belt, warped in and had a quick look at his pilot info. Seeing that he was a 2003 player should really have put me off but I figured it'd be rude not to spin my guns up. I was itching for a fight anyway having roamed for an hour or so and found nothing. His shield tank was pretty uber and I didn't chew very far into it before I got a nice notification from CONCORD to say my ship insurance was winging its way to the bank. 'gf's' were exchanged and I left the system to reship.

Having highlighted that engaging in mortal combat with vastly older players in corp chat one of my corpies casually mentioned that if I wanted a quick and easy kill to feel better about myself I should go suicide ganking miners. Now I like to consider myself pretty honourable and popping defenseless miners as they go about their business has never really appealed to me. I much prefer the satisfaction of  winning a fight where the other guy was shooting back. However I thought that being an aspiring pirate I should probably explore every  aspect of Eve that my eyepatch and wooden leg points to.

So I made my way to Arnon whilst simultaneously firing up EFT to make a quick fit to see what my dps and alpha would be like. Seeing decent stats I fitted up a Catalyst with my chosen fit (8x blasters, 3x magnetic field stabs and a scram) I undocked and headed to the first belt.

What luck, a lone Retriever appeared non-threateningly in my overview. Slowboating my way towards him (our dashing author here didn't see right to fit a prop mod) I loaded my guns up with faction ammo and prepared to casually commit high-sec murder. My destroyer stopped a nice 800m away from my target whom was either unfazed by my proximity and negative sec status or just didn't really care.

Without hesitation I fired up my guns, flicked the overload switch and let rip. A couple of salvos later and my Catalyst was bathed in the pleasant blue glow as the Retriever vented atmosphere. Mere seconds later and I found myself sitting happy in my pod as CONCORD unleashed their (albeit rather too late) retribution. Warping to station to dock up as I waited for my GCC to expire I was met by my corpmate who had watched the unfolding attack in a hauler. He traded the loot from the Retriever and the modules that my destroyer had had dropped and I sold the loot, splitting it 50/50 for his help.

Overall I was content with the outcome. I popped a carebear and made enough ISK from his loot to cover the cost of the Catalyst and fits. I didn't feel any success in the kill though. Though satisfying to explode it wasn't a hard-won kill. It didn't test my skills at all. I can't see myself make a career out of suicide ganking in the near future. I'd much rather roam the belts of lowsec and fight people that can shoot back.

Saying that I'll probably do it again at some point for the lulz.

A Summary So Far

As it stands you could say that my journey into pirating is well under way. My killboard so far is in pretty bad shape. At the moment I'm sitting on 40 kills to 66 losses. Not the greatest of starts but I'm sure there's worse out there. I did what many starting PvPers have done and after leaving RvB I bought a stack of Rifters and fitted them as best I could then went out and lost them all. And did it again. And I'm still sort of doing that only I have a few kills dotted in amongst the losses.

One of the reasons I've lost so many ships is that I either bravely (more like foolishly) engage in fights I could never hope to win just because I like to fight. Going against Ruptures whilst in a Rifter for example is just daft really but I enjoy it.

A large chunk of my losses however come from losing pre-arranged 1v1s, generally T1 frigate fights. At this stage in the game I'm putting that down to lacking the skillpoints to just do that extra bit of damage on my foe. Quite recently a lot of my 1v1s have been exceptionally close and most of the time I've left the enemy in structure when they popped me so it can only improve.

Right now I'm spending my time flying around the systems in and around Old Man Star which I find can have a large pool of potential targets. I am however finding that better fights can be found by starting my roams in Heydieles and going up through the Black Rise.

Fly dangerous!

Well hello there...

Here we are, my first blog. For those of you that have possibly stumbled here quite by accident or perhaps if you come here of your own free will I shall brief you up on what you can expect from Chasing the Blue Flash.

I started an EVE trial back in February and quickly became hooked on the pretty explosions and sheer diversity of the sandbox nature of the game. Soon after finishing up the Sisters of EVE epic arc I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do in New Eden: PvP.

Spending many an hour reading old threads on the forums and hitting up numerous guides on Evelopedia and Rifter Drifter (thanks Wensley - your guide is mega!) I decided I was going to become a pirate, but before I did so I was going to get some decent PvP experience. So I joined Red versus Blue. I had an excellent time in RvB and despite only staying for a few months I was exposed to a concentrated dose of fleet ops, solo PvP and the mechanics behind it all.

Wanting to don my eyepatch and get into lowsec I left RvB after a few months and armed with a few million skillpoints and a great deal of Rifter hulls my journey has already started, though only the first few footsteps into a long career of looting and pillaging have been trodden and I've decided I want to share this journey with other pilots, hoping that as I become a better and more skilled pilot I can spread the Word of the Pew Pew.

-- Cable