Duelling bistots
13th January 2010 – 5.38 pmWhen one wormhole closes, another one opens. At least, let's hope so, as a wormhole collapses behind our colleague. He passes in to a class 5 w-space system connected to our home system, only to find the occupants actively destabilising the wormhole. It's good he is out in his Cheetah scanning boat. He can at least find his way back to New Eden, and from there be guided back home later. With one man lost in w-space, there is unlikely to be any assaults made against Sleeper outposts, so instead I jump in to a Retriever and start mining bistot rocks with Fin.
Apart from watching the directional scanner for probes or ships, and transferring rocks from my Retriever's hold to a jet-can, there isn't much to do whilst mining. Having good company always helps, and Fin and I shoot the breeze of the solar wind, turning our attention to the future. Living out in w-space has naturally affected our skill training, nominally towards fleet operations, with the logistics and command ships, but also taking steps towards greater defence against attacks from other capsuleers. We may be making small efforts to enhance our PvP abilities by training some key skills, but without some practical experience we risk failure.
It is fine to read about PvP engagements and learn the theory, as long as we reinforce the learning with demonstration. We fill and haul ten jet-cans of bistot back to the tower before trading industrial ships for combat, to begin duelling. Choosing cruiser hulls, we have two duels. In the first, we warp to a safe spot together and start attacking at the same time. The second duel involves one of us ambushing the other, with the ambushed ship either fighting back or escaping. In both fights, I am smoked.
Fin points out that I have chosen Amarr ships with guns, eschewing my missile specialisation. It's true, my choice caused by my impression that guns are more valued in PvP than missiles, although my relatively weak gunnery skills are surely not helping my assaults. My skill in armour tanking is also lagging behind all the time spent training for shield tanking Caldari ships. Even so, the duels serve their purpose. We get to use some of the modules never used in PvE engagements, learning their effectiveness a little better, and become more aware of our deficiencies in PvP skills and experience. We should do this more often.
2 Responses to “Duelling bistots”
Even knowing in the first fight what it was likely to entail I have to admit my heart was thumping. Even knowing we had agreed to stop at structure, it was full of adrenaline. Even knowing that the second battle was coming, I was filled with suspense over the initial start vector as well as how quickly I was going to bite it. Just reminiscing about it nearly gets my heart to pumping.
Or maybe I'm just getting old and the fluid in my pod has solidified to the point that I'm merely not used to moving around so much. I think I still have bruises from the MWD pressing my insides into my finger tips.
I think the consensus we also came to was we also didn't have the ships or fittings to PVP adequately.
Yes, we definitely need more and different modules in order to equip cruisers and frigates for PvP in w-space. Although our cheap cruiser tactics have worked relatively well, as I understand it, we haven't really kept many in the inventory.
It's interesting how PvP fights heighten tensions, even friendly duels. My heart was racing before dropping out of warp, wondering what the outcome would be. But this is why we need to duel, so that we can get used to the feeling and lessen the negative effects. Hopefully, this will leave a positive rush as our opponent implodes in to the vacuum.