Mugging a Megathron made by the navy
18th February 2013 – 5.08 pm(The newly resurrected Our EVE tells the first half of this tale, from the perspective of my glorious leader.)
'Two Ventures are next door.' Sounds good, tell me more. 'But they are sitting in the tower now.' Such a shame. I haven't bagged one of the new mining frigates yet. It seems that my glorious leader gave it a go, but was fighting flaky systems more than the frigates, as she struggled to keep her ship on-line. Probes were launched, the Ventures' location estimated using the directional scanner, but the ladar site they were in was only scanned once the frigates were back in their tower, such was the frustration Fin felt.
Even so, it may not have been Fin's Loki strategic cruiser blipping on and off d-scan, as the cloak went off-line with her ship, or her probes that scared the Ventures back to the safety of their force field. The Sleepers turned up, with 'eight cruisers in the ladar site'. Maybe they've been swatted to one side now and the frigates are back to sucking up gas. I point my own Loki towards our static wormhole and, hoping that it's feeling reliable, jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system.
Circumstances seem unchanged. Two Ventures are sitting at a tower, and there are still eight Sleeper cruisers in a bookmarked ladar site. Well, if we're not going to play with the neighbours I may as well scan. I warp out to launch probes, still wanting to stay somewhat covert for the time being, and perform a blanket scan of the system that reveals seven anomalies and five signatures. Of course, two of the signatures are known, which cuts down my scanning time a little, as three signatures don't take long to resolve. I uncover some rocks, the expected static exit to low-sec, and a weak wormhole.
With still no motion at the tower I recall my probes and exit to low-sec. It seems I've invoked the curse of Aridia again. But never mind, there's a second wormhole in C3a. I return to w-space to see where it leads, dropping out of warp next to an outbound connection to class 5 w-space, one at the end of its lifetime. That's rum. I wonder why the locals would harvest gas whilst this wormhole exists. Fin thinks that they probably haven't even noticed it, which is possible. But there's no point my jumping through it, not with the risk of isolation, so I swing past the tower once more.
There's still no movement. I'll be heading to low-sec to scan the system in Aridia. Or I will be, once I wait for my polarisation effect to wear out. And I would, except one of the Ventures warps out of the tower, apparently towards the ladar site. I think I'll stay in w-space for now, although I'll move from the tower too, following the Venture. I warp to a tactical bookmark Fin made in the ladar site, but not in time to see the Venture. I imagine he confirmed the Sleepers were still here and went right back to his tower. The only question now is whether he'll do something about the Sleepers. Seeing a Megathron battleship on d-scan makes me think yes, yes he will.
It's not just any Megathron on d-scan either. This is a Navy Issue Megathron, which is a much shinier prize than the standard issue battleship. It's enough to call Fin back from sleepytimes. My glorious leader prepares a suitably pointy ship in our home system as I return to reconnoitre the ladar site, watching the Navy Issue Megathron engage the Sleeper cruisers. We could pretty much ambush it whenever we want. I think I'll let the battleship whittle down the Sleepers a little first, so that we are under less risk from being overwhelmed. The wrecks also create suitable beacons to warp to.
Two cruisers are left. It's time. I tell Fin to enter the system and hold as I warp to the Megathron. Or thereabouts. It's difficult to judge relative positions from over two hundred kilometres away, and although I get close to our target I'm not quite close enough to guarantee catching it, not with the battleship moving and potentially aligned and ready for warp. I need to get a bit closer. Not that much closer, though. I have the sensor recalibration delay from decloaking to account for, which combined with a pulse from my micro warp drive will cover a few kilometres before I can lock on to the ship.
This will do. I have the Megathron in my sights, so decloak, hit the micro warp drive, and activate my sensor booster. It works. I gain a positive lock and pin down the battleship with my warp scrambler before it can react. 'Warp to me, Fin.' As my partner comes to join the fray our target realises what's happening. The drones move from the Sleepers and across to my Loki, but I'm not much concerned about a few Ogre Is. In fact, I like the look of them. I suspect the pilot has thrown ISK at the Navy Issue battleship to compensate for other factors.
In warps Fin, as the capricious Sleepers take a disliking to me. They wanted the Navy Issue Megathron for themselves, it seems. Too bad, Sleepers, he's ours. Fin's Legion strategic cruiser adds its weaponry to the fight, which mostly consists in sucking the capacitor energy from the battleship. With any luck, it will run out of juice before we do, and halt any armour repairs its got running. The Megathron's shields are already gone but its armour is holding strong, so I assume it's the armour we'll have to break. Not many pilots hull tank. Not for long.
We're holding out just fine for now. Fin's Legion is built like a brick, and not being targeted. I've remembered my shield booster for a change, and realised that my Loki can keep a decent orbit around the Megathron with the MWD active, without sucking my capacitor dry, to mitigate much of the incoming damage. And it's not long before the damage to the Megathron's armour stops being chips and starts becoming chunks. D-scan remains clear whilst we fight, the other Venture pilot having swapped to an Anathema covert operations boat before the ambush, and decided to stay in that.
Bang goes the Megathron, with an explosion worthy of a Navy Issue battleship. I aim for the pod but it gets clear, leaving me and Fin to loot and shoot the wreck, which includes grabbing a micro jump drive. As the new battleship-class jump drives still work when only warp-disrupted, I am getting ever more glad that I changed my ship's fitting to include a warp scrambler module. The Corpus A-type large armour repairer, worth serious amounts of ISK and no doubt keeping the Megathron alive for quite a while, sadly did not survive the explosion. Never mind, we bagged ourselves a kill worth around one billion ISK, and, as Fin says, 'just the fact that it was Gallente makes the kill sweeter'.
4 Responses to “Mugging a Megathron made by the navy”
Hey! Gallente is perfectly fine. In fact, the Vexor is pretty awesome.
Sorry If this is off topic. I've been reading over you Eve Blogs. I have a question for you. Several times you state that you look over your notes and head to a tower ect ect. Are those notes in a notebook or a website? I.m a new Wh dweller looking for a way to keep track of such things. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Hey, do not misread me - I love shooting Gallente as much as the next guy. Vexors are just as squishy on the inside and in point-of-fact, much more useful. There is just that certain something extra about pushing a smug Federation hull just past its breaking point that really satisfies; so much the better if it happens to contain one of those idealistic, meddlesome, libertarian biomasses inside.
On the other hand, should I see a Navy Scorpion, a Fleet Tempest or a Navy Apocalypse - I will be happy to poke them and see what comes out.
--kf
Hi Everett. A question about my notes comes up every now and again, and it's cool to ask.
I wrote a behind-the-scenes look at Tiger Ears precisely to answer this question, so feel free to browse through that.
In short, I throw the date, system name, class, tower locations, and static wormhole in to a spreadsheet for each w-space system I visit.