Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Never lose hope

There is a reason I multibox three Dominixes. It is mostly so I could take on bigger gank opportunities. I did not intend to have this setup in the beginning. It all just had built up to it. I had a main, then I got a scanner alt, then I got a Jump freighter alt and then I got a manufacturer alt. I wanted to try different things and also to rely as little as possible on the others. Reality was that I barely manufactured anything, freighting was not done often and even when I did, I used contracts. I did, however, run exploration sites and found out that having 4 accounts was super effective. A Megathron and three Dominixes with drone assist made any pve activity a breeze. Before I knew it, I started using them in pvp more and more and got dependent on it quite a lot. Especially being in small corps, bringing few extra ships made all the difference: "Shit we are outnumbered, oh, Zosius has logged in, we can fight!"

I used to hunt solo in a cloaky Proteus, but biggest catch I could get was a Drake. Later I found three Dominixes worked quite well for hunting. They have utility, packs a punch and can take a lot of punishment. They do, however, have their disadvantages: are slow, long locking times with cloak fitted and can be hard to multibox as hell.

How big is too big?


While I can gank fat juicy targets or small fleets running sites, there are limits. I end up in one of the wormholes. A c4 that was empty an hour ago, but now is lively. At first it was just a couple of ships. I saw a Typhoon log in, then another one. As time passed, more ships kept coming in.


I went from being excited to being concerned. I didn't know what was the plan as these guys appeared to be very indecisive. Ships being swapped back and forth for whatever reasons. If it was a farming fleet, don't they have the usual setup? It did not look like a pvp fleet either. So I kept eyes on them until they finally warped to an anomaly.


Shit, that is a lot of ships. They also seem to be spider tanking. I am trying to figure out what would be my best approach. The standard situation is that I tackle with Proteus and have my Domi fleet in warp. This might not be possible as there are simply too many ships on grid. I don't think I could tank them all. As a rule of thumb I have to account for sleeper aggro too.

To make matters worse, they have remote shield transfers. The only way I could kill anyone, is by focusing on Basilisk first. I crunch the numbers in my head. My gut says this doesn't feel right. It would simply be too much dps to tank while I setup my tank and focus damage on the primary. I continue to observe them while trying to decide what to do.


Should I go in? Perhaps when my Domi fleet lands they will warp off  leaving tackled corpmates behind. My Proteus pilot does not have a slave set, but maybe it can still tank enough if I pre-warp my Dominixes? I change overview filter and see a huge cloud of drones in addition to ships. Fuck, I don't think I can do this. I have to face the truth - my balls are not big enough.

While the guys are busy with their farming, I observe them while watching some anime at the same time. I still hope I can gank their salvager ship. If I'm lucky, he will salvage all the sites without dropping off the loot in between. After awhile I they all warp back to the tower and I see one of them swap for a destroyer. Well, that's a bummer, I thought. Then I see something interesting happen. Both Typhoons warp to different directions. They are warping to the sites they just finished.


This is my chance! I quickly follow the first Typhoon and see him collect mobile tractor unit and warp back off. Shit, I'm too late. I go check on another one, which is 14AU away. I land in my position bookmark and see the battleship sitting on his mtu with 0 speed. It's now or never. I initiate warp, decloak, get my systems ready and tackle the Typhoon. Soon my Domi fleet lands and  dps starts flowing.


In the end his friends never showed up. Another good side of Domi trio is the "wtf" moment. They look scary enough to give gank victims a second thought about sending a backup and it also has enough dps to melt an average ship before a response fleet can be assembled.


An almost 300mil worth kill. It was worth the wait. I knew Bob will provide an opportunity. He always does.

1 comment :

  1. Nice! Salvaging after the anomaly has de-spawned is safer, yes, but never safe :)

    ReplyDelete