Surprise, bitch.

Entry: Day four hundred and five.


In the log previous to this, I discussed plans for making tactical bookmarks surrounding areas of strategic important, namely stargates. I underestimated, however, the length of time even setting up one stargate would take.


Setting up one stargate, with the aforementioned six tacticals in face centered cubic fashion took roughly twenty five minutes per gate. I see the importance of having the positional advantage, but for this to work in a reasonably short time, there needs to be no less than three pilots working in conjunction with each to develop these bookmarks. Optimally there should be six pilots, as they could establish tacticals fairly quickly across many gates, then share the bookmarks later.


I did discover another problem however: I had no idea which system we'd be likely to engage in. I realized this perhaps three gates in, and stopped created the tacticals. After all, what use would they be if we weren't going to be in the immediate vicinity?


That said, I spent the rest of the time that day fitting and moving my tackle frigates out to 9CG. Several are fit long range shields, several long range armor, and one or two are fit for close range. It should be interesting to see how they perform. I think the fit I'm looking forward to testing most might be the long range shield though. They have an optimal plus falloff of about 12km with autocannons and barrage, and while tracking suffers, it's not a real issue because of the range.


Yesterday I spent some more time moving ships. I did later get in on some fleets. Nothing terribly remarkable except that for the first time in a long time I was a tackler instead of a logi pilot. I've grown bored of always being logi quite honestly, and it feels good to dish out some hurt for a change. I was in my Jaguar, and although I only managed to get onto a few kills, we wiped out perhaps six or eight guys.


Kill 1
Kill 2
Kill 3
Kill 4


After that scuffle, we bubbled a station for a bit while allies wasted a jumpbridge and onlined an SBU. Thirty minutes later, the fleet disbanded and joined another shield roam that was going up.


We made our way to Wicked Creek, the trip being entirely uneventful except for Kill 5. We did eventually get to where we wanted to go.


We saw a Rapier on gate, and we engaged. I hit the microwarp and rushed at him, past him, point engaged. Too late did I notice the multiple bombers spewing bombs our way. I unfortunately couldn't deactivate my microwarp, and was already rushing back at the Rapier.


It took three bombs to vaporize my Jaguar and send me packing.


I learned a valuable lesson there: There's no need to activate your microwarp to catch someone who's at the gate you just jumped through.


I know, seems obvious, but the heat of the moment struck, and that's how it goes. I think next time I won't make that mistake, even in the heat of the moment. I keep replaying how I could have survived, maybe wrought some additional havoc, but the lesson remains the same.


Had I been paying attention however, I could have zoomed well out of range of those bombs, snagged at least a bomber, and wrecked it. Such things were not to be however, as I'm sure the bombers would have begun torping me. There was most likely no way to come out ahead of that situation.


Computer: Terminate Recording.