Duels

Since I read about Mynxee's adventure in granting a 1v1 duel I became entranced with the idea of taking a ship to challenge her. After all, reading her blog gives me a lot of confidence she will honour such a duel and I've always wanted to tangle with a Rupture as I hear they are very deadly cruisers; some boast they are the best T1 non-faction cruiser.

Back in the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 I did some solo-pirating and my ship of choice was the trusty Thorax. It suits my style nicely; fly straight at the target as fast as I can and hope I can kill him before I am dead. None of the Caldari Tech 1 cruisers can do that job quite so well.

So it was off to market to put one together. Presenting my solo-Thorax:
Highs:
5 x Heavy Ion Blaster IIs with Caldari Antimatter and Null ammo

Mids:
10mn MWD II,
Statis Webber II,
Best named Warp Disrupter (needed the CPU hence not T2)

Lows:
Damage Control II,
400mm Rolled Tungsten plate,
3 x Magnetic Field Stab IIs

Drones:
5 x Vespa EC-600s

The concept is simple: Charge the target ship, get them webbed and scrammed, kill my MWD when orbiting at 2.5 klicks, and pound the shit out of them while hoping the ECM drones break their lock once or twice and they die before I do. It doesn't work against multiple targets very well but has a decent chance against Tech 1 ships of similar tonnage or smaller.

I flew to Mynxee's area and challenged her to a duel which she eagerly accepted.

Duel #1 - Thorax Vs Rupture
I warped to her at 20km (0km would have been better for me but I didn't want to have an unfair advantage) and moved to engage. ECM Drones attack! Soon I was orbitting and blasting away and her shields and armour melted under the onslaught. Soon she was in her pod.

"What happened?" I queried. She got me to half shields but no drones or anything after that. Turns out a combination of overview malfunction (not showing fleet members) and ECM Drones caught her flatfooted. A bittersweet victory I offered to wait while she got another ship.

She agreed and decided to come back in a Rifter.

"A Rifter?" I thought to myself?

Duel #2 - Thorax Vs Rifter
Typically: frigate + web = death

This rule was not excepted today. As she arrived I quickly got her Rifter in my 12km ranged webber and she watched helplessly as my blasters reduced the frigate to a wreck. I didn't even bother with the drones this time.

Determined to destroy me, and seeing I was agreeable to going against something Tech II, she vowed to return in her Rapier force recon.

Duel # 3 - Thorax Vs Rapier
She came in at 20 km and immediately used the long ranged webs to hold me in place despite the MWD. She moved to 26-27 km and began plinking away at my shields while I struggled to move like a crippled freighter.

I had only one chance. The ECM Drones.

"COME ON, little buddies! Give daddy one lock break!" I encouraged them.

Suddenly the ship lurched as the stasis effect ended and the velocity climbed in leaps and bounds. The drones came through. I began to close the distance, 25, 22, 18... come on, 12 is the magic number. Suddenly 12 flashed up and my webber engaged and I knew I had her. The Thorax acheived optimal and my weapons opened up.

"NOOOOOO! Not my Rapier!" Mynxee wailed. She hit her warp button and flew off the grid. In all the excitement I forgot to engage the warp disrupter but truth be told I would have let her go anyways as I already had two of her ship kills notched in my hull.

With that my time was up and we exchanged pleasantries as I docked and logged off.

Good fights Mynxee, thanks for letting me work out the rustiness a little. I suspect FINEG will not be so accomodating.