Thursday 29 April 2010

Speed Freaks - Part I

I'm, unfortunately, going to gloss over the saga of my journey to and from Phaze-9, which was the arc I had embarked upon before I (once again) ran out of momentum on this diary last time. Suffice to say I had a good time, met some people, killed some people etc. I had the great pleasure of taking part in several very large battles, and, teamed with Caster Rom, won the Ushra'Khan cruiser tournament. However, I found the numerous rules of U'K too restrictive and they dampened my fun on more than one occasion. Having enjoyed the freedom of piracy before hand, suddenly having vast swathes of space where I couldn't attack people who weren't specifically marked as enemies really hurt. On one occasion I defied this rule to save a friend from otherwise certain death and was reprimanded for it. U'K obviously wasn't for me; I didn't have the self control. So, leaving several good friends behind I set out to forge my own destiny. I returned to my own corporation: Teeth of the Beast.


I won't expand on the happenings between then and now, at least not in this entry. I shall expand on a very recent adventure with the aforementioned Caster Rom, who, no matter where I go in the galaxy, always seems to turn up. I'm never sure if this is a good thing or not. I joke of course Cas, if your reading this. For this particular adventure Caster plus two other factors were the catalysts for it even starting. The additional two factors were my birthday and Casters amazing generosity. Having accidently let slip in a conversation with him that it was my birthday, and spending the next ten minutes dodging questions about my exact age, he proceeded to buy a present to mark the occasion. To my utter incredulity the present he had bought me was a rare faction frigate, the Dramiel. I happened to know that these fetch a pretty penny and that it was a very generous present. He hadn't only bought one either. He had bought us a matching pair and the cherry on top of the cake would be a Dramiel roam into null sec.


For those of you who haven't ever talked to another human being, the Dramiel is a frigate designed by one of the galaxies most feared organisations: the Angel Cartel. This thing is a masterpiece of engineering, I haven't quite decided whether the man who designed this was a genius or a lunatic. Now I come to think about it, only genius with the oily film of lunacy could have produced such a design. Unlike a lot of ships, this one looks like a weapon. It's flowing curves that come to deadly points epitomise the beauty in war and death. This combined with its, quite frankly, terrifying speed, surprising toughness, and respectable damage output make it a truly sublime ship. When I say speed, what I actually mean is SPEEEEEEED!!!!!!! I have witnessed these things moving in excess of 10km/s. It is this attribute which makes them an object of fear and awe in my eyes; many a time have I been in a system and left purely because one of these has entered local. I have also had the misfortune of being on the wrong end of their weapons and, without exception, I have died every time. This is what Caster Rom had handed me. God I love that man.



I eagerly broke out my wallet and bought a nice fit for it. I opted for a kiting setup, and splurged a bit on the afterburner, buying a Gistii B-type 1MN afterburner. This would give a big speed boost and wasn't that expensive as dead space modules go, weighing in at a moderate 14mil. This was a pirate faction ship, it deserved some preferential treatment. The kiting setup would give me much greater survivability and allow me take on a wider range of targets that a close range fit. You paid for this with less DPS, but I felt this was an acceptable price. Unbeknownst to me Caster had gone for a close range fit by fitting a scrambler rather than a disruptor like I had. This meant we would complement each other nicely. I can practically taste the explosions.

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