(over)heated Battle in Oulley

Guilty Parties:

Ludis Drakava - Blackstar Privateer Consortium

Keeley Ellis (blogger) - Blackstar Privateer Consortium

It was some Friday night. Can't remember which, but when it was doesn't matter so much. Friday night and quiet in Babylon, our C4. It's enough to make a couple of pilots wander off looking for some alcohol... and inevitably, some other pilots to waste some ammo on.

The corporation next door in the C3 apparently weren't interested in themselves being those "other pilots" but their U210 presented some possibilities. The system seemed to be pretty busy. Just as I started having a look around, there were some tears in local as some poor anomaly hunter got jumped by a pirate gang. A quick d-scan hunt could track them down before they left system though, but there was plenty of traffic moving from highsec down the pipe to wherever. Plenty of that was small faction war ships not worth bothering with, despite being eager to 'christen' the Rapier with its first kill.

By now, Ludis had shipped into his weapon of choice - a dual rep Sacrilege - and was eagerly awaiting a target, sat on the U210. That was when we spotted a couple of Ewoks jumping into the system, one in a Drake, the other in a Hurricane. It was frustrating to see them both jump out to highsec. Another one had appeared in local though and it wasn't long before the Hurricane jumped back through and started to orbit the gate. Ludis didn't need any further invitation and warped in at short range, delivering an invitation for the Hurricane to follow him off the gate in the form of a HAM volley. The 'Cane obliged and was shortly followed the Drake who jumped through from highsec. Being fit with HAMs, the engagement was already out of his range. It was looking good and I was about to de-cloak when the third Ewok pilot de-cloaked himself. His Falcon jammed out Ludis as he kited the 'Cane away from the gate. As the Drake closed in, it was looking less likely that the Rapier would do much good. Ludis  burned away and warped to safety. *bell chimes* End of round one.

The Ewoks remained on the gate, giving us plenty of time to ready ourselves for another bite of the cherry. Ludis warped in and tried his best to fly in way that said "shoot me", but the Hurricane didn't want to give up the advantage of gate guns backing him up, despite having the greater numbers. Instead, he warped to the sun and our intrepid Sacrilege pilot followed and the two ships started exchanging fire. The Drake appeared moments later, with Ludis in between him and the Hurricane, then right on cue, the Falcon de-cloaked. I had to be quick here. I'd had plenty of time to reship to my own Falcon and specifically fit a Caldari and Minmatar jammers, but the gambit would only work if I could de-cloak a split-second after their pilot and lock him before he locked me - pretty much the reason why I also roll with a sebo on a Falcon.

It worked. All three of the Ewoks ships were jammed out. What little dps I had on the Falcon was on the Hurricane, which was going down pretty quick. The Drake, despite being jammed started burning towards me while their own Falcon kept range behind him. Not keen to wait for the ECM to fail, I started burning away from the Drake as the Hurricane entered low armour. The distance to where Ludis was fighting the Hurricane was getting beyond optimal for both the ECM and the railguns. The jams still held on the Drake and Falcon, but the 'Cane was free to engage again, but by now was into structure. My railguns were barely scratching it at this point, but Ludis was still knocking chunks out of it in the Sac'. That's where things fell apart somewhat.

"Oh bugger!" I heard over comms. It was all going well, surely there was no cause for concern. Still, a statement of alarm should not go unheeded;

"er... what?" My reply.

"I've burned out my launchers." Was the response. The 'Cane was at 40% hull, but the Falcon had no chance of finishing it off. Strangely, he had also stopped firing. Ludis warped away and I hit the cloak. The conversation then moved to local:

[ 2013.01.11 23:21:20 ] EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Oulley

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:05 ] Ludis Drakava > damn, too much overheat :(

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:17 ] Flarty ShaftFast > same here ;)

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:22 ] Flarty ShaftFast > weapons burned :P

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:23 ] Keeley Ellis > lol

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:26 ] Keeley Ellis > gf

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:29 ] Ludis Drakava > GF guys

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:29 ] Flarty ShaftFast > gf

[ 2013.01.11 23:32:40 ] Ludis Drakava > that's the most fun I've had in a long while

[ 2013.01.11 23:33:27 ] Flarty ShaftFast > same here

[ 2013.01.11 23:33:30 ] Flarty ShaftFast > :)

[ 2013.01.11 23:33:41 ] Flarty ShaftFast > nice pvp instead of gay ganking

[ 2013.01.11 23:33:45 ] Flarty ShaftFast > :)

[ 2013.01.11 23:33:55 ] Ludis Drakava > yeah

No kills to speak of. No losses either, but there was no denying it was fun. However, I'll happily take the dubious moral victory for taking on superior numbers once again.