Wednesday 1 March 2017

Astero v Enyo


I wasn't actually looking for the Enyo. Taking on an assault frigate is pretty tough for other frigates - you can't easily evade their damage, and their unsubtle approach to dps and tanking makes them punch far above their weight. There is a reason that I flew a Vengeance for so long.

Rather, I was looking for an Algos, and I was reasonably confident that he was running a signature, so I had dropped some probes to scan it down. Doing so, I took the acceleration gate (but cloaked up again mid warp), and was surprised to find myself about 20km from the Enyo that I had also seen on D-scan (but had ignored due to being cloaked). Having come this far, however, I decided I might as well give it a try, and I moved into position.

Now, my low-end laptop means that I have to run Eve on the lowest graphics settings, so I'm not one for picking out weapons by using the 'look at' command. Given the distance he was keeping from the rats, though, I assumed that he was running railguns. Accordingly, I de-cloaked and dropped into a 3km orbit while activating my scram.

I had IN Multifrequency loaded, and I overheated my guns while setting my Acolytes on him. This was a tough call, because neither Acolytes nor Hobgoblins are a great drone to use on Gallente T2, but I figured that the Acolytes, on balance, would probably do more damage than the Hobgoblins, with the slightly lower resists making up for the slightly lower base damage.

He returned fire, and gosh, did it hurt. This was the first time in a while that my tank got a real work-out. In hindsight, what I should have taken from that was that he was running blasters rather than railguns. But things happen fast enough in frigate fights that you don't always have the time to process new information properly, so I simply chalked it up to the Enyo's tracking bonus. I overheated my repairer and popped some synth Exile. This was going to be close.

In the end, I had the better damage application, and towards the end of the fight some of the rats got close enough that they may actually have applied some relevant damage as well. He exploded, and so did his pod.

Whew!


Afterthoughts

After looking at his killmail, I can see that we both messed up our ammo choice. He had massive 282 turret dps after overheating, but his optimal was only 1.7 km because of the short range ammo he was using. That failure to apply his damage cost him the fight.

For my part, I should have moved into a wider orbit and loaded Scorch. That would have turned this fight into a cakewalk, as blasters just can't hit out to 8km effectively, irrespective of ammunition choice (although the Enyo will make a better show of it than most).

And I totally forgot about his drone. I should have cleared it, which would have wiped out the 20 or so dps that he could have effectively applied regardless of range or orbit.

With the fight done, I refit and dropped combat probes. I found the Algos sitting at a completed FW site. With the site captured, the beacon had despawned, and the pilot must have thought it was safe to grab a sandwich or something. That did not end well for him.

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