On Interceptors and Badly Fit Cov-Ops...

Yesterday saw me logging back into eve for the first time in about a week. It was a good feeling.

Started off the day with some ratting in my Wolf. Yes, I rat in a AF. It keeps me amused.

After a couple hours of doing the tedious grind that is ratting, I went and bought myself a new interceptor, another stiletto. IMO, it is one of the better ceptors, but I could be biased lol. I enjoy the 3/4/3 slot layout on it, and I find it fulfills the role of a interceptor quite well.

I have encountered 2 schools of thought on interceptors. The first is my personal favorite when it comes to piloting these little ships. It consists of orbiting the target at about 20-25km, keeping the target from warping away by having a warp disruptor trained on him. I typically fit up a buffer tank, a Small EMP Smartbomb, and a couple guns to take care of the drones that always end up chasing me. I rig the ship so that I can perma-run my MWD, and I usually have a tracking disruptor or a sensor dampner or a sebo running as well.

The second school of thought basically entails getting up in the targets grill (500m-1000m) and webbing and warp jamming him to hell. This is a great way of flying a ceptor, and it is certainly one of the most impressive. I've seen a incredible tank on a claw, that stood up for a very long time versus a HAC our fleet was engaging. My main complaint with this method of flying is that the ceptor pilot usually ends up dying. For me if I am flying a interceptor, if I get in web or scram range, I have screwed up. Don't get me wrong, there are a couple interceptors who are very adept at this style of flying, I just can't willingly throw away a tech 2 ship, unless the target is really, really juicy.

Mind you, these two flying styles are not concerned with dog-fighting (ceptor vs ceptor) flying. That is a whole other topic, one I will cover one day.

Anyway, after I got the stiletto fit up, there were a couple of neuts who poked their head into our end of Stain. Now, this is a bad idea for them. There are a large number of blues at our assistance at any given time, and we know our area quite well.

Jaxen and myself sat on a gate we knew a neut was coming through for the better part of 10 minutes. He was in a Thrasher, and I was in my stiletto. We knew the neuts were either flying a crucifier (a Tech 1 frigate) or a Cheetah (cov-ops).

Well, not long after the ten minute mark, the Cheetah pilot jumped into local. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally broke his gate-cloak, and tried to make a run for it. Luckily, I had a Sensor Booster running on my ceptor, and insta-locked him. Now that he was pointed, he did the smart thing and tried to burn back to the gate. Unfortunately for him, Jaxen and his Thrasher made _very_ short work of his cov-ops ship.

Doh!

To everyone- Don't ever ever ever fit up a cov ops ship like this. Or, if you do, please fly by my constellation so I can promptly blow it up. There should be 2 nano's in the lows. Possibly even a warp core stab. The mids are...ok. Highs are fine. The lows are the reason this pilot died. Had he had on 2 nanofiber internal structure tech 2, and a WCS, then he would have lived. The MWD/Cloak trick is vital for up-and-coming cov-ops and stealth bomber pilots to learn.

After that kill, I grabbed my cane and headed off to work on a 6/10 plex. Gotta bring home the bacon. Tommorrow I plan on heading back up to the Curse region and flying with some old corp mates from OUCH...Should be a blast, as usual.

Fly smart...And FFS please fit your ships properly.

o7