Today I roamed again with my Rifter into Black Rise. First I was alone for a few jumps, but never had the chance to encounter something. A friend of mine wanted to fly with me but was 8 jumps away, so I decided to search for a Novice Site and wait in it. I hoped to get a fight with someone who tries it. But guess what, no one ever appeared.
So, in Asakai we both started our poor Small Gang Roam, he helped me with a Retribution. Though Retributions aren't able to enter Novice Sites, we tried to separate in such systems and find fights for ourselfs. This just happened as we entered Kedama the second time. There was an Incursus on Scan when we landed at the Gate into a Novice Site. My friend scanned the System again and there was another ship he hoped it would be in the Small Site a few AU away. I got into the Site and there he was: An Incursus willing to fight! It happened that it was a Dual Armor Repairer Incursus with propably a Nanofiber, too, because he was a lot faster than me with Afterburner active. He pulled range, always tried to hold range at 7.500 m. His damage wasn't really hurting, but I wasn't doing damage either, though I had Barrage S loaded. Since he was able to dictate the range and was always too far away for my Nosferatu I lost Cap over time and at some point I was no longer able to run the Small Armor Repairer any more and he killed me. Maybe one of the best fights I ever had and I guess he had a really good fitting!
Just a few seconds later my friend died, too, because there was a Hotdrop and he made the mistake to not warp away from the Acceleration Gate but jumping into the Site without alignment. That gave the enemies enough time to get to the Site and target him into death. There were 7 guys onto his killmail, but there were a few more not able to target him fast enough.
We saved our PODs home into Highsec and reshipped, he into a Retribution again, but I changed into a Thrasher. It was a new fitting for me, too: Just high alpha, no tank, but fast lock. I already saw a lot of killmails done with such a fitting and most of the pilots told me it was always pretty funny to fly.
We entered Lowsec again and searched the systems again, but there was nowhere anyone we even could engage. Finally my friend had to go offline, so I tried to roam solo a bit. The next engagement I got was in Vaaralen. There was only one player and one Medium Site in system, but out of scanner range. I just warped to the Site and saw there was a Condor sitting in. If the Condor was Sensor Dampener fitted, I would loose my Thrasher without any chance, but I wanted to try so I entered the Site. But the Condor was already aligned and warped as soon as he could see me. Then another pilot entered the System and because there was only one Site, I stayed where I was. Soon there was a Catalyst on scan and a few seconds later appeared in the Overview. A aligned to sun, pulled a few km range and targetted him. He wasn't even able to lock me when he finally lost his ship.
Back into Mushikegi there was also only one Large Site and one pilot. I remembered he was sitting in a Kestrel so I took my chance and warped as fast as I could. But as soon as I got into it he warped away. The next nice engagement, but without a killmail, was in Reitsato. I saw a Crow and Venture on scan, warped to the Novice Site and Venture was sitting in. Just as I landed at the acceleration gate, a Crow warped away, in the same direction the Small Site was. I activated warp at 20 km and there he was, waiting for me! I targetted him, aligned away from him and and suddenly I got warp disruptor and damage on me! But it took not more than 5 seconds and the Crow pulled range with MWD and finally warped away, in deep structure.
The same way in Kedama. At a Small Site sitting onto the acceleration gate was a Magnate, waiting for whatever. I targetted, put him into structure with only one shot but he got away, whining in local. As I was still sitting at the gate, I saw an Inquisitor inside the Site and I entered it. He was already aligned and I was just able to do a little bit damage with one volley before he got into warp. On scan appeared a Vexor, which wasn't able to get into the Site, so I guess the Magnate was some alt or so, baiting for the Vexor. I don't know...
Still waiting in the Site looking for something to fight, a Hawk appeared on scan. So I aligned to sun, activated afterburner and waited. Soon he was visible and I tried to shoot him down on range, but he had a MWD fitted and was able to get some transversal and burned for me, so I warped save.
In Nisuwa where a lot of Sites and around 15 pilots but all to far away for the scanner. I warped to sun at 50 km and tried to scan with 15° all the sites there when suddenly a Talwar appeared, landing just 50 km away from me. I aligned to sun (whoops!) and wanted to see what he would try to do. But suddenly he hit me hard and shield where gone. I searched a gate, hit warp and another volley hit me into structure. Just when I was finally aligned to get into warp, the third volley hit me and I was in POD. Pretty nasty stuff! The alignment to sun was a huge mistake because there was no warp being able to. But I was wondering what took me so long to get into warp... I guess there were 2 mistakes, too: 1. maybe I got my afterburner active and 2. the gate I finally wanted to warp to was in a completely other direction then I was aligned to.
It wasn't the best day for me, already had much better days in lowsec. But hey, ce la vie!
