One Man; 5 Enyos.

Much like famed pilot Wensley, I recently picked up a stack of Enyos.

Now in the past, I've had some bad things to say about the Enyo (I believe I called it a 'terribad sack of crap'), however it appears that I might have been a bit too harsh. In this post, I'm going to go through the 5 losses (and various kills) and speculate as to wheth

er an Ishkur would've been more beneficial (or indeed swung the battle in my favour).

After a discussion with fellow Tusker Sa'haira my ENyo was dubbed "WaaaaaAAAAAGH!!", following the well known fact that red ones go faster.

Here's the fit:

[Enyo, WaaaaaAAAAAGH!!]

Small Armor Repairer II

Damage Control II

Adaptive Nano Plating II

Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

1MN Afterburner II

Warp Scrambler II

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Nosferatu II

Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I

Hobgoblin II x1

262dps with my skills before heat, 298 with. 8k Ehp and 50/37 dps tanked. Lets compare that with my trusty Ishkur fitting:

[Ishkur, <3]

Small Armor Repairer II

Damage Control II

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

1MN Afterburner II

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

DDO Photometry Tracking Disruptor I

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Diminishing Power System Drain I

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I

Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I

Warrior II x5

Warrior II x5

At 197/205 dps, the Ishkur is wildly outclassed in terms of raw damage. However, it does have 100 more Ehp (I know, a HUGE difference right?) and tanked slightly harder at 62/46.

Paper stats aside the Ishkur is slower (779 against 843) however, owing to the extra mid slot, it is far more flexible. The Enyo however can be bought, fitted, rigged and loaded for about as much as the Ishkur hull alone.

Ok enough with the theory, lets get onto the first loss.

Enyo 1

How did I lose it?

The first Enyo met its end after tackling a Daredevil at a FW plex. A short brawl with blasters left the daredevil burning out of my range and holding point for his mates to finish me off. Although losing my ship with nothing to show for it, it was nice to see that the enyo could out-shoot what was supposed to be one of the best frigates. Shame I had nothing to pin him down with.

Would an Ishkur have been better?

Probably not. While the extra mid could have mitigated damage from the DD, or slowed it down a bit, I'm not sure if I would have been able to finish him off before his friends arrived. And frankly, with a daredevil and a rapier on me I wasn't going anywhere.

Enyo 2

How did I lose it?

After brawling down a thrasher on a station, I waited around for round two with his moa. This ended badly. Fairly sure he was fit for anti-frig with a plate and webs/neuts/small guns.

Would an Ishkur have been better?

The Ishkur when TD fit will mash a thrasher without breaking a sweat, so that part would have gone more smoothly. The moa was packed double webs, so I doubt the td would have allowed me to out speed his guns or burn out of range. Once again, as I'd have died either way the Enyo was the better choice, as its cheaper.

Enyo 3

How did I lose it?

Tackled by a crusader on a gate, due to mistakes on my part (forgetting to turn my ab on XD) it takes far too long to down him and by this time his friends have tackled me, which doesn't work out too well for me (although I did get the hawk into fairly low shields).

Would an Ishkur have been better?

Assuming I'd fitted a web, the crusader could have be

en more easily brought into my optimal (it was almost as fast as me, even with its mwd shut down) and taken out. Assuming I'd done this quickly enough, his gang wouldn't have reached me and I would have escaped. On the other hand, I screwed up on my piloting, so it may not be fair to judge against the Enyo here.

Enyo 4

How did I lose it?

After almost entirely failing to kill a punisher (I'd

forgotten to reset my orbit after a short roam in my arty cane, and therefore spent the majority of the fight burning out of blaster range), I pressed on and met a jaguar on a gate. Unfortunately, he kited me in small neut range.

Would an Ishkur have been better?

Looking through his past fits he seems to favour a fit without a web. An Ishkur carrying a web would've been faster and able to get into range with antimatter. From experience, at close range the ishkur's cap will last long enough to kill a jaguar.

Enyo 5

How did I lose it?

Enyo 5 had the most successful career: starting off by out-ganking a thrasher and then topping the killmails in a short frigate roam. We'd been ordered to warp off after taking out the first cane, unfortunately the harbinger was able to grab point on me, leaving my only option as burning into scram range to get under his guns. Hits from the mighty heavy pulse lasers and drones had left my enyo in one quarter structure by the time I'd achieved this and my demise was watched fellow Tusker Kishin Hattori. Or so he thought, as my enyo popped enough of the warriors to regain slivers of armour. Kishin burnt in and grabbed point, just in time to compensate for me being jammed by ecm drones.

Unfortunately, I got a little too complacent whilst looting the field and the harbinger pilot came back in an Ashimmu to finish the job.

Would an Ishkur have been better?

As the only gang engagement, this one is interesting. With the spare mid given to a web, the Ishkur could have taken out drones with ridiculous ease (the Enyo's tracking bonus did help to do this though); if the slot had been given over to a tracking disrupte

r then the whole gang would have benefited from a reduction in incoming dps. A couple of ships that we lost might have survived due to this.

That said, the Enyo's far superior dps helped to take down the opposing ships more quickly. Furthermore, every other ship fielded by the Tuskers had at least 3 mid slots (enough from a prop mod, point and another module) so there was already plenty of space for webs and tracking disruptor (although I believe only the former were actually being carried).

That said, if I was going to be stupid enough to get caught by the Ashimmu I might as well have been in the cheaper ship.

Which is better?

Surprisingly, for me at least, 3 out of 5 of these come out as a draw (or even slight win for the Enyo for being cheaper) with only 2 being victories for the Ishkur (although one of these is fairly dubious as the Enyo would have done better if I had have been less fail). I'd be interested to see which would win in a straight fight and may enlist the help of another pilot to test this. Any volunteers?

It seems to be the case that the Ishkur is more versatile, owing to its extra mid, and is able to more compensate for its lack of speed with a web or td. Its also got sexy fangs.

See? Sexy fangs!

The Enyo did however get my heart racing as it dived into point blank range against some fairly hard hitting opponents and proceeded to out shoot them. Fights were tight, often ending with me on fire. Something about that appeals to me, so I've finally bitten the bullet and finished training for interceptors. My eyes are fixed on a blaster ranis!

So expect some comedy lossmails of me losing them to a rifter...

o/

(Insert self depreciative comments about my inability to FC here)

Ok so my repping of my wallet was pretty much achieved by selling off my cov ops alt. The majority of the profit from that is being invested in logistics and industry. I have spreadsheets and everything!

However, from the title you can probably guess that this isn't going to be a "EVERYTHING IS FAAAAABULOUS!" blog post. Have a cookie. From trying to sell hurricanes for 5m, to losing a rifter to sentries (after warping to a station at range to check what was on it.... rapier, maelstrom and 2 sentry guns as it turns out), to trading a corp mate a daredevil by mistake: its been a fail couple of days.

I've never been a confident FC: I hesitate, forget who my scouts are and never get the speed that I move the gang at right. This is very different from my behaviour when I fly solo: I rarely hesitate to engage just about anything and, I'd say, move at the right pace to cover ground and scan systems. My roams end in one of two ways: nothing at all happens and we all get home safely; everyone dies in a blaze of fail.

So what went wrong today?

After missing a gang fight I was fairly eager for some action, so fellow Tusker (and all round great guy) Kishin Hattori agreed to take a frigate out with me and see what we could find. While we were getting together, more Tuskers joined our fleet and slowly we rolled off towards Tama.

A few jumps later, after discussion, I hesitantly took the reins as FC and pointed us further along. Reaching Nagamanen, I chose to send a scout into eaAch of the attached systems. The idea was that as we were in light frigates. Things looked up as a couple of the gang grabbed a daredevil in a plex. Almost simultaneously one of the other scouts reported a hurricane on scan and we scrambled to get back onto the in gate to his system.

Unfortunately, this is where it started to go downhill. Due to me choosing to send scouts into the surrounding systems we couldn't muster our full firepower quickly enough (granted, 2 members of the 8 man gang were indisposed). Also, it was an armour cane. And we all know what they do to frigs, right?

First to go down was Beh3motH in his firetail, who held point just long enough for the majority of the gang to land. As we began to chew through the cane's buffer, Mr Snype's incursus was torn to pieces. Beh3motH reported additional ships on his d-scan, however the delay in their arrival threw me and I ordered the gang to keep fire on the cane. First of their back up to land was a harbinger which finished off Kishin's worm, followed by a zealot and an additional cane. Frantically calling for the remnants of my gang to flee, my slicer was pretty much alpha'd before it could enter warp.

I think my main issue with leading gangs, and why I tend to hesitate more then when I'm solo, stems from the fact that other people are in the fleet.

"Well DUH" I hear you cry "Of course there's other people, its a gang you muppet!"

Which would be a fair and valid point. However, when I'm solo I'm only wasting my own time waiting for a target to bite, not several other (more) talented pirates, who could be off hunting solo with great success. Its my own isk invested in the hulls that is on the line; as opposed to isk hard earned through ransoms or whatever else it is that my fellow Tuskers do.

In hindsight, it would have been best to have cut our losses and ordered the retreat before the cane's backup had even landed, or even better to have not engaged it at all. But, it had been the only (seemingly) viable target in the time we'd been roaming, so I did not wanted to at least have something to show for our time.

Ah well, we live and learn. Maybe, if my fellow Tuskers still trust my judgement, I'll lead some more gangs soon and try to work up a bit more confidence.

And more solo work. I don't even own any ishkurs at the moment!

Until next time

o/

Docking to Rep (up my wallet)

Firstly, hi! Its been a while since I've blogged. Mainly 'cus I've not really done anything on my own that was worth mentioning.

Sometimes its fun to meet an old enemy, even better when its in an old home. You might remember my old corp NER's dislike of the Scum. Alliance. Well, it seems like what's left of them have set up shop in my old home of Lisbaetanne. Old Renegade/Hound and flier of the mighty griffin (and other assorted ships) mitch3190 kept being aggressed by them on an undock. In response to this, a Tusker recon and arty gang landed and blew the offending armageddon to pieces.

Its been a good first month or two in the Tuskers. Shortly after joining, we headed off to Black Rise for a month to experience new territory and exciting new crime. Unfortunately, I never seemed to find targets during my active hours.

I did however take part (and die horribly) in a string of corp ops based around arty canes and tempests. I've leave it to our FC Suleimon Shouaa to describe these in detail in his next few posts, but suffice to say I had a good time.

We'll be heading out on another campaign soon, so in order to keep more gangs running at home and abroad there's a recruitment drive on. If you're interested in joining quite possibly the best low-sec pirate corp out there check out the requirements and post an application here.

As for me: I've managed to bankrupt myself. Luckily, certain *ahem* associates of mine are active in highsec so in a couple of weeks I'll be out joining gangs again. Its not a matter of making isk, its more making enough to invest in something (some kind of industry knowing me) so that I can spend less time bearing and more time yarring.

Hope to be back to losing ridiculous numbers of ishkurs soon!

o/

New Year: New Face, New Corp. (same Ishkurs)

OK, so as with the trend for posting this, here is a comparison between von's old and new face. I couldn't get quite the same expression of confusion on his face, and he looks naked without the visor, but I'm getting used to it.

Secondly, as detailed here NER has been closed down. I'm sad to see it end, but it was a great challenge to try a build a pirate corp and I had good fun (for the most part) in doing so.

This left me needing a corp. I wanted to stick with piracy and have cool people to fly with. Only one real choice presented itself, so I'm now proudly a Tusker.

I actually don't have anything else really to add. Urrmm.. yeah...

LOOK OVER THERE ITS STUFF!

*runs away*