Lonetrek region — Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system
6 January YC 127
After bidding the bitter-sweet farewell to Purkkoken I was in no rush to get a new mission from Caldari Navy. Although there was a grain of truth in what he said about the inadequate mission briefs, I felt that he was treated too harshly. On the other hand, if that failing was seen as a reason for the escalating tension between Caldari and Gallente, Purkkoken’s superiors had no choice but to take some disciplinary action. I wanted my contradictory emotions to settle before I would approach a Caldari Navy agent again.
When I shared my thoughts with Aura, she nodded and said, “By one measure, it’s actually a good thing that you have finished with level 1 missions. Have you checked your AIR career program lately?”
I shook my head.
Aura pulled up an AIR window on the HUD and pointed at the circle of activities expected from an Enforcer, “See Security Agent sector? You are done with it. You have run the required 20 level 1 missions and you won’t get AIR bonuses for completing more. What you should do to progress your Enforcer career is destroy pirate bases (they call them combat sites), and you don’t need an agent for that.”
And so I undocked in Nosuri in search of straightforward, politically neutral encounters with pirates. The first scan of anomalies in Tsuguwa system revealed a Guristas Watch base. Keen to get into some kind of action, I interrupted my constellation roundtrip and ducked back into the Caldari Navy Assembly Plant to switch the Buzzard for the Cormorant. Five minutes later I arrived to the signature location and took an acceleration gate.
The pirates felt pretty comfortable in that pocket — they deployed several power arrays and habitation modules, and even anchored a starbase with a major assembly array. The site was guarded by a fleet consisting of three cruisers, four destroyers and several frigates, supported by a missile battery.
“Don’t get too cushy, guys,” I said rubbing my hands, and went into a 45-km orbit around Communication Officer’s cruiser.
I targeted nearby frigates and was about to start shooting when all my target locks were lost and the HUD showed that I was jammed by one the cruisers. In the meantime Guristas started sending their regards from guns and missile launchers. The shield damage indicator drew a red arc with an alarming speed and I thought it was time to turn the hardeners on. That didn’t help much and it was obvious that I would be overwhelmed before I could destroy the enemy fleet. I turned on the microwarpdrive as a temporary measure and the gun hits seized immediately, their turrets unable to track me. The missile damage subsided somewhat but the bloody Scourge missiles, especially the light ones, were still delivering enough punch to keep the damage indicator moving in the wrong direction. My increased speed helped against the explosion velocity but the signature bloom caused by the MWD increased the damage application. My shield gone, my sensors jammed and my capacitor running out, it was time to bail out.
“They obviously followed your advice,” Aura said sarcastically, as we were warping to the station.
I looked at her uncomprehendingly.
“About not getting too cushy,” she explained with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Instead of making snide remarks, how about advising on how we can destroy that base?” I snapped back.
Aura shrugged her shoulders, “Getting a bigger ship?”
I rubbed my chin, “It’s always an option, but I don’t think we have exhausted the Cormorant’s resources yet. Maybe we need a different fit.”
Having arrived to the station, Aura and I dived into research. One obvious problem that we had was the destroyer’s staying power – it ran out of shield too quickly for us to apply any significant damage to the opposing fleet. There were two options – fitting a buffer tank or an active tank.
The buffer tank had to have a shield extender, and Medium Azeotropic Restrained Shield Extender was a natural choice. I installed it instead of the Thermal Shield Hardener. Being oversized for the destroyer, the extender had energy requirements exceeding what the standard power grid could provide. The problem was solved by installing Micro Auxiliary Power Core into a low slot instead of the Signal Amplifier.
“And how are you going to target anyone now? Even with the amplifier your sensors were jammed,” Aura pointed out, “Now they will be even more susceptible to ECM.”
“I’ll have to change the tactics,” I explained, “The peculiarity of the jammers is that they prevent you from targeting all ships except the one that jams. So I will have to deal with the jammers first.”
As Guristas dealt mostly kinetic damage, I kept Kinetic Shield Hardener but upgraded it to Tech II, increasing the resistance from 45% to 49.5%. The last piece of the puzzle was the prop module. I wanted speed to outrun the frigates, but not at the expense of the signature bloom generated by the microwarpdrive. Consequently, I replaced the MWD with 1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner and ended up with this cap-stable fit.
[Cormorant, Cormorant - Kinetic Shield Buffer] Damage Control II Micro Auxiliary Power Core I 1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner Medium Azeotropic Restrained Shield Extender Kinetic Shield Hardener II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I Spike S x2516 Iron Charge S x31200
It boasted 2250-HP shield with 74% resistance to kinetic damage. The max speed dropped from 1600 m/s to 645 m/s but it was still high enough to get away from the frigates. Satisfied with the buffer fit, I turned my attention to active tank options.
Small Shield Booster II was a de rigueur module for an active tank and I put it in place of the shield extender. It gave 17.5 HP/s shield boost which was comparable to the damage I was receiving from Guristas during my last unsuccessful excursion. Unfortunately, the greedy module would deplete my capacitor in about 90 seconds which was not good enough, so I had to sacrifice the shield hardener and install Cap Recharger II in its stead. It didn’t improve the capacitor situation much, giving me only about half a minute more. Then I remembered my Sleeper Cache Heron fit which used a capacitor flux coil to increase the recharge rate. Luckily, without the shield extender I didn’t need the auxiliary power core any more, so I replaced it with Capacitor Flux Coil II, and the capacitor duration jumped to 3 minutes 16 seconds.
“So, are you going to warp out every three minutes?” sniggered Aura.
“Yeah,” I admitted scratching my head, “it’s gonna be tricky. I’ll have to deal with the jamming cruisers first which will take time. Alternatively, I can just use the afterburner to lure frigates away from the jamming radius of the cruisers and kill them first. Then I can return to the cruisers and turn the afterburner off. Without the prop module the capacitor will last about 10 minutes. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes.”
Here is the resulting active shield tank fit.
[Cormorant, Cormorant - Active Shield] Damage Control II Capacitor Flux Coil II 1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner Small Shield Booster II Cap Recharger II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II 125mm Railgun II Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I Spike S x2516 Iron Charge S x31200
I flew to Jita to buy the necessary modules and fit the Cormorant. My preference was for a cap-stable configuration so I installed the kinetic shield buffer fit first. When we jumped back to Tsuguwa and I warped to Guristas Watch location again, I found with some disappointment that the base had already been demolished by another enterprising capsuleer.
“I am glad that my fellow pod pilots make an effort to keep proliferation of pirate bases in check,” grumbled I, “but for once I wish they have left that base for me.”
“The capsuleers are so undependable,” snickered Aura, “but you can always rely on good old Guristas to establish a new base as soon as their old lair is destroyed. Like this one, for example,” and she pointed her finger at the probe scanner window.