I Sinned

I havve a semi-secret 1100 DPS Sin fit. I bought one, just because (though, tbh, it is a few days before T2 sentires unlock the power of win). I have used it a couple of times. This morning was one of them.

I have been doing level 4's in lowsec. I use a Cyclone for DPS, because I'm a cheapass. I use an alt with a Scythe for reps. Again, because I'm cheapass. I mean, it is theoretically dangerous to mission in lowsec; people will attempt to probe you out and gank you. Or so I've heard - a week of missions and I've never even been tried. Not sure why - but maybe they think Cyclone and Scythe is too low on the risk-reward scale.

Vargur, Loki, Osprey, Claw, however, is definitely on the high-risk, high-reward end of the scale, with bonus T2 BS killmail allure. So, although I was humping tags to my mission hub to convert to a Republic Fleet Tracking Enhancer in my Cheetah, when I hit d-scan and saw the gang on d-scan and saw mission wrecks, I pulled a U-turn and drip-fed combat probes into space, because the Vargur was on scan from every celestial. I mentioned this in Intel, and got a bite. Fleet was formed, consisting initially of Malediction to sprint for point, Megathron and Neut Phoon (and Cheetah).

It seems, fortuitously, I was not the only person enamoured with the idea of a Vargur kill. I ninja probed like a relatively bad boss, and got the Vargur on the second ping. Pulled my probes, warped to the site at 100km, and saved the ping to BM's. And they were gone - but I noticed there were still 5 combat probes on scan - the Vargur maybe missed mine but the other guy certainly derped and had scared it off.

So we bunkered down to wait. I swapped the Malediction for a Sin, and cloaked in the site while the Vargur was docked. Time passed and a corpie who'd been recently podded and ganked by pirates was convinced to undock a Vexor and get on gate.

The Loki and Osprey came to the site and cloaked off the Angel gate in Worlds Collide. The Claw came in and went in to kite. Then the Vargur undocks and warps in, and the trap was sprung. To be fair, he absolutely raped my Sin, leaving me with 2% shield as I was aligning for the nearest planet, before our ECM drones automagically jammed him. There was no way we were busting his tank - but that's why we brought the neut phoon. Finally, he popped.

Weirdly, the Loki and Osprey didn't uncloak - it may have been enough if the Osprey was repping him, to at least pop my Sin. I think, next time, I will fit an XL ASB to the Sin, at the expense of a portal generator. This will give me a reasonable burst tank. The DPS was spot on, considering I swapped to ECM drones when my tank was fucked. With sentries and an XL booster, I would be sweet to be dishing 1100 DPS and tanking 650-ish.

The other thing I will do, aside from selling the loot, is never pimp my Vargur that much. I make do with a Dread Guristas large and a Gisti C-type amplifier. I don't even have RF gyros (which, I admit, would be a reasonable investment).

I think I will stick to the poverty fit mission setup. It isn't quite as efficient as other options could be, but if you are in lowsec doing level 4's, you will eventually get bounced and killed. Losing 120M of ships is nothing like losing a 4 billion Vargur.