Have destroyed Elite Anacondas before, and so was looking forward to an easy fight in my newly acquired ASP. It's not fully pimped out yet, but weapon mounts were chock full of the stuff that should make destroying an Elite Anaconda a walk in the park: a couple of fixed beams in the mids, and 4 x dumbfire racks in the small hard points. As I've taken out Elite Anacondas with the same set up in Cobras and Vipers, I thought nothing of my first encounter.
Alas, I was wrong. feeling over-confident, I managed to switch into silent running while sitting right in front of the gal while using beam lasers to lower shields (oops, wrong button). I had some shield cells, after all - what could go wrong? Well, there's not much point in shield cells if you can't use them. She delivered 44pct damage to my light alloy hull in a second or two, and sent me running with the tail between my legs. However, I refused to lose. So I let my shields recharge and returned to the fight. I couldn't get her shields down with 4 pips in WEP, so had to lob a couple of missile volleys to get them down. Once down, I fired everything I had in very, very quick succession. Many, many explosions later I stopped firing. 15pct hull left - and I was out of missiles. What the? So I had to finish her off with my slow-working beams, which she seemed to have developed a sudden resistance to. For a second I thought she was fitted with a mirrored surface hull, but if that was the case, why hadn't my missiles finished her off? Took about 6o seconds to finish her off - was uneventful as her weapons appeared unable to fire.
Back at my home base I cashed in my meager 160k bounty, plus another 20k from a KWS. My repair bill was 85k, and my munitions bill was somewhere around 25-35k. But I learned a lesson; several actually:
1. It is far more lucrative to bounty hunt in a smaller ship
2. The ASPs shields do not seem very strong - of course they're C rated vs my Vipers A, but they don't last long
3. The most valuable lesson of all: don't engage silent running in a head-on engagement
4. Combat in a bigger ship is more exhilarating - simply because the risks are greater
On top of all that, I really LIKE wear and tear. I love the fact that there are consequences for my sloppiness!
Alas, I was wrong. feeling over-confident, I managed to switch into silent running while sitting right in front of the gal while using beam lasers to lower shields (oops, wrong button). I had some shield cells, after all - what could go wrong? Well, there's not much point in shield cells if you can't use them. She delivered 44pct damage to my light alloy hull in a second or two, and sent me running with the tail between my legs. However, I refused to lose. So I let my shields recharge and returned to the fight. I couldn't get her shields down with 4 pips in WEP, so had to lob a couple of missile volleys to get them down. Once down, I fired everything I had in very, very quick succession. Many, many explosions later I stopped firing. 15pct hull left - and I was out of missiles. What the? So I had to finish her off with my slow-working beams, which she seemed to have developed a sudden resistance to. For a second I thought she was fitted with a mirrored surface hull, but if that was the case, why hadn't my missiles finished her off? Took about 6o seconds to finish her off - was uneventful as her weapons appeared unable to fire.
Back at my home base I cashed in my meager 160k bounty, plus another 20k from a KWS. My repair bill was 85k, and my munitions bill was somewhere around 25-35k. But I learned a lesson; several actually:
1. It is far more lucrative to bounty hunt in a smaller ship
2. The ASPs shields do not seem very strong - of course they're C rated vs my Vipers A, but they don't last long
3. The most valuable lesson of all: don't engage silent running in a head-on engagement
4. Combat in a bigger ship is more exhilarating - simply because the risks are greater
On top of all that, I really LIKE wear and tear. I love the fact that there are consequences for my sloppiness!
