A well-celebrated birthday

So it is now official, Cozmik R5 passed (survived?) his first year in EVE! I didn't get to play as much as I really wanted but I was still able to get on a small, fast-moving Frigate-AF-Interceptor gang and we went on a roam through Catch in search of action. I first thought we would have gotten some action as soon as I logged in because the Bozos were waiting for a recently ex-Goon to undock his Abaddon so in 2 minutes I had refit my high-damage ratting Hurricane with a scrambler (a few other Bozos also had gank ships ready) but this kill never happened because at some point Mr Ex-Goon simply logged off.

For a short time I ratted a few belts as scouts were going to the neighboring systems in search of stuff to blow up, but slowly Curse was getting into quiet mode and I was wondering if I was going to have to spend Cozmik's birthday doing Carebear activities. Thankfully one of our guys had other plans and we started putting together our fast-moving Bug Swarm of Annoyance. Knowing that between all the ships we had we would have no shortage of warp scramblers and webs, I decided to give the maiden cruise of a Claw setup that was totally experimental, if a tad expensive:

[Claw, GankClaw]
Overdrive Injector System II
Overdrive Injector System II
Damage Control II
Co-Processor I

1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Warp Disruptor II

200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S (switch to Hail S for close-range pain, or Rep. Fleet EMP)
200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S
200mm AutoCannon II, Barrage S
'Arbalest' Rocket Launcher I, Caldari Navy Foxfire Rocket

Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Projectile Collision Accelerator I

Yes, this baby is rigged, which is always risky in a ship which "will get popped with a neut and a stern look (copyright, Quebnaric Deile)", but at least these rigs aren't too hard on the wallet. I came up with the setup while playing around in EFT and the amount of damage this little thing can put out while still keeping a very high speed made it too interesting to leave it untried so I went out and bought a few of those rigs and waited for the best opportunity to try it out in gang. And yesterday's was the perfect occasion. As it happens quite often, the big roam didn't give much more than an opportunity to smack reds in Local, and "the fight" happened when we where almost home. There was a mid-sized Agony Empire gang camping the RMOC gate in the Hemin system, but when we jumped in everybody warped off the gate except for a lone Caracal; take a wild guess as to what happened to it >:) It didn't take long for them to change their minds though, and soon an Armageddon, a Devoter, and various other nastiness arrived at the gate and started shooting. As the call was made to GTFout I finished off the Caracal pilot's pod, got clear of the bubble post-haste, and warped myself to freedom. We didn't lose a single frigate !!!

So this little ship gave me a lot of flexibility exactly when I needed it. As it's fit now on EFT with All Level V skills it barely perma-runs with a 36% cap stability, and with Coz that goes down to about 10 minutes, but engagements rarely last that long, and when they do you do not want to be in an interceptor because at some point you will get that stern look! I am anxious to try it again though, even if some of my corpmates disapproove of its price tag, but I took it out once and it was a blast! It does miss having a web though, but when I know I'm not alone as primary tackle I can live with that. I think it will be a great addition to my fleet, at least until I have a decent Taranis, but don't worry, I'll be telling about it if at some point it fails horribly :))

Until next time, fly dangerous but watch out for Bozos in Local !!!

o7