The Mistakes of Learning

My spirits are a bit broken in that I've lost two ships in the last day. The first was a Jaguar, Jestyl II. The second was a Blackbird, Weird Sisters. It isn't their loss that bothers me. Jes had seen action in Outer Ring and in The Bleak Lands. She served well, and was a great joy to pilot. I do look forward to fitting another Jaguar. This was Sisters' first sortie, but she was lost in combat after assisting in the destruction of two Typhoon class battleships. I did calmly try to evade the hostile reinforcements, but Blackbirds are slow. I think she did well.

My low spirits come form the mistakes I made around the loss of these two ships.

After panicking and losing Dakyxa'is, I am really trying to focus on combat, and really wanting to put myself at more risk for the sake of getting better. Monday morning, there was a large Dark Rising operation against Heretics that occupied most of the militia, so I took it on myself to go on a solo roam.

I took Jes, figuring a Jaguar was fast and strong enough to engage most light targets in one-on-one. It was uneventful. I did have a chance to engage a Punisher, but I hesitated, and he got away.

Tuesday morning, was when things went poorly.

Amamake is generally a dangerous system. Recently however, I had become relaxed in Amamake. There were hostiles, but they were usually kept off the gates by friendly traffic. The Heretics kept to the Osuggur gate (when not defending against Dark Rising), and the Amarr militia had been focusing on Auga and Dal.

I was crossing Amamake with the intent of entering Vard and beginning a solo roam. I asked about a fleet and received an invitation. The fleet was in Dal, so I doubled back to the Dal gate.

As a reminder to me that I really shouldn't be flying around Amamake alone like that, there are three Amarrian Thrashers waiting for me on the gate.

At least they respect the hardware.

We are all on the gate, and I know I can't turn around and run. Without thinking, I signal the jump.

They gleefully jump with me.

It doesn't take them long to cut Jestyl II to shreds. My wetware is slow. Their targetting computers are fast.

I never even see the pod.

The list of mistakes here is long.

I should've given them a chance to fire at me first. I know they wouldn't've. That would've given me a chance to jump while they waited on the thirty-second cool off. If I sat there, I know they would've sent one Thrasher through. At that point, I can't get away.

Jumping through wasn't a horrible mistake, but I should've waited, so see if it was even necessary. Give them a chance to make a mistake.

Once we were all on the other side of the gate, I was resolved to the defeat. I didn't think I could get away. What bothers me is, I didn't even try. I don't know how they were fitted, but I had an afterburner that I could overheat. I could've tried to run outside of their warp disruption range and gotten away.

I wouldn't've made it, but it would've been good practice.

Once I calmed down (bought a new clone) and got into another ship, I rejoined the fleet. It was a militia fleet. They aren't very organized.

We were sitting on a gate, when suddenly the FC ordered us to jump through, warp to a belt, and engage pirates that are already tackled.

I don't really care enough about pirates to bother with them. I'd rather focus on the Amarr militia. The mistake here was simple. After the last targeting patch I received, I didn't reset my overview. One of the pirates I engaged was a friendly.

Weird Sisters did a good job of locking up two Typhoons (1, 2), and a friendly Rapier. The Rapier even shows up in the mail declaring the loss of Sisters.

My apologizes to Mr. Od.