Blog » X3TC » My Burgeoning Fleet

Posted by RandomTank on Tuesday 2nd July, 2013   ·   1 comments

After a bit of sorting, selling and stealing, my ship list is looking a lot more manageable; there is still about 50 TS's that need repairing and selling, but now all the excess fighters have gone, been put into wings or stored away for the PHQ.

I now have my Shrike outfitted as an RRF Destroyer that packs quite a punch, but it also has Red Wing mounted in it, which comprises of 5 Nova Raiders toting 4 HEPT and 4 PRG each, allowing for quite flexible usage; but I also keep my X-Shuttle in its hanger for personal use. My main ship though is my Panther, equipped to be a Carrier/Cruiser with plenty of ISR, CIG and FAA, and it carries Gold and Silver Wing in its hangers; Gold Wing being 10 Solano's all equipped with 6 Mass Drivers and 50 crates of ammo each, which functions as a heavy interceptor wing; and Silver wing being 5 #deca.cefa's equipped with 4 PM/AM Launchers, 10 crates of ammo, and 2 EMPC's in the turret each, which functions as a light bomber wing. I also have 3 Blastclaw Prototypes as a Combat-Salvage squad, and a couple of personal use ships including my favourite fighter, a Venti named 'Total Annihilation' with 6 EBC and 4 PRG. I recently added an escort for my Panther in the shape of 2 Heavy Dragons, equipped with 8 ISR on the front and a choice of 4 ISR or 4 PBG on the turret (I have the SMART turrets mod), and are set up to follow my every jump.

I finally got a chance the other day give my small fleet a proper combat test; I was in my Panther and had traveled to Zyarth's Dominion as I was buying the second Heavy Dragon and had spotted an abandoned Ranger (which sell for 3.7 mill fully repaired!) on 87% hull health; when I was there I found a Hold Position and Xenon Sector Patrol missions paying 1.2 mill and 2 mill respectively, so I took both to roll in the money. Immediately a Xenon Strike Force, consisting of a Q, 2 P's, 3 L's and a few M's and N's jumped in the South gate. As I was by the East gate, and felt like I was going to be a bit overwhelmed, I jumped my Shrike in by the South gate, and then jumped there myself; as soon as I jumped in I found that my Shrike had already killed a P, and had launched Red Wing which were now destroying the L's and the other P. I launched Gold Wing to intercept the M's and N's, and then switched to the Shrike, just to be staring down the nose of the Q. He had already been receiving fire from my GC's, but now he got a punch of charged IBL fire right to the face, and with the combined fire of my IBL's and Red Wing's HEPTs, he died very swiftly! I got a message thanking me for my efforts and a payment of 3.6 mill, not bad for 30 seconds of combat!

I switched back to my Panther and checked the map to see that my Sat had spotted that 2 Q's, 3 P's, 5 L's, a few M's and large contingent of N's had jumped in not far from the Trading Port; though the Q's has split and were heading in 2 different directions. I checked both Q's and found that one was slightly under-shielded with 3.2GJ, so I flew an intercept course. The 3 P's had overtaken the under-shielded Q, so I sent Silver Wing to do what they do best; with 20 energy saving CIGS (PM/AML) they quickly annihilated all 3 P's with only 10% Shield loss between them, I was very impressed! As I closed to 10km from the under-shielded Q, I let off 3 Firestorms, and as they closed, I launched about 10-15 Wasps to spam his turrets; 3 successful hits later and the Q was on 4% shields and my CIG's were ripping into him, resulting in a large explosion.

Because Red Wing had started scrapping with the L's, and my Shrike was lagging behind due to it's slow speed, It was only me and my fighters to kill the other Q, which still had quite a few N's and M's around it, so I decided to leave Silver Wing behind (as they are a bit badly shielded and can't kill any fast fighters) and just engage with Gold Wing and my Panther; I ordered Gold Wing to attack, and all of them immediately went for the Q. Thinking that their Mass Drivers would be like Pea Shooters to something that big, you can imagine my surprise when they proceeded to tear it a superfluous new bee-hind!! They then mopped up the remaining fighters, leaving me only a couple of N's to snipe with my Disruptors! I got message giving me another 3.5 mill, and a big relationship boost with the Split. With a grand total of about 7.2 mill rewards + another 6 mill from the abandoned fighters, Ranger and all the loot; and not a single casualty or repair needed, that was a really good day for my Credit Account, and a fantastic try-out session for my fleet, all I can say is I'm impressed!

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