Bloodsport - Blood Raider Anomic Agent

*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***
*** WARNING NOT YET VERIFIED FOR LATEST PATCH ***

Summary up front:  Blood Raider (Single) Cruor anomic agent died today in a very, very close fight.

Here's the fit - stolen from forums.

[Wolf, Blood Raider Cruor]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Small Armor Repairer II
Thermic Plating II 

Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I 

200mm AutoCannon II
200mm AutoCannon II
[Empty High slot]
200mm AutoCannon II
200mm AutoCannon II 

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Anti-Thermic Pump II 

Hail S
Navy Cap Booster 400

Standard disclaimers apply - I run a link ship with near perfect boosts.

My previous attempts at the Cruor met with disaster.  The Cruor had, at least in my mind, become something of a nemesis/boogeyman.  Last time we went head to head, I lost a pair of Vengeances (trying to dual box) and a shiny new Daredevil.  Honestly, I kind of wanted to decline the mission, go to the kitchen for a snack, and watch some TV.  But, I'd had the Wolf for awhile and the skills I'd been waiting on are now finished.  Out of execuses, I adjusted the fit slightly and undocked, expecting to be floating home in a pod.

Battle Report:

I was almost right.  This was a close close CLOSE fight.

This was my first fight with a Wolf.  Trial by fire.

Tactics are pretty mundane.  Set to approach upon landing on grid, target and apply guns and web.  The nasty part about the Cruor is the cap-eating Nos that he'll put on you.  The damage isn't high, but you almost never have cap to run the SAR2.  

Initially I wasn't overheating anything.  I cycled the Cap Booster whenever it came around so that I could have a hope of keeping the tank going.  

Later, I played with overheating the SAR2 and tried my best to make use of the cap when I had it.

Actually, at this point the fight was going along swimmingly.  The tank was holding, I was doing dps, and I was slowly chewing him down.  My web cycled a couple of times when there was no cap, so I lost some dps when he sped up ... but I managed to correct it and reapply web once the Cap Booster reloaded.

I had him somewhere under 50% armor and looked at my cargo to realize I had 4 Navy Cap Boosters remaining.  Where had the other 9 gone?  (I started with 13 plus 1 loaded).  

Snap decision: overheat guns.  Turns out this was the right call.  In my panic, though, I missed a Cap Boost cycle and went dangerously low on armor.  The HUD was squaking at me, the SAR2 was almost burnt out, and somehow I managed to un-overheat the guns before they were fried  

I was reasonably sure I was going to eat it, but a few lucky hits put him into structure and he popped.

This is what it looked like when I finished (except the shields that started to recharge).  Armor at 25%, SAR2 81% burnt, guns 72% burnt.  One cap booster loaded and one sitting in cargo.

I reloaded ammo once. I'm a really bad judge of how much ammo I'll use.  I took about 3500 rounds of Hail S with me and brought just over 3000 of them back.  Next time I'll adjust and maybe have more room for another Cap Booster 400.

I think he will get easier with some practice, but in the mean time I might outfight another Wolf so that I have a backup.  I'm not convinced this one is going to have a long and happy life.