Well, for one, griefers tend to be stupid easy to bait, and pretty shit at keeping up with new techniques (at the time) for ships they’re not interested in. Generally, they gravitate toward simple min/max and seem to lack the attention span to delve into various overclocking/tuning of modules that advanced (and vastly superior) builds require.

I had been running the ol’ girl in dogfights here and there, but I’d not yet had a compelling reason to train to use the Plasma Cannon as her Huge hardpoint until that moment I decided to answer the call on the Silverback forums and others for griefer/ganker/camper killers. Now, the Fer-de-Lance has always been known for her slippery handling, and her fans adapted their piloting to compensate if not outright benefit from it. Add to this an overclocked engine, bleeding edge cooling system, and a boost with such unbridled power that it could handily outpace any other ship in the 'verse and warp out before they could regain lock.

Thing is, that was just the bait.

She also, during this eyelid-peeling boost, could yaw like butter and with just the right touch, face fully backwards at that blinding speed. Now, as I’d said before, the average noob-hasslin’ assclown is only interested in quick bullying and even quicker satisfaction, so they’re not the sort to let an easy target go un-exploded and that goes double if you bruise their pride in the process. So. With this in mind, I’d rattle their cage a bit, take some hits and make it look then like I was running scared. Jackrabbit ahead and they’d boost right in behind me, lining up a shot to take me out… when, without warning, the engine tails’d disappear (I’d cut power, drifting on boost momentum) and the all-black ship was silently, invisibly staring right down their barrels as they sped at top-speed after me. In that frozen second, the only way to see my ship was by the stars it occluded behind it, so I was functionally invisible, and previous few of these chucklefucks could fly by instrumentation only. To them, I just blinked out.

That’s when I’d fire a single plasma ball the size of a small bus, fiery purple white and racing toward them faster than thought. Outside of this maneuver, the weapon was known to be extremely inefficient and slow, but that only made its appearance here all the more surprising — and perfect. They didn’t have any idea how to dodge it, or even what it was. Before they could button spam, their ships were absolutely obliterated (a direct hit, nose to tail did some of the highest damage in the game at the time, and could nearly one-shot any similarly-sized ship, and even cripple a Conda), or if they’d planned a little better and kitted or with some armor, etc., then their ships’ systems were at least offline from the blast and I’d mop up as they spun lifeless in the void right in front of me.

The spider to the dumbass flies, every time.