The Death of a Stratios

Mine in case you were wondering...

I have had a Stratios since Christmas 2013, so nearly 3 complete months. During this time John has really not flown any other ship. It has been used for:
Relic Sites
Data Sites
Ghost Sites
Worm Hole Exploration
Ratting out belts in Null Sec
High Sec combat anomalies
Siphon Placing
Siphon Emptying
With Cargo extenders transport of stuff High to Null.
Add hoc PvP

In short its a versatile little ship, and lets face it looks very, very good.

I frequently messed around with the fit, often when out exploring committing the sin of dual tanking. Armour rigs with lows given over to drone damage amps, plate and armour and having a couple of spare mid slots fitted shields... Very useful in ghost sites, but little else. A bad habit from my past.
A Mobile Depot is also the most useful item in the hold of any versatile ship in Null. I would often find a system long way from a station that would have a Data, Relic, Ghost and Wormhole in them, and would refit before running them all.

Anyway

Trolling around local space looking for a wormhole to High Sec, as several people in the alliance and corp wanted to go and buy some ships.
A C3 hole came up, so popped in to see what was what. POS on Dscan but no ships or wrecks and lots of anomalies. Went to have a look at the POS and bookmark it, but nothing on visual. Warped to an outer planet and dropped probes. Took a while as 14 unknown sigs and 7 turned out to be Worm Holes. Very good indeed. I had two corp members hanging around on the hole as well, waiting for a route, so no pressure. Two of the holes were C2's so likely to have at least 1 High exit between them.

Just as I was about to warp to one to pop through a Procurer appeared on Dscan... Hmmm. Warped to the only ore anomaly at range, and there it was, some distance from asteroids, but only 20k from me and moving towards them. Announced this on comm's and both the hole hangers popped through, and were warping to site.
I was kitted for exploration, no point or scram was fitted, but thought that I had sentries, a Crow and an Assault frigate on the way. What could go wrong...

Dropped cloak hit approach and Microwarp drive and dropped 4 Garde sentries. Targeted and commenced firing with lasers and drones. Got a good bump on the Procurer, and he finally reacted by launching drones.
Hit orbit and very quickly he was into armour.
Then a bubble went up... and an Onyx showed up on overview.... Oops, alligned to a celestial, hit micro warp again and switched the sentries to the Onyx. Started to take damage as well, drones I assumed. Then I heard the I'm dead call over comm's from the Crow pilot. Oops again...
On closer look I could now see in addition to the Onyx, a Proteus and two Legions, all targeting little old me.

Looking at the damage my sentries were doing, the onyx was out of range so I swapped them back to the procurer, hoping to get some consolation... It was not to be however, as I went pop while there was still some structure left.

Pod was still in the bubble, so they waited a minute until they all had me locked and sent me home via clone...

Good trap, little warning Dscan every 15-20 seconds showed nothing.
Well done to the corp Infinity Engine. Many thanks for handing me my head. I deserved it for my actions.

Hindsight
1. I spent a long time in the hole with probes out as there were many sigs to account for. They may not have been able to see me, but they could the probes.
2. A procurer in a hole that was 30k off zero point. So was not mining when we saw. Should have watched, I suspect this was good bait.
3. Went in to bump to try and ruin alignment as no scram or point. Then failed to regain range once other friendlies on grid.
4. Using sentries should have retained range, going in close put me squarely in the bubble, would have been harder for them if I was 30-50 km out.
5. I was looking for holes, not a fight, not fit for the fight, silly to take.
6. Switching fire to the Onyx. If I had kept on the Procurer, would have probably killed him at least.

In short I made lots of mistakes, any of them survivable in isolation, but the amount that I managed to make, was fatal.

Now, back in High trying to decide on next ship.
Should I buy and fly another Stratios, or for half the price a Proteus?
My subsystem skills, mainly at 4 need another 20 days to max out, so the way forward is not clear.
Need some 20 days training to get tech 2 lasers though for the Stratios.
The Proteus has the edge however as 150 Million for the hull vs 300 million allows a lot of fitting options even if you factor in the subsystem cost.

Stratios does look better, and 4 sentry drones are a big pull.

Next time will tell.

John