Had an amazing NPC encounter. love this game.

Been excited to try out this new loadout all day. Finally put the kids to bed and hopped on. Snuck in a quick 15 minutes to set up my ship next to a broken nav beacon while the wife was in the shower, getting ready for our date night. Finally got a chance to log in and try out my new mamba kit. Scooched on over and hopped in (no loop of shame). Fired up the kws and started scanning. Found a juicy Deadly Vulture to try my new c3 gimballed beams on (plus c1 rails and c4 pa but we don't need to get into that, mmkaay?). I licked my lips and switched FA off. After several minutes of righting myself, I finally managed to fly straight enough to line up a shot. At long last I could fire the broadsides, lose myself in their cheery cannonade! Missed with both rails and the pa. This guy swings right up in me. Just put his ass right in my face. Still fucking miss. I suck at this game so bad. Then I remember why I'm here and let loose some zap zap. I'm testing out this mamba heat build and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste my engineering grind time on something that won't work. Gotta be stingy with my time… So anyway, I start blasting…Zap Zap. The gimballed beams track pretty well, and I finally get my first hit of the night in… Then immediately incur a 200 credit bounty which will result in my immediate imprisonment if captured. For the cost of 2 limpets, you could put me away forever. See, Daddy was kinda "sleepy" so I forgot about checking for wanted flags. Don't drink and fly kiddos. So I decide to cut bait and begin jousting with a Deadly. Generally above my pay grade. But I was feeling it and really wanted to test myself. I kept FA off a lot of the time, tried to be disciplined with my shots, and just keep him in my sites. I decided this would be the moment I got better. I lost my shield first, but instead of doing a whimpy wake out, I gutted it out. Tonight I would get good or see the rebuy screen. I got more used to FA off and stopped tapping it off as much. I learned to use the throttle more. Still getting the hang of turning fast. Always a bit too slow. I hit him with a rail. My beams are hitting more than they are missing now. I promise to sacrifice a goat to The Great Gimball. His shields pop and he gains distance. At 4k I start to freak, that he's gonna run. I pip to engines and remember in horror that I forgot to target a module. (not that it would have mattered. I had barely hit him by this point anyway. I suck at this game.) I lose precious seconds selecting through useless modules until I land on the power plant. Are these in alphabetical order? Can I set a preference please? I catch up and nail him with a piece of the pa and one rail. He starts to lose hull. His power plant is at 97% and I'm just about to regain my shields. I start to smile. I can do this. To my joy, the NPC shows courage and turns around to continue the battle. We joust a few times and I land a few more rails in. Another sweet broadside with all 3 hitting. It was glorious. This build might work after all. His hill is down to 34%. Maybe I should start grinding mats for heat conduit. Need to unlock more engineers… Suddenly my cockpit cracks. I'm at 17%! How did this happen?! I'm a chief petty officer for Gimball's sake! I consider waking out of there. This ship was always beyond me. Why did I really think I could beat a Deadly? Ah but I got his hull below 50. I feel like I need to see the one through. I aim another broadside. I miss. He doesn't. Fade to black. Hello my old friend. I suck at this game. And I had the best time tonight.