Most MWO fights tend to go like the above. You engage fast, and the amount of crap flying around means it’s brutal and ends quickly. My Dragon teammate and I did a flank run and was base capping, when this Cataphract came flying back. He was in a hurry so didn’t really scout, so probably missed me entirely. That let me get behind him and do a lot of damage. He already seen some combat, but I’m still surprised how fast I cut through his rear armour (which looked to be intact). Less than 20s from initial contact to kill.
Lessons learnt: Scout, especially in base cap. Nowadays it’s usually scare cap, but once in a while you get a pair of jokers who end-ran your team (granted, it’s rarely a pair of Dragons; more commonly a pair of lights). It can turn quite ugly.