BLAP Caracal Mastership - I

[Budda Sereda]

As many of you know, I'm going to run a series of BLAP Caracal fleets with the goal to help unistas (and myself) learning this doctrine ( http://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtopi ... 6&t=105185 ).

Today during the fleet my client started glitching so I needed to kill it and lost fleet logs, neither I asked anybody from the fleet to copy fleet logs, so links to kills are only those which I was able to collect manually afterward from the zkillboard. Unpleasent and more work for me to do.

Fleet composition at undock: 3 logies, around 18 DDs, 2 scouts, 2 EWars. Quite a good setup quantity wise to start with. Somebody would say we did not have enough logies considering 18 DDs... Agree, I probably should have called 2 more DD to reship into logies.

Quick fleet summary: First part of the fleet was a really boring:
- we had an ok-ish fights with a MUCH bigger fleet (3 BS, at least 1 Sleipnir, few T1 BC, many cruisers, destroyers and frigates, totally around 40 ships)
- tired from boredom get another fight with the same fleet (reduced in size as per agreement)
- and on the way back had REAL FUN and ISK-worthy kills, but that was not due to BLAP Caracal doctrine application, but due to I think ability to catch things quickly: I think we would kill them with any other doctrine, though, we would have bigger loses.

Lessons learned:
1. Interceptor scout/tackle IS A MUST for BLAP Caracal fleets (at least in low sec, in nul-sec I assume dictor can help, but inties are still very needed). For my next BLAP Caracal Mastership fleets, I will grant additional 10M SRP (on top of standard 15M from E-Uni LSC) for interceptors loses. I will not even undock without one.
2. We should navigate around gates by warping to BMs, not by MWDing around and consuming limited capacitor charge.
3. Unistas need to train BLAP skills, in particular those that increase missiles range: we needed to accept 40km engagement range as MANY pilots had range less than 40 (37, 36, 39, 29)... I understand we had many young pilots, but those who want to fly BLAP Caracals NEED to train BLAP skills.

Events:We started with a high-level overview of BLAP Caracal doctrine, practiced anchoring. Thanks to all who helped me setting things up!

We were slowly moving toward Nennamaila.

At some point somewhere on the gate Ca'in tackled Scythe Fleet Issue, but https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116312/ we were really far, yet in warp and he was killed before we were able to arrive. We did jump, but as we did not have tackle, SFI just moon-walked
Scouts: do get confirmation from FC before you engage!
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116312/ -32M (Crow)

While Kelon spotted big fleet around Hikkoken. They had at least 3 BS (Raven, Scorpion, Maelstron), Sleipnir, few T1 BC, many cruisers and very few logies. So I decided to try sniping them from the distance.
Don't get me wrong, I do understand he had no chances for us to win a fight, but we could try to capitalize on the ability to control range and pick-up 1-2 strugglers.

Fight vs Pandemic Horde Drunk Fleet

We moved towards that fleet, after some confusion and struggles we warped at the solid range (around 200km) to the son in Evaulon- those guys just had a fight and were looting the field.
You can watch the fight from youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hn_RkPTbOM ), but if you don't want to, I will give a quick overview of the fight.
Originally I wanted to pick-up a wreck on the edge of their group and kill ship nearby to it. But that would be hard to execute: we could land inside of their BLOB.
So I called anchor (thank you Vors Voorhorian!) to pull as towards one of the opponents. I saw Hurricane, Caracal, Gila, Thrasher, Maelstrom aside of the other group and thought about picking up something to shoot while the rest of the fleet tries to close the range.
As soon as we started getting into position, Kelon advised to get tackle on a Cynabal (which was close to him) and I agreed on this option.
Somehow Luca warped into the BLOB and ... survived? He is not on the kill board. Luca: looking for comments from you on that event!

Soon, Kelon called to warp to him at 100km. I believe he got point? Or maybe just become in a line between Cynabal and us... As soon as I issued command to warp to Kelon at 100km I noticed opponents fleet also warping to a Cynabal. It was a scary point: I was afraid we will land inside of the BLOB. But, thanks to Kelon we were at 50 to them and had options to continue the fight.

I was picking up targets, Hurricane and Ferox were nearest feasible targets, also Malediction tried to get tackle on us:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116514/ +38.5M - first blood!
Next primary I called on Drake. But we should probably better focused on smaller targets: there were quite a few small ships in range.
Drake was going down, I called to lock another destroyer as secondary. Somebody even started shooting him...

Shortly after logies called they all are down (I guess I should thank to Yuri for notification, that helped saving many of us):
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116515/ -17.7 (Caracal)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116523/ -9.5 (Osprey)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116526/ -8.8 (Osprey)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116531/ -14.6 (Osprey)

and I called scatter. When I saw Drake in half-armor I thought about finishing him before warping off, but my missile launchers hit reload so we disengaged.
Other loses:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116534/ -1.24 (Crucifier)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116535/ -17.6 (Caracal)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116542/ -13.2 (Caracal)

For this engagement:
Totally Killed: +38.5M
Totally lost: -82.6M

TBH, looking the video recording, I feel this is not too bad. Yes, we did lose 7 ships and killed only 1, but I believe the value of the fight is practice and experience. Once we got to the safe, I still had 11 Caracals and 1 Blackbird

Learning from this fight I should admit few things we should do better:
1. At least myself I should have stayed closer to anchor. I believe this also applicable to many. @Vors: did you have chance to see how far people were from you?
I believe anchoring we MUST turn on MWD. But problem is cap: it is only enough for 1.5 minute or so...
2. Logies died first and I don't see they were far from engagement... I guess they should maintain their range MORE aggressively, including overheating MWD. Before the fleet Yuri told me that logies can't sustain delivering cap to DDs...
3. And chosing primaries: drake was close enough in the beginning, but later we got much smaller ships to shoot: should have done that.
4. Stay on the primary: guys, you all should shoot primary until FC called to switch primary. We should focus DPS on one ship: instead of having 2 damaged, we better have 1 killed.
5. I should have called targets for EWars, Ewars could ask FC that should be primary. In this particular case that would not change much, but still that is a good thing to do.

I'm looking for feedback on a fight: you may see from the video I did something wrong or fleet could do better, so please advise!

After the fight, I got distracted a bit by a chat with FC of opposing fleet (they had a drunk party) and we moved into Ichoriya to reship. Quite a few people dropped fleet, I lost both scouts... Luca stepped up.

After reship, I felt everyone was kind of in a low mood. Anyway, we moved towards Tama, quite a few cases we were dancing around gates running from big fleets and expecting a fight. I believe this was a good set of exercises. But this led me to realize: BLAP Caracals even though have MWD can't really dance around gates with MWD, they should warp to BMs that are 150km from the gate and warp at 100km. And to warp back to the gate - we should have another BM from the other side at 100km from the gate and warp to it at 100km. This way we will move much quicker and maintain cap.
So I will work on getting BMs before the next fight (have a week to work on this).
And this leads me to idea that E-Uni probably should have copies of tactical BMs for popular systems in Black Rise and make them accessible to at least FCC members, for example after graduation from ensign.

We spotted a BS on the gate. I did not check distance he is from the gate and we jumped through, but BS was at tactical (200km or so)... so we just showed him our forces. Trying to get tackle we lost Luca, so he needed to reship. Sorry, can't find his kill mail now.

After he reshiped into Atron again we were kind of tired from the boredom. We do need 2 scouts, ideally in interceptors, so once 1 died fleet can continue roaming, but not wait 5 minutes. No concerns to Luca, I am greatful he stepped up, but it was not enough.

Somebody from logies asked to reship, I asked to stay with logy... But now I think we better had 2 logies and 2 scouts than 3 logies and 1 scout.

We tried to come into Ichoriya and it was really problematic: those guys were still trying to catch us, so we were forced to practice maneuring. It was harder than doing with frigate fleet, but I'm happy we lost nothing!

In the end, tired of boredom, we agreed to get in touch with locals and seek if anybody wants to pick up a fight. We found a fleet. I mentioned we had 15 T1 CRs and... in 15-20 minutes or so they did get together.

Fight with 'local'

Later I learned they had: Dominix, Myrmidon, Blackbird, 3 Svipuls, 2 Talwar, 2 Scythes. That was ok and we should have been able to get a decent fight.

The agreement was to get a fight at Planet 1. I got the fleet to Planet 5, aligned to Planet 1, got scout at Planet 5 at 0 to monitor when opponents land to make a call where should we warp to start engagement. See fight recording: https://youtu.be/fug39RpnA88

Later (after fleet), I realized we should better be on the grid at 200-300km and ask the scout to make a few tactical BMs so we can land on our choice.

Anyway, the scout reported opponents landed 150km from them. Now I see how this should have triggered my attention: there is a VERY low chance those guys had tactical and landed at a range different from 0-100km... I should feel that sounds really suspicious...

I asked DDs to warp to Planet 1 at 50km (I told 500 in comms,... seriously? we are not orbiting gate, why nobody pointed me to this? ), logies at 0km (so we will be in an ideal position to engage). The first mistake I did myself, I warped fleet at 50km to... Planet 5. OMG
Still, I insisted fleet to warp to Planet 1 at 50km on their own.

And as soon as we landed, we realized our scout made another mistake: opponent fleet was not at 100 to planet 1, but at 0. So our logy squad was smashed very quickly:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117527/ -9.3M (Osprey)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117537/ -14.6M (Osprey)
Sorry logies
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117539/ -2.9 (Cruicifier)

Hehe, we still made a kill: https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117545/ +14.2M (Talwar), thanks Arashi Sometimes not following FCs orders gives good results

Anyway, as we were 50km from opponents blob I felt we could kill things, I had 2 Scythes, I called 1 to be primary,... but I was jammed almost immediately. In fact, I thought I'm damped, not jammed, and decided to close the distance... seriously?

I called: "Who is 2IC, Reise?" Did not get any answer and because I did not remember if Reise was still with fleet did not really delegate FCing.

I got myself out of jam soon, saw that Scythe is going down, but still we could not kill him. Because I came into BLOB too close I was killed and as I did not have 2IC (at least I thought this way) I called to scatter.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117554/ -5M (Condor)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117556/ -4M (Atron)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117559/ -13.3M (Caracal)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117560/ -31.3M (Caracal)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117580/ -28.8M (Caracal)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117585/ -8.8M (Osprey)

Totally killed: 14.2M
Totally lost: 118M

It was supposed to be a much easier fight, and I send kudos to opponents who even fielded BS, BC, and 3 T3D, did limit thier size so fight was ok-ish in chances. We could stay longer if it was not Dominix and Myrmidon, but losing 2 logies in the beginning is a big mistake.

On the positive side, we still had a half of the fleet saved.

Quite a few people dropped fleet too, one pilot (Yuri I believe) reshipped into a rookie ship and was our eyes. Interesting thing: few seconds after he warped from station Thrasher landed on undock and killed few capsules, including myself. So it this point I was back in Uphallant, also had some issues with my client (no any key commands worked) so I needed to restart cliens and asked SketchyManDan Williams to help to get fleet back home.

Learned from this fight:
1. Practice, keep practice more: scouting, FCings,...
2. It is better to be docked waiting for the fight. Those guys did have eyes in the system, they new FC of opposing fleet (as I convoed them) and I bet in this case opponents prepare jams to 1 shot myself and the rest of caracals.
3. If pilots dropped fleet, make sure key role are clear: Scouts, Anchors (DD and Logy), 2IC
4. I did not call anchoring on Vors this time.

Coming back home:

So fleet was in a difficult situation: in a crowded and hostile space, with scout in a rookie ship with low numbers they tried to get home. And I felt bad been home (even after losing 40M capsule).. so I jumped into Stiletto and headed to the fleet to help with scouting.

At this point it was literally 4-5 Caracals left in the fleet.

Guys were able to jump through the biggest pain point system ... and noticed a small gank of destroyers (T1, T3). We tried to engage them but were really not able to catch them: few times I was in stiletto on grid with them, been yellow boxed by 10 ships, once I was hit by Punisher...
We tried to catch them few times but could not and lost eventually.

As we moved back to Stacmon I spotted a flashy Comet on the gate, as I had the fleet on the other side of the gate I confirmed with FC I can engage, and here we go:

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117993/ +32.3M nice!

At this time things were more interesting for all of us. And at one of system with many flashies I checked the rogue swarm side... it had some small fight: don't remember exactly what was going on, but I got confirmation from FC (remember it was Sketchy?) I was able to tackle Garmur and survive while fleet landed.
While in fight we got quite a few more ships landing on grid with us, but were able to shoot down that Garmur

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63118060/ +180M (Garmur)

and disengage, though yet lost 3 ships:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63118063/ -5.6M (Slasher)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63118065/ -13.1M (Caracal)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63118124/ -27.8M (Caracal)

NICE gift in the end!

Later I learned, that this Garmur was one of those who shot us in Nennamaila so we did pay back!

Totally killed: 265M
Totally lost: 247M

If I discard losing my capsule we are ISK positive!

I hope we all learned many lessons, and looking forward to see all you back next Saturday, 2:00 EVE time

[Budda Sereda]

Feel free to post feedback: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... rm?c=0&w=1

[Tlymphocyte]

I had a chat with a Ferox pilot after the fleet engagement with Pandemic Horde - he told me that their comms ignored EWAR and went straight for Logi, because somehow they were warped into the optimals of several high-DPS ships - including the Drake, a Tornado, several Hurricanes, and at least 2 rail Feroxes.

I believe the Hurricanes were fitted with 720mm Arties, the Nado with 800mm cannons, and the Feroxes were definitely 250mm Railgun IIs with Spike. The Drake of course can hit well into 75km with decent skills, which puts them in range of our Ospreys - since our RLML Caracals had to get within ~40-45km to apply damage, and the Ospreys have an optimal of about 26km.

Also bear in mind that many of our Caracals had missile ranges of less than 40km - Caldari Alphas can't train the missile velocity and flight time skills to 5 (only 2 and 4, respectively), so many of our guys had to get even closer to hit things, putting them, and by extension the logi, in range of their snipers. When Budda called scatter, I think that's how they managed to blap our Crucifier, even at the super-long range - the Ferox told me they took potshots at the EWAR as we were disengaging, with the rail Feroxes and Longbow Corms, and there's no way a Cruci can survive that kind of damage - my blackbird was nearly volleyed off as well, although I fought aligned and got out in low armor.

Good fleet though! we did manage to kill things so it wasn't a total rout by any definition!

[SketchyManDan Williams]

Was a fun roam, and a fun little gang towards the end!
I have the whole fleet chat for the roam if you'd like me to send it to you somewhere?

[Vors Voorhorian]

Thanks Budda for FCing this Mastership fleet. It was a challenging fleet and I learned about some of the pros and cons of the Caracal. Also thanks for allowing me to be anchor.

Budda said:
1. At least myself I should have stayed closer to anchor. I believe this also applicable to many. @Vors: did you have chance to see how far people were from you? I believe anchoring we MUST turn on MWD. But problem is cap: it is only enough for 1.5 minute or so...

Yes I did see the fleet stretching out behind me, mainly when were told to approach and cynabal. I tried slowing down, pulsing my MWD to allow the fleet to catch up and some did, but then the Cynabal would move further from us. I was also trying not to approach directly but towards where I thought he would be when we got in range. I quickly ran into zero cap after chasing for some time. I obviously need more practice at this. I guess the key is to keep as many of the fleet together. I can see having an interceptor burn out to an optimal position so that we can warp to him would be better than racing with MWD's on.

During the second fight, you did give me a command to stay to 40, so I moved us from about 45 into 40 and then skirted the target and their main fleet to the right. Some did anchor up on me and we did get the scythe into structure before we hit the reload cycle. In retro I guess we should have been at 35 so that more of the DD could bring missiles onto the target. So I suggest that like we did this fleet, we find would what everyone's missile range is and set our anchor range accordingly. Mine was 55km with faction (which i used) and 41km with fury. Also having a tactical (or a fast inty) to bounce to during the reload cycle I think would be a good thing when using the RLML Caracal.

I also learned a valuable lesson today that cost me a Caracal.
1. When bouncing, do not bounce back into the opposing fleet! My thoughts were: 1. did I just warp back to the battle ground? (mid warp) 2. that was stupid 3. maybe their gone 4. nope, their still there. 5. maybe they won't see me 5. they see me! 6. goodbye caracal #1, you were a good ship. 7. Pod saver, this time pick a celestial far away. This all happened in about 20 seconds.

[Luca Goh]

This was quite a fleet experience for me. Lots to unpack. Always more to say about the tough experiences than the easy ones.

3. Unistas need to train BLAP skills, in particular those that increase missiles range: we needed to accept 40km engagement range as MANY pilots had range less than 40 (37, 36, 39, 29)... I understand we had many young pilots, but those who want to fly BLAP Caracals NEED to train BLAP skills.

Makes perfect sense. As one of those pilots with limited skills myself, for what it's worth, the moment you brought this up in the pre-fleet chat I really wished you had mentioned something about ability minimums in the fleet advertisement. Probably obvious to you now, of course, but I could have easily spent a day or two bringing my skills up to the 40 km minimum range you were hoping for. For my part, I've learned to ask these kinds of questions when wanting to fly a doctrine for which my skillset is somewhat questionable.

Somehow Luca warped into the BLOB and ... survived? He is not on the kill board. Luca: looking for comments from you on that event!

Yes, sorry, this was a total newb move on my part. I was taking damage (you can hear me call that I was yellow boxed in the video, but I didn't say more than that - probably need to improve on my comms communication, I'm always hesitant to clutter them up especially in such a complex engagement like this one), and so opted to warp to a celestial. In my hurry to get out of there I clicked on whatever I could and ended up warping to the planet they were sitting at and thus, right in their midst. I managed to warp off before anyone tackled me. I guess they were too shocked at my bold maneuver to make me pay for it? I suppose the real lesson here is when you're taking damage, warp straight at the enemy to play mind games and then scoot away.

Seriously though this misstep plus a few others reminds me how much my situational awareness needs to improve. It wasn't that I was stressed by the fight; I just wasn't thinking, "Hey, when you pick a celestial to warp to safety to, don't pick the one the big blob of enemies is sitting at."

I called to lock another destroyer as secondary. Somebody even started shooting him...

I know I had the Corax locked and was putting heavy damage on it. I almost put off your order to scatter in hopes of bringing it down first. But one of my number one rules is, don't be greedy. And that would have been very greedy. Not sure what your thoughts are on the prospect of lingering, but I'm fine having followed the order and warping away before getting the kill. Things were definitely starting to go south for us.

I'm looking for feedback on a fight: you may see from the video I did something wrong or fleet could do better, so please advise!

The only thing that comes to mind for me is that I felt like even though you had brought along those of us with less than a 40 km engagement range, you weren't making decisions with consideration of this fact. So a lot of times I was having to compromise my anchoring in order to be in range to engage or vise versa. I would have happily changed what I was flying or even not gone along in the fleet; I respect that you have certain criteria in mind in order to make the fleet work. But once we were under way I felt at times as though you were ignoring the fact that some of the pilots with you could not engage in the terms that you were desiring. Which is understandable, but what led to my having to deviate from optimal positioning at times, and perhaps others as well.

After the fight, I got distracted a bit by a chat with FC of opposing fleet (they had a drunk party) and we moved into Ichoriya to reship. Quite a few people dropped fleet, I lost both scouts... Luca stepped up.

So this was really tough for me. I have been interested in learning to scout - even mentioned it to my mentor this week as something we could possibly go over and practice - so I was really up for the opportunity. But I also have never done so before, and I knew I have a lot to learn about D scanning, situational awareness, quickly identifying target distances, quickly finding called targets, maneuvering in space with the kind of precision a scout needs, making tactical bookmarks on the fly (which I have few of - one of my takeaways from this fleet was that I just need to bookmark the hell out of this region), etc etc etc.

In general my attitude in fleets is: follow the FC. So if the FC wants me to scout, I'll scout. I didn't say much about my inexperience because I didn't want to give the idea that I was unwilling or uninterested. I was excited to do it. So I opted to jump into the deep end and get some on the job training. I'm sorry for the negative fallout others were subjected to in service of my learning experience.

We spotted a BS on the gate. I did not check distance he is from the gate and we jumped through, but BS was at tactical (200km or so)... so we just showed him our forces. Trying to get tackle we lost Luca, so he needed to reship. Sorry, can't find his kill mail now.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/63117041/

After he reshiped into Atron again we were kind of tired from the boredom. We do need 2 scouts, ideally in interceptors, so once 1 died fleet can continue roaming, but not wait 5 minutes. No concerns to Luca, I am greatful he stepped up, but it was not enough.

No concerns taken. I hear you, especially for the kinds of engagements we were getting, which were much more demanding than, "tackle that frigate sitting at the same gate as us."

For what it's worth, I'm training towards Interceptors now and hopefully will be skilled up for them in two weeks or so.

Fight with 'local'

Later I learned they had: Dominix, Myrmidon, Blackbird, 3 Svipuls, 2 Talwar, 2 Scythes. That was ok and we should have been able to get a decent fight.

The agreement was to get a fight at Planet 1. I got the fleet to Planet 5, aligned to Planet 1, got scout at Planet 5 at 0 to monitor when opponents land to make a call where should we warp to start engagement. See fight recording: https://youtu.be/fug39RpnA88

Later (after fleet), I realized we should better be on the grid at 200-300km and ask the scout to make a few tactical BMs so we can land on our choice.

Anyway, the scout reported opponents landed 150km from them. Now I see how this should have triggered my attention: there is a VERY low chance those guys had tactical and landed at a range different from 0-100km... I should feel that sounds really suspicious...

I asked DDs to warp to Planet 1 at 50km (I told 500 in comms,... seriously? we are not orbiting gate, why nobody pointed me to this? ), logies at 0km (so we will be in an ideal position to engage). The first mistake I did myself, I warped fleet at 50km to... Planet 5. OMG
Still, I insisted fleet to warp to Planet 1 at 50km on their own.

And as soon as we landed, we realized our scout made another mistake: opponent fleet was not at 100 to planet 1, but at 0. So our logy squad was smashed very quickly: Sorry logies

And I am sorry, logies.

Honestly, this was my toughest Eve experience to date, because it was the first time others paid for my mistakes, rather than it just being my own ship or my own experience going down the tubes. As referenced above I was doing so many things I hadn't done before, like making tacticals on the fly and assessing distances on grid in relation to celestials. My head was spinning at this point. I am not sure what happened. My best guess is that out of habit I had warped to the planet at range when I thought I had warped at zero, or that I warped to one of the tacticals I had just made. I'm sorry I can't remember better; I wish I knew where my mistake was.

So for whatever it's worth everyone I am deeply sorry for single-handedly ruining this potentially-interesting engagement before it began. Totally my fault. On the plus side, it's only up from here.

Learned from this fight:
1. Practice, keep practice more: scouting, FCings,...

To this end: if anyone ever wants to give me scouting lessons or go on a casual roam wherein I can scout with less riding on my efforts, I am all up for it and would be very grateful at the opportunity. I'm very interested in flying scout/tackle and think I can do well once I get my feet under me, but I need lots of practice first. Lots and lots of practice.

[Yuri Levnik]

As the logi FC for the fleet, I forgive you, Luca, for our rapid and dramatic demise. In the future I think I will let the DD wing warp in first for big fights and have the logi wing land after DD has confirmed positioning. I think landing on any easily warpable location, including the planet (where we did land) makes logi vulnerable to the enemy bouncing out and warping back directly onto logi's location. Note also that I ended up filing 3 SRP requests for three logi boats in the same day and made about 9MN ISK between insurance and SRP, so there was a silver lining (;

RE the fight against drunk fleet, I had the logi wing closer than we needed to be. We were maybe 10km from the DD wing, though on the far side of the enemy. I don't know that being further out would have made a difference against snipers. In any case, we dropped in seconds, despite good use of repairs. 3 logi were evidently not enough to survive the damage the other fleet was dealing.

Lastly, perhaps some of the folks behind the doctrine can comment on whether or not logi should provide constant cap to DD with this doctrine? The logi boats cap out in seconds with all modules running and no cap chain, so we needed at least one of our two cap transfers on another logi boat at all times (and I am not sure we would have been cap stable without two cap transfers). That left us a maximum of three cap transfer modules available to the rest of the fleet. Given that everyone capped out at once, we could not keep up. Were we supposed to be able to keep the fleet cap stable?

Edit: forgot the most important part - I had fun and I learned a lot! Thanks for taking the fleet out and finding us some fights, FC!

[Budda Sereda]

The only thing that comes to mind for me is that I felt like even though you had brought along those of us with less than a 40 km engagement range, you weren't making decisions with consideration of this fact. So a lot of times I was having to compromise my anchoring in order to be in range to engage or vise versa. I would have happily changed what I was flying or even not gone along in the fleet; I respect that you have certain criteria in mind in order to make the fleet work. But once we were under way I felt at times as though you were ignoring the fact that some of the pilots with you could not engage in the terms that you were desiring. Which is understandable, but what led to my having to deviate from optimal positioning at times, and perhaps others as well.

I did not ignore fact that somebody can't reach 40km. I knew opponents will come closer. As you see from the video of the first battle - they did. Not from the very beginning, but quite quickly opponents came into 35km range. Even 25km. So if we all stayed on grid longer you would be able to shoot them.

2nd engagement we started by having Scythe at 38km, and everything felt apart from losing logies and myself been jammed. Among others I did not issue anchor command, when I tried to do that I was jammed, switched focus on assigning 2IC, failed...

If I were you, in the same situation I would start moving in space SOMEWHERE (so to not stay still and have transversal, so opponents have harder time to shoot), locked up the primary (Drake) and moved towards him with some angle, pre-overheat guns and as soon as it enters your missiles range start shooting him.
Hope this helps.

I did encourage pilots with small range to stay in the fleet to get experience. I believe even in this type of fights we all learn. Hope we did.
My previous mentor (Forrest Martinez) told me: you don't learn from fights you don't take.

So this was really tough for me. I have been interested in learning to scout - even mentioned it to my mentor this week as something we could possibly go over and practice - so I was really up for the opportunity. But I also have never done so before, and I knew I have a lot to learn about D scanning, situational awareness, quickly identifying target distances, quickly finding called targets, maneuvering in space with the kind of precision a scout needs, making tactical bookmarks on the fly (which I have few of - one of my takeaways from this fleet was that I just need to bookmark the hell out of this region), etc etc etc.

Sorry man, I understand your feelings. I'm thankful for you stepping up and helping with scouting, I did need one for the fleet. And I'm sorry I did not really give you chance to practice. Scouting is an interesting role. Also very important. I would encourage you to keep practicing it. I did call interceptor scouts for the next fleet, but if you can't fly one and want to practice scouting, get any t1 frigate (https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Slasher/Fittings, Slasher: Fleet Tackle for instance) and be a 2nd scout. I often need somebody to scout a secondary route. Even if you won't catch anything, you will practive and one day you succeed!
At the same time, consider training T5 Minmatar Frigates (Stiletto is one of the best scouting/tackling ships).

I'm sorry for the negative fallout others were subjected to in service of my learning experience.

It is good you have the feeling of responsibility, but don't kill yourself. My role was much higher, and it was my mistake to not position fleet on the grid on tactical BM. If I put fleet at 300-400 km from Planet 1 I would clearly see were opponents landed.

To this end: if anyone ever wants to give me scouting lessons or go on a casual roam wherein I can scout with less riding on my efforts, I am all up for it and would be very grateful at the opportunity. I'm very interested in flying scout/tackle and think I can do well once I get my feet under me, but I need lots of practice first. Lots and lots of practice.

Next week, 1 day before the fleet I will go into Black Rise and will be making BMs. Recommend you join me and we go through some things.

In fact, I will create an even in calendar and call more experienced scouts to join and share their experience.

As the logi FC for the fleet, I forgive you, Luca, for our rapid and dramatic demise. In the future I think I will let the DD wing warp in first for big fights and have the logi wing land after DD has confirmed positioning.

That could be an option. But please discuss this with FC: having logies warping 30 seconds later can cost fleet 3 DD ships.
I still believe we better be on grid at tactical, but often logies should come 2nd. For instance: sliding the gate into hands of waiting opponents. Though, don't make too big waiting time.

RE the fight against drunk fleet, I had the logi wing closer than we needed to be. We were maybe 10km from the DD wing, though on the far side of the enemy. I don't know that being further out would have made a difference against snipers. In any case, we dropped in seconds, despite good use of repairs. 3 logi were evidently not enough to survive the damage the other fleet was dealing.

Yeah, those guys had too many...
In fact, that fight did meet my expectations: we did exercise.

Lastly, perhaps some of the folks behind the doctrine can comment on whether or not logi should provide constant cap to DD with this doctrine? The logi boats cap out in seconds with all modules running and no cap chain, so we needed at least one of our two cap transfers on another logi boat at all times (and I am not sure we would have been cap stable without two cap transfers). That left us a maximum of three cap transfer modules available to the rest of the fleet. Given that everyone capped out at once, we could not keep up. Were we supposed to be able to keep the fleet cap stable?

1. T2 logies (Guardians for sure) can maintain cap chain with only 1 cap transmitter.
2. T1 logies (Osprey, according to Pyfa, with all L5 skills) with 1 cap transmitter can only maintain cap chain for 1 minute.

In my understanding, logies are usually very occuppied managing reps so putting an additional load to help DDs with cap is too much to expect. But, TBH, I don't see any good solution.

@Titus: thoughts?

[Budda Sereda]

To this end: if anyone ever wants to give me scouting lessons or go on a casual roam wherein I can scout with less riding on my efforts, I am all up for it and would be very grateful at the opportunity. I'm very interested in flying scout/tackle and think I can do well once I get my feet under me, but I need lots of practice first. Lots and lots of practice.

Next week, 1 day before the fleet I will go into Black Rise and will be making BMs. Recommend you join me and we go through some things.

http://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtopi ... 6&t=105369 I hope that will be very educational and if we get many pilots, we can even have lots of fun!

[Ca'ain]

At some point somewhere on the gate Ca'ain tackled Scythe Fleet Issue, but https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116312/ we were really far, yet in warp and he was killed before we were able to arrive. We did jump, but as we did not have tackle, SFI just moon-walked
Scouts: do get confirmation from FC before you engage!
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63116312/ -32M (Crow)

This was a bad mistake for me; especially being in the flashy interceptor. I should have held cloak at the gate and double checked on the engage. I had through I heard 'take him on the gate' or something like that - but thinking back, I should have relayed more info to FC. I was excited to engage.

Could the Crow last long until the fleet comes in? It is a pricey ship to be hero tackle.

So this was really tough for me. I have been interested in learning to scout - even mentioned it to my mentor this week as something we could possibly go over and practice - so I was really up for the opportunity. But I also have never done so before, and I knew I have a lot to learn about D scanning, situational awareness, quickly identifying target distances, quickly finding called targets, maneuvering in space with the kind of precision a scout needs, making tactical bookmarks on the fly (which I have few of - one of my takeaways from this fleet was that I just need to bookmark the hell out of this region), etc etc etc.

I totally can relate - this was my first large fleet scouting. I've scouted on a couple of small roams (5 or so). It is a much bigger role; and learned how to use the d-scan.me tool. I enjoyed the fleet until I had to drop from wife agro and would scout again.

[Decklin Quark Reiger]

Lastly, perhaps some of the folks behind the doctrine can comment on whether or not logi should provide constant cap to DD with this doctrine? The logi boats cap out in seconds with all modules running and no cap chain, so we needed at least one of our two cap transfers on another logi boat at all times (and I am not sure we would have been cap stable without two cap transfers). That left us a maximum of three cap transfer modules available to the rest of the fleet. Given that everyone capped out at once, we could not keep up. Were we supposed to be able to keep the fleet cap stable?

I'm not "behind* the doctrine particuarly, but no, I would not expect the Caracals to be receiving any cap from the Ospreys as a general rule. Instead, the Caracals should be flying at about 40 km range from the opposing fleet, and pulsing their MWD, so it isn't running constantly. The anchor should call when to do this, generally by saying something like, "prop mod on 1 cycle". Then, you turn your prop mod on, and immediately de-cycle it, so it turns off after that cycle. *Generally* the fastest stuff burning towards you can be killed quickly, while the tankier stuff will be slower, and the caracals won't need to keep their prop mods on 100% of the time. If the fleet is running in to cap problems, then the FC should be as well, so they'll know to warp the fleet out and reposition.

Like you say, the logi have enough to manage, staying on top of reps and their own cap chain, without trying to keep the whole fleet cap stable.

The only time I'd recommend sending cap from an osprey to a Caracal is when they are being neuted out, and can't keep their hardeners on.

[Budda Sereda]

I had through I heard 'take him on the gate' or something like that - but thinking back, I should have relayed more info to FC.

I do like to take fights on the gate, but this is applicable to main DD group only: usually fleet has enough DPS/reps to shot things down (or disengage).
Along scout ... probably can, but you taking risk. You do need to confirm with FC if you should engage.

Could the Crow last long until the fleet comes in? It is a pricey ship to be hero tackle.

I guess depends on the target. But SFI has bonuses to missiles, and solo SFI in low-sec space most likely is fit with light missiles which apply ok even to interceptor... So, without fleet on the other side of the gate, I would not recommend engaging.
A better option would be to spy on the SFI, see where he will move to and hunt on him until you can get him in fleets proximity.

[Ca'ain]

I do like to take fights on the gate, but this is applicable to main DD group only: usually fleet has enough DPS/reps to shot things down (or disengage).
Along scout ... probably can, but you taking risk. You do need to confirm with FC if you should engage.

I guess depends on the target. But SFI has bonuses to missiles, and solo SFI in low-sec space most likely is fit with light missiles which apply ok even to interceptor... So, without fleet on the other side of the gate, I would not recommend engaging.
A better option would be to spy on the SFI, see where he will move to and hunt on him until you can get him in fleets proximity.

I didn't really like the doctrine fit. I wanted to disengage after I started, but I was scrammed and had MWD, I couldn't really get away, maybe EWAR to break target lock.

[Dredd Valentine]

So, I was that 29km guy >.<

I saw the fleet on the calendar right after I joined, bought an Omega, punched in the bare minimum to get in the Caldari Cruiser (I'm Gallente), and called it a day leading up to the fleet. As 18492039 other players have learned the hard way, there are many more skills needed for missiles, something I haven't touched at all before last Saturday. I haven't really done anything outside of the Gallente Drone Boats, so this was a radical change for me.

I'll be more prepared for the next Caracal fleet. I think I'm already over 50km, and should be much higher than that in about a week.

I wish I had more feedback, but I waited too long to provide input for the AAR, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. I do want to get more experience as the DD in a few fleets, but after that I think I'm gunna start pushing to be the second scout. Both fleets I did Saturday (JapanTZ) seemed to be hurting for multiple scouts.

Thanks for the fleet!

[Budda Sereda]

I do like to take fights on the gate, but this is applicable to main DD group only: usually fleet has enough DPS/reps to shot things down (or disengage).
Along scout ... probably can, but you taking risk. You do need to confirm with FC if you should engage.

I guess depends on the target. But SFI has bonuses to missiles, and solo SFI in low-sec space most likely is fit with light missiles which apply ok even to interceptor... So, without fleet on the other side of the gate, I would not recommend engaging.
A better option would be to spy on the SFI, see where he will move to and hunt on him until you can get him in fleets proximity.

I didn't really like the doctrine fit. I wanted to disengage after I started, but I was scrammed and had MWD, I couldn't really get away, maybe EWAR to break target lock.

Hi Ca'ain, why you don't like the doctrine fit? Would you mind sharing any specific concerns? I'm ok for experementing.

So, I was that 29km guy >.<

I saw the fleet on the calendar right after I joined, bought an Omega, punched in the bare minimum to get in the Caldari Cruiser (I'm Gallente), and called it a day leading up to the fleet. As 18492039 other players have learned the hard way, there are many more skills needed for missiles, something I haven't touched at all before last Saturday. I haven't really done anything outside of the Gallente Drone Boats, so this was a radical change for me.

I'll be more prepared for the next Caracal fleet. I think I'm already over 50km, and should be much higher than that in about a week.

I wish I had more feedback, but I waited too long to provide input for the AAR, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. I do want to get more experience as the DD in a few fleets, but after that I think I'm gunna start pushing to be the second scout. Both fleets I did Saturday (JapanTZ) seemed to be hurting for multiple scouts.

Thanks for the fleet!

Nice to hear that Dredd! Hope to see you tonight and on Friday!