[HSC] BLAP Talwars low-sec roaming - III

[Yuri Levnik]

I got my first fleet killmail (for someone who wasn't me) on this fleet! It was only a 1.9MN Atron, but you have to start somewhere, right? Plus, Budda shot the Atron too so I was probably shooting the right target (;

I feel like the talwars were harder to fly than the Magic Merlins. With the Merlins, you can orbit your target at optimal and it doesn't matter if the fleet drops right on top of the target since you're supposed to fight at close range anyway. With the Talwars, we need to try and drop on grid at range and then stay in a ball. At Coaxster noted, some of us (myself included) did not always do this very well. For me, part of the point of these fleets is to learn how to fly better, so I think the talwars fleet is a good opportunity to practice staying with the anchor. I'm not sure how we can work on dropping on the grid at range, will have to leave that up to the FC.

Fitting my talwar was a hassle. The biggest challenge was rustling up Arbalest missile launchers. I have to use Arbalests to fit within my limited CPU and they are hard to come by in Placid and Verge Vendor.

[Budda Sereda]

For what it's worth, the anchor needs to base their movement around the expected ranges of the fleet (e.g. BLAP minimum, just above 60km), not their own range.

I requested Anchor to orbit at 50km. it is 20% less than the minimum. I give some tolerance towards the lower than minimal skill and situation when to shoot a target that is a bit further than current primary.

So it turns out I've learned one more lesson from this, which is not to apply things such as training the magic 14 or attending a fitting 101 class in an attempt to improve my usefulness to fleets, because apparently that voids the BLAP SRP. Little bitter about that, sorry, but it seems ridiculous that applying what I'm here to learn instead of traveling around with a completely redundant +PG rig is grounds for what feels like punishment...

Do you mean that you optimized your fit and instead of fitting rigs from standard BLAP fit you put those you consider better?
You are sarcastic about lessons learned, but one thing is to know how to fit a ship, another to be eligible to SRP. If you customize the 'standard' fit you take a risk. BTW: my SRP request was rejected as I changed my fit too.

For me, part of the point of these fleets is to learn how to fly better, so I think the talwars fleet a good opportunity to practice staying with the anchor.

Exactly Yuri. Natural evolution of BLAP Talwar is BLAP Caracal: it also uses Light Missiles so Missile damage, range, and application skills help too. And supposes a similar strategy: shoot from the distance. Caracals have higher tank and damage, but are slower and more expensive. I do plan to move towards FCing Caracals, and take them to nul-sec, but I feel it is a bigger liability so want to learn flying smaller things first.
And it is not only me to FC slower fleets, it is for pilots to be able to fly effectively. So I hope we all learn together.

[B'aldrick Aivoras]

Standard Uni SRP should apply shouldn't it as it was a Uni fleet?


.

[Krevlorn Severasse]

From the BLAP SRP post:

Some terms and conditions apply:
* We will fully reimburse these fits and these fits only.
* When I say these fits, I mean these fits, the HML refit of the Caracal, and anything upgraded to T2 by pilots with better skills.

If any part of the linked post or our SRP page is unclear on the topic please let me know.

There's always going to be restrictions on what's covered by our SRP and reading the wiki page should always be the first place to check regarding reimbursements. As always if you have questions regarding what is and isn't covered we provide a list of officers that are available to take questions. You can message me on your campus slack team for a potentially faster response.

Standard Uni SRP should apply shouldn't it as it was a Uni fleet?.

Correct, both of the denied losses are eligible for the standard T1 hull replacement offered for all T1 frigates, destroyers, and cruisers.

[Kramnath]

Do you mean that you optimized your fit and instead of fitting rigs from standard BLAP fit you put those you consider better?
You are sarcastic about lessons learned, but one thing is to know how to fit a ship, another to be eligible to SRP. If you customize the 'standard' fit you take a risk. BTW: my SRP request was rejected as I changed my fit too.

Yes, the BLAP fit has both a low and a rig dedicated to increasing power grid, presumably because without decent fitting skills you need them. I followed Uni recommended training and had enough PG without the rig, so replaced it for a missile rig instead. I also had a 58km range without the additional flight time rig so replaced that for something else too. That said, I accept the ruling and understand that you can't just go handing money out everywhere, I just find it an odd conflict with the aim of the corp to teach new players that, as one who has tried to apply the lessons, I have done myself out of 8m isk (BLAP vs hull replacement) which still feels like a lot as a relatively new player (yes I know I have a 2003 birthdate but I actually played for about 6 months total and last played in 2006) without a lot of playtime.

I would say though that I checked the SRP wiki page which doesn't make it as clear as the forum post. Possibly a 2am reading comprehension fail on my part but having looked again I still think it could use an "only" in there, as most of the entries above the BLAP have a clause that implies reasonable and similar fit is acceptable.

So, less sarcastically this time, I have learned the BLAP rules and will be sticking by them until I have more time to play and isk to source my own replacements. All that said, I have the downer out of my system now, have realised that actually getting anything back is fairly awesome, have applied for the hull and will absolutely still be throwing myself into fleets because they're fun and good learning experiences.

[David Matsuda]

If you just traded an unnecessary PG rig for something more useful, that would count as an acceptable upgrade due to having higher skills. The issue is that our officers can't check your actual range, so tampering with the missile rigs makes it look like it may no longer be fit for purpose. When you're kiting at the upper edge of your fleet's range, it might still make the difference between applying enough damage and losing the fight. We usually try to interpret any grey areas in the pilot's favor, but at the end of the day all we have to go on is the fleet-up fit and what turns up on the killboard.

I'll be happy to review all declined BLAP requests tonight to provide a second opinion, but of course we do have to draw the line somewhere and anything to do with the fit's core functionality pretty much has to be it.

[Pronto Pup]

I don't mean this as a complaint about the BLAP SRP program - I understand the need to incentivize standard fits and think full reimbursement for a BLAP fit is generous and powerful incentive for a poor like me. But I did learn the hard way that a minor deviation from the published fit results in a denied BLAP SRP claim, and that buying a BLAP ship from corporation contracts is not a guarantee of getting exactly the right fit. From now on I will check each ship carefully, and at least if it isn't reimbursable, I'll know that when I undock.

[Titus Tallang]

All corporation contracts should contain the correct fit. If this is not the case, please point this out to the person setting up the contracts in question.

[Baelthorn]

Regarding anchoring during the fleet... Im not sure if I was doing it wrong or the fleet was slow to respond but we ended up being strung out along a 50km distance (our optimal) from the engagement area. I began to pulse my prop mod on and off to let the stragglers catch up (better for logi) but that didnt seem to help much. I feel like it would have been more effective to call out anchor a few times then wait to proceed to the optimal. The problem with that is the low ehp of the destroyer fleet, we dont really have that time to wait, we need to be at optimal burning prop mods when the engagement starts or else we are going to lose a significant portion of our dps in the meantime due to picking off stragglers. The damage focus was sluggish but eventually got to where people were on the right target. A smaller problem that I saw (due to there only being 2-3 logi) was that they were stacked up on us and not at their optimals outside of the Gila Range. If they were at their optimal (~50km) from our optimal (another 50km) they would have been well outside range of the Gila's and the other DD's. Granted, that the damage from the enemy fleet was so much that logi would not have helped much as we were nearly insta-blapped due to the low defense of the Talwars. In the future, it might be more effective to approach at 70km and MWD in to our optimals vice the other way around, that way we can stay grouped and already be at max velocity when we engage.

It was brought to my attention after the fight that I was still using whisper in mumble. In the future I need to verify that if I am in a command position in a fleet that I am indeed using shout.

In the future:
Before the fleet starts, have everyone set their default orbit to 2500m and instruct the everyone that as soon as we finish any warp they are to click the anchor on the watchlist and click the orbit icon (or w+click anchor). If the fits we are flying are cap stable (and that goes back to identifying skill deficiencies prior to first warp) then we should also be cycling our prop mods on at the same time we anchor. If we make that a habit at every warp it will become muscle memory and the fleet will be immediately responsive which will be less for the newbros to worry about during a hectic fight and we can expect better performance in total.

Also, if we identify different rolls for the newbros (i.e. d-scanner, local watch, rear guard, zkill parser, etc) it will get them more involved in the fleet and more comfortable with fleet comms and also alleviate some of the pressure off the FC. Its not that I doubt the FC's ability in the slightest to perform those tasks, but, why work harder than you need to.

Training on how to broadcast who is scramming or jamming you would be excellent for newbros as I noticed that when I called for a scramble, someone spoke up and said that he was pointed and when I asked what ship is pointing him there was no response. At that point in time I realized that he didnt know how to find out who was pointing him.