Constructive criticism as always is welcomed
Background:
We have a reasonably extensive chain mapped but so far seemed quiet.
we catch eyes of some covops scouts from potential Bad Guys 2 jumps out of home and we trail them and we find what we believe is their home hole at the end of one of our paths.
unfortunately they are in a new hole that we haven't previously scanned sigs,
fortunately their astrahus is out of D-scan range of our entrance and we have high confidence they don't know our scouts are in.
What appears to be rolling battle ships are warping to a sig that isn't ours and we are confirmed in thinking when a devoter called "hole" goes after and appears to get hot seated and sig disappears.
we have three unique pilots in itel from their side.
Conci and myself are in their home, and we start discussing how we can get a fight out of these guys and /or bank the battleships if they are they going to continue to shut connections including ours
since we are in scout frigs, 3 WHC strat pilots move up and we can get them in and cloaked since the astra is off grid without spooking.
What Happened Next:
Sooo... Conci calls a spike to 12 in the astra, have we been spotted?
nope... these guys static is a C5 and it appears they are off to bear it
My ping is premature - they actually end up with a fleet of 9 nesters an Eos and a procurer??
they warp to the C5 hole, and leave the procurer as eyes on their home side when they jump.
- thoughts afterwards i actually like the proc as a weird picket, if someone jumps in and they don't notice while site running, the proc might get attacked giving a better audible warning to the nestors which are the valuable asset, it would be strange for a scout to jump past a proc to think whats on the other side, nice thinking outside the box
unfortunately- we think given the names/grouping/ and squad warp groups its still a few guys multi boxing the fleet and this should be to our advantage
fortunately - these guys are ex Mcav and we have an idea of the disgusting to break RR set up they have.
Second bad news, the C5 hole is within Dscan range of our in hole so we can't reship without danger of getting seen.
Form Up:
Response to the slack ping is lack lacklustre to say the least given the juice available and we have had much big engagements recently.
Any way, we start getting a few people and discussion of how we break this.
Discussion points
-- Paper Maths at the time in space 3 large rappers each so 300HP*8/s before resists and 9*600 DPS from the drones.
What we want:
-- 4 minimum 5 preferable Gaurdians
-- 2 Hics so we can cycle bubbles and reps
-- Jams to break the tinker
-- Max deeps from everyone else
Hindsight now, i'm happy enough with the plan but we will still prob lose people with T1 resists along the way
Comment below on if there is a better set for us if we get same target profile again in future - keep in mind we normally get about 30 people in fleet for a ping like this and the skill points of the average WHCer
What we got:
Later we will learn that slack is hungover and not playing along and people didn't get any info to phones until the next day
approx 10 persons in fleet not including our alts
people go out into other campus mumbles to try and grab extra hired guns but we have crap connections to get people in from campus'
props to the guys from NSC who burned the jumps in bombers and travel frigs to help us out!!
so we get 2 Hics and 4 Guards and i'm a 5th
I'm reminded: "your not going to FC from a Guardian are you Troven?" *remember this for later
but calls for volunteers from a DPS boat go unanswered
-- i'm not pointing fingers, i know its hard to speak up especially when others are talking 10 to the dozen. Grab the opportunity to take the shot, everyone starts somewhere and there are always back seaters to lend a hand, just appeared everyone a bit older was in a Logi or non ideal ship to lead on grid.
Regardless with our numbers being equal to theirs we make the difficult but adult decision to not take the fight.
-- important point for myself, i often so want to take something different on that rush in without really taking stock. Happy we ran some napkin maths and talked and stood down.
but obviously people are here and we want to try something. so we decide to try and split them with a boost and tackle and just pick of one with bombers
sounds feasible and reasonably cheap - and we have a volunteer sacrificial CD pilot.
we stew the plan a bit and decide to try and split them on their way home so we stick to bombers and keep one Hic and a Dictor (Me) both with cloaks
we burn over, and just as we are about to enter a helios form their side undocks in system, he is in Dscan of the hole we will agress.
not a problem we can get the bombers in and do so on perch but we can only get the bubblers in and cloaked 15AU off aligned.
plan is i jump an alt in, try and spook them to run home and make a stab at tackle of the last ones off the hole pop one and run... SIMPLE right.
So i jump my alt, their scout sees me, the nesters look unresponsive, they are in 2 groups a 4 and a 5
i get on grid with one group 0 velocity
then the second group moves on scan - Its at this point i realise i don't have the WH bookmark on the alt so can't bounce to see if they are running or finished a site.
someone calls activation, its now or never. Hic Dic gogogo, we warp and as i land see the last of wing of 4 nesters enter warp just as bubble goes up
So all is lost they know we are here - ALWAYS BOOK MARK THE EXIT[ 2017.12.15 19:47:27 ] Mad Vemane > 5/7 tackle
Then ... Raven on D ...???
They warp a raven into us, he lands on bubble edge. " decloak bombers Raven Primary"
a bubble him again, Hic grabs him with infi scam so no MJD and i burn deffensive bubbles to wards the astrahus
--- reinforced learning point 2 (although its above again) i don't have the raven locked as i'm burning the bubble lane so can't see the damage application.
the a bifrost warps, i scram him to stop boost but I'm now 100+ from the bombers out of range so its a 1 V 1 "Raven is still primary" = i figure torps apply best to big stuff so stay on him rather than try and help me. and he appears Ancil fit from chatter so we can break him on reload
then ONI...
i start getting beat and have to bounce
I don't compute the ONI in my head and trying to FC from warp is bad. ONI starts picking off bombers who aren't aligned or who have wandered into bubbles
i land back see we have the raven in structure. I call for heat but its too late as the reload completes and he tops up.
Heat earlier and we def get him, he was 50% at least when reps caught. Grrrrr
now we are all over, lost a 2 pilots but shouldn't panic, by the time somebody gets me to realise the ONI is the thing to get rid of as the raven isn't shaking a HIC its too late, a nestor lands followed by a few smaller things that def mean the death for frigs....
"Scatter scatter HIC i'm sorry we aren't getting you out either way "
Hindsight talking today - after the failed bubble catch we prob should have just bugged out as they new our game, or got cloaked and stopped to think again.
I wouldn't say i Panicked - however i was annoyed i missed the tackle and compounded mistakes trying to get any kill by that point.
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TL:DR
They had 9 nesters and Boosts
Thats lots of rep and serious DPS
We had lots of info and prep time
We couldn't form the numbers
We tried to find a fun way to still engage
2nd Plan was reasonably sound, and we planned to lose people probably any way
Execution wasn't up to par from FC, fleet seemed to do what was instructed so can't fault that.
-For me -
-Don't multbox and FC
-Don't FC from Logi
-Don't FC from a ship that won't have full over view / can't stay on grid
-Make sure we have a 2IC for bigger engagements that aren't simple gank
-Listen
-Learn the dangers
-Don't be afraid to say its not right we are not taking it
-Don't compound personal piloting mistakes into fleet mistakes
Guys thanks for forming,
thanks for default following me,
I will try not to be the loudest voice if i'm not in the right position to do so.
>>> for those that want the gritty isk details <<<
EDIT: Holy crap didn't realise the essay