[AAR] Budget Nanogang | 2022-07-04

[Uryence]

Formed nanogang in Jita. Way too many people game (4 July is a holiday somewhere?) and I didn't make the decision to either split us or use a different doctrine. We had some blingier logi assistance so some of us shipped up more than usual.

Roam members (28)

Spoiler

Angry Jell - Caracal, Thrasher
Arkady Marten - Coercer
Ben Lear - Catalyst
Blumi
Bolas Underwhelmer - Keres, Thrasher
Chaland Issier - Maulus
Clarityz - Osprey Navy Issue, Catalyst
Deborah Degouts - Caracal, Cormorant
Drewzard Dabs
Enkai Tenmon - Maulus
Eugate Maul - Stiletto
Eugate Maulerant
Hippla Tsero
Just Shot - Scythe
Kayvind Lee Frye - Crucifier, Thrasher
Light Exahlia
Miriel Larose
Panda Kondur - Caracal, Thrasher
Raytar Lafisques - Brutix
Serrau Eoner - Caracal, Thrasher
Shukken Tekitsu - Kikimora
Slash Azizora - Catalyst
Uryence - Loki
Void Delver
Vulcann Rin
Vybez Kartel - Cormorant
YeetingYEET - Atron
bazingamogus

Kills and Losses

We had to use Thera because we had people with blues in fleet. Welped the fleet to campers on the way to the Thera hole. Sorry.

(20:01:27) Crielere, Otou
Bantam +5.5m
Loki -417.05m
Crucifier -2.53m
Maulus -1.33m
Maulus -1.36m
Caracal -19.55m
Atron -3.1m
Caracal -21.92m
Kikimora -87.18m
Caracal -20.49m
Scythe -33.14m

I guess this Brutix got caught trying to extract?

(20:14:14) Miroitem
Brutix -89.76m

Similar guess here??

(20:35:39) Tama
Thrasher -6.02m
Capsule -0.01m

I was pretty miffed at this point but the people still demanded action so we formed glasscannon destroyers and went to Tama.

(20:49:13) Tama
Tormentor +9.11m

Again not sure what happened with this last Catalyst loss.

(20:55:58) Tama
Catalyst -12.95m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 14,604,230.24
ISK Lost: 716,390,266.97
ISK Delta: -701,786,036.73
Efficiency: 1.998%

Overall evaluation

Learning points
- Future nanogangs will have a size limit of 15.
- If we have more than that we can split, or latecomers can just not get PvP.
- We will not be using Thera holes if the route is obstructed.
- We will be using Thera even less often; if this means not flying with guests who have blues, that's the guests' problem. Small-gang PvP is not for diplomats.
- Every time I have undocked a Loki, it has died. Anyone have any spare skill extractors?

[Uryence]

In retrospect I should've put the brakes on forming up as soon as we hit 15—that's what the document we're using itself says, more or less—but the situation had never come up before & I was conscious of the social pressure to make the fleet work. Ditto expensive fits: we've constructed a document with expendable ships in it for a reason, which is that we're not competent enough to fly expensive ships.

Similarly we should never have wound up in a situation in which we had to take one path to get out into null: the point of the way these gangs operate is to have as many mobility options open at one time as possible.

None of this is to say that newer players aren't welcome on these! That wasn't the problem, numbers and radically reduced transport options were.

[Hippla]

Heya Uryence,

first of all a big thanks for continuously organising fleets for the Uni. It's been amazing to see the amount of content you dish out over the past few months already. I can also read a lot of understandable frustration in your post and hope that I can add a few things to the learning points and make you think of it as an expensive lesson rather than a failed fleet :-p

We encountered 4 Battleships - 2 Tempest, 1x Hyperion and 1x Megathron 1 jump out from Otou.
It seemed like they were rushing to a fight from my perspective. Our scout had seen another group of ships that he called out and shared DScan in fleet: https://dscan.info/v/e22ca2255c58

When the scout arrived in system he said: They are fighting and indeed, when I jumped in as secondary, I saw some fighting going on, as well as an Abbadon jumping out of our in-gate. So I assumed that one group of BS+Logi (3 Oneiros + probably Smartbombing Proteus) were fighting with the group of 4 incoming BS. As soon as we loaded grid, it was quite apparent that no fighting was going on though and instead of being a 3rd party in a 4BS vs 1BS+3Logi brawl, we now faced a large number of BS + Logi + some support

Learning Points
- paying closer attention to what's fighting and if there is a an actual fight rather than the gate camp potentially just shooting someone coming through
- There was some confusion on where the fight is taking place - this seem to have rushed you a bit and probably took some time away from decision making. Clearer communication by iE us scouts on what is fighting could have circumvented the confusion and helped take a more thought-through decision for you
- with such overwhelming numbers stacked against us, we could have utilised gate mechanics to just burn back to the gate and see if we can make them aggress and jump back through, potentially splitting their group and turning the numbers advantage in our favour

Unfortunately, you were the first one aligning to Sun, as your command still came through Mumble - hence they immediately focused you and the FC being alphaed off grid first is never ideal for any engagement. Furthermore, we should have probably asked everyone to overheat their prop mod for at least one cycle to try to get out of web range.

Learning Points
- In similar situations, as FC you can wait till you see the first things being targeted and then overheat prop and get out
- You were flying a Loki and mentioned yourself that you have "two buttons too much" - I agree that as an FC of a group this size you want to be able to focus on piloting + Pressing F1 (optional) and nothing else. Additionally, you want to be as tanky as possible - switching your utility for buffer or resi would have probably made sense - more about group size later

The gang managed quite well to get away from the gate but of course a few people, particularly people that forgot their Prop Mod or spawned on the opposite side of the gate (compared to the Sun) were a bit screwed, as they got hard pinned down by the BS + the few tackle they had at 0 at the gate. Some of us (like myself with my HFI) burned out quite a bit too far and our damage application against 3x Oneiros, firing into a BS buffer could have only worked if we pretty much alphaed it - which is quite unrealistic assuming they are setup as a camp already. One of their BS decided to hop in front of us. We could have potentially switched to hat Hyperion and tried to kill it while their logi was out of position. At this point it felt like we had lost already a few DPS.

Learning Points
- Assuming we would still take the decision not to burn back and take advantage of gate mechanics, a cold-warp to one of the interceptors as soon as they are at 150km might have allowed us to lose less and chose a better engagement
- When the nano-gang becomes too big, having an anchor makes a lot of sense. It takes away from the practicing of manual piloting and diving in and out but especially in bigger engagements with less experienced pilots (heck even with experienced pilots) people will constantly get out of position of the "core". So simply making the core stronger by having an anchor and trading in some versatility is fine. Individual pilots can still break off from the core iE an attack BC can try to stay in front etc. But core DPS sticking together is paramount here - so simply anchor if you are more than 3-4 DPS next time
- Be firm of letting people know that they should (a) speak in 3rd person if ever talking about themselves and (b) link killmails instead of shouting "I am dead" in Coms. I think you did a good job at making Coms rules clear at the beginning but those twopoints could probably need a bit more emphasis not only in this fleet but any Uni fleet.

Composition
- While it's true that we had some slightly more expensive stuff with us (I think mainly you and Miriel), all other ships were doctrine or at least close enough to doctrine cost (iE my HFI is at 170M, so still very reasonable) - If however you feel less comfortable having such expensive ships on grid, just tell people to reship You are the FC and even though we have some characters that always need to argue with the FC *wave to Vybez*, most people will listen to you without any talking back and accept the commands. Similarly, if you feel uncomfortable having us PL scrubs coming along to practice our small (medium) size PvP, just let us know and I am 100% confident no one will feel offended

Overall, we let ourselves be baited into an overwhelming number of opponents. That happens and I don't think we should put our head in the sand. Plenty of things to analyse and improve on as always.

[Ben Lear]

Uryence you are far to hard on yourself, personally being a fleet junky with dreadful personal eve skills I really appreciate you organising the weekly fleets.
I have no doubt that due to the last two fab small gang fleets this one became much more popular as word got about.
(be interesting if the Merlin one tomorrow is as well attended )
Everyone went out expecting to get killed so we had nothing to be upset about. I eventually got killed on a gate in a Catalyst when my internet connection crashed, occupational problem in eve...

Already looking forward to the next one.

'Ben' has done his normal tweet ... https://twitter.com/BenLearEve/status/1 ... 2096356354