[FLEET] Arranged Fleet Fight

[Budda Sereda]

Preparation.

As stated in https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=103964 we started formed up in time. It was planned to spend 30 minutes in PC9 to help people with fitting their ships and do a small briefing and I'm glad we were close to the schedule.

1st unpleasant surprise was fleet got only 16 people (+1 my alt for scouting): around an equal amount of people was split between PC9 and Stacmon.
In total, we had:
- 3 Osprey (don't remember exactly, but final report shows only 3 killed; I believe we had 1 person who was planning to join at Amygnon, but this never happened). Watching screenshots/videos after fleet I see we had sherlock jones waiting for us in Amygnon in logy squad sitting in Atron... but we never made it to Amy.
- 1 Bellicose
- 8 Moas (250mm Rails AB fit)
- 1 Vexor
- 1 Interceptor/Tackler
I've seen Thorax in fleet once, but I believe he never undocked.

Somebody will ask: Why Moas? Because NSC is under discussion of the DotM (Doctrine of the Month) and my original intention was to try Moas. DotM in fact uses 200mm MWD version of Moa, but I chose 250mm AB as for me 200mm MWD fit has too low cap, and low dps. Also even with AB we should be able to compete with Confessor (most probable Raido's doctrine).

Raido originally reported he has 13 pilot, he also confirmed they form-up Confessors (clearly with Deacons support). We both expected more people to catch-up. Later I learned Raido was more successful in this.

My original plan for the fight was to start engagement at some range: 30-50 km (and logies 20km back of us) so we have fewer issues tracking small confessors. But Analiese brought point that we better engage at 15km at load Thorium.
For the sake of time, I decided to not argue much and we preloaded Antimatter with a plan to fight at 10-15-20km range.

Travel and scouting.

Anyway, we left PC9 to Stacmon with hope somebody will catch up, but this did not happen and we moved towards Stacmon and shortly after, further towards Amygnon. But in Agoze Analiese reported Raido's fleet is already in system.
Shame to myself and our scout: we both were 1 jump ahead of the fleet, but did not notice Raido in local. I take shame as our scout was a new pilot. Anyway, something to improve in.

Once we spotted Raido's fleet in local I warped fleet to planet 1, aligned to planet 2 so if opponents landed directly on us I would warp fleet away: I wanted to avoid 0-range brawling.
Raido reported they are at medium plex, I asked the scout to warp at 50 and check how far are they from the center. At this time, Raido's malediction warped to us at range... I believe it appeared to be around 70-100km so we could not reach it even with Spikes.

Somebody (Scout or again Analiese?) reported Raido had 4 Deacons, 2 Maledictions, Hecate, and around 10 confessors. I did realize we won't be able to break reps. For me it was "no-go", but... should I have asked fleet to dock? and negotiate with Raido something more realistic other than allowing to butcher my fleet? In the end after a quick discussion I decided to take a fight.

Engagement.

Scout reported that opponents are around 17km from the plex so I asked fleet to align to medium, load thorium and was going to ask fleet to warp at 50 (and forgot to ask logies to warp at 70). It is hard to say what exactly did happen and my video failed (which I only noticed after the fight, thanks Camtasia). But I do believe I by accident did click "Warp wing at 0" (OMG, see more about this below). And because we were aligned already I did not have any other option other than to update the fleet about this, Analiese advised to load Antimatter and once we landed I started calling primaries.

While we were in warp, our tackle was killed, I called fleet to anchor on Analiese and primaried opponents Bellicose which we shoot it down really quick.
@Raido: Why shield Bellicose in an armor fleet? Was it a gift so we kill at least something?

Next, I called primary to be 1 of confessors, we shoot him into 30-40% of armor but later he got reps.
One of our logies went down.
I understood we are not holding reps, and not breaking tanks... it is time to prepare a retreat.
I called fleet to allign back to planed 2 and called primary to be another confessor - another our logy went down.
One more primary switch and one more logy went down. Maybe I should not call primary switch to keep logies alive?
I believe I also called Deacon to be a primary, but we barely scratched it.
So I called to switch to Raido personally

At this moment I asked fleet to overheat prop mods and fields and try to warp out to planet 2 whenever they can. Keep shooting target we tried to disengage. Myself I was pointed and (if I'm not mistaken scrammed/webbed), but somehow was able to escape together with few more fleet mates.

http://evf-eve.com/services/brcat/?s=37 ... 1&e=30&t=r

After the fleet, we got back together and few of us went to low-sec roaming, but that's another story.

So, good things:

1. We did get into a fight quite quickly. This often has benefits comparatively to roaming to often empty nul-sec, sometimes even low-sec. I believe we should improve a bit organizational part and do these things more frequently
2. We and tested and learned the ability of 10 Moas to break reps from 4 Deacons.
3. We did not whelp the whole fleet: 3 Moas and Bellicose did escape!

Could be better:

Organization-wise:
1. Quite a few people approached me in person (via game emails) with an intention to join, and few later reported they can't make it.
2. I got feedback that form-up took TOO LONG for pre-arranged fleet. Agree. This is to accommodate new pilots who were in the fleet. Going forward I would like to put a bit more strict requirement regarding form-up timing. Will this improve attendance?

Fight-related:
1. I should be more careful with UI: how did I click warp at 0? I believe this happens because when you right-click plex in overview in the right part of the screen it is too close to the border and sub-menus are opened on the left side... and these panels overlap and make visual confusion. Not trying to find an excuse, but critically thinking how can I avoid the same problem in future.
2. I probably should analyze fight logs and see how good was the application... is this possible?
3. I probably should not take a clearly loosing fight? To break 4 deacons you do need 20 Moas, especially considering that E-Uni guys rarely have L5 skills.
4. 1 Tackle intercpetor is too risky... but with such a low number of pilots... ?

Questions:

1. There were thought that 200mm Rails would track confessors better? Did we really have the issue with tracking? Or that was just about Deacons?
2. Raido: would you mind a typical fit of your confessors? Is it the same as fit posted by White Orchid in "Inquisition topic"?
3. Raido: would you accept if I offered to fight with no logies?
4. Anybody interested to take a revanche? If "yes", please email in-game. If I get at least 5 personal replies I will organize another topic on forum where we will discuss doctrine for the next fight and will speak with Raido about another fight in few weeks.
5. Was it really a good call to (at least try to) engage at 15km?

Any comments and feedback are welcome!

[Korros Kolada]

TL;DR - IMO; numbers were an issue; our logi setup was suboptimal; you need to primary the logi to break them; we should have fought at range; would definitely go again

----

Low numbers was definitely the start of the problem. It was an arranged fight, so I wouldn't have bailed just because we didn't match up as well as hoped. For that matter though, did we expect them to run away from an arranged fight? I think sending the tackle in early was a little pointless. You send tackle in to hold a reluctant target there, or dictate position. We didn't position well anyway, and they definitely didn't seem all that reluctant to fight. =)

Confirm that we had 3 Osprey, but they only bothered to kill 2 (so add an Osprey to your escape list; I just don't show up with no loss or DD). 1 Osprey in a fleet is very low priority (no cap chain left). For such a small logi wing, we should have gone with Scythes (if any at all). The fleet advert called for Osprey though, so who knows if we had the ships to reconfigure. You go with what you have. Numbers would have fixed this. Logi can't use their reps on themselves, so it becomes an N-1 game. Only 3 logi means only 2 effective in trying to save the 3rd. That's one of the reasons they get targeted first. With reps not holding from the start, we were mostly a small speed bump. Again numbers. You need some kind of critical mass for logis to make a difference, and we didn't have it. Three more Moas might have been better than three Ospreys, given how ineffective we were.

I wasn't flying a Moa, but I'm sure tracking was an issue. They had smaller sigs and smaller guns, so better tracking and fighting against bigger targets. I'm not sure there was a range where we would have had an advantage, but I think getting in close could only push the fight more in their favor. I know getting enough damage to break their reps was a concern, but it's damage _applied_ that counts. Look at the damage numbers on that Bellicose kill (and consider that it was the largest target, so probably our best damage application). If you want to fight close, you need tracking, webs, etc. and you brawl. With rails, distance would probably have worked better for us. I don't think 200s would have made much of a difference in the fight as it happened.

And yeah, that Bellicose in their fleet? I assume it was someone who joined up at the last minute. Nothing else makes sense to me. =)

And finally, I would definitely go again. Not going to get any better if we don't get to fighting. I'd even be willing to try Moas again, just with different tactics. We found out one way that doesn't work. Only one way to find out what does. =)

[White 0rchid]

Questions:

1. There were thought that 200mm Rails would track confessors better? Did we really have the issue with tracking? Or that was just about Deacons?
2. Raido: would you mind a typical fit of your confessors? Is it the same as fit posted by White Orchid in "Inquisition topic"?
3. Raido: would you accept if I offered to fight with no logies?
4. Anybody interested to take a revanche? If "yes", please email in-game. If I get at least 5 personal replies I will organize another topic on forum where we will discuss doctrine for the next fight and will speak with Raido about another fight in few weeks.
5. Was it really a good call to (at least try to) engage at 15km?

Any comments and feedback are welcome!

1. 200s will track better, going MWD is not a good idea though. Just by fitting one you will lose a lot of cap (which you need to run your guns). You have about 4 minutes cap life at most with an MWD moa while not even running the MWD. You shouldn't sacrifice a tank mid for a cap booster because then you are paper thin.

2. I suspect it is yes. They look something like this https://zkillboard.com/kill/61310530/

3. Only for Raido to answer

5. Maybe, maybe not, hard to tell. Javelin does have very good tracking compared to antimatter though. Your problem though is your webs, you don't really have any. So fighting close against AB fessors might not work. Spike however is TERRIBLE tracking and you probably wouldn't easily hit them. Their range is only about 45km though, so you could probably have fought at that and not taken much damage. They would have had to burn directly at you to catch up and therefore made it easier to track them.

[Analiese Aubernet]

Analiese the entire night:

Spoiler

I don't really know where to start, so I'm just going to throw out what I would have chosen for optimal engagement after I knew that they were in Confessors and we were in 250mm rail Moa's (for an arranged fight, not taking the fight isn't really an option for me + t1 cruisers are cheap af):

What I/we knew about THEIR fleet:
1) They're outside a plex, at 0-3km on the acceleration gate. This gives our fleet the ability to dictate initial engagement range via warpin.
2) The standard Waffles confessor fit goes 691m/s in propulsion mode with a signature radius of 65m, or 519m/s in defensive mode with a signature radius of 43m.
3) It will output its highest damage in sharpshooter mode with gleam but only reaches out to 8km because it has undersized lasers to fit a 400mm plate.
4) Forcing them to swap into either defensive mode or propulsion mode forces them to swap to a longer range ammunition and drops outgoing dps by 60% assuming you've pulled enough range to put them into Aurora (23km optimal).
5) Four deacons + a Thalia are going to be a very tough nut to crack, assuming that they're fit moderately intelligently and are cap stable with injectors.

What I/we knew about OUR fleet:
1) 250mm rails have crappy tracking, but better projection capabilities and higher dps than the Confessors.
2) The resist profile of the Moa is as good as if not better than a confessor, meaning that even with our fewer logi we should have been able to hold.
3) The Moa fit that we were (supposed to, I guess) be using goes 591m/s cold or 768m/s with heat.
4) Projected DPS will drop very quickly beyond ~18km as Moas have to switch to Spike or (I suppose Navy Thorium is a thing but I've never seen it).

With these characteristics in mind, I (in hindsight) figure that the OPTIMAL engagement (the one that gives us the best chance of killing anything) would be warping in at 20km, anchoring, and burning out. The confessors would have to burn towards our fleet in order to catch us, likely in prop mode, giving our fleet the best possible chance to hit using 250mm rails. Our logi would be able to overheat props and get out in front, significantly decreasing the chance that they'll get primaried or if they do get primaried, the chance that they'll actually go down. Careful management of heat on prop/resist mods and capacitor should have led to that situation being sustainable for at least several minutes. This gives the FC several minutes of damage to try to probe their logistics' ability to catch people and swap reps.

Unfortunately, the real world =/= the ideal world in the vast majority of cases.

First of all, we had a very new interceptor pilot who panicked (understandably) after warping into a hostile grid and did not give reliable intel w/r/t the positioning of the enemy fleet. Best I could gather from what he called out is that the enemy fleet was 20km off the acceleration gate. Budda called to align to the medium and then called that he was initiating a fleet warp @ 50km. I immediately called for DD to load Spike as that optimistically leaves us at 30km from the enemy fleet, well outside antimatter optimal and almost outside falloff if they're 20 off in the opposite direction.

As the fleet loads grid, two facts become clear. The enemy fleet is at 0 on the beacon (formed) and we were fleet warped to 0 on an acceleration gate.

In case anyone reading this didn't know, warping a fleet to 0 on an acceleration gate is a bad™ idea.

It means that your fleet will land in a rough circle around a giant collidable object, making it very difficult to anchor, group up, or in a lot of cases actually take the gate (if that's what you wanted to do) because people bump and get hung up on it. Furthermore, because of the call that the fleet was being warped at 50 the fleet now had the wrong ammo loaded, meaning you lose at least 5 seconds as everyone tries to reload.

Two out of three logi were almost immediately webbed and killed. (Logi - I wasn't looking as I was too busy trying to sort myself out but Raido mentioned to me after the fight that you should try to get your cap chain up much much faster)

A lone Basilisk is pretty much useless and given that the Moas were applying approximately 0 dps the fight was basically over as soon as it had begun. Even then, some suggestions for you Budda:

- Try to broadcast targets. It's difficult, and I'm very bad at it as well, but it makes it easier for line members to follow your primaries.
- When you're trying to rotate damage, if you've already locked 3-4 targets then rotate damage back onto a target that is already locked. This has several advantages and one disadvantage. It makes it faster for your fleet to switch dps, it gives less of a warning what the next primary may be because they're already yellowboxed, but it may make it easier for their logi to land reps because they may still have him locked.
- If you are going to switch dps to a new target, call to lock the target before you call to primary - that way the entire fleet will be able to decycle guns and switch dps as a fleet.

I probably screwed up my positioning as anchor, but no one was anchoring as far as I could tell anyway, mainly because of the hangup with the acceleration gate.

I really liked the tank of this Moa fit. I ended up being the last Uni pilot ongrid (Raido long pointed me as soon as the fleet landed ♥) and by overheating both invulns and AB I was able to tank all of the confessors for about 45 seconds, even after they landed webs.

[Raido Kudonen]

Hey, thought I would provide some info from my side of things. I had fun setting this up and taking the fight, and would like to do this again with different doctrines, different form-up, or whatever.

On Arranged Fights and The Uniblob

So I've FCed a number of arranged or partly-arranged fights involving the Uni, but this was my first one from the non-Uni side. I came to this fight with a few assumptions that seem not to have worked as expected; I'd be interested in hearing more about the form-up process and why these assumptions didn't hold.

• Any arranged fight with EVE University (or any other newbie-friendly organization) will involve a non-trivial number of derpy newbies in ewar frigates/tackle frigates.
• In general, this involves a significant amount of damps, ECM, or usually both.
• Staging the fight close to someone's staging system means there will be a significant (in fact usually very large) number of last-minute additions to the fleet in response to the FC's ragepings.

This means FCs who are planning to fight E-Uni (or Brave or Horde) need to bring what they think they'll need against an overform, because in the vast majority of cases the newbie corps will overform.

Calibrating Form-Ups - Some Similar Fights

First, let's take an example of an arranged fleet fight with WAFFLES from a few months ago. White 0rchid pinged me to let me know a Confessor fleet was coming to Uphallant, and I ragepinged and yelled at people for about 30 minutes so that we could form up something to take the fight. It didn't have much more precise of a doctrine than you did (I wanted Confessors/Deacons and got a few Confessors, assorted armor DPS, and Exequror logi with mass ewar) but it had enough numbers to contest a much larger WAFFLES Phalanx fleet.

The key factor in that fight was a group of Griffins (fully fit to Amarr jams, since Phalanx fleet uses exclusively Amarr hulls) and Maulii that apparently caused mass rage among the Waffles logi wing, which the Uni fleet entirely destroyed.

Second, here's a fleet fight from earlier in the day, in which WAFFLES used the same doctrine (albeit with a better FC and almost twice as many DPS ships!) against a Gila/Basilisk gang. The important thing here is that with about 40% more outgoing reps from the Basilisks on cruisers with a similar resist profile to your Moas, 14 WAFFLES Confessors could not break the Gilas on our own - without the MC Harpies, we would have left. So I was actually pretty nervous about my ability to break 4 Ospreys' reps on Moas with 8 Confessors.

The Fight - WAFFLES AAR

- 3 Osprey (don't remember exactly, but final report shows only 3 killed; I believe we had 1 person who was planning to join at Amygnon, but this never happened). Watching screenshots/videos after fleet I see we had sherlock jones waiting for us in Amygnon in logy squad sitting in Atron... but we never made it to Amy.
- 1 Bellicose
- 8 Moas (250mm Rails AB fit)
- 1 Vexor
- 1 Interceptor/Tackler
I've seen Thorax in fleet once, but I believe he never undocked.

I thought you had 4 Ospreys, although this may have come from earlier on when you thought you had 4 logi. The Thorax was definitely on grid with us, although I believe he withdrew when we started clearing logi.

We had what's on the BR, plus two Deacons who apparently forgot their whore drones. (We had four TOTAL logi frigates - three Deacons, one special snowflake Thalia - NOT four Deacons and a Thalia.) Ethikos burned to catch up to us in his ceptor; for the trip over our Hecate scouted, as Newt uses a hyperspatial, <2s align fit.

Until your fleet actually arrived in Osti, I expected a fleet of about 20-25; we'd left Kinakka when you had 18 in fleet and I expected your fleet to get larger rather than smaller. Even once we had eyes on your fleet, I had the following tactical concerns:

• In an open-space battle (i.e. where both sides can get warp-ins), Moas have a small mobility advantage versus Confessors unless the Confessors are in prop mode. So if you warped in at range, I was going to have a hard time closing range without losing transversal, and lost transversal = losing my tracking advantage.
• Transversal matching is frankly trivial in Moas if you're at 15-20km, because you're 90m/s faster than defensive/sharpshooter Confessors and prop mode is not really attractive for us.
• With 4 Ospreys on d-scan and your fleet being mostly Moas, I had serious concerns about my ability to break your tank. Remember, 14 Confessors couldn't break 4 Basilisks, and 8 Confessors lose more DPS than 4 Ospreys lose in repping power - or for that matter, more than 3 Ospreys do.)
• While setting up inside a medium plex would let us start the fight at brawl range, mitigating these concerns, I was certain that you would not warp into a medium plex because that would involve handing me a huge tactical advantage.

I addressed these concerns by staying on the outside of a medium plex and moving around the acceleration gate, so that we would have decent transversal if you warped at long range, but you would have the option of warping at range. At the same time, if you warped DPS at 40-50km, we would just warp out to re-position. To improve my chances of engaging at a preferred range, I kept the fleet at "zero" on the gate but in the direction that your fleet was, so that warping at 10 would equate to warping at zero.

The best scenario for initiating the fight, from your perspective, was to warp DPS at 20km-30km, warp logi at 50km, and immediately anchor up and burn away from me with heated afterburners. The best scenario for initiating the fight, from my perspective, was you warping the entire fleet at zero so that I could immediately cut down your logi numbers and therefore mitigate my concerns about 8 Confessors breaking resist-bonused cruisers.

To make it crystal clear: We won the fight when the Uni fleet warped at zero. Not a moment before, not a moment later.

With the Uni fleet warping at zero, you were actually about 8km off my fleet because of how I'd fudged our "at zero" anchor toward planet 1 in case you warped at 20km-30km. I knew that even with Max as your logi FC, it was going to take the Ospreys a few seconds to establish cap chain and pull range - seconds they didn't have, at this range, so we loaded Gleam and basically rammed the Ospreys to try and take them off grid before that happened. Even with that happening, we only got 2 of your Ospreys before they burned off with ABs; however, 2 down was enough for us to break Moas.

By the time the two Ospreys were off the field, I'd dipped into mid armor twice because some of your fleet members were targeting me (the Vexor and the Bellicose, so two flights of drones and RLMLs) in what I take to be an attempted headshot in violation of orders. Since logi had had me prelocked for the entire 5 minutes we'd spent at the Medium before you warped in, this didn't end up mattering too much.

Once you lost the first couple Ospreys, you did basically the right thing and aligned out, although it took you a bit too long to do that. Once that happened, tackle started splitting up and we had to switch to prop mode and chase things, which allowed about a fourth of your fleet to get away.

Commentary and Question Answering

Commentary on Budda's Reflections

Fight-related:
1. I should be more careful with UI: how did I click warp at 0? I believe this happens because when you right-click plex in overview in the right part of the screen it is too close to the border and sub-menus are opened on the left side... and these panels overlap and make visual confusion. Not trying to find an excuse, but critically thinking how can I avoid the same problem in future.
2. I probably should analyze fight logs and see how good was the application... is this possible?
3. I probably should not take a clearly loosing fight? To break 4 deacons you do need 20 Moas, especially considering that E-Uni guys rarely have L5 skills.
4. 1 Tackle intercpetor is too risky... but with such a low number of pilots... ?

1. No comment. Seriously, this was a "jump instead of bridge" kind of thing; I hope it's funny in retrospect.

2. It's possible if you are recording the fight and have the combat logs window active, although only for their tracking on your ship and your own ship's weapons.

3. I don't know who told you that you need 20 Moas to break 4 Deacons. If your only DPS is Moas, you need 8 Moas with antimatter and damage drones if you apply well (i.e. have paints/webs in fleet). Given that you had a Bellicose (I assume with a paint?), Vexor, and Thorax in addition to the Moas, it's close because you didn't have webs and I assume your fleet's skills were not perfect or nearly so.

You had way more than enough DPS had you brought, say, 2 Bellicoses, or a Bellicose and a single-web Hyena (which is almost impossible for Confessors to apply to if it warps at range and stays with logi).

4. In the deadspace around an FW plex, points are relatively unimportant until the final stages of a fight (if you're winning, because you want to spread points so the bad guys can't warp away). This is because warping out guarantees you'll be out of position when you try to warp back to the fleet. More important is the fact that your ceptor pilot died for no good reason at all.

Responses to Budda's Questions

1. There were thought that 200mm Rails would track confessors better? Did we really have the issue with tracking? Or that was just about Deacons?
2. Raido: would you mind a typical fit of your confessors? Is it the same as fit posted by White Orchid in "Inquisition topic"?
3. Raido: would you accept if I offered to fight with no logies?
4. Anybody interested to take a revanche? If "yes", please email in-game. If I get at least 5 personal replies I will organize another topic on forum where we will discuss doctrine for the next fight and will speak with Raido about another fight in few weeks.
5. Was it really a good call to (at least try to) engage at 15km?

1. 200mm rails have a bit of a tracking advantage. After talking to Waffles FCs with more experience with Moas, the 200mm rail Moa has three advantages over the 250mm rail Moa (better tracking, because 200mm rails, better tank, because you can add an extra field extender instead of the ancillary router, and better DPS, because you can have 3 magstabs instead of 2 magstabs and a PDS) and two disadvantages (less range, because 200mm rails, and worse cap life, because of the PDS). In general, 250mm Moas have been used in nullsec a lot, because nullsec fleet doctrines often need range more than the ability to punch down against T3Ds, and also because Brave Newbies used Moas as an intro ship for their Moa/Eagle/Railgu doctrine and the Moa has range issues in that comp even with 250mm rails.

(I should not have to say this, but of course I am referring exclusively to AB Moas, fit as follows. The MWD Moa is an utterly horrific idea that is inferior to all normal MWD cruiser doctrines (Caracals, MWD Mallers, TWEETs, kite Vexors, etc), as well as being grossly inferior to the AB Moa. Sigh.)

Spoiler

[Moa, Canadian Freedom Fleet]

Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

10MN Afterburner II
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

200mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge M
200mm Railgun II, Federation Navy Antimatter Charge M

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I


Hornet EC-300 x3


Javelin M x1500
Spike M x1500
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M x1500
Caldari Navy Thorium Charge M x1500
Caldari Navy Tungsten Charge M x1500
Nanite Repair Paste x50
Synth Drop Booster x2

2. Yes, we were using the standard Waffles Phalanx doctrine. As I've said to several Uni folks, I think the 200mm plated fit with Focused Beam Lasers is better for most Uni applications, because it's hard for the Uni to field more than 10 Confessors and in those numbers DPS is more important than buffer.

3. Not in this doctrine, because my ships are worth about twice as much as yours and without logi on either side we probably would have just welped. You should consider, however, the fact that warping your entire fleet to zero resulted in your fleet having insufficient logi while I had full logi - preserving your own logi squad would have made for a very different engagement.

In other doctrines, I might have considered it, but in general if I undock a fleet and fly it 10-12 jumps to go meet another fleet, I'm not going to tell the people who did me the favor of flying logi that they can't get content. We were 3j from the LSC and you should have pinged more.

4. Always up for more, either in same doctrines with you forming the right number/comp, or in different doctrines.

5. Had you actually started at a range that allowed for engaging at 15-20km, that would have been ideal as you could have tried to match transversal and you would have tracked much better. Again, this goes to the bad warp-in.

Commentaries on Analiese's Post

Your tactical analysis is pretty much correct, although we had 3 Deacons and a Thalia for a total of 4 logi frigs, as I said above.

Navy Thorium is extremely standard on all rail fits; anyone who only had Javelin/AM/Spike was fit incorrectly, because you then have a huge range band (literally dozens of kilometers thick) in which AM can't track and Spike can't track. Thorium would have been the correct ammo type had you started at your expected range; it does considerably more damage than Spike, tracks better, and can hit out to 30km fairly well.

Other Feedback

1. Ping more. If you had 18 in fleet when I left Kinakka, you should certainly have had more than that by the time we arrived (and we were waiting in various South Placid systems for quite a while). If you have a guaranteed fleet fight, you should be harassing people in every Uni Mumble channel and telling them to get the hell into fleet, and then sending people to do it again while you form. We pinged our Discord at least four times to get the fleet that I had.

2. You need at least 2 Bellicoses to apply well with 250mm rails, and 3 plus a Hyena would be better. They also have RLMLs, which are somewhat nice for the burst damage. As I didn't see a paint on my ship while I was being primaried, I'm unsure of how your Bellicose was fit. It should be fit as follows, and anchored on your logi.

Spoiler

[Bellicose, Moa support]

Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

10MN Afterburner II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Target Painter II

Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I

3. I'm not sure how many jam drones you had in fleet, but whoever put them on me was mistaken. All WAFFLES members are supposed to be capable of FCing, and if I'm jammed I just tell someone who knows what's up and is flying a DPS ship to take over target calling for a minute. All jams should be on the Deacons, where they can actually matter.

4. Against Confessors, correctly-flown ewar frigates are very strong because you can pull range and be effective from outside any convenient optimal. Newbies who can't fly cruisers would therefore still have been quite helpful.

5. The shield Bellicose was a very special person who, I guess, didn't have a Confessor. I only wish he had had the decency to fit a hyperspatial so as not to slow the fleet down.

7. PING MORE.

Hope this is helpful. Anyone should feel free to hit me up on Slack with questions.

[Rikki Bigg]

In what order did the members of the fleet die?

What was the enemy fleet calling as targets?

You stated that three moa and a bellicose lived to share this story, but that means none of the logistics opsrey lived.

The concern being that for all the talk of how tanky the moa are, and how well they take reps to stay on field and live, if the logistics of the fleet are not equally tanky, then logistics get primaried off the field, followed slowly by the mainline dps.

Is this what you say play out during the engagement, or something different?

*Edit* Raido made his eloquent very good aar post sometime after I started typing this but before I posted, and thus answered the sentiment I was looking for entirely. Take note of his post for what kind of information is helpful in an AAR.

[Coaxster]

Being the trouble maker I am, I'd like to point out a few things for this fledgling FC (and other FC wannabes).

First off, you told the enemy FC how many fleet members you had. He still came with 25% more than that. And from what he said, he will always do this.

Second, note that the enemy FC said if you had done everything right, he would NOT have taken the fight. He would have futzed around until you DID mess up (by permitting the fight on his terms).

Just ponder the above....

[White 0rchid]

Ignore Coaxster for a second (as he absolutely hates Waffles and doesn't exactly hide it) and ponder on who the one giving the real feedback in this thread is

[Korros Kolada]

To repeat myself, since others keep bringing it up:

There were 3 Osprey total in the Uni fleet. Definitely only 3 of us in the cap chain.

2 Osprey were killed; they were primary after the fleet landed (so just after the tackle cepter).

Timeline can be seen from the battle report Budda linked in the OP: http://evf-eve.com/services/brcat/?s=37 ... 1&e=30&t=r

And thanks for the comment Raido. It really helps to get such a thorough perspective from the other side. =)

[Glen Burney]

As with so many things in EvE, the answer to the question, "Who will win this fight between Waffles and E-UNI," is "It Depends." I personally think this fight was even-ish, and I wonder what would have happened if the Moas and logi were able to successfully establish range control?

Budda, I am sad I missed this fight, I wasn't available due to IRL issues. I am, however, heartened by your enthusiasm for leadership and deep thinking regarding fleet operations. Don't be discouraged by turnout. Keep scheduling fleets, practicing your techniques, and learning from them. Pilots will come.

Raido thanks as always for your support of UNI operations and tremendous feedback. Invaluable.

If I may add, I think that target painters would have been excellent in this engagement. Paint those deacons!

[Budda Sereda]

Analiese the entire night:

Spoiler

What should this tell? I'm lost

Analiese the entire night:
I don't really know where to start, so I'm just going to throw out

I think you provided a very valid and constructive feedback. Thanks!

I (in hindsight) figure that the OPTIMAL engagement (the one that gives us the best chance of killing anything) would be warping in at 20km, anchoring, and burning out. The confessors would have to burn towards our fleet in order to catch us, likely in prop mode, giving our fleet the best possible chance to hit using 250mm rails. Our logi would be able to overheat props and get out in front, significantly decreasing the chance that they'll get primaried or if they do get primaried, the chance that they'll actually go down. Careful management of heat on prop/resist mods and capacitor should have led to that situation being sustainable for at least several minutes. This gives the FC several minutes of damage to try to probe their logistics' ability to catch people and swap reps.

That was exactly my plan. I'm glad that is what I was going to implement.
Unfortunately misclick landed us at 0. Now I know, why did this happen.
I was carefully choosing warp range, but because I was speaking I clicked 'push-to-talk' button on mouse, which also triggered a regular mouse click... and unfortunately at that time cursor was on top of the warp-in command

- Try to broadcast targets. It's difficult, and I'm very bad at it as well, but it makes it easier for line members to follow your primaries.

Heh, I thought I did, I was quite proud that I did have time to hit 'X' button - shortcut to broadcast... and if i did not... Will try to improve.

- When you're trying to rotate damage, if you've already locked 3-4 targets then rotate damage back onto a target that is already locked. This has several advantages and one disadvantage. It makes it faster for your fleet to switch dps, it gives less of a warning what the next primary may be because they're already yellowboxed, but it may make it easier for their logi to land reps because they may still have him locked.
- If you are going to switch dps to a new target, call to lock the target before you call to primary - that way the entire fleet will be able to decycle guns and switch dps as a fleet.

Thanks for iterating this. It was indeed my plan, I guess I need to polish the execution.

I really liked the tank of this Moa fit. I ended up being the last Uni pilot ongrid (Raido long pointed me as soon as the fleet landed ♥) and by overheating both invulns and AB I was able to tank all of the confessors for about 45 seconds, even after they landed webs.

Yeah, TBH, if we did not land at 0 we could at least stand longer and have more fun controlling range, switching primaries, and have time to disengage in a bigger number. And from further Raido's comments I see if we landed at range we would have some sort of interesting game of catching opponent out of position.

I came to this fight with a few assumptions that seem not to have worked as expected

Honestly, I did have the same expectations.

I was actually pretty nervous about my ability to break 4 Ospreys' reps on Moas with 8 Confessors.

Did we really have 4? I think it was 3.

To make it crystal clear: We won the fight when the Uni fleet warped at zero. Not a moment before, not a moment later.

I do agree, and that's why I would prefer to have backup in terms of bigger number.

By the time the two Ospreys were off the field, I'd dipped into mid armor twice because some of your fleet members were targeting me (the Vexor and the Bellicose, so two flights of drones and RLMLs) in what I take to be an attempted headshot in violation of orders. Since logi had had me prelocked for the entire 5 minutes we'd spent at the Medium before you warped in, this didn't end up mattering too much.

That's interesting to learn... It is either me poorly coordinating/broadcasting or because people did not follow. That's discouraging.
I did know you as FC will be prelocked by logies so primaring you was my lowest priority. And if we all focused on real primaries... looks like we had chance to shoot down something?

1. No comment. Seriously, this was a "jump instead of bridge" kind of thing; I hope it's funny in retrospect.

No, it is not funny for me. I did see reports when people warped Titans at 0 instead of at range and caused fleets to fail.
I'm only happy I caused loss of Moas, not Titans Hope that is a lesson I learned today to not repeat in future.

4. In the deadspace around an FW plex, points are relatively unimportant until the final stages of a fight (if you're winning, because you want to spread points so the bad guys can't warp away). This is because warping out guarantees you'll be out of position when you try to warp back to the fleet. More important is the fact that your ceptor pilot died for no good reason at all.

But... if all confessors will warp-out been in structure... we won't really kill ANYTHING... Do I miss the point? What prevents fessor which is 10-20% in armor to align out when he clearly sees that his logies can't keep him alive. He alligns out and warp out...
And if we push out 2-3 more fessors you take whole fleet out. Yes, we won the grid, but killed nothing...

You need at least 2 Bellicoses to apply well with 250mm rails, and 3 plus a Hyena would be better. They also have RLMLs, which are somewhat nice for the burst damage. As I didn't see a paint on my ship while I was being primaried, I'm unsure of how your Bellicose was fit. It should be fit as follows, and anchored on your logi

Bellicoses have 10% lower resist than Moas... and I was afraid they will die too quickly (even with logies), but you did not even primary our single Bellicose... I'm curious why?
And I don't know what was Bellicoses fit, but I asked to get the one which I posted in combat fleet topic: it has lower resist, but bigger buffer. I guess I agree your fit is better considering logies will prelock Bellicoses.

I'm not sure how many jam drones you had in fleet, but whoever put them on me was mistaken. All WAFFLES members are supposed to be capable of FCing, and if I'm jammed I just tell someone who knows what's up and is flying a DPS ship to take over target calling for a minute. All jams should be on the Deacons, where they can actually matter.

It was not what I asked or expected... and agree if something jammed, it should be logies.
BTW: were drones able to jam you at all?

First off, you told the enemy FC how many fleet members you had. He still came with 25% more than that. And from what he said, he will always do this.

Raido honestly told: he does expect more people to join on the way.
See copy from Slack:

Raido Kudonen [9:52 PM]
I'm forming

[9:52]
not sure how many I'll get yet

Budda Sereda [9:52 PM]
would you mind to share what ships you will be in?

Raido Kudonen [9:52 PM]
confessors

Raido Kudonen [10:05 PM]
how many do you have now?

Budda Sereda [10:05 PM]
now 17

[10:05]
u?

Raido Kudonen [10:05 PM]
13

[10:09]
yeah I've got 13 in fleet and we're heading out, anyone else who catches up is flying alone to do it

Budda Sereda [10:14 PM]
ok... not too bad... i hope i will get 1-2 more guys and it looks ok-ish

So I trust it was fair.

Second, note that the enemy FC said if you had done everything right, he would NOT have taken the fight. He would have futzed around until you DID mess up (by permitting the fight on his terms).

For me that does make sense. I would do the same.
I would not jump to plex inside if Raido's fleet was inside: why would I put myself into clear disadvantage.
More over, the only reason why I warped to plex is because I was expecting to land at range. This is already discussed above.
I did not know why did Raido allowed me to chose engagement range, and I was unlucky (stupid) to not use this to my fleet advantage.

I guess, there is enough information above to make conclusions and learn lessons. The biggest are:

1. Even with these number we did have chances to kill few confessors and considering price/skills/number I would call that a success
2. People are positive and I will call for another fleet. Though I would like to shift time a bit further, at least 1 hour later.
3. I will rage ping next time.

Stay tuned!

Thanks to all for feedback!

@Raido: if you don't mind, could you please answer 3 more questions highlighted in red?

[Analiese Aubernet]

What prevents fessor which is 10-20% in armor to align out when he clearly sees that his logies can't keep him alive.

An interceptor which doesn't get alpha'ed off grid in the beginning of the fight.

Bellicoses have 10% lower resist than Moas... and I was afraid they will die too quickly (even with logies), but you did not even primary our single Bellicose... I'm curious why?

Raido primaried the logi first, and any Bellicose flown by a competent pilot is gonna overheat and get out of dodge while the logi are busy dying.

To make it crystal clear: We won the fight when the Uni fleet warped at zero. Not a moment before, not a moment later.

I do agree, and that's why I would prefer to have backup in terms of bigger number.

As soon as our fleet landed at zero, we were toast. The only way we win at that point is if we have enough people to literally throw half the fleet away and still have a superior force, at which point you've invoked the true power of the UniBlob™ and nothing really matters anymore.

[Raido Kudonen]

What prevents fessor which is 10-20% in armor to align out when he clearly sees that his logies can't keep him alive.

Confessors don't really align that quickly. You have to break anchor and decycle your prop mod, pick something to align to, warp out.

But moreover, if you do that while your fleet is maneuvering in deadspace, you're basically no more use than if you were dead. If you warp back to the fleet, either you're going to spend a really long time picking a celestial that's aligned with the fleet and the acceleration gate, then warping at the correct range to land perfectly, or you're going to warp back to the acceleration gate, then be split from your fleet and have to burn back to anchor. Either way, the engagement is likely over by the time you get back.

Bellicoses have 10% lower resist than Moas... and I was afraid they will die too quickly (even with logies), but you did not even primary our single Bellicose... I'm curious why?

If the Bellicose pilot is not brain dead, they will burn out and pull range. A Bellicose is almost as fast with a cold AB as the Confessor is in prop mode. Heated, Confessors can't possibly catch it.

It was not what I asked or expected... and agree if something jammed, it should be logies.
BTW: were drones able to jam you at all?

Yes, I think there were two jam cycles. I told an experienced FC in the fleet to call shots while I continued to anchor, then took back normal FC responsibilities as soon as I was unjammed and could continue.

[Budda Sereda]

Sounds like:

1. We don't really need to have tackles in arranged fights at all? But even if we win fight, but all preys leave the grid alive... it is like a sex alone.

2. Looks like we should have more bellicoses, and must have 1. Ok.

3. Sounds like we also do need 1-2 Griffins... and hope they don't die brainless 1st minute of the fight. Just jam logies, not DDs.

[Azure Rogue]

Sounds like:

1. We don't really need to have tackles in arranged fights at all? But even if we win fight, but all preys leave the grid alive... it is like a sex alone.

I don't see this as being true. If you want kills you need tackle. Raido pointed out that Confessors align (somewhat) slowly, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have scattered if you were winning the engagement and didn't have tackle. Who in their right mind sits around and dies when the fight is lost? You NEED tackle to get *more* kills. Always get *more* kills if you can \o/ It sounds like you're interpreting this fight with results-based thinking...you didn't need tackle this time (because you didn't win) so you don't need tackle generally...