[LSC] BLAP Vexors - On a looting spree

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Laser Skaron
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[LSC] BLAP Vexors - On a looting spree

Post by Laser Skaron »

Hauling ops.

So, we quickly form up, undock, and send our scouts out for prey. There seems to be some activity in Old Man's Star so we decide to head that way. Our scouts split up, start looking for targets, and while we catch up to them. Awe and behold, we lands on a gate at the same time an Orca does. I'd like to point out that your FC at this stage thought - well, no fun, non flashy industrial, we're not going to do gate games. Until someone got super hyped on comms and I realized that even with just 2 logi we can tank the gate comfortably. We follow him through the gate and get our first easy picking of the day. The next 15 minutes that followed turned into an orca stripmining opperation. We brought an Occator down from Stacmon to grab loot, we formed an operation to "eject and board fully fitted Navy Slicers" from the belly of the beast. And we landed in quick discussions about those rare mechanics in EVE that have nothing to do with PVP: you can't board a ship while it's locked, looting a yellow wreck with safties set to green (the Occator)... things like that.

Orca +1612.38m

I believe I received 3 or 4 of those Navy Slicers by the end of the fleet. These babies will be eventually used as prizes for some random event that I may hold at some point in the future? The rest of the loot I grabbed will probably be split across our new players in fleet, and our faithful but outnumbered logi.

Now apart from the Orca, we had essentially 4 encounteres I feel are worth talking about. We managed to catch a few other targets, including a juicy Hyperion, but each of these was a one sided engagement. Links for these catches:

Merlin +6.77m
Hyperion +288.82m

1. Cruiser pickings and first ever boosh attempt.

As we head up the Ouelletta pipe, our scouts find us an Omen Navy Issue and an Exequror Navy Issue outside a PLEX. Great stuff to 1

First off, we find an ONI and an Exec Navy outside a PLEX. Normally easy pickings, plus they were fighting eachother but this was probably my first real scenario where I had to call targets in a fight. My thought process. We had tackle on the ONI, we did not yet have point on the Exec but he was not aligning out. I call for DPS to go on the Exec, we very late land point on him (he's at 20-30% armor?) and take him out, but our ONI manages to peel off and kill our fast tackle and successfully warps off. I was actually very surprised he managed to do that. The fleet was at around 20km from the ONI at this stage, and we had 4-5 points on it but no scram/web. He MWD'd out like a champ.

Federation Navy Comet +26.92m
Exequror Navy Issue +96.67m
Punisher -5.94m

The ONI actually came back, and laded at ~80km from us so we decide to boosh and try to catch it. By the time the fleet groups up, the ONI drifts slowly to almost 110km, and we miss him by just a few KM from scram/web range as he runs away. It took us way too long to clump up together for the jump. I was considering to jump with 75% of the fleet when he was at 95km, and in hindsight that was the right time to attempt this, even though 3-4 members would have been left behind for this kill. I also realized now (that I'm writing the AAR) that I did not explain what booshing is to the new pilots in fleet :( damn, sry guys - ball of ships (I think 5k radius) around a command destroyer can jump 100km in a straight line using a Micro Jump Field Generator.

2. Slow comms.

We've had quite good comms quality throughout the fleet, but at one point, one of our members got caught on a gate. It was never clear that he got caught and it took 30-60 seconds after his initial relaxed appeal for help. We were actually about to warp to the next system, as I was even about to jump us ahead before we realised a member was actually under attack. We scramble to save him and in the process we lose another fast tackle, this time to gate guns.

Punisher -5.94m

3. First real fight, kitey stuff.

We find a 7-8 man fleet of ships, cruiser/battlecruiser size up in Heydieles warping around system. We got twice those numbers, I don't fully understand that composition at this stage (I just don't know many ships very well), but it sounds like a good fight to be had, and since we can't really find them we decide to send 4 vexors and 2 logi as bait. The only problem with this bait was the closest large sistem in Heydieles was 40 AU from our gate. Bait worked, they catch, so we splash the fleet in as soon as we can to see what we can do.

Enemy fleet: Curse, Orthrus, Stiletto, Gilla, Phantasm, Drake, Ashimmu, Hurricane Fleet Issue, Vexor Navy Issue. All at 50+ km from us. At this stage I honestly have no clue what to call primary so I sort by range. Some of their faster ships eventually drop under 30km from me and I call them as targets. Orthrus, Gilla, targets that are not ideal and we cannot catch. People point out in comms we should be going for slow targets (if only I knew which those were) and it quickly becomes clear to me that what I'm doing is wrong, and we can't apply any damage. Thus I call to scatter.

We go completely red in this fight, but it felt quite educational. At least in terms of being on the losing side of a mid sized fight.

Jaguar -31.37m
Rupture -28.94m
Blackbird -15.76m
Vexor -16.54m
Capsule -0.06m

3. There's a Pheonix flying around.

We find a Pheonix. We observe it for quite a bit of time (while people are taking a break), and our paths eventually converge on the same gate. People have a generally positive attitude, so I rally up my chanting skills and tell everyone, guys, we're going for the Phoenix, we're gonna scram him, bump him off the gate and take him down.

For quite a while, we continue to be breaking his defenses, but we get third partied and welped. For quite some time the other fleet did not engage us, and we were hoping they'd help with the dread, but 10-20 seconds later they decide to take us down, and then they fail to kill the big juicy target. I call for scatter as this is not a fight we can take in that scenario, but 70% of the fleet doesn't make it.

Malediction -37.12m
Atron -5.19m
Sentinel -33.4m
Vexor -28.83m
Vexor -15.69m
Exequror -22.63m
Breacher -3.03m
Magus -74.78m
Vexor -18.27m
Vexor -15.72m
Exequror -29.05m
Vexor -36.6m
Vexor -31.03m
Vexor -45.13m

Fun thing though, no one loots the field, so we end up having another 10-15 minute looting campaign (this time much less efficient, due to a limited number of ships available, and a small gatecamp that locks a bunch of us in Ichoriya as we reship (camp was tiny and we could have broken through ti if we really wanted to - but I was concerned we just welped everyone.

The way home

We end up taking too long to do our 2nd looting operation, so we end up with quite a few ships to head home with. We find nothing on our way but we get harassed by a group of confessors. At some point, we harass them back while they are flashy, so we can get through a couple gates. 1 hour later we find out: ow hey, we got a kill.

Deacon +40.87m

Final Stats

ISK Destroyed: 2,072,426,322.18
ISK Lost: 501,025,534.57
ISK Delta: 1,571,400,787.61
Efficiency: 80.531%
Last edited by Laser Skaron on 2017.05.09 22:41, edited 1 time in total.
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Laser Skaron
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Re: [LSC] BLAP Vexors - On a looting spree

Post by Laser Skaron »

Goals for this fleet.

I've posted my personal goals for taking out this fleet ahead of time here, let's go over them.

1. First cruiser sized roam FC. We failed to do much against a kitey doctrine. We had decent success on gates/plexes if we closed range early.

2. Try to get a huge logi wing. We only got 2 logi sigh could not try out to see the effects of a large logi wing.

3. Target signaling and broadcasting. I felt slow at it, I called wrong targets, but I did call targets, and I generally broadcast them (even though sometimes late). I feel like that went ok overall.

4. Anchoring. Completely failed, we got spread out and my anchoring calls got lost mid way through fight. Need some more practice on this.

5. Concise comms. Generally I think this went ok... People's feedback after the fleet claimed it was quite enjoyable on comms.

Other general observations.

This fleet was recorded (and fleet mates were aware). There was some pressure I put it up online, and I may edit it parts of it at some point and do so. But I scrolled through about 20-30 minutes after the fleet just to get a feel of how things were going. Holy potatoes there's so much I'm messing up.
- I click a TON in space and move my camera almost constantly without real benefit (zooming in and out like crazy). I feel like it takes me 2-3 camera movements to figure out what I want to see about a certain situation, 2-3 more to actually get to see it.
- My mic is coming through quite low volume.
- I miss a LOT, it's interesting to see how much extra information was available to me in so many scenarios that I just didn't see in flight.

I totally recommend you guys try recording your roams as you get a ton of value out of skimming through them (probably way more value than anyone who actually requested I upload this roam will ever get from watching it).
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Breeze One
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Re: [LSC] BLAP Vexors - On a looting spree

Post by Breeze One »

Was a great fleet Laser thanks! Lot of fun.

On the Russian fight, I could see your thought process trying to grab the closest ship, and it made sense. One suggestion though (for everyone really) is changing overview settings so it shows you the speed and transversal (less relevant here) of all ships on grid.

With that you'd instantly see that every enemy ship on grid was moving at 3km/s+ even if you don't know the ships themselves that well. I like the fact we took the fight, we should probably just have bailed out faster when it became obvious we had no chance of catching anyone. Some Damps would have been nice here too to shake off the Orthrus tackle.

On a broader note: I think everyone (especially scouts) need to appreciate how slow this doctrine is. Getting point on a target 20km away who is moving even 1km/s from the main fleet is just asking to get picked off (you could say it's "pointless' hahahahahaha...yeah shut up Breeze) You quickly move out of Logi range, and without at least a scram, it's impossible for anyone to join you (unless it's on a gate and we can get a warp in)

That said, you also need a scout ship which can survive being in scram/web range long enough for the fleet to join in.

I think it was Raido who suggested last time using a Hecate for this - T1 or Intys just aren't a good scout ship for this doctrine. I did remember this during form up but didn't speak up sorry, and it was only half way through the roam I realized we were using T1 Frigates with points as scouts.

Only other comment I'd make is it was occasionally a bit hard to hear your orders Laser. I think you let a few of us have too much leeway on comms :oops: and amongst some of the loud voices in fleet offering advice it was hard to pick out your actual commands. I think that's a common issue with our fleets though :D

I like that we went for Phoenix even if it was ultimately futile. Maybe we only had a 10% chance of getting the kill even if the Russians didn't 3rd party, but I like those odds, especially given we were already heavily ISK positive from the Orca.
Last edited by Breeze One on 2017.05.10 08:17, edited 1 time in total.
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Ersin Oghuz
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Re: [LSC] BLAP Vexors - On a looting spree

Post by Ersin Oghuz »

Breeze One wrote:Only other comment I'd make is it was occasionally a bit hard to hear your orders Laser. I think you let a few of us have too much leeway on comms :oops: and amongst some of the loud voices in fleet offering advice it was hard to pick out your actual commands. I think that's a common issue with our fleets though :D
That is correct. And I was one of bad guys who gave you hard time by speaking and I felt terrible after fleet. Next time I count you shut us up :)

And what will we do with Slicers? I did not check but i was told that one is contracted to me? Will we merge the slicers for SRP costs etc or keep them as spoils of war?

On my part it was educational fleet for BLAP vexors since i am still learning the capabilities of BLAP vexors. Thanks for assigning me as 2IC as well. I also learnt new thing here that we can launch assmebled Ships from wreck itself. If the ships were repackaged we probably could not do that but I saw launch option and tried. Fleet was jumpy after they saw neutral Slicers on space but I explained that I was the one who launched them and then as Laser said it turned to be a salvage op :lol: .

As for Phoenix we all wanted to kill it and as FC you probably test the fleet and it was good thing :) Even we had a low chance we tried. But 3rd party clear out any odds we had and I was shocked why they did not team up with us until we all kill the Phoenix. Then they could kill us later :lol: But it is lowsex so I guess when they saw easy prey they took it and bail out from Phoenix not to awaken the dragon and lose their precious shiny ships :)
"In Blasters I Trust"

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Laser Skaron
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Re: [LSC] BLAP Vexors - On a looting spree

Post by Laser Skaron »

Breeze One wrote:Was a great fleet Laser thanks! Lot of fun.
On the Russian fight, I could see your thought process trying to grab the closest ship, and it made sense. One suggestion though (for everyone really) is changing overview settings so it shows you the speed and transversal (less relevant here) of all ships on grid.
I actually have that set up, it's just a field I'm not used to looking at very often. But good advice indeed :).
Breeze One wrote:Only other comment I'd make is it was occasionally a bit hard to hear your orders Laser. I think you let a few of us have too much leeway on comms :oops: and amongst some of the loud voices in fleet offering advice it was hard to pick out your actual commands. I think that's a common issue with our fleets though :D
Ersin Oghuz wrote:And I was one of bad guys who gave you hard time by speaking and I felt terrible after fleet. Next time I count you shut us up :)
I really didn't know my mic was coming through that low. Heard it on the recording and it's quite awful. Need to upgrade. Part of the reason was me wanting to record this as my previous setup didn't allow for that. I'm sorry for that :(. And Ersin, I really didn't feel like you were giving me a hard time. Good job on calling shots during fights while I wasn't on grid after we were baiting - there was no clear order for you to do that but it went quite well - also letting me resume command once I landed.

Now, I do have to speak up as FC when I give an order, gotta make things clearer I agree, but my perception now is there is a good enough amount of information going through comms and I don't think people talking too much was an issue.
Breeze One wrote: I like that we went for Phoenix even if it was ultimately futile. Maybe we only had a 10% chance of getting the kill even if the Russians didn't 3rd party, but I like those odds, especially given we were already heavily ISK positive from the Orca.
I noticed from killmails the guy was able to take us out with torpedoes and I guess we had low odds of taking him out. Worth a shot :D. SRP is still a thing, we gotta have fun while we can in space.
Ersin Oghuz wrote: And what will we do with Slicers? I did not check but i was told that one is contracted to me? Will we merge the slicers for SRP costs etc or keep them as spoils of war?
If there's one thing I hate as FC so far, is handling "money" for other people in a fleet. My dictatorial prowess doesn't handle economics yet. Feel free to donate them to e-uni, fly them, donate them to me 'cause bling is cool, or find that orca pilot and self destruct a slicer on grid with him. It's completely up too you. I'll use most of what I picked up to sponsor our logi and newbros, 'cause logi is awesome.
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