[AAR] We are ALL Gonna DIE

[Tazaran Reese]

I put that in the title to highlight what turns out the be one of the main feedback I got while on this fleet. Apparently I was a little too fervent pointing out the fact that this was my first fleet action, and only my second time as FC (sort of.) So.... on to the goodies...

We had quite a few people online in the NSC around 00:00 eve time on 19 June. There was talk earlier in the day about how I had led large raids in another MMORPG, and I mentioned that I would likely start looking into FC at some point... Essentially, it came to a head around midnight, and I decided to lead a small fleet and make people dead... note... this is the first time I mentioned the fact that we will likely all die. =-)

I set the fleet as shield tank with a logi/booster. The original intent was to make it a frigate fleet, but that did not quite work out... more to follow. We looked into camping the Rebilar gate, but it was already taken, and decided we would practice setting up a gate camp in X-P. This turned out to be a good idea. This turned into a learning experience for myself and others as we worked out how to bubble up X-P for camping. I leaned about a couple ways you can use bubbles, and we worked out some of the other stuff we were iffy on, like exact locations and such. We were in the process of setting up the last bubble on the PC9 gate in X-P when we had a Malediction jump in. He engaged one of our fleet that was off the gate, and when the rest of the fleet responded, he lit a cyno, jumping in a Sin... bad news. Only about half our fleet was on grid from setting up and I am not sure we had the DPS to take him even then. We did manage to kill the Malediction, but upon lighting the cyno, I called scatter and we lost a Scorpion.

Loss 268 Mil Scorpion
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63028365/

Kill 44 Mil Malediction
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63028359/

Notes on this encounter: We had a debate on the pros/cons of killing the cyno bait. If we kill him prior to anyone jumping in, does that prevent them jumping? The final resolution we got was that it would NOT prevent the rest of the fleet jumping in, but if someone has good reference material on this, please link it below.

Lessons Learned form this encounter include quite a bit of stuff on how to set up bubbles, and different ways you can do so for different reasons. Also, we learned that just because a cyno is lit, does not mean 50 people are about to jump you. We believe that the cyno was lit just to jump in that Sin. Does this mean I plan to hang out just to see in the future? ... Um.. yeah no...

Once we had a good handle on the fact that the Sin was not going to hunt us down (I had the group gather at one of my safes) we started to set up the camp again. We had a call for assistance from PC-9, which while not technically part of the fleet, included our scouts... so here it is...

A NSC member in PC9 started hunting a neutral in system. He managed to lock him down and called in assistance from our fleet and members in PC9 at the time. The tackled on the T22 gate and took him down.

Kill 36 Mil Stabber
https://zkillboard.com/kill/63028651/

This particular encounter was SOP for NSC... Someone enters the area that is not blue... we hunt... we kill. Good job catching this guy Derek.

At the end of this encounter, we started to fold back to our camp when someone calls out an encounter in another system outside the PC9 pocket. I make the decision to advance and try to catch people hunting the rogue drone sites at the suggestion of a member of the fleet. We had a few encounters with no decision. I put the scouts out moving through JH-M2W, ZVN5-H and toward 6E-57B and 6-CZ49. When the scout plussed into 6-C, we found a fleet of 4-5 members holding the gate there, and two others in system. I had the scout start trans-versing the system looking for the others while I started moving the fleet around to another gate on the same system. My thought was to enter 6-C from another gate and try to jump them from the inside, making the fight more even. While doing this, our scout reported a dreadnought in system. At the same time, our other scout reported the disappearance of the fleet we were hunting, and we started getting small ships on grid. I made the only decision I thought I could and ordered the fleet back to JH-M2W and regrouped on the PC9 gate. If the fleet of 4 ish came to us, it would favor us, and if the dread came, we could retreat into home territory. We got reports that the dread and the other fleet were circling around neighboring systems. I started to move the fleet back to our camp in X-P thinking to resume our camp, but at that time, the dread jumped into PC9. I ordered the fleet to dock.

I cannot confirm that the dread was with the other fleet, but I suspect it. They messaged me looking for a fight, and I responded something to the effect of um no... dread trying to hunt us. They offered to kill it, and when I said sure go ahead, they quickly backed down.

Lessons learned..

I learned it is hard to keep track of multiple scouts and the components of a fleet at the same time. My biggest tool for this was the website https://eveeye.com/ , which allowed me to track our movement and plan where to go next. The interface is a little hard to get used to, but the mass of information you can get form it makes me recommend it highly to anyone doing FC. I had it set to show kills in last hour per system, and to trace my movement as the fleet moved around so I could keep track of where I was, had been and where I wanted to go. I could even set waypoints from inside the webpage. (The waypoint feature has glitched on me once since I started using it, so always double check.)

I also learned that I need to watch how I proceed during a fleet. I wasn't as confident as I would like, and it showed in how I dealt with some of the situations. I did manage a good command voice from running large raids as previously noted. Once I did that the fleet responded well and together, but me questioning decisions caused some confusion. I need to come up with a way to ask advice from members without relinquishing the coherence needed to lead a fleet.

Overall it was a good learning experience for me. This was my first fleet leading multiple people on a hunt, and while we were not isk positive, we did learn a ton.

One thing does occur to me... I lead a single encounter last night due to the fact we needed coordination on a hunt... and um... we had a cyno lit on us then too... hmm.

Thanks to everyone for making my first fleet great.

Cheers =-)

~Taz~