Arty Thrashers - FC keeps learning

[Budda Sereda]

It was an Arty Thrasher fleet: https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=106008

For me it was a VERY interesting and educational fleet, hopefully, it was the same for participants. At least one more is coming: I do want to get another opportunity to see the strength of the alpha shots. We either will go into Black Rise again, or will stay around Fislipesnes.

Early lessons:

The first mistake I did while composing fits for the fleet: I did not call for scout or tackle. And when we formed up, I was not persisting enough to ask somebody to reship into a scout.

My thought process was: fine, people want to enjoy alphaing things. Why to force them? Just because I need a +1 scout? But I can get my alt for that... I got, but it was an alpha clone (all my other omega alts were not in Stacmon) and it was really challenging to scout from the laptop. Eventually I lost my "scout" https://zkillboard.com/kill/64148292/

Also, during undock we did not have many DDs (only 7) so getting somebody into a tackle would reduce our DD potential.

What I think did good is asked few pilots to have point in their Thrashers so we can point targets if we lose instalockers. Though, I probably should have asked to replace an AB, not a Sensor Booster.

2nd mistake: I did not enforce somebody at least to switch into instalocker. We did lose few pirate frigates warping away very quickly. Not sure if we would catch them with my instalocker, but at least we would have higher chances and tried.

Anyway, we formed up with 7 DD, 2 logies, 1 Hyena (myself). Surprisingly, we get quite a few more people joining the fleet: DDs in Thrashers, and 2 guys roaming in Black Rise in Hawks.

Few kills:

We started moving towards the expected camping location, around Abune flashy Caracal jumped into us and we made a quick work killing it.

(02:40:09) Abune
Caracal +35.07m
Only now, writing AAR and analyzing kill I see that this kill was only possible due to having a Hyenna in fleet. Without bonused double web MWD caracal would just run away (we did not have scram and took quite a bit of time to get him down) or even if we had, we would not land it on time as we were AB fit.
I could be wrong here and would like to hear comments from more experienced pilots and FCs.

We came into Tama, Kedama, made ping BMs near gates, tried to catch few frigates jumping back-and-forth... and after few unsuccessful attempts to catch them I've decided to look into other systems.

I asked few DDs with points to move into plexes of nearby systems, and move towards Nennamaila.

Scouts spotted flashy Rupture moving towards us, we setup the camp on his probably way and caught him in Pynekastoh:
(03:24:36) Pynekastoh, Hikkoken
Rupture +31.84m

Soon after we got a Thrasher: don't remember if he was flashy or not, but it was an easy kill:
Thrasher +3.21m

A bit later Hyena:
Hyena +36.34m
Not sure if we alphaed it or it would have time to escape with his MWD, but I feel with Hyena we got some additional value here.

Things were getting interesting...

Now it is necessary to say, that my fleet started at the same time as Spectre fleet. We undocked quite early, but left Ostingele literally 5 minutes before Spectre buys and from the very beginning I was feeling pressure they could jump into us.

Here, in Pynekatoh, we were waiting going to engage with few Tristans and Malediction on the gate when I was warned that Daredevil fleet in a number of 10-ish pilots is nearby.

My thinking process was: they most likely will kill us, but we should kill few of them either. And considering price difference that would be ok. So I kept the camp.

But, when those devils jumped into us, it was more than 10 ships: they also had Vigilant, Deacon, Algos, .... and it is shame, but I thought: that's too much, we better run. And I called scatter, but, literally one second after that I realized, it is too late, most likely half of us will be pointed and killed.
I probably should have changed the decision and asked to hit "Ctrl+Space", call primary and try killing it.

Thrasher -14.48m
Thrasher -6.87m
Hyena -53.15m
Thrasher -10.85m
Thrasher -6.19m
Thrasher -14.5m
Thrasher -3.87m

To be honest, not a big deal, I worry more about not making the decision to leave the gate before the devils' swarm arrived. And 2nd thing which makes me sad is that after I decided to fight those devils we did not at least try to shoot few.

Anyway, as usually happens, half of the fleet dropped, and the rest reshipped in Ichoriya. Quite interesting, I was able to buy almost a standard fit (only 200mm plates were compact, not T2) for the normal Jita price.

We moved into Nennamaila and spotted Griffin Navy Issue landing on Hikkoken gate. We jumped through, and handled him on the other side of the gate:

(04:00:32) Hikkoken
Griffin Navy Issue +28.58m

Classical gate camp: it was alphaed in two volleys. Good job all!

We moved towards Kedama/Tama. Spotted a fight which just happened in Kedama 500km from the gate. I wanted to catch those guys on surprise and warped the fleet (5-6 thrashers) to a wreck near the two Tristans: we landed few shots on one, but he had MWD and we neither had scram no bonused webs so he ran away. 2nd was already far.

We probably should run away immediately, but Tristan friends wer nearby so they landed and killed few of us:

(04:13:50) Kedama
Navitas -8.52m
Thrasher -14.77m

After that very few people left in the fleet. First I wanted to lead all us back home, but it was only 2 scouts and 1 DD (sorry, don't remember exactly the pilots name) and they told me they are ok to keep roaming so I called it a night.

Interestingly, we ended up to be ISK positive

ISK Destroyed: 135,050,894.35
ISK Lost: 134,743,170.1
ISK Delta: 307,724.25
Efficiency: 50.057%

Many thanks to:
1. Trevor for joining as logy pilot and to Professor for re-shipping into a logy!
2. Arashi for providing contracts for Thrashers in Stacmon!

Some additional thoughts.

1. Heyna. Expensive ships which stands out by its cost. It has a high value, but costs like 4-5 mainline DD ships (meta). Is it worth bringing it into this sort of fleet? I do assume there is value (I do believe it did help us to get kills of both Caracals and another Hyena), but maybe there is a reasonable alternative?

2. Do we need ABs for fits? Speaking with many more experienced pilots I came up with opinion that not, but 2 Sensor boosters were looking as enough so I did not find what to put as a 3rd module and went with a standard AB. During fleet I called some ships at least to put a point... maybe I should call a point instead of AB?

3. Originally, I was going to do gate-camping only. But, it is either part of my nature that I can't sit calm. Or it would be just boring for all to sit and wait... but we went roaming. And I do believe it was a right decision in this particular fleet: we did get kills and we did get engagements (even though we lost them). What
you guys think? I even remember gate camping in Fislipesnes: even that time we did not sit still. How people camp gates?

P.S. Many thanks to Raido and White helping me to compose and chose fits for the doctrine. I'm afraid, I did not do as a good student this time.

P.P.S. Please do fill-in the feed-back form guys ( https://goo.gl/forms/W6OTiwPMD2Lu1lmL2 ) and let me know what I could do better. I hope to received constructive feedback as I feel like amount of people joining my fleets got lower than it was in spring.

P.P.P.S. I feel I mastered cathing solo pilots, now need to learn and master fighting small and big gangs

[Mongo the Mechanic]

One insta locking thrasher just deletes most frigates. With 10 you could do the same to most T1 cruisers. I wouldn't even put prop mods on them and just camp gates with eyes(cloaky preferable) on the other side to let you know what is coming. Then just make pings on the gate far enough away to avoid gate guns if in lowsec. Just overheat the point and guns and blap away. With 2x sensor boosters you'll have a scan resolution that lets you catch almost anything. You could even add a cheap T1 frigate with remote sensor boosters or have one or more of the thrashers have a remote sensor booster to up at least one of the thrashers to insane scan res. Just make sure that you do your camping on a regular gate and not on a regional or constellation gate, they are larger and make it harder to catch things.

My fit:
[Thrasher, (null)]
Gyrostabilizer II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

Warp Disruptor II
Sensor Booster II (Scan resolution script)
Sensor Booster II (Scan resolution script)

280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S
280mm Howitzer Artillery II, Republic Fleet EMP S

Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I

[Aeliyah Thor]

Liked the fleet, felt like we needed a few more Thrashers to be really effective although. I thought we would be able to kill things faster than we did but they all were damn tanky haha. Never used tacticals as much as I did on this fleet and certainly wished I had a few of them, one day :=)

[Budda Sereda]

One insta locking thrasher just deletes most frigates. With 10 you could do the same to most T1 cruisers. I wouldn't even put prop mods on them and just camp gates with eyes(cloaky preferable) on the other side to let you know what is coming. Then just make pings on the gate far enough away to avoid gate guns if in lowsec. Just overheat the point and guns and blap away. With 2x sensor boosters you'll have a scan resolution that lets you catch almost anything. You could even add a cheap T1 frigate with remote sensor boosters or have one or more of the thrashers have a remote sensor booster to up at least one of the thrashers to insane scan res. Just make sure that you do your camping on a regular gate and not on a regional or constellation gate, they are larger and make it harder to catch things.

Hi Mongo, Getting ReSeBos for at least some of Thrashers could be an interesting option. This would require more coordination, but can remove needs of having a separate instalocker.

I agree we should alpha frigates, but I'm not sure about cruisers. That Caracal stayed alive if not whole minute than at least 30 seconds. Rupture went down much quicker, but it was not an alpha yet, it was solid 15-20 maybe even more seconds... I explain this by distance: at optimal, T2 all L5 skills my version of Thrasher (7510 EHP) does 1543 HP damage in optimal, which is 10.8km, at 20km, where things often appear it is twice less. Your Thrasher (4170 EHP, more dps, less tank) would do 1950 HP damage.

By overheating a point you are assuming targets could be at 28.8km. It is 2nd falloff and dps/alpha at this range is around 30% of normal...

Camping on a regular gate is not always an option. We could sit still in Nennamaila gate, not even on Kedama... but how much traffic will we get? I guess we need to accept we will need to catch whenever targets are.

Thanks for feedback anyway!

[Kora K]

o/ Budda

My 2 cents on some of your questions :

Spoiler

The first mistake I did while composing fits for the fleet: I did not call for scout or tackle. And when we formed up, I was not persisting enough to ask somebody to reship into a scout.

My thought process was: fine, people want to enjoy alphaing things. Why to force them? Just because I need a +1 scout? But I can get my alt for that... I got, but it was an alpha clone (all my other omega alts were not in Stacmon) and it was really challenging to scout from the laptop. Eventually I lost my "scout"
Also, during undock we did not have many DDs (only 7) so getting somebody into a tackle would reduce our DD potential.

What I think did good is asked few pilots to have point in their Thrashers so we can point targets if we lose instalockers. Though, I probably should have asked to replace an AB, not a Sensor Booster.

2nd mistake: I did not enforce somebody at least to switch into instalocker. We did lose few pirate frigates warping away very quickly. Not sure if we would catch them with my instalocker, but at least we would have higher chances and tried.

It can be "tricky" indeed to force people into a different role, but don't hesitate to instit depending on the fleet. Have a estimation of how many scouts, logis, eyes, ... you need to have, and don't proceed with the form-up until you have them. Of course, depending on the kind of fleet you are running, you can be somewhat flexible (like this one), and adapt your plan with the comp you have when undocking. I had to cancel some fleets because we didn't have enough logis / inties. You can also downship or go kitchen sink if you still want to run a fleet.
Sometimes, specialized role are essential to a fleet. IMO, it's better to have less DD but well supported, than more DD and to be whelped at the first fight.

Spoiler

1. Heyna. Expensive ships which stands out by its cost. It has a high value, but costs like 4-5 mainline DD ships (meta). Is it worth bringing it into this sort of fleet? I do assume there is value (I do believe it did help us to get kills of both Caracals and another Hyena), but maybe there is a reasonable alternative?

Being ISK positive, especially in the Uni, should never be a concerned when running a fleet. Of course, it's always nice to kill 2B of ennemy ships with 5M T1 frigs, but it's not the main goal. Try to have a similar range of price for all you ships, otherwise bring what you need and can afford to lose. Having an Hyena when gate camping is always usefull, and will net you more kills/isks even if you lose it.

Spoiler

2. Do we need ABs for fits? Speaking with many more experienced pilots I came up with opinion that not, but 2 Sensor boosters were looking as enough so I did not find what to put as a 3rd module and went with a standard AB. During fleet I called some ships at least to put a point... maybe I should call a point instead of AB?

If you just wanted to sit on gate / outside plexes, I'd have go with 2 SEBOs and a mix of point/scrams (2/3, 1/3) instead of the AB. I can't see how an AB will save you, since you have no tank anyway.

Spoiler

3. Originally, I was going to do gate-camping only. But, it is either part of my nature that I can't sit calm. Or it would be just boring for all to sit and wait... but we went roaming. And I do believe it was a right decision in this particular fleet: we did get kills and we did get engagements (even though we lost them). What
you guys think? I even remember gate camping in Fislipesnes: even that time we did not sit still. How people camp gates?

If you chose your targets carefully, roaming around if gate camping is boring is not an issue. Like BLOBS fleet, gate camping is 99% waiting and 1% shooting. You need to chose your gate carefully (Osti-Stac, Agoze-Ost, Tama-Kedama, LS/NS-HS gates, ...), or be in a somewhat central location and having eyes around to follow gangs/fleets you could go after so you can wait for them on their route.
In the end, do what you think will be fun and go with it

[Budda Sereda]

Thanks Kora!