[AAR] Solitude Impromptu Roam (Aug 31 00:45)

[Yuri Levnik]

Howdy all,
We were a little bored down in Soli, so we went on an impromptu roam. We got a couple of ganks on gates, got beaten by a sneaky Hurricane, and fought some rats. Overall, a good day out.

Attendees:

Spoiler

Amira Evolta - Scout/Tackle
Anna Iwaira - DD
Calder Ormand - DD
Sioban Mernher - DD
Sturym - DD
Tom Endares - DD
Traven O'Toole - DD
Yuri Levnik - FC

We shipped up into Caracals in Boystin - Gravity Well and prepared to go clone hunting out west toward Aridia. I predicted that we would have no PVP content at this time at a Thursday and accidentally reverse jinxed us, causing PVP content to appear. We killed a battleship rat in Cadelanne first, then headed over to Vevelonel to look for 0.1 system clone troopers. In Elore, we found a decloaked Helios getting shot by rats on the gate to Meunvon. Confused, I ordered the fleet to land and engage, but the pilot was already most of the way through armor and my initial missile salvo blapped him before anyone else got any shots in. Sorry y'all! Most of his fit dropped, which was nice. Still don't know what he was doing sitting a gate in an untanked T2 exploration frigate... Disconnect? Hard to say. One of our DD guys decided to pop his pod and learned why we usually don't pod non-flashies in low sec: he got a criminal timer and a security status hit.
Lessons learned:

• -We usually don't shoot non-flashy pods in low sec due to the criminal timer and security status hit
  -Gate guns "forget" about you if you warp off and warp back
  -While flashy (criminal or suspect, doesn't matter) you can still dock up and jump gates, and you will not be shot by gate guns in low sec. In high sec,
  criminal status will get you Concorded, but suspect has no effect except that other pilots can shoot you without getting Concorded.

Elore 01:05
Helios +79.2MN

We continued into Anckee and our scout proceeded into Vevelonel, where there were many pilots in system (as it turns out they were waiting to kill an Azbel). I ordered the fleet to sit on the Vevelonel gate and wait for intel. However, Drake Arson jumped through to us, and I knew his logi alt Chocolate ChipCookie would be just behind. He was flying Hurricane/Exequror and he engaged us immediately. Shortly after a Megathron jumped through as well. I was still flashy from killing the Helios so Drake primaried me. When the rest of the fleet started shooting they went suspect and took gate guns. We had just started into his Hurricane's armor when he jumped his logi alt in, and I called primary on the Exeq. Alas, our damage was not high enough to burn the Exeq down as we started losing ships to the Cane and Megathron pretty quickly. I got blown up and Sioban Mernher ordered a scatter shortly afterwards. I wish I had had us at range on the gate as the Cane was autocannon fit and we could have tried to kite, though our odds against Hurricane/Exequror/Megathron/gate guns were pretty bad no matter the tactics. I also had our stealth bomber with the fleet (I was not providing any special instructions for the SB) and he got popped immediately for a pricey loss.
Anckee 01:13
Caracal -24.2MN
Manticore -59.0MN
Caracal -14.8MN
Caracal -28.2MN

We made our way back to Gravity Well and reshipped, then headed out again. We got as far as Y9G-KS before hearing there was a BLOPS fleet in Conomette. We decided not to fly past the BLOPS fleet and headed into Null for some ratting instead. We blasted a few rats in UTKS-5, then scared away the ice miners in I-YGGI. A legion showed up but didn't really want to fight (probably good for us) though it did chase one of our pilots who had gone ahead a bit. Once the Legion disappeared, we blasted a few more rats in A-ZLHX and, dropped the loot in station and headed home. We found what was apparently Caveman bait in Pertinineere on the way home - an Atron on the gate in from Y9G-KS, with a buddy in a Dragoon waiting to jump whoever took the bait. We took the bait and blasted the Atron, but failed to point the Dragoon before he warped off.
Pertinineere 02:24
Atron +0.9MN

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 80.1MN
ISK Lost: -126.2MN
ISK Delta: -46.1MN
Efficiency: 39%

What went well:

• -We formed up and shot things!
  -Fleet did a great job of keeping up despite my mediocre performance.
  -Learned about gate guns and suspect/criminal timers.
  -Fleet swapped targets to the Exequror when I called for a swap. Didn't get us a kill today, but shooting the right target is how we get kills in the future.
  -SRP coverage for most losses (sorry Anna!).

What could have gone better:

• -Ideally, I would have had us 30km off the gate when the Cane/Exeq/Megathron came through. We wouldn't have killed them but we would have had more pilots escape, especially the stealth bomber.
  -I could have done a much better job of providing directions for the stealth bomber in general. Next time, SB please warp in at range to the fleet and cloak up. I will set up a separate wing and wing warp instead of fleet warp so the SB (and other snowflakes) don't get dragged along.
  -I was a bit off my game and did not delegate anchoring or conscript a 2IC, so I was trying to do everything myself. Too much for one guy to do well, need to keep in the habit of delegating specific tasks, although...
  -We had other players besides the FC issuing commands, which resulted in some mix-ups. If you want to FC, I heartily encourage you to form a fleet - please let me know and I will help! But please don't FC my fleet while I'm already FCing, please.

I'll distribute payment for the loot when I get a chance. Thanks for coming out y'all!
Yuri

[Anna Iwaira]

Interesting fleet - not sure if the lesson I learnt was the correct one but I'll put it down nontheless

- as I was stealth bombing, I feel I needed to keep track of what I was doing more than what the rest of the fleet was being asked to do - blindly opening fire on that hurricane after being warped into the gate lead to a very swift death for me

- due to the nature of a stealth bomber I feel like I need to act a bit more like a scout, stay with the fleet or one jump ahead but otherwise do my own thing (under the supervision of the FC of course, no running into a fleet and trying to solo it and then pinging for help when I die)

If what I wrote here is wrong I'd appreciate correction - I'd love to be able to support fleets with covops

[Yuri Levnik]

I agree that my decision to keep you with the fleet was a bad one. Sorry about the expensive loss );

Interested to hear what others think about how to incorporate a stealth bomber into a Caracal fleet...

[Traven O'Toole]

Another fun fleet - I'm still liking Yuri as FC. I'll admit I don't have a ton of experience with other leaders, but Yuri has been obviously making some effort to stay consistent in command. Last nights fleet was not quite as well organized as the Caracool Cruise from last week, but as an impromptu fleet I wasn't expecting it to quite match up, at any rate. Commands still generally in triplicate, keeping the fleet together, and recovering from mistakes or bad situations well. I hadn't previously seen an FC go down in combat, and without a proper 2IC pre-determined it was interesting to see how that worked out.

As for lessons:

-Pay attention to what my tank is, and how disproportionate my hull/armor/shield is. I saw my shield dipping near armor, and thought I'd still have at least a few moments in armor/hull before I blew. Nope. Once my shield was down, ship destruction was almost immediate. I was trying to figure out the best time to warp out, but that time had passed. BLAP Caracal is 5:1 shield tank, and probably closer to 10:1 when shield resist modules are taken into account.

-Align for escape when in PvP. The rats posed little real threat, but in PvP I'm still relying on a habit of orbiting my targets, and if I'd aligned instead I likely could have still escaped, even having seen how quickly my armor was dropping after shields. Unsure if I should align for entire fights, or maybe once I'm taking serious damage. Also unsure if I should stay on grid in these situations, but I think that depends on fleet and FC in organized situations.

-Be more careful about warp/jump. Twice in this fleet I jumped through when I should have warped - and one of those was even the wrong gate. I was able to see that local was clear in Y9G before our scout was in... but DD shouldn't be doing that. I was just lucky in this case, and was able to meet back up with fleet and it posed no extra danger. In other situations, this could be absolutely terrible for myself and the whole fleet.

[Sturym]

I feel all of these are very valid points. I've been on a couple fleets, but most notibly when Yuri is FCing. I do agree it got a little confusing at points, but that's the nature of the beast with other players.

Here's my thoughts:

-For sure warping to 0 on gate may not be best approach with Caracals. The short of it is if someone comes through, we're basically caught with our pants around our ankles. If someone flashes in with something like what we encountered last night, I feel an immeidate scatter and regroup would be neccesary.

-As for Anna and the SB, I'll gladly bring my SB next time too so you're not alone. In short, we can make a bomber wing and wing warp instaed of fleet warp. Two reasons:
1. My understanding is fleet warp warps us all to generally the same location, putting us within 2km of each other and killing the CovOps cloak.
2. If we warp into a fight/trap, we're not immediately in danger as we have the ability to remain sneaky sneaky and get the drop when needed.

If Anna and I were in SBs and outside the Exequror's range of guns, we could have possible been the deciding factor for DPS on his armor. I guess I haven't personally taken one down, but I imagine our DPS would have almost doubled for us vs. the Caracal damage. I couldn't see how much Armor Rep he was getting.

Either way, despite the hiccups and miscommands, I feel the fleet went fairly well. We did get some good rat loot. Always a joy to join! Look forward to more!

[Yuri Levnik]

Sturym, I like that plan. Rohan and Etchard helped me figure out how to set up the fleet so I can wing warp just the mainline DD wing. I could put bombers in a seperate wing which would allow stealth bombers to move independently. You guys would have your own "bomber FC" and move and engage on your own terms. Very nice.

Thinking about the fleet overall, I think my main issue was not assigning a 2IC. You guys may have noticed that I assign a lot of worm to my 2ICs. I'm not a very good multitasker, so I do a lot better when I can focus on moving the fleet and let someone else deal with administrative tasks. That is even more true right now since I nearly broke my right hand two weeks ago and it is difficult (and painful) for me to type quickly or move the mouse a lot. There is good news, however - y'all can help! Here's what I always need help with, even if you aren't 2IC:

• -If I ask "could someone post [system] ([ship type], [kill board link], etc) in fleet chat, use your two fully functional hands to search for what I need and link it in fleet chat.
  -If the scout posts pilots in fleet chat, look them up on zkillboard and tell me in chat if they are dangerous or snuggly. Bonus if you can find a fit for the ship we think they are flying.
  -Check Dotlan regularly and look up zkillboard for any systems on our route that have player kills. Let me know in chat what happened, e.g. "some Cavemen in t2 cruisers/frigs fought an LSH Proteus in Yveve".
  -Use the "look at" feature on enemy ships to figure out if they have short or long range guns.

I think fleet would also have been easier if we had conversed a bit more in fleet chat and a bit less in comms. I actually found myself waiting for people to finish talking so I could give fleet commands in the pauses in conversation. I like open comms and think they make the fleet more fun than if comms are locked to just the FC, scout, 2IC and logi FC. However, I think we would have done better if we had moved some conversation to fleet chat.

Overall, still a lot of fun! A couple of small changes (and some help from all of y'all) will make things run even smoother next time!
Yuri

[Sturym]

I'm a decent multitasker and have three monitors, so I can keep up with Zkillboard and DotLan when needed. I'll keep that in mind next fleet.

[Sioban Mernher]

One thing I noted was that we never hurt the shields of the Exequror. we took off 25%, at the begining, thats all. We kept firing on in, but its shields never bulged. And when its dual point/scram/whatever got me, I was not moving an inch...

As for the Megathron, were we aware it was a friend of Drake ? we migh have fared better if we had known.

I liked your explanation about you having the aggress timer and what followed. It made me realize that as we obeiyed the order to attack, we all took gate guns. But I dont remember noticing it during the fight, nor seing anyone of us warping away and come back. I looked at the zkillboard for that night in Anckee, some of us lost more than 50% to the guns. I think this is the reason we went down so fast.

Also, I noticed the Exequ shields not dropping right after you 'volontered' me to 2nFC. This ment they were shewing us and we were hiting water with our swords... I should have given the order to scatter much sooner. another lesson learned ! (actually, I'm writing this and I'm smiling, so, really... ) !!

[Space Warfare Development]

I have a few recommendations based on my stealth bomber experience so far:
-Exempt from warp.
-Use gate perches.
-Scout and report only.
-Target anything with a signature radius bigger than your torpedo explosion radius AND after said target is pinned down by the fleet.