Antihelion-2 AAR

[Hugh Caswakk]

Introduction
So, after the fleet I took out on Sunday, I decided to do it again – after all, it was great fun (besides, there was limited content in EUTZ until the weekend anyway). Unfortunately, this fleet did not go particularly well; or at least, the bit where I commanded it anyway. I apologise to everyone on the fleet for how my role in it went, and I thank Adrien Claremont in particular for stepping in as FC on numerous occasions.

Course of Events
Form-up took about 45 minutes, and saw a group of 15 (kitchen-sink frigates) leave Stacmon, mostly in Merlins and Punishers – generally bias towards close-range, brawling frigates. Scouts were out and vanguard were selected. Unfortunately, it was quite quiet and apart from a near miss when I jumped fleet rather than just vanguard into a system, there was pretty much no activity.

We did then find an Imperial Navy Slicer and killed it, but I was killed within the first 30 seconds of the engagement. I then managed to get back to the fleet after about 10 minutes with a new ship, and was killed again when we attacked a Hyperion, within about a minute of the start. I went to Ichoryia to reship. Unfortunately, it was at this stage, during the reshipping, that I had to leave because one of my kittens got clawed and rolled into excrement by another cat – initially my sister was dealing with it, but it was clear that support was needed and so I had to leave the fleet to go help sort it. Overall, at least for me, it was quite a negative experience from a command perspective.

Reflections on Lessons Learnt
However, it has been an excellent learning experience for me overall. Firstly, it reminded me of the importance of individual piloting skills on the FC’s behalf. When rolling around with a gang of 30 (like on Sunday), the ability of the FC to actually fly and fight doesn’t matter that much. But in smaller gangs, like today, when perhaps 12 friendlies at most would be on grid at a time, that mattered a lot more. This was one of the reasons I was killed twice. As a corollary to that, I really need to work on fitting – I made some complacent and stupid fitting choices which contributed to my fast deaths. To avoid these problems, I intend to do more reading on flying skills and ensure that I attend relevant classes.

Secondly, it was a fairly sharp education in picking targets correctly; the fleet suffered significant losses engaging a Hyperion. In honesty, we should have ignored it and gone hunting for more achievable stuff in Black Rise as opposed to fighting it out. This was my failure to make the right call on engagement. The only way to improve this reliably is to go on PvP fleets a lot and see how it all works, in addition to doing more reading (I thought of a Hyperion primarily as a blaster-boat, not a drone-boat, for example). Unfortunately, opportunities to actually do this are limited and so I may end up FCing more fleets without this experience – if so, I will make sure to consult with experts.

Lastly, it was an interesting education in reshipping and the logistical side of roams. The entire fleet pretty much were reduced to pods by the Hyperion, and we proceeded to travel to Ichoriya to reship from corp contracts there – this took a fairly long time and there were issues making sure that everyone was fitted correctly. I’m honestly unsure of how to solve this problem beyond lots of contract seeding, which eats into staff time.

It was at this stage, during the reshipping, that I had to leave because one of my kittens got attacked and rolled into excrement by another cat – initially my sister was dealing with it, but it was clear that support was needed and so I had to leave the fleet to go help sort it. In addition, my main gaming computer has now run into difficulty, so I’m going to have trouble getting the fleet log.

Comparison to Antihelion-1
Antihelion-1 – the Sunday fleet – was very successful. So, why was this fleet not quite as successful? Well, there are in my mind two key factors; numbers and activity.

Firstly, numbers on the Sunday were about double that of today. This meant that I was at lower risk of getting killed off the field, and allowed us to eat much larger targets than we could today. This was a problem for me in terms of assessment of targets and my own flying decisions; I was complacent and overconfident, taking the wildly successful Antihelion-1 as a baseline for future fleets. This is a problem which will be rectified going forward.

Secondly, there was just a lot more content on Sunday – which is not very surprising honestly. We had potential contacts in every system, whereas today that wasn’t really the case. This led to foolhardy decisions on my part, like attacking the Hyperion (I was worried that if that fight wasn’t taken then not much else would happen).

Key Takeaways
• I will join the FCC properly, in order to benefit from it. Specifically, I will look into back-seating more competently run fleets to get an idea of how they work.
• I will do more reading up and research, on both mechanics and ship types, to improve threat assessment capability.
• I will do specific reading of activity data so as to time fleets at points of maximum engagement, allowing more people in fleet and larger amounts of stuff to hunt.

[Adrien Claremont]

Here are the kills for the fleet. We came out isk positive in the end!

Glad to hear that you are joining the FCC. Don't feed bad about anything mate, absolutely no reason to. I'd have also taken the fight for the Hyperion, which was why we stayed on grid when you went pop, and I was also very surprised that he had 18 light drones to chew threw. If the Stabber fleet hadn't joined the fight, we probably could have just waited until he capped himself out and finished him off as we'd dealt with his drones by that point. Oh well, some you win and some you lose!

I'll get around to writing a proper AAR for the remainder of the fleet tomorrow. Thanks for stepping up as FC and I look forward to your next fleet. Let me know when you want it on the calendar.

Roam members (15)

Spoiler

Adrien Claremont
Ares Dodekatheon
Azalee Madeveda
DeanSherman
Felix Jugo
Forturaen Isagar
Garm Zandor
Hugh Caswakk
Jonathan Wolf
Latvian Sea
Prieblanda Anstianski
Space Warfare Development
Xar Kheldar
Zarquu Fussuhfusus
bringdapain

(18:38:31) Annancale
Atron -0.69m
Imperial Navy Slicer +41.88m
Capsule +0.01m

(18:48:02) Vey
Rifter -10.62m
Federation Navy Comet +31.04m

(19:03:50) Eha
Atron -5.5m
Kestrel -6.23m
Atron -4.35m
Slasher -5.84m
Kestrel -11.53m
Merlin -5.73m
Punisher -8.56m
Condor -2.79m
Kestrel -8.67m
Rifter -9.73m
Slasher -3.13m
Slasher -5.35m

(19:49:55) Kinakka
Merlin -7.43m
Slasher -8.78m
Thrasher +16.14m

(20:06:22) Pynekastoh
Merlin -6.66m
Merlin -5.23m

(20:17:19) Hirri
Slasher -4.3m
Merlin -5.23m
Kestrel -5.62m
Griffin -3.06m
Stork +112.42m
Slasher -8.76m

(20:28:12) Oinasiken
Catalyst +2.47m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 203,959,563.89
ISK Lost: 143,798,477.33
ISK Delta: 60,161,086.56
Efficiency: 58.65%

[Turlough Dominian]

sorry i missed your fleet really wanted to go but forgot :/

but ye i probably would have given the Hyperion a shot also , and like adrien said don't feel bad about anything that is the joys of small ships like frigates there most of the time cheap and people know they gonna die in a ball of fire, I do understand the feeling's I still get that little feeling when I take a fleet out and loose even one ship even more so when I am the one to die first, i feel bad and when i take out frigates I know i am going to loose some to something big and mean.

If you take into account all the things you learn on a fleet then it is as successful as the last one so long as your learning and other members of your fleet are also learning, forget about isk and kill's to death ratio once someone is learning then it is a good fleet.

[bringdapain]

You really shouldn't feel bad. If I recall correctly you checked out whether to take on the Hyperion with some of our more experienced guys and nobody thought it was a bad idea so we went for it. It was unfortunate that he had so many light drones and also friends who showed up.

After losing the kestrel I reshipped to one of my new Slashers (I'd never flown one before) which was equipped for light tackle, so I knew I was going to lose some and so I did. I managed to get point on the Thrasher just as Zarquu died but held on way too long and died just as he exploded. I think maybe I should have checked if anyone else also had point and got out. I reshipped to Slasher no. 2 and managed to get a point on the Stork. Again I held on too long so that's a part of things I need to work on (big, big list of those). On the plus side I piloted both tackles manually (another first), and even managed to get 886 damage on the Stork before I exploded (despite my puny max 70 ps Autocannons) so was pleased with that. I had a lot of fun, fully expected to die with what I was flying combined with my noobieness and also learned a lot I think, which for me was the main objective, so yes, thanks yet again.

[Azalee Madeveda]

We did not get as lucky than on antihelion-1 but it was still fun.
Especially the fight against the Hyperion even if we whelped.

Lead again soon !

[Adrien Claremont]

So the only two fights worth expanding upon (the rest were simple ganks) were the Hyperion brawl and the fun we had with the Command Destroyer gang.

The Hyperion seemed pretty straight forward. He was alone at a large, and I think we can all agree that it seemed like a fight worth taking. Zarquu landed initial tackle, those of us who where in the Vanguard landed next, followed by the main fleet. The plan we to take out his small drones, orbit under his guns (orbit 500, MWDs off) and wear him down. I think we killed close to 18 light drones, and a number of his mediums too. Even when I was webbed down, he was struggling to apply his turrets to me so I am surprised by just how many frigates he did kill. Just when things looked to be in a sable position (everyone was now under his guns, drones had been dealt with) a Stabber Fleet Issue also landed at zero on us. Conscious that if it pulled range, it could easily pick off the rest of us, I call it primary and asked the fleet to switch targets.

It took a long time for people to get secondary point (too long if I'm being honest) I had initial tackle however I was webbed by the Hyperion and the SFI was slowly pulling range on me. I had to mention multiple times for people to actually turn on the prop mod here. Once we were on top of the SFI, I was expecting him to be lightly tanked and kitey fit, but he tanked us very easily until our numbers continued to whittle down to nothing. Zarquu made the call the scatter for those who remained on the field. A fun fight but sadly not in our favour.

(19:03:50) Eha
Atron -5.5m
Kestrel -6.23m
Atron -4.35m
Slasher -5.84m
Kestrel -11.53m
Merlin -5.73m
Punisher -8.56m
Condor -2.79m
Kestrel -8.67m
Rifter -9.73m
Slasher -3.13m
Slasher -5.35m

After we reshipped, we were chased around for a while by a gang of "blingy things" for want of a better term. I can't remember exactly off the top of my head, but I know they have a Mach, Loki, Confessor and a Stiletto amongst other things. Once we eventually gave them the slip, Zarquu found a pair of Command Destroyers outside a small. As the main fleet landed, one CD had entered the plex while Zarquu was chasing down the second outside of the plex. He was faster than our fleet, managed to pop Zarquu, and booshed himself away. Oh well.

(20:06:22) Pynekastoh
Merlin -6.66m
Merlin -5.23m

Not long after though, their gang reappeared with us on a gate in Hirri. As our fleet wasn't flashy, I held on the gate expecting them to either ignore us and move on, or to boosh us off the gate. One thing I didn't realise at the time was that some fleet members were orbiting the gate. This allowed the CDs to boosh a small number of fleet members off the gate. We quickly warped up to ping and them over the guys who were tackled, landing directly on top of the CDs. I called to spread tackle, however we only managed to grab the one. Once the main fleet landed, we held pretty well with the other CDs soon warping away. A fair trade in my books!

(20:17:19) Hirri
Slasher -4.3m
Merlin -5.23m
Kestrel -5.62m
Griffin -3.06m
Stork +112.42m
Slasher -8.76m

Outside of that, we did a lot of roaming however the fleet was whittled down enough that there wasn't really much that we came across that we could take on. A number of systems were very busy on the way back to Uph/Stac but all the gangs were just too much for what we had left at that point (about 6 T1 frigs) so we called it a night.

Take away points for me...

While I think Merlins are great with Logi, I'd much rather take out Derpatrons if we are low on numbers/without Logi for their insane speed. I think if we were in Derps, we'd have managed to clean up on the CD gang as the trickled in one by one to the initial small plex in Pyne. That's just my personal preference though.

Always ask the fleet to anchor up if you are trying to bait a fight against CDs. Being spread out, even ever so slightly on the gate, allowed them to boosh off and kill a good portion of our fleet.

Hyperions, when baiting in LowSec FW, can field a lot of drones!

[DeanSherman]

About last fight with CD gang.
3/4 of them were flashy.
Why did not we fight them at gate at 0? Why let them boosh? I jumped through the gate when i saw boosh, then jumped back, then i got fleet warp. So the fight was at least 150km from the gate, so they got fight without gate guns.
We could scram and shoot booshing CD, because he was moving away from gate and could not jump through immediately.
Or we could scram two non-booshing CD to split them.
In my view, let enemy CD to execute boosh is good way to split your fleet, no matter if it is anchored or not.

[Adrien Claremont]

I wanted them to boosh us off the gate. If the fleet as anchored, then they would really struggle to split the fleet as they'd boost the vast majority of us most times. But the fleet wasn't anchored correctly, and we know how that turned out for us...

Why not fight them at the gate? This is how I saw things, please if there was something I missed then let me know.

If we engaged them first on the gate, they wouldn't have taken any gate guns because they'd have gained a limited engagement timer with everyone who engaged and they would have been free to disengage at will by jumping through the gate because it wouldn't have been a fight in their favour.

If they booshed us only once, we'd have been 100km off from the gate and both fleets would have been inside scram range. We could spread points, hold them, and trade extremely well. This is what I was hoping for. There would be a chance that they still wouldn't take gate guns if we tackled them first, but it would have been a nice to have.

If they booshed twice, they'd be outside of gate guns but we'd still have the majority of the fleet inside scram range and therefore still a fight in our favour.

The fact that it took them so long to decide to try the boost says to me that they wanted us to engage on the gate so that they could jump through in an attempt to split our fleet up. Anyone who followed in an attempt to get tackle on the other side would have been easy pickings for them, and possibly enough to whittle our numbers down so that they would be in a position to fight the rest of us once our timers expired. It would also give them time to pull range and kite us, similar to how they fought at the plex. They couldn't take us on whole, which was why they bailed once we warped in on them.