[AAR] Solitude Vexor Vindication (Sep 22 02:00)

[Yuri Levnik]

Howdy all,
We had an exciting start to the night, got a decent kill, got chased, and then had a quiet tail end of our evening.

Roam members:

Spoiler

Arashi Shizukana - DD, 2IC
Budda Sereda - DD, 2IC
Dale Inkunen - DD
DJ UNOHOO - Logi
Etienne Oort - DD
Imad Gratia - DD
Omnicious Shardani - DD
Phaethonx Brutor - DD
Space Warfare Development - DD
Sturym - DD
Talman Drak - Logi
Tom Endares - DD
Trevor Grambling - Logi
Vyrl Avuli - DD
Yuri Levnik - DD, FC
Z0X Ambrye - Scout

We undocked with a strong fleet, including an interceptor scout, three Exequror logi, a heavy tackle pilot and a pile of Vexors. We started out toward low sec, but there are incursions over there right now and those Sansha's gate camps are not to be trifled with. I decided to take us into Null instead. There had been some gate camps, and we paused to clean up an unattended drag bubble that had caught one of our pilots who was making his way down:
Y9G-KS 02:28
Mobile Small Warp Disrupter I 1.1MN

We headed further into Syndicate and found a Hound who was flying strangely. I ordered the fleet to lock 'em up just as he threw up a cyno. We got the kill and nobody came through the cyno (this time) - lucky us!
M2-CF1 02:38
Hound 52.1MN
Capsule 0.01MN

We stuck around as Qui Tzar, of 404 Alliance Not Found, showed up in a Malediction. We tried, unsuccessfully, to catch him/her, while three other 404 pilots joined in Confessors (you can see the list here). They tried to stay at range and snipe our interceptor, we tried to land on them, but nobody could quite get an edge. Then, suddenly, a Northern Coalition Tengu landed right on top of us. I ordered the fleet to lock 'em up, but it turned out this was a cyno Tengu!!! We scattered, sadly losing a logi pilot, as 11 BLOPS, a FAX and a Supercarrier cynoed in on us. Good job scattering, fleet, and apologies to Trevor who took the beating on the rest of our behalf.
M2-CF1 02:53
Exequror -19.1MN
Capsule -0.01MN

The BLOPS fleet cloaked up somewhere and we rescued our heavy tackle from the Confessors (after I sent him to scout ahead and got him in trouble). The way to PC9 was a bit scary so we ended up taking a roundabout trip to 6E- as there is a freeport there. We took a break, then headed to PC9 to get some additional drones and see what was going on. Nothing was going on, so we flew back toward Solitude. We cleared an event site on the way - very easy with a fleet of Vexors, but the drops were not very good. We didn't find any other targets and we dropped a wave of pilots off in Boystin at 03:50. We tried to raise a fight with the Cavemen but they were not able to get the pilots together, so we called it a night (very sad about that last bit).

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 53.2MN
ISK Lost: 19.1MN
ISK Delta: 24.1MN
Efficiency: 74%

What went well:

• -We flew well. We did a lot of dancing around with the Confessors and they were unable to catch any stragglers or pick anyone off. We escaped the huge cyno drop with only one loss (apologies again to the poor logi pilot, I could have done better for him)
  -We had a solid fleet comp, with logi, tackle and DD roles all well sorted.
  -There was engageable content in space (even if it was hard to catch).
  -We were ISK positive! In null sec! Even though we had two cynos lit on us!
  -I had fun!

What could have gone better:

• -I do wish the Cavemen had been able to fight. I am going to see about arranging a fight with them...
  -I was wing warping the damage wing, which I started doing to avoid warping the logi folks in too early. Unfortunately, when I wing warped us away from the cyno, the logi folks did not get the warp and got left behind. I was a bit slow calling "scatter" and we lost a logi pilot. Note to self: wing warps good for getting into combat, bad for running away.
  -We spent a lot of time in space and yet I didn't feel like we went very far. Not sure if anyone else felt that way...
  -I am still hobbled by my busted wrist and my gaming laptop is also broken, so I was FCing on minimum graphics on a 14" screen - difficult!

All in all, a good night out. Thanks y'all!
Yuri

[Sturym]

Good times and an exciting fleet for my last fleet for a few days. Looking forward to more content when I return early next week! On to shoot real weapons at fake targets.

[Budda Sereda]

Hi Yuri,

First thing is I do want to apologize for giving pieces of advice while not asked. I remember my early FC career and more experienced FCs at that time were quiet until I asked for help. So I should improve here. Sorry for that.

Second: I did enjoy flying with you. It was nice and warm fleet, with some content and maneuvers. You run it smooth and confident. Good job!

There are few things though which we did not speak through yesterday I want to mention.

Tackles usage.

While we hunted for Confessor we did not call our ceptor pilots (I believe we had 1 or 2) join those efforts. I'm curious why? If we use a BC as a bait,... it should be a ceptor who follows up and get a tackle. I understand Confessor is quick and hard to catch, but ceptors has 10 times higher chances to catch anything than a BC.
Dunno, why this did not strike me during the fleet, I was too eager to catch things myself so forgot we have a tackle.

Being BLOPSed.

If something bit decloaks nearby you and you can't kill it in few seconds, you better run away immediately. It is a very low chance that they just come TOO close and decloak by accident, or do another stupid mistake. Usually, they decloak to get a tackle, drop a cyno or a bubble. So if you see something like that, call scatter.
It is an option to take a risk and try killing it, but in this case, I would to call the fleet lock, to aling-out (to some pod-saver object) and pull the range, if nothing happen orbit at some reasonable range. You should have a tackle (ceptor) which can keep point staying at 25-30km. The rest of the fleet I recommend to keep at 25-30. Especially logies: they should pull the range automatically as soon as they landed on the grid. Would be great if they know what direction to (so Logy FC probably should ask FC what direction to pull the range too).

This way fleet not get into a bubble and have a good chance to leave the grid on time. Not guaranteed to leave because if bomber jumps through the cyno he can close range and lock Vexor in few seconds... while at least my Vexors align time was 8s. An ideal scenario is flying Caracals: they move faster, align faster, apply to small tackle ships very well.

Hope this helps.

BLAP Vexors

Today was my 3rd time when I flew BLAP Vexors.
The first fleet was WTs POCO bashing in HSC. Vexors appeared to be solid at that time. We won engagement, lost many ships, killed MANY ships, including T2 logies, we killed POCOs and achieved the end goal of OP. SUCCESS!!! I would say a good use of a doctrine. Luckily, opponent did not chose kiting ships so we could brawl/skirmish well.

The second was a fleet I took from HSC trying to catch WTs. It was not the best doctrine choice I guess, I took it as QRF knowing that MANY HSC pilots had equipped Vexors and logies to fly. I felt they were slow, but with damps we forced opponents to stay out of range. We tried to enforce a brawling fight but opponents were good enough and we only killed a VNI who (by mistake?) warped into us. We also fed a bunch of small frigates as tackles, but this did not give any result.

Today... I have mixed feelings. BLAP Vexors are SUPER slow for roaming. I'm not saying this is bad, but that is something which came to me as a surprise after flying frigates for 3 months.
I'm very surprised those guys did not have a dictor as a tackle. Even more than that, they did not combat probbed us. Clearly, Black-Ops are slow, but why they could not drop a Tengu on us again and take initial tackle while the rest of them arrives? Is tengu slower to align or warp than a Vexor?
Would be great to hear comments from experienced pilots on this.

My feedback on BLAP Vexors in general: they are not the best choice for roaming, especially in nul sec. Biggest thing - too slow to move. Raido wrote in his comments on a doctrine it can be used with some limitations, but unless you engage structures I would choose other doctrines. Good use could be WHs space which due to WH mechanics enforces brawling.
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Basic_Le ... nes#Vexors

BTW. Did Arashi had links on his Hurricane? He was till some extent baiting, but still, I do believe that would help fleet and increased his survivability as well.

[Yuri Levnik]

Sturm, have fun shooting IRL autocannons! I'm jealous (;

Budda, thanks for the advice and please feel free to speak up during fleet. I enjoy open comms and welcome suggestions, questions and poking fun from everyone in the fleet. Just three rules:

• -Keep comms chatter to a minimum when we're in danger. Comms are still open, but please wait until after we're out of combat to tell us about your new travelceptor fit.
  -Nobody gives orders except the FC (that's me unless I've been exploded). Suggestions are cool, but let me tell the fleet what to do so we don't have conflicting orders.
  -Your advice is always welcome as long as you're OK with me not always following it (;

We didn't have any problems with the above last night - comms were good and I got some good advice which helps me do a better job!

Budda, here's what I was thinking with the Confessors. First, I know those pilots are experts so I want to play it safe. With that in mind, I do think our inty pilot could have landed on them in the Ares because we have a talented inty pilot. The problem is what would happen next. The Vexors are slow to align, slow to warp and slow to lock. We would need to land point and webs, plural, to catch a Confessor. Figure we are partly pre-aligned, so 4 seconds to align, 6 seconds to warp and 5 seconds to lock. That means the inty has to hold tackle and survive against 3 Confessors for at least 15 seconds. We then have to land two pilots with webs within web range in order to catch anything. Not impossible, but T3 destroyers are kryptonite for frigates so our Ares would probably get popped before we could lock or before we could get enough webs on target. Our heavy tackle, on the other hand, had dual webs and scram. If we could land him on the Confessors he could hold one down for us and his tank was high enough to give us plenty of time to land. Our odds of landing heavy tackle in range and having them stick around long enough for him to lock were very low, however I figured that was the safer play for us. Interested to hear if others (especially our tackle pilots) agree.

I have mixed feelings about not asking our heavy tackle to tackle the Confessors on the gate when they we shooting him. They were probably out of scram/web range with the Malediction holding tackle, but maybe he could have caught one. But that BLOPS fleet was still in system - much danger!

RE the cyno, I'll be honest - the Tengu surprised the h*ck out of me. It didn't occur to me until I read your post that he/she snuck up on us while cloaked. I am still learning to recognize cyno hunters. I have been getting a lot of experience and practice with cynos (;

I agree with everything you said about Vexors. I think they are are good "fighting doctrine" when you want to hold an area in space (a gate, a structure, a deadspace pocket, etc...). They are very slow for roaming. Caracals are harder to fly correctly (landing at range, anchoring, cap management...) but do better for roams, imo.

I like links, the only drawback being that they give you a weapons timer. Not sure if Arashi had 'em.

Keep the advice coming - there's always more for us to learn!
Yuri

[Budda Sereda]

About Confessor vs Ares.
I tackled once a Gila in a Stiletto and hold it long enough for fleet to jump, warp to plex, slide the gate, burn to Gila, land and get secondary tackle. I died in the end because of piloting mistakes and was told I should have survived. Also, we had no logies.
I'm sure an interceptor should be able to tackle a confessor and survive long enough. I'm curious to learn Zox's opinion.
Also, I recommend to ask a tackle pilot how does he feel about going for tackle on a specific ship. Experienced tackler will always say you if that's not the best idea. He can also tell the level of risk, if he is OK taking it and ask if you as fc want to take risk of losing tackle.
Usually, this type of conversations is very educational for fleet.

Not sure what you mean about links. They trigger weapon timer if used for sure. But if you in fight you have timer anyway. Are you saying we just did not have reasons to use them?

[Yuri Levnik]

I stated my thoughts on links poorly - the only downside I could think of for links is the weapons timer. Skirmish links are fantastic for slow boats like the Vexors, and armor links could boost our tank to truly ludicrous levels. Since we're all brawlers, we can stay in range of the heavy tackle (as opposed to Caracals, which should be far away from the tackle pilots). Summary: links good!

Will let the tackle pilots weigh in on tackling confessors. I will note that one Gila is not the same as three t3 destoyers and a Malediction (;

[Budda Sereda]

Gila has a strong application at solid range from both light missiles and medium drones, can even host light drones. You should mitigate damage from Gila by orbiting at point range (assuming high ceptor skill, I had only 4, plus I did orbit manually and poorly).

Confessor, even with small guns has issues tracking small ship orbiting with high skills. I need to pyfa it to be sure, but I can imaging beem lasers can track a ceptor at 30 km even if it has MWD on

[Z0X Ambrye]

As the ceptor pilot in this roam, I played it safe with the confessors for a few reasons.

- They were able to project good dps out to long distances. I was 80 off and taking significant damage from a single confessor at one point
- They were extremely fast, meaning that it would take a significant amount of time for me to catch up with them
- A scram or web would have been necessary, even if the vexors could warp at 0.

Pretty early in the fight, I got shot at by one of the confessors. About 100 damage every 2-3 seconds after resists at 80km. At closer ranges, they're sure to do more damage.

If I tried burning towards them, I highly doubt I would have made it very far. Spiraling doesn't do much at extreme ranges. They were quite fast (I believe I saw one going at 2900), meaning a lot of time burning. They also easily could warp off during this time. Once the malediction appeared on grid, it just became harder, as it could scram me while I was burning or holding point, and kill me along with the fessors.

Even assuming that I would be able to get into point range of one of the confessors, the other confessors would still easily hit me (pyfa also tells me that only minor tracking issues would be experienced by a beam fessor if I would orbit at 25 mwd on, about 70% of damage applied with all 5 skills, sharpshooter, and no modules that benefit tracking). That would mean pretty much no damage would be mitigated. Keep in mind that there were multiple confessors as well. I'd need a scram, else the vexors would warp and the confessor would have pulled too much range by the time they landed. A scram pass would have been possible (assuming I'd be able to get to them). I don't know much about how confessors are usually fit, but a single defensive web or scram on one of them would end me. This all assumes the best case scenario in which the malediction doesn't do much.

All of this is just how I think it would have went down. All in all though, I'm still kind of new to flying ceptors, if FC told me to go for it regardless of all these things, I would have (although I still think I would have died quickly if I did).



Also, I agree that the vexors aren't great for roaming, too slow to really catch anything. Decent if you can get an arranged fight, and I would imagine (not sure for this one) OK if you have good support (web frigates, dictor, scrams etc.) for catching things on gates in null.

[Budda Sereda]

Yeah, I forgot we they 2 Confessors on grid. And yeah

Were you moving Z0x taking damage at 80km or you were sitting still? If he hit you from 80km he should not have webs. But, Malediction could easily scram you while you trying to catch a Confessor, that's true.

Here is one of fits they could use:

Spoiler

Code: Select all

[Confessor, MWD Beam SAAR, range]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Dark Blood Adaptive Nano Plating
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II

5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Warp Disruptor II
Small Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I

Expanded Probe Launcher II
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Aurora S
[Empty High slot]

Small Energy Locus Coordinator II
Small Energy Locus Coordinator II
Small Ancillary Current Router I


Gleam S x4
Aurora S x4
Imperial Navy Multifrequency S x4
Imperial Navy Gamma S x4
Imperial Navy Standard S x4
Nanite Repair Paste x208
Core Scanner Probe I x16
Sisters Combat Scanner Probe x8
Navy Cap Booster 400 x30

It makes almost 2500 m/s cold in propulsion mode and shoot at 70km in sharpshooter and makes 247 DPS cold.