[AAR] No hydras, just lasers :(

[Laser Skaron]

Well, as it turns out, we were only 10 people around form up time, and I kinda wanted 20-30 for the Hydra attempt. We reevaluated our options and swapped over to take out Merlins. I still really want to take that "comp" out once and go crazy, but I guess another time it shall be. And before I go into the actual AAR, I'd like to apologize for my poor logistics and the formup delays. We ended up undocking 10 minutes late (which felt like 2 hours late IMO)

Alas! Here goes, total of 18 people got to be part of the fleet at various times (I think we were 16 at most undocked at once). And we had a quick start up in Agoze with a boring Merlin kill. There's always a bunch of these straightforward kills in a fleet...

Merlin +18.71m

We start our way towards Nen, but find into a nasty hcook Retribution + Deacons fleet, which causes us to reevaluate our life choices, thus we detour and change our route through Martoh.

We then bailed on a small frigate kill in a plex to chase an industrial, sadly it wasn't hauling anything. Not much later we repeat our tactic and chase a drake across 2-3 systems until we catch it on a gate, and manage to successfully bump it off and hold gate guns, great job logi!

Tayra +13.26m
Drake +84.04m

Some time around here, we find a small gang of 4-5 frigates rolling around. Great hunting sport I must add. However, we manage to show our cards accidentally, and the know we're here. Despite that, we spend quite a bit of time trying to warp around and catch them unsuccessfully.

Which brings us to our first interesting fight of the day. We find a small gang of cruisers in Akidagi and I'm hyped to go after them. 2x Osprey Navy, 1x Omen Navy, 1x Arbitrator + a couple of other things in system (at least 1 ceptor if I remember corecly). Our scout, K950 at the time is very concerned that he'd bop instantly before we engage, but I'm committed to take down one cruiser and see how this goes. We get to align for a few seconds before the fight and I fleet warp us in. We still have a few stragglers and it's not a perfect warp in, but we land 15k off an Osprey Navy. He becomes our primary while our secondary is the Arbitrator within 10km. Everyone else is at 50+ from us, so there's no realistic way to get them.

But, I called secondaries on the Arbitrator very early which I think caused a part of the fleet to lock him up too early, as he might have gotten "scared" and was forced to burn away. But the fight seems to be going well, as consistently burn through the Osprey Navy. We take him down and prepare to chase another as I hear "all logi is down". I Pause and reevaluate to see how many purple dots are still with us on the screen, that was quite fast to lose our entire logi wing, and I call scatter.

Overall, the trade was worth it.

(19:15:58) Akidagi
Merlin -6.06m
Condor -3.72m
Merlin -7.57m
Merlin -2.82m
Burst -5.75m
Bantam -3.78m
Burst -4.93m
Osprey Navy Issue +109.02m

Intermission follows as we hop down into Ich to reship, but as we get out we find a small group of frigates around a plex. Hookbil, Griffin Navy. We grab them easily and get fed a thrasher kill that warps in shortly after that. This is followed by a rather extended looting session from that field which is barely interrupted by a 30 man fleet that would wipe the floor with us. Fortunately, we skillfully avoid them.

(19:49:42) Akidagi
Condor -4.12m
Caldari Navy Hookbill +35.67m
Capsule -0.01m
Griffin Navy Issue +29.3m
Burst -5.94m
Thrasher +11.54m
Capsule +0.01m

A completely new player joined us since our intermission, but was unable to really take part in that previous onslaught, so as we find our next target (a Vexor), we do our best to get him on the kill mail. Yes, we did rep that Vexor to make sure we wouldn't kill him too early.

(20:08:01) Pynekastoh
Vexor +38.97m
Capsule +0.01m

We then find two destroyers lying around. Somehow they fail to take out any of us and we're surprised....

(20:18:37) Kedama
Cormorant +8.54m
Catalyst +4.7m
Capsule +0.01m

We then wait for space to unfold it's mysteries, but a random rifter decides to attack us on a gate. Sure, we're suspect and he's not, and we no longer have enough logi to hold gate guns. We ignore him but I must say It's not a bad feeling to know he went down eventually.

(20:34:23) Kedama
Rifter +0.66m

And finally, we conclude our fight with a great Punisher pilot that manages to take out the tackle as the main fleet arrives.

(20:43:19) Ouelletta
Merlin -8.19m
Punisher +9.38m


Stats
ISK Destroyed: 363,804,389.7
ISK Lost: 52,887,267.05
ISK Delta: 310,917,122.65
Efficiency: 87.308%

[Laser Skaron]

Overall, I'm quite pleased with how the fleet went, it was surprisingly relaxing and it felt rather easy to be honest. Decent amount of content in space, nothing too overwhelming.

At least a few newbros joined, welcome all! I'm only a bit sad about how I handled Calvin's case, who didn't have the skills to fly a Merlin. Thank you all for being patient and thank you Zarquu for your bottomless hangars and resources to help him up to speed. We're the uni, we're gonna do everything we can to get newbros out in space. I did lose track of him at some point during the fleet, only to learn he took a different route home, and that's a big nono for myself as a uni FC :(.

There were 2 occasions where our scouts hopped into a system and bounced around trying to catch a small gang, now as fun as that might be for the scouts, I had to balance that with 1) our chance of actually being successful in that endeavor, and 2) the amount of time the main fleet has to wait and 3) the fact that those small gangs saw us in space. I'll probably cut those scenarios shorter for future fleets. I find it's quite easy for small targets to avoid conflict if they so desire and are aware conflict is coming.

[DonBasuno Ichosira]

I was also a bit disappointed that we were unable to try out a Hydra fleet, but what can you do when numbers are not there. In the end it was a fun tour around low sec.

My merlin loss in Akidagi was definitly my own fault. As vanguard I was in a bloodthirsty mood trying to get tackle on ships. When we landed on grid I went straight for the Omen Navy Issue despite the FCs command to primary the Osprey Navy Issue. To top off the stupidity I went straight in rather than spiral and got blown up without achieving anything.

For the other fights I followed FC commands and was not even close to get blown up. Might be a learning point in here somewhere

[Laser Skaron]

My merlin loss in Akidagi was definitly my own fault. As vanguard I was in a bloodthirsty mood trying to get tackle on ships. When we landed on grid I went straight for the Omen Navy Issue despite the FCs command to primary the Osprey Navy Issue. To top off the stupidity I went straight in rather than spiral and got blown up without achieving anything.

For the other fights I followed FC commands and was not even close to get blown up. Might be a learning point in here somewhere :roll:

To be fair, we lost almost half the fleet there, and we lost it faster than I expected, and I don't blame any individual pilot. I take it those cruisers just apply very well to frigates. I also wasn't super clear on primaries when we landed but converged on the Osprey Navy as it was the closest target to myself.

Also, the only reason we bailed was that logi informed me they were down, that was the first point I actually took account of the situation and realized how much we had traded. Thank you again logi :).

[Phaethonx Brutor]

Really enjoyed this fleet, and definitely looking forward to a repeat fleet