[AAR] Solitude Trasher Travesty (Oct 8 23:00)

[Yuri Levnik]

Howdy all,
We had an interesting fleet tonight. First we roamed wormhole space for two hours and... almost killed a Heron. We then returned to Soli and arranged a fight with the Filthy Peasants. They brought a small cruiser fleet and thrashed our Thrashers pretty good.

Spoiler

Anna Iwaira - Scout
Arashi Shizukana - DD
Calder Ormand - DD
Crimson Herring - DD
Hillybilly Hinken - Scout
Hooff Harted - DD
I Skip Legday - Scout
jammer Atruin - Logi
kanen - Logi
Kirsid Tannaway - DD
Raijin Naom - DD
Simeon Snowlocke - DD
Sioban Mernher - Logi
Tom Endares - Logi
Tsuwen Sun - Logi
Yuri Levnik - DD
Z0X Ambrye - DD

As mentioned, we found almost nothing to fight in wormhole space. The largest target we saw was a VNI ratting in a nullsec connection. We also saw a couple of Asteros very briefly. Alas, we could not catch anything. It was very interesting using the mapper and mapping out connections to get to our target systems. Totally, 100% different from running a fleet in null, especially since you can't chase someone who leaves system if you haven't scanned down their exit, and you can't tell if they're in the next system due to lack of local list. Overall, roaming wormhole space was a great learning experience and I would do it again for that reason, but it was not as good for content as Syndicate null or even Solitude low sec.

Once we got back from spooky space we arranged a fight with Drake Arson and the Filthy Peasants. They had seven pilots to our 11 remaining pilots. They decided on cruisers while we stuck to our destroyers + frigate logi. Overall, the odds were probably slightly in their favor at the start, but that's a pretty fair fight by EVE standards

On the way to the fight we had a Cyclone follow us. We alerted the Filthy Peasants fleet and they grabbed 'em in Anckee. We jumped on the kill.

(01:42:10Z) Anckee
Cyclone +65.54m

Following the Cyclone kill, we formed up for the fight. I landed our DD wing on grid at 0 on the sun and the logi wing landed at 20. The Peasants warped in a 50 so we had a long burn in to them. Arashi suggested we call their Caracal primary, so we grabbed 'em and blew the Caracal to bits, but their DPS shredded through us at an alarming rate. We probably pulled away from our logi, severely limiting the effectiveness of our repairs. I called an Algos secondary and he pulled range, but by this point most of our fleet was tackled or dead. We got the Algos kill but lost pretty much everyone else. Overall, it was a good fight - I think if we had landed at 0 on the Peasants instead of 50 things might have gone very differently since we could have started shooting immediately and we wouldn't have burned away from our own logi so fast. In any case, I had fun and I'm glad we took the fight.

(01:53:14Z) Anckee
Thrasher -9.15m
Thrasher -8.71m
Thrasher -4.98m
Caracal +30.48m
Thrasher -5.27m
Thrasher -2.38m
Thrasher -10.26m
Bantam -5.2m
Bantam -3.56m
Algos +7.01m
Thrasher -10.78m
Executioner -1.65m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 103.25MN
ISK Lost: 61.94MN
ISK Delta: +41.09MN
Efficiency: 62.5%

What went well:

• -We flew very, very well. We kept together in spooky space, didn't get trapped in any wormholes, and also scanned down sigs well. The piloting was way harder than our usual roams - nice work y'all!
  -We learned a lot about the mapper, bookmarking and roaming wormhole space. Very interesting stuff.
  -We fought the Filthy Peasants in honorable combat at the sun. We lost, but we got some kills and some experience. Great stuff.
  -I had fun!

What could have gone better:

• -We didn't catch *anything* in spooky space, despite having cloaky hunter/probers out to find targets. Roaming null or faction warfare low sec is a better choice for targets.
  -We actually didn't cover very much space despite being out for a couple hours. As we get better with the mapper and scanning as a group (different from working alone) we would be able to cover more space.

Overall, a good night out. Thanks for coming, y'all!
Yuri

Edit - fixed stats

[Fergus Echerie]

I almost joined you but decided midnight was a touch too late and if it had gone on a few hours I'd have been wiped out.

What I have learned from 2 extended periods is Spooky Space is it's sooo not Spooky and its actually very quiet, I went days without seeing a single other ship, I would say personally I find Null more dangerous.

Would be very difficult imo to hunt down a target with a fleet in a WH as most people you find in there will already know how to survive and the first sign of Combat probes would be off.

[Anna Iwaira]

the two people we did find didn't notice the combat probes but that may be because i had each set out for less that 5 seconds :p

[Fergus Echerie]

Nice work

[Yuri Levnik]

Fergus, you observations are spot on - roaming wormholes is a tough way to get content and flying non-cloaky boats does not help. We stayed -1 relative to our scouts but the various ships we saw all head cloaking devices equipped so we had little chance of catching them. I'm going to start a separate thread to brainstorm how to create content in wormhole space... If that's even possible.

[Crimson Herring]

Lack of PvP content aside, I really enjoyed this fleet. It was interesting to see the challenges of moving a fleet through a WH chain and managing multiple scanners. Managing the Mapper as also pretty interesting. One problem that caused a bit of confusion was the impractically long time it took for corp exploration bookmarks to propagate. I'd definitely be interested in finding an alternate solution if we ever do another group WH event in Soli.

[Anna Iwaira]

i think ideally we would have a bit more explored out in time for the fleet so we didn't have to do it on the go

[Budda Sereda]

Looks like a cool fleet!

Would like to make one comment though regarding following:

Following the Cyclone kill, we formed up for the fight. I landed our DD wing on grid at 0 on the sun and the logi wing landed at 20. The Peasants warped in a 50 so we had a long burn in to them. Arashi suggested we call their Caracal primary, so we grabbed 'em and blew the Caracal to bits, but their DPS shredded through us at an alarming rate. We probably pulled away from our logi, severely limiting the effectiveness of our repairs. I called an Algos secondary and he pulled range, but by this point most of our fleet was tackled or dead. We got the Algos kill but lost pretty much everyone else. Overall, it was a good fight - I think if we had landed at 0 on the Peasants instead of 50 things might have gone very differently since we could have started shooting immediately and we wouldn't have burned away from our own logi so fast. In any case, I had fun and I'm glad we took the fight.

I had once a fleet as well and did a similar mistake: I warped fleet to the grid without knowing were opponent will land.
I think what could be better is to ask the scout to warp at 100km in advance, let him burn 50-100-150 km out, and warp fleet to scout. And after that when you see the opponent on the grid and your warp distance is much shorted it is easier to land at the proper place. Though, it is another challenge to land on top of them... but it is better to play with the opponent on the grid other than burning 50km under heavy fire.
Hope this helps.

[Yuri Levnik]

Budda is right everyone - the optimal way to engage with short range boats is to get your scout to provide you a warp in on the opposing fleet. Ideally, the scout either lands 100km from the opposing fleet on the opposite side so you can warp to scout at 100 and land close, or the scout burns a bunch of tacticals and you hope the opposing fleet lands on one. Since these guys had ideal scout-killing weapons, I would not want our scout to burn in to them alone (;

I played this kind of like a tournament match where bother sides choose how far to warp in from the "center" (in this case, the sun). We were in a close range comp, so we obviously needed to land at zero. The Filthy Peasants took advantage of their range by landing at 50. If this was not honorable combat at the sun I probably would have warped us off and asked Z0X to get us a warp in. Since it was honorable combat at the sun we did the heroic burn in under guns. Such bravery! So explosions...

[Budda Sereda]

If this was not honorable combat at the sun I probably would have warped us off and asked Z0X to get us a warp in

I don't believe you should stay on grid if you warped at range comfortable for your opponent. You should seek for conditions optimal for your fleet engagement, or at least not those that put you at an obvious disadvantage. And even you agreed on a certain place, it is ok to bounce.

I would consider an exception if you had superior fleet composition. In this case, you would need to bait an opponent into a fight showing him an ability to engage while you are in a disadvantageous situation. Just make sure you can tackle him.