[FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

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Yuri Levnik
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[FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Yuri Levnik »

Howdy all,
This fleet started out as a leisurely Solitude roam with almost no content, then escalated suddenly and dramatically to a tri-campus collaboration to bust up a battleship gate camp in Ostingele. Thanks to Budda Sereda for the intel and to the many NSC and LSC pilots who joined us for great kills (;

Initial Fleet:
Spoiler
Arashi Shizukana - DD/Scout/2IC
Calder Ormand - 1 Scout
Kirsid Tannaway - DRAEK ZOMG (and also Logi)
Mal Kard - Logi
Razer Thukkerkin - DD
Space Warfare Development - Keres
Syricco - DD
Wokum - DD/3IC
Yuri Levnik - FC
Additional Camp Busters:
Spoiler
Budda Sereda - Logi
Jim Electron - DD
Jyo Cbip - Tackle
Lady Hestia - Moral Support
Marn Vermuldir - DD
Mongo the Mechanic - DD
Rheaha Preynar (aka Jaha Preynar) - DD
Rohan Amadeus - DD
As mentioned, we got off to a leisurely start with a relatively small fleet of 9 pilots. There was very little content in space. We chased a Gnosis (who was at 700km off the warp-in in a green site?) and the same Hecate pilot we always see. On our way back we happened upon a lucky find for us - Calder called out an Ishtar at a green site. We managed to get in, burn after and get tackle (the Keres was critical here) and as the Ishtar did not have a point those of us who took heavy damage could warp off. Unfortunately, our logi pilot was damped by the rats and only had 12km lock range so reps were limited. Still, Calder's hero tackle was still our only loss. Thanks, Calder, for the find and the sacrifice o7
(04:40:01Z) Anckee
Malediction -51.52m
Ishtar +412.03m

Right around this time Budda Sereda dropped into comms and informed us that there was a flashy gate camp in Ostingele consisting of Machariel/Ashimmu/Ashimmu/Falcon (probably). I took a poll of who wanted to fight and the result was a unanimous "LET'S GO GET 'EM :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:".

We joined comms with LSC and I left Arashi and Calder to move the fleet toward OST while I dropped into NSC comms to see who else wanted a piece of the action. We upshipped to a mixture of Caracals, Feroxes, a Nightmare, a bricked BNI, some inties, a bomber, a couple T3Ds and a three pilot logi wing. The reshipping was a little chaotic but we got sorted and got up to OST. Most of the fleet held in Harroule while we sent in the Nightmare, BNI and inties to get tackle. We lost a hero interceptor off the bat and found that the gate camp had rearranged to Celestis, Ashimmu, Hyperion, Hyperion, Falcon, Vexor and maybe one or two other ships. I managed to land the fleet promptly and called the Celestis primary with requests for the fleet to spread tackle. We popped the Celestis while the Vexor, Ashimmu, Falcon and one of the Hyperions bailed. We caught the other Hyperion! He tanked heroically but our logi wing kept us up and we eventually ran out his large AAR. As he was breaking his fellow Hyperion warped back in on us. Our tackle guys caught him well off the gate and webbed him dead still. We broke the first Hyperion and took the second Hyperion down in less than half the time. Any idea why the second was so much easier to break? The first Hyperion did have a 126MN large repper but I wonder if the second forgot to reload his AAR before engaging... In any case, a pair of big kills!
(05:22:48Z) Ostingele
Malediction -56.55m
Celestis +40.75m
Hyperion +886.11m
Hyperion +876.59m

The second Hyperion was in low armor when someone called "Thanatos on DScan". Sure enough, a Thanatos landed on us as we pushed the Hyperion into hull. I made a hard decision - I called for the fleet to finish the Hyperion and scatter. I would like to hear y'all's thoughts on this call. Given that we all extracted successfully and we were very, very ISK positive, I think it definitely wasn't a bad call. However, we had an opportunity to double our kills with a carrier fight and I chose to bail. What do y'all think? What would you have done? No offense taken if you call me chicken, I've been called worse (;

Regardless, the numbers speak for themselves:
ISK Destroyed: 2,215,473,978.21
ISK Lost: 108,064,356.88
ISK Delta: 2,107,409,621.33
Efficiency: 95.349%

What went well:
  • -We flew well. Gate discipline was excellent and we did not tip our hand to the gate camp. They were all still on grid when we landed,
    obviously surprised at our arrival (you can see gate guns on the first kill - they thought they were going to win).
    -Space Warfare Development took one for the team and left his bomber in Gravity Well to fly the Solitude Campus Keres, which provided essential tackle on the Ishtar (secondary tackle by Kirsid's Draek!)
    -We only had a modest logi complement but they delivered: we only had two losses, both of which were hero tackle (I think we were helped by the first Hyperion shooting either the BNI or the Nightmare which were both heavily tanked, interested to hear what happened).
    -We upshipped to a very powerful mix and match comp to take on the gate camp. Worked out great.
    -Fire discipline was excellent as we got guns on the Celestis and popped him rapidly.
    -Tackle pilots got the Hyperion before he got out, excellent work spreading tackle y'all!
    -I think my target calling was better for this fight. I was clearer and I broadcast primaries and secondaries. I called Celestis/Ashimmu (warped)/Vexor (warped)/Hyperion which I think was a decent set of calls (the Falcon was off grid). Interested to hear thoughts from others.
    -There was a lot of excellent piloting involved in the fight with the gate camp. I mentioned specifics above, but I know I missed some excellent tricks by folks because I was in FC focus mode. If you did something cool and I missed it, great work anyway (;
    -A couple of pilots who were relatively new to fleets were treated to an absolutely wild ride.
    -I had fun!
What could have gone better:
  • -We could have killed a carrier! I mean, we might also have lost a lot of folks in the process, but still, cap kill!
    -We got off to a slow start.
Overall, a great night out and very nice for my killboard. Thanks for flying all!
Yuri

PS: Congrats to Razer who got *all four killing blows* on the fleet. Hang on to that Caracal (;
Last edited by Yuri Levnik on 2017.11.17 04:02, edited 2 times in total.
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"He's like a shark; a shark doesn't eat you because he hates you. He eats you because he's hungry and you're there." - Elihugh Beecher
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Kirsid Tannaway
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Kirsid Tannaway »

I for one think we should have stayed. When thanny bait lands at 0, you take it. :P Otherwise, great fleet. ^_^
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Razer Thukkerkin
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Razer Thukkerkin »

While it could be said that we took a bit to get organized, we were still not far behind a normal fleet schedule and I think it worked out very nicely for us. Yuri did a great job as FC and kept the fleet together. Thanks to Budda for tipping us off about the gate camp. It was great to be a part of a fleet that spanned 3 campuses and flew together well to accomplish the kills! Yes, it would've been nice to take down a Thanny but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor and even without it, this was a nice run. Somehow, by pure luck, I managed to get the final blow on all 4 kills! I look forward to the next fleet when I get to test my skills at flying a Ferox!
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Rider Isleman
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Rider Isleman »

Man, I was bummed I missed it. Good work flying by the seat of your pants to organize the fight. I have been wanting to do that to that freepin camp for ages. Well done you guys!

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Sturym
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Sturym »

I can only say that I'm incredibly sad to have missed this... :(
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Adrian Airwaymaster
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Adrian Airwaymaster »

Great kills! Hope I get to join one of your fleets in the future.
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Budda Sereda
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Budda Sereda »

It is fun flying logy guys!!!
Everybody should experience that and fly logy at least once each 4-5 fleet you participate on as DD!

I was 1 hour late for the Caracals fleet and decided to join LSC folks gatecamping near the Stacmon. When we spotted a bigger camp I reported to Yur and we kept going. An hour later, I was already going to go to bed when Arashi jumped in LSC channel and asked if there are still people around. Pretty much it was me only at this time. I offered Blackbird (to counter falcon), but later realized that a logy wing would be more beneficial so jumped into BLAP Osprey together with Kirsid.

I jumped into Ostingele half minute before main fleet did, and warped to the gate at 50km already when I believe Arashi in a baiting BC lost his shields. I did not have cap chain, no fleet, was aggressed by ships on greed, but decided to at least try saving the fleet mate. I did pretty much repair his shields, lost whole my cap, observer Arashi lost shields again... screamed to Kirsid "Man, I need cap transfer!!!" :) Sorry Kirsid for screaming, but we were able to save Arashi :)

Great joy!

Why 2nd Hyperion died much quicker.
Yuri wrote:We broke the first Hyperion and took the second Hyperion down in less than half the time. Any idea why the second was so much easier to break? The first Hyperion did have a 126MN large repper but I wonder if the second forgot to reload his AAR before engaging...
1sat has 'blue' reppers and 3 resistance module. While 2nd had 2 resist modules, even though 1 was 'green'. Pyfa tells this is around 30% difference: 3.9k OH vs 3k OH.
1k tanks difference means a lot. If our total DPS was 4500 then we only apply 600 dps to the first vs 1500 dps to the 2nd. And if he forgot to preheat modules after jump, hist tank is even less (2k vs 3k).

Kill mail has 56 paste in low module slots, I believe it means it was loaded. Totally LAAR can fit 64 part of paste, the fact that it has 56 left means he did not have time to consume it. Why? See above.

Regarding a Thanatos.

My personal opinion you should have engaged. Yes, you could lose some ship. But who really cares? See my AAR https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=107317.

I engaged that time understanding that chances to break RR chain of 2 Dominixes by 5 Caracals are slim. The best I could do is to kill drones and leave with no loses. And have time to invent something. I believe we should not have lost any Caracal (neither Blackbird :) ) in that fight and the fact that we did is that pilots were inexperienced. But, how can you get experience if you are not getting into fights?

Thanatos is probably just impossible to kill by cruisers. Maybe with 20-30 BCs ... but you could kill fighters, you could tackle him, wait for HIC to land a hard tackle, batphone for help, get all pilots from HSC to bring their stuff...

That's great opportunity to practice fighting big things.

P.S. I'm rashing writing this, so please excuse i'm too agressive here, just trying to be helpful. Again, only my opinion and no offence.
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Rohan Amadeus
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Rohan Amadeus »

Thanks for the invite to NSC to join you guys on this fleet.

Minor edit: Mongo the Mechanic was also there in a DD ship.

As for the thanny, if it were me, I would have asked us to scatter or warp to a safe somewhere and figure out the situation before engaging. They were clearly not below upshipping to cap ships and I think it was better that we assessed the situation before reengaging. There's no right or wrong answer and I wouldn't second guess yourself. Yes, we might have been able to kill the thanny, but it was also possible that it would have gone horrible wrong and we end up losing the fleet. Some say that it's all good, but I think unnecessarily welping fleets isn't really all it's cut out to be, but that's just my view on that.

Thanks again for the fleet.

o7
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Yuri Levnik
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Yuri Levnik »

My apologies to Mongo - updated to correctly reflect his participation as a brother Ferox pilot!

My initial plan was to scatter and then assess so we're thinking alike Rohan. That Machariel was still docked up somewhere nearby and I wasn't sure where all of the Hyperion damage had "disappeared" to in the fleet (turns out it was tanked quite effectively by our BNI). However, I also respect your point of view, Budda/Kirsid/others who wanted to engage.

If we get a chance, this would be an interesting fight to try out on SISI. We could ship into roughly the same comp and see how long it would take us to kill a solo carrier on a gate.
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"He's like a shark; a shark doesn't eat you because he hates you. He eats you because he's hungry and you're there." - Elihugh Beecher
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Wokum »

Great fleet and lots of action. I found myself with really good situational awareness so on a personal level I think I learned a lot.

Not sure about the Thany. At that point it might have been worth the gamble but if we got wiped out it would have taken the glow off. Good arguments both ways I guess. In any case, nice job Yuri.
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Budda Sereda »

If we get a chance, this would be an interesting fight to try out on SISI. We could ship into roughly the same comp and see how long it would take us to kill a solo carrier on a gate.
Last time we tried killing a MJD fit BC with a small gang and learned many things.
Practice on SiSi is definitely a good exercise!
Wokum wrote:if we got wiped out it would have taken the glow off
One may think so, but nothing wrong losing things if you have a plan and trying to execute it. Clearly, sometimes you will fail (unless you are a genius FC and have excellently skilled and experienced pilots), but that should not take the glow off.

IMHO.
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Harai Rex »

Gah, I can't believe I missed this!

Looks like I logged out only 30-45 min before that big fight at the end went down! Damn! Glad you guys had a good fleet anyway, a pair of shiny Hyperion kills is always a good way to end a fight.
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Crimson Herring »

Oh man, the one BLAP Caracal fleet I miss! Sounds like it was a lot of tun.
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Re: [FLEET] Solitude Caracal Cutthroats (and more!)

Post by Jaha Preynar »

I think it went swimmingly!!! Our tackle kept the ashimmu's off my Nightmare long enough to pop some of the other stuff. I GTFO when the carrier showed up as there's not a chance in hell that I'd hit its fighters. Im happy to enter the frey, but not lose things unnecessicarily.

Prudence is never a bad thing. LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY!
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