[Small Gang Thursday] II - Visit Horde in their new home

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Budda Sereda
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Title: Manager (Fittings), Mentor, Lieutenant, Graduate, Management

[Small Gang Thursday] II - Visit Horde in their new home

Post by Budda Sereda »

As part of https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 4&t=107273 and https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=107364 I took a fleet of kiting self-rep cruisers into C4C - new Horde home.

We undocked 1 ceptor (Z0X), Combat Probing Svipul (Glen), Keres (Will), anti-tackle (Skip), and 4 more Omen pilots:
Spoiler
Budda Sereda
Calder Ormand
Glen Burney
I Skip Legday
Raijin Naom
Will Musana
Wokum
Z0X Ambrye
While we were forming up, Glen killed akf Anathema in Ostingele:
Anathema +40.94m

Almost immediately after undock we spotted a Brutix
(03:20:20Z) Dastryns
Brutix +87.87m
Capsule +91.53m

A but later Vagabond. He pulled range, I believe our ceptor stayed at point range so while we landed Vaga slignshoted him and pulled the range. Z0x please share more details if you have anything to add.
Will lost Keres by not pulling far enough in time and was capped out... I knew I was taking a risk, first approached Vaga, and later pulled back to the fleet so Glen was able to land a scram, but I was killed quicker mainly due to being capped out as well (neuts :( ). Anyway, we killed a Vaga
Keres -56.75m
Omen -57.87m
Vagabond +296.01m
Hi-5 to our friend Daniel Essig who leaves in Dastryns and regularly gives us fights. Could we kill him without losing ships? Maybe... if we either had logies or if we kept the tackle and did not need to bait on DD :) But he was quicker than our Omens... so we needed a scram. From the other side, in this case (Vaga did not have scram/web) ceptor would be safe, but you never know.

Anyway, was a good fight.

We moved towards new Horde Space (C4C), on the way caught an ampty Wreathe:
(04:04:10Z) O-0HW8
Wreathe +1.03m
Capsule +0.01m

At some point, while scouts (Z0X and Glen) were trying to find ratting VNI, we got a spike in local: a solid set of destroyers with logies. The simplest option would be to just run away, but today I was intentionally looking for this type of fight. I called people to anchor up on myself, turn on prop mods, and pulled 50-70km from the gate. Unfortunately, people were slow to react and 2 of us were caught. I tried to shoot few things, but they had few Deacons and 3 DDs clearly could not kill them so we ran away.
(04:21:19Z) 8R-RTB
Omen -38.27m
Caracal -16.6m
Later Wokum admitted that by accident he sat into a wrong ship and instead of kiting self-rep one he flew buffer (hence slow).

In one of systems with ice belt Z0X found mining Procurer and Covetor. First appeared to be stabbed, but we caught the 2nd one.
(04:36:25Z) FIO1-8
Covetor +45.43m

Closer to the end of the fleet we met the same gang of destroyers who apparently were also looking for fight in a Horde space. Once Z0X confirmed they engaged in a fight with Horde I decided to 3rd party that.

It was a cool fight: we pulled throught the bubbled gate, anchored, and started picking targets at range. Unfortunately, even t1 dessies were catching reps and we could not reliable shoot thing down, but we got into a couple of kills.
(04:56:37Z) L-C3O7
Algos +16.95m
Capsule +0.01m
Crucifier +7.2m
Algos +11.91m
Stabber +14.84m
Deacon +86.96m

The fight gradually went down, we were still at solid range when I spotted an Astero quite far from the blob, I called it to be tackled and primary it. At some point I needed to run away (50% in hull), the rest of the fleet kept shooting Astero and Glen whent for short range scram. Apparently, Astero caught reps and we could not kill him. But they came closer and get Glen down. I returned to grid but appeared too close to opponents and was killed too.

Svipul -107.12m
Capsule -6.01m
Omen -50.09m
Capsule -0.01m

It looks, like we got on kill of another pricy ship :)
(05:11:14Z) L-C3O7
Orthrus +250.58m

Again, it was a great experience: 6 pilots, out of them 3 DDs only were fighting like 40 ships! As FC, it was a hard job to pick-proper targets and to an anchor at a proper range. From the other side, fleet was more or less close to me and I felt good we are in proximity to primaries. Few times though, I pulled too far.

After the fight, I realized that I did not control what Keres was doing. As an option, he could damp logies when we did fight that Astero. Maybe Keres should look on grid himself and pre-lock logies?
Nomatterwhat, I believe we should have communicated with Will more on what to do on the grid. Something to improve for future.

After the fight we still had a scout, EWar, and 2 DDs, but as I was killed I advised them to drop ships in the nearby NPC station and pod-express home. Next week going to do the same.

Final Stats:
ISK Destroyed: 951,275,235.07
ISK Lost: 332,718,386.46
ISK Delta: 618,556,848.61
Efficiency: 74.087%

Overall, I've achieved what I planned: we were kiting superior forces and did this pretty much successfully.
The only problem is a long travel distance.

Among other things, I've learned that going to Horde space we need to be ready to not only shoot small things, but also be able to break logies. So, maybe idea to go to Horde space in a small gang is not the best... Yet, I want to try the same one more time.

Come with me: https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 56#p879056

P.S. If you participated in the fleet, please fill-in the feedback form and help me become a better FC: https://goo.gl/forms/W6OTiwPMD2Lu1lmL2
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Glasi Vookto
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Re: [Small Gang Thursday] II - Visit Horde in their new home

Post by Glasi Vookto »

First of all, congrats for the roam, it's good to see you are pushing the small gang aspect in Euni as an alternative to the traditional fleet blob warfare. It seems you guys had some good fights and practiced small gang kiting, so objectives fulfilled i would say. Here are some comments/advice on a couple of issues from my part:
Budda Sereda wrote: A but later Vagabond. He pulled range, I believe our ceptor stayed at point range so while we landed Vaga slignshoted him and pulled the range. Z0x please share more details if you have anything to add.
Will lost Keres by not pulling far enough in time and was capped out... I knew I was taking a risk, first approached Vaga, and later pulled back to the fleet so Glen was able to land a scram, but I was killed quicker mainly due to being capped out as well (neuts :( ). Anyway, we killed a Vaga
Keres -56.75m
Omen -57.87m
Vagabond +296.01m
Hi-5 to our friend Daniel Essig who leaves in Dastryns and regularly gives us fights. Could we kill him without losing ships? Maybe... if we either had logies or if we kept the tackle and did not need to bait on DD :) But he was quicker than our Omens... so we needed a scram. From the other side, in this case (Vaga did not have scram/web) ceptor would be safe, but you never know.
You definitely didn't need logi to stay alive in that engagement. With 3 keres damps and sitting at range you shouldn't have lost any ships if flown properly. A single med neut on a Vagabond isn't an issue, unless you ram him, which I suspect you did :). THat is a mistake you should never do in a kitey ship. Vagabonds can fit a scram and a hefty active tank highly resistant to laser damage, so your Omens had no place within 20km from him.

The answer to keeping him tackled is scram passes. Even if your main dps is slower than the enemy, the interceptor can do scram passes on him to slow him down enough for the dps to catch up and kill him. In this situation, it was even easier as he only had a long point, so the tackle could get a lot more aggressive.

Also, I believe you had wrong ammo loaded, unless you were 50km from him when you died :)
Budda Sereda wrote: After the fight, I realized that I did not control what Keres was doing. As an option, he could damp logies when we did fight that Astero. Maybe Keres should look on grid himself and pre-lock logies?
Nomatterwhat, I believe we should have communicated with Will more on what to do on the grid. Something to improve for future.
Ideally the keres pilot should act independently and follow his own target priority unless the FC calls for damps on specific targets. Good Keres pilots will anticipate the FC's requests and will call when they acquire or lose damps on crucial targets like logies or long range webbing ships. For example, if you notice the logi is at a distance from a target, damp them and call it out, so the FC knows and heats/focuses fire on the target who's far away. Also call when you're damping long range webbing or dps ships so the FC/your buddies know they can play more aggressively and don't have to worry about them for a while. Consequently, it's even more important to call out when you lose damps on those targets so your buddies get to deal with them.
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Budda Sereda
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Re: [Small Gang Thursday] II - Visit Horde in their new home

Post by Budda Sereda »

Quote wrote:A single med neut on a Vagabond isn't an issue, unless you ram him, which I suspect you did :). THat is a mistake you should never do in a kitey ship. Vagabonds can fit a scram and a hefty active tank highly resistant to laser damage, so your Omens had no place within 20km from him.
When I landed on the grid, Vaga was at 60-ish km from me. I knew I can't take him solo and I knew reinforcement is coming (fleet was warping from 2-3 different gates). The option I had is to try to stay at 40-50km and apply damage from distance while Z0X or Glen land a tackle. But as we get more people on grid Vaga would just leave. I closed the distance and started pulling back towards the fleet while I was at 35km, but till that time I already consumed all my cap and started to run cap booster charges. And I was 1km/s slower...
Should I try to remain at 50km? Then we would not get a kill at all.
The answer to keeping him tackled is scram passes. Even if your main dps is slower than the enemy, the interceptor can do scram passes on him to slow him down enough for the dps to catch up and kill him. In this situation, it was even easier as he only had a long point, so the tackle could get a lot more aggressive.
Vaga has solid range and even medium ACs hurt ceptors... are you saying ceptor should still be able to speed tank Vaga staying at scram range? Hyena would help here to slow the Vaga down so he can't slingshot...
I believe you had wrong ammo loaded, unless you were 50km from him when you died :)
I was saving cap for armor repair module and MWD... BTW, I hate UX for reloading ammo, so inconvinient to do it in a middle of the battle, especially if you are more than just a DD.
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Glasi Vookto
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Re: [Small Gang Thursday] II - Visit Horde in their new home

Post by Glasi Vookto »

Budda Sereda wrote:
Quote wrote:A single med neut on a Vagabond isn't an issue, unless you ram him, which I suspect you did :). THat is a mistake you should never do in a kitey ship. Vagabonds can fit a scram and a hefty active tank highly resistant to laser damage, so your Omens had no place within 20km from him.
When I landed on the grid, Vaga was at 60-ish km from me. I knew I can't take him solo and I knew reinforcement is coming (fleet was warping from 2-3 different gates). The option I had is to try to stay at 40-50km and apply damage from distance while Z0X or Glen land a tackle. But as we get more people on grid Vaga would just leave. I closed the distance and started pulling back towards the fleet while I was at 35km, but till that time I already consumed all my cap and started to run cap booster charges. And I was 1km/s slower...
Should I try to remain at 50km? Then we would not get a kill at all.
ideally you should stay in point range, 20-30km and apply dps. Pull range if taking too much damage. If you're in a beam Omen with a long point, there's no reason for you to be closer than point range. You can't stop him from running away, you will mess up your tracking, you will take a lot more damage and the med neut will hurt.
Also, you should use the cap booster to keep your cap up, don't wait until you run out of cap to inject.

Budda Sereda wrote:
The answer to keeping him tackled is scram passes. Even if your main dps is slower than the enemy, the interceptor can do scram passes on him to slow him down enough for the dps to catch up and kill him. In this situation, it was even easier as he only had a long point, so the tackle could get a lot more aggressive.
Vaga has solid range and even medium ACs hurt ceptors... are you saying ceptor should still be able to speed tank Vaga staying at scram range? Hyena would help here to slow the Vaga down so he can't slingshot...
I'm saying the interceptor can keep tackle at point range and periodically delve in and do scram passess to slow him down. There were some class recordings linked on the LSC slack channel where I talk about tackling and how to do scram passses. Try to dig them up or alternately use google to find out what scram passes are.
A single ceptor can't keep a Vaga tackled indefinitely, but he should be able to slow him down long enough for the backup to catch up.

Budda Sereda wrote:
I believe you had wrong ammo loaded, unless you were 50km from him when you died :)
I was saving cap for armor repair module and MWD... BTW, I hate UX for reloading ammo, so inconvinient to do it in a middle of the battle, especially if you are more than just a DD.
[/quote]
I don't know what UX is, but reloading is pretty quick and highly recommended for laser boats.
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