[AAR] Amygnon FOB attempt

Locked
User avatar
Onyx Aurelius
Member
Member
Posts: 19
Joined: 2015.06.01 01:30
Title: Sophomore

[AAR] Amygnon FOB attempt

Post by Onyx Aurelius »

This is a reposting of the response i had at the end of the HSC thread detailing the event, at Ersin's suggestion, i'm resposting it here for pulci discussion. Despite an official cancellation of the event, a few other pilots were setup to make an attempt with a smaller force. This the write up of that attempt. Apologies in advance for the wall of text.

The scheduled event on Saturday did not take place as intended, partially due to the LSC defense fleet that had taken priority, and it seems do to lack of commitment to wanting to field ships, and in retrospect this was an exceptionally good thing indeed given the level of failure and losses that would have been incurred if the full compliment of people i was looking for had shown up. And i cannot stress this enough, what did happen was a failure, though it could have been much worse.

Despite the warnings/misgivings expressed in this thread i decided to, against sound judgement, attempt a crack at the FOB, or rather clearing the initial response fleet utilizing a Nestor and Dominix for remote repair and utilizing a command ship provided by an experienced HSC pilot. To Capt Steel and Artor, i thank you both for your time, and i apologize immensely for putting your ships a such a risk.

The idea was to utilize the battleships to keep one another repaired, and in the event of needing to leave grid utilize large/medium Micro Jump Drives to get clear of the FOB forces, as the forces spawned by the FOB only have Points, not scrams. In practical terms, this worked beautifully, as two of the three ships made it out using this tactic, unfortunately i was slow on the activation and lost my ship to DPS, but a more coordinated use may have prevented this.

However DPS of incoming forces proved too much to be dealt with by un-bonused repairs from the ships, it was exceptionally close however...and may have been enough had i not made the call to spread tank between both Kinetic and Thermal as opposed doubling down on thermal. I'm sure many will ask "why bother taking for two damage types if the spawns only deal one?" The answer to this lies in the fact that it's possible for pirate haulers based from the FOB to return on grid and spawn their own defensive forces, forces which deal Kinetic damage.

After the attempt i was informed that the Haulers might not come back to the FOB if it is "engaged" in the sense the structure itself is attacked, something that would have certainly changed how i approached the issue, however even if our on grid tank held, the bigger issue came down to DPS, or rather the lack of DPS available from only two battleships (the command ship was not armed with weapons).

The simple truth is that given the number of spawns, and tank of those spawns, and logistics spawned to support them, short of risking Geckos, we did not have the numbers to crack even basic frigates through enemy reps, given our short time on grid, and this was not even counting for the possibility of one of us getting jammed out and losing locks on targets.

So what was learned? Well, for a short of a time as was spent on grid with the base itself, several things came to light in the post op analysis.
1) the exact spawning mechanics of these bases are truly unknown/not understood
Given the ships brought in comparison with other fleets spawned by those attempting to gather data, the spawns have a wide variance in type/class of ships spawned in relation to player fleets. Best working theory is that spawns are based on the number of high slots, regardless of if/how they are filled.

2) Usage of the MJD units as "in case of emergency" buttons are a potentially viable tactic/out, assuming Pirate Hauling forces are not present.

3) Tank for only the damage type you have to, not what "might" happen, as was stated earlier, the tank was holding close as times, and those few % points might have made the difference.

4) Incursions this is not.
In all honesty, there may never be a standardized doctrine for these bases to be dealt with a a fleet, due in no small part to the already in place mechanics, and the fact that CCP is still tinkering with some of the underlying mechanics that allow these bases to function.

TL;DR

I try and take a stab at a pirate FOB with two other people, it ends badly for me specifically, we didn't learn as much as we would have wanted, and the problem of a usable doctrine remains unsolved. Can't win them all.

And as a request to those who will inevitably criticize the unfinished doctrine originally placed forth, and other actions taken, i would ask you consider this. Comparatively few people actually committed ships to this, even before LSC had need for a defense fleet, and that the vast majority of the information being worked off of was...incomplete at best. Despite failings, losses were kept to a numerical minimum in terms of ships lost outside of a perfect extraction.

To those of you who are looking to try this in solitude in a few days, i wish you the best of luck, for it seems that RNG is only thing that can be counted upon when dealing with these structures.
Time? Time is an illusion. Lunchtime? Doublely so. -Ford Prefect, The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy-
User avatar
Erwin Madelung
BANNED
BANNED
Posts: 169
Joined: 2017.08.23 07:24
Title: Solitude Officer, Sophomore

Re: [AAR] Amygnon FOB attempt

Post by Erwin Madelung »

It seems you already have the appropiate amount of self criticism. One more remark on your fit: You really want to fit a reactive hardener, the damage control does not perform well compared to hardeners if you have a specific damage type to tank, you don't need to much buffer. I played around with pyfa once what would probably be a good fit for pair of Nestors against an FOB and came up with the following:

Code: Select all

[Nestor, FOB]

Reactive Armor Hardener
Corpus X-Type Armor Thermal Hardener
Corpus X-Type Armor Thermal Hardener
Corpus X-Type Armor Thermal Hardener
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Remote Sensor Booster II, ECCM Script
Remote Sensor Booster II, ECCM Script
Remote Sensor Booster II, ECCM Script
Sensor Booster II, ECCM Script
Sensor Booster II, ECCM Script
Sensor Booster II, ECCM Script

Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Large I-ax Enduring Remote Armor Repairer
Large I-ax Enduring Remote Armor Repairer
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Large I-ax Enduring Remote Armor Repairer
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II

Large Anti-Thermal Pump II
Large Remote Repair Augmentor II
Large Remote Repair Augmentor II


Ogre II x5
This fit has an armour tank of 654k EHP at a resist of over 98% (resist multiplier over 52). Compare to your 116k EHP at a multiplier of 4.52. Note that I was only playing around and haven't tested the fit above. It might be possible to even drop a hardener and go for more DPS.
User avatar
Cassiel Seraphim
Member
Member
Posts: 3924
Joined: 2008.07.06 09:45
Title: Speaker of Truth, Timelord, Graduate

Re: [AAR] Amygnon FOB attempt

Post by Cassiel Seraphim »

Onyx Aurelius wrote:Given the ships brought in comparison with other fleets spawned by those attempting to gather data, the spawns have a wide variance in type/class of ships spawned in relation to player fleets. Best working theory is that spawns are based on the number of high slots, regardless of if/how they are filled.
What ships did spawn for you?

I've not seen any real evidence pointing towards the high slot theory. It seems far more likely, based on the screenshots and recounts we've had so far, that it's a number of pilots and/or ship-class sized issue. We've seen the defenders react to larger ships by bringing Ravens instead of Caracals, we've seen them bring more ships as a reaction to a larger fleet of players. Nothing really points to high slot theory that I've seen. What am I missing that makes that theory compelling? Besides people repeating an unfounded theory.
User avatar
Hirmuolio Pine
Member
Member
Posts: 406
Joined: 2014.08.05 12:50
Title: Wiki Curator, Graduate

Re: [AAR] Amygnon FOB attempt

Post by Hirmuolio Pine »

For the curious ones me, Erwin and Ygrasil just did a test on SISI.

3x Dominixes on field and the FOB undocked:
2x Kestrel
7x Caracal
1x Gila
1x Raven
3x Osprey (2x on Raven, one on Caracals)

We killed the ravens, gila and one osprey and stayed on field to grind the FOB to around 70% hull. No respawns.

The Raven constantly stayed at around 100 km with two ospreys near it.

Would be interesting to see with bigger fleet how much DPS they bring out.
User avatar
Ersin Oghuz
Member
Member
Posts: 1333
Joined: 2016.03.04 16:24
Title: Campus Manager (HSC), Caw Caw, Ensign, Teacher, Graduate, Management

Re: [AAR] Amygnon FOB attempt

Post by Ersin Oghuz »

I warped FOB in test server with Talos and I got ;
1 Kestrel, 1 Raven, 2 Ospreys.
Of course it was a suicide run since there was no way my DPS Talos can overcome the fleet and I was destroyed of course.
"In Blasters I Trust"

Image
ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage
Locked