[QRF] NSC Structure Defense

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Glen Burney
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[QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Glen Burney »

All Pilots All Pilots!

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for participating in the structure defense last night! First, I want to link to the fleet announcement, which went out less than 24 hours ago: https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=108914

During the day yesterday, I spent some time doing some theory-crafting on what response would be most likely to meet our goals, those being:
1) Learn something and have fun,
2) Annoy the enemy, and
3) Successfully defend a structure!

With those in mind, I called on my favorite doctrine, modified slightly to include a heavier emphasis on EWAR and Command Destroyers. The doctrine is brawly destroyers and below, and is really a smash and grab type doctrine, not much more than blob up on a target, kill it, and run away! It's as simple as it gets in EvE. The best intel I had said that the enemy (C0NE) would be in Ravens with Loki support (intel that turned out to be RIGHT ON THE MONEY btw, I was so happy to see that when we landed on-grid). My idea was this:

1) Use a cloaky prober to probe down their raven ball
2) Warp in a bunch of griffins with burst jams and 2 command destroyers with Mini Jump Field Generators (aka boosh)
3) Wait for the booshes, and then warp our DD wing on top of them.

This would successfully seperate the ravens from their logi (there was a Ninazu on-grid with them at all times) and allow us to slowly kill them. The small size of our ships would allow us to warp away after each execution.
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Formup went well! Lots of questions, almost as many answers. I was not able to get all of the fits I wanted down to PC9 in time for the main undock, so I settled for having them in Stacmon. IF PEOPLE IN PC9 want these fits down there, please let me know and I can repackage and ship down. It ended up being no big deal, it seemed out fleet of about 59 people had ships ready to go.

We got underway from Stacmon at 0245, and waited for a bit for C0NE to let us through (they had a good subcap combat fleet on the JH- gate in PC9. We spent about 25 minutes setting up the fleet and talking through our strategy, then we undocked, got into 5-D, and started making bookmarks. After not too long, a cyno was up on the Mash House, and we got over there and took a look.

The first thing I wanted to test was the ability of the EWAR to get in, run a cycle of burst jammers, and get out. Our prober successfully probed their ball (heh) and warped the wing (the command dessies canceled their warp). The ewar all landed, ran their burst, and started to warp out. Here is where I realized my first theory mistake: bubblers, m'bubbler, m'mubbler. Their flycatcher burned over and popped a bubble as about 5 of our brave EWAR dudes were trying to get out.

My grand idea was that with superior numbers, a wing of burst jamming ships could really disrupt their DD on the Athanors. And it was worth seeing it in action. I guess in lowsec it would be better? But in the end, the EWAR was really a non-factor for this fleet. Really what we needed to do was kill their flycatcher, but he stayed safely close to their main fleet (and cloaked).

After the first little loss, they actually kept their ravens well bubbled, to prevent our command destroyers from booshing. Their lokis were moving too fast to allow for a boosh event. And I kept our fleet moving while ominous reports of a Shadow Cartel Munin gang moving through PC9 in our direction were coming over the radio. It would soon become clear what their intentions were.

While we were on-grid with the Mash House, C0NE was slowly wearing down it's structure, which was kind of OK, because we really wanted to save the Distillery (the other Athanor), and it's vulnerability timer was slowly wearing down. We tried a "probe and boosh" tactic a few more times, at one point there was a Raven seperated from their ball, but we accidentally warped the boosh wing onto the Lokis. Ooops! Then the Munins finally appeared. It quickly became clear they were not there to mess with C0NE, they were gonna help kill the structures. The Munins stayed balled up well and/or in a conga line doing 1.5km/s, so booshing them wasn't an option.

Shortly after, the Mash House went down, and the whole party moved over to the Distillery. We bounced around a bit, and then the Ravens were without a bubble on top! Opportunity! I called for a PROBE AND BOOSH, and the wing executed. I watched as the CDs warped down, hit their MJDs, and the Ravens ping-ponged around away from their Capital Logi Support! I called for everyone to warp to one of the CD pilots, and when I got there, called a primary! Yay! Primary went down quickly, and I called a secondary Raven. I actually double ordered as we started to lay into Raven 2, first calling a scatter, then calling everyone to stay on the 2nd Raven, who got down to about 10% structure before he got some massive reps from a Capital Logi, at which point I did call scatter.

We all regrouped on Glen. At this point I think we had lost at least 33% of the fleet. The Munin gang was starting to use their own cloaky prober to probe us down, and the first time we all got away really well, but the 2nd time, I was focused on trying to get a warp-in on something, and realized too late that they were right on top of us, and we lost more of the fleet. In retrospect, we may have been able to stand our ground and at least kill 1 Munin.

I feel like I could have done a few things better:
1) I could have been a bit more daring with the command dessies. We could have booshed more.
2) I could have had us stand our ground against the Munins. When they first tried to get on top of us, I could have looked at our comp and determined if we could take a few of them out.
3) We should have been aligned all the time, no way we should be caught by a wing of Munins.
4) We should have focused more on their bubblers.

Here's the battle report:
https://br.inyour.space/?s=3290&b=8007945&e=195&t=uf

Can anyone remove the Athanors from that BR? I don't usually use that tool...

Anyway, with respect to our goals, I think we met 1.5 out of 3. We had fun and learned something, we annoyed C0NE a little bit, but we did not save the structures. Here's the good news! There are a LOT of other BLUE structures in that back pocket! Thanks again to all pilots, and please let's discuss below!

(oh and if pinecones are reading this good on ya guys, good times. Shadow Cartel: Die in a fire. Just kidding, good times scarybros)

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Zeerse Solaris
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Zeerse Solaris »

Assuming the structure is decently armed, you should actually boosh enemies to it so the operator can add their EWAR and DPS as most bashing fleets want to stay at range.
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Alexander Oromov
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Alexander Oromov »

From a perspective of a Command Destroyer:

I was the lucky and lone survivor of the CD wing I suppose? The Ravens were able to get lock a few seconds after the boosh, that's how most of us got caught I suppose. I was one among those who got caught twice. But since I got scrammed by Ravens the second incoming boosh, teleported away the threat, saving me.

Now, I am just throwing in a thought or two of my lesson's learned:

1.) Instead of warping 1 or 2 CD in, we could have warped in all of them and do staggered booshing. Any scrammed Raven's will stay on spot - isolated - any scrammed CD, will "very likely" be saved, as hostile scrammers will get teleported away. I am under the impression that with staggered booshing, we might have isolated more targets of opportunity for the fleet to choose from ... probably lose the same amount of CD in the process as we did with 1 or 2, since only the last CD's in the chain will get caught.

2.) ^This is risky, as we could loose all of the CD in one go, especially as with what we experienced with the Griffin's that got bubbled. That's why every null fleet, should have anti-interdictor support. Some long range ballistic thing, that can get the pesky small interdictor destroyers of field. That would have left only the heavy interdictor to deal with. As Glen said, if he wasn't FC he would have gone to ceptor down does Interdictors. I agree.

3.) Last but not least, another approach of booshing is have them go real fast (shield nano CD or something) and let us zip the field and get our targets of opportunity. If we fly them more often and practice more often it is very much possible to set up "surprise" chains and isolate small parts of the hostile fleet. You can time in your boosh keeping your inertia in mind: MWD into a corner of the hostile fleet, activate the MJFG already and hopefully, if all timed correctly, get the boosh off in a drive by. Same is possible with a combo of booshers, although advanced. you approach them from 140km or so, and set up a double boosh around 110km, e.g. both align to one of the ravens on edge, MWD on, first CD spools up thing aiming to hit the mark, around 5-10km before enemy fleet (so 110km) and second one follows either one or two seconds behind. If you are lucky you grab some without them ever expecting it.

^I've done it before, dunno if it was more luck or skill that was involved.
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Astar Kreth »

From the perspective of an EWAR wing pilot:

I felt the planning elements of the fleet were excellent, when the fleets from Stacmon and PC9 had formed up, the briefing on tactics and organisation of the fleets into a DD, EWAR and CD wing was clear and overviews of roles were well explained. The tactics were sound based on the intelligence we had (and given our objective) and the fits in use were appropriate for their roles. Clear leadership was demonstrated throughout.

From an EWAR perspective, as Glen has mentioned we were unfortunate to have gotten caught on our first pass by a flycatcher. We had taken the time to set up various bookmarks either side of the C0NE fleet but there was some confusion as to where the intended warp off point was following this first pass.

We could have improved our chances of survival by designating a warp off point prior to warping in so everyone was clear on their steps (i.e. warp in, burst jam, GTFO to X location). In the end, there was a little bit of confusion on warp out which led to more of us getting caught than necessary.

If we had warped in, burst jammed and warped out to a BM which was on the same trajectory (i.e. away from the remainder of the fleet) we would have been able to achieve warp quicker (diagram 1) . As it was, many of us sought to about face and warp back to the fleet (which cost us a few seconds (diagram 2).

Diagram 1

[FLEET} ---------------------->warp in---------------------->[C0NE]---------------------->warp out to tac---------------------->[SAFE]

Diagram 2

[FLEET} ---------------------->warp in---------------------->[C0NE]
[FLEET}<----------------------warp out back to fleet<----------------------

The operation was a great learning experience, for all involved, was great fun (I stayed up until 5am to take part) and gave a lot of people experience of fleet maneuvers. Had the Munin fleet not been there I think we the composition would have worked well. The Arty Munins wrecked us hard.

Here is to the next one - GF guys.

Ast
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Antei Thantonne »

First of all, thanks so much to Glen for volunteering to FC us on this fleet. With very little advance notice, Glen stepped up to meet what was obviously going to be a challenging task--designing and leading a fleet comp that could go up against an enemy that might escalate beyond anything we could field. Within a few hours, Glen already had instructions up on the forum, fleet announcements in Slack, and was working to arrange deliveries, or at minimum, availability. You set aside a huge chunk of time for this, Glen, and I think NSC members will join me in thanking you!

Second, I think the strategy fit the circumstances. We didn't have time to JF in tens of battlecruisers or battleships, which we probably would have lost anyway. On the other hand, it was totally feasible (and cost-effective!) to focus on EWAR frigates and DD and command dessies. Not only was the cloaky dictor tough, but who knows how many they had in their own Athanor--if we focused resources on killing that one, maybe they just get another. I'm not saying Glen isn't right, just that I'll never armchair quarterback him on that bit.

I learned a ton!

Antei

P.S. I was surprised just how focused on large missiles they were. I wonder whether Crucifiers & afterburners would have worked. I discounted the idea when I saw a couple Vigils on their previous Raven comp zkill reports, but I didn't see any target painters this time. (Though the Muninns probably make all that thinking academic.)
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Alexander Oromov
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Alexander Oromov »

And thanks to Calder for stepping up and probe down all those targets. That was great.
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George Scheibe
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by George Scheibe »

Interceptor Input: I got a sweet tackle on Shadow Cartel's cloaky prober who wasn't cloaked up for reasons unknown to me. Fleet warped in and we killed it so good times there.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/68890734/

A little before that I lost my Atron trying to take down the dictor with another pilot while you guys were fighting the ravens. We had him down to just 30% structure but someone sent in their drones and wrecked me.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/68890569/

Did what I could, and I thought the FCs instructions of catch things that are separated was solid. Fun was had.
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Atomsk Agittain
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Atomsk Agittain »

I got to command the EWAR wing, and get the fitting for the Griffins set up. Which is great because I started this game a miner, so being able to fit a ship that people go yeah, that looks good is a huge change from look a Veldspar, lets make it no exist.

And the Griffins worked great until the bubbles were there. Hopefully this doesn't need to happen again, but next time I'll get together and interceptor fit for them. And as others have said another thing that would have saved us would have been warping to fixed points and then regrouping, as it was we had a rather fast align time but when are warping to the FC and the FC goes down, the plan goes out the window.

However comm control was great, the turn out was amazing and things went about as smooth as they could for a fleet put together in 24 hours.
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Alto DeRaqwar
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Alto DeRaqwar »

Astar Kreth wrote:If we had warped in, burst jammed and warped out to a BM which was on the same trajectory (i.e. away from the remainder of the fleet) we would have been able to achieve warp quicker (diagram 1) . As it was, many of us sought to about face and warp back to the fleet (which cost us a few seconds (diagram 2).
This would be a good plan if EVE physics made sense; but they don't. When you land from a warp you land at zero velocity; when you're at zero velocity in EVE you count as being aligned to everything. So no matter which way your ship is pointing you will still achieve warp out in the same amount of time no matter where you warp to; even if you warp straight backwards to the fleet.

The important part is the acceleration of the ships (to reach 75% velocity); reaction time of pilots and your ping to London.
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Azmodeus Valar
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

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Former:
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Atomsk Agittain »

So as I, and countless people have said Griffin Ball good in theory bad in application. Someone mentioned using interceptors instead, so I built one, forgetting to look beyond the fact that cap isn't everything. Big thanks to Alto DeRaqwar for helping me out, and Athena Firefly also kindly pointed out that I shouldn't be allowed to mess with MWD's because I went cold-gas over restrained (oops). Anyway here is Wonderwall the interceptors

Ares
Spoiler
[Ares, *Burst Ares]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Damage Control II

Deluge Enduring Burst Jammer
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Small Particle Dispersion Projector I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Crow
Spoiler
[Crow, *Burst Crow]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Deluge Enduring Burst Jammer
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Small Shield Extender II

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Small Particle Dispersion Projector I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Malediction (yes we put a shield on the Malediction, we like heresy)
Spoiler
[Malediction, *Burst Malediction]
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Damage Control II

Deluge Enduring Burst Jammer
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Small Particle Dispersion Projector I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Stiletto
Spoiler
[Stiletto, *Burst Stiletto]
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

Deluge Enduring Burst Jammer
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Small Shield Extender II
Small Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Small Particle Dispersion Projector I
Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
If you would like to see more about the ideas behind the choices, check out the NSC-fittings slack channel
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Astar Kreth
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Astar Kreth »

Alto DeRaqwar wrote:
Astar Kreth wrote:If we had warped in, burst jammed and warped out to a BM which was on the same trajectory (i.e. away from the remainder of the fleet) we would have been able to achieve warp quicker (diagram 1) . As it was, many of us sought to about face and warp back to the fleet (which cost us a few seconds (diagram 2).
This would be a good plan if EVE physics made sense; but they don't. When you land from a warp you land at zero velocity; when you're at zero velocity in EVE you count as being aligned to everything. So no matter which way your ship is pointing you will still achieve warp out in the same amount of time no matter where you warp to; even if you warp straight backwards to the fleet.

The important part is the acceleration of the ships (to reach 75% velocity); reaction time of pilots and your ping to London.
Thanks very much for clarifying this is good to know. However I still think having a clearly defined warp-off point would have avoided some of the adrenaline induced panic which may have cost us a few seconds!
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Sagittarius Griffins
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Sagittarius Griffins »

Astar Kreth wrote:
Alto DeRaqwar wrote:
Astar Kreth wrote:If we had warped in, burst jammed and warped out to a BM which was on the same trajectory (i.e. away from the remainder of the fleet) we would have been able to achieve warp quicker (diagram 1) . As it was, many of us sought to about face and warp back to the fleet (which cost us a few seconds (diagram 2).
This would be a good plan if EVE physics made sense; but they don't. When you land from a warp you land at zero velocity; when you're at zero velocity in EVE you count as being aligned to everything. So no matter which way your ship is pointing you will still achieve warp out in the same amount of time no matter where you warp to; even if you warp straight backwards to the fleet.

The important part is the acceleration of the ships (to reach 75% velocity); reaction time of pilots and your ping to London.
Thanks very much for clarifying this is good to know. However I still think having a clearly defined warp-off point would have avoided some of the adrenaline induced panic which may have cost us a few seconds!
To be fair I don't think warp points would have mattered since we could only do the jamming maneuver once by surprising the enemy fleet. DIctors were well positioned after the initial attempt and there were screening bubbles to prevent any warp ins.
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Budda Sereda »

First of all: Kudos to Glen for taking the fleet out, lots of learning and fun.

Lost 2 CDs, and, unfortunately, did not get on kills:
1st time, when we landed inside of the Ravens gang I was first tackled: understanding what's coming I was trying to escape, but unsuccessful.
2nd time, we were caught by probbers and my Magus was too slow to run away :(
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Re: [QRF] NSC Structure Defense

Post by Cryptic Sharvas »

Glen, thanks for putting this together. I don't think anyone could have predicted the defensive bubbling of there own fleet. which completely messed up your wonderful plans.

I do think that having an interceptor burst jamming wing that was sub 2sec for align time would have been interesting, and maybe something we try next time. I think the idea of getting a tactical inside their group and then constantly warping in interceptors in and out and burst jamming would have been pretty cancerous for them to deal with.

To Everyone in the UNI that responded and came out, Thank you for joining in.
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