[AAR] Talwars in Geminate - 2018.04.14

Locked
User avatar
Eadrom Vintarus
Retired Director
Retired Director
Posts: 358
Joined: 2014.02.23 19:28
Title: Director of Special Projects (NSC, LSC, Solitude, FCC), Ensign, Mentor, Graduate
Location: Roaming the USA

[AAR] Talwars in Geminate - 2018.04.14

Post by Eadrom Vintarus »

PLEASE GIVE ME FEEDBACK SO I CAN LEARN:
https://goo.gl/forms/W6OTiwPMD2Lu1lmL2
^ Fill out that form and / or post in this thread.

Unified SRP Form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... w/viewform

First, and foremost, thank you very much to everyone that attended my fleet!

We got another later start from waiting for some people to burn to staging as well as trying to get more people to join up. We ended up undocking at around 0220 or so. We made our way down towards Pandemic Horde's capital system in Geminate, O-VWPB, via the BFW-VV entrance to the region. There were a couple bubbles and 3-4 in local, but gate was clear. We jumped in and I ordered us to align out while shooting the bubbles. Turns out while small bubbles die quickly to 15+ Talwars, large bubbles simply laugh at 8 Talwars. We were lucky that no one was on gate and we had the time needed to MWD our way out of the bubbles and move on.

It was quiet the rest of the trip there as we broke in our new scout and got him some experience helping us move quickly. There was a null sec incursion in the constellation next to O-V, so that made things a little interesting as we got close to PH's home system. We made it there with no issues.

Now for the fun stuff. We were sitting on the gate at 0km with scout in O-V. We'd been seen by several pickets on the way in, so I was pretty sure there should be something forming up for us to shoot at. After about a minute or two, I had a gut feeling something was up, and ordered fleet to burn away for a few cycles of their MWD and setup 50km from the gate. Shortly after that (but long enough for my gut feeling to be an artifact of digestion lol), our scout was forced to jump back into VSJ-PP. Fleet was at a tactical a couple hundred km off the gate now, ready to warp back to our 50km bookmark. Scout decloaked and a Firetail jumped in after him and decloaked nearby. The firetail engaged. We warped to our 50km bookmark, perfectly positioned. I ordered scout to burn towards the fleet and after we landed, we locked and blapped the Firetail. First blood and well executed kill!

We sat on that position for a couple minutes. I don't remember if we went back to our tactical or if we waited there. ~5 minutes after the Firetail died, had scout pop back into O-V to check things out and the Horde QRF was on the gate. I think we were at an off gate tactical at that moment and then warped to the 50km bookmark when we heard about that. Had scout jump back through and begin burning away from gate to provide a local warp to if needed. I don't remember if that was followed or if I vocalized that well enough. Reason being is a Vagabond jumped into us. With us at 50km and him at ~55km or so, perfect positioning. Wasn't sure if we could take him, but figured why not. We moved forward a bit and began to attack. After surprising nuking him down into hull, he started shield repping. Budda prompted and I called for scout to land tackle on the vagabond so it couldn't warp off. We overheated launchers and after some back and forth, took him down! It was the best kill of the night. A few seconds after we killed the Vagabond, the Horde fleet jumped through and began to burn at us. With a solid kill in hand and out of position, the Talwars warped off grid. All but one. :(

Over the next little while, we warped back and forth between safes and warp ins on the O-V gate in VSJ, seeking opportunities to land kills. We got one great kill on a slasher. Warped in, locked, blapped while aligning, and warped off.

We tried this a few more times with no luck. During all this, an Origin. pilot in a Scorpion had been asking for a 5v1 at/near the K42 gate. I sent the scout over and he got tackled by a Manticore. We warped over to land at 30 or 50km and tried to kill him. Scout wasn't able to get tackle on him, and warped off as we landed. Tried for a couple other small ships, but they were able to warp off to tacticals. We warped back to Planet 7.

Up to this point, we'd seen some combat probes on d-scan. I figured they were probably trying to find that Scorpion. After landing, Budda commented that he had 8 combat probes on d-scan and that they were close by. I confirmed w/ my own d-scan. I began to give orders to start moving away from where we were sitting when a Jaguar landed, right on top of us. I had a few moments of confusion reading the distances on d-scan and overview; I knew it was right on top of us but what I was reading I thought looked like it was 2300 km (was actually 2300 meters) away from us, and these moments of confusion was the time needed for Horde's fleet to start landing on us. We had one person tackled, and with the fleet landing, I called for scatter. I'm not sure the timeline/reasoning, but within a short few moments, we had bubbles up on us. Someone (Calder I think) called for us to just fight here (since we'd been going at it for about 90 minutes by then). People focused on the Jaguar and as we got killed and podded, we got the Jaguar that got the drop on us. Fleet was called as we'd all/mostly all died. Good fights in local!

The good:

* We had some great skirmishing this time with getting into position, killing something quickly, and then warping / moving off. This was a lot of fun.

* No one died to incursion rats.

* I feel I did better with target calling and broadcasting (at least for most of the fights)

The bad:
* During the final fight, I went quiet after calling for scatter. As the bubbles went up, and a few people on comms stated a desire to stand and fight, I should have resumed calling targets for the engagement. Instead I just watched the fleets fight. This totally wasn't a case of "they aren't doing what I ordered, so I'm not helping". IDK if I was just too concentration burned out at this point or what was going on. At the very least, I should have called for like Budda to take over FC'ing. I think the Horde remembered I was FC'ing or I just got lucky. They killed me last and so it wasn't even a case of oh I got killed early or anything. This is my first day back on day shift after staying up all day yesterday so as to move to a day shift sleep schedule. Perhaps I was just cooked by then. I felt like I was doing fine up until that point though.

* Someone lost a training clone. I need to remember to remind people that since we're going into null sec, to bring a clone they can lose because bubbles are a thing in null. Staging has a clone bay so not too much of a problem to go out in a clean clone.

* Xafen died after the Vagabond kill and was trying to reship into something and get back to us. There was a lot going on and the guy with the patience of a saint kept asking what to bring and not getting an answer from me. I eventually told him to bring what he wanted, but that Talwar would be hard to get back to us and an interceptor would only really be useful scouting and providing pings. Perhaps this is something I should have delegated to Budda / 2FC to coordinate. Xafen, sorry I took so long to get you an answer and it sucks that you couldn't have gotten back to us because of all those bubbles!

* Movement... Kept the fleet in position w/o moving a lot while in VJS. Having a scout burn away and periodically warp to the scout when at >150km is something I know to use when regrouping or waiting for something (scout to get intel/warping whatever). We also stayed still a few times while on the O-V gate. There may be times to stay still, but there were a lot of times I should have had the fleet moving and didn't. This eventually is what killed us at the end of the roam. Part of this was just lack of mental bandwidth to keep that up and keep it into consideration. Part of it was I didn't want to "lose" the positioning we had (could have orbited probably just fine). Part of it was just forgetting I needed to get the fleet moving.

* I burned out my guns... I got distracted while killing that vagabond and forgot about turning off heat on my launchers. Ironically, this was happening while I was telling people to watch the heat on their launchers. lol Perhaps not overheating my own weapons would be better (until I have enough mental bandwidth to keep track of that while FC'ing). Or bring a mobile depot and spare set of weapons. x D

* Form up still took longer than would be nice. I know a big part of this is simply because we're staging so far from normal Uni space and most of the k-space campuses. I've tried to mitigate this issue by picking a staging system that has a clone bay so people can clone jump for the fleet as well as providing mainline dps ships (as well as T2 refits) and scout ships on contract at staging, so if someone doesn't want/can't clone jump there, all they need is a fast travel frigate/inty and can pick up a combat ship once they arrive. I'm not sure what else I can do to promote fleet participation. I don't want to overspam/ping for the fleet too much. I think another part of this is a combination of new/unknown FC as well as it being null sec roam, as well as being so far off the beaten path for most unistas. Hopefully as I continue to run these roams every two weeks, more people will start to regularly show up. I would love to get 20-30 talwars on a consistent basis. Any ideas on how I can get there would be most appreciated!


Roam members (10)
Spoiler
Aiden Chance - Talwar
Budda Sereda - Talwar
Calder Ormand - Talwar
De W Javqe - Atron
Eadrom Vintarus - Talwar
Space Warfare Development
Tisiphone Tagetes - Talwar
Vors Voorhorian - Talwar
Xafen Katapi - Talwar
Xivik Skord - Talwar
Kills and Losses

(02:54:17) VSJ-PP
Republic Fleet Firetail +23.37m
Capsule +0.01m
Vagabond +285.12m
Talwar -11.76m

(03:11:39) BWF-ZZ
Capsule -0.01m

(03:21:01) VSJ-PP
Slasher +3.2m
Capsule +0.01m
Talwar -10.44m
Talwar -10.39m
Atron -3.74m
Talwar -9.21m
Talwar -7.13m
Jaguar +62.86m
Talwar -10.42m
Capsule -0.76m
Talwar -10.6m
Capsule -37.82m
Talwar -10.19m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 374,564,895.82
ISK Lost: 122,534,396.88
ISK Delta: 252,030,498.94
Efficiency: 75.35%
\o/ Retired \o/ Director of Special Projects - NSC, LSC, Solitude Campuses, and the Fleet Command Course
Feeling lost or overwhelmed? Request an E-UNI Mentor today!
Looking for small gang PVP and BLOPs'ing? Look at J-Drop today!

Image
User avatar
Tisiphone Tagetes
Member
Member
Posts: 8
Joined: 2018.03.19 18:57
Title: Freshman

Re: [AAR] Talwars in Geminate - 2018.04.14

Post by Tisiphone Tagetes »

Quick and fun fleet tonight! I was unfortunately the guilty party with the training pod--completely not FC's fault as I well know better by now. I had set up earlier in the day with replacement ships and wanted a few extra hours of skill training advantage, and by the time I realized I'd failed to clear we were deep in PH space with no real opportunity to correct my error. Learned that I need to get to fleet earlier than a few minutes prior so I can make sure all of the pre-fleet checklist is taken care of.

As for the fleet itself, there was a lot of information/observation packed into that short trip to Geminate. Most of the fleets I had attended prior to this one focused on roaming about and pouncing on targets or fleets as the presented themselves. This fleet focused more on guerilla hit-and-run tactics in a single system with extensive use of tactical locations, all of which were created on-the-fly from what I could tell. There was also some impressive use of angles as the fleet warped into a well-defended gate and picked off a target or two before escaping to safety. I was able to see how well that approach can work and how long it might be effectively sustained. Even after the fleet was caught by the natives' overwhelming force, we were still able to sneak in that final kill before exploding.

Had a fine time and learned quite a bit. Thank you!

--Tisi
User avatar
Budda Sereda
Member
Member
Posts: 1591
Joined: 2016.01.20 02:45
Title: Manager (Fittings), Mentor, Lieutenant, Graduate, Management

Re: [AAR] Talwars in Geminate - 2018.04.14

Post by Budda Sereda »

Good fleet, nice FCing, many kudos to all! FC, De W for scouting, Space for intel and warp-ins, all others for coming.

To make it easier to join guys, next time you will be nearby Gemine, setup a clone in a staging system. In your home system you go to citadel with Jump Bay, jump to your clone near the Gemine, setup a new clone. All costs 900K ISK and save you from making 25-35 jumps.

As Eadrom asked, I'm leaving few comments on actions and improvements.

Disclaimer: Eadrom: you did good job a REALLY GOOD JOB as for the 2nd fleet, and I'm not sure if I would do better. Though, I do believe something you do need to improve, hence here are my comments.
Eadrom Vintarus wrote:... Vagabond jumped into us. With us at 50km and him at ~55km or so, perfect positioning. Wasn't sure if we could take him, but figured why not. We moved forward a bit and began to attack. After surprising nuking him down into hull, he started shield repping. Budda prompted and I called for scout to land tackle on the vagabond so it couldn't warp off. We overheated launchers and after some back and forth, took him down! It was the best kill of the night. A few seconds after we killed the Vagabond, the Horde fleet jumped through and began to burn at us. With a solid kill in hand and out of position, the Talwars warped off grid. All but one. :(
In theory, once Vaga started moving towards us we should have started immediately pulling the range. If we did not, he would come and chew us 1-by-1.
Ironically, if we did exactly this, we would not secure the kill. I'm sure that he would either warp-off, or would kill our tackle (Atron) and warp-off. By having us nearby we baited him into talwars at range and he wasted time chasing DDs and could not run away when it was a time for that.

Maybe he thought he will be able to tank LONG enough... but, he XLASB has only 9 charges and using them he needs to be VERY careful. Each charge restores 3/4 of the shield buff so he should use it only when his shield is quite low (around 10-20%), but with Talwars high alpha that was really hard, so he inevitably was bleeding into armor and later structure.

@Eadrom: somehow you were hesitant to make any decision so I started pulling the range myself and called you we need to keep the range. Alternatively, we could chose to keep a closer range (which is arguably not the best option), but we should not stay still.
I am sure this will come with experience, though it is my duty to bring attention to the fact that FC should make a quick call on what to do.
We tried this a few more times with no luck. During all this, an Origin. pilot in a Scorpion had been asking for a 5v1 at/near the K42 gate. I sent the scout over and he got tackled by a Manticore. We warped over to land at 30 or 50km and tried to kill him. Scout wasn't able to get tackle on him, and warped off as we landed. Tried for a couple other small ships, but they were able to warp off to tacticals. We warped back to Planet 7.
Not sure what was exactly happening, I assume scout was tackled, got scared and tried to run away. FC made a call to save him. In general, that's not the best choice: if there were other ships on grid we would just lose more. But in this case, Manticore was along. It got scared and run away.
What we could do better:
1. Scout should not be afraid of a bomber: it is often slow and don't apply well to a bomber. He can just orbit bomber with MWD off, scram him and wait for fleet to arrive and secure the kill.
2. When FC called fleet to warp to a scout, he should also call: get tackle on a Manticore so it can't run away when we land.
Up to this point, we'd seen some combat probes on d-scan. I figured they were probably trying to find that Scorpion. After landing, Budda commented that he had 8 combat probes on d-scan and that they were close by. I confirmed w/ my own d-scan. I began to give orders to start moving away from where we were sitting when a Jaguar landed, right on top of us. I had a few moments of confusion reading the distances on d-scan and overview; I knew it was right on top of us but what I was reading I thought looked like it was 2300 km (was actually 2300 meters) away from us, and these moments of confusion was the time needed for Horde's fleet to start landing on us. We had one person tackled, and with the fleet landing, I called for scatter. I'm not sure the timeline/reasoning, but within a short few moments, we had bubbles up on us. Someone (Calder I think) called for us to just fight here (since we'd been going at it for about 90 minutes by then). People focused on the Jaguar and as we got killed and podded, we got the Jaguar that got the drop on us. Fleet was called as we'd all/mostly all died. Good fights in local!
Yeah, during the fleet I was wondering, what you were doing and why decision (any) came too late :).
As far as I remember, things were going this way.
I kept looking into d-scan.
Good recommendation to FC: assign somebody to periodically check d-scan and report suspicions. That person should kept periodically switching from long range (14AU), to short range (1AU). That's exactly what I did. And when I noticed 8 probes on short range I called for that. A few seconds later Jaguar appeared on overview which I also reported.
I did not start aligning out as I did not know where will we warp.
When Jaguar landed, he scrammed me, which I reported and started shooting it, and also reported this. Looking into a Jaguar's kill mail I understand how did he point one more of us. FC called "shoot jaguar". At this moment I knew I'm going to die but kept shooting. A few seconds later more stuff landed on grid, and bubbled us. FC commanded to scatter, but we were bubbled. Many people tried to pull range, but dictors knew their job, kept bubbling everything and killed all of us.

So few things should have been done differently.

Sitting somewhere fleet should be always aligned and moving. If we are not, as soon as you anything appears on the grid (even at 2300km) FC should call to align out, and pulse 2-3 time MWD. That would give us range, and ability to shoot the tackle.

Anyway, I'm happy with the fleet and looking for another one. Hopefully we will get a bit more people so we can alpha dictors and CDs :)
User avatar
De W Javqe
Member
Member
Posts: 122
Joined: 2018.02.03 09:31
Title: Sophomore

Re: [AAR] Talwars in Geminate - 2018.04.14

Post by De W Javqe »

It was a much better roam then I expected. It was great learning how to do scouting. It was confusing at first, but I got it in the end. Outgate is the gate that takes you "out" of the system, and the ingate takes you "in"to a system.

Yes, I maybe could have tackled the manticore but he definetly overheated his scrams. So I was never out of range for him and me always always out of range.

When the fleet that killed us landed, I already was aligned to a anom but I was caught 'to use the more common words', with my pants down. I knew that the fleet had no way of getting out in time. I think someone else and I said 'let's just fight'. At least in my opinion, if the fleet hadn't warped to me at that exact point I probably would have got away. But what's the fun in that? :D


It was a great fleet by far.
PvPer that still stays in HSC.
Image Image Image Image
User avatar
Budda Sereda
Member
Member
Posts: 1591
Joined: 2016.01.20 02:45
Title: Manager (Fittings), Mentor, Lieutenant, Graduate, Management

Re: [AAR] Talwars in Geminate - 2018.04.14

Post by Budda Sereda »

De W Javqe wrote: Yes, I maybe could have tackled the manticore but he definetly overheated his scrams. So I was never out of range for him and me always always out of range.
Manticore and Atron have the same scram range. 9km for T2, a bit less for meta version.
If you were further than 9km from Manticore then he has a point (24km range) not a scram. In this case, you do need to turn your MWD and catch him. Atron is much quicker than a Manticore. No blame, just sharing an experience. Hope this helps.
User avatar
Xafen Katapi
Member
Member
Posts: 72
Joined: 2018.03.02 05:00
Title: Freshman

Re: [AAR] Talwars in Geminate - 2018.04.14

Post by Xafen Katapi »

* Xafen died after the Vagabond kill and was trying to reship into something and get back to us. There was a lot going on and the guy with the patience of a saint kept asking what to bring and not getting an answer from me. I eventually told him to bring what he wanted, but that Talwar would be hard to get back to us and an interceptor would only really be useful scouting and providing pings. Perhaps this is something I should have delegated to Budda / 2FC to coordinate. Xafen, sorry I took so long to get you an answer and it sucks that you couldn't have gotten back to us because of all those bubbles!
I was half a second from getting out with the rest of you =/ After the vegabond kill you called align sun, and between my direction of travel at that time and skills their mass of people coming through the gate got me =/ 6! people on my killmail lol... That was a big group coming through very quickly. I'd say we did an excellent job baiting though and getting that vega kill.

It wasn't a problem about the reshipping issue. I knew there was 0% chance I'd get back in the Talwar with triple bubbles on the NS entrance gate, and listening to comms I wasn't eager to jump in the ceptor and come out. You all were barely keeping ahead of them, and within short order were all dead =0 My coming out in a ceptor wouldn't have changed anything other than a needless 50M lossmail.

There definitely seems to be good content out there; we've had a couple successful fleet now (finding content at least). We'll get things nailed down on the doctrine and have a grand time!

Some bubble escape practice is in order I'd say. Either crashing gate, or practicing finding nearest edge of bubble, or practicing focus fire on the bubble to get it down.
Locked