[WHC] - Trap, Trickle and POP

[Troven Smalvard]

Warning: this is far too long, this may be why i'm the worst FC my AARs





Trap
So I’m merrily 5 jumps down the chain hoping to find people running the new “daily content” sites and there’s the usual chit chat in mumble, when some one spots a tayra with an astero heading to Innuendo from Bacon, being an industrial its correctly presumed they will be going to our high sec to dump sweet lewts.

Ariea jumps in a sabre and races to Eggs to try and cut them off at the pass, unfortunately he just misses the timing and the tyra lands on the hole at zero and the piñata waves into k space.

…

The suddenly an apparently until this point obviously CCP explit covops fit BNI (as none of the peeps in Bacon or innu had spotted him) lands on the edge of the bubble off of Eggs.

Trickle

-445 Millionz
Ariea shouts then promptly bubbles the BNI and goes for the engage
At this point I’m too far down to rush back to what seems like a gank that should be reasonable as there are peeps already in space in Innu.
We have a stratios on grid and a couple others on the way to finish the interloper

Then Mumble chirps up with a 2nd BNI 2x Deacons and a phobos also landing on said bubble. (our intel bot was obviously in the shop today)

Sounds like we have neighbours who want content and I best speed it home.

At this point we only have a dic and a strat on grid and and a second strat landing and someone else warping in, first strat is getting punched hard
The tables have turned and they have the upper hand, more people are preparing to yolo. Forunately Conci is on grid, in something and calls people off to decomit and stop the trickle feed so we can form up.

I get back to Bacon as I here Porsche’s stratios go bang and we also lose a caracal.


Theres a bit of general disarray people want to fight but no one is saying what.
Recently we’ve been particularly bad at forming in any reasonable time and lose the ability to even have a fight because the other side can escape/get bored/have plenty of time to watch us and get their own reinforcements we cant match.

To avoid that I decide to be bossy, get in T1 armour I jump in an execurororer* as no one is/has logi a decide I’ll try and come after main fleet and solo when Tylenos gets his alt in an exec too.

Struggling on numbers somehow still I get a couple of ANIs and a proph x up and I’m happy to go
Undock undock lets go… anyone late T1 armour and come to us
By now there phobos has bubble up on eggs and their comp set on the hole
Conci still has eyes

As there is a bubble up and no tac we cant dictate range so I warp all readies to eggs knowing to hit the bubble.

I know I shouldn’t =, said I wouldn’t = even put it in writing before for that reason DONT FC FROM LOGI

With only 4 ships on there side I somehow think this time will be different
I call and broadcast a deacon primary as we land, then remember why I’m dumb, lock friendlies to rep, and hear helpfully that we have split deeps.
I try to lock the enemy while being primary and realise to man up and hand over,
Tylenos takes over target calling, I forgot at this point he’s multi boxing logi too, not that that’s to much, he’s anchored on me and all reps already going. im not catching even with heat and as I go down I manage to make out of the bubble to reship

Ty does a great job calling targets, gets couple of deacons down and even gets a BNI that can’t jump to hisec in time, switch to phobos but they extract the remainder

We trade a sacrilege in return. This was x’d in fleet chat I didn’t spot it, my bad on being the one organising form up. And didn’t reiterate jumping to high sec as WHs have no combat timers.

I land back on grid in an ANI as they jump out to safety of kspace

We loot, and we align to leave, I fleet warp myself, everyone understands I’m a dork and follows home.

50/50 (ish)


POP
As we are docked up constructively critiquing what went good and less so,
It appears the gallente massive are regrouping now reshipped another couple BNI and a couple of T1 cruisers and moooare decons 3 I think? And he phobos still they are back on the bacon hole waiting for their brethren to return to Bobs embrace from icky local space.
Deciding execs didn’t cut the mustard and a few more bodies responding to the previous ping, I’m adamant I’ll go DD from the get go to call targets, I get three augorors (after a little jiggery pokery) and I tell them to hold back until were in warp to not upset the friendly content too early.
We align and on my screen I have 7 pilots, so I tel anyone else to hold till we engage, I fleet warp suddenly 7 are 4, Urban notices, call everyone else gogogogogo

My pre brief was I know we land on the bubble, I guess they may extract if they think we have too much. Either way we land, and immediately burn to jump range of the hole props on.

My thinking 2 fold, we can chase if they bail + we can jump if not holding (lesson learned reinforced by the sac)
Logi get same brief as I expect to be jumping and they are 3 now with more reps and should be able to hold to brawl.

I call a decon first and neuts on the others,
Split DPS again,
Recall primary hes breaking slowly,
Split dps still almost break but seems to catch, thinking hes moving away from our close range stuff switch
We manage to pop one then an easy frig, the other decons jump when primaried as they can’t hold each other now, keep calling targets they jump and warp but we still have the phobos, it eventually jumps an we purse, I feel like we caught something at least but zkill says no?

+100 mil

Head home again, no losses this time, chat is happier.
Were just docking when a BNI returns from hisec? People say we can pursue when all of a sudden a cry of

“ I booshed one!, I boooooshed one!!, warp to Oh’Leador”

Oh Oh’Leador, nobody knew you were out there doing your thing,
Emergency undock- gogogo – argh session timers – arrgrh ccp – argh align time.

I land to see a dead magus, and interference from warp is stopping me locking as BNI moon walks while 3 of his friends sit 100km away on the bacon hole

would have worked if we knew what was happening

Hmm now 4 BNI’s in innu, activation 5 BNI’s were scattered again, I want the fight but we don’t feed remember ☺
Everyone regroup ALI I need eyes in Bacon to see what else is lurking, posiibly a scary/hopefull another 5 BNIs

Zentu steps up as he is in a bomber and goes through, just cruisers again, memory fading, possibly the phobos still?

The final Helping

+775 million

Peeps want T2s I have to agree I thing ANIs will melt to 5 Blaster BNI’s in brawl range and if we go kitey nano they will just leave
Peeps wanna fly shinys too and we’ve not had a decent brawl in a while,

Not going T2 without T2 so if we can’t support I’ll stick to what we got,
I get three guards and almost more devoters than anything else.
Sacs and damnations come up, lets go,

We lose scout comms to mumble gremlins but don’t think anything else would have got there in the time since he went dead
NYS correctly guesses were too much and they will run, again I leave logi docked and nys goes for it solo in the devoter, I don’t want to warp into our bubble and onces hes on route I undock everyomne else and fleet warp.

I heard a few people say “too soon” and I also don’t want to scare away the baddies
but while i don't want to scare I also don’t want to land on the edge of our own bubble off the hole

I want us landing zero to chase straight through if needed .... then promptly warp us to a ping everyone does a good job getting on the hole asap and jumping

They jump(eventually) when they see the devoter and NYS goes through and grabs them in a bubble, good job,
We pile through and I call spred points, don’t get much of a reaction form our side in comms, but at least we seem to be follow ing primaries this time.
I’m shouting for points as devoter is going down
Finally people let me know and devotor can bubble down and catch reps.

Right about the high dps they got him in structure in what could have only been 2 cycles of bubble I guess
We pop a BNI then the squishier stuff, on BNI jumps and NYS chases we clean up our side the back through to catch the last polarised BNI plus a bonus hero kestrel warping into the bubble with 15 people on grid

GFs in local before last pod goes pop.

Latter they come back through eggs to go home, safe passage requested and given and more GFs and some good chat in local, its nice to be nice

The Pan Galactic boys and girls brought us some good action, they taught us a lesson at the start (and our boosher to be vocal ) and hung around long enough for us to get a second bite of the cherry, props to them, sorry was more of a blob than I was expecting at the end, not many x’d up then suddenly ships in space when we got on the hole,

That is all except poor Jerecho who logged in literally 15seconds after the hour long back and forth and “asked if anyone was up to anything?” and got buried in KMs


Bad.

• Trickle and feeding kills, once it changed from a gank to something more still need discipline not to yolo ships.
• still no real impetus in form ups when there a chance at a cherry
• I didn’t spot the Sac listed in initial form up – on me
• split DPS all over the place, I’m sure there was a few multi-boxing on their side which helped us, but its simple stuff and makes or breaks a fight
• people still not x-ing up even for T1 logi, take a stab at it guys, again logi in general pretty much makes us able to take a fight or have to blueball, T1 logi is not expensive especially after SRP if you need it
• Troven WILL NOT logi and FC again, again,

Good

• Once we got the basics out, T1 form up was reasonable fast to undock
• Logi (not me, but the second engage) did great not to lose anything
• bubbles were on point! (pun intended)
• although there was some talk of some calls, everyone still did as FC instructions even when wasn’t what individuals might agree optimum option. – keep together and we can pick the bones after is much better than splintering on field

^ I’ll count the split dps as accidental and down to practise and not picking own targets – most likely drones, maybe?

To follow up

• I lost the short cut broadcast key and needed to use rclick menu, will fix
• I didn’t even think about calling ammo selection, we had time and knew what they had – for me to improve
• individuals learn from this about self preservation in WH brawls and mechanics – not picking on those who died, we all did it when new, and prob those in fleet today who got lucky and didn’t know
• keep info coming in comms
• if you don't have your broadcast window set up and colour coded by now, what are you doing ( honestly please ask if you need help with it)

final Butcher bill for those interested and TLDR = fight had, some died, some killed, fun had, GFs, come again
https://br.inyour.space/?s=1000382,1001 ... 0&e=90&t=e



feedback below, promise not to cry

[Zako Maken]

Sounds like a good series of engagements! Sad I missed it. Props for taking charge and getting content, and for a fun AAR

[Adrien Claremont]

So I was the dumb dumb that lost the Sac.

When I got back after dinner, I caught the tail end of the QRF form up. Armour was called for and the Sac was the only ship I had in my hanger that I could bring. Once we landed on the hole, I didn't hear any mention of where I should be positioning myself such as anchor, get in jump range on the hole or burn out of the bubble. What I did hear was "we need tackle on those Deacons" so I MWD'd after one and grabbed him. In hindsight, what this did was drag me into the bubble where I was caught by one of the BNIs. My instinct was to align out back to ALI and pray that I could slow boat to the edge of the bubble, but we all know how that ended.

Big lesson learnt for me was that you can jump through a WH with a weapons timer, and that WHs have a larger jump radius that a stargate. I didn't even check but I probably wouldn't have been that far away from the hole. Certainly I would have been closer to the hole than the edge of the bubble.

Second lesson was that the WHC has a nice pile of community ships to borrow in the corp hangers. This allowed me to jump into the logi role and help out in the subsequent fights. If I'd know this earlier I probably could have brought something more appropriate for the first engagement.

This was a great introduction to the WHC for me, and I'll be expecting more just like it! I'll be getting my act and ship hanger together for the next one.

[Ivika Starfury]

Nice AAR Troven and props on taking control in this situation. Overall you did a good job as FC and I think that the fleet eventually performed quite well after the first rehearsal. Overall I had a great time and was really please with the performance of my HFI in a light armour brawl fleet.

My feedback/thoughts:

1. Yoloing shiny ships is a real problem in WHC though I do think that you have to do it once in order to learn (I have definitely been guilty of this recently ). I think it's learning to manage the usual Eve fight adrenaline rush that makes you do commit to rash actions without a full understanding of the situation. e.g. See Ping > Jump in ship > Warp to action > Ask what's going on > Explode.

2. Fights on wormholes can often be an interesting game of cloak timers, polarisation and last minute jumps and some people fell fowl of it last night

3. On the split dps, I agree it is a bit of a problem (Although on one occasion I did notice that my medium drones did their own thing after one Deacon popped and attacked the nearest target, stripping it's shields in like one salvo before I could refocus them). I think that a large part of the reason is that, with most people not speaking English as a first language, combined with a reliance on names called in mumble over broadcasts, it can get confusing. TL;DR people need to focus on broadcast targets in the UI rather than rely on an interpretation of a name that goes through 2 language filters. Also, I notice that if you have your overview priorities set up correctly, broadcast and tagged targets float to the top of it making life very easy when the FC is broadcasting.

4. Something that the Gargle Blasters did which we needed to do more of was bump. During the first encounter I burned straight to the hole and orbited at 2k. after about 20 seconds I was smashed by a BNI and found myself 9km off the hole all of a sudden as they called me primary. Clever girl. fortunately for me it actually put me within tackle range of one of the Deacons and they didn't have the dps on the field to dent my tank by that point. I think that this is definitely something that we need to practice when fighting in the hole.

The above to issues seem to happen a lot. I wonder if there is scope for a WHC combat 101 in the induction process (Specific additional induction email or whatever) that can highlight this to WHC newbros. I know that the information is there if you look for it but maybe it needs to be more explicit.

I understand that a lot of wormhole action is ad hoc, compared to the planned pvp fleets of LSC etc., but it would be good to see some more scheduled pvp action and practice in WHC. I also understand that one of the problems with this can be how lucky we are with connections down the chain having an impact on potential targets, but we roll for bearing content so why not roll for pvp content?

Another option would be to have some kind of small gang practice if content is scarce; we could use cheap T1 cruiser/frigate comps and break off into 2 fleets and engage each other on bacon or eggs. We could even set up different scenarios by anchoring bubbles on the hole or things like that. I would be well up for an evening of small gang practice followed by a couple of hours rolling bacon for pvp. We could also make special events during noob night in the hole where the noobs are given a free frigate and an experienced FC and get to have a brawl against a small pre-defined composition of WHC pilots in fits that are cheap and balanced vs. the frigate fleet (Would be a great demonstration of game mechanics like tracking and sig radius as well as WH mechanics). In fact, I might crystallise this in a separate post as I really like the idea the more I think about it.

Finally, a question on this comment:

As there is a bubble up and no tac we cant dictate range so I warp all readies to eggs knowing to hit the bubble.

I don't fully understand bubble mechanics; I though that if you warped on grid and in line with the bubble, you would be dragged into it if it was up when you hit warp. Does warping to a tac, say 200km above the bubble, prevent this from happening. If so, what is the limit to which a bubble can cause a drag effect, is it only if the tac is within the radius of the bubble?

[Troven Smalvard]

So I was the dumb dumb that lost the Sac.

When I got back after dinner, I caught the tail end of the QRF form up. Armour was called for and the Sac was the only ship I had in my hanger that I could bring. Once we landed on the hole, I didn't hear any mention of where I should be positioning myself such as anchor, get in jump range on the hole or burn out of the bubble. What I did hear was "we need tackle on those Deacons" so I MWD'd after one and grabbed him. In hindsight, what this did was drag me into the bubble where I was caught by one of the BNIs. My instinct was to align out back to ALI and pray that I could slow boat to the edge of the bubble, but we all know how that ended.

Big lesson learnt for me was that you can jump through a WH with a weapons timer, and that WHs have a larger jump radius that a stargate. I didn't even check but I probably wouldn't have been that far away from the hole. Certainly I would have been closer to the hole than the edge of the bubble.

Second lesson was that the WHC has a nice pile of community ships to borrow in the corp hangers. This allowed me to jump into the logi role and help out in the subsequent fights. If I'd know this earlier I probably could have brought something more appropriate for the first engagement.

This was a great introduction to the WHC for me, and I'll be expecting more just like it! I'll be getting my act and ship hanger together for the next one.

No big panic, as long as you can afford to replace no lasting harm,
Don't be too hard, we've all learned lessons by dying (its the best reminder ) as long as its stuck in for next time will save you in the future for sure, and it hopefully let some other of our newer guys learn the same thing, albeit for cheaper :p

Great stuff jumping in the QRF on short notice and getting stuck in
Your point on no anchor and no where to be calls from your FC was correct, forgetting we have a high turn over just like all the other campuses assume everyone on grid has been there before at least once - its a good point for me to take forward, while people in WHC are generally a bit older to the game and we expect a little more autonomy than a NOP i should always assume at least one person new to WH mechanics and to garble out some basics, though we very rarely will ever have time for a WHC appropriate newbro speech there is time to get basics preset in between undock and landing, again your death made me aware to do this on the later re-engagements

and the hangers are there to be used for sure! make familiar whats there so you know for next time, just rep[lace like for like if you die in something from there.
current focus is keeping QRF fleets as cheap as possible at the outset until we really need to go big or go home (big in our context is not big big but you get the idea) so having a few options in the T1 Cruiser/ BC range both brawly and nano if you can afford to keep stocked both on hand will usually get yo into fun in most situations

for all the new people to campus, don't think shiney from the outset get multiple disposables for the same price and get a feel for the dynamics first
( even more so with the T2/T3 hull market at the min )

wasteful annoyance of the older salter members on your blingy losses should wait to come with time

[Troven Smalvard]

Thanks Ivanka,

good points above and sound like you got learning from it too,

we every now and then do roll for pvp in bacon, but as we had a bit of a wain on membership lately its sparse, numbers are coming back up in a couple of TZs so shoul dlook to get it back on

also i look forward to your forum and calendar post for WHC practice, its difficult to heard the cats... I'd speak to our WHC education manager


on your specific:

Finally, a question on this comment:

As there is a bubble up and no tac we cant dictate range so I warp all readies to eggs knowing to hit the bubble.

I don't fully understand bubble mechanics; I though that if you warped on grid and in line with the bubble, you would be dragged into it if it was up when you hit warp. Does warping to a tac, say 200km above the bubble, prevent this from happening. If so, what is the limit to which a bubble can cause a drag effect, is it only if the tac is within the radius of the bubble?

your corrrect, what i was meaning, was normally if you warp at zero to the hole bookmark you land on zero at the hole, reasonable safe on a B274 in eggs case
knowing the phobos bubble is up and hes sat pretty much dead centre of the hole, any direction we warp in to .Eggs will be in line with the bubble so we will be stopped out of warp on the bubble edge closest in line with our origin, you don't get pulled into the centre, so i know we will land 10- 20km off the hole on the bubble edge depending on his position and if hes T2 etc. which means were not in immediate jump range
(WH jump range is 5km just incase for those that didn't understand in Adriens post the diff between gates and Wh #1)

the second part is also correct if you have a tac not in line between your start point an the bubble you will not be affected 9 we didn't have this at the time for eggs)

bubbles will drag you if they are inline (ahead or behind) and intersect your warp path destination within 500km

last point, if you initiate warp (even if still in the align process etc as long as "warp drive active") before the bubble goes up even if you arrive on grid and its gone up during the warp you wont be effected to your target point of landing, you will still be effected by disruption after you finish warpif that point is now in side the bubble - this was the point i was making with the devoter to bacon, as long as the chase fleet was in warp before Nys popped a bubble we'd still get to zero on the hole which is what i wanted


[EDIT] corrected bubble range effect

[Ivika Starfury]

A note on the use of high skp, high isk doctrine ships and the alternatives in these situations. There are some great, cheap Battlecruiser (And even navy battlecruiser) options that can fit in our standard armour doctrine requirements very easily (Urban has a whole thread on this topic actually):

https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=108700

For example, this Prophecy fit I just cooked up does almost everything our armour doctrine Sacrilege does and comes in at under 100m isk. It would be perfect for Yoloing in such an ad hoc fleet without too many regrets :

Code: Select all

[Prophecy, Prophecy fit]

Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
1600mm Steel Plates II
Damage Control II
Corelum C-Type Energized Explosive Membrane
Corelum C-Type Energized Kinetic Membrane
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Phased Muon Scoped Sensor Dampener
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier
Initiated Compact Warp Scrambler

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Assault Missile
Medium Energy Neutralizer II

Medium Anti-Thermal Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I


Ogre II x2
Hammerhead II x5
Hammerhead II x2
Hobgoblin II x1
Ogre II x3
Hobgoblin II x5


Nanite Repair Paste x200
Scan Resolution Dampening Script x1
Targeting Range Dampening Script x1

It goes without saying that the Launchers/drones can be meta'd down without any real impact on performance.

[Ivika Starfury]

Thanks Ivanka,

I knew you were doing it on purpose!

also i look forward to your forum and calendar post for WHC practice, its difficult to heard the cats... I'd speak to our WHC education manager

Forum post made, shameless plug below:

https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=109523

I would like to have the discussions to gauge opinion before looking into something formal.