[Event] Space Rugby

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JohnPlayerNotSpecial
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[Event] Space Rugby

Post by JohnPlayerNotSpecial »

-> Friday 11.05.2018: Space Rugby

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"A bit rough on the edges in terms of execution, but still great fun !"


Planned Workflow:
- Split up participants into equal groups which then fight against eachother in a mini tournament.
- One of each group in a T1 industrial ("Hauler") with a tractor beam. The rest in smartbombing corvettes ("Defender") with guns & ecm.
- Tractor a "ball" (renamed jetcan) from the center of the playing field through your goal to score a point. Prevent your opponent team from doing so by either popping their corvettes or ecming the hauler.


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Arena:
Picture is obvious. I had anchored small secure containers to designate the 4 points, and to not have to fiddle around with bookmarks. Both Haulers warp @ zero to the center. Everyone else @ warpin. After countdown i jetcan something in the center, which the Haulers then try to lock & move torwards their goal. It is also the cue for the Defenders to warp to the center and to start doing their thing. Note the 50km between the center and the goals. As they're closeish, Defenders cannot simply warp from A to B but are forced to use their MWD.


Ships:
Hauler:
Spoiler
[Nereus, Space Rugby]
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates

F-90 Compact Sensor Booster
F-90 Compact Sensor Booster
F-90 Compact Sensor Booster
Medium Shield Extender I
Medium Shield Extender I

Small Tractor Beam I

Scan Resolution Script x3
Made to be alpha friendly, slow, fast locking, and unkillable by the Defenders. I was calculating with 150m/s for them so doing the 50km travel from the center to their goal would take ~6m30s, this then being the minimum time per round aka ppl get to fight for at least that timeframe.

Defender:
Spoiler
[Velator, Space Rugby]
Inertial Stabilizers I
Inertial Stabilizers I

Multispectral ECM I
5MN Microwarpdrive I

Small Rudimentary Concussion Bomb I
Light Electron Blaster I

Antimatter Charge S x200
Very important here is the fit is absolutely not capstable, forcing the pilot to either move around fast, or jam someone (usually the Hauler), or shoot at someone (usually an opponent Defender) with a closerange gun. Smartbomb for still having something to damage with in case you get jammed and because it's funny. Limited ammo as it is expected to die with this thing before ammo runs out. No racial jam as that would make the Defenders basicly useless. No drones, no tank, and some forced signature increase.


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Once a Defender dies, said person then can reship into a new one. As they are disposable, we need lots of them :) Fastest way to "produce" them is to park an Alt with an Orca on the undock of a station, then you dock, grab the ship, remove the 1 trit, undock, put it into the ship maintenance bay of that Orca, dock, repeat. I've become quite good at guessing the different session timers by now.

As i wanted this to be accessible as possible i had 64 of them prepared, and also free Skillbooks (Energy Pulse Weapon) available for those who didnt have it trained yet.


Play Day:
I've managed to attract 6 players, which i then divided into two teams of 3. Team A being Decklin Quark Reiger, Commander Aeris, and Ignar Anthar. Team B being Savannah Tokila, De W Javqe, and Ismaroo. Initial explanations were probably confusing for them.

I decided against two separate fleets, rather opting for using Tags and having the different teams using watchlist. Mumble was each team in their own subchannel (using whisper).

After an initial testround ppl understood what was expected of them. At first i had whoever got killed warp back to station to then trade there for a free reship. But my systemchoice wasnt good for this endeavour, having a ~70AU warp from the Arena to the Station. On subsequent rounds we then first "preloaded" the warpin spot with a couple of Defenders (warp to warpin, eject from ship, get a new one. 2-3 times each person) in order to allow for fast reship. This solution however also clutterred the Overview.

At first the jams on the hauler were ineffective (the first two rounds was whoever got the lock first wins), but we learned if both Defenders overheat them, then you can get a jam off. Which in subsequent rounds made for quite the spectacular "ballswitches". Players were working out howto best approach their enemies, consensus was to make this a Best-of-5. Which, in the end, was a hard fought battle with Team A being the winner after a score of 3-2. Paid each 5M as i didnt have a dedicated Prize organized.


Conclusion:
Great laughs were had, people seemed to really enjoy this event and Defenders were popping left and right. Makes for a very funny zkill page :D It turns out the absolute minimum is 3 per Team. My estimate for a maximum would be 4, otherwise the jams would become too oppressive.


Things to improve upon:
- Reshipping is an issue. At first i was planning to have an Orca sit on the Warpin and distribute the Defenders through the Ship Maintenance Bay (can take 16 fitted Defenders) but decided against that for not wanting to move the thing (aka "nah it'll be fine"). That was an error in hindsight.
- Absolutely needs 6 players at minimum ! I assume with me doing just a Calendar entry with a link to a brief overview on what this event is about instead of a full fledged Corporation Events post, and the location being somewhat far off, made ppl maybe not interrested. Those who attended however can attest they had a blast.
- Needs lots of Defenders. Even with just 4 players in them, for 5 rounds, we went through 35 ! Either limit the amount of reship per round or have someone else also "produce a few" as the process becomes tedious after some time.


Yop. i call this a success !

o/
Last edited by JohnPlayerNotSpecial on 2018.05.14 16:54, edited 3 times in total.
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Savannah Tokila
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Re: [Event] Space Rugby

Post by Savannah Tokila »

10/10 would play again.

This idea imo is a huge success, as soon as the haulers were regularily jammed, it got much more interesting than a "the first hauler to lock it wins, while the velators die around you"
however, at that time i switched out of the hauler and realised, that its probably best if the fc(per team) themselves is in the hauler, as counter intuitive as that might sound. Because having to keep track of who has the ball, while flying, while fcing etc is something that esp for newer people in the fc domain might be a bit much.

And most importantly, it was huge fun, definitely one of the most fun events i have participated in eve
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Decklin Quark Reiger
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Title: LSC Combat Officer, Fittings staff, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Graduate

Re: [Event] Space Rugby

Post by Decklin Quark Reiger »

I definitely agree, the event was a load of fun.

When we moved a bunch of the Velator's on-grid, for faster reshipping, that significantly increased the pace of the event, and increased the enjoyment as well :)

The event encouraged clear communication, teamwork with roles, and I'd definitely encourage more people to do it :)
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