[AAR] NSC Alt-Corp Structure Defense - PC9

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Eadrom Vintarus
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[AAR] NSC Alt-Corp Structure Defense - PC9

Post by Eadrom Vintarus »

Because apparently AAR's need soundtracks now ^_^:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNJVIUmsctE
Bit of backstory from the fleet posting:
Spoiler
From the fleet posting:
"A local Syndicate group has reinforced six structures belonging to NSC students' alt-corps across the systems of the NSC pocket of Y4Y. One structure timer is Wednesday in AUTZ, the other is a hull timer on Saturday EUTZ. Our primary strategic objective is the defense of the four (4) reinforced structures in PC9. We are contesting the armor timers for these structures at this time. A travel fleet will attempt to lead forces from high security space to link up with local defense forces so that we can contest the defense fleet. The hostiles used a mixed mega/tempest fleet of 9 battleships, 2 Guardians, and 2 Gilas for their first assault."

We were a bit lucky in that we had intel about the structures getting hit while we had people on to assess the situation and we were able to start formulating our response while the initial shield reinforcements were taking place. If we had another 3-5 people on, we actually could have taken a shot at contesting at least some of the initial shield reinforcements. Knowing about the attacks as they were happening was important as it allowed us to gather intel on the enemy fleet being used to reinforce the structures and immediately start planning a response. The decision was made to contest the four armor timers that were coming up in less than 24 hours. If we could stop the enemy there, we could defend all four structures in PC9 with one combat operation. Of the six structures reinforced, these were also the four most important structures for the NSC community (the 5th is a specialized personal Raitaru that was timezone tanked (successfully) and an inactive Raitaru back in 5-D) as they are central industrial structures. So it would be there that we would draw the line in the sand.

I immediately began reaching out to contacts to find out more information about the attackers, requested structure defense information from the students that owned the structures, and chose the FCC Ferox as our doctrine. A travel fleet was setup to allow people from high sec to join us and Ersin volunteered to lead the travel fleet down. I work night shift right now so I spent a few hours gathering information, contacting people, and making plans, posting the fleet time in the campus slacks, and then went to bed. While I was asleep, a small host of machinery kicked into gear as a handful of hangar staff and reship contractors and concerned students began prepping additional hulls to post on contract in Stacmon and especially in PC9.

Throughout the night, I continued to make plans and talk to different people and campuses. We even had the WHC sign on to bring some bombers, which turned out to be a fantastic addition to our defense fleet. I moved some alts around and did some logistics of my own. I left work a bit early to ensure I would have time to be ready and when 1600 hit, I published the advert for the defense fleet and the wait to see how many would show up began.
We had a *phenomenal* response. In literally less than 24 hours, our community came together to form a ~30 man Ferox fleet with logi and support. This would eventually grow to around 40 unistas and another 15 or in support. I was only hoping for at least 20, so I was stoked to see so many joining up. We just kept getting more people showing up after the travel fleet. Even Crazy Kitten, away from the NSC and EVE for a while, randomly showed up out of no where and got in on the fighting (great to see you back in the area Crazy Kitten!). The WHC's bomber squad then showed up as well, further augmenting our forces.

This is what happened over the course of the operation:
Spoiler
So the time came to undock and we head out to the first structure. We setup anchor and go over ammo choices. I will call targets, with a separate anchor and ammo caller, with a backup. Logi is 5 ospreys strong (~4:1 ration IIRC). We anchor up and wait. The first structure timer counts down and no one shows up to contest it. We warp to the second structure to tether up while we waited for it to start. After a bit, it's called out that there is a Bhaalgorn on the NSC's home NPC station undock.

We reship a couple people and go for a boosh+bubble. Which our people pulled off perfectly. The Bhaalgorn is now off the station, bubbled, and scrammed by our cdessies. The fleet warps over and we drop like 20 Ferox on top of the Bhaalgorn with antimatter charges and proceed to *melt* this guy. He lights a cyno. I call for the fleet to move out a bit and orbit at 30km so if we need to bail, we should almost all be out of the bubble. The battleship is dropping very quickly and for a few heartbeats nothing comes through, and then an Apostle drops on grid. A few moments later, the Bhaalgorn dies to the massed fire of angry railguns.

With the loss of the Bhaalgorn, the cyno dies as well. Leaving us on grid with just the one FAX. With nothing else in system at the moment, and the second timer still pending to start shortly, we open up on the Apostle to see what it's made of. Our bombers are rapidly shifting over to Focused Void Bombs. Some people are racing into T22 to trade their Void Bombs into FVB via LP (ayyy mission fleets!) to feed the bombers on the fly so we can more seriously pressure the cap of the Apostle. Glen gets a cyno-inhibitor online next to the FAX to make sure it can't bring in anything else via cyno.
Between the cyno inhibitor, the bubbles, and our fleet, this thing was pinned down hard. Things went well for a few minutes now, we're feeding ammo to the FAX's armor reppers, and then it's called out that local has spiked. Whatever else might have wanting to bridge into us, it looks like they burned here instead to come save their FAX.

Around ten heavy ships land on grid shortly after; eight Dominix, one Eos, and one Scorpion land on top of their Apostle and unleash a swarm of T2 Ogre's on our fleet. We have ourselves a fight! I assume that we won't be breaking their reps from the FAX, but fish through a few targets to test them anyways. I periodically ask logi how we're holding and after a few responses, I actually hear them (Vlad had been saying we weren't but I missed it the first couple times I asked) and find out we can't hold reps against the domi's and we have started to lose some Ferox. I don't know how many, but assume we've lost a few. I ask how quickly we're failing to catch Ferox and that's kind of a hard thing to answer in the middle of the fight. I make the call the align everyone out and we'll warp off and regroup on the Astrahus in system. I call for the fleet to warp to Coruscant, and then someone mentioned is anyone tackled, which reminds me I failed to ask that myself, and we find out Athena is pointed! Unfortunately, I think one of the anchors fleet warped us off before I could try to get an EC-300 swarm on their tackle to break Athena out and she loses her battlecruiser shortly after we land on on the Astrahus.

I find out we only lost two Ferox during the fighting, Athena's makes three, which is much better than I expected. Our logi must have been just short of holding. A few minutes go by as I am coordinating our next move and the fleet reps up and tethers. I ask for a cloaky warpin just on the edge of the cyno inhibitor's range. Then a couple moments later, the cyno inhibitor goes down. That's when cloaky eyes calls out that the entire fleet is warping off towards the JH- gate...including their Apostle. Surely they aren't going to gate this FAX out of here; I call for the fleet to warp at zero to the JH- gate to catch them; sure enough, they land on the gate just after we do. There's a tense standoff for about 20 seconds or so where we see if they are going to triage and start fighting or if they are going to jump through. I hear a report that our command destroyer is getting red boxed and I call for him to jump through into JH-. A few moments later, they jump their entire fleet into JH-, leaving their fleet a dozen kilometers off the gate and most importantly, that FAX is now not able to fight, and then retain the option of jumping through leaving our aggressed fleet in PC9. So I give the order and we jump through to pursue them.

Nothing happens for a minute. The enemy is holding their gate cloak. After what feels like forever, their gate cloak breaks and the FAX appears. I order tackle and bubbles on the FAX to pin it down again and the fighting resumes. DPS is on the FAX and it appears that a second round of stalemate will happen. We are even going to the extent of ramming the Apostle to try and bump it off alignment to hinder it getting away if bubble or tackle drops off. Then! A cyno is lit and a force of six capitals jump through right on top of us! Three carriers, two dreadnaughts, and a FAX drop on top of us. Usually this would mean we would scatter to the winds and regroup, however for this one time, these were NOT hostile capital forces! ^_^

The enemy of your enemy is your friend, so for the moment, EUNI forces would be spared the attention of G0N3 F1SS10N's firepower as we vanquished our mutual enemies together. To be fair to our targets at the moment however, it's not currently known if this Star Storm fleet was acting in collusion with Banderstadt (the group that attacked our alt corp structures the day prior) or we were just the target of some random content. Either way, we were not taking chances with the structure times and so Star Storm's forces were pressed.

All firepower was focused on the Apostle. Capital neuts from the dreadnaughts and carriers and FVB from out bombers assaulted the capacitor of the FAX. A Vengeance was harassing our Bifrost. Gyrgon, piloting the Bifrost, asked if we wanted to boosh the battleship gang away from their FAX. I consulted w/ the Gone Fission FC who said it would be ok to do. We needed to pop the Vengeance on him first through and that thing just *popped* a few moments after I broadcast it. The damage is pretty even, so great job to the fleet for killing him at the same time and so quickly. Gyrgon aligned his ship and pulled off a perfect boosh and even bounced out, surviving the close range quarters of the battleships. Now we would be spared any short range guns and neuts from the Domi's and logi would be able to get out of optimal from the Scorpion, greatly reducing the pressure on our subcaps. This move potentially also moved the domi's far enough away from their drones so as to move them out of the battleships' drone control range.

With the battleships out of position, capital ships, bombers, and a fleet of Ferox all pouring fire into the Apostle, the signs were clear and the Star Storm battleships warped off, not even taking the time to collect their drones. At this point, it was just cleaning up the Apostle. Everyone focused fire and a couple minutes later, the Apostle's capacitor broke under the pressure and its local armor repairs failed and the force auxiliary gave up its ghost!

We sent some cap transfers to the Gone Fission caps so they could jump out and we proceeded to start cleaning up the grid. There was much loot to be had! An entire fleet of Ogre II's were left behind as well as all the loot from the Apostle. Loot was forwarded to the NSC donations bin to fund the SRP for this op and NSC programs. We hung out on the gate for a bit while we looted and salvaged and popped a malediction that seemed to not want his ship anymore (flying straight away from Ferox fleet, no traversal lol). After everything was picked clean, we jumped back into PC9. During the clean up phase, the second structure timer finished and repaired.

We cut for a break since it was a little over an hour between the end of that fight and the start of the third and fourth timer. I expected to lose quite a few people to needing to go because it was getting late, but instead, the fleet grew to the mid 50's. Between people flying down in travel ships and picking something up off contract or from their hangars and additional temporary frenemy firepower joining in, our fleet numbers swelled.

Shortly before the break ended, we tried to catch a roaming Harbinger that came into PC9, but he slipped away. We finished forming up again and went to the third structure, anchored up, and proceeded to count the timer down. It was doubtful hostiles would show up at this point due to reports of their numbers in their home system. So we had a meme fest and posted our favorite memes in local and fleet and cut up for a bit. Once the third timer finished, we warped over the fourth structure for the last couple minutes of that timer, which also completed without contest.
We thanked Gone Fission and friends for their help that day and the fleet ended. I advised all Uni students that just because they were helping us then, Gone Fission would not hesitate to shoot us any other day, and to not misconstrue the events of the day as anything more than frenemies shooting a common hostile group. A travel fleet went back up to Stacmon and the NSC standing fleet was reformed and people went about on their way. #opsuccess

What went well:
* Rapid coordination between a number of people and groups to form the response fleet.
* People had plentiful stocks for ships and most munitions; what we didn't have, people got together rapidly (that combat LP store purchasing tho 5/7); the reshipping program folks here did a great job, big thank you to Arrek and the NSC contractors and some people who I don't remember their names now, who stocked up Stacmon as well
* Athena did a great job handing stuff out from the NSC hangars to help keep the fleet armed and stocked
* We basically had everyone in the ships we needed and there wasn't a lot of scrounging for fits or hulls
* We had loads of people able to fly the Ferox; fantastic job on pushing that for training as it really lets us field some tough fleets of our own
* Logi was awesome, hands down <333
* Division of fleet command worked well between myself and anchors; not having to fly the fleet around was a tremendous help to me in being able to coordinate with allies and calling targets and flying an alt while being present in the engagements as well; job well done to Ersin and Glen and a hearty personal thank you
* Gyrgon's hours of practice with command destroyers paid off dividends with great flying of his Bifrost and a masterful boosh
* We had people reshipping into Sabres and command destroyers as needed and people had ships for them ready to go
* I think I did a better job than I have in the past at talking to people to keep information flowing to me and processing that information and responding to questions more quickly. FC'ing as always been a massive information overload for me and a learning process on how to sort the information I'm getting and request the information I need and then quickly process to give answers and issue commands
* The fleet trusted me when I was setting up for re-engagement with the FAX/battleship gang, even though it was apparent that we wouldn't be able to break them from the first time, everyone followed me in without trying to argue we were wasting our efforts; this was really great to feel and thank you to everyone there for trusting that I wasn't just leading us in to whelp

If I neglected to thank someone, it's just because there were so many moving parts in such a short period of time. Please call yourself out below if there's anything awesome you did that I didn't mention so you can receive your due accolades!

What could have been done better:
* We need some additional ammo in the Ferox (already resolved, should be showing up eventually on newer Ferox contracts)
* We should keep some Focused Void Bombs stocked up at the campus level in case we need to bomb down the capacitor on a hostile cap
* My target calling and broadcasting could be faster. We spent some time shooting battleships that had reps caught that weren't going to be broken. With only two reps on that FAX, perhaps faster target switching and some feints could have let us break something
* Erwin or Vlad recommended this, we could have switched from resist/buffer to resist/reps for our two shield links when the fighting started with low alpha, high dps opponents. We might have been able to slow the breaking even more or hold entirely if we'd switched the buffer link for a rep link. I'd be interested in some more logi thoughts on that
* With our own friendly FAX on grid, we could have potentially not booshed the enemy battleships away and instead redirected bubbles on them so that once the FAX died, we could have torn up those battleships as well. I did know that reps were holding fine and that damage on our fleet was not an issue. It would have been great to kill all those battleships and clean up their entire fleet.

BONUS FUN FACTS ABOUT FC:
* This was the first time I've ever FC'ed a Ferox fleet
* This was my first time FC'ing a doctrine using ships larger than BLAP Talwars
* This was only my second time flying a Ferox in combat

Roam members (50)
Spoiler
Ann'Dra Padecain
Ares Dodekatheon - Ferox
Athena Firefly - Ferox
B'aldrick Aivoras - Sabre
Biwako Acami - Purifier
Christoph Patrouette
Count Scary
Crazy Kitten - Ferox
Dark Banshe3
Darth Galifreia - Ferox
De W Javqe - Ferox
Dominic Altol
DonBasuno Ichosira - Manticore
Drebin 679 - Ferox
Durnik Risalo - Crucifier
Eadrom Vintarus - Ferox
Ersin Oghuz - Ferox
Erwin Madelung
Flack Keikira
Ged Sinak - Ferox
Glen Burney - Pontifex, Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor, Ferox
Gyrgon - Bifrost
Hirmuolio Pine
Jacob Velora - Ferox
Jonn1boy
Kirsi Isrik - Ferox
Leo Thucydides - Atron
Magnar Eriksson - Ferox
Marcel Eriker
Mhzentul Lafarius - Manticore
Mike Kingswell
Nathan Tamroc - Ferox
Pink Kondur
Professor Ice - Caracal
Ramong Pares
Savannah Tokila - Nemesis
Skeffington Tekitsu - Thanatos
Skuller - Thanatos
Snake Byte - Naglfar
Stafro - Ferox
Teipx - Ferox
Tiberius Auduin - Nemesis
Tolorean
Veldspar Vinnie - Nidhoggur
Vladimir Antonovich
Won Trild Trild
Xana McBash
Zana Fehrnah
Zkadon Estemaire - Ferox
Zoltan Irvam - Ferox
Kills and Losses

(17:09:04) PC9-AY
Bhaalgorn +994.34m
Capsule +107.34m

(17:20:51) PC9-AY
Ferox -85.09m
Ferox -76.65m
Ferox -70.19m
Mobile Cynosural Inhibitor -56.62m

(17:33:26) JH-M2W
Crucifier -2.13m
Vengeance +182.24m
Capsule +0.01m
Apostle +2776.19m
Capsule +847.38m
Malediction +46.31m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 4,953,819,947.8
ISK Lost: 290,674,171.62
ISK Delta: 4,663,145,776.18
Efficiency: 94.458%
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Tiberius Auduin
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Re: [AAR] NSC Alt-Corp Structure Defense - PC9

Post by Tiberius Auduin »

Very nice AAR, Eadrom! Very nice display of Unista's discipline forming up and doing all the right things.
Because I wasn't able to stay the whole fleet I grabbed a bomber, note to self: typing "void bo" in search bar and loading the first thing you see is not good :P Good showing up by WHC in bombers for that nice capital neut pressure! Had we had more booshers, we could've tried to boosh the domi's away from sieged fax though, as was mentioned, for more domi kills.
10/10, would defend again
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Re: [AAR] NSC Alt-Corp Structure Defense - PC9

Post by Gyrgon »

Great AAR Eadrom! Despite the 24h notice, you and the rest of NSC staff & contractors did a fantastic job of not just getting all the ships and contracts into place in time, but also working overtime on the intelligence front and lining up some go-to cap support against our likely targets.

This fleet had a lot of firsts for me, most notably my first time flying a CD on TQ instead of booshing practice on SiSI. :D

In addition to what you said about the effective flow of information to and from you during the fleet ops, I wanted to mention that from my perspective, the flow of information within the whole fleet was a lot less cluttered than I was used to. Vital information like the smartbomb range on capitals, updates on ammo resupplies (FVB and antimatter I believe), ongoing reshipping (for the bubble / boosh off station), tackle status, etc were clearly communicated without interrupting the flow of the fleet.

And weather or not we could have killed the Domi's if we had kept them on grid, once the decision to boosh them off was made, the response to my call for help to get rid of the Vengeance's scram was nothing short of immediate. :) Also, nice surprise: the logi drones I booshed with me kept repping me until I was clear of the enemy BSs.

Eadrom Vintarus wrote:* My target calling and broadcasting could be faster. We spent some time shooting battleships that had reps caught that weren't going to be broken. With only two reps on that FAX, perhaps faster target switching and some feints could have let us break something
I didn't pay attention to this during the fleet, but the FAX can only lock up to 7 targets instead of the 10 seen on T2 Logi ships, although their usually low scan resolution rivals that of T1 destroyers when triaged and is 30-50% higher than that of T2 Logistics. Also, the cycle time on the Capital remote reps when in triage is 3s vs 6s on sub cap logistics ships, making target switching less effective. So not sure how well that would have worked.
Eadrom Vintarus wrote:* We should keep some Focused Void Bombs stocked up at the campus level in case we need to bomb down the capacitor on a hostile cap
I plan on donating the first 40 FVB I exchanged at the LP store once I get out to the NSC the next time for this very purpose. This fight, the target practice on SiSi during Tiberius's practical and the talk with JohnPlayerNotSpecial afterwards really drove home how important these are against caps.
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Re: [AAR] NSC Alt-Corp Structure Defense - PC9

Post by Biwako Acami »

This was a good showing and was nicely coordinated by some experienced FCing. I made some perches on the structures before things started but there was no fight around the structures. I tried to fleet warp when I felt it was need but I'm not sure I could coordinate this well without having a whisper channel for bombers.

I had asked WHC to only bring torp bombers because we were all flying different faction stealth bombers and I didn't want random bombs making a mess. Of course, this was a bad call considering its Nullsec and a Capital did get dropped. Luckily I had a stash of focused void bombs from my times in NSC that I could distribute out when the capital arrived. Mhzentul, our ace stealthbomber pilot for the fight, landed a lot of the focused void bombs.

I had loaded up lockbreaker bombs knowing all too well about the weakness of RR/ET Domis. I had 2 opportunities to get a clear shot at the RR Domis but I didn't press the FC about it because he was clearly coordinating over two voice channels. I said once in mumble and then typed in chat. I don't know if the Domis would break but it would definitely have caused additional overhead on the part of any multiboxer to lock everyone up again.

Was nice to see the old guard of NSC again, although Crazy Kitten's new corp had smartbombed my alt at the gate when it was scouting the way back. :roll:
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Re: [AAR] NSC Alt-Corp Structure Defense - PC9

Post by Tye Etch »

Good job on both the defense and the write-up Eardrum!

My only point of constructive criticism would be your choice of soundtrack. I would propose you use something like this next time.

Also sorry I couldn't make it to help the D-FENCE!
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Erwin Madelung
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Re: [AAR] NSC Alt-Corp Structure Defense - PC9

Post by Erwin Madelung »

Eardrum wrote: * Erwin or Vlad recommended this, we could have switched from resist/buffer to resist/reps for our two shield links when the fighting started with low alpha, high dps opponents. We might have been able to slow the breaking even more or hold entirely if we'd switched the buffer link for a rep link. I'd be interested in some more logi thoughts on that
Before the engagement I said resist/buffer because in such an engagement it's imho likely that volley is more important than pure repping. Then we faced Dominixes which have high sustained DPS but relatively low volley. Thus I later mentioned that against those Domis reist/reps would have actually been better. :/

Regarding holding against the domis: DPS of 5 Ogres on a Dominix fitted with 3 DDAs, Gallente Battleship and Drone Drone Specialisation at 4 deals 691. This means 7*691= 4837 DPS + some DPS by Zoidberg in the proteus and even some by the apostle. Each Osprey reps 215 HP/s (hot reps) + 12 HP/s (drones) for unrealistic perfect skills in an uni fleet (199 HP/s for caldari cruiser 4, 182 HP/s at lvl 3). With harmonizing boosts the Ferox has a resist multiplier of 3.26. This means 5 ospreys rep around 3260 EHP/s. With active shielding charges the reps are about 18% stronger so 3851 EHP/s. A significant difference actually :/ Between the first engagement and the second we gained 2 more logis. After that we would have repped around 4564 EHP/s (w/ harmonizing but w/o active). Thus nearly holding against the Domis. (But they never shot at the Feroxes :( ) With heating the hardeners or the active charges we would have probably even hold. Overall I think we lost around 1 Ferox/min. This corresponds with the theoretical value of 80k EHP/(4837-3260) EHP/s = 50s. During the fleet it seemed quicker though.

Personally I think people should know more the typical DPS of ships and the typical rep amount of a logi applied to main line DPS. This really helps to quickly evaluate how a fight will go. In this case one logi can approximately hold against one Domi. (An osprey before links reps around 600 EHP/s against flat dps on a Ferox. A RR Domi deals around 700 DPS. Those are numbers everyone should take home.)

I could probably write to other stuff too but I already wrote more than I wanted. Last but not least I want to say that I conisdered this an overall well executed defense.
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