[AAR] FOB hunting in Yebouz (2019/02/07)

[Tau Hopper]

A FOB was spotted in Yebouz and we decided to go after it... ending up in a series of unfortunate events.

Roam members (7)

Once again, the fleet approach was the usual method based upon four Dominix for taking on the FOB, and a frigate to keep the miners –and their associated response fleet– busy somewhere else in the system. These were piloted by:

Spoiler

Tau Hopper - Dominix
JohnPlayerNotSpecial - Dominix (1st attempt only)
Ransom Starks - Dominix
Kevin Dogguide - Dominix
Turlough Dominian - Dominix (2nd attempt only)
Octavius Augustinus - Executioner (1st attempt only)
Mikus Walker - Condor (2nd attempt only)

The ships were provided by the campus, with the following fit for the battleships:

Spoiler

[Dominix, Dominix (FOB)]
1600mm Steel Plates II
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor EM Hardener II
Damage Control II
Armor Thermal Hardener II
Armor Thermal Hardener II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Large Micro Jump Drive
Large Cap Battery II
Large Cap Battery II
F-90 Compact Sensor Booster
F-90 Compact Sensor Booster

Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II
Large Remote Armor Repairer II
Large Remote Armor Repairer II
Large Remote Armor Repairer II

Large Egress Port Maximizer I
Large Remote Repair Augmentor I
Large Egress Port Maximizer I

Imperial Navy Praetor x5
Acolyte II x5
Infiltrator II x5

Scan Resolution Script x2

, and, as for the miner-pullers:

Spoiler

[Executioner, Executioner (FOB)]
Damage Control I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I

5MN Microwarpdrive I
Medium Shield Extender I
EM Ward Amplifier I

Small Focused Modal Pulse Laser I

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Standard S x1

Spoiler

[Condor, Condor (FOB)]
Damage Control I
Type-D Restrained Nanofiber Structure

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Small F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
EM Ward Amplifier I

'Limos' Rocket Launcher I

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Mjolnir Rocket x100

Kills and Losses

At first, the operation started the same as any other: since Yebouz had no stations or structures, we gathered at the sun; we brought only the four baseline Dominix to play it safe and avoid the kind of response we experienced last time; and the frigate pilot warped to the pirate miners and pinned the response fleet.

We then proceeded to warp at 300 km from the FOB, and got a response based on three Cruors and a moderate number of cruisers. We engaged one of the former, but the Augurors kept us from breaking its tank, so we tried to engage these instead, but they stayed farther than some of our pilots could reach with their drone skills. Still, we tried to have those who could reach the Augurors engage them with their medium drones, and the remainder of the fleet focus on one of the Cruors.

All along, we kept using the third of the Large Remote Armor Repairers in the Dominix to support whoever was suffering the most damage, while spamming the "F" key to keep the drones focused on the desired target. Then, the order was given to switch the repper to a different fleet member, and one of the pilots was unfortunate enough as to press "F" once more while he had said target selected. This wouldn't have caused any trouble should we all had belonged to the uni, but one of the pilots was using his OOC character.

Thus, the first pilot gained a Capsuleer Log-Off Timer and, as per the e-uni wiki:

When your corporation or alliance is at war, the capsuleer log-off timer can become an issue if you ever fly with people who aren't in your corporation. Because in order to assist someone with a capsuleer log-off timer who is at war will require all non-corporation members to turn your safety to yellow and go suspect. [...] As such, it's important to avoid accidentally shooting corporation members in mixed fleets, since that can be a legal action in and by itself if the corporation has friendly fire enabled (which most corporations have).

The OOC pilot happened to be cap recharging and repping precisely that Dominix so, even before the flag could propagate through the chain, he had to switch his safeties to yellow to continue supporting him. This caused my own cap rechargers and remote armor repairers to be disabled -I had them on his ship- as my safeties were still green. So, since I was unaware of that mechanic and wasn't sure what was going on exactly, the chain was compromised, and we were still not breaking the tank of the Cruor, I gave the order to align to the sun, use the Micro Jump Drives to disengage, and warp off.

The skills of the pilot who had gained the Capsuleer Log-Off Timer made his ship align and jump a bit later than the remainder of the group, so when I initiated the fleet warp he hadn't finished landing 100 km from our former position and didn't pick it up. When he attempted to warp himself manually, one of the Cruors had already caught up with him, and he was warp scrambled. His Micro Jump Drive was still cooling down from the previous activation, so he couldn't use it again, and while we tried to warp back to assist him, by the time we were half-way there his structure was already at 40%:

(22:11) Telang
Dominix -155.37m

Upon returning to Shemah, JohnPlayerNotSpecial and Octavius Augustinus had to leave, so Turlough Dominian and Mikus Walker took their respective places while a replacement battleship was put together. One hour later, we went back to Yebouz to give the FOB another try. Again, the pirate miners were located and our frigate pilot warped to their asteroid belt – then, the EVE client froze on his laptop.

With no death being reported yet in zkillboard, he hurried to restart his computer (i.e. the attempts to close and restart the client, or kill the process, were unsuccessful), and when he finally managed to log back into the game he found his ship was still safe and sound, but both the miners and the response fleet had fled from the belt and were nowhere to be found. We spent some time trying to pinpoint them again yet, by the time we could find them again on d-scan, it was starting to get a bit late and some other fleetmate had to leave in ca. 15 minutes, so we called it a night and made our way back home.

Stats

ISK Earned: 0.00
ISK Lost: 155,374,909.55
ISK Delta: 155,374,909.55
Efficiency: 0%

Overall evaluation

• ✔ (Positive stuff)
  - With what was learnt about remote assistance and timer mechanics, the kind of issue we had should be better handled in the future.
  
  ✘ (Negative stuff)
  - We lost one Dominix.
  - Since we had to call off the second attempt, we didn't earn any money to mitigate that loss.
  - The OOC pilot who had to change his safeties to yellow didn't report he had done so, causing a slight confusion when he became Suspect.

[Tau Hopper]

Reserved.