[AAR] NSC Anniversary Fleet
Posted: 2019.03.12 03:27
So, first, thanks to both Earl and Fweddit for providing this night's content. As you probably saw in you Eve Mail, Earl's wardec on E Uni was done for fake drama. Earl has been a pillar of the NSC Community, and kindly donated an Atrahaus for our entertainment. Fweddit volunteered to defend the structure (structure bashing on its own is boring-trust me).
Video here.
First we traveled down to NSC from Stacmon. That was uneventful, though we went through a Nullsechanaya gatecamp. Now, if you've been living down at the NSC recently, you'll know that this means trouble. NSH have recently moved in to Syndicate, and have a propensity for dropping caps. But we got through fine, and they didn't chase us. That means we're safe, right?
So we get to PC9. I go through Newbro speech and fleet comp, and we head into T22. The station (Magenta Moxie) was currently undefended, so we started getting some dps on it. Then, Fweddit came in. Ishtars and Guardians. Our Caracals had the job of shooting down enemy drones, while I started us off going for the logi. I started dps on one Guardian, which we almost broke before reps started landing. Once we were in antimatter optimal, I swapped damage to a different logi which we broke before enemy logi could react. From there, breaking the enemy logi crumbled. Fweddit warped off to a tactical shortly thereafter. The Astra launched fighters, and we played the game of swapping between fighters and the Astra for a bit.
Then, Fweddit came back. This time with a Cyno. A Revelation came through that cyno. Atecake, lurking in system, decided that this was a good time to warp in his carrier too. Mistake 1: I should've immediately had someone reship and combat probe down Atecake (400km off or so). He was 3p, and killing 3p should've been my top priority. The Chimera launched fighters, and I left them alone in favor of taking out the Rev that was practically alpha'ing us. Fweddit logi burned in too close to us, so we swapped to them to clear them out. We got one, the other warped out, and we swapped back to the Rev.
The Rev died, so we swapped over to Fweddit DD, starting with their Loki. Loki first, because he could easily be logi or support or DD. I (finally) called for a combat probe reship. VNIs became the new primaries. No obnoxious ADC to worry about. I died for the first time here. Sounds like Fweddit warped off again while I was reshipping. Fighters and the structure became the new primaries.
Another mistake: while I was reshipping, we got the Chimera probed down. I decided to wait until the bookmark propagated, instead of using the guy who probed it down as a warp-in. Chimera lit a cyno. I got on grid, and took over FC'ing, while leaving 2IC as anchor. A Thanatos came through the Cyno. The bookmarks finally propagated, and we warped in on the carriers. Thanatos was our primary. My next mistake: Should've primaried the Chimera as it was the active cyno. I ignored fighters, which I think was the right call? Defanged was just going to take too long, and I wanted to clear caps before more stuff came through. Next throught the cyno: An Apostle. Thanatos was almost dead, so we managed to kill it.
Thanatos died. Next mistake: Primaried the apostle. Of course, a Chimera is going to receive awful reps from a Apostle, and the Chimera is still the active cyno. Should've been our primary. And a second apostle came through the cyno. They can rep eachother all day long. One of the apostles lit another cyno. At this point, Fweddit joined our fleet. We had already arranged to join up against any 3rd parties that tried to crash our party. We got the Apostle to 50% armor before Analiese told me to primary the Chimera (duh). I'm not sure if we were actively breaking the Apostle, or just getting baited. The Chimera was easily repped up by two Fax's in triage, however.
Hey guys, remember how I said NSH didn't follow us, so they weren't going to be a problem? Yeah about that. They Titan bridged in a Leshack/Zarmazd/Guardian fleet. I tried to break their logi. After all, FAX logi has a hard time holding up cruisers. Just too little total HP. However, 7 T2 logi can hold themselves up pretty well. I tried swapping primaries, but it was ineffective, to say the least. Then I went after their tackle so we could leave grid. We pretty much alpha'd their tackle. So that's something.
I had us burn out of the bubbles and warp back to the structure. 1) I still wanted to kill the structure and 2) the structure could start helping us out. I was caught, however, and died. I called full dps on the citadel, as we couldn't kill the enemy, and were running out of time on the structure. From here, it just kinda turned in to suicide runs on the structure to try to pop it.
The structure died, NSH got the killmail, but they left a surprising amount of loot on grid. Over 1 bil, all said. Great job by everyone, and we had some great fights. Another note on something I should've done differently. I should've had everyone leave their drones on the structure pretty much all fight. 25 DD of drones would've kept the timer paused even when we were fighting the enemy fleet.
TL;DR: https://br.inyour.space/?s=3287&b=8514600&e=210&t=yELv
The question I'd like to pose here is, given Uni skills, what could we have brought? This is the question that's been going over and over in my mind since yesterday. Uni has 40ish guys. Enemy is 10 Leshacks, 5 Guardians, 2 Zarmazds, 1 Bhaal, 1 Vindi, 1 Eos, 1 Damnation, 2 Apostles, 1 Chimera, and assorted bubblers/inties. We outnumber the enemy 2:1 essentially. Is there any way we could've won, or at least been isk positive against that?
Here's my best answer to this question. Once the video gets uploaded, you'll notice that the enemy caps never warped in, they stayed at their perch. Only the subcaps warped down to the structure. I'm pretty sure FAX's can't rep that far. Now, they might've just left them that far out from laziness, but I'm not sure. I think the best call would've been to reship into 20 Blackbirds, all full yellow jams. Their job is to jam the logi. The other 20 people ship into some kind of DD. Buffer rail Moas with long point? And then just kill their logi. Reship as necessary, we're on home ground. We can easily trade 10 ships per logi we kill and come out ahead. The main weakness is they can warp down the faxes, which are immune to ECM in triage. I'm not sure 20 moas can break T2 Cruisers before capital reps land.
But I'm curious to hear everyone else's thoughts on how to counter this. Again, great job to everyone who came out, and we were technically isk postive. We even managed to kill one of NSH's caps.
Video here.
First we traveled down to NSC from Stacmon. That was uneventful, though we went through a Nullsechanaya gatecamp. Now, if you've been living down at the NSC recently, you'll know that this means trouble. NSH have recently moved in to Syndicate, and have a propensity for dropping caps. But we got through fine, and they didn't chase us. That means we're safe, right?
So we get to PC9. I go through Newbro speech and fleet comp, and we head into T22. The station (Magenta Moxie) was currently undefended, so we started getting some dps on it. Then, Fweddit came in. Ishtars and Guardians. Our Caracals had the job of shooting down enemy drones, while I started us off going for the logi. I started dps on one Guardian, which we almost broke before reps started landing. Once we were in antimatter optimal, I swapped damage to a different logi which we broke before enemy logi could react. From there, breaking the enemy logi crumbled. Fweddit warped off to a tactical shortly thereafter. The Astra launched fighters, and we played the game of swapping between fighters and the Astra for a bit.
Then, Fweddit came back. This time with a Cyno. A Revelation came through that cyno. Atecake, lurking in system, decided that this was a good time to warp in his carrier too. Mistake 1: I should've immediately had someone reship and combat probe down Atecake (400km off or so). He was 3p, and killing 3p should've been my top priority. The Chimera launched fighters, and I left them alone in favor of taking out the Rev that was practically alpha'ing us. Fweddit logi burned in too close to us, so we swapped to them to clear them out. We got one, the other warped out, and we swapped back to the Rev.
The Rev died, so we swapped over to Fweddit DD, starting with their Loki. Loki first, because he could easily be logi or support or DD. I (finally) called for a combat probe reship. VNIs became the new primaries. No obnoxious ADC to worry about. I died for the first time here. Sounds like Fweddit warped off again while I was reshipping. Fighters and the structure became the new primaries.
Another mistake: while I was reshipping, we got the Chimera probed down. I decided to wait until the bookmark propagated, instead of using the guy who probed it down as a warp-in. Chimera lit a cyno. I got on grid, and took over FC'ing, while leaving 2IC as anchor. A Thanatos came through the Cyno. The bookmarks finally propagated, and we warped in on the carriers. Thanatos was our primary. My next mistake: Should've primaried the Chimera as it was the active cyno. I ignored fighters, which I think was the right call? Defanged was just going to take too long, and I wanted to clear caps before more stuff came through. Next throught the cyno: An Apostle. Thanatos was almost dead, so we managed to kill it.
Thanatos died. Next mistake: Primaried the apostle. Of course, a Chimera is going to receive awful reps from a Apostle, and the Chimera is still the active cyno. Should've been our primary. And a second apostle came through the cyno. They can rep eachother all day long. One of the apostles lit another cyno. At this point, Fweddit joined our fleet. We had already arranged to join up against any 3rd parties that tried to crash our party. We got the Apostle to 50% armor before Analiese told me to primary the Chimera (duh). I'm not sure if we were actively breaking the Apostle, or just getting baited. The Chimera was easily repped up by two Fax's in triage, however.
Hey guys, remember how I said NSH didn't follow us, so they weren't going to be a problem? Yeah about that. They Titan bridged in a Leshack/Zarmazd/Guardian fleet. I tried to break their logi. After all, FAX logi has a hard time holding up cruisers. Just too little total HP. However, 7 T2 logi can hold themselves up pretty well. I tried swapping primaries, but it was ineffective, to say the least. Then I went after their tackle so we could leave grid. We pretty much alpha'd their tackle. So that's something.
I had us burn out of the bubbles and warp back to the structure. 1) I still wanted to kill the structure and 2) the structure could start helping us out. I was caught, however, and died. I called full dps on the citadel, as we couldn't kill the enemy, and were running out of time on the structure. From here, it just kinda turned in to suicide runs on the structure to try to pop it.
The structure died, NSH got the killmail, but they left a surprising amount of loot on grid. Over 1 bil, all said. Great job by everyone, and we had some great fights. Another note on something I should've done differently. I should've had everyone leave their drones on the structure pretty much all fight. 25 DD of drones would've kept the timer paused even when we were fighting the enemy fleet.
TL;DR: https://br.inyour.space/?s=3287&b=8514600&e=210&t=yELv
The question I'd like to pose here is, given Uni skills, what could we have brought? This is the question that's been going over and over in my mind since yesterday. Uni has 40ish guys. Enemy is 10 Leshacks, 5 Guardians, 2 Zarmazds, 1 Bhaal, 1 Vindi, 1 Eos, 1 Damnation, 2 Apostles, 1 Chimera, and assorted bubblers/inties. We outnumber the enemy 2:1 essentially. Is there any way we could've won, or at least been isk positive against that?
Here's my best answer to this question. Once the video gets uploaded, you'll notice that the enemy caps never warped in, they stayed at their perch. Only the subcaps warped down to the structure. I'm pretty sure FAX's can't rep that far. Now, they might've just left them that far out from laziness, but I'm not sure. I think the best call would've been to reship into 20 Blackbirds, all full yellow jams. Their job is to jam the logi. The other 20 people ship into some kind of DD. Buffer rail Moas with long point? And then just kill their logi. Reship as necessary, we're on home ground. We can easily trade 10 ships per logi we kill and come out ahead. The main weakness is they can warp down the faxes, which are immune to ECM in triage. I'm not sure 20 moas can break T2 Cruisers before capital reps land.
But I'm curious to hear everyone else's thoughts on how to counter this. Again, great job to everyone who came out, and we were technically isk postive. We even managed to kill one of NSH's caps.