Ain’t back a month and I get a shout out in an AAR, I feel special.
The run
When this all started we were just wrapping up a Vanguard Fleet as Drebin 679 stated when Psych jumped into coms and briefed us on the situation. The problem was that Tristle wasn’t with the incursion fleet but deep in Aridia working on a special project. That means it was 25 jumps of low and npc null or 40 jumps of highsec (and a little low for Aridia). However I did have a jump clone installed in Citadel 101 so two jumps later I was magically teleporting across the universe to see the lovely sight of a local go from empty to full of greens, blues and flashing reds.
The fight
As my conciseness was transferred to my clone in 10, I left my personal fleet (pro tip: if you’re not going to be in a standing fleet because you’re 25 jumps away from the nearest standing fleet, form your own, it gives you tools you wouldn’t normally have access too and prevents random invites) and looked for the response fleet. Seeing no response fleet I joined the HSC standing fleet as I started the same search in mumble. Seeing an abnormally high number of people in HSC general and no fleets in coms I joined the HSC general channel. I checked the MOTD to see what the doctrine was for the response and there was none. I asked in chat what the doctrine was. No response. After a minute a minute or so I heard someone order the Caracals to undock followed by the Ospreys to undock as well. So I go to contracts and look for Ospreys in the corp. Find one, fit the rigs, and undock. I ask for the logi channel to be used for the Ospreys and get no response. I look though my fleet window to see where a logi was so I could just warp to them and only found one. I look up into the grid to see if I can find the logi anchor and all I see is a scattering of purple ships surrounding a small blob of red flashies. I then here Ithugor Wells tell me to warp to him at which point I did, burned in on approach locked him up to start cap chain. I watch list both him and Seleena as he was FC. My shield broadcasts was turned off for some reason so I had to resort to looking at what the wartargts were actually shooting. We were able to Rep Cpn Reynolds Rupture long enough for him to get off grid and kept Mongo the Mechanics Vexor up to the point that they had to switch two of the Leshaks to kill him. At which point I became the primary target. As I reshipped back into an Osprey the wartargets decided to evac and that ended the fight.
The lessons
1. Always have a jump clone at 101
We’ve always known Amygnon was the primary flashpoint for war target aggression against Uni structures. So being able to rapidly mobilize to Citadel 101 for defense is something that everyone who wants to help defend the campuses needs to be able to do. Sometimes you just must burn that 20 jumps to make the fight but if you can just do it with a jump clone that is always better.
2. Standing Fleet is not Response Fleet
While it may seem easier to form up in the Standing Fleet a much better way is to form an actual response fleet. This way you know everyone in the fleet is active and there to help the fight. The MOTD can be updated with the Doctrine that is being flown, who your FC, 2IC, Anchors, and snowflakes are. As well using a dedicated fleet channel allows for use of the subchannels and command channels.
3. Cap transfer Logi vs Cap stable Logi
This is a little more subjective and nuanced but in my opinion (i.e. take with a BIG grain of salt) the Osprey was the wrong choice in this situation. Logi numbers were low and really too low for using Osprey in this instance. As we had only two Osprey on grid, all it took was to take one of us out and both were effectively out of the fight. A better choice would have been to use the Scythe as they do not rely on each other to stay in the fight. Scythes would have struggled or buckled under the cap pressure that the war target would have applied but they would have to take out each one rather than just one. And even better choice, given what we were fighting, would have been to have four Ospreys but that would have meant people actually getting into Ospreys and we wouldn’t be talking about this if they did that in the first place.
4. Broadcasts and Broadcast settings
So it turns out that somehow my shield broadcasts were turned off which caused me to not be able to see shield broadcasts. How that happened I don’t know but it did. So if you actually broadcasted for reps and were within rep range when I was still up, my bad. This should be a lesion to make sure you have your broadcasts displaying before you start the fight. My armor broadcast was working and the person that did broadcast for armor reps did receive reps from me.
5. Batphone / Ping channel
The Uni has a unique setup. In any other alliance each campus would be it’s own corp falling under the E-Uni alliance. Running this way would mean if you’re part of the AMC corp then that’s where you are and would need to change corps If you wanted to be part of the NHC or WHC. Uni’s setup allows for members to quickly and easily transition between different campuses and even being an active member is multiple at the same time which is a great thing. The problem is, communication is being ran primarily as a campus level activity and there is currently no alliance or E-Uni level communication outside of the random ‘don’t shoot PIRAT structures please’ eve mail. If one campus needs help, such as a response fleet it requires that campus to ping the other campuses and then the leadership, official or unofficial, rounds up the posse to come to the aid of the campus in distress. This means you lose all the pilots that are not currently at a campus that has been reached out to. That means Nomads, Explorers, Pilots on alts not in the Uni, and even people just out of game but otherwise available are left out of the loop. My recommendation is that one of the following things should happen.
a. Setup an E-Uni level Slack that has an emergency ping channel that lets only Directors/Managers/FCs alert the members of a problem
b. Setup an Emergency ping channel in each of the campuses Slack that lets only Directors/Managers/FCs alert the respective members of a problem
Option a. is more like what the major Sov Nul alliances work currently where as opton b. is more tailored to how the Uni is currently setup. Option b might also already be setup this way on the other campus slacks but as I’m only currently a member of the Incursion slack and they don’t have an emergency ping channel I’m going with that is how the rest of them are setup.
6. Logi on killmails NOW!
Seriously, Now.
It was super to take part in a full uni activity and generated a real feeling of "I am part of this and this is fun."