[AAR] Noobs on Patrol 2023-07-04

[Amoni Panala]

Our second outing was exciting at the beginning for the simple fact that we had numbers. It may have been due to the US holiday or the Freddy Mercury in Gatorade or something, but there were numbers. That did mean that I was explaining a lot of stuff for the new folks. I realized only at this time that I had not stated what level of PVP a pilot should be comfortable with. I think it's debateable whether small gang is harder than ordered fleet style PVP. I think they're just different challenges. Small gang requires a lot more open communication between all members while ordered fleets require specialization in roles and the FC must give clear instructions that the fleet follows. Small gang does tend to require more manual piloting and independent motivation though... I don't know... Four years ago I went pretty quickly from flying in fleets and returning to hisec to living at LSC when that was thing. Our small gang pirate roams were great and I feel like I learned a lot about PVP just by going out there and trying to catch stuff. Anyway...

At first we were going to go shoot some CFT folks who we heard were ratting in 5-D but then I learned folks had already engaged them once. CFT has, as of late, been more willing to pew pew with us rather than bring stuff we couldn't possibly take but I also don't really feel like testing their patience too much. As we were about to leave home, someone dropped into our comms from PC9 Standing Fleet to let us know there was a gatecamp in 6-C. Yes, the same 6-C we welped in last time. I figured, why not... I explained to the fleet that we were likely going to all get blown up but we should see what we can find.

We found the gatecamp. There was a lot more on grid than we could feasibly take even with all of us making a coordinated strike. I jumped into PC9 Standing Fleet and asked if they wanted to provide additional firepower to break up this gatecamp. They said yes. It took us a long time get that sorted, in part because I think being in separate comms channels meant we were not communicating effectively. I also suspect some shenanigans, but that's to be expected in a learning corp with varying degrees of skill. The additional firepower worked well, though the gatecampers quickly realized what we were doing and tried to save themselves with station games we got some kills. We disengaged once we felt we had gotten all the content they were going to give us and folded.

Big thanks to Lonez for 2ICing for me.

Rifter 5,444,549.64
Rifter 3,160,455.32
Kikimora 95,830,933.79
Catalyst 13,603,648.83
Mobile Warp Disruption Unit 1,873,945.79
Mobile Warp Disruption Unit 1,873,945.79
Mobile Warp Disruption Unit 1,873,945.79
Mobile Warp Disruption Unit 1,873,945.79

Despite the fun we had today, I don't think the rifters work for nullsec small gang roaming. It was worth a try, but they just don't bring enough DPS on their own and even with self-rep they're still too fragile to hang on while we converge to assist.

ISK Destroyed: 116,930,365.78
ISK Lost: 8,605,004.64
ISK Delta: 108,325,361.14

[Shaemus O'Conor]

More fun, this time with more green text!

Again thanks for the help from PC9 standing fleet, for the rest see my comment in the AAR for the 03.07. roam.


On a more personal note, a small additional AAR from myself:

After Amoni folded the fleet intel mentioned some CFT guys deeper in the PC9 pocket so a handful of us decided to take a quick peek down there. I've decided to take on the FC role for the time being. We had one guy who already was in system with CFT but couldn't find them on D-scan. I had the fleet hold on the in-gate and took a look myself, but could not find them either (turns out they were docked in their Upwell structure, which as it did not show up on my overview I've completely missed, need to sort that out and keep in mind in the future).

At that point things got interesting as intel from PC9 standing notified us of an incoming gang through JH- towards PC9. My brain then sadly went into indecision mode and I ummed and ahhed for far too long, still having the fleet hold on the in-gate without content. Finally decided to have us return to PC9 to completely fold and have those who wanted merge into PC9 standing fleet for the possibility of a more cohesive response to the roaming gang.

Turned out ultimately more by luck than any consicous decision by me to be the right call as the gang was filled with Hecates and Coercer Navy Issues which would have minced our Rifters. They managed to catch one of us sadly so I guess that needs to be added to the fleet tally.

In conclusion: I need to get back into the mindset of FCing, making faster decisions and having a plan, even if just taking over from someone else for a few minutes. Thanks anyway for everyone who stuck around with me.

Additional ISK lost: Rifter 3,161,151.32

Still ISK positive overall!