[AAR] Moa Cruisers

[Ithugor Wells]

Synopsis
Form up was a bit rough. I didn't fully appreciate the amount of extra time it would take to scan down all the holes and plan out a route. As a sliver lining, this did buy more time for people to join us, which was nice.

On the roam proper, we had a decent set of wormhole connections heading near Pandemic Horde space, even if space was initially empty.

I was quite excited to run into some bubbles in C-V6DQ as I was hoping there would be ratters or miners about, but sadly the place was empty. I ordered the fleet to shoot the bubbles in the name of being isk positive.

A bit after that, our primary scout found a Mymirdon and I had the fleet warp in and engage it.Our bubbler did a good job getting secondary tackle via a bubble. Although we couldn't get a second bubble, the Myrmidon had to burn a path out of a bubble that didn't let it warp anywhere quickly and we dispatched it. Our initial tackle also did an incredible job warping off with the smallest possible slivers of health.

Once we continued roaming, our secondary scout found some miners off our initial path to hopeful content and I had the fleet rush there, with our 'dictor zooming ahead. Sadly, the miners docked up and were smart enough not to undock for awhile.

Slightly altering our path resulted in a distinct lack of content unfortunately, so we turned towards Pandemic Horde staging to see what we could rustle up. And we definitely ended up rustling things up.

Our secondary scout found a VNI (still ratting despite the changes?) and managed to tackle it. Unfortunately, I mucked things up a bit and initially ordered the fleet towards the wrong gate, but did manage to stop the order before too many warped to the wrong place. Despite our sabre getting scrammed by the VNI, our Logi managed to keep it alive and we fairly quickly took down the VNI.

Just as it was dying, the enemy response fleet started to warp in. I had already had us anchor on someone else and began to call targets. Unfortunately, I wasn't calling them nearly fast enough, though I was being (hopefully clever) in putting drones on the small stuff. I think I also could have more directions to my logi and normal anchors of where to position. I ended up calling scatter near the end but logi wasn't quite done yet so I could have probably more gracefully exited.

After we re-group and attempted to escape, I waited waaay too long on the gate as someone was still in RQO. Given how I saw a Heron on the other side, I should have just had the fleet warp away while we left bubbles behind as we lost two more people than we needed while waiting.

Amazingly this fleet was isk-positive despite the snafu in the fleet fight. It was also a great learning experience as finding content and calling targets is much harder than with a frigate fleet roam through lowsec.

I would also like to give a commendation to Privite Martin. It was his first time as a `dictor and he managed to both avoid dying or getting his fleet killed in a bad bubble!

Video
FC Viewpoint Raw
Myrmidon Hunting
Fleet Fight (this is the interesting bit)
Waiting too long to escape

Roam members (14)

Spoiler

Able Achasse - Osprey
Dexyr Sulvara - Moa
Ged Sinak - Malediction
Gergoran Moussou - Moa
Ievos - Crow
Ithugor Wells - Moa
Keuthein - Moa
Mike North - Moa
Private Martin - Sabre
Rogue Ozran - Osprey
Satoshi Tomeii - Moa
Space Warfare Development - Moa
William Lyon Mackenzie - Osprey
manda doomsslayer - Moa

Kills and Losses

(02:22:10) C-V6DQ
Mobile Large Warp Disruptor I +8.5m

(02:37:56) KMH-J1
Myrmidon +75.52m

(03:02:45) RQOO-U, I2D3-5, FZX-PU
Vexor Navy Issue +124.07m
Hecate +65.47m
Raptor +25.42m
Exequror +88.91m
Crow -43.6m
Osprey -16.14m
Osprey -18.86m
Moa -33.33m
Moa -33.21m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
Osprey -19.27m
Moa -30.99m
Capsule -0.01m
Capsule -0.01m
Moa -32.64m
Capsule -0.01m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 387,878,704.92
ISK Lost: 228,104,363.63
ISK Delta: 159,774,341.29
Efficiency: 62.969%

Overall evaluation

• ✔ Got what I was looking for (a fleet engagement that would have interesting target calling choices)
  ✔ Learned quite a lot about what I need to work on
  ✘ Not fast enough mid-sized engagement target selection
  ✘ Could have been clearer on what to target (I called a Stabber a Sabre...)
  ✘ Could have paid more attention to the broadcast window to more clearly see how badly we were doing
  ✘ Could have more gracefully left the engagement
  ✘ Don't wait around when running away from people
  ✘ Need to give better positioning guidelines to anchors (particularly to stay out of bubbles)
  ✘ Need to take into account the extra prep time

Questions
Was splitting drone DPS (from guns) onto the enemy small ships near us the right thing to do?

[Private Martin]

I appreciate the commendation, it was a good learning experience. As I pointed out after the op, my survival was mostly thanks to our excellent logi pilots.

Two things I didn't realize before watching your video. 1) I have no idea why my mic is so quiet in mumble compared to other chat programs and 2) I didn't realize there was a Ragnarok in system with us after that fleet fight.

[Ievos]

It was a good fleet, both in fun and in experience. Happy to scout, and was also good to travel with a secondary scout to learn from while doing (a good chance to compare and contrast my own actions).

As for splitting damage, I would think in the case of the numbers we faced, focusing and destroying should be the priority. While you may get them both down in the same time, they are both in play (doing damage or supporting their fleet) that whole time. For small groups, or if you know the damage is overwhelming (i.e. they will drop in 1 cycle, with some dmg wasted), splitting may work to split their logi or just because they cannot hurt you regardless. Happy to hear others input on this though.


-Ievos
"Eye-E-vose"