Fleet members
Name - number of sites - ship type (from memory, so might be wrong)
Spoiler
Batto Ashitaka - 2 - Augoror
Chugore Blunt - 2 - Coercer
Devola Gestalt - 2 - Gnosis
Ersin Oghuz - 2 - Coercer
Falling Snow KumaMoto - 2 - Augoror
Hikaru Sakai - 1 - Coercer
manda doomsslayer - 1 - Coercer
Squin Ti - 2 - Coercer
Valeria Rammstein - 2 - Augoror
Velts Engren - 2 - Coercer
HSC vulfwhat ?
Vulfpeck fleets are a doctrine (and a group of folks using it) used to farm C5 combat sites in the particular "Wolf-Rayet" wormhole environment. The effects of these wormholes make armor destroyers extremely viable & efficient to run these sites. The base doctrine is Confessor/Guardians/T2 boosting battlecruiser, however they also suggest "newbro" coercer/augoror fits, for the few occasions where they lead newbro friendly fleets;
I've never attended this kind of fleet, however I always saw a huge potential here: making a very profitable, yet extremely newbro friendly fleet that many HSC newbro can participate in, with low investment.
But Devola confessor/guardians aren't really newbro friendly, there are not many people at HSC who can fly that.
That's right, the base doctrine (T3D + T2 logicstic cruiser) is absolutely not newbro friendly, nor a tiny investment (I remind the reader that we see newbros flying their mission cruiser without rigs at HSC, because medium T1 rigs are too expensive for them). However there is a thing HSC is extremely good at: blobing, especially overblobing to absurd levels where people start to pour salt. Can't bring T3D ? We shall go with coercer, and just add more DD pilot to keep the same DPS. Can't bring T2 logi ? We shall just bring (almost BLAP) Augorors, but a couple more. T2 boosting battlecruiser ? Hey, they have a Gnosis fit for that on vulfpeck site !
Now that brings the mainline logi at 25M isk, the mainline DD at around 10M isk. The meta versions are easy to skill into. The only "high" isk&SP ship is the Gnosis at around 55M isk. And contrary to letting someone in a destroyer come to a L3-L4 mission (where the newbro is basically accepting the generosity of an experienced pilot, which isn't bad, but not necessarily satisfying), we can get a newbro in a mainline DD ship: he is a valuable contributor to the success of the fleet and earn his isk the fair way.
Of course because we're bringing more people in less efficient ships, we can't expect the 100-200M isk/hour/pilot of a vulfpeck fleet. But if we can reach just 1/3 of that, that will still be some huge income for newbros, and still decent ISK for the veteran(s) leading or coming along.
I stocked a few ships in my personal hangars at 101, ready to lead a fleet to the first convenient C2-3 Wolf Rayet I would map around HSC. Well today what I happened to find was a C5 Wolf Rayet. 6 combat sites, direct HS connection, empty structures, clean killboard, and only other WH in there was the C2 static. And that gold mine was sitting just 3 jumps from HSC. However I never ran C5 combat sites, so I hesitated to bring a fleet to run content I didn't know, in an experimental doctrine I'm not used to fly. Luckily, Ersin Oghuz happened to pass by, had some experience in vulfpeck fleets, and volunteered (or was volunteered) to FC. So the show was on !
Doctrine / fits
"High" SP coercer (directly from vulpeck, with a heat sink swapped out for a membrane for extra safety).
Spoiler
400mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Heat Sink II
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Warp Scrambler II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Dual Light Pulse Laser II
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Scorch S x8
Conflagration S x8
Imperial Navy Multifrequency S x8
Spoiler
400mm Steel Plates II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Heat Sink II
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scrambler
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Dual Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Microwave S x8
Standard S x8
Imperial Navy Multifrequency S x8
Spoiler
Armor Thermal Hardener II
800mm Steel Plates II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Damage Control II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
Sensor Booster II
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Small Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery
Medium Solace Scoped Remote Armor Repairer
Medium 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Medium Solace Scoped Remote Armor Repairer
Medium 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Medium Solace Scoped Remote Armor Repairer
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Anti-EM Pump I
Targeting Range Script x2
Scan Resolution Script x2
ECCM Script x2
Nanite Repair Paste x40
Spoiler
1600mm Steel Plates II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
AE-K Compact Drone Damage Amplifier
F-90 Compact Sensor Booster
Medium Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery
10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Medium Micro Jump Drive
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier
Small Capacitor Booster II
Large 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Skirmish Command Burst I
Armor Command Burst II
Armor Command Burst II
Skirmish Command Burst I
Armor Command Burst II
Medium Command Processor I
Medium Command Processor I
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Hobgoblin II x5
ECCM Script x1
Navy Cap Booster 400 x16
Armor Energizing Charge x725
Rapid Repair Charge x725
Armor Reinforcement Charge x300
Scan Resolution Script x1
Evasive Maneuvers Charge x726
Interdiction Maneuvers Charge x750
Rapid Deployment Charge x750
Nanite Repair Paste x50
Core Scanner Probe I x16
Core Probe Launcher I x1
Some people brought their own ships (which is awesome). Others got free ships from me: my experiment will be run with my isk
The fleet itself
Formup was a little slow, mainly because it took time to get a minimum of ~10 people that FC & me assumed would be enough to have a decent chance of success. Also after that, ships handout was slow, because I traded ships one by one. Finally I took time to undock because I had to run around the place to find T1 boosts I could use on my Gnosis.
We get to Gisleres (WH entry) and crossjump some neutral on the WH. I think "This is bad, we're spotted. They are gonna drop on us like starving dogs on a steak". Well funnily, this guy was in "The Initiative.", same alliance as our FC. So our FC grabbed free intel from him, and maybe they decided to not drop on us because we had a blue in our fleet. I was happily chuckling behind my screen at this point.
Well anyway, we jump the WH and warp to a 1st site. The 3 waves of the combat sites goes well:
- 3 augorors can hold without any trouble.
- 7 coercers are enough to break rats. Though it is quite slow: more DD ships would not go to waste.
- Positioning is quite hard: the logi/booster are AB fitted. The coercers are brawlers. Logi range is 50km and boosts ~40km. Target calling depends more on what can be shot without splitting the fleet, rather prioritizing the most dangerous/annoying rats.
At some point some destroyers got capped out by rats. The Gnosis was used to give them some cap back, however its transmitter only has 9km range, so it might take some times for the Gnosis to get in range... I don't know how it's done in true vulfpeck, but I wonder if the Gnosis is misused. Having an augoror give cap to the DD (66km range for augoror), and having the Gnosis partly taking place of the augoror in the cap chain (just giving cap, not receiving any) would be much faster. This is certainly a more complex manoeuver though.
We clear the 3 waves. At this point the FC said something funny: we can spawn a battleship that gives good loot, but he might wipe the fleet. Wanna try ? I gave my blessing. Multiple others gave their blessing. Nobody said no. So we spawned the battleship...
Well nobody landed scram on him. So he started burning around happily, went straight to one logi, and melted it in something like 30sec. Then my gnosis get tackled/neuted/damage. For some time the 2 remaining logi manage to keep me alive. but I guess this was only possible while they overheated their reppers. Sometimes later I start going down for real. i'm out of cap and tackled, but at some point I have a bright idea: hit the cap booster, 1 cycle overheat the AB to go away, and MJD out of the mess. It could have worked if I thought about it 5 or 10 sec ago, but I go down with the MJD half past the warm up timer. A coercer gets blown up. At this point FC admit our defeat and warp the fleet out. The battleship was far from dead.
Gnosis -53M
Coercer -11M
Augoror -24M
Lesson learnt:
- 7 Coercer & 3 augorors are absolutely not enough for the optional battleship. Not enough logi to hold reps, not enough DD to break it in a reasonable time.
- Landing scram & webs at the beginning of the battleship fight is very important. Maybe that's why the vulfpeck booster has skirmish & info boosts: faster lock times & extended scram can make the difference.
- The boosting battlecruiser is certainly not an intense/hard role, but I think better decision making from my part would have mattered here.
Blue loot +164M
Our wrecks' loot +27M
We go to a second site, which is ran without trouble. We decide to let the optional battleship alone. This site paid 164M isk in ~20min for 9 people. If we can keep up this pace, that's above 50M isk/hour/pilot. Accessible for low SP pilots with a 10M isk ship. Not bad, isn't it ?
Blue loot +164M
Sadly at this point, between the long form-up, the reshipping, the biobreak, and the fact that this is totally experimental so both FCs and linemembers need to get used to it, 3hours have passed, and I had to logoff. We got ~320M isk for the whole fleet. This is a pretty awful payout for a harvester fleet, but we were able to test the concept, got some positive&encouraging results, and saw what was the limit of this doctrine. For an experimental & impromptu fleet, I'll call that a success.
TL:DR
- ✔ Doctrine seems viable for the 3 waves of C5 combat sites.
✔ 10 people are able to run these C5 sites, and there is still room for more DD, no need to refuse additional people.
✔ The potential isk/hour/pilot is decent.
✘ We were greedy and welped a part of the fleet I replaced the lost ships, and consider my invested isk worth it.
✘ The optional battleship was out of reach. Whether it can be fixed with more people, or if this doctrine simply can't deal with it, is open to debate.
✘ The payout for this 1st iteration isn't great, considering the duration of the fleet. Hopefully we can do better in the future
✘ I focused on getting the operation up (fits/doctrine/combat part), but totally forgot to make a loot spreadsheet (or something like that). It's easy to recover the useful info for 2 combat sites, but wouldn't do for more complex operations, especially with people joining/leaving in the middle.
I hope we'll be able to consolidate the concept and have more opportunities to run this kind of fleet in the Uni. Keep looking for Wolf Rayet systems folks !