[AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Locked
User avatar
Larkvi
Member
Member
Posts: 113
Joined: 2019.12.03 01:57

[AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Larkvi »

Roam members (13)
Spoiler
Analee Tsasa
Auric Fulcrum
Bruice Almighty
Falling Snow KumaMoto
Giacomo Belenos
Iam Nota Bot - Caldari Shuttle
Larkvi - Talwar
Marcel Eriker
Nathan Blackmane
Nienke Solette - Talwar, Rifter, Heron
Titus Empire
Tolerin Escipion - Slasher, Rifter
Yto Itinen - Slasher, Rifter
Kills and Losses

(20:02:42) Harroule
Caldari Shuttle -0.02m

(20:44:01) Moclinamaud
Talwar -4.52m
Slasher -1.58m
Slasher -2.54m

(20:54:45) Moclinamaud
Rifter -3.86m

(21:18:41) Oicx
Rifter -3.49m
Rifter -3.82m

(21:31:39) Oicx
Rifter -3.83m
Rifter -3.8m

(21:38:50) Pavanakka
Talwar -5.59m
Rifter -3.83m

(22:54:44) Ouelletta
Heron -9.54m

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 0
ISK Lost: 46,416,185.2
ISK Delta: -46,416,185.2
Efficiency: 0%



I came into this fleet at the last minute, as Psychotic had to bow out due to a real life situation that came up, and delegated to Nienke, who asked if I would be willing to take over the fleet. This is my first time flying Minmatar ships (I just finished BLAP a few days ago, and Minmatar was the last racial category I trained), and I was looking forward to learning about them by flying, but I was game to step it up and give it a try. From the start, I was not particularly familiar with the ships and had no considered doctrine, but it was a kitchen sink fleet anyways, and there were contracts up at Amy, so I switched into a Talwar (from my planned logi ship) and we started forming up. I asked for two logi, not because I really knew whether or not they were appropriate, but because that seemed like something that we should have. Two scouts I was much more confident we needed. In practice, the opposition we ended up going against had high alpha and we did not make particularly good use of them. This was my first time giving the newbro speech, so of course we all disconnected due to the DDoS attack and took a few minutes relogging before we got under way at around 20:25. I let the fleet know that I was a bit unfamiliar with both FCing and the ships themselves, and asked them to speak up when they knew something relevant and they consistently did throughout the fleet, helping keep things going.

Perhaps setting a theme for the night, we lost a shuttle before we even undocked, as a Unista coming to the formup was hit on the way in.

We passed a Loki piloted by Taylor Moon Mahyisti on the way into losec, and there was some discussion about whether this was a pilot that Psychotic had an arrangement with that we did not know about, so we decided at the time to give her a pass. As it turned out, she did not take a pass on us; after inconclusively engaging targets which we could not lock or could not keep scram on (we did not have enough webs) and another disconnect that hit the FC hard and necessitated a dockup and bio break, she caught up to us as we were engaging with a (presumed bait) Brutix on a gate in a sniper-fit Loki, and managed to take out both FC and 2IC almost immediately. 3IC took over and got the fleet off of the gate and to the reship station, where we got in whatever was available and kept going. Apparently, we lost the Brutix, but I was unclear how, as I was off-grid at that point. The Loki dogged us for the entire roam, and was almost completely un-engageable with our fleet setup, even though we tried on multiple occasions to lock it on an out gate. She even sent a note:

[21:56:04] Taylor Moon Mahyisti > i wanted psychotic flickity to see my leet loki skills :(
[21:56:11] Taylor Moon Mahyisti > could you tell her pls

Despite valiant attempts to engage a variety of targets (and losing the scouts twice) we were on our way out of losec, having detected an unegageable gatecamp, when Yto found a Gila in an Abyssal in Ouletta. Nienke went back and got a combat probe Heron fit (without a cloak--I should have asked, as I specifically supply a cloaky combat probe fit on contract at Amy) and scanned down the Abyssal trace, but the trace disappeared without a Gila appearing, leading us to think the Gila was lost in an Abyssal. While the scanning was going on a Hecate which we had followed earlier came onto grid with Nienke in the Heron. Everyone warped on grid, but we were too late and were not able to tackle the Hecate. At this point, it was truly over, and we went home.

Overall evaluation
  • (Positive stuff)
  • Wonderful support from the more experienced players, notably 2IC Nienke Solette, 3IC Auric Fulcrum, Scout Yto Itinen, and Boosher Analee Tsasa.
  • When FC and 2IC were alpha'd by the Loki, 3IC decisively took over, kept the fleet together, and got everyone else to the undock.
  • Despite disconnect problems, we managed to get out and roam.
  • Based upon my own first experience as a scout, I had Yto take the new scout into a separate channel and give a separate briefing.
  • Fleet members were very game to engage anything and rolled with the punches.
  • Got to see a boosh in action for the first time.
  • Multiple fleet members were following what was going on better than the FC and communicated well and clearly their appraisal of the situation.
    (Negative stuff)
  • I asked for logi without any real plan or understanding of how they would interact with our fleet.
  • I did not check whether we had an appropriate balance of point, scram, and webs before undocking.
  • In the first fight, where we scrammed the Legion but then lost it due to speed/range issues, I and several members were out of position and I should have ordered everyone who was not in range to bounce and warp to the tacklers instead of just sitting at useless ranges. I think we were all surprised at its speed.
  • I absolutely should have called for the Brutix to be booshed before we engaged it.
  • At one point, Yto called for us to come to a small complex, but I misunderstood the (very clear) communication and held the fleet at the gate instead of warping in.
  • I have a very shaky understanding of how gate guns work, which is not great on a losec roam.
  • We tried to engage on outgates a lot, and having one instalocker with a scram might have made this more practicable.
  • I would have preferred to have some specific roam ships up on contract at the start, rather than the BLAP ships we took, as I would have understood their roles better.
  • Multiple fleet members were following what was going on better than the FC, who was confused about what was going on several times.
  • A three hour roam with no kills to our name. While I was prepared to welp the fleet, none of the fights we could find seemed worth welping on, since we either could not engage or could not take anything out.
Main learning points:
  • I need to learn more about ships that I do not fly, espcially those favoured by other PvPers. I was completely unprepared for how effective the Loki pilot was. Scouts would call out targets and I would have to ask if they were engageable.
  • I need to fly logi, so I actually understand how to make use of them.
  • I need to pay more attention to who in the fleet is flying what.
  • I need to pay more attention to fleet balance: do we have speed, do we have snipers, do we have a balance of webs, point, and scram.
TL:DR I was a last-minute replacement, the fleet was good practice for me as a FC, but had some annoying issues with disconnects and we took down no targets, despite taking losses.
Last edited by Larkvi on 2020.01.28 00:56, edited 1 time in total.
Image Image
User avatar
Falling Snow KumaMoto
Member
Member
Posts: 218
Joined: 2018.05.05 20:24

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Falling Snow KumaMoto »

Thanks Larkvi and all others for sticking with this fleet, despite RL concerns sidelining the original FC and the server instability causing weird problems. I was looking forward to this, and was very pleased we got to go.

I add another negative point: during the fight with the Brutix + Loki, the Logi FC (me) did not tell the FC that the logi wing (in AB-fit scythes) could not keep up with our DD (some of whom were WAY faster), possibly costing us a ship or two towards the end of the fight. I should have said when we were drifting back into falloff. I was busy trying to keep up with repairs, since the enemy were switching targets really well.
ImageImage Image ImageImage
User avatar
Taylor Moon Mahyisti
Member
Member
Posts: 77
Joined: 2019.12.20 22:02

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Taylor Moon Mahyisti »

yeah good fleet, it was fun :)
Larkvi wrote: Two scouts I was much more confident we needed. In practice, the opposition we ended up going against had high alpha and we did not make particularly good use of them.
yeah, one thing i did notice is that the scouts were in t1. it's definitely worth going with an intie and/or assault frigate for this, it does cost some more but it's quite easy to keep them alive once you're practices with it and definitely makes a big difference. inties are faster, have lower sig, better tackle, and warp faster (put one hyperspatial rig on if you can work that into your fit, it just speeds up looking for things which means the whole fleet can move quicker). btw, definitely train inties V, it make a huge difference because the sig bonus is additive, so you're reducing your mwd sig by like 45% of what it was at level 4 or something (number made up but you get the point, it's not just 15% less that time)

for the other scout jaguar is the classic heavy tackle, it's very predictable but hopefully at that time you already have light tackle on them and the jag is just there to seal their fate. if not you can also use ramhawk which is a lot more engageable, or vengeance is also really good for armour fleets though it doesnt quite have the same burst tank as the shield ones. the good thing about the venge though is you can perma-run a repper without any cap mods thanks to the cap bonus, so if you're willing to put some bling into it it can really pay off if you're not going up against too much burst dps
Larkvi wrote:
she caught up to us as we were engaging with a (presumed bait) Brutix on a gate in a sniper-fit Loki, and managed to take out both FC and 2IC almost immediately. 3IC took over and got the fleet off of the gate and to the reship station,
thats a really good thing if you managed to have that structure in place already and carry it out smoothly when fc went down. in most fleets ive been in when fc goes down it's just "right someone else take calls", then either no one says anything or two people try and say commands at once :P
Larkvi wrote:The Loki dogged us for the entire roam, and was almost completely un-engageable with our fleet setup, even though we tried on multiple occasions to lock it on an out gate. She even sent a note:

[21:56:04] Taylor Moon Mahyisti > i wanted psychotic flickity to see my leet loki skills :(
[21:56:11] Taylor Moon Mahyisti > could you tell her pls
yeah, it did seem that you guys were quite light on tackle especially with the scouts being t1. it's always a good idea to think about that before undock, having some long range webs is always helpful. hyena works well IF you can keep it alive, that thing is a juicy target. ashimmu is good for cruiser size, or huginn/rapier if you can afford it (id probably have a bit more logi to run that).
Larkvi wrote:
[*]I need to learn more about ships that I do not fly, espcially those favoured by other PvPers. I was completely unprepared for how effective the Loki pilot was.
im flattered! :D

yeah t3cs, especially loki, are very powerful and versatile. it can be hard to fight them especially as a new fc because there are so many different possible fits. theoretically speaking, i could have warped off from your fleet, refitted in space with a mobile depot to a HAM brawly active tank fit, and warped back within a couple of minutes. they really are amazing ships.i personally have six loki fits saved, all with different use cases and specialisations - you cant truly know what you're fighting until you've already committed yourself, and THAT is the hard part about fcing: not have all the information. if i know what they have and know what i have, i can calculate our chances of winning quite easily. but if i dont know what they have, i either have to take a risk or not fight. experience helps you guess what they might have - after a while you get to know all the local wildlife and what they have, what they tend to bring, especially if you mostly hunt in one area like black rise for me

the other thing that makes them so powerful is of course the cloak. you saw this trying to catch me on gates - if the loki doesnt want to fight, it doesnt have to fight. it also means i can choose to start the engagement at the perfect range, pre-aligned if i want. in particular that helps you be able to get away with fitting an ab instead of mwd, because you dont have to worry about starting off away from them and just getting kited out. and in my case it means i could just start at like 40k and snipe, being aligned to warp off at any time

if you like playing with fits, try them out in the in game fitting simulation or pyfa or whatever you want. you can make some really cool things out of them. (not including the proteus, that one sucks)
Image
User avatar
Larkvi
Member
Member
Posts: 113
Joined: 2019.12.03 01:57

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Larkvi »

I only came in an hour before this fleet, but this being a themed newbro-friendly roam, I am not sure how likely we were to get people spontaneously showing up in interceptors and assault cruisers (I personally can only fly Gallente variants of both). I think you are right that it should be on the checklist of things that we ask for, along with a cloaky spotter; I wonder if we can build the next similar roam around a few pre-committed T2 ships covering required roles and then allow everyone else to kitchen-sink it.

Thanks for the feedback, and the practical lesson in the power of T3Cs---If you and Psychotic want to arrange a roam or class that you lead, I would certainly be interested in attending!
Image Image
User avatar
Taylor Moon Mahyisti
Member
Member
Posts: 77
Joined: 2019.12.20 22:02

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Taylor Moon Mahyisti »

yeah, finding a good scout with inties V / afs IV+ is difficult - almost as much as finding good fcs. often i would have to scout for myself when fcing, which is not ideal because fc should be with the fleet, but it's better than not having a socut. eventually i got used to that and just scouted for myself all the time unless there was someone i knew was good who volunteered as scout. (but helping people who are new to learn to scout is good too in the long run, so it's a double edged sword)

gallente inties are fine btw, imo the ares isnt quite as good as the stiletto purely because of the slot layout - you ideally want mwd, point, scram, and MASB. in the lows you want damage control, then either double nano or nano + SAAR. unfortunately with the ares you have to sacrifice one mid, but you do gain an extra nano which makes it a bit faster i think. id probably drop the scram, havent really found myself needed to do drive-by scrams recently especially if you have other fast tackle in the fleet
Image
User avatar
Nienke Solette
Member
Member
Posts: 1039
Joined: 2019.08.21 15:16

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Nienke Solette »

@Larkvi, kudos for taking up the last-minute FC call. You did pretty well for your first LowSec roam as FC, commands were clear, comms were fine and the majority of the fleet did not go down in a ball of fire. But most importantly, the fleet had a good time, had content and learned. In my opinion, the mission is fulfilled.

The DCs were annoying but we dealt with it the best we could.

Practising with a boosh was good. Next up for me is to remember using it in a combat situation...

You mentioned some learning points which I had myself too in my first roams (gate guns, the balance of point/scram/webs, Logi interaction with fleet composition). Keep FCing and you'll get the hang of it soon enough. And yes, I'd encourage you to fly Logi, it's fun and good to have that perspective too. Actually, this can be made more general: in my opinion, FCs should also just participate in many different roles without FC-ing to get a different perspective sometimes.

@Falling Snow KumaMoto, great to see you flying Logi and good learning point!

@Taylor Moon Mahyisti, we discussed the fleet in mumble after getting docked up. Psychotic joined in a bit later. We have discussed quite elaborately how leet your Loki skills were. Thanks for popping me twice ^^

Also great to see that you're dropping in here to give advice, it's something the Uni needs and highly appreciates! MASB = Medium Anciliary Shield boost and SAAR = Small Anciliary Armor Repair I suppose?
ImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage
__________________________________________________________
Former SPO | Former FC, LSC and Events Manager
User avatar
Taylor Moon Mahyisti
Member
Member
Posts: 77
Joined: 2019.12.20 22:02

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Taylor Moon Mahyisti »

Nienke Solette wrote:MASB = Medium Anciliary Shield boost and SAAR = Small Anciliary Armor Repair I suppose?
yeah

btw thanks to the guy who posted 1 million bounty on me after that fleet. i think he was a bit upset with me :(

Image

it went to some nullsec jackdaw fleet this morning, i am sure ypu made them very happy :)
Image
User avatar
Yto Itinen
Member
Member
Posts: 322
Joined: 2018.12.23 20:14

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Yto Itinen »

We kinda tried to turn around and rescue this fleet at last minute, which is a bit like wearing pants while trying to run :)

Timing was a bit late for EUTZ weekday, DDOS waste of time only made it worse, and I will go by very (hazy memory)

1)Comms were a bit confused at times, with as many as three people speaking over FC, so the scouts couldn't rely information even with the "check checks". I had to do a newbro speach to Tolerin on a separate channel, but that was not a solution for a fleet.

2)Being kitchen sink is fun! It sort of works if we keep it at a single ship level. Mixing 3 different classes, with pilots who don't know their ship profile is bad enough to make us feed piecemeal. It felt bad to keep the Legion pinned down for so long with a slasher with no heavy tackle to support, while the fleet was rolling at different ranges and different speed.

3)The DDOs attack made the game unplayable for a long time, and messed up what we were doing. The deaths to the POS tower came even after both scouts confirmed they had no tower on Dscan, and we both had them enabled, but when we landed on the Tristan, we got blapped. At least we made the fleet stop their warp beforehand.

4)Using reships from contracts is not ideal: the people who make the fits have to make them lowest SP possible and piloting a ship with mods you didn't choose is sub-optimal. The rifter fits we used were maybe a fight club idea, but they were terribad for tackle, even for t1 fits. At this point my only hope was to get the Loki to agress me on a gate and hope the fleet would swiftly follow, so I iddled around a few jumpgates and got it to shoot me on two different occassions. Nothing came out of it, as we had no quick enough follow up. FC tried to camp it at gates, but that was not gonna happen, unless the goddess of lag tipped the balance in our favor.

5)The problem of fleet comms became worse after the fleet went after the Brutix. I was on my way there and I saw Tolerin had jumped the gate just before me. A flashy Algos looks so enticing when you see it at a gate and when it yellowboxes you, but it means nothing: it has to actually commit to agression and take gate guns, which it didn't and it kited 40 km from gate instead, so I burned back to gate. In a fleet with good comms two things would have happened: I would have either told Tolerin to hold or we would have tackled until fleet could support us. Fleet was already engaging a Brutix two jumps out and I was in no ship to take a fight with an Algos already in position to fight and no comms to rely this info. Tolerin went for it and at that point the only possibility was to rush it and overheat hoping to break it. It went differently, as we engaged at different times and his tank held. The guy who flew it was gentlemanly enough to give a Gf and a short chat after the fight, giving us advice on scouting and engaging.

6)This seemed like one of these nights(or already the new day for some), where all goes wrong, but Ouelletta would have tipped our general morale if we had had our Abyssal Gila kill.
I was able to get the trace on my dscan and called for a combat prober. A hostile hecate was already roaming the system. Nienke reshipped and came back but without the ability to see the trace on her overview. I guided her by voice while I rushed two jumps to reship to a combat prober myself and when I came in system, the trace and the guy doing it had disappeared, even with 11 people not seeing them on dcan or local, not even for a second. So either this guy died in an abyssal and his KM is not public(in which case, someone had an even worse night than we did) or smth glitched. Anyway, in the shower of combat probes going around, the hecate found our heron prober and melted it without remorse.

It was one of those nights, after all...


Anyway, don't be disheartened after this read, we lost some cheap rusty ships and we learned a lot, made new good friends. If no one shows to FC, the bravest one takes the lead and I can't fault Larkvi for anything. He did all he could by the book, and on a normal night that is enough to get you a green killmail. On a bad night, you go to bed, and the next day you go out gunz blazing again and again and again until we get both fun and killmails!

Fly dangerous!
Image
ImageImage
ImageImage


Image
Image
Image
User avatar
Nienke Solette
Member
Member
Posts: 1039
Joined: 2019.08.21 15:16

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Nienke Solette »

ImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage
__________________________________________________________
Former SPO | Former FC, LSC and Events Manager
User avatar
Taylor Moon Mahyisti
Member
Member
Posts: 77
Joined: 2019.12.20 22:02

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Taylor Moon Mahyisti »

haha, i enjoy watching that

"loki is friendly... well, sort of... ok loki definitely not friendly" :D
Image
User avatar
Yto Itinen
Member
Member
Posts: 322
Joined: 2018.12.23 20:14

Re: [AAR] Minmatar Mondays

Post by Yto Itinen »

loki is friendly... well, sort of... ok loki definitely not friendly
Marvel did like 4 movies and a tv series on that premise, people like it :D
Image
ImageImage
ImageImage


Image
Image
Image
Locked