[LSC] Who doesn't like Waffles?

[Twpsyn]

So, we were hanging around Uphallant, most of us had just docked up after chasing a Sabre around. Even went down into his wormhole chain and tried to get a fight, but he rolled the hole in front of me. So sad. All in all we were kinda like
.


Then someone called out over comms about a Waffles fleet headed our way. Cyclones and Ospreys, definately a fight we could take, and comms traffic picked up. Since they have been so good about undocking when we head to Kinnaka, it seemed like the right thing to do to undock and give them a fight. I mean, cmon, .

We had enough in fleet, so I didn't worry about pinging, although someone did anyway lol. We had a couple folks who wanted to break out their shiny, so we had Guardians for logi, so I called for armor cruisers, VNI's prefered. Waffles were in Cyclones, so I wanted some range option in case Apothne took a leave of his senses and fit HML's. I mean...it could happen right?

Anyway, we warped to planet one, got set up, and shortly after they landed on grid. I called an Osprey primary, and was a little shocked when it melted as fast as it did. So I started calling cyclones primaries, saving Apothne for near last. I called for spread point and we did a pretty good job of getting everything pointed that was in range, their last 3 logi were far enough out we couldn't get them.

Good fights were given, and Apothne even came on comms and we had nice good talk about the fight, good and bad.

Killfeed
392.27 isk killed / 36.74 isk lost 91.44% efficiency

Stuff that went right:
1) Quick formup, people reshiped quickly, moved into the approriate squads, and didn't dally much.
2) Folks stepped up, I had logi volunteering before I even asked. No one dithered about what to bring.

Stuff that didn't go right:
1) Waffles have been good about undocking fleets for us, I wanted to do the same, but I didn't want to upship them and just blob. Turns out we kind of did. I didn't realize someone pinged for the pvp. I didn't ask for it, but I should have been keeping an eye on numbers a little better. I want Waffles to continue doing this and that means giving good fights, not just blobbing the crap out of them.
2) I got a little excited on comms (my first time FCing in like a year, I was happy to be doing it again) and was talking a little fast. That is on me, but something I need to work on.

All in all, fun stuff. Hope Waffles brings some more, they are always fun to get into a scrap with. Having Apothne hop on comms afterwards for the after action breakdown was an added plus.


Also, logi.
sowo
Lixet Hekki

[Hezekiah Winter]

Yeah this was a fun little fight.


Waffles were great sports choosing to engage when we totally outnumbered them and had links. And they surprisingly did not have links.

It was really surprising how quickly we had numbers. about 30 mins before we had about 6 - 8 guys in cruisers ect ready to fight another group, then we suddenly had 23 or so people, the form up was one of the fastest Ive seen at lsc for a long long time. About 5 minutes and then the whole fleet undocked and were ready to go, with links and all. Slack is obviously working in terms of the pings getting people to log on.

I think that this engagement really showed me that the LSC has reached that point in the cycle again where we have a lot of good pilots with high skills and good ships available. For a while it has seemed like we have fairly low numbers in a lot of time zones, or that a lot of people are not able to quickly form up in doctrine ships. But there seems to have been a lot of work go into people getting themselves organised.

This fight took place at around 7am for me and I had been up all night. I dont get to play in this US timezone to much so perhaps that time zone is a lot stronger than the others at the moment. But any way I was really impressed. I really did not expect us to have that many numbers or too win by that much.

It was actually the first time I've ever been in a fight were Uni beat waffles. So that broke the aura of invincibility that had become their reputation in my mind after a large number of brutal defeats.

I was really impressed with their good sportsmanship In taking the fight and for Apoth coming on comms and explaining the fight from their point of view, and also being really gracious about the loss.

I was about to go to bed when we were told that waffles were coming to fight, I was falling asleep at the computer and was thinking pretty slowly as it was 7am, I honestly didnt notice that we would have that many guys undock, or I would have spoken up and suggested we bring a few less numbers to make it a bit fairer. Even undocking with A heap of VNIs with guardian support I though Apoth would pull out some magic and still wipe the floor with us. I had just bought and fitted my first VNI a few hours before the fight, and was fully expecting too loose it. Which would have been my most expensive loss to date as until recently I never flew any ships that were remotely shiney.

It was also my first non dragon slayer fleet that our side had links for. It was amazing how much a difference that made. I knew links made a big difference, but hearing the links pilot explain just how much of a bonus they give was really eye opening.

For a long time Ive had a policy of intentionally trying to do everything I do in a way the is really newbro friendly, so that low skill points pilots can take part in all the different roles and play a meaningful part. I have had some great fights doing this, mostly T1 fits with T1 weapons, No links, most pilots in the fleet with their weapons and hull skills to level 3, ect. But it always felt like it was an uphill battle that seemed tilted in the oppositions favour.

It was really eye opening being on the other side of the equation. I feel like roles were reversed compared to every other waffles fight Ive been in. Every other time we have been outnumbered. We have had no link, and they have had links, and they have had higher skill points pilots. And in every fight thing on the Uni side just broke to pieces in seconds. We could not break their reps. They just melted though our ships one by one and reps barely did a thing.

In this fight it was us that was melting ships and they could not break us.

I feel sad to say it but I think I need to save up to buy a links toon, as it just makes such a huge difference.

Any way it was an awesome feeling to be on the winning side. I feel a bit sad that spending out of game cash to buy a 2nd character for links is kind of necessary to even the playing field in this game. On the up side I was really excited to see so many people in the LSC having doctrine ships ready, and able to be organised and undock so quickly.

It is also awesome seeing a heap of new FCs stepping up and getting some awesome results.

Twpsyn did a great job FCing. Especially seeing as it was the first time in a long time.

There are always things that an FC could improve on, and when you have regular practice taking out lots of fleets a week you get really smooth at remembering to do all the small things. Im totally out of practice at the moment as Ive been pretty busy with RL for a numbe rof months, so I am in terrible form at the moment. Twpsyn was great and I sure that he will be getting better and better each time he takes fleets out in the near future. Really he did a great job, it was only really small things that could be improved on. Using broadcasts would help get dps on targets quicker especially if the enemy has more than 5 guys on field. It is much quicker to control click the top of the broadcast list than it is st search through a list of name in the overview, to find the right name.

I usually Broadcast the primary secondary and tertiary targets and then call on comss which is which. Saying the first 3 letter of each pilots name. "A P O Apothne in a Cyclone is primary" "H E Z Hezekiah in a Celestis is Secondary" ect. This way pilots can just look at the broadcast list and control click on the names that the FC is calling. The should be the top 3 in the list. This is a lot quicker than trying to look through 15 names on the overview, and results in getting dps on targets up to 5 seconds quicker.

For the FC there is a shortcut key to broadcast the target you have selected. I think it is 'X' by default. This save the FC lots of time.


At one point during the fight with waffles Twpsyn forgot who he had called primary and then accidentally had as swap primary half way through killing it, and then he realised and had us swap back.

If you were using broadcasts you could have looked at the broadcast history to see which targets had been broadcast, this can help you remember who your primary is. Even if you dont remember which one of the 3 at the top of the list was secondary at least you know every one has it locked so they can put damage on it much quicker than if you broadcast another random target, and the fleet has to lock it before they can shoot it.

All in all we lost maybe 15 to 20 seconds of half wasted DPS due to the mixup with who was primary, in this fight it didnt matter, but in another fight it may.

When you are FCing there are dozens of things that you need to concentrate on simultaneously, this makes it really hard to get them all right, and a FC will pretty much always make some mistakes due to the lack of ability to process so much information so quickly.

So these were just some little things that could be improved on.

Twpsyn did an amazing job FCing, he is really level headed and a good leader with personality, but is also willing to listen to the pilots he leads.

Big respect to Apothne, and all the waffles bros for their great display of humility and love for the uni, to fight when so badly outmatched.

And awesome job for all the LSC pilots who formed up so quickly and professionally.

Was a really proud moment for me!

Peace Hez!

[Lixet Hekki]

T2 logis, manage to keep almost everyone up from that many BCs.

Tis why more folks need to train into them

[Hanuman Ormand]

I wouldn't feel too sorry for waffles, it is very rare (like never) that they come out on the short end of the stick in their dealings with the Uni.

Because the institutional memory of the Uni is so short I would add this word of caution on arranged fights with waffles. It was tried before by the LSC and there was a reason that they stopped.

If they bring a fight take it, use all your resources, in the end everyone will be happier.

[Apothne]

I wouldn't feel too sorry for waffles, it is very rare (like never) that they come out on the short end of the stick in their dealings with the Uni.

Because the institutional memory of the Uni is so short I would add this word of caution on arranged fights with waffles. It was tried before by the LSC and there was a reason that they stopped.

If they bring a fight take it, use all your resources, in the end everyone will be happier.

...this wasn't an arranged fight? I turned up and gave the UNI a few mins to get their lives together for some pew before we moved on. ezpz.

I don't like arranged fights because there's always a couple people on whichever side loses that finds a way to blame the loss on something ~machiavellian~. Leave the bitterness at home and enjoy the simplicity of pewing spaceships

[Hanuman Ormand]

I wouldn't feel too sorry for waffles, it is very rare (like never) that they come out on the short end of the stick in their dealings with the Uni.

Because the institutional memory of the Uni is so short I would add this word of caution on arranged fights with waffles. It was tried before by the LSC and there was a reason that they stopped.

If they bring a fight take it, use all your resources, in the end everyone will be happier.

...this wasn't an arranged fight? I turned up and gave the UNI a few mins to get their lives together for some pew before we moved on. ezpz.

I don't like arranged fights because there's always a couple people on whichever side loses that finds a way to blame the loss on something ~machiavellian~. Leave the bitterness at home and enjoy the simplicity of pewing spaceships

Must have touched a nerve.

Just telling the new bros that there is a long history of "misunderstandings" when it comes to waffles dealings with the Uni.

[Richard Marte]

Leave the bitterness at home and enjoy the simplicity of pewing spaceships

I'll confess that sometimes I'm guilty of not enjoying the simplicity of pew pew. Maybe the annoyance of reshipping in lowsec is some of it (I fly what I can afford to lose, but I don't always have every module I'd like to have on-hand - I am intentionally basing in Uph and not Stac because I want to learn to live with these constraints so that when I'm living far deeper in null/WH space it isn't a big deal).

One of the frustrations of being a new player is that you almost always have less SP than the other guy, and most likely you also have a cheaper ship too. EVE is very unforgiving of either. The fact that we rarely have boosts in the Uni is also a major disadvantage - I was reading up in Incursions that losing boosts is like losing a ship or two in a 10-ship fleet.

I don't really like to go into fights where I'm guaranteed to lose, but at the same time I try not to obsess over it too much. I do learn every time I lose, so I think a big part of being in the Uni is embracing the fact that the deck is often stacked against you in terms of victory, and just focusing on having fun and learning. The interesting thing is that looking back the times I've gotten ganked don't bother me as much as the times when I had the opportunity to get into a fight that I just might have won but I ran away from.

[Zang Xuu]

I think that this engagement really showed me that the LSC has reached that point in the cycle again where we have a lot of good pilots with high skills and good ships available.

lol there is a thread started not but 5 days ago in the LSC forum positing the exact opposite!

Regardless on where that wheel has spun to, I think the LSC had a bit more beef than usual for this fight. The night before the uni had an unusually large cross-campus fleet near Uphallant in the same TZ.

I logged into the same ship I had been in the previous night. Maybe some people had clones on timers in UPH, and with stuff that may not be typical. Just a few pilots (links, T2 logi) at a different campus or not online, and that's a very different fight.

I don't think we have the same response on any given Thursday. Although I'd love to be proven wrong!

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the annoyance of reshipping in lowsec is some of it

You have a shopping alt, right? If I ship in a new boat, it's always 2-6. Contracts are usually pretty good, and SRP delivering in UPH makes it so much easier. SRP is always within 24 hrs, great job by our team! Once I get enough ships in my hangar to last the weekend I'm essentially never running out, and I only have to ship in mods. And Stacmon is only 2 jumps, its not bad at all. You may find eve-shopping.com useful to help plan shipments. Anytime I'm without a ship its because I didn't prepare in advance.

One of the frustrations of being a new player is that you almost always have less SP than the other guy, and most likely you also have a cheaper ship too.

But we're never outnumbered!

I don't really like to go into fights where I'm guaranteed to lose

I feel like I'm in very few fights like that, and if so it's usually a deliberate decision by the FC to just give it a shot and give some content to the fleet members.

[B'aldrick Aivoras]

I'm relatively new to PvP especially in cruisers as I've liked the mobility and speed of flying tackle to get involved with fleets and learn as much as possible about finding fights by listening in to the target calling / selection choices made by the FC.

I was already in space after trying to catch the WH gang with the others so when the shout went out I wasn't going pass on the chance.

The calls were clear for me and I was able to get a few shots and even a scram in. I don't remember being hit at all but trying to find the primary and secondary targets was difficult as I was trying out a new screen set-up to see locked targets and fleet members easier - back to the drawing board.

It was good to hear the 2 FC's actually talk to each other afterwards and just enjoy the fight. It was also nice not to die as I've been accustomed to a cruiser.

[Richard Marte]

Once I get enough ships in my hangar to last the weekend I'm essentially never running out, and I only have to ship in mods. And Stacmon is only 2 jumps, its not bad at all. You may find eve-shopping.com useful to help plan shipments. Anytime I'm without a ship its because I didn't prepare in advance.

Oh, I do all that stuff. It still is a bit of a PITA, even with Pehuen's EXCELLENT jump freighter service. (Did I mention how excellent it is?)

Like you say, you need to prepare in advance. I do try to keep modules and hulls in stock to fit any of my commonly-used fits. But, sometimes I lose something less common. I generally make all my hulls from blueprints and keep a stock of minerals handy, so that gives me a ton of flexibility around the hulls (I can replace them in an hour or two), and it means less volume for the free jump freighter service to handle. The modules are really the pain, since there is such a variety of them. Plus, my skills are constantly increasing being new, which means that I end up with meta modules I no longer need, and so on.

But, this isn't meant as a complaint. It is actually the whole reason I fully based myself in Uph with the exception of things like PvE battleships and such. I want to get good at managing all this stuff, because I joined LSC to get the experience of LIVING in lowsec and not just roaming there. Uph happens to be two jumps from Stac, but maybe my next home will be in PC9 or Innuendo, or in some future sovereign null corp.

It still can be inconvenient when you lose a ship though. Again, one of the benefits of standardizing more on QRF doctrines would be making it easier to ensure I have the right fits on hand when I plan ahead.

Thanks for the link to eve-shopping - I hadn't heard of that. I use the EveHQ requisition module which is similar. I just wish it had a bit more internal integration with its industry modules. It would be nice to be able to click a few rigs on the shopping list and have it swap them out with the required salvage materials (I've found that rigs often have a large buy/sell spread at trade hubs, but you can often make them from salvage for close to the buy price as salvage tends to have lower spread, and again stocking 20 types of salvage lets me make a far greater variety of rigs). When I get more of my core skills under control I plan to start making T2 ships as well - those are even more important since my shopping/hauling alt can't fly those.

I feel like I'm in very few fights like that, and if so it's usually a deliberate decision by the FC to just give it a shot and give some content to the fleet members.

In the last few days things seem to have switched a bit. For a while the typical experience was somebody dropping by LSC in a kitey ship and everybody ends up docking up since nobody had anything useful for forcing a conclusive and successful engagement. It doesn't bother me when FCs whelp. I just don't care as much for yoloing.

[Selni Tivianne]

I'm not entirely sure why people were surprised at the numbers - we had similar numbers on the WH just before this fight.