[Structure Defence] T22 Azbel and Tatara

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Cryptic Sharvas
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[Structure Defence] T22 Azbel and Tatara

Post by Cryptic Sharvas »

TL:DR: Cryptic and Greagan have decided that the structures cannot be defended. We flew too close to the sun. Therefore the timer for the Hull on the Tatara is 2018.06.18 23:57:55 the Azbel's Hull timer is 2018.06.21 23:53:29. Why is this important? because if these structures survive the reinforcement timers we will give them away to the Corp with the most Shadow Cartel kills in Syndicate within the 24 hours preceding these timers until they come out of reinforcement. Is this a scam? well you now know we can't defend them, so if we don't turn them over have fun blowing them up for the juicy kill mail. I would like to see E-UNI's continual usage of these structures, but once they are yours, they are yours. Shadow Cartel is disqualified from any attempt to win these structures.

Prelude

A long time ago CCP created moon mining. Greagan and I, along with the support of many had a moon mining Extravaganza, the NSC was hoping with UNI members. This looked like something to get involved with. We are both AMC officers and without any care of being charged with Dereliction of duty we moved to the NSC. We found that the structures there were haphazardly setup. If someone wanted to do something with a structure they bonus-ed it for their tasks. As non-structure owners we were moving BPOs from one place for research to another for copying. Manufacturing was spread out as well. Some Athanors offered reprocessing and others were simply there to pull up moon chunks.

It was at this time that I visited Grindstone with an alt. I quickly fell in love with the simplicity of the structure setup out there. We were looking to move Encrypted Industries somewhere and We decided on T22, after the Bourbon creek affair. We had a Raitaru quickly built from Grindstone copies and set to work on the Tatara. The Azbel was from an earlier project near the AMC and was redeployed. The plan was simple:

1 Raitaru rigged for T1 invention
1 Azbel Rigged for T1 ME/TE and Blue print copying
1 Sotiyo Rigged for T1 Ship manufacturing, Equipment and Consumables, and Structure and Components
1 Tatara Rigged for T1 Reprocessing and T1 reactions.

We built 3 of the structures, The Raitaru was rigged, the Azbel was only rigged for Blueprint copying and the Tatara was rigged as well. The Sotiyo was under the resource gathering part of the plan. This setup would allow anyone doing industry at the NSC to do so without worrying about what was rigged for what. or where the best place was. or needing to setup their own facility for exactly what they wanted to do. This was a broad umbrella that covered everything. Did we dream to big? yes we did.

Shadow Cartel Attacks

I got pinged 2 days ago that the Tatara was under attack. Joy oh joy. I signed on my structure defender of all that is good and started shooting. I successfully killed my own fighters. Definitely need to learn how to use these things before I try to use them. lesson learned. Thank you for informing me in local that I was doing it wrong.

Moving along 12 hours later they reinforced the Azbel. Greagan had the opportunity to get the notice that this had happened. We were timezone tanked here so what can you do? we watched it burn.

Armor timers

I wasn't going to be online for this timer. The attack started on the Tatara and I continued to work at my job. The structure hit half armor and I could feel the wind in my hair as I drove towards home, windows down on a nice sunny day. The Tatara was reinforced and they started on the Azbel, I ate dinner with the family, Greagan mounted a defense. Things were shot at and structures were reinforced.

Things I learned

1. Don't anchor what you can't afford to lose. To everyone that helped build these structures I thank you for believing in an industrialist's vision.
2. Learn to actually perform a structure defense. SISI exists for a reason
3. Have a plan to defend your stuff, because no one else will do that for you.
4. Build the defense stuff before the structures.
5. Learn PVP first so that you can lead your own defense

The Hull timers

We've decided that even if we were able to mount a full scale successful defense of our structures that it would be better to offload them. Therefore, if you want them you can try to win them from us. How? well first off they have to come out of reinforcement, can't transfer them if they die. Secondly. if multiple groups fight for us how do we determine who to give it to? Well kill mails. For Every Shadow Cartel kill mail in T22-QI, the corp with the most damage will get a point. Corp with the most points when the structures come out of reinforcement gets the structures, since there are separate timers for the Tatara and Azbel they will be separately awarded. We will be attempting our own defense fleet since the timers are now when I'm online, and I would like to try a Doctrine of Blown up stuff for the high annoyance level I suspect this will cause. Hope to see Atomsk with his doctrine fits. Note: I doubt there will be SRP for these but it should be an excellent Troll fit.

Also if you don't wish to help with the defense because this sounds defeatist, thats ok. There is plenty of content in new eden and I wish you all the best in anything you do.

Finally Mandatory Eve fire sale post:

https://evepraisal.com/a/i52t4 90% Jita Buy price is all I ask.

In everything you do Fly Safe and Anchor Dangerously.

Shadow Cartel have shined the Beacon of Knowledge on my poorly laid plans, I thank you for showing me the errors of my ways.
Last edited by Cryptic Sharvas on 2018.06.14 14:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Bora Vyvorant
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Re: [Structure Defence] T22 Azbel and Tatara

Post by Bora Vyvorant »

I wasn't expecting to be around for this due to timing, but in the event I popped in to help with anchoring bubbles and ended up staying for most of it. Here are some thoughts.

Shadow Cartel brought in 16 Nightmares and six T2 Logistics cruisers for the first timer, with a couple of Recons in support (specifically, ships capable of pointing bombers that don't bomb aligned to their warpout, or are a fraction too slow on the warp button). We should be honest with ourselves and accept that the end result was never really in doubt. I think that would probably have been true even if we had been able to conjure up a fleet of 20-30 trained stealth bomber pilots, but that would be a separate conversation (tl;dr: if you have 30 cloaked people in system, your battleship targets are going to change tactics; even if you do manage to push them off, they can always come back and start again right away given the changed reinforcement mechanics).

DESPITE THIS they almost didn't manage to win the timer for the first structure. I think that is down to three factors, in increasing order of importance:
  • They were being harassed by a couple of brave souls and couldn't completely concentrate on the structure
  • Greagan knew what he was doing with the structure defenses and they couldn't just ignore him either
  • Most importantly, they were a bit over-confident with their scouting, and didn't see the huge bubble nest we anchored on their in-gate until they had landed their whole fleet in it. Just burning through that to the gate cost them at least a couple of minutes.
As a result of the delays, the two structure timers ended up overlapping, so that they needed to warp some DPS off the first in order to pause the second. In addition, they decided to bring three supers through gates to back up the main fleet, and these also got caught in the bubbles. Burning through not being an option, they spent at least ten minutes taking down some bubbles, warping clear and back in to the gate. Our allies the Sansha rats also slowed them down by scramming both the carriers and their fighters, so credit is also due to whoever pulled the rats back to the gate (Jorj or Ramong?).

Again, against people prepared to bring tactical nukes to a knife-fight, this was a fight they were almost certainly going to win. Contesting them anyway without committing an undersized bomber fleet which would just have been lost was the smart call. At least they had to work for it, expose heavy assets they could have lost, and Greagan got to chortle over T2 fighter killmails.

One last thing about the operation that I thought was really well done on our side was the gate bubble placement, leaving a very narrow corridor for us to get in but making it really hard for the visitors. Arrek's work, I think?

I think the decision to give up the structures whether they survive or not is a sensible one, and I think the way you're doing it is pretty classy. Hopefully one or more of the other nearby larger entities will take you up on it, particularly with the possibility of some super-carrier kills being there. The dynamics will change quite a bit if the cyno restrictions from the Sansha incursion are no longer there.

I still have no idea why Shadow Cartel wanted to do this in the first place. We had a somewhat similar dance with them in T22-QI back in 2015 when they took a POS from the NSC holding corporation. They have upshipped from Rattlesnakes to Nightmares and from dreads to supers in those three years. Back then, they had obvious goals: it was a half-decent moon by Syndicate standards, and they wanted a staging POS to extend their capital and Titan bridge range. Now, I don't find the resource goal very believable and you don't need to kill other peoples' structures to put up your own. I guess we'll see.
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Cryptic Sharvas
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Re: [Structure Defence] T22 Azbel and Tatara

Post by Cryptic Sharvas »

I must apologize to Arrek, he put in some great effort getting that bubble placement in place. I had not realized how effective it was.

The tatara in T22 was placed on a rather crappy moon. The only thing I can think of is the loot pinata in Tama that dropped 140 billion in jobs. I hope I have done enough work to reduce that to nothing for them.

For the record, cones also defended an azbel yesterday. They were successful during their armor timer taking out 3 nightmares.
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Re: [Structure Defence] T22 Azbel and Tatara

Post by Xafen Katapi »

20-30 stealth bombers needed? Lots of shiny out waiting to die? Bombers Bar intel sheet would like a word, https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... A/viewform Let them know the next timer (most Bombers Bar fleets are EU time which I think these timers are on?). 16 nightmares and more is very likely to peak their interest.
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Bora Vyvorant
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Re: [Structure Defence] T22 Azbel and Tatara

Post by Bora Vyvorant »

Reminder: After Action Reports is a public forum. If you want to discuss tactics for future operations, it would probably be best to find another venue.

Not that things like "we could tell Bomber's Bar" are exactly super secret spy info stuffs, of course, so much as common sense; just heading off a more detailed discussion.
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Re: [Structure Defence] T22 Azbel and Tatara

Post by Ramong Pares »

@Bora, there is also a thread on the NSC subforum, we will take talks of any feeble attempt of a defense there.

Cryptic, it is a great AAR. Good to see that even in this dark hour, you put together something like this!
Greagan certainly did a great job in the armour timer defending. He commanded the defense of both structures simultaneously, and got results.

Also, if we had know how effective the bubbles would have been at slowing them down, we should have put up more, and on both sides of the gate.
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