tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23126635106088354062024-03-13T12:47:34.031-07:00The Big Shield Lobby: An Eve Online PvP BlogAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-23781181866971314682017-09-12T16:48:00.003-07:002017-09-12T16:48:30.796-07:00Comments on Craftworld Eldar Index Balance<div class="MsoNormal">
At the moment, Craftworld Eldar could be in a worse spot,
especially compared to some of the other codexes. They have a number of units
which, together with the ynnari faction rules, allows them to field relatively
competitive 'elite-style' armies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That said, I see two significant problems with
Craftworld Eldar. Firstly, they don't have access to a variety of
competitive anti-horde units. Secondly, a large number of their units are
over-pointed such that they don't see much use at all. With a number of units,
these problems overlap – I.e. traditional anti-horde units are too points
inefficient to see use. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Taking the lack of competitive anti-horde units first. In
previous editions, these would have included the following units – Windriders,
appropriately armed Vypers and Warwalkers, guardians, dire avengers, night
spinners (and possibly fire prisms) and swooping hawks. None of these units are
seeing much competitive play although some are better than others. Personally I
think guardians are probably in the best place on this list but they're still
not great. I have a few ideas on how to make these units competitive choices.
This includes comments on how to address the second issue, overcosted points
values:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Windriders – They are too fragile for their
points cost, especially with no move-shoot-move ability and changes to cover
rules. I suggest a points reduction of the base model (no wargear) to 10
points. This will mean a scatter laser jetbike will cost 25 points. If that
still doesn't work, I suggest considering giving them a 3+ save again. I don't
think it would be good to go back to the 'unfun' jump-shoot-jump rule (even
though I love it).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Vypers – One problem with Vypers is that you
often want to run them as dual shuriken cannon so you can avoid the 'one gun'
platform issue. The other problem is their excessive points cost, at between
80-90 points for a single heavy weapon model. I would suggest a points
reduction to 44 points per model. They also need a different special rule.
Their 'blade wind' ability doesn't cut it and should be replaced. Firstly, it
commits you to taking large units of Vypers (that can't split up) which hurts
you on satisfying detachment requirements. Secondly, you lose the rule once one
of the three vypers dies. I would suggest that they be allowed to move and
shoot heavy weapons without penalty. If that's not good enough, in the
alternative, give them the -1 hit rule that the venom has. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Warwalkers – Again, too expensive. Again, I
would suggest a flat points reduction to 31 points per model. Another way to
go, perhaps with a less aggressive points reduction, is to give them another
mobility 'trick'. I always thought the forge-world 'jump-jet' style walkers
were cool. Perhaps give them an upgrade option as follows – "Once per
game, at the end of your movement phase, you can move this unit 24" in any
direction [insert standard text about not landing with 9" of enemy models
etc]". Alternatively again, give them a rule equivalent to 'outflank' from
previous editions. Regardless, they need a substantial points reduction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Dire Avengers – Horribly overcosted. I suggest
they be 12 points with their weapon. This could also be complimented with a 1
CP 'bladestorm' stratagem equivalent to their previous rules. For example –
"1 CP – Bladestorm – Use this stratagem during a shooting phase. Pick a
friendly Dire Avenger Unit. That unit's avenger shuriken catapults become
'assault 3' until the end of the phase. A dire avenger unit can only be the
target of this stratagem once per game". Given how good horde armies are
at the moment, even this might not be good enough. Perhaps a dual firing mode
for their weapon could be considered. E.g. mode (1) – '12" range, assault
3', mode (2) '18" range, assault 2'. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Guardian Defenders – Make them 6 points base and
let their heavy weapons platforms move and shoot with no penalty, just like
previous editions. Giving them a stratagem similar to that in relation to the
Dire Avengers above could also be considered.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Storm Guardians – Storm Guardians have not been
playable since 3rd edition (when I started playing) – they need aggressive help
to become viable. This is especially the case when they are competing
with guardian defenders and the excellent shuriken catapult. I suggest making
them 5 points base, with a minimum squad size of 6. This would allow one squad
to fit in a falcon and two squads to fit in a wave serpent. It would also
synergize better with the ynnari rules. The costs for them to take
flamers and fusion guns should also be moderately reduced in some way. Say, 12
points for a fusion gun and 6 points for a flamer. Depending on how powerful
those changes are, allowing them to take 2 special weapons only in squads of 8+
could also be considered. Granted, these changes don't necessarily make them a
better 'close-combat' guardian unit. I'm not sure how you do that however
without making substantial changes to their base strength/toughness 3, 1
attack, 5+ save statline. Perhaps give them 2 attacks base?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->7.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Night spinners – I would suggest a base cost
reduction to 135 points and an improvement to their gun. Perhaps make its gun
heavy 3d6 but make its damage characteristic '1'. Alternatively, add a rule to
its gun equivalent to – "Any time an enemy unit suffers a hit from this
weapon, that unit must halve its movement and charge ranges, rounding up".
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->8.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Swooping hawks – Points reduction to 15 points
including their gun. Make lasblasters 'rapid fire 3'. Furthermore, remove their
ability to deal mortal wounds and replace it with an anti-horde ability,
similar to the swooping hawk grenade pack rule of previous editions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have tried to make 'balanced' suggestions on the above
units but regardless, changes need to be made to give Craftworlds competitive
anti-horde units. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other broad issue is overcosted units across the
Craftworlds index. Notably examples of these include rangers, falcons, fire
prisms, vaul's wrath batteries, striking scorpions, warlock conclaves and warp
spiders. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To reinforce the above comments on uncompetitive units and a
lack of an anti-horde option, one only needs to consider the units commonly
appearing in Ynnari Craftworld tournament lists. These are limited to – Wave
Serpents, Dark Reapers, warlocks, spiritseers, farseers, autarchs, hemlock
wraithfighters, crimson hunters, howling banshees, fire dragons, d-scythe
wraithguard and shining spears. Apart from these units, very little is
appearing in Ynnari Craftworld lists. Note that none of these units are
dedicated anti-horde units. I would suggest that wave serpents are not
specialists in this role. With triple shuriken cannon they can help, but their real
strength is via providing a durable, mobile transport and late-game objective
grabber.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In summary then, Craftworld eldar need better anti-horde
units. Further, many craftworld eldar units need points adjustments. This is
demonstrated by evidence of craftworld tournament lists using the same units to
the exclusion of all other<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a> choices.<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-38137797347712220962014-01-08T16:45:00.001-08:002014-01-08T16:54:37.693-08:00Are they dead yet? Sniping Tornado battle reportLast night I lead two fleets to TEST Alliance's staging system in <a href="http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/Otsela" target="_blank">Otsela</a>. Good fights were had and killmails received on both sides. Full report after the break!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>After logging on last night I sent my cov-ops alt out to scout the various staging systems in the Forge region. Most were relatively quiet apart from TEST's. It appeared that a few hostiles were attempting to fight the morass of random ships TEST had on its staging station.<br />
<br />
I formed up Railgun Thoraxes and we headed over to get in on the action. We had 4 Thoraxes, 2 Scythes and a Crow.<br />
<br />
As we arrived in system I saw that a neutral had challenged TEST to a thunderdome in a belt. We immediately warped to the belt but only caught the tale-end of the fight and killed only a Prophecy. <br />
<br />
At this point, TEST pinged for shield Oracles and Rail Brutixes along with Scythes and Scimitars. I knew that these ships were more than our Thoraxes could handle and we wouldn't be able to fight them. Both the Oracle and Rail Brutix are shield kiting ships with good damage projection and solid tracking. They also have very little tank. While the Brutix can shoot out to around 80km with Spike, the Oracle is limited to about 60km with scorch and large pulse lasers. Our railgun Thoraxes like to fight at around 30-40km and kite with Microwarpdrives. Obviously, the Oracle fleet was just a battlecruiser version of our cruiser fleet, with more numbers to boot. <br />
<br />
With this in mind, I reformed us into sniping Tornadoes along with Cormorants for anti-frigate support. All up we had 4 Tornados, 2 Cormorants and 1 Crow. The Cormorants were sniper Railgun fit and are meant to kill light tackle while the Tornadoes shoot enemy DPS and logistics. <br />
<br />
After reshipping we Titan-bridged back into their staging system. At this point they were still forming so we would randomly see Oracles and other shield tanked ships undock and dock again. Our Tornadoes all loaded max-dps ammo (EMP) and scan resolution scripts and we proceeded to start sniping things on the undock before warping off after a kill. We ended volleying 2 Oracles and a Blackbird. Unfortunately TEST does not seem to understand the concept of 'Alpha'. <br />
<br />
Irritatingly this all occured in low-sec so we took a considerable amount of fire from station sentry guns. This forced various Tornadoes and Cormorants to warp away while we were trying to kill things we couldn't volley.<br />
<br />
After our initial kills on their undock, TEST wised up and started using an instawarp to a POS. They had a Titan logged in so I assumed they were landing safely inside the POS shields. However after scanning the celestial cluster there were no Oracles. At this point I was starting to worry that they hadn't formed up to fight us but were pursuing another objective. I was keen to extract maximum kills before they slipped away. <br />
<br />
I parked my cov-ops at the Titan POS and waited. Sure enough, another Oracle warped to the POS and then to a gate. I followed. The Oracle jumped through and warped to another gate and jumped through. I followed again. I was now in <a href="http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/The_Forge/Osaa" target="_blank">Osaa</a> and, shockingly, TEST's battlecruiser fleet was in local. Obviously they had decided not to form in their staging system because of our ~8 man sniper gang! <br />
<br />
I ordered the Tornadoes to follow into Osaa while I used my covops to set up a warp in. Just as we jumped into system, their entire fleet undocked from the station. We arrived on grid around 90km away. We aligned out and I started calling targets. Unfortunately we only had 4 Tornadoes so while we had a considerable amount of alpha, our overall DPS was not very high. As such, while we killed one Oracle on our initial warp-in, the second caught reps from their logistics support group of around 7-8 Scythes/Scimitars.<br />
<br />
After warping off we warped back at around 90km. This time I ordered us to load scan resolution scripts into our Sebos. I also got all the Tornadoes to lock up 3 random targets to disrupt their logistics broadcasts. Doing this meant their entire Oracle fleet was probably broadcasting for reps before we even fired our first volley, a nightmare situation for a logistics team. In any case, it worked and we started killing Oracles in two Volleys.<br />
<br />
At the same time, I ordered my Cormorants to free fire on their frigate tackle. Fortunately they only had two tackle frigates and both were tech 1 so the Cormorants were able to stop them from burning straight at us.<br />
<br />
We repeated our warp-ins and warp-outs a couple of times, not really because of the Oracles' DPS but because of station guns and enemy tackle getting too close.<br />
<br />
During the whole fight the Oracles were too far away to shoot us. The Brutixes did load long range ammo and shoot us but they didn't kill anything. They did however make some of our Tornadoes warp off prematurely. <br />
<br />
In Osaa I believe we killed 6 Oracles and a Scimitar. The Scimitar decided to stay on field to loot and got caught by our Crow pilot. We lost 1 Tornado who decided to warp back at the station at 0 to repair (despite their whole fleet being at the station). We also lost 1 Cormorant to the station's sentry guns.<br />
<br />
All up we killed 9 Oracles, 1 Prophecy, 1 Scimitar, a Blackbird and a few miscellaneous frigates and destroyers. Not bad for a 1 squad gang!<br />
<br />
Admittedly TEST were/are very bad. Their FC never warped them off after we continually landed at our optimals but outside of theirs. What he should have done was launched combat probes and try to warp to us at 0. Whenever we warped at any range over 50km he should have warped off. On the other hand, we were outnumbered 3-1. <br />
<br />
Better luck next time TEST!<br />
<br />
<i>Are Tier 3 battlecruisers useless now?</i><br />
<br />
Despite our success on this occasion, I had thought that tier 3 battlecruisers had been seriously nerfed due the warp-speed acceleration changes introduced in Rubicon. The point of the tier 3 BCs is that they have excellent DPS and excellent mobility. For the most part they are meant to either kite or snipe, not brawl.<br />
<br />
As they now enter and leave warp a lot more slowly, many have decided that tier 3 battlecruisers are terrible and shouldn't be used. I can understand this. For example, the enemy FC now has a few extra seconds to warp his fleet out when you land 100km in sniping tornadoes. This is because you cannot target anything until you leave warp. Kiting Oracles must now wait longer<i> </i> before they can turn on their MWDs after leaving warp, allowing enemy tackle more time to react and burn in. Finally, the increase to the warp-speed acceleration of interceptors (and the increased popularity of interceptors) means hostile fleets will find it a lot easier to tackle them. <br />
<br />
I think these are all valid concerns. (Un)fortunately(?) there wasn't much scope to test this on this fleet. TEST was just so bad that they never really pressured the Tornadoes by warping onto us at 0 or swarming us with tackle.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, tier 3 battlecruisers are still relatively cheap compared to HACs and tech IIIs. They still provide battleship DPS on a cruiser sized hull. As such they are still incredibly useful, especially to newer/poorer alliances. All in all I don't think they are going to be completely useless but they are a lot more vulnerable and newer FC's/pilots should be careful!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-91700337418086885812014-01-07T15:34:00.003-08:002014-01-07T15:34:47.472-08:00Kings in the North: Vale of the SilentWell I am now back from the Xmas break. I played no Eve for two weeks(!) so i've been logging some serious game time since I got back.<br />
<br />
My alliance is now deployed in Vale of the Silent. While we've had lots of great brawls so far, in this post i'm going to comment on the strategic situation in the Vale and its effect on the greater N3PL v CFCDTF war. <br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<i>The Story so far..</i><br />
<br />
<br />
If you follow current events in Eve, skip the next two background paragraphs! <br />
<br />
If you <i>haven't</i> been following nul-sec politics recently, 'TEMP" is the name of the coalition made up of TEST Alliance and Insidious Empire as well as other smaller groups such as Mordus Angels and Black Core Alliance. Insidious Empire ("EMP") is an alliance that originated in the Honey Badger Coalition ("HBC") and lived in the center of southern nul-sec before the HBC folded. After the HBC died, the eastern HBC was forced out of the South by a resurgent Stainwagon. EMP then absorbed a large number of the displaced HBC alliances and relocated to Cobalt Edge to anchor Pandemic Legion's Northern Border. Recently, they blued TEST alliance.<br />
<br />
TEMP is currently in Vale after soundly defeating a number of CFC entities when the latter attempted to open a second front in Pandemic Legion's renter territories. After reversing the CFC's gains in these areas, EMP pushed west into Vale of the Silent. With various CFC alliances unable to stop EMP, European Goonion and Black Legion were redeployed from the main southern front to the Vale of the Silent to defend the CFC's northern border.<br />
<br />
<i>The Present Day</i><br />
<br />
At the time of writing, the main alliances fighting in Vale include:<br />
<br />
-On the side of PL: Insidious Empire, TEST Alliance Please Ignore<br />
<br />
-On the side of CFC/Russians: Black Legion, European Goonion, Circle of Two, Gentleman's Agreement<br />
<br />
<i> </i>Evidently, there a larger number of alliances on the CFC side. However TEMP is a sizeable coalition in its own right. Dotlan lists EMP as having just under 4,000 members and TEST as having around 4,800. While many of these characters are merely alts or inactive, alliances of that size can still muster rather large fleets.<br />
<br />
For example, in the recent battle of 7-P on January 5th, Insidious Empire and its junior partners was able to field around 250 pilots and TEST around 90. These pilots were spread between a slowcat fleet of around 40 Archons, a sizeable Dominix fleet and various bomber squadrons. By contrast, Black Legion fielded 160 pilots in Maelstroms, European Goonion provided a Dominix fleet of around 150 and Circle of Two a mixed armor brawler battleship fleet of around 120. All up, the CFC has around 435 pilots.<br />
<br />
Clearly, the CFC has the advantage in numbers when each entity in the Vale forms up. However if one entity of the CFC trifecta (BL, European Goonion, Co2/Gents) does not appear in force, the numbers are far more even.<br />
<br />
<i>Ramifications of the CFC's deployment</i><br />
<br />
TEMP's efforts in the Vale of the Silent are/will be a resounding success as long as Black Legion and European Goonion are not in the South. Sovereignty and ship losses are mostly irrelevant. Any space TEMP loses is CFC renter territory.<br />
<br />
Further, I can only assume that Pandemic Legion will be quite happy to bankroll TEMP's efforts given the fact it forces two elite CFC units to remain away from the main front (BL and the European Goonion). PL is awash with ISK from its continuing renter program in the drone regions. Their problem is not ISK, it is the overwhelming numbers of subcapitals the CFC and the DTF have arrayed against them. I say this despite EMP's recent capital whelp.<br />
<br />
From the CFC's perspective, I believe the best course would be to recall Black Legion to the main front and have the other CFC entities coordinate a defensive war to prevent TEMP pushing further into Vale. The European Goonion is competently lead by Mr Vee. The Goonion should assume full control over Gents and Circle of Two's strategic operations. Between these entities they should have sufficient pilots to match TEMP ship for ship.<br />
<br />
At present the CFC has overdeployed against TEMP in Vale. While this may have been a good thing initially to put a hard stop on TEMP's progress, I believe the second front is absorbing a disproportionate amount of the CFC's resources. Either Black Legion or the Goonion needs to return south. In light of the fact that the Goonion is core CFC and Black Legion is not, it seems logical to redeploy the Legion.<br />
<br />
One sticking point in this argument is that the Goonion is, by definition, a European entity. I assume it cannot be fully active in the US time zone during the weekdays. As such, redeploying the Legion (which at present is primarily a US time zone alliance) would seriously dent the CFC's US time zone in the Vale. As such any redeployment of the Legion would force the CFC into a defensive war centered around the European time zone. As the defenders in Eve can generally choose when they fight I don't see this as a massive problem however. <br />
<br />
On the other hand, the south is currently awash in CFC/Russian sub-cap pilots. During EU prime time, it seems that the CFC/Rus outnumber N3PL by about 2-1 in subcapital numbers. Perhaps therefore the lack of Black Legion's subcapital force is not a massive problem. Of course, it also means Elo Knight (largely recognized as one of the best FC's in the game) is not on hand to coordinate the CFC's efforts. Nor presumably is the Legion's sizeable Dreadnaught fleet able to support the CFC's capitals.<br />
<br />
<i>Conclusion</i><br />
<br />
On balance I still believe the CFC has overdeployed against TEMP and Black Legion should return south. However the question is much more finely balanced that it first appears.<br />
<i> </i><br />
Keeping the Legion in the North deprives the CFC of around 90 Dreadnaughts and an excellent FC in that theatre. Moving them south forces the CFC into a purely defensive campaign in the EU time zone. <br />
<i> </i><br />
I will definitely post some actual pvp content soon(tm)!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-20897486113316898672013-12-24T19:07:00.004-08:002013-12-24T19:07:59.904-08:00<b>Bombing with the best: A night of SBU warfare</b><br />
<br />
This op started in late USTZ with an ihub coming out of reinforce in an N3 system in Immensea. What began as a boring structure shoot ends with bombs and bedlam.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<i>Taloses for starters</i><br />
<br />
Originally our head FC sent out a ping asking for maximum dps blaster Taloses. Evidently this was going to be a structure shoot, sigh. Blaster Taloses are probably the best ship for shooting structures when resistance is not expected. They do 1200dps + but have mediocre tanks and relatively short range.<br />
<br />
Our FC estimated it was only going to take us 20 minutes to get this Ihub into its next reinforce cycle. That's ideal when you consider you are committing no capitals and only around 3 billion isk in ships. Unfortunately if resistance does appear, you'll need a plan b, especially if you have no logistics support as was the case with our fleet.<br />
<br />
We bridged into system with about 30 Taloses and started to shoot the Ihub. Half way through killing it, Pandemic Legion appeared in bombers and we were forced to leave system. Again, Taloses are not the best doctrine if your opponents shows up in just about anything but especially if they appear in bombers.<br />
<br />
Obviously the reason bombers are so effective against structure-shooting blaster Taloses is the short range of the Talos. If the Taloses are using maximum DPS ammunition they will all be clumped around the structure at between 5-10km. All a bomber squad needs to do is warp to the structure at around -30-40km and bomb to kill all of you. As I noted earlier, Taloses have mediocre tanks and large signatures so it won't take more than one squad of bombers to kill them.<br />
<br />
Regardless we jump out of the system and into a waiting Pandemic Legion Ishtar gang with logistics support. Our FC had not sent a scout into our next system. So we jump in and hold cloak. Initially our FC ordered us to MWD back towards the gate and go back to the system we were in. However he changed his mind when he saw the enemy FCs in a Rattlesnake and Claymore. We primaried both. However neither agressed and after they started taking damage they jumped into the system we had come from.<br />
<br />
The engagement then followed a predictable pattern of slow brawler Taloses chasing faster, small-signature kiting ships. We killed a few Ishtars, lost a majority of our Taloses and then burned home. I lost my Talos to the Ishtars.<br />
<br />
<i>Bombing begins</i><br />
<br />
Shortly after our fight with the Ishtars, other N3 entities appeared in their own Talos fleet to destroy the SBUs in the system. Under the current sovereignty mechanics, killing our SBUs would have the same effect as repairing the Ihub we had just partially damaged in our Taloses.<br />
<br />
Another FC in our alliance, an experienced bomber FC, called for bombers. Our bombers were going to do exactly what the Pandemic Legion bombers had just done to us. We would either destroy their Talos fleet or force them to destroy the SBUs in another doctrine less vulnerable to bombs.<br />
<br />
We had two squads of bombers, about 7 in each.<br />
<br />
We bridged into the system via cov-ops cyno and warped to the SBU they were destroying at 45km. As we had two squads our FC warped us to 2 different perches. The reason for this is that bombs, while traveling, deal damage to other bombs launched in the same wave. If you have more than 7 bombs in one wave they will destroy each other. While the other option is to bomb from the same spot in two staggered waves, this gives your enemy time to react to the second wave. As such, we used two different perches for each bomber squad.<br />
<br />
Once we landed both squads started approaching the SBU. After we were about 40km away from the SBU we decloaked and bombed. Given we had 14 bombs we should have killed all of their battlecruisers however this didn't occur. It appeared we killed about 6 battlecruisers. Our FC was pretty annoyed about this, he had thought we would wipe them out.<br />
<br />
Our theories for why our bombing didn't work as expected put the blame either on the SBU structure absorbing some of the bomb damage and bugging out its effect on the battlecruisers. Alternatively, maybe our range was off? My money is on the structure theory given my subsequent research on bombing.<br />
Regardless, this was the battlecruiser's que to leave. The strategic situation was therefore some damaged SBUs and a partially damaged Ihub. A stalemate.<br />
<br />
We suspected the enemy would return later after we left so I left a set of cov-ops eyes on the SBU and went AFK.<br />
<br />
<i>Part two: Bombing continues</i><br />
<br />
Sure enough, an hour or so later I returned to my computer and spotted another battlecruiser fleet attacking the SBU.<br />
<br />
I pinged for bombers and we quickly had one squad together ready for round 2. Fortunately our last FC came along and alternated between back-seating me and leading the fleet himself.<br />
<br />
What occured after this was somewhat anti-climatical. While we performed multiple bombing runs on their battlecruisers shooting the SBU they also brought a supercarrier group of about 10 Aeons and Nyxs who launched fighter-bombers to grind down the SBU.<br />
<br />
As the supercarriers would do around 7000-9000 dps, I assume the enemy was quite happy that we bombed their battlecruiser 'fodder'.<br />
<br />
At one point we tried to bomb their fighter-bombers but the supercarriers were alligned and warped off. This meant that their fighter-bombers also warped out with them, instead of MWD-ing back to the supercarriers which would have seen them destroyed by bombs. Obviously we needed an interdictor to bubble the super-carriers first so they couldn't do this and we could destroy fighter-bombers. I suppose we could have lined up multiple bombing runs against their super-carriers but they only launched fighters once they were aligned. As such this would have only delayed the SBU's destruction I think.<br />
<br />
Instead we killed some more battlecruisers and went home. I think we lost 2-3 bombers in the second operation for a larger number of battlecruisers. From memory we had 84% ISK efficiency.<br />
<br />
<i>Some excellent links</i><br />
<br />
While writing this article I did some research and the best set of introductory articles was Kcolour's 3-part series on theMittani.com. Definitely have a look if you want to give bombing a try!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://themittani.com/features/trade-secrets-bombing-guide-part-one">Part 1</a><br />
<a href="http://themittani.com/features/trade-secrets-bombing-guide-part-two">Part 2</a><br />
<a href="http://themittani.com/features/trade-secrets-bombing-guide-and-info-part-three">Part 3</a><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-25926883853982953642013-12-17T16:19:00.000-08:002013-12-17T16:19:00.949-08:00FCing Bombers and whelping CaracalsLast night I FCed two fleets: Bombers and Rapid Light Missile Launcher Caracals. One fleet went well, the other not so much. The full report after the break!<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<b>Fleet 1: Bombers</b> <br />
<br />
I had just logged in when one of my corp-mates invited me to a group chat with a blue from Against ALL Authorities ("-A-") (probably the best alliance name ever). The blue reported that Provi-bloc residents were camping the <a href="http://evemaps.dotlan.net/universe/Y-MPWL">Kari gate in Y-MPL</a>. The camp was fairly typical, a large anchored bubble 5km in front of the gate to the center of the solar system, a couple of tackle frigs, some battlecruisers and battleships.<br />
<br />
We started planning our attack. Taking gates was out of the question, the camp would dock up as soon as we arrived. Titan bridging in was also impossible as the system was cyno jammed. Our only option therefore was a black-ops drop. Originally we wanted to go in black-ops battleships but we didn't have enough of those in fleet so we went mono-bomber. I think we had about 10 bombers by the time we bridged in.<br />
<br />
Helpfully, -A- provided a covert cyno in Y-M. Our first covert cyno bridged in only my covert probing alt. Once I got eyes on the camp I saw that their camp was mostly behind the gate while their bubble was in front of the gate (if you were looking from the center of the system). This meant that making a bomber perch was going to be difficult as we could not warp through the bubble and there were no celestials allowing us to warp to a point behind it. Fortunately, -A- had a spot behind the gate(!) so I used that.<br />
<br />
My original bombing spot would have directed us towards a Drake, some frigates and a battleship. However I wasn't sure whether we would kill any of that (which was probably wrong or way too conservative) so instead I set up my perch to bomb a Tornado at the other side of the bubble. After testing the warpin spot with the -A- pilot also in system we bridged in the bombers.<br />
<br />
The bombers warped to the perch, didn't get dragged into the bubble(!) and approached the Tornado. Then it was bombs away! We promptly nuked the Tornado and then began torpedoing a Megathron that was burning at us from the other side of the camp.<br />
<br />
I didn't really want to stay around to kill the Megathron (as the rest of the camp would have killed us) however another -A- pilot jumped a Scimitar in from Kira and started repping our bombers. The Provi-bloc pilots did not understand what was happening and continued to try and kill our bombers while we were tanking their damage and killing all their ships.<br />
<br />
After a few minutes we had killed around 700mil in ships including a Tornado, Megathron, two interceptors, a Myrmidon, a Drake and a Maelstrom. Op success?!<br />
<br />
This was my first time FCing bombers and I really enjoyed it. I have always shied away from FCing bombers because I had no experience doing it and thought it was really hard. Its actually relatively easy and the fact that all ships remain cloaked (and therefore safe) until you are ready to bomb makes it much less stressful than FCing conventional ships.<br />
<br />
My tips from this fleet would be:<br />
<br />
1. Always make perches behind a gate (i.e. so the gate is between the Sun and you)<br />
2. 10 bombs is a lot of DPS, don't be afraid to just go for it and then torpedo down anything still standing!<br />
3. I really like the idea of putting one warp core stab on my bombers to dodge interceptors after you have fired your bomb.<br />
4. Understand bubble mechanics and ensure warp routes to intersect with them! Test your warpins before you use them if possible.<br />
<br />
Lots of fun, will FC again.<br />
<br />
<b>Fleet 2: Rapid Light Missile Launcher Caracals</b><br />
<br />
Flush with success we looked around for some more targets. A ~40 man CFC frigate gang was reported around I-N. We shipping into Rapid Light Missile Launcher Caracals to go fight them. We had about 5 Caracals, 2 Scythes and 1-2 Crows.<br />
<b> </b><br />
As the fleet approached the system the frigate were in it became clear that they were camping our in-gate. I decided to jump 2 Caracals into the system one jump out from them and bait out a few of their frigates. We warped at 10km-ish to the gate and started aligning out. They flooded into the two Caracals and I ordered the rest of the fleet to jump in and warp to the gate at 70km hoping that's how far the two bait Caracals would be by the time we landed. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately my predictions were pretty bad. The two bait Caracals should not have warped that close to the gate and got scrammed before they even got 30km off the gate. I was in one of the bait Caracals and died. We had been trying to kill a Stilleto but we couldn't break the reps of their 3 Burst frigate logistics. Losing almost half of the Caracals was a big deal so I decided to run home. Fortunately they didn't camp us in (it was a two-gate system) and all we lost was the two Caracals.<br />
<br />
Two lessons here. Well actually three.<br />
<br />
1. Firstly we should not have brought the Caracals against such a big fleet, especially one with logistics support. This is simply because of the 40 second reload time on our missile launchers. Even if we had killed 10 frigates with our first clip, we would have been sitting there defenseless after that. One way to mitigate this is to split our guns into two stacks which we did. However the two bait Caracals couldn't break the reps on one Stilleto while splitting guns. In short, RLML Caracals might be good for short fights against gangs of up to 5 pilots, but not more. They can't sustain their DPS.<br />
2. If we were going to get them to burn at us properly I should have only used 1 bait Caracal and had them warp to the gate at 30. That would have given us much better ability to support it by placing it further away from scramming frigates.<br />
3. We probably should have just brought bombers. Rather than burn 12 jumps out to this system and then fail to kill anything, we could have bridged into the system they were in, bait them to agress on the gate with one bomber and then bomb the rest of them. They were all clumped up so this would have worked perfectly. I really have to get rid of my bias towards conventional fleets, this is not the first time I have failed to consider using bombers! <br />
<br />
All in all, an educational day...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-38961033568963773162013-12-16T16:09:00.001-08:002013-12-16T16:09:15.752-08:00Field testing the Mousecat (Sniper Cormorants)Over the past two days I have done some decent testing of the Mousecat doctrine I explained in a previous thread. These things are super fun, super cheap and really effective at what they're meant to do. Full report after the break!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>About two weeks ago I posted an idea for a sniping Cormorant doctrine and called them "Mousecats". The thread is<a href="http://bigshieldlobby.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/mousecats-sniping-comorants-for-frigate.html"> here.</a><br />
<br />
My first test was on the weekend of the 13th of December. My 'fleet' was 2 Cormorants and 1 Crow.<br />
<br />
Razor was camping the Utopia gate in the Doril system with assorted assault frigates, interceptors and an interdictor. My fleet jumped into Doril and aligned to the Utopia gate. I then ordered my Crow to warp to the gate Razor was camping at 70km. The two Cormorants then warped to a perch directly opposite to the Crow, about 80km away.<br />
<br />
While the Cormorants were in warp, the Crow had started to pull the Razor campers off the gate and was starting to kite them. Our Cormorants then landed and started shooting frigates. We started off trying to kill their interceptors but they quickly warped off before we could finish them. Then our interceptor pilot managed to get himself scrammed so the Cormorants warped off while he reshipped.<br />
<br />
With our Crow pilot back in Doril we repeated our first set of warp ins. The interceptor pulled the campers off the gate but this time I ordered him to burn towards the Cormorants so that we could support him.<br />
<br />
This time the strategy worked. While the interceptors warped off again, we killed a Jaguar and then a Sabre who tried to burn at us from 80km away. Then we killed a hound who jumped into Doril from Utopia for good measure.<br />
<br />
Pretty good for only 2 Cormorants!<br />
<br />
The second test was also on the weekend of 13 December but a day or so later. This time my fleet was 4 Cormorants and 2 Crows. Again I formed them to counter a Razor gatecamp, this time on the Sendaya gate in Doril.<br />
<br />
After getting into Doril I got the interceptors to warp to the gate and the majority of the Razor camp fled back to their station. Their camp, when I first saw it, was about 10 pilots in a mix of assault frigates, electronic attack frigates, interceptors and interdictors. Also one Muninn(!)<br />
<br />
Fortunately after the Crows arrived on gate they pointed the Muninn and we killed him. Then we started scratching our heads looking for something to kill as Razor had bailed.<br />
<br />
I decided we would roam to the CFC's stating system in G-0. Unfortunately we encountered a gate camp on the way there and had to come home.<br />
<br />
This was really the only reason why I bothered reporting this second test as it illustrates the weakness of the doctrine. There is no way for it to move through a solid gate camp. As such, you can't really roam in this doctrine, just like you can't roam in Artillery Tornados or any other sniper doctrine.<br />
<br />
With that said, the Mousecat is highly effective at what is does, sniping frigates and destroyers at around 100km. In my first test we were able to kill three tech II frigates/destroyers with only 2 Cormorants. I can only imagine what we would have killed with 4!<br />
<br />
From memory, we required about 4 volleys to kill an interceptor with only two Cormorants. With four Cormorants it would be two volleys and with eight you would obviously just one-shot them. As with any small weapon system, their cycle time is very fast so you could literally machine gun interceptors at 100km. So I'm still super excited about this doctrine despite its flaws. I can't wait for the opportunity to fight a frigate <i>fleet</i> with these Cormorants! <br />
<br />
By the way, Mousecats still only cost 15mil fully tech II fitted!<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-44117475564042002942013-12-16T14:54:00.001-08:002013-12-16T14:54:44.044-08:00On the lack of postsDear Big Shield Lobby, it has been 14 days since my last post.<br />
<br />
I haven't stopped playing Eve or anything ~drastic~ like that. The gap in posting is because I'm going to be moving cities soon and I'm also about to go out of town for the Xmas break.<br />
<br />
Posts will recommence shortly!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-29923013412881171302013-12-04T19:58:00.000-08:002013-12-04T19:58:30.378-08:00MouseCats: Sniping Comorants for a frigate-filled expansionThe interceptor buffs and warp-speed changes have made frigates the current king of casual nul-sec PvP. So how do we kill them?<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Obviously one option is to roam in rapid light missile launcher Caracals. I still think this is a viable option in many situations and will be testing it this weekend.<br />
<br />
The only problem with the Caracal is its relatively short range (~65km) and the fact that its damage isn't instant. Missiles have travel time which therefore requires your ship to stay on grid and in range of the enemy fleet for longer than you might like.<br />
<br />
Therefore, while the rapid light missile Caracal is perfect for fighting frigate gangs, its not ideal for fighting cruiser/battlecruiser gangs with frigate support. Its in this situation that I think railgun Cormorants really shine.<br />
<br />
Here if the EFT image:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCKPwLYcrLsslYkOtRLgzV_l-6D3Wg9MBLs6xUoh6qthu69HTwlW2MvqVTZu5HBUCEbCB10eC3i3C45oq_EHQca8lsWL2wVsE4rhqNYe5JTQtRUiI_YpjR0jPUotpJP02s07sr82Y1mrE/s1600/Cormorant+-+Sniper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCKPwLYcrLsslYkOtRLgzV_l-6D3Wg9MBLs6xUoh6qthu69HTwlW2MvqVTZu5HBUCEbCB10eC3i3C45oq_EHQca8lsWL2wVsE4rhqNYe5JTQtRUiI_YpjR0jPUotpJP02s07sr82Y1mrE/s640/Cormorant+-+Sniper.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Obviously the fit is designed to snipe. It has no tank mods and now microwarpdrive signature reduction. Its only defense is fighting at long range.<br />
<br />
I do think it excels at sniping frigates however. Firstly, the small hybrid locus coordinator rigs boost the optimal range of the fit by an additional 22km. Secondly, the Cormorant's various bonuses all increase its effectiveness as a sniper. Especially important is its 50% bonus to small hybrid turret tracking which allows it to track interceptors despite using Spike S which has a tracking penalty in exchange for its generous optimal range bonus. Finally, note the "1.7" in the targeting section on the right hand side of the EFT image. That is the Cormorant's lock time against a Stilleto interceptor with its microwarpdrive on. As such, this Cormorant fit can lock and fire on an interceptor quicker than it can align (4.4 seconds for a Stilleto). This means a small fleet of Cormorants will be able to alpha through interceptors before they can warp off. Pretty sweet!<br />
<br />
Here is a rough DPS graph. The red is the Cormorant, the green is a sniper Harpy fit that I also experimented with. The DPS difference is due to the Harpy's lack of a tracking bonus, discussed above.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHD8emxeL_akMrBmsvtGy9fCyYI7nCIiboCTTqvlQzWQlA12YEtNGdIxoNLFVfgbhyGOECCLv2jLu_zj82DSiJi8CKk0jZGrgCsE8ofmtHDdlxlgTN4hudnqRhco3Vv5JAjlvxdE3XtP8/s1600/Corm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHD8emxeL_akMrBmsvtGy9fCyYI7nCIiboCTTqvlQzWQlA12YEtNGdIxoNLFVfgbhyGOECCLv2jLu_zj82DSiJi8CKk0jZGrgCsE8ofmtHDdlxlgTN4hudnqRhco3Vv5JAjlvxdE3XtP8/s640/Corm.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The best thing about this fitting is its cost. I estimate this Cormorant will cost about 15mil ISK fitted. Thats less than half the price of any fitted tech II frigate!<br />
<br />
I can't wait to try these and will update this post with my results!<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-28441779643901811712013-12-02T14:58:00.000-08:002013-12-03T12:29:23.322-08:00TITAN DOWN: Capital carnage in G15Z-WI was enjoying my dinner last night when a notification went out from our head FC calling for dreads and interdictors. Scrambling to get all three characters logged on, fueled, fitted and in position, dinner was quickly forgotten..<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<br />
Our Dreadnaught fleet of between 30-40 ships jumped to our midpoint while we waited for heavy interdictors and other tackle to arrive in the target system. My tackle characters jumped in first and proceeded to cloak up and tackle respectively.<br />
On arrival I counted around 20-30 N3 capitals on field shooting a Sovereignty Blockade Unit ("SBU"). There was a mixture of carriers and supercarriers.<br />
<br />
Dreadnaughts were then ordered to jump and landed around 40km off the N3 capitals. Siege modules were activated and we started killing Archons. After a few carriers died we moved onto a Hel class supercarrier and then a Nyx supercarrier. While the supercarriers were dieing, additional Dreadnaught groups from our allies in the CFC were jumping in bringing the total number of Dreadnaughts on field to around 80 I believe. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIsGZMz9UIPXDVw7bVzV_Udn4R6w_jSKHsO9NVqKhroUL5QU3ihq4kiU8z67HAhBmj8UJRsBfA5vPqDVqhQvhmsjGd6vXEK05dR5a-F_vBuHhK0B-ugNCOHS81tC7xQbvAE7oyAp4_LNQ/s1600/2013.12.02.07.26.26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIsGZMz9UIPXDVw7bVzV_Udn4R6w_jSKHsO9NVqKhroUL5QU3ihq4kiU8z67HAhBmj8UJRsBfA5vPqDVqhQvhmsjGd6vXEK05dR5a-F_vBuHhK0B-ugNCOHS81tC7xQbvAE7oyAp4_LNQ/s640/2013.12.02.07.26.26.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from my Nagalfar-class Dreadnaught</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
At this stage Pandemic Legion and NC. began jumping in more capitals. The first wave included 4 Titans(!) as well as additional carriers and supercarriers. After destroying the Nyx we moved onto an Avatar class Titan and destroyed it.We tried to kill a second Avatar but could not break the remote armor repairs from the now significant N3/PL capital fleet on field. <br />
<br />
All throughout the fight, N3/PL were constantly pouring in more capitals whereas after the first Titan kill we stopped deploying additional Dreadnaughts. We then tried to start killing Archons but again could not break their remote repairs. We were then told to exit siege and align out to try to extract. I was half-way through my 5 minute siege cycle at that stage so I mentally prepared myself to lose my (first!) Dreadnaught.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPH9gPyWiEj3qRx2K0sb95XHKfJlHS2NuxIr6I1kdGhIgwzKLVJRd1J7hz0f3dWuoELxK_CbdRdG8Bpoa2lJVVe8aRH7oXKsJ8kFjrtmARDeqMc9suWRC2x9BoCnr1baQrPn9qIvml-zc/s1600/2013.12.02.07.01.34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPH9gPyWiEj3qRx2K0sb95XHKfJlHS2NuxIr6I1kdGhIgwzKLVJRd1J7hz0f3dWuoELxK_CbdRdG8Bpoa2lJVVe8aRH7oXKsJ8kFjrtmARDeqMc9suWRC2x9BoCnr1baQrPn9qIvml-zc/s640/2013.12.02.07.01.34.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An Erebus-class Titan unleashes its Doomsday device</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Pandemic Legion Titans were constantly doomsdaying and N3 had also deployed a Dominix fleet with interdictor support to continually bubble our Dreadnaught fleet. As such, the Dreadnaughts could not extract. Other notable supcapital fleets were Goons in Dominixes, Razor in Muninns and Solar in Tengus.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZSlOniyjLMu5m7UcaZqDkTlbsAREimKEq9QcQWB-v_nQFzt3bhxoS84kGhAI5Z6OkkRmYoXHF4K0YkLSCuguqDmfF2h6Go084owu_vc6N1cXmuz85fH6Z8orwqwaxr2Nsn1Nbf6yr6Q/s1600/2013.12.02.07.01.56.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZSlOniyjLMu5m7UcaZqDkTlbsAREimKEq9QcQWB-v_nQFzt3bhxoS84kGhAI5Z6OkkRmYoXHF4K0YkLSCuguqDmfF2h6Go084owu_vc6N1cXmuz85fH6Z8orwqwaxr2Nsn1Nbf6yr6Q/s640/2013.12.02.07.01.56.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doom continues</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
At the end of the fight, Black Legion attempted to bomb the warp disruption bubbles encasing their Dreadnaughts in the hopes of destroying the bubbles. This failed however and the majority of its Dreadnaughts were destroyed.<br />
<br />
The final kill count was roughly:<br />
<br />
<i>Rus/CFC:</i><br />
<br />
<i> </i>70-80 Dreadnaughts lost<br />
<br />
<i>N3/PL</i><br />
<br />
x1 Titan<br />
x 2 supercarriers<br />
x 20 carriers<br />
<br />
Battlereport: http://dog-net.org/brdoc/?brid=24872<br />
<br />
From both sides' posting on Kugutsumen.com it appears that the ISK losses on both sides were relatively equal. I believe the TheMittani accurately summed it up by noting: <br />
<br />
<i>"The reality, of course, is that G15Z was a bloody [f**king] battle on both
sides and isk-wise each side is likely to be within spitting distance
of each other, with only a narrow victory for the RUS/CFC, but folks
will slapfight about which side won/lost and it'll give them something
to do for the next couple of days. vOv"</i><br />
<br />
<i>Conclusion</i><br />
<br />
Well this fight was my first Titan kill ever so I'm grateful that I've now 'ticked that box'. Apart from that however I must say that capital fights are actually relatively boring, at least to me. If you are in a Dreadnaught (as I was) you cannot move and basically activate a single module (your guns) for the entire fight while using capacitor booster charges and watching your siege module tick down. Apart from overloading there really is very little else to do. While I will replace my lost Dreadnaught, my enthusiasm for Capital battles has been diminished.<br />
<br />
<i> </i><br />
In terms of strategic significance, the loss of so many Dreadnaughts may dent the Russian Coalition's ability to counter slowcat deployments in the immediate future. In addition, N3's belief that they can continue to use undersized capital groups to grind sovereignty structures may have been degraded. <br />
<br />
Once again, I do have pictures on my home computer and I PROMISE to post them when I get home. <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-29061481005963305242013-12-01T17:08:00.001-08:002013-12-04T18:46:50.688-08:00A weekend of PVP: A bit of everythingWhile there were no "mega-battles" during the thanksgiving weekend (30 Nov-1 Dec), I FC'ed multiple fleets and also was involved in a good old-fashioned battleship brawl. This is my holiday weekend PvP summary!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>There is quite a bit to cover in this post so I'm going to try to keep each section as brief as possible.<br />
<br />
<i>30 November Battle report: Zealots v Nagas </i><br />
<br />
This was my Saturday morning, EU Friday night prime. CVA was flying around Doril with a small Cerberus gang. 10 pilots, 5 Cerberus, 2 logistics, other support. As I knew their FC I convo'd him asking for a brawl which he agreed to.<br />
<br />
I formed Zealots. We had 9 Zealots, 2 Oneirous (!).<br />
<br />
As we were moving to the agreed fighting system, Waffles (A Pandemic Legion feeder corporation) were spotted in Litom with a sizeable Talos fleet. Over twenty pilots with solid logistics support. I talked to the Cerberus FC again and we agreed to ally against the Taloses.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately our timing was off and we got into Litom just after the Cerberuses seemed to defeat the Taloses in a minor brawl. We chased the Taloses into Litom and back to their Station.<br />
<br />
A short while after they reformed into blaster Nagas with heavy Basilisk logistics support. They had around 4-5 Basilisks, 20+ Nagas.<br />
<br />
At this stage there had been a lot of no-fighting for my fleet so we decided to go for it despite being heavily outnumbered. We landed at 0 on them, tanked for a short period and killed one Naga early on. However after the first kill we couldn't break their Nagas or their Basiliks. I warped us out. We lost 2 Oneirous and 2 Zealots.<br />
<br />
Not much I could have done differently there. We were outnumbered heavily, we didn't have enough logistics. We could have stood down, however then we would have got no fights for a 30-45 minute fleet. Its a tough situation for an FC. Do you just "YOLO" into a bad situation or leave the rest of the fleet dissatisfied with no content? Sadly this was a recurring theme for my Zealot fleets this weekend.<br />
<br />
<i>30 November Battle report: Battleships in HLW-HP</i><br />
<br />
After my Zealot fleet ended another FC in our alliance formed up Maelstroms to join an on-going brawl between Pandemic Legion blaster Rohks and Goonswarm Federation Dominixes.<br />
<i> </i><br />
From what I can gather, Goons had been out sometime before the fight shooting various sovereignty structures. They had a sizeable Dominix fleet, 120-140 Dominixes, plus support. On the way home, Pandemic Legion decided to hotdrop the Dominix fleet. Apparently the Rohks cyno-ed into system with an undersized fleet. Around 40 Rohks, maybe 70 pilots all together. These are very rough numbers as we were not there for the start of the fight.<br />
<br />
By the time we had arrived, the majority of the Pandemic Legion Rohks were destroyed, despite PL having dropped Chimera triage carrier support. Pandemic legion also had a number of short range dreadnaughts on field.<br />
<br />
We jumped into system, dropped our Bouncers and began shooting Rohks. We also Micro-Jump-Drived ("MJD") away from the Dreadnaughts. Pandemic legion was losing battleships, triage carriers and dreadnaughts quickly and so they decided to escalate further by deploying slowcats. An initial moderate deployment of maybe 30-50 slowcats was then followed by a constant stream of Archon reinforcements.<br />
<br />
Despite having around 200 battleships, our side could not break the Archon's tank. Goons and other allied entities were pushing heavily to deploy dreadnaughts to counter the slowcats. However our dreadnaught numbers were not sufficient and they were not deployed. <br />
<br />
At this point, all friendly fleets extracted, leaving only Pandemic Legion slowcats on field with a few Dreadnaughts.<br />
<br />
While our losses were comparatively light, Goons appeared to lose a sizeable number of Dominixes.<br />
<br />
Battlereport is here: eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=20699834<br />
<br />
No strategic objective was involved so I believe the Russian coalition/Goons won on the basis of ISK efficiency.<br />
<br />
(edit: I have lots of pretty pictures from this battle on my home computer, will post later today!)<br />
<br />
<i>December 1: Zealots vs Harpies</i><br />
<br />
This was a similar situation to my Zealot fleet the previous day. Multiple enemy fleets out around the Doril system, an opportunity for a brawl with one of them. Again I formed Zealots and again(!) I got an undersized fleet with not enough logistics. We had about 10 Zealots, 3 Oneirous and a heavy interdictor.<br />
<i> </i><br />
The enemy fleets were a Razor Munin/Autocannon Tornado fleet of around 30 pilots. No logistics, between 10-12 pilots in each of Muninns/Tornados. The other fleet was a ~70 man Harpy fleet from Red v Blue. They had about 60 Harpies, 10 Burst logistics frigates and 10-15 tackle frigates. Their Harpies were railgun fit with afterburners. This is a doctrine that is relatively flexible. Decent mobility, decent damage projection, tiny signature and a solid low-signature/high shield resist tank. <br />
<br />
Clearly we did not have enough to fight the Harpies so I offered Razor a bro-pact for us to fight the Harpies together. The Razor FC however was quite frustrating to deal with. He had turned all conversations off (on the basis that they were distracting?!) so I had to communicate with him through an intermediary in his fleet. This was pretty fucking terrible.<br />
<br />
I had my fleet at a safe POS in Doril waiting to warp into the Harpies. The Razor FC finally located the Harpies at the Sendaya gate (after we had already been watching them for a few minutes) and warped to a point 40km away from them. The Harpies warped off. It seems they didn't want to fight despite having a numbers advantage, facing no Razor logistics and having good transversal against the poor tracking of the Tornados/Muninns.<br />
<br />
Once the Harpies warped off, the Razor fleet stood down. My fleet had no been out for about 30-40 minutes again and still had gotten no fights. I decided we would fight the Harpy fleet on the Sendaya gate in Doril. This would allow the majority of the fleet to de-agress and jump out if the fight turned south (as I expected it to).<br />
<br />
We warped to the gate and the Harpies warped to us. We anchored and I primaried their FC. They primaried me. Their FC went down first and we started killing harpies. However their multiple tackle frigates then got webs on me and I went down despite me/my logistics overloading everything. Once I died I ordered everyone to deagress and get out. If they could kill one Zealot they could kill us all and I was not trading my Zealots (200mil ISK) for their Harpies (40-50mil ISK).<br />
<br />
I think we killed about 5 Harpies plus some tackle. We lost 2 Zealots and 2 Oneirous. Pretty terrible.<br />
<br />
What could I have done differently?<br />
<ol>
<li>The biggest thing, and the thing I'm most annoyed about, is that we stayed with Zealots when we could have switched to our Crow fleet. Our Crow doctrine is an interceptor fleet with below-average DPS. It is very fast however and tanks excellently due to its high speed and low signature. With light missiles it also had solid damage projection, around 50-60km. While Crow fleet is bad against any fleet with a decent amount of logistics (due to its low DPS), the Razor fleet had NO LOGISTICS! We literally could have warped in, pointed as many of them as we had Crows and destroyed them one by one. Instead of losing a billion isk in Zealots, we could have killed multiple billions in Muninns. I'm really annoyed I didn't think to do this! This also applies if we had only been fighting Harpies. Our Zealot numbers were terrible and that was a bad engagement that we went into just to get a fight. We could have switched to Crows and kited their afterburning Harpies while killing all of their tackle. </li>
<li>If we had stayed with Zealots, we could have done some things in the Harpy fight differently. Firstly, we should have killed all their webbing tackle. Despite their small railguns, my logistics pilots reported that I went down pretty quick once I was webbed multiple times. The second thing is we should have switched ammo types. By default, Zealots usually load Scorch due to its excellent range, 40-45 km with good skills. However Scorch also has a tracking penalty which reduced our DPS against the low signature Harpies. Now the Harpies warped right on top of us so we should have just switched to Multifrequency and started volleying them. Multifrequency is a short range laser crystal that does not have a tracking penalty like Scorch or Conflagration. Here is a damage projection comparing Scorch v Multifrequency against the Harpies: </li>
</ol>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisUmDMn_8-jmflL37tkHas5zirHR9QCHe92xhUqWvKuU-tHxOYepZZKGZh1E-ffno7JQiJyxcPCEBHEFNZHHLhdw4p0C7Wx-GyBJF1t3iAPdP2cXN4ujdF1gXLX-xukGuRXpvB_2oTl5U/s1600/Harp.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisUmDMn_8-jmflL37tkHas5zirHR9QCHe92xhUqWvKuU-tHxOYepZZKGZh1E-ffno7JQiJyxcPCEBHEFNZHHLhdw4p0C7Wx-GyBJF1t3iAPdP2cXN4ujdF1gXLX-xukGuRXpvB_2oTl5U/s640/Harp.bmp" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
As you can see, Multifrequency outperforms Scorch in that close range bracket. The lesson here is just to think about the optimal ammo type rather than just going with the default (Scorch). <br />
<br />
Still though, that was a terrible engagement for us, we should have switched to Crows. This would have allowed me to avoid the "no content" dilemma that took us into that brawl. Fortunately this was a sufficiently painful lesson/realization that I don't think I'll ever forget to consider switching to Crow fleet again!<br />
<br />
<i>December 1: No Content afternoon</i><br />
<br />
There were a number of final system timers coming out and our FC formed up a solid AHAC fleet. I was flying a web loki. We had about 100 pilots, plus dreadnaught alts on stand-by.<br />
<br />
The first timer was the final timer on the DY- infrastructure hub. DY- is a critical jumpbridge system connecting Nulli's I-N staging system in Immensea with their renter territory further to the north-west. There is no station in system. We arrived in system first, 30 minutes early. As the timer ticked down, SOLAR fleet arrived in Tengus, Razor deployed Muninns and Goonswarm were in Dominixes. In addition, Darkness of Despair formed Typhoons and I believe Against All Authorites brought Maelstroms/Rohks. We had about 900 pilots in system when the infrastructure hub came out of reinforce.<br />
<br />
The other side never showed up, we took the system without incident and pushed another system into its second reinforce timer with the use of our dread alts.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTovRsxqvRUkT-dTRyl-aHDa4zoSpc4b7iwypde1AqGIHSlTb-d6xfN3rSREBNzwUu6cPCmm9hE9hRxDPKfhu0gnmclb77fR_F3f6nChlc0Oi9M2ETQYY6gXnJwQqbUO-m8Suc7qZhZk/s1600/2013.12.01.02.31.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTovRsxqvRUkT-dTRyl-aHDa4zoSpc4b7iwypde1AqGIHSlTb-d6xfN3rSREBNzwUu6cPCmm9hE9hRxDPKfhu0gnmclb77fR_F3f6nChlc0Oi9M2ETQYY6gXnJwQqbUO-m8Suc7qZhZk/s640/2013.12.01.02.31.38.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RUS coalition forces destroy S2N TCU </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
So massive no-fights. The reason I chose to write about this anyway was two-fold:<br />
<br />
1. Firstly, why did N3/PL not turn up? There are a number of factors. Firstly, they were not defending a station. As such, if they did deploy slowcats they could not dock up if the fight went south. Secondly, with 900 pilots I can only assume we heavily outnumbered them. While I don't know what their numbers were, from previous engagements I doubt they would have had more than 500 pilots.<br />
<br />
2. Secondly, Razor deployed a mobile cynosural jammer field on the I-HUB preventing any slowcat deployment within 100km. I have no idea whether this deterred N3/PL or not. If they had wanted to deploy slows despite the lack of a station, they would have first had to engage in subcapitals to destroy the jammer. Alternatively, they could have deployed slowcats 100km away from the hub and then tried to reposition once it was destroyed. Neither of these are particularly good options. Their subcapitals probably would have been destroyed by our superior numbers. Moving slowcats around a system is difficult, especially when you have no subcapitals to destroy tackle. Regardless, this is the first time I've seen a cyno-jammer deployed. I can only think about what would have happened on my Zealot fleet that got hot-dropped if we had deployed one on the gate!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiloY8YpTn7wbBoMbHmb9OhikuYXwcLrAH7yHAt0AB3HR5Z8kuw1eewbadUGoSnR_FEzaCxdnPg7y8sQgFoa5Kz2PcLKSA6qn5pkprf555AyDGEoTR8kZRBDarOxujONb4mjXE5hGAdArw/s1600/2013.12.01.01.50.09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiloY8YpTn7wbBoMbHmb9OhikuYXwcLrAH7yHAt0AB3HR5Z8kuw1eewbadUGoSnR_FEzaCxdnPg7y8sQgFoa5Kz2PcLKSA6qn5pkprf555AyDGEoTR8kZRBDarOxujONb4mjXE5hGAdArw/s640/2013.12.01.01.50.09.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cynosural jammer field in action!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<i>Conclusion</i><br />
<br />
Well, an interesting weekend. Not many victories but lots to think about! Pictures coming soon. <br />
<br />
<i>Bonus pics:</i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfs2AzMueE7cEnWgjhfgJPRIVpvoGXhVMqd7LF61xPOULiVyBCQbKdpLs9Y7S1Vwp0oeONQ7qmzyfdxplYFCsrsWOXzBQEHCYMlymRkL1JtVzrc_gEKheQjT5aJJV-AIjr8J8jgr3eLVg/s1600/2013.11.30.23.54.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfs2AzMueE7cEnWgjhfgJPRIVpvoGXhVMqd7LF61xPOULiVyBCQbKdpLs9Y7S1Vwp0oeONQ7qmzyfdxplYFCsrsWOXzBQEHCYMlymRkL1JtVzrc_gEKheQjT5aJJV-AIjr8J8jgr3eLVg/s640/2013.11.30.23.54.57.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Dreadnaught fleet dropping into a low-sec POS brawl</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16v-VyUli1ZozEVSwWGh50VZlsr7_m4fRzPozA6xsSojmzoowkRswTZw6aNXsao2ECO_U_sYmA7wD7JxdJd3qhCi8MmmpRL-765OmSfZC4pSk8QscsHHuBDOAafMf2Q7aVjnm7tHJ9Zk/s1600/2013.11.30.23.55.13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16v-VyUli1ZozEVSwWGh50VZlsr7_m4fRzPozA6xsSojmzoowkRswTZw6aNXsao2ECO_U_sYmA7wD7JxdJd3qhCi8MmmpRL-765OmSfZC4pSk8QscsHHuBDOAafMf2Q7aVjnm7tHJ9Zk/s640/2013.11.30.23.55.13.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Further low-sec droppage</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-39762377312765944332013-11-29T00:22:00.002-08:002013-11-29T00:22:47.557-08:00ITS HOT DROP O'CLOCK: A Zealot battle reportThis is a battle report for yesterday evening. I formed a Zealot fleet with Oneirous logistics support to trap a Muninn fleet returning home from an operation in the east of Curse. <br />
<br />
As you might guess from the title, the fleet did not go as well as expected. More ~after the break~!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<i>Background and fleet compositions</i><br />
<br />
Yesterday evening I was roaming around Curse in my cov-ops alt looking for targets. I had noticed a system showing a high amount of players in-space on the in-game map and burned my cov-ops over there to see what was happening.<br />
<i> </i><br />
While the system was empty, I encountered a neutral Muninn fleet heading back to their staging system. They had 11 Muninns, 5 Scimitar logistics ships, 5 Scythe logistics ships and other support including an Arazu and Vulture. By my estimate they had just under 30 pilots.<br />
<br />
I quickly formed a Zealot fleet intending to catch them in the pipe heading back to their staging system. After some frantic jabber pinging I cobbled together a fleet of 9 Zealots, 4 Oneirous, one heavy interdictor and one light interdictor. All-up, around 15 pilots.<br />
<br />
<i>Fittings</i><br />
<br />
Our Zealot fitting has already been discussed here: http://bigshieldlobby.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/two-minor-battle-reports.html.<br />
<br />
<i> </i><br />
Their Muninn fit is relatively standard. 720mm II Artillery cannons, 10mn micro-warpdrive, one shield extender. Overall it has a fragile tank, excellent mobility, excellent alpha (large amounts of immediate damage with a long delay before another shot), and poor tracking. The fit:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_SO64Blwq2CfzBw0q2UYdXFETwaeZddPPOEwmRYbB3UANPoct4B_wS7dNpcE7Dz45jjAm00hG3ZIUYcmpbeAI7nX6lyw1RhbYobQ7k7Ppo2ilQswg1OwemFEb-zu8VZ2IXptKDp3yAQ/s1600/Muninn+-+MUNINN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS_SO64Blwq2CfzBw0q2UYdXFETwaeZddPPOEwmRYbB3UANPoct4B_wS7dNpcE7Dz45jjAm00hG3ZIUYcmpbeAI7nX6lyw1RhbYobQ7k7Ppo2ilQswg1OwemFEb-zu8VZ2IXptKDp3yAQ/s640/Muninn+-+MUNINN.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Finally, some EFT dps projections on ideal situations for each fleet. For the Muninns, kiting directly away (to minimise transversal) and the Zealots orbiting their anchor burning towards them at an angle (to maximise transversal). The Muninn v the Zealot:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvijw0fuo3YD71ApQzPzGRLJXjJWi3ErRb4ioYCtuHT16I8zPm1KDhR1EtdExW22qkeNTGn2_5FzZEO70Jz8HPxWf9AG46xMjS2Ow8ZVQuqoJztuUz47VTACGeXumOV73S8lLv5t0jHs/s1600/Munin+v+zealot+real.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMvijw0fuo3YD71ApQzPzGRLJXjJWi3ErRb4ioYCtuHT16I8zPm1KDhR1EtdExW22qkeNTGn2_5FzZEO70Jz8HPxWf9AG46xMjS2Ow8ZVQuqoJztuUz47VTACGeXumOV73S8lLv5t0jHs/s640/Munin+v+zealot+real.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The Zealot v the Muninn:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi397JFBZeIQGXNfOXGds79dIfWDKdEOcw6zs_qhFEXjqXtJkc-MhFevvGeZgZLq8z19jOb99PqjN204ZXxjXLU_cM3_WSyQJqfproAprrRfYQNj3yjONaS0QBvs0Khgo4S0XzZ0VLvbLE/s1600/Zealot+v+Muninn.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi397JFBZeIQGXNfOXGds79dIfWDKdEOcw6zs_qhFEXjqXtJkc-MhFevvGeZgZLq8z19jOb99PqjN204ZXxjXLU_cM3_WSyQJqfproAprrRfYQNj3yjONaS0QBvs0Khgo4S0XzZ0VLvbLE/s1600/Zealot+v+Muninn.png" /></a></div>
<br />
Note, these graphs are both using all level 5 skills for both ships. <br />
<br />
<i>The engagement</i><br />
<br />
By the time we had formed up and got underway, the neutral Muninn fleet was very close to home. Fortunately we caught them just before they jumped into their staging system. They were in Jorund, we were on the Jorund gate in Doril.<br />
<br />
<i> </i><br />
They set up at their optimal (30-40km) off the Doril gate in Jorund, we sat at 0 on Jorund gate in Doril. Given that Doril can be accessed via two systems, Jorund and Utopia and both Jorund and Utopia can be accessed via another system called Hemin, they could have gone around our camp. This would have meant jumping back into Hemin, then going into Utopia and then Doril. To ensure this didn't happen I put eyes and our light interdictor on the Utopia gate in Doril.<br />
<br />
The dispositions:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrgKXZn8j-ISk9eFeXZLowZi5m0JMdM6wn7Wp6mUi4kriVuDQlSw_rGBq7UZ-zb2eD0e_r_kgZ13dY-TD4vHaJC3n7TlrKWg-UeQvZ77JtAq4WkrrHCgZAou5uLskWXbQWCI4gEBi6PDw/s1600/Dispositions.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrgKXZn8j-ISk9eFeXZLowZi5m0JMdM6wn7Wp6mUi4kriVuDQlSw_rGBq7UZ-zb2eD0e_r_kgZ13dY-TD4vHaJC3n7TlrKWg-UeQvZ77JtAq4WkrrHCgZAou5uLskWXbQWCI4gEBi6PDw/s1600/Dispositions.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<i></i><br />
At the same time we were figuring out a way to jump into them and brawl. While they were locked out of their staging system, we still couldn't force them to engage. One of my scouts (in a cloaky ship) suggested that he would get 200km off the Doril gate in Jorund (the system the Muninns were in) and then we could warp to him at 100. He estimated this would put us on top of their logistics ships, which were further off the gate than the Muninns. <br />
<br />
We were about to implement this when they all began burning for the Doril gate and looked set to jump into us. I ordered us to anchor, they jumped in and we started shooting ships. Cleverly they decloaked a Scythe first and let that take the brunt of our fire for around 5 seconds before the rest of the fleet decloaked. This ensured they could controlo our first primary target and they knew what to repair when the rest of their fleet decloaked. Have to remember to try that!<br />
<br />
Their strategy worked and with their 10(!) logistics ships we couldn't kill the Scythe. Seeing they also had a Bellicose I then ordered primary on that. I primaried the Bellicose because it target paints. This increases a ships signature. In simple terms this increases the DPS of other ships shooting the painted target. We killed the Bellicose (who received no remote shield repairs despite their heavy logistics support(!)) and then we started shooting a Muninn. <br />
<br />
At this point, a cyno went up on the gate and 50-man Goonswarm prophecy fleet jumped in. From the battle report this included 33 Prophecies and a mix of Oneirous and Exequror logistics. The Goonswarm Prophecy fleet is a drone-based doctrine which uses both sentry drones and medium drones. <br />
<br />
Seeing that we had no chance of winning against these odds I burned us out of bubbles and warped us to our safe POS in Doril. We lost two Zealots, our heavy interdictor and an Oneirous. We killed one Muninn and a Bellicose.<br />
<br />
<i>Analysis and lessons learned</i><br />
<br />
Evidently the neutral Muninn fleet's plan was to jump into us, get us to engage and then have the Prophecies hotdrop us. Perhaps I should have guessed something was up when they decided to jump into us after clearly not wanting to jump into us for the 10 minutes they were in Jorund. <i> </i><br />
<br />
That said, this was not a terrible engagement for the Muninn fleet. They had more DPS ships than us (11 Muninns to 9 Zealots) they had 10 logistics ships to our 4, plus they had command links from their Vulture. They also outnumbered us by about 2 to 1. Still however they felt the need to hotdrop us.<br />
<br />
On the other hand I can understand their thinking. The alliance flying the Muninns has been soundly beaten by my alliance's head FC multiple times when we have clashed. I think it would be fair to say that our pilots are, on average, better at PvP than their's and they also have much higher skill points. Another point to note is that a laser based doctrine like Zealots is very good against a shield artillery doctrine like Muninns at close range. The Muninns only have one shield extender and are relatively fragile. The Zealots by contrast have very large tanks and are difficult for the Muninn's artillery to track. As such, them jumping into us was a pretty terrible way to start a brawl. In light of this I can understand why they refused to fight us until the Prophecies were ready to go.<br />
<br />
If we consider if they had jumped in without support, they would have been very close to us initially. I think they would have lost ships, probably a decent amount given their loss of the Belicose without it receiving repairs. The did however have micro-warpdrives whereas we only had afterburners. They could have quickly burned out of our range, starting to tank effectively with their considerable logistics support and then kited us. Critically (and they should have seen this), we had no webbing or scramming ships to stop them from pulling range once they jumped in.<br />
<br />
That is all of course by-the-by however. The most important lesson here is that you shouldn't make the enemy's position so untenable (at least in their minds) that they will not fight you without having overwhelming odds.<br />
<br />
What we should have done was camp their in-gate into Doril a little less obviously. There were two ways to do this. Firstly we could have camped the Utopia gate, instead of the Jorund gate. Remember they were in Jorund. This would have given them the impression we were hunting something in Utopia and not them, or alternatively they might have thought that we thought they were in Utopia. However we would have left the light interdictor cloaked on the Jorund gate. They would have thought their path home was clear and jumped into Doril. The dictor would have decloaked, we would have warped to the Jorund gate and brawled them.<br />
<br />
An alternative strategy would have been to made a safe out of d-scan range of the Jorund gate (over 14AU?) and put the Zealot fleet there, aligned to the Jorund gate. Their scouts wouldn't see us on d-scan from the Jorund gate in Doril and might have assumed it was safe. Again, the light interdictor would have bubbled them and we would have warped to the edge of the bubble and brawled.<br />
<br />
Regardless, we shouldn't have camped them in so obviously. Knowing my alliance's history with their's, the deployment of the two fleets, and seeing their behavior before they jumped into us, I should have realised that we were basically forcing them to hot drop us. <br />
<br />
Coincidentally, this is the first time one of the fleets I have been leading has been hotdropped. :soscary:<br />
<br />
Despite losing a billion ISK in ships, everyone came away fairly satisfied and upbeat. We got hotdropped, I probably should have foreseen it, learn from it for next time. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-16667071717939982322013-11-27T14:14:00.000-08:002013-11-27T14:14:23.008-08:00Thoraxes to Catch: A battle reportYesterday I lead a fleet of four Thoraxes, one Scythe and a Crow on a roam to Against All Authorities' staging system in Catch, F4R2.<br />
<br />
What I came away with were some insights into the Rubicon PvP meta-game. Find them after the break!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<i>The Roam</i> <br />
<br />
The fleet was originally formed to fight a Norther Coalition. Cynabal gang in F4R2. Their gang consisted of 12 Cynabals, 5 logistics ships and other assorted support. Probably around 30 pilots. Added to this was numerous small CFC gangs and a tech 1 cruiser conglomeration from other N3 entities. In short, everyone who was PvPing in Catch last night seemed to be in F4R2!<br />
<br />
<br />
From the start my fleet was quite undersized as another FC had a roaming fleet out at the time which had the bulk of our active pilots. Regardless, we were flying tech 1 cruisers (low risk) so I decided to head out anyway. The fit we were using is extensively discussed here: http://bigshieldlobby.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/my-thorax-skirmish-doctrine-recently-as.html<br />
<br />
I've posted other fittings of allies and enemies towards the end of the post. <br />
<br />
On the way to F4R2 my scout reported some interceptors on one of our out-gates with a large number of bubbles on the gate. Knowing that my Thoraxes couldn't engage these frigates I decided to just warp to the gate, micro-warpdrive through the bubbles and ignore them. What my scout <i>didn't </i>report was that they also had assault frigates. There was between 10 and 15 frigates. I'll discuss this further in the "lessons learned" section but I wouldn't have warped directly to the gate if I had known about the assault frigates.<br />
<br />
Regardless, our Scythe got immediately scrammed when we landed in the bubbles and we had no choice to just burn for the gate and continue. Engaging their assault frigates/interceptors would most likely have not saved our (one) Scythe and we would have been all agressed and in bubbles. <br />
<br />
A few jumps later we arrived in F4R2 and started poking around. Unfortunately my scout was not an experienced interceptor pilot and I had lost my cov-ops alt to insta-locking interceptors on a gate. I.e. I FCing with relatively little intel.<br />
<br />
We found the Cynabals on the ZXIC gate with bubbles up. I warped us to a perch on that gate and watched as the Cynabals and their multiple interceptors started burning at as. At around 70km off I warped us off and bookmarked that spot. My intention was to come back there at a 100 and just start stringing them out, hoping to pick off stragglers.<br />
<br />
Somehow however one of my Thoraxes managed to cap out (!) on the warp off. Anyway, they found the separated Thorax at a planet and tackled it. We landed on that grid a few seconds later and while I wanted to save the Thorax they already had multiple tackle ships on grid supported by two Scimitars. Given two Scimitars can repair around 2000 shield HP per second we couldn't do anything and I warped the remaining Thoraxes out. <br />
<br />
So -1 Scythe, -1 Thorax. No kills. Roam not going so well!<br />
<br />
Fortunately, Against All Authorities ("-A-") then undocked a 30-40 man Tengu fleet fitted with Railguns, supported by Scimitars and tackle, intending to chase the Cynabals off. Seeing this, I warped us to the Station where the Tengus were undocking and looked to follow them around. Obviously we were friendly with the Tengu fleet.<br />
<br />
After what seemed like an age, the Tengu fleet warped to the ZXIC gate where the Cynabal gang was. For some inexplicable reason however they warped at 100 and proceeded to try and snipe the Cynabals. I had no idea why they did this because the Cynabals just began jumping through. I had warped our Thoraxes to the gate and ordered free fire on the Cynabals. We got no kills however as they just jumped out. I don't know what the Tengu FC was thinking. He had 20+ Tengus (which have massive shield tanks) plus 8-10 Scimitars. He could have easily destroyed that Cynabal gang, hence my irritation that he let them slip away by warping at 100 to the gate!<br />
<br />
Once the Cynabals jumped into ZXIC, the Tengus started burning for the gate (i.e. 100km!) to follow them. I had us wait on the gate until the Tengus got there. Once the Tengus were on the ZXIC gate and jumping through I ordered us also to jump through in the hope of sneaking onto some killmails.<br />
<br />
Upon loading in ZXIC, the Cynabals had begun burning off the gate towards the sun. The Tengus began to decloak and engage them. I ordered my Thoraxes to decloak and start to align to a Celestial that would take us toward the Cynabals with our MWDs on. This would allow a Thorax to warp off if he started getting shot. I also asked our interceptor pilot to get tackle on the closest Cynabal. <br />
<br />
While shooting the Cynabal that was tackled, the rest of the Cynabal fleet warped off and the Tengus quickly followed. We proceeded to kill the tackled Cynabal (I got the killing blow!) and then followed the Tengu fleet to another gate in ZXIC.<br />
<br />
When we arrived at the gate it appeared that we had missed a brief engagement between the Tengus and Cynabals. There were some stragglers from the Cynabal fleet still on the gate, including a Hugin. I assumed the Tengus and the Cynabals had jumped into the next system but I wasn't sure. I ordered tackle on the Hugin and we started burning at him to get a quick kill. At this stage we were between 100km from the gate. As we were shooting their Hugin, the Cynabal gang started jumping back in and began burning at us to save it. I ordered us to align to a Celestial and continue applying DPS. It was pretty close as to whether we were going to actually kill him before we had to warp off to avoid getting tackled. Fortunately we killed the Hugin while a hostile Stilleto was still about 50km from us and I quickly warped us off.<br />
<br />
Awwww yeaaa, outnano-ing the nano gang! <br />
<br />
We then warped to the Station but didn't dock, waiting to see where the Cynabals would go. Fortunately they began jumping out so I ordered us back to F4R2 intending to get home.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately however the frigate gang that had killed our Scythe earlier was still camping the short route home. The other two routes were 18 and 23 jumps respectively. I offered my pilots the option of taking a long way home or just docking up and podding back to our staging system. We all decided to pod and so that was the end of the roam. Our staging system is about 6 jumps from the station where the Thoraxes were docked so its really not a big deal to go and collect them when its quiet.<br />
<br />
For those unfamiliar with the region, here is an edited image from Dotlan illustrating key parts of the Roam:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHXrBBKRzPLDekfKSNaNcEYMOKGoqbegnq081iJWcyyobocpr4l6OHrSClub_EmjD3B_bNLFnuZ5OnriuMQPOCIO-6nYLnFQqhuePJmpZdNh6DkGOuJWML132RxeoYDlT2B_Juf0vapk0/s1600/Curse+map.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHXrBBKRzPLDekfKSNaNcEYMOKGoqbegnq081iJWcyyobocpr4l6OHrSClub_EmjD3B_bNLFnuZ5OnriuMQPOCIO-6nYLnFQqhuePJmpZdNh6DkGOuJWML132RxeoYDlT2B_Juf0vapk0/s640/Curse+map.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<i>Lessons learned</i><br />
<br />
Try to get the best intel you can from what you have. We did not have to lose that Scythe at the beginning of the roam. I should have confirmed what was actually on the gate from our interceptor pilot and not gone anywhere until I knew.<br />
<i> </i><br />
Regardless, I'll explain the significance of the frigate gate camp having assault frigates. Assault frigates will usually have warp scramblers. The gate was bubbled from all directions meaning it was impossible to warp at 0 to avoid the bubbles. Assault frigates can fit warp scramblers as they have a bigger tank to survive staying in scramble range (~10km). By contrast, interceptors will fit warp disruptors so they don't have to get so close. Of course a warp disruptor only stops warping, not MWDing. As such, if they had only had interceptors, we could have just burned through their bubbles, tanked their marginal DPS and jumped out. <br />
<br />
So why didn't we just fight them? Well they had 10-15 pilots to our 6. Further, while we might have been able to apply damage to the assault frigates, we definitely could not have done anything about the interceptors. Our railguns could not track them and they simply would have out-run our drones.<br />
<br />
This scenario illustrates why having multiple logistics ships is critical in the current small-gang PvP meta. Frigates have relatively low-dps, especially those with long range guns. For example, an interceptor wouldn't deal more than 150dps and an assault frigate with long range guns wouldn't deal more than 200. With short range weapons an assault frigate will probably exceed 300 DPS but not 400. One Scythe will rep about 750 HP/s. When you factor in resists, one tech 1 logistics ships can probably out-repair around 4-5 frigates.<br />
<br />
Of course, we only had 1 logistics ship so they could simply destroy it and prevent any shield repairing.<br />
<br />
Could we have brought more than one logistics ship? Yes but we only had 6 pilots. Of those we definitely needed 1 tackle ship. So that leaves 5. Maybe we should have roamed with 2 logistics and 3 Thoraxes but for kiting, 4 Thoraxes and 1 Scythe seemed better. Certainly, after losing one Thorax we woudn't have killed that Hugin with one fewer Thorax before their tackle reached us. Hard decisions.<br />
<br />
Thinking about it now, one thing we could have tried was putting all our jamming drones on the scrambling assault frigate to try and free our Scythe. However that would have left us all aggressed and it was not a certain chance to jam. They also had multiple assault frigates so who knows whether we could have actually jammed all the scramblers. <br />
<br />
Perhaps the best lesson here is that cruiser gangs of less than 9 pilots are not a great idea in Rubicon. You need at least two logistics, plus tackle and then enough DPS ships to kill things. We probably should have just roamed in Crows (interceptors) rather than Thoraxes. While we wouldn't have had the DPS to kill that Hugin, we also wouldn't have lost two cruisers during the Roam and we wouldn't have had to leave our Thoraxes in F4R2.<br />
<br />
Another quick comment on interceptor fleets. They are not as overpowered as some are describing. This is because they have such little DPS that again, a few tech 1 logistics ships can out-repair their entire fleet. Sure you can roam around killing stragglers and very small gangs, but any fleet with a few logistics ships is untouchable. <br />
<br />
<i>Fittings</i><br />
<br />
I promised earlier to link some fittings so here they are. The NC. Cynabal fit (per the killmail):<br />
<i> </i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8Nkv-qan6bhiHASHPM4mZw5qFoyAS9C2OR3SFFj0TmDYTih9plsEC2dpqJ-E0jyr1RzibknSy2sdR5KKHhAF6cxbn4Ps3jf534S6tImJdL5ztCAo3PoaTMOHYtNDZPJYnmBFg0iCCO0/s1600/Cynabal+-+NC.Cynabal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb8Nkv-qan6bhiHASHPM4mZw5qFoyAS9C2OR3SFFj0TmDYTih9plsEC2dpqJ-E0jyr1RzibknSy2sdR5KKHhAF6cxbn4Ps3jf534S6tImJdL5ztCAo3PoaTMOHYtNDZPJYnmBFg0iCCO0/s640/Cynabal+-+NC.Cynabal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<i> </i><br />
And, the -A- railgun Tengu:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-UVmctneGChq9aoP4-umhgi60nnEnEBtenfig5bhh4Tel6OWQ3HYuNnjGZLV7SzVWhd7Xuf_v5GVr6jMuTDm6ldHzEBJpj0J9QopxAIukTH_iXCvzS0VPqaIuzyc_aU7zL9H-W81tEjE/s1600/Tengu+-+-A-+Tengu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-UVmctneGChq9aoP4-umhgi60nnEnEBtenfig5bhh4Tel6OWQ3HYuNnjGZLV7SzVWhd7Xuf_v5GVr6jMuTDm6ldHzEBJpj0J9QopxAIukTH_iXCvzS0VPqaIuzyc_aU7zL9H-W81tEjE/s640/Tengu+-+-A-+Tengu.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Again, words cannot describe how stupid it was to warp that Tengu fleet at 100km from the Cynabal gang. Their Tengus have 150,000 EHP. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND. OH AND BY THE WAY YOUR SCIMITARS REPAIR 8,000-1,000 HP/S. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? <br />
<br />
/rant off. <br />
<br />
For my next post I'm going to think about a new Cruiser doctrine to take on the new frigate-heavy Rubicon PvP meta. <br />
<br />
Oh, please leave a comment if you enjoyed the post!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-26198210698654030972013-11-26T16:15:00.000-08:002013-11-26T16:15:54.217-08:00Two (minor) battle reports<b>Introduction</b><br />
<br />
As I mentioned in my first post, I am a junior FC in my alliance. I will form something up to fight pretty much anything<i>. </i>What follows are two battle reports from engagements in the last 48 hours.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<b>Engagement 1: Zealots v Hurricanes</b><br />
<br />
<i>Respective fleet compositions </i><br />
<br />
<br />
Nulli Secunda/Why So Serious had brought a ~20 man Hurricane <i> </i>fleet to Doril (in the Curse region) looking for fights. The fleet consisted of around 13 Hurricanes, 5 Scythes, a Cynabal, a Rapier, a Sabre and maybe some other tackle.<br />
<br />
I had my cov-ops alt out in Doril watching them move around. They appeared to be landing at their optimal from various gates in Doril waiting for something to jump into them. I decided to form Zealots with Oneirous support. From memory we had around 12 Zealots, 4 Oneirous, a Devoter (heavy interdictor), a sabre and some other tackle. We also had another cov-ops with probes along with my alt.<br />
<br />
<i>Fittings</i><br />
<br />
Their Hurricanes were the standard N3 roaming Hurricane fit. It features a microwarp drive, 720mm artillery cannons and a single large shield extender. The doctrine has decent mobility, inflicts a high amount of alpha-damage but is relatively fragile and has bad tracking. The fit:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHNHqBFm1X6eo1URa1TnmJW9jIiPlSloWRJz8_abVXMf7TxV6qtFnftl6Qx4xSsUYelTghz97oZHqQJAKkNINAllnS5Gv9YMo9BgpRNcmSm3euAC2pApHxLW_lsnQG4zI9hm-uJt4rbM/s1600/Hurricane+-+N3+Hurricane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHNHqBFm1X6eo1URa1TnmJW9jIiPlSloWRJz8_abVXMf7TxV6qtFnftl6Qx4xSsUYelTghz97oZHqQJAKkNINAllnS5Gv9YMo9BgpRNcmSm3euAC2pApHxLW_lsnQG4zI9hm-uJt4rbM/s640/Hurricane+-+N3+Hurricane.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
Our Zealot fit is also relatively standard. 10mn afterburner, heavy pulse lasers (usually with Scorch ammo) and an excellent tank. Their engagement range is around 30-40km. Also important is their very small signature. With an armor tank and afterburners these ships are very difficult to hit, making them excellent against battleships and medium artillery(!) The fit:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgax7cgG6k4AoIsHX8gvUAZKdsEq44KinUUJNBDbPkPCN0nYKJ5aYGYLlWFKP7FY6eaBqGGQxHOK1N2r3ELQ8MhBb86MkEFgeBCGMsDPLT_m7DSc5k7m_Su01dIa4wsFFnLBnj4za3dZnE/s1600/Zealot+-+Our+Zealot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgax7cgG6k4AoIsHX8gvUAZKdsEq44KinUUJNBDbPkPCN0nYKJ5aYGYLlWFKP7FY6eaBqGGQxHOK1N2r3ELQ8MhBb86MkEFgeBCGMsDPLT_m7DSc5k7m_Su01dIa4wsFFnLBnj4za3dZnE/s640/Zealot+-+Our+Zealot.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<i> The engagement </i> <br />
<br />
While we were forming they were on the Sendaya gate in Doril at their optimal range with a sabre on the gate waiting to bubble. I did not want to jump in at that point as I was fairly sure they would try to run and with the sabre on the gate they probably could have bubbled us and escaped back through Utopia or Jorund.<br />
<br />
While we were considering this on coms, their fleet warped off to the Jorund gate in Doril. I ordered our fleet to undock and warp to the Doril gate in Sendaya. We jumped into Sendaya and then followed them to the Jorund gate. After they landed on the Jorund gate they placed a catch bubble which we promptly landed in. However they had again set up at their optimal (30-40km) and looked keen to fight.<br />
<br />
We landed in the bubble and everyone anchored on me. I ordered afterburners on and started burning at them at a slightly indirect angle (to hurt their tracking). We started killing Hurricanes. I asked our logistics how we were doing and we were tanking their damage (as expected). After losing two Hurricanes they decided to run to a station in Doril.<br />
<br />
Knowing that they weren't going to fight anymore I ordered our various tackle ships to each gate in Doril and told them to wait. We then started probing them. They were at a planet alligned to either the Jorund or Utopia gates. Initially I wanted to probe-warp a dictor at them and get them bubbled however they decided to warp to the Jorund gate. Fortunately for us this was the gate my Zealot fleet was on and our heavy interdictor bubble was up. As such they all landed about 15km from the gate.<br />
<br />
I ordered all our tackle back to the Jorund gate and we continued to kill Hurricanes and Scythes. We also snagged their Rapier.<br />
<br />
The remnants of their fleet burnt out of our bubbles and we caught a few more stragglers before heading home.<br />
<br />
<i>Kills and losses</i><br />
<br />
My fleet killed 5 Hurricanes, one Scythe and a Rapier. We suffered no losses.<br />
<br />
<i>Lessons learned</i><br />
<br />
While ordering tackle to all the gates in Doril was a good idea, I should have also got them to put up their bubbles permanently, preventing the Hurricane fleet from landing and jumping instantly. I had only asked the interdictor pilots to sit on the gates. The bubble that they landed in at the Jorund gate was put up to catch something else jumping into us and only accidentally caught the Hurricanes. Easy thing to remember for next time. <i> </i><br />
<br />
When warping to a gate, look at your other monitor to double check no bubbles have gone up since you last looked!<br />
<br />
All in all a very successful fleet. Dat 100% efficiency, priceless. <i> </i> <br />
<br />
<b>Second engagment: Moas v Taloses</b><br />
<br />
<i>Background and fleet compositions</i><br />
<i> </i> <br />
Yesterday I was monitoring a friendly in-game intel channel when a hostile gang was reported shooting a POS in the ZXIC system in Catch.<br />
<br />
The hostile gang was The Unthinkables who stage out of the Utopia system in Curse. They had around 10 pilots. I quickly started a private conversation with the person providing the intel. He told me they were very close to the POS. The POS was part of a capital ship production-chain providing capitals to Against All Authorities. <br />
<br />
The Unthinkables had between 6-8 Taloses/Nagas as well as a Scimitar, a Scythe, a Sabre and some other tackle. The Taloses were the standard fit. Blasters, microwarpdrive, shield tanked. The fit is quite short-ranged but deals an incredible amount of damage and is fast. It is also fragile. The fit:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibj7B_D9WOboM8h9uakjLbkI3KvdyP2IIjd1T7hRz1eozqkr2eAFVGdJH1Yk8wnMWIK1fIMQC-4FlumEtWhZR2hmgXhyzu4dXuGjQ3qDzvMHmGfQ3F1G7W1EKA2LI9reS_bkvsalHPGnA/s1600/Talos+-+INK+talos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibj7B_D9WOboM8h9uakjLbkI3KvdyP2IIjd1T7hRz1eozqkr2eAFVGdJH1Yk8wnMWIK1fIMQC-4FlumEtWhZR2hmgXhyzu4dXuGjQ3qDzvMHmGfQ3F1G7W1EKA2LI9reS_bkvsalHPGnA/s640/Talos+-+INK+talos.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I decided to form Moas. These are a tech 1 cruiser with a massive shield tank. Our fitting uses railguns and afterburners in a standard kiting fit. The fit:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rXq2kvDmSHK3bbaQugeuV2M2tlUvOtLePoMlH0eytAQZsWAQfM_-8p97RwuezI_vidnfcs-PHrQ0BKHwYfLz55KdX6Haq06sisRaM3jSzkEgnO7f7743HFdBT6rWCjDh3tl8KWtxHTI/s1600/Moa+-+200AB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rXq2kvDmSHK3bbaQugeuV2M2tlUvOtLePoMlH0eytAQZsWAQfM_-8p97RwuezI_vidnfcs-PHrQ0BKHwYfLz55KdX6Haq06sisRaM3jSzkEgnO7f7743HFdBT6rWCjDh3tl8KWtxHTI/s640/Moa+-+200AB.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
These are supported by Ospreys, a tech 1 logistics ship. These use capacitor transfer chains to repair much larger amounts of damage than the other shield logistics ship, the scythe. They also fit solid shield tanks.<br />
<br />
Our gang consisted of around 8 Moas, 4 Ospreys, 2-3 Crow interceptors and other support. <br />
<br />
<i>The engagement</i><br />
<br />
This was quite a frantic fleet. With the number of Moas I had in my fleet our numbers were somewhat lacking. Especially considering our Moas deal around a third of the damage one of their Taloses.<br />
<br />
Fortunately however, another friendly fleet in Moas was also roaming around Catch at the time and were around 9 jumps out from the POS system when I began forming. I asked them for assistance and they began burning to one system out of the POS system.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I burnt my co-ovps alt with a cyno to one jump out of the POS system. I also invited the person who originally provided intel on the hostile gang to our fleet. I asked him to set up a warp-in for my cyno ship very close to the hostile fleet. I also organized a Titan to bridge us from Doril onto the Cyno when it was lit.<br />
<br />
Everything came together relatively well. The friendly Moa fleet waited one jump out, along with my cyno-alt. My fleet formed on our Titan. My intel source got with 10km of the Taloses.<br />
<br />
I organized the fleets this way so that the hostile gang had no idea what was happening. I intentionally kept my cyno-alt out of system and secured the warp-in so the hostile FC wouldn't see anyone threatening in local until it was too late. For similar reasons I kept the other friendly Moa gang one jump out from the POS system.<br />
<br />
When everything was in position I jumped my cyno in and warped to the intel source's ship. I lit the cyno, my Moa fleet jumped in. Then my cyno-alt joined the other Moa fleet and provided a warp-in for them.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately as soon as the cyno went up the hostile gang warped off. Fortunately my intel source pointed one of their Nagas which we killed. I then sent tackle to all the gates to try and find where the Taloses intended to run to.<br />
<br />
Predictably they decided to burn straight back to their staging system in Utopia and we followed after them. Due to our Crow pilots we caught a number of their Taloses on the way back. This included a mini engagement where they briefly decided to fight my Moa fleet, until the other friendly Moa fleet also jumped in!<br />
<br />
<i>Kills and losses</i><br />
<br />
We killed 3 Nagas, 1 Scimitar and 1 Naga. I believe we lost one interdictor and one Crow. Not 100% efficiency but pretty close!<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>Lessons learned</i><br />
<br />
After the Taloses fled from the POS I was a little slow in realizing that the hostile FC (and his fleet) had already jumped out. I was still asking people to d-scan the Taloses after they had left system. This is a pretty terrible mistake considering their FC is on my watchlist and it was obvious that he had left just from looking at local!<br />
<br />
I'm not sure how we could have forced them to stay on grid once we jumped in. They were all spread out around one side of the POS and ran as soon as the cyno went up. The only solution might have been to have burned an interdictor to the system while we were forming, have him bubble the Taloses and then light the Cyno in the bubbles. However that would have required more time that I wasn't sure we had. In any case, the speed of the new interceptors cleaned up my mistakes by catching Taloses all the way back to Utopia.<br />
<br />
Incidentally, this was my first time FCing a hot-drop. Good fun! <i> </i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-86831168748014061872013-11-25T16:08:00.000-08:002013-11-25T16:24:24.927-08:00My Thorax skirmish doctrine: Thorax best Rax?<br />
Recently, as a result of my nagging(!), my alliance has begun trialing a skirmish thorax doctrine to replace our pre-odyessey tech 1 cruiser doctrine.<br />
<br />
What follows is NOT a fit for soloing and it does have a high skill point requirement due to the Reactor Control Unit II ("RCUII"). The doctrine is meant to be flown with logistics ships and is meant to be lead by a fleet commander ("FC").<br />
<br />
More ~after the break~!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The fit is as follows: <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqgGa0xvZ6v2UwLXm1iLc0OZBxCZNQCRBcjQGJqzp-t7NTyrYApKiLVuwY7-JuomHPeNXpS7JdLS8sx9xlqfr4lKIIA6jkAi8OmgkryuRY5cJ08ODK18lXXRrb0Vos_LhdXSC6kv0Q284/s1600/Thorax+-+Thorax+skirmish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqgGa0xvZ6v2UwLXm1iLc0OZBxCZNQCRBcjQGJqzp-t7NTyrYApKiLVuwY7-JuomHPeNXpS7JdLS8sx9xlqfr4lKIIA6jkAi8OmgkryuRY5cJ08ODK18lXXRrb0Vos_LhdXSC6kv0Q284/s640/Thorax+-+Thorax+skirmish.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Readers familiar with fitting Thoraxes might notice some unusual choices. Why have I chosen to use meta 4 guns instead of tech II equivalents? Why does the fit not use a full flight of medium drones? Why do the guns have uranium loaded by default? All will be revealed ~after the break~!<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Gun choices</i><br />
<br />
When I was brainstorming the fitting there were three choices of medium railgun:<br />
<ol>
<li> 250mm tech II</li>
<li> 250mm Prototype Gauss Gun (meta 4)</li>
<li> 200mm tech II<i> </i> </li>
</ol>
While I eventually chose the 250mm prototype gauss gun, I tried really hard to make 250mm tech IIs work. Sadly the fitting requirements make it basically impossible to combine 250mm IIs, a large shield extender and a micro-warpdrive. The closest I came was the following:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqcWBzrt-CcHKoc9npxMfPFH883jiquF-U0DAfiVdZrgOLCR4lzQ3YS3djvHAwB8bPGyV8LMRI4SmiJcBd3rjx64Mi7tLQChT5IkwCn43Q9AMp4VXtVKC_AD7rECvFu58_PgM0r5GJGE/s1600/Thorax+-+250TechII.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtqcWBzrt-CcHKoc9npxMfPFH883jiquF-U0DAfiVdZrgOLCR4lzQ3YS3djvHAwB8bPGyV8LMRI4SmiJcBd3rjx64Mi7tLQChT5IkwCn43Q9AMp4VXtVKC_AD7rECvFu58_PgM0r5GJGE/s640/Thorax+-+250TechII.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Evidently the amount of fitting modules on this fit is an immediate negative. You lose a number of things from the meta fit as a result of using tech II 250s. Firstly, you trade your second adaptive invulnerability field for a second shield extender. This allows you to use up the extra power grid you gain by adding the second RCUII needed to fit the tech II 250s. However as a result you also lose the tracking enhancer to fit that RCUII. Further, you lose a core defense field extender to gain additional CPU.<br />
<br />
Overall this fit gains ~2000 extra shield hitpoints, tech II railgun ammo and ~30 additional dps. It loses 3km of optimal and the tracking bonus of the tracking enhancer. It also loses the better resist profile of the meta fit.<br />
<br />
One other possible option to fit tech II 250s is the following:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXPuZ1auHelZItXorlqrcOI3dHPBEcNgdMsRXBI_-2Y16sAdfGfkz2dK6Eun2Yw4zOgwk56LBz64LarWlpa_tP7h18d7YYQosBHE43Xlm5XINMvShtdscIMd11B-YdtPjYeyaHiMPxBgc/s1600/Thorax+-+250TechIIPGimp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXPuZ1auHelZItXorlqrcOI3dHPBEcNgdMsRXBI_-2Y16sAdfGfkz2dK6Eun2Yw4zOgwk56LBz64LarWlpa_tP7h18d7YYQosBHE43Xlm5XINMvShtdscIMd11B-YdtPjYeyaHiMPxBgc/s640/Thorax+-+250TechIIPGimp.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Now evidently this requires some implants but it does allow you to get away with tech II 250s with only one fitting mod. The bad news is that the 3% power grid implant is about 20-30mil ISK and you also need a CPU implant! When you start spending that much on implants, on a nul-sec roam cruiser (where your pod may die) you may as well just fly a battlecruiser or a faction cruiser. <br />
<br />
So 250mm tech IIs were out. The next viable weapon system was 200mm tech IIs. This was my potential fit:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhes1Msb4x1Uy0o5ifFrOXcmMIR2yQb4SB2XbG50B6k-Ud8wBf8j7m5l5kHXpPKzk7rDq_zOcfJZxgFJch0o9SdRaj284ngZIZv6oD6_QpD9j7rvV1laQF2b8ZZ7JaC4NLvW-YMO7aAFOQ/s1600/Thorax+-+200II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhes1Msb4x1Uy0o5ifFrOXcmMIR2yQb4SB2XbG50B6k-Ud8wBf8j7m5l5kHXpPKzk7rDq_zOcfJZxgFJch0o9SdRaj284ngZIZv6oD6_QpD9j7rvV1laQF2b8ZZ7JaC4NLvW-YMO7aAFOQ/s640/Thorax+-+200II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
With 2 tracking enhancers plus 200mm railguns (which track better than 250s), the tracking on this fit is the best of those discussed thus far. There is also no noticeable DPS reduction on the meta 250s and you unlock tech II ammo. The disadvantage of this fit is range. Yes that is a 23km optimal with uranium. Compare this to the 250mm meta fit above which gets a 30km optimal with the same ammo type. That discrepancy is only going to increase as you switch into longer range ammo. As such, when this fit needs to use uranium, the 250mm meta fit can use antimatter. Therefore the DPS on this fit is actually significantly lower if you are comparing DPS plus damage projection rather than just raw DPS. <br />
<br />
Now, this fit is probably great for soloing. Drop one invulnerability field for a warp disruptor II and you should be able to happily take on other cruisers and frigates. However for a skirmish <i>fleet </i>doctrine that range reduction is a deal breaker. I do not want to fight at 25km in a Thorax, I want to be around 35km. Nor do I want to trade a DPS reduction with 200mm tech II fit to make up the lost optimal.<br />
<br />
My fixation on staying at around 35km is because I want to stay out of range of short-range medium weapon systems. A heavy pulse laser with scorch, rage heavy assault missiles, medium autocannons, blasters are all well out of range if you are fighting at 35km. The situation becomes far more precarious at 25km when a small anchoring error or failure to pulse micro-warpdrives <i>will </i>take you into their killbox. Fighting in range of medium short-range weapons, with the below-average tank on a shield thorax, is a recipe for disaster. <br />
<br />
<br />
In short, in a skirmish situation I prefer the additional range of the 250mm meta guns over the superior tracking and lower range of the 200mm tech IIs. <br />
<br />
<i>Why no medium drones?</i><br />
<br />
The Thorax has a 50m3 drone bay so can support a flight of medium drones. However I chose two flights of light drones instead. This is because I would rather have the added flexibility a flight of warriors and jamming drones provide than the additional DPS of a medium flight. <br />
<br />
5 Hammerhead IIs with maximum skills add 160dps to this fit. 5 Warrior IIs provide 100dps. I would gladly trade the additional 60dps for a second flight of e-war drones and the ability for my drones to apply effective damage to frigates. Further, if the fleet has deployed drones and then has to leave the field before the drones can be withdrawn, you still have a spare flight for the next engagement. Finally, don't underestimate the power of EC-300s in a small-scale engagement. They can be used to great effect jamming logistics or tackle frigates that have scrammed your Thoraxes.<br />
<br />
<i>Conclusion</i><br />
<br />
I think the Thorax is one of the best skirmish tech 1 cruisers in the game currently. It is fast, has excellent tracking, a sizeable drone bay and solid damage projection. Give it a try!<br />
<br />
My recommended fit is in text format below: <i> </i> <br />
<br />
<br />
[Thorax, Skirmish]<br />
Damage Control II<br />
Reactor Control Unit II<br />
Tracking Enhancer II<br />
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II<br />
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II<br />
<br />
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
<br />
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge M<br />
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge M<br />
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge M<br />
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge M<br />
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Caldari Navy Uranium Charge M<br />
<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
<br />
Warrior II x5<br />
Hornet EC-300 x5<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-41915858437240099182013-11-24T20:02:00.001-08:002013-11-25T16:23:26.191-08:00Refitting on-the-fly with mobile depots: viable flexibility? <br />
Pre-Rubicon I had been thinking a lot about the potential PvP flexibility offered by mobile depots. You might be flying around in railgun Moas (for example) and then come across an assault frigate gang. Couldn't the FC just drop a mobile depot and all your Moas are suddenly fitted with blasters, micro-warpdrives and a tackle module?<br />
<br />
Further discussion ~after the break~!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<b><br /></b>
Well, the actual Rubicon expansion doused those plans a bit with two limitations on the depot's use:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>The mobile depot has to be placed for a minute before it goes online. </li>
<li>The mobile depot is personal. Others cannot use a depot that your character drops. Further, it impossible to trade the depot in space via jettisoning it to a can. </li>
</ol>
<br />
As such, using the depot to refit on the fly is something that far fewer fleets will do. Firstly, any refitting may cause you to lose your engagement window. A minute can be a long time in Eve! In that minute the fleet that was on the other side of that gate might decide to leave, their scouts might detect you etc. Not to mention the fact that if the other fleet detects a large number of depots on scan, they will be able to guess what you're doing! Secondly, if the depots are personal then every single member of the fleet must remember to bring one.However given their low production cost, this is not as much of a problem as would first appear.<br />
<br />
So what would be a cheap hull, good for the current meta, to try this with?<br />
<br />
Well, with all the frigate gangs roaming around, rapid light missile Caracals? Consider starting out with a fleet including 10 of these:<br />
<br />
<b>[Caracal, HMMWD2RLML]</b><br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
F85 Peripheral Damage System I<br />
<br />
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I<br />
EM Ward Field I<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
Large Shield Extender II<br />
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction<br />
<br />
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile<br />
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile<br />
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile<br />
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile<br />
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile<br />
<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I<br />
<br />
With decent skills that a 250dps anti-frigate machine that shoots out to around 60km and has cap to last it around 2 minutes. Cap time goes up to 3 minutes if you are not running the shield hardeners.<br />
<br />
Of course, if you encounter a 'real' fleet on your roam, you don't want to be using Rapid Light Missile Launchers. Each Caracal (and logi) drops a depot and refits to this:<br />
<br />
[Caracal, HMMWD2RLMLAB]<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
Ballistic Control System II<br />
F85 Peripheral Damage System I<br />
<br />
10MN Afterburner II<br />
EM Ward Field I<br />
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II<br />
Large Shield Extender II<br />
Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction<br />
<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile<br />
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Heavy Missile<br />
<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I<br />
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I<br />
<br />
That's a standard heavy missile afterburner fit that does about 300dps with good skills at around 60km. It also has just under 40k EHP (with 70/60/60/70 resists) and is cap stable. <br />
<br />
The fleet has transformed from an anti-frigate skirmish gang to a kiting doctrine that can take some punishment. Refit your scythes as well!<br />
<br />
What do the Caracals need in their holds then? Well:<br />
<br />
x1 mobile depot<br />
x5 Heavy Missile Launcher IIs (and appropriate ammo)<br />
x1 10mn afterburner II<br />
<br />
I'm assuming that those mods won't cost more than 10mil and will probably cost substantially less.<br />
<br />
I would like to test before I endorse it completely. However if you do want to take out a fleet that is a very hard-counter to one doctrine (e.g. frigates) but is not good against anything else (rapid light missile Caracals) then this could be a good back-up plan.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2312663510608835406.post-81755685344865059322013-11-24T15:52:00.002-08:002013-11-25T03:37:35.060-08:00My first post and ZJA battlereport<b>THE FIRST POST ON BIG SHIELD LOBBY </b><br />
<br />
So, this is my first blog ever. I'm excited that i'm writing this, I've been thinking about doing it for a while but never got around to it.<br />
<br />
The blog will cover mostly pvp topics. battle reports, fittings etc. However it will also have some "general musings" posts.<br />
<br />
About me: I will stay anonymous on this blog, simply so I can say what I want. Obviously by staying anonymous i'm not really putting a name behind anything I say so it won't appear as trustworthy. I can't help that except by trying to stay as impartial and open-minded as possible. Other than that, I am a junior FC/grunt in an "elite pvp nul sec alliance". The alliance is currently deployed to the curse area and we are on the Russian side, fighting against N3 and Pandemic Legion.<br />
<br />
-----------------<br />
<br />
<b>ZJA-6U Battle Report: November 23rd 2013</b><br />
<br />
A Pandemic Legion/N3 station was coming out of its first reinforcement timer today. Due to it being the weekend, all of the Russian Coalition allies were formed up in good sized fleets. The compositions were:<br />
<br />
Darkness of Despair: Typhoons<br />
Against All Authorities/other neo-stain wagon alliances: Rohks and Maelstroms<br />
Solar Fleet: Rail tengus/eagles<br />
Black Legion: Missile Tengus<br />
Razor Alliance: Maelstroms<br />
CFC: Bombers, Harpy fleet<br />
<br />
VS<br />
<br />
Pandemic Legion ("PL"), Northern Coalition and Nulli Secunda ("N3"): Carriers ("Slowcat" doctrine: each carrier is able to repair any other carrier and a capacitor transfer chain is established. Massive tank, highly immobile. Sentry drones for damage) <br />
Rest of PL/N3 coalition: Bombers<br />
Super carriers were on stand-by.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
<i>Background</i> <br />
<br />
The Russian Coalition has tried and failed repeatedly to defeat N3's/PL's slowcat blob over the past few weeks. The strategy is simple. Put 150-200 pilots in remote rep Archons and tank anything the other side can throw at you. The carriers are deployed on the structure being attacked (usually a friendly station). Due to the amount of damage this number of carriers can inflict with sentry drones, most other sub-capital fleets are forced to position themselves over 100km away, with a corresponding loss of DPS. Further, any effort to kill that many carriers that doesn't involve other capitals will not do enough damage to break their tank. Finally, where the carriers are deployed on a friendly station, the fleet will not take any significant losses given that all carriers will have enough time to de-agress and dock if the fight goes south. <br />
<br />
As such, the use of carriers on a defensive timer has followed a predictable pattern. The Russian coalition will deploy mutiple sub-cap fleets. None of these fleets will be able to break the carrier tank. At this point the Russian coalition has either retreated or deployed dreadnaughts. Up to this point, the Dreadnaughts have been destroyed by N3/PL's superior capital forces. Alternatively, the deployment of so many capitals has caused the server to crash, effectively ending the engagement.<br />
<br />
All in all, the defensive use of carriers/slowcats has been a major roadblock to any offensive progress by the Russian coalition.<br />
<br />
<i>The Battle</i><br />
<br />
As above, N3/PL had already deployed 150-200 carriers on the station. The Russian coalition arrived in their subcap fleets. It appears from some kill-mails that some fleets tried to engage the carriers. Predictably, this resulted in a number of battleship losses for no carrier kills. The subcap fleets would spend the majority of the battle out of range of the carriers, around 150km from the station. They would not engage until the fight was effectively over. <br />
<i> </i><br />
After the Russian coalition sub-cap fleets had deployed around the station, they cyno-ed in large number of long-range dreadnaughts. These dreadnaughts were deployed with the Russian sub-capitals, around 150km from the carriers. Again, this was out of range of the carriers.<br />
<br />
Initially the Russian coalition did not have enough dreadnaughts to break the carrier's tank. However at some point, carriers began to explode. Alliances who deployed large numbers of long-range dreadnaughts included:<br />
<br />
-SOLAR fleet<br />
-Black Legion<br />
-Darkness of Despair<br />
-Razor<br />
<br />
<br />
Losing carriers, N3/PL found themselves in an awkward position. Having no subcapitals on field and the carriers being locked to the station, the only option was to deploy supercarriers to destroy the dreadnaughts. However this would require placing the supercarriers well out of range of support from their carriers. Further, they would be well within range of the Russian coalition's substantial sub-capital forces, not to mention 250 hostile sieged dreadnaughts!<br />
<br />
As N3/PL continued to lose carriers, they opted to dock and surrender the timer rather than deploy supercapitals. As they began to dock, the Russian coalition's sub-capital fleets warped to the station and began shooting carriers. The CFC's dreadnaught fleet was also deployed at this stage.<br />
<br />
After the carriers docked, the Russian coalition pushed the station into its armor (2nd) timer and pushed and triggered another timer on the infrastructure hub ("IHUB") in the same system. <br />
<br />
<i>Notable losses</i><br />
<br />
Kill report here: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=20609635<i> </i> <br />
<br />
It seems PL/N3 lost around 5 carriers. The Russian coalition lost a dreadnaught who bounced too close to the carriers after cyno-ing in plus the spy who was destroyed. In subcaps, the N3/PL coalition lost a large number of bombers (150?!) while the Russian Coalition lost a misc number of sub-caps who drifted too close to the carriers. <br />
<br />
<i>Analysis and repurcussions</i><br />
<br />
N3/PL's inability to win large sub-capital fights has lead to their heavy reliance on carriers and supercapitals. In the past, this had not been a problem as no sub-capitals could break the carrier's tank. If the Russian coalition resorted to dreadnaughts, supercapitals and titans would be deployed. Furthermore, long range dreadnaughts had only been deployed in smaller numbers (30-50) and, to my knowledge, usually only be Black Legion. <br />
<br />
The use of this many dreadnaughts and specifically <i>long range</i> dreadnaughts changed the equation. Long range dreadnaughts allow the Russian coalition to engage the carriers without the carriers being able to return fire. If the dreadnaughts were fitted for close range engagements, they would be forced to deploy within range of the carriers and any additional hostile supercapitals deployed in an escalation. <br />
<br />
The use of long-range dreads essentially makes the carriers irrelevant. N3/PL will have to decide how they are going to engage the Russian capital and dreadnaught forces out of range of their carriers. This is where their inability to successfully utilize sub-capitals really becomes noticeable. If they could support their super capitals with sub-capitals then there may be a way for them to engage if this scenario repeats itself. Otherwise it is unclear what their plan is going forward, especially if their carriers can't dock when this many dreadnaughts are deployed.<br />
<br />
Perhaps one option for N3/PL is to re-deploy their carrier force once the Russian coalition deploys dreadnaughts. I.e. they either warp on top of the dreadnaughts or cyno out of system and then cyno back in. I suspect that Cyno-ing in and out is the better option given the align time of the carriers. In either case, the carriers would need to be redeployed on top of the dreadnaughts to allow them to support a super capital escalation.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, the PL/N3 coalition could start using subcapitals again! <br />
<br />
<i>Misc comments</i><br />
<br />
-Another thing to note about the long-range dreadnaught doctrine is that they are "Doomsday Proof". I.e. their tank requires multiple Titan doomsdays to destroy them. This further discourages the use of N3/PL supercapitals.<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>-</i>The CFC dreadnaught fleet (not including Razor) could not engage until the fight was over due to still being short range fit.<br />
<br />
-During the fight, a Black Legion spy in the corporation "Hoover Inc" was discovered and destroyed. Apparently suspicions were raised when, after taking a fleet warp to a hostile PoS, he landed inside of it while the rest of the fleet landed outside. I.e. he had the password for supposedly hostile POSes.<br />
<br />
-What is N3/PL going to do with all the pilots in its coalition that can't fly capitals? It fielded maximum of 300 pilots in non-bomber ships and that is probably being quite generous. This is a coalition that stretches from the mid south, right around to Cobalt Edge in the North East. Clearly they can field more pilots than this but perhaps they have given up on sub-capitals? <br />
<br />
-EMP has deployed further north to defend against CFC aggression. It looks bloody and something I would like to write about. Also, I haven't seen anything substantial written on it. Next article?<br />
<br />
Edit: as promised some pictures although they are only post-battle! <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIKHPZKdB59YDKzU4XzdmxXXav4vJ2vM97CXSRSe664d60PVjq-KCiZMAw9HSa3_WcFgXoAThnD6CPYv94hVW7B6CY7-O5Np98Jn_wY-AkmbGvU0oj3xi0XSA4uI0Wk6OqK2dcV8Heb_E/s1600/Beatdown.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIKHPZKdB59YDKzU4XzdmxXXav4vJ2vM97CXSRSe664d60PVjq-KCiZMAw9HSa3_WcFgXoAThnD6CPYv94hVW7B6CY7-O5Np98Jn_wY-AkmbGvU0oj3xi0XSA4uI0Wk6OqK2dcV8Heb_E/s320/Beatdown.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The Russian coalition forces, dreads et all. Solar/BL/Razor Dreads are to the left, Darkness of Despair Typhoons directly above. To the right are Darkness of Despair dreads. In the foreground are Cerberuses from The Initiative. In the bottom right are Razor Maelstroms. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSDGSd6EJQ5fp7K2GnYyaKLFZTUnuYoGt8H3KfRNxgwW0jNgO62g-waCeO5LMf7Nu6zUTEi8qVpYJXoKwctwt-9uh-ZinJpaHrST5T128fZM_DIdUCXq1ZUx8FW_kwd1_uT5CH4WKjm6M/s1600/Tengus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSDGSd6EJQ5fp7K2GnYyaKLFZTUnuYoGt8H3KfRNxgwW0jNgO62g-waCeO5LMf7Nu6zUTEi8qVpYJXoKwctwt-9uh-ZinJpaHrST5T128fZM_DIdUCXq1ZUx8FW_kwd1_uT5CH4WKjm6M/s320/Tengus.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Tengus looking sexy as always.<br />
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07248483417821273367noreply@blogger.com4