Hawking My Wares (AAR)

Task: Practice and learn tackling procedures while solo

Conditions: Given a disruptor fit Hawk in the Auner system

Standards: Don't lose my pod

Summary: 
I wanted to hang out in space tonight so I hopped in my Hawk and headed out to Auner again.  I got on the Resbroko gate and waited to see what came through.  Soon enough a red (no GCC) Wolf landed on top of me and I locked him up. 

Losing a Logi (AAR)

Task: Conduct anti-pirate roam in low sec area around the Arant system

Conditions: Given a shield tanked BC fleet and access to low sec systems while personally flying a Scimitar logistics ship

Standards: Have fun, fly smart

Summary:

The fleet was engaged in combat almost from the start on this roam.  There was a small gang engagement and later on a fleet fight.  In both fights I made a few mistakes but the fleet did well overall.

Circle in Space (AAR)

Task: Conduct solo patrol of Auner space for familiarization and experience.

Conditions: Using Hawk AF with long point move around the Auner area looking for possible engagements.

Standards: Have fun and ensure pod is removed from fight if at all possible.

Summary:  This is a short note, I didn't engage in a fight but I did have a situation occur worth writing about.  I was in my Hawk and orbiting a gate in the Auner system when a red security status Megathron jumped into system.  My first instinct was to prepare for warp off in case he locked me so I aligned to a station.  Nothing happened though and he left the area.

Personal Notes:  I have no illusions that my Hawk could have broken the tank on the Mega before he could get back to the gate.  Calling in friendlies was a possibility, but I wasn't expecting to engage anything that big so I hadn't arranged for support.  I also wasn't sure if the gate guns would engage me for starting the fight but I found out later they wouldn't.  The more I thought about the encounter the more I thought I could have done things differently.

  At a minimum I should have locked him as soon as I saw he was low security status.  Whether I wanted to engage or not the time wasted locking could have been critical, and it's a good habit to get into.  Second instead of moving away from the BS I should have closed range to put him in a tight orbit by manually flying in an arc towards him.  Finally picking a warp out point that was on the overview and doesn't require clicking on the screen would have made more sense.

  Improves-
Locking pirates whenever I'm not cloaked is a good idea, no requirement to engage them
Plan some possible reactions for different size ships whenever I setup a patrol to help initial decisions occur faster
Practice aligning to smart warp outs instead of panic selecting where to go

  Sustains-
Continue getting out into space
Finding answers to questions

Because of Falcon (AAR)

Task- Conduct anti-pirate operations in Auner and surrounding systems.

Conditions- Given an operating environment consisting of small gang, a mix of BC and support ships, with voice coms in a two to three system operational area.

Standards- Engage and destroy ships with horrible security standing or that are GCC while maintaining maximum advantage and avoiding unfavorable pitched battle.

Summary-

  I recently moved to the Amo system and part of the motivation for the move was to conduct anti-pirate operations in the Auner system.  I have little experience with small gang warfare as well as little experience with solo fighting.  Last night there was a defense fleet up so I hopped in my Hawk and went join in the fun.  When I found out our fleet composition was mainly BC in size I reshipped into my Falcon and joined the fleet on the gate.  I established an orbit of 30km which provided optimal range for all jammers if/when the enemy came through the gate.

War is over (AAR)

Task:  Participate in high sec war declared against us.

Conditions:  Given high sec area in Minmatar space with access to low sec routes.

Standards: Continue to enjoy the game while still participating in war activities and minimizing losses.

Summary:
Three weeks was the total length of wars declared against us.  I was much more comfortable than previous wars, but at the same time I was rather disappointed with how the war was conducted on the part of the antagonists.  The war started when a GCC T3 cruiser pirating in low sec was killed and the alliance leader pilot got upset and declared war on two of the alliances involved in the kill.

Black Bird Loss (AAR)

Task: Travel solo to join up with fleet located in low sec.

Conditions:  Using  a Black Bird ECM cruiser travel to and coduct pvp with friendly fleet deployed in low security system.  Travel will be solo and can occur in both low and high security systems.

Standards:  Arrive at fleet location with ship intact and appropriate ECM modules fitted.

Summary:  I was moving to join a fleet in the Todifraun area last night and decided to take my Black Bird as I've had good success moving during times of war and through low security systems with this particular ship.  In addition the fleet was low on ECM support so two birds, one stone.  I opted to travel through low sec along a route I'm familiar with and when I jumped into Eifer a gate camp was in place.

Sansha's MOM has got it going on (AAR)

  Yesterday I was in an incursion fleet working vanguard sites when word came down the MOM was up for our system and a fleet was forming to take it out.  Fortunately for me the FC of my fleet was some kind of head honcho type for the incursions so I got a backstage pass if I wanted to help out.  I was in my Basilisk and agreed to go along and help heal.  We got word on what system to head to, got into the new fleet and I was invited into the basilisk channel.  I thought I was all set for the fight when the guy who formed the channel says we need to have two LSE's or we won't survive the bombers.

Flight of the Rumble Bees (AAR)

Task:  
Fleet: Conduct anti-piracy roam
Personal: Use tackle frigate to better understand tackle role

Conditions: 

Fleet: Given low security space in small fleet setting with frigate class combat ships
Personal: Utilize an AC equipped Rifter with AB and Scram to conduct short range tackle

Standards: 

Fleet: Engage only pirate or GCC targets, follow FC commands, have fun
Personal: Tackle at least one enemy ship, preferably being the tackle that holds the ship in place for great justice

Personal notes:  Several kills were made during this roam, and a few losses as well.  The losses were expected considering the choice of light ships.  Overall was fun trying out a different fleet mix and I'm looking forward to the next roam.  I'll detail the overall fleet activity first and then my personal performance before getting into the sustains and improves.

  I flew a Rifter for the first time ever because I failed to plan my JC's last night to coincide with the roam today.  My ECM character was in his PVE clone and wouldn't be able to jump until over an hour after the roam started.  In addition I'm out of EAS so I needed to spend 30mil or so to get a good ship to fly tonite.  I might have gone with a griffin but neither of the alts with accessible JC's is trained in EW warfare.

  The Rifter was shield tanked with 200mm AC II's, an AB, scram, DC II and MSE II for tank, a TE to boost falloff, nano II, and resists coming from the rigs.  I know most PVP Rifters are armor tanked but every fit I came up with using armor had a speed less than 1k mps which I felt was too low when using a close range ship.  I put on the scram to offset the use of an AB and I figured our primary targets would be cruiser or BC class.  If I could get in range of the scram I wanted the AB to keep my transversal up.  I knew I'd have trouble tackling frigate sized targets but we had inties for the speedsters.

Taking the longcut to a great fight (AAR)

Task: Conduct fleet operation with shield BS arty fleet
Conditions: Combined alliance group looking to engage WT's around the Rens area
Standards: Get into a fight with the WT's and win  

  Situation:  Enemy fleets ranging from 15-30 war targets have dug in at the Rens star system and send out raiding parties to nearby systems. Friendly force commanders desire to engage and defeat WT's in a system away from Rens thus causing the enemy to potentially lose some neutral support and put the fight on more even terms.

  Mission: Coalition forces assemble fleet and conduct roam through outlying areas in order to engage the enemy in pitched battle.

  Execution:  Assemble in REDACTED with long range shield BS, preferably maelstrom class minmatar battleship, with logistics, recon, and ECM support.  FC will determine route based on scouting reports.

  Service/Support:  Logistics and ECM support will be traveling with fleet.  Stations along the route of march can be utilized for last second module exchange or repairs.  No capital or supercapital support will be expected during operation.  Follow on forces will be dependent upon themselves for movement to link up with fleet, no scouting will be available.

  Command and control:  Voice coms will be located on ventrillo at REDACTED.  FC will be in overall command.  Wing or squad commanders should be prepared to execute individual command over their echelon as needed.

  Summary report:  I logged on late tonite for the planned op but my corp leader linked the system the where the fleet was loitering.  Jark is only 6 jumps if I'm willing to cruise by Rens, but in this war the enemy is turned Rens into a wasp nest of neutrals and spies.  Instead I decide to route through metropolis, back into heimatar, and finally into delve.  I think the total jumps was somewhere around 18, but I wasn't counting because I was trying to get voice to work.  Eventually I realized Ventrillo was required and no matter how much I checked the info in TeamSpeak just wasn't gonna work. I started downloaded ventrillo about the time I was heading through two low sec jumps, in a blackbird, and I had to pay attention to flying.  At last I joined the fleet and was about to switch back to loading ventrillo when reds jumped through the gate.  Battle was upon us and I would just have to fight without coms.

Fight week (AAR)

  I've had a fun week in game although I've failed to post about it so far.  Allow me to remedy that situation.

Fight 1

Earlier in the week I went on a Nano BC roam.  Once again I flew my rusty scimitar (although to be fair the scimitar is a rather beautiful ship) into battle and we ended the night with an impressive fight. 

Cruiser Roam (AAR)

  Yesterday I went on a T1 cruiser/T2 frigate roam.  The roam was a lot of fun although the value of cruiser sized ships was called into question by the end of the night.  I spent a chunk of the day moving various cruiser sized ships to the start location and on a whim I took my Kitsune electronic attack ship.  I've used a Kit once before and it died rather quickly when I was first learning about ECM ships.  I wanted to start off in a support role and for some reason the Kitsune seemed to call to me.  I think it regretted picking up the phone by the end of the night.

Epic Arc (AAR)

  I helped out a corpmate friday night when he requested some support for gallente epic arc missions.  I took a tank focus Rattlesnake and a Scimitar to back him up.  EHQ indicated I would have be able to tank something like 3000dps with the fit.  The first mission went fine.  I warped in, took agro, shield went down a little, and then scimi landed and no problems.  The next mission though got interesting.  I had to refit for omni tank and I didn't consider neuting so I put on active hardeners instead of passive amplifiers for resists.  The fight was going fine to begin with but my rattlers cap was slowly going away.  Once the cap died so to did my resists and my shield was getting gouged.  Fortunately we killed a BS and at that point the scimi was able to keep me up alone.  I sat on half shield the majority of that mission but we finished in the end.

  Lessons I learned for future epic arc missions: use passive resists when going up against neut ships, bring multiple resist modules along, and epic arcs look fun.  I think I'm gonna look up some Caldari arcs and perhaps give them a go.

Sit, Stay... Good logi (AAR)

  Another roam in my scimitar and while I had fun again I'll admit that switching to a logistical ship mind set can be a bit tough sometimes.  I'm not that interested in being in a DPS boat and turning the enemy's ship into a modern art sculpture.  I much prefer scouting, moving around cloaked to setup a fleet warp to have proper range, utilize EW mods to tactically shape the battlefield, or apply reps when needed.  Basically I enjoy being a combat multiplier instead of a line dog.

Sansha Pinata (AAR)

  I was around the day incursions launched and thousands of ships died.  The rate of loss, the talk of how difficult the sansha were to kill, the fact that frigates were WTFPWNBBQ'ing entire fleets was enough to scare me good.  Recently though there has been talk in our Alliance chat of a corp that runs incursions on a daily basis.  I figured eventually I'd tag along with them in a safe environment.  Eventually turned into now and I've spent six hours this evening killing fanatical frigates.

  The call went out for two people in shield fits to join an incursion fleet.  The request was for a T3 and I was just starting to adjust some probes for my first attempt to find a WH to break the monotony of mission running.  I decided now was my time to see something new so I volunteered to join up.  I inquired as to a good tengu fit, got a fitting and realized I'd have to reset my rigs or get a new hull.  New hull won out since I'd be thinking of getting another anyway.  Got a new hull, went through the hoops required to swap out subsystems between two ships (I bought 5 new subsystems and the hoop was jumped) and was on my way.

  I got in system and warped to the first room.  I saw eight ships floating around, missiles and lasers flashing, but no targets.  Hmm, where the heck are the targets?  So I asked if there was a bug and was told you have to manually click on the ships and add them to overview.  I spent five minutes looking for the incursion ship check box in my overview settings to no avail.  Finally I tracked some missiles to a small dark blip on a distant nebula and was able to add sansha incursion frigates to my overview.  Huzzah.  Later on I had to repeat the process for cruisers.  I am not looking forward to having to rinse/repeat for the rest of the ships types.  As an added bonus I didn't see any of the ship icons in space until I had them locked up.  This made me not a happy camper but I worked it out in the end and was able to get to the killing.

PS- CCP this is ridiculous to allow to happen and incursion ships should have some sort of identifier in the overview list or default to always being on.

  Anyway, overview fixed and I started adding to the slaughter.  My tengu was firing high damage T2 missiles but they did crappy so I switched to regular missiles and my damage output tripled.  Later on I tried precision heavies and they performed about the same as standard T1's.  So atleast ammo was cheap.

  We killed vanguard missions one after the other for an hour or so averaging about 10 minutes per mission.  I learned the patterns and our logi pilots were jonny on the spot with the reps.  We eventually took a break, added some more folks, split into two fleets and continued the carnage.  We ran some of the mining colony and I learned you need ore to turn in to complete those missions.  I didn't find out how much but it was my first day.  Highlight of the night was getting to apply tags to designate targets after I was promoted to squad lead for fleet bonuses.  I sorta didn't know the fleet could see tags because I'd never highlighted that option in my alts overviews.  That will help out some for missions when I'm trying to designate jamming ships.

  The time flew by and soon enough people were getting tired.  All told I ran 25 missions, got back almost half what I spent on the Tengu, and realized I enjoy incursions.  I need to get my boys some basilisks to ease the logi burden, but I see more sansha killing in the future.  I do so enjoy whacking the ISK pinata and watching my wallet fill up.

  Ship fitting addendum: Tengu worked out ok, but I think a Nighthawk might actually be better with it's bonuses for killing frigate sized ships.  I'll have to look into that for the future, especially since it gives me a great excuse to pick up a NH.

Strangers in the night (AAR)

Tonight I went on another roam with Mistersparky from the Estrale Frontiers corporation and once again he did not disappoint.  Recently I missed a roam that saw the death of two carriers so tonight I requested more carrier action and Mistersparky happily obliged. 

The evening started off with a few hours of jumping and no one that wanted to fight.  I'd like to think that the pirates are scared and hiding, but it could just be an off night.  Eventually our scouts found some targets in the Onatoh system and we shuffled our forces around to encourage a fight.  Just as we were ready to get things started our scouts reported a POS that was almost out of reinforcement which just happened to belong to the targets in system.  This thickened the plot faster than a Danielle Steele novel and we promptly moved the bulk of our forces to a neighboring system.

The move paid off as a T2/T3 fleet with half a dozen logi's in tow showed up at the gate we were just orbiting.  The opposing fleet was sized up and it was assessed to severely overpower our forces.  However since the POS was a factor we stuck around and let our scouts see what they could find.  Lo and behold another fleet was assembling on a different gate.  Com's were established and we were invited to tag along and add to the carnage.

Our plan was to get into a fight and hopefully have some fun culling people from the blob.  Fleets were adjusted, voice com's were changed, new FC gave new orders, havoc was cried and the dogs set loose.

We jumped into the T2/T3 fleet and began to kill them quickly.  Capitals were brought in and things were going great until another cyno lit off and PL dropped a few dozen supercarriers and carriers into the mix.  We warped off, GF's were sent in local and the new FC had us all dock.  Apparently the fight wasn't over and the plot was thickened from a hearty stew consistency into something resembling brick laying mortar.

The POS was still a ripe target and we still had a significant number of forces on hand.  Once the carriers left the system our FC had us head towards the POS.  We engaged the defenders until they brought another round of caps onto the grid.  Our FC was waiting for this and called in his own group of supporting supers and caps.  The plot mortar hardened at this point and was too thick to follow.

The help was red to our original fleet and a good chunk of the new fleet as well.  The FC was desperately trying to keep people on the correct target and the help was hindering the process by shooting our forces as well.  No one panicked though and eventually the POS defenders were whittled down and our fleet left the area to allow the caps to mop up without worry of hitting the wrong folks.  We settled back into the station and waited for the helpful caps to leave the system.

Soon enough scouts were letting us know the POS grid was clear and we warped back into the fray.  Some enemy ships were still present but they stayed inside the shield for awhile before jumping out.  A few subcaps showed up but were killed or warped off as well.  The POS eventually dropped, champagne flowed, fireworks were displayed, kill board links were flung across the channels and GF's were broadcast one last time.

All in all we spent about 6 hours roaming and fighting, lost a handful of ships and killed a few carriers, a bunch of command ships, and a few other ships.  This was my third fight with capital ships and the first cap fight that I was on the winning side of (well, the super cap pilots are the only true winners once they hit the grid).  I had a lot of fun and gained a bit more insight into what the future holds.

Kill board link

You won't see my name on any of the kills as I was once again flying my trusty scimitar and learning the fine art of support.  I'll save that discussion for another post though.