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.


  The roam started off a bit different this time as we had a target before we even began.  A hurricane had engaged a ship enroute to the start point and we went looking for the flashy red.  One of our inty's found him on a planet but died at long range before help could arrive.  A rupture was detached to hopefully lure in the cane.  The rupture couldn't get in point range so I was dispatched to provide support while a tackle ship was trying to bounce off celestials to warp in at short range.  I got jams on the cane but unfortunately he warped off before tackle could land.  The bait rupture went to repair armor and the fleet continued on it's way.

  I should mention that an additional duty I took up on the roam was relaying comm's to the fleet.  We had a pilot unable to get TS3 going so I offered to broadcast and type instructions.  Broadcasting wasn't that bad until I was requested to provide support away from the fleet.  I had a tough time relaying instructions while attempting to fly.  Several people said they appreciated the broadcasts and I'll recommend that continues in the future, but I think it's something that should be rotated around as it got old three hours later.

  The next action I was involved in occurred at an asteroid belt.  A small fleet of BC's and support engaged one of our scouts and we jumped in to help.  The targets were spread out but we managed to drop a drake and myrm.  I had jams on both but we had enough force I doubt I was needed.  We had a hard time keeping tackle going for some reason and it bit us in the butt several times though out the night.  I think most of our cruisers made a fairly significant commitment to tank mods so the overall speed was a bit low and there was little to no boosting to range of tackle mods.

  We continued on looking for a fight and eventually found a small fleet of BC's that were willing to engage.  The opposition was running harbingers, hurricanes, drake, and a few other ships as well.  We played hit and run with these guys at the gates for a bit.  We got kills, they got kills but they were fast getting back to the gates, and we couldn't keep them from warping out.  Finally they settled down at the sun and we warped to engage.  Our FC had us select a random range and I picked 100 for some odd reason.  I landed about 10km from the enemy fleet and here's where I made my first big mistake of the night.  I tried to jam instead of warping off and coming back.

  I died in a single salvo but got my pod out.  The rest of the fleet began moving towards the enemy and I relayed commands the best I could.  Our guys got a couple of kills I think, but in the end the enemy fleet played a great game with their speed and was able to pick off a few of our guys that were trying to get points.  We lost cheaper ships but were ultimately frustrated due to the underwhelming performance of T1 cruisers.  The roam moved into high sec and a new roam was started with heavier ships.  At this point I called it a night and left happy that I saw some action.

Observations:

BC's are the way to go for PVP.  Cruisers are focused too much and don't offer the solid mix of options that BC's do.  Which was somewhat expected but still a bit of a surprise.  Had we run into a cruiser fleet we would have had fun, but they don't seem to exist much in low sec.

Tackle needs work.  I'm not sure what the exact reasons were as I haven't spent any time trying to tackle people, but we couldn't keep our targets pinned.  I think one problem was enemy speed greater than our own, but I would have figured cruisers to be faster than BC's.

Warping to random range.  I'm not a fan.  I'd much prefer to warp as a group, or possibly two groups and have some support.  We got strung out and a few of us picked off because of range issues.  Combined with the fact that not everyone had tackle so even if they did hit the fleet they couldn't have stopped someone.

Summary:  I enjoy the roams I've been going on but I think I'm seeing some areas we need to improve.
Ship type distribution is getting better but it seems we still have dps ships without any form of tackle.
I'm wondering if squads should be adjusted based on capability and not hull type?