Welcome to the Quonset Hut. First a little about myself. I’m
a long-time Eve-Online player since 07. I’ve done a lot of piloting over those
years, and I’ve been FCing for a couple of them. I joined Gallente Factional
Warfare about two months ago. And I’ve had nothing but fun since!
I wanted to start this blog for two reasons:
First -- I wanted to have a place to express some thoughts
about Eve-Online.
Second – I wanted to use it as an instructional tool for our
newer Fleet Commanders in Factional Warfare.
When I’m part of a fleet with interesting command choices
and good examples of classic fleet command scenarios, I’ll make some posts about
it. I’m hoping also to do some video editing, and fraps some of these fights.
So without further Adieu, I give you a tale from The Quonset
Hut!
The Trickle Down Effect:
One of the biggest problems an FC faces is losing fleet
concentration. When an FC loses control of his fleet, and his fleet members get
over eager, or aren’t all in the same place at the same time things go
sideways, fast.
Our fleet:
About 12 frigates, 4 logistic Navitas, and the rest a
mixture of Tristans and Atrons.
Their Fleet:
Between 8 and 10 pilots in a mixture of frigates, cruisers,
and a… battleship?!
So we jump into the area around Asakai, A system well known
for really bad escalations. And tonight we were about to get our own epic
little battle. A story of how a few frigates that could laid some hurt down on
the battlefield. Our fleet was roaming, and we had just gotten a pretty shiney
Stratios kill when a pair of wild Caracals appeared on the other side of the
gate inside Asakai. At this point we got presented with our first decision in
this fight. It was possible that both caracals could do a lot of damage to our
fleet if we let them concentrate their damage. Additionally, if we split our
logistics we could find ourselves unable to repair the damage coming off them.
However, I wasn’t going to let a little risk discourage a fight, especially one
with as much uncertainty as a pair of Caracals.
We had seen a Caldari Militia fleet in the area just a few
minuites before, but they had ran away from us, so It didn't occur to me that
we would be setting up for something bigger that a frigate blob vs what I
though was a couple of cruisers. I ordered our fleet minus our logi and our
forward scout to engange one of the Caracals and force him through to Asakai. I
spent the next minute listening to nail-biting com chatter from my logi trying
to keep the tackle up. I’m even hearing that remote repair modules are being
burned out trying to keep him alive in the face of the absolutely withering DPS
from a RLML Caracal.
The timer expired and I jumped the fleet in. The fight has
been progressing pretty badly up until now. Our scout had managed to get points
on the Caracal, but nothing else, and he was being ganged up on by the Caracal
and a couple of frigates. I called the frigates primary. Two reasons: One, the
DPS on a RLML Caracal is pretty shitty, even against frigates. And two, the
tanks on them are nuts. So I called the frigates primary. We ate them up pretty
fast, and then as we were finishing off the Caracal, the fight starts to
escalate.
A Vexor shows up on field, and its tanked to fuck. Not only
are we shooting the exact wrong damage type, but he’s got a 1600 mm plate on it
meaning that we’re chewing on a nasty thick steak. (Ironically his fit is
pretty close to our doctrine Vexor, its weird being on the wrong side of a Vexor).
I’m not sure if this was the best primary to call, or if I made the right
decision in engaging him the way we did. He turned out to be double web scram
fit, so our ships being tight and fast on him wound up being a bad choice, and
he did get one of our logi frigates as a result. However, unfortunately for him,
he lost a 3 billion ISK pod in the
process.
While we were dealing with this Vexor, a handful of frigates
showed up, and we started making short work of them. Then one of the Caracals
shows back up on field, repaired and ready for a fight. We give it to him, and
a minute later we’re serving fresh cooked Caracal for dinner. One of the decisions that I feel was important in all this was calling for the Atrons to split fire on to frigates while the Tristans did damage onto slower cruisers. This tactic let us wrap up the fight much more quickly. We think the
fight is done, and we start looting the field and bunching back up on the gate.
Suddenly the two Caracal pilots reappear but this time one of them in flying a
Navy Caracal. Again, a rapid light missile launcher fit. But while we’re
engaging them the most spectacular thing of all happens. A Megathron shows up
on the other side of the gate. I have some guys force him through, and we
proceed to fight him in Asakai. We’re now in a pretty nasty fight, between some
pretty mean frigate killing ships.
A brief history of the Megathron: widely known as the only Gallente battleship worth flying solo, the Megathron is a shockingly good
anti-support ship. While you might think the old potato boat would be better,
the Dominix suffers from its lack of ability to specialize in one source of
damage thanks to its drone-centric focus, but the fact that it needs guns to
match the DPS output of a megathron, and the fact that it needs all its lows
for tank (usually). So if you wanted to pick a Gallente battleship to kill
frigates, you go with the Megathron. Its ability to fit a full rack of
blasters, a large neut, and pretty decent plating gives it the projection, the
ewar and the tank to kill an entire fleet of frigates if its flown right.
And if the frigates are idiots. But we weren't.
After a visual inspection confirmed that the Megathron wasn't
a smart bombing mega, I made some pretty quick decisions. I decided that we
either wanted to be far far away from the mega, or right up in its face.
Because we were being peppered by Caracals at range, I decided that they were
going to die first. So we burned out after the Caracals. Leaving the Megathron
behind, we took down both caracals, then turned back on the mega.
It was all down hill from there. The fight ended, and GF’s
were had in local. In the end, we had killed 13 enemy ships, and lost a total
of 3.
So the main lesson is this: Don’t trickle your fleet! But
here are a few other things I learned.
First – I made a mistake turning my entire fleet on the
caracal at the beginning. This decision almost cost us a ship at the very
beginning, and most definitely cost us a logi later on in the fight.
Second – A gang of well trained frigates and some logi is
better than shiny ships. I've been watching a lot of shiny doctrines die to a
coordinated t1 fleet. The reality is that unless the faction ship gives you an
extra slot, or some magical bonus you didn't have before, they’re really not
that useful. That Navy Caracal wasn't any more effective than the regular one,
and the added EHP meant nothing because there was no logi on the field.
Do you have some thoughts about this fight? I’d love to hear
them.
