The Art of Oh Shit

One thing I have not mastered in my quest to become a qualified fleet commander is not freezing up by the out of the blue unexpected. Take last night for example...

I was FCing an Aideron Robotics open fleet roam and we were not finding too much to shoot at as the night progressed from an early wild and hairy start. We decided to try and get a tough fight against the local pirate group Soul Takers in Old Man Star so we reshipped the fleet into a cruiser level Rogue Squadron setup (i.e. armour drone cruisers supported by an Exequror wing). It took a while but we finally set out... only to land on the gate in Fliet to find a neutral fleet from EVE University.

Caught flatfooted and unprepared for a fight that I was not expecting for two jumps, I froze like a deer in headlights. They started engaging and I stammered out some orders but between gate guns and the enemy fleet we took it on the chin and lost several ships to the enemy firepower, including this sweet ride that I purchased just minutes prior. My instinct had been to jump through and get ready on the other side but I froze instead. Sad.

We reshipped and later on caught up to the EVE Uni fleet near Tama and after some positioning and sacrificing high ground in a plex to fight them at the sun, we clashed and this time we came out on top with some sweet revenge kills:

Being mentally prepared for the fight allowed me to call targets and respond appropriately (with a lot of useful guidance in the setup period from my CEO Marcel). The important lesson for me this time is to always be ready for the "Oh Shit" moment and follow my instincts.

Good fights EVE Uni!

Intense

Things continue to develop in these Sunday Night Open Fleets I've been running for Aideron.

Last night I found a fleet already started with a lot of people in it, but apparently some neighbours in Gal Mil were getting impatient waiting for an FC and didn't want to use Mumble and left soon thereafter. Dude, I just got here!

As I reformed the fleet, we started off in our usual eclectic mix of destroyers and T1/T2 frigs. We picked up a couple miscellaneous kills as we started off in Fliet including this neutral Vexor and his expensive pod.

BTW, if you are neutral in low sec and I see you on a stargate or a station, I'll be wary but probably not aggressive. But if you are on the gate of a plex or in a plex, you might as well wear a sign saying "Shoot Me Please!" and I will engage that shit all day long.

Back on track.

We started a roam and my forward scouts reported Brutix on a gate. As they tried to get it to engage and we set up on the other side of the gate, a whole related enemy fleet landed: Guardians, battlecruisers, cruisers, and battleships.

Holy crap.

We want that fight, but not in our little frig/destroyer fleet. We burned back to Fliet ahead of the enemy fleet and start reshipping into our Rogue Squadron cruisers with Vexors for DPS and at least 5 Exequrors for support. As we were almost ready, we lost track of the enemy fleet and had a bit of a panic that we were going to miss a fight when we thought "hey, maybe we should check Old Man Star?" Somehow the busy system two jumps from Fliet was forgotten. Sure enough, they were there, camping the Heydieles gate. We formed up on the other side, girded our loins so to speak, and jumped in.

We faced a fleet centered on two Armageddon battleships, flanked by a Myrmidon and a Brutix with three Ruptures and three Thoraxes, an Omen Navy Issue and Ishtar for bling, and backed by three Guardian logistics and an Exequror. We had seven Vexors, Marcel in his Dominix battleship, a Celestis, and five Exequrors as well as a smattering of smaller ships.

The fight was long and close quarters, with the Armageddon neutralizers playing havoc with our logistics and a few target ted kills on our Ogre II drones lowering our DPS, but our sheer volume of firepower overcoming the enemy reps and taking out the softer targets. It took twenty minutes, but finally they deaggressed and left the field to us.

After the final tally, we found we killed the Brutix, four Thoraxes, three Ruptures, a Stabber, and the Omen Navy Issue while losing two Algoses and two Atrons.

It was a great intense fight that could have gone downhill for us with one or two bad decisions. Big thanks to Marcel who provided valuable guidance to me in this fight as I am not as used to these larger battles than I am the smaller and simpler ones.

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Aideron Robotics is still recruiting. If you want to give us a try, feel free to join one of our Open Fleets that we have been holding Sunday evenings. We're looking to expand to other times so drop in Aideron Robotics channel and let us know if you are interested.

Welcome To The Danger Zone

Last night I was leading a Destroyer/Frigate fleet and we got word that allies in the Gallente Militia were going into a big fight with a rather famous local pirate group called SniggWaffe (training corp for Sniggeredly of Pandemic Legion) who have been living out of Kinakka in the Black Rise region.

We burned a few jumps to help out and jumped into a big fight in Innia with them and our GalMil allies. The Snigg fleet was flying a Thorax cruiser centre coupled with a significant wing of Exequrors as support. We targeted the enemy logi and threw our firepowered combined with our allies firepower and tried to take them down but to no avail. Their reps were spot on and more than enough to compensate for our damage. On the other side, our logi began to go down and the order was given to flee but not before a few of us were taken out.

We took our shattered fleet back to Fliet and after some discussion and communication with the other GalMil FCs, we up-shipped to cruisers using our Rogue Squadron Vexors (excepting Marcel in a Vexor Navy Issue and me in my old Ishtar) with our own wing of Exequrors and headed back for more pew.

We set up on a gate in Eha as our allied fleets had already engaged them and I waited for intel. Local spike, its Snigg. Where are they?

Suddenly a fleet of suspects warps in on us; the Snigg fleet arrived and its Exequrors and Celestises. I'm torn by indecision... should I engage? Wait for them to make a move? What if they jump and our fleet gets split?

Someone calls "point!" and my momentary paralysis is broken. I start calling targets, assigning my drones, locking up Exequrors. Primary, secondary, primary, secondary, overheat, spread points, primary, secondary... Calls of "Logi Jammed!" and broadcasts for armour ring out. I see my shields dip and I hit the broadcast button. Enemy Exequrors are wiped out and I start directing the fleet into the Celestises and its become apparent that we have won this round.

The rest of the enemy warps off and we kill off the stragglers. We lost one friendly, a non-Aideron pilot in our fleet who was in a Stabber Fleet Issue that got primaried and taken off before logi could react. All in all, a good result that could have gone badly had the SniggWaffe fleet still had been in their Thoraxes from earlier.

Good fight Snigg! See you in space.