AAR / Target Calling: The art of killing things in a Alpha doctrine.

 Alpha doctrines are not a new thing to Eve, and are one of the most fun doctrines to use that I have been a part of as of late.

Alpha doctrines tend to break down to who has the best position, and better numbers.  This is not always the case but for sake of this writing those are the things we will focus on.  I was also asked to do a AAR as well for the KLY-C0 fight, and my apologies for taking so long on it, but I will blend the 2 together as best I can. 

  I have not fully FC'd a fleet for CO2 as of this writing, and only really did some Algos roams. and corp roams around the area.  This day would be different as Cubeick and his secondary FC Joli Torem took out our rusty Rupture doctrine for a spin.  Ruptures are a  cheap alpha doctrine that can really punch above its weight given positioning, webs. and hitting not splitting damage.  Cubeick was set up as our anchor, and Joli our initial target caller which free's up the main FC to position the fleet properly so we apply max damage for the ammo type he wants us using.    We moved into KLY and engaged an initial Pandemic Horde Caracal fleet, and unfortunatly one of the first losses was the secondary FC Joli.  This left him without a target caller, and so I jumped in for better or worse it was time to get back to doing what I loved doing calling primaries.  

There is a pace to calling targets in a alpha doctrine, and since the primary FC is anchoring you have to find the right times to be calling targets and letting him call for micro-warpdrives or other positioning calls.  This makes things  a lot easier if the pair has worked together before (we had not till today), and you allow each other to speak as needed.   Once Joli goes down Cubeick asks for someone to call targets, and I go to work looking for high value targets first or things that will disrupt their fleet the most.  If those are not in range or viable you focus on DPS killing DPS from the other fleet helps your fleet survive if you are not volleying them off before reps land then look at picking logistics ships.  

I go into a mode when i call targets I start locking the target, and broadcast him using the right click broadcast target function.  (I have been doing that my entire Eve career, and it was going to bite me in the ass later.)  I kill what is close first since there were no high value targets on field that I could see so DPS was primary and we go to work on Caracals.  I call targets with a cadence once I have broadcasted and locked the primary I start locking the secondary while I see how our DPS applies and today it applied damn well.  When you are alpha'ing targets you have to have your secondary ready but keep a pace were folks are killing then locking the secondary this avoids people trying to split their DPS to shoot the secondary and possibly giving the primary a chance to get reps due to the split DPS.  So calling targets for this fleet when primary is (as I am locking then broadcast) first 3 letters of the first name or full name depending on how hard it is to say.  While I lock the secondary once that target gets to armor I am broadcasting the secondary this means by the time they are done locking the primary should be dead and all DPS should be applied to the new primary.  Should the primary get logi reps I call the secondary as primary, and keep moving, but keeping that one locked.  Once you have the temp for how the DPS is applying it becomes damn fun fleet with things dying one right after the other.  We crush their initial Caracal fleet, and then they come for round 2, and this is where I derp so hard I wanted to just log off.   While calling targets and using the right click method I hit remove cruiser from overview .........  Looking at it it is pretty damn easy to do if you are broadcasting targets as quickly as I was, and I boned it up bad!

So for me all that I could see on my overview was frigates so I called for free fire yet there was still a bunch of Caracals on grid.  After going crazy trying to figure out what I had done and got it fixed we went back to work chewing through Caracals, and token Cerberus.  During all this Cubeick would start to speak, and I would just broadcast instead of speaking over him so he could give a call for an align or reanchor.  It went as smooth as my derpiness allowed, and surprisingly we came out a bil a ahead, and I found my grove again.  Thanks to you Cubeick for being awesome, and hope we can work together soon.  

Oh a AAR I need to get good, and use the shortcut for broadcasting so I don't screw that up again.  Battle report is below!

Caracals vs Ruptures

The deserted wasteland Drone Lands

Where is Razor?

Where is The Initiative?



     These were the things I was thinking when we started taking objectives in Tenal.  After the first few objectives we all came to realize that Razor and INIT had both already moved a majority of their assets out of Tenal.  After speaking to a few former Razor folks (yes I did find Razor) they had started moving things out almost a month prior to our hitting Tenal about when World War Bee (WWB from here on out) kicked off.  The link covers more of the overall WWB stuff than I will here so check it out if you would like to know more about it.

Funny thing to note that PL/NC. would not blue us and would actually shoot at our fleets as we moved around to do either roams, or whatever else.  They would not shoot us for the major WWB operations, but even then I was skeptical.

    As I wrote before the EUtz would get the brunt of the bigger fights in WWB for Drone Walkers these were normally lead by Bruce Ernaga leader of inPanic or Jay Wright, We had a couple fights of note, but they were not DW pure objectives for the most part that I can remember.  I dug through my killboard and found the biggest fight I was in with DW and either Eve Kill is busted or it has a lot of stuff in it as it has been taking forever to load!  We made a huge error by bringing both Cerbs and hurricanes which led to us losing as much as the CFC.  With nearly a 1000 folks in local and brawled it out over what I cannot eve remember, but the fight was brutal for us.  Bruce lead us on this one and we the shield to be beat on while we did what we could to keep it close.  That was the more memorable battle that I recall, and there were chances we thought for bigger fights to see if the CFC would bite, and we brought our dreads out to play for these X-Large Ship Maintenance Array & X-Large Ship Maintenance Array  if you do battle reports you'll notice the CFC did not show, and to be honest I would not have either.  With a 1000 of the MBC, and a small cap fleet from the new comers to the WWB front there was no way the CFC would come and suffer their own personal B-R for what we may have destroyed in those XLSMA's.


    With all that going on Drone Walkers kept pushing and flipping systems in Tenal with minimal resistance at all past some that had clones they would hop in to whelp ships.  While flipping systems we killed towers a plenty and things were running pretty quick for us to flip the entire area in a little over 3 weeks.   At about the halfway point people started talking about what next, and what would we do with the space.  Well the space part was simple enough we would give it away to anyone willing and able to take it and live in it that was not Goons.  At least that was the initial notions.....

  For those looking XDeath had been making moves with fleets and Sov in and around Oasa.  Then once we declared Tenal fully conquered XDeath made their move.  It was capped off with a mail from Attakare a diplo from XDeath and controls the standings sheet..but before that since they had not kicked all the groups from the gc.mail list a mailing list XDeath uses to send mails to all renters/supporters.

Also warning this is google translated so my apologies!

Reset Drone Walkers
From: Karer II
Sent: 2016.04.10 17:09
To: gc.mail,

Greetings ladies and gentlemen.

Over the past few years we have carried out the practice of Space in dronregah young alliances or corporations wishing to establish an alliance. The only condition was - PVP. As practice has shown once again, people do not know how to appreciate the good. Greed, vanity, these vices turned the head of management of a number of alliances.

Of all who received dronregah Space are two of the alliance. This Alternate Allegiance and inPanic. Quite recently they organized a coalition Drone Walkers. This in itself is not that important, if not the number of their actions.

CEO inPanic Bruce Ernaga: "xdeath has no control over us anymore Inpanic, alts and kick dont have to listen to them anymore We are free..". Inpaniki are the second generation of traitors in Cobalt (damn region, if you know what I mean). Alliance Spears of Destiny, which was their predecessor received in Space cobalt in exchange for a promise to close the entrance to the dronregi from Vienna. Leaders of the alliance for a few months engaged in poaching sitizenov, a peace agreement with the attacking alliances region instead of countering them. As a result of the revolution which we have contributed to the reformed alliance inPanic. Apparently the leadership of the new alliance could not get rid of the virus of separatism. By its actions, it has brought the alliance to reset our part.

CEO Alternate Allegiance P Air: "im tired of being nice guy, thinking of changing tactics". Alliance started its journey from sitizenov NC .. Our cooperation enabled them to expand to an impressive value 3,300 pilots. During formation, as it turned out in the course of a large-scale investigation, the alliance did not disdain the direct theft of R64 moons pribiraniya their hands delicious systems podbivaniyu separatism other residents dronregov (eg recommendations tightening transmission Spacey), poaching sitizenov in stunning scale (about 500 pilots excluding other Citizen Alliance). Apparently it's his understanding "to be a good guy."

The guys from time to time were silent. Yes, they were helping in local conflicts that have been a part of their agreement. Now they just have declared independence and continue their destructive activities. Yes, during the war in Insmazere small contingents participated in dronregah alliances. Yes, they have played an important role in the final battle for the hub C-J6MT. However, what they have done and are doing now does not fit with the agreements that have been concluded with them.

A few days ago, the leaders of many alliances Drone Walkers coalition stated that they are in danger of losing their PVP-pilots and forced to begin active operations against the CFC to deter players. Such unanimity immediately aroused suspicions because the war in Insmazere some alliances are not even lit up. A few days later it became known that the alliances Drone Walkers stupid loot received for the contract against the CFC. Provided that they are, through the efforts of our diplomats, are included in the agreement not to invade between us and the CFC is - a direct blow to the agreements of all kinds. Do not be afraid of these words - a betrayal for money and nothing blatant lie.

Stands alliances with the following members of the Drone Walkers, will be dropped April 10, 2016 at 18:00 eve time:
* Alternate Allegance
* InPanic
* Phoenix Company Alliance
* Bloodline
* District85
* The Explicit Alliance
* Just a Game
* Requiem Eternal
* BlackNovaMercenary Alliance

We tear them all the agreements and begin to attack their systems. If someone and tired of being a nice guy, so it's me

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

standings reset
From: Attakare
Sent: 2016.04.10 17:21
To: alistair en Tilavine,  Apoc42023,  Argus Sorn,  bcpror9981,  Beguiler,  Bruce Ernaga,  Giribaldi,  hyprviper1,  Iceburn1,  Juno2010,  KwaLevu,  MatthewMN,  ThorWotran,  Z air,

Following message is a notice of standings reset between GemiCo and all the alliances that are part of Drone Walkers from 10.04.2016 1800 ET.
Maleficent activity of several alliance leaders of Drone Walkers prevents any further partnership between us. Contact GemiCo coalition diplo for details.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


 
    My guess was it was XDeath were waiting for was for us to fully be stuck in, and in a worse place to redeploy and defend ourselves.  As to some of the things said in the mail I cannot comment on anything, but ALTS things.  ALTS did a lot of the entosis work in Insmother and from what I gathered a huge amount of it.  So the minor praise there is ignorance to the fact of the work they put in, and to the other items listed about poaching was funny enough.  They said we took effectively thousands of pilots! Yea right........ you mean picked up groups or pilots that could barely hold on and brought them in sure.   Though looking at it from their point they wanted ammo to fire up their war machine.  As to the R64 I am not sure on, but after speaking to leadership I am sure we did not steal and when asked it was a matter of we had it and a new group moved in then suddenly wanted it and said no.  If that is stealing what we already had then ya we are thieves.  The funny thing is the other blocks owned more of the higher end moons in drones than we ever did under alt corps.

  4 days later would come to cease fire which was just a cover so XDeath to make a better position for them selves and buy more time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CEASE-FIRE
From: Z air
Sent: 2016.04.14 13:16
To: Alternate Allegiance,

Dearest ALTS,

As of this moment, a CEASE-FIRE Order Has been given by Drone Walker Command.

ALL HOSTILITIES TOWARDS XIX/XWX Sov and Structures will Cease Immediately Until Further Notice

More information will be coming

Awaiting Positive Confirmation of the Above

Regards
AIR

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It did not even last an hour....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

xwx, xix attacking
 From: Joell
Sent: 2016.04.14 14:25
To:

What is going on? Requiem Eternal is still being aggressed by Legion of Death and Shadow of Death.

The deserted wasteland "Drone Lands" Prologue

Be warned there is no TL:DR for this so sorry/not sorry.



    So some people @wilhelm2451 and @Sarag0ssa both asked for me to go further into talking about the war in Drones and the things that went on. I hope I do it justice, but just know I was not in the higher echelons so there is tinfoil/2nd hand info on my part so apologies in advance. I will list all the groups as they come up and I remember them with links to eve gate once, and will most likely go to a short form name or ticker for the remainder of talking about this. I will also cover some things from before the reset that I think has a part or impact on it.  

    So let us go back in history a bit to the eviction of The Older Gamer Alliance (from here on out known as TOG) from their pocket in Oasa.  Legion of xXDeathXx had come down and said that TOG had not lived up to their requirements and were to be removed from the area.  We in Alternate Allegiance really did not like this, and looked for ways to avoid it completely to even helping to pay rent for them to buy them some time to get sorted.  TOG rejected the deal so we were left to go after a group I had come to like since I was asked to join ALTS.  So most of the non-renting groups in and around Oasa started operations to push TOG out of their pocket which we all still call the old TOG pocket.  Our first operations would bit start till near the end of the first week in February, but as with XDeath's tradition as soon as they reset their members went to go pick fights.  The note worthy groups at the time for this were:

Alternate Allegiance - ALTS
BlackNova Mercenary Alliance - BNMA
Bloodline
Brotherhood of Spacers - BOSS
District-85 -  D85
inPanic
Just A Game.  JAG
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork -Kick
Phoenix Company Alliance  - POCA
Requiem Eternal - Req
The Explicit Alliance - Xplicit

XDeath did come out, but not with anything note worthy fleet wise from what I can remember.  We had a few skirmishes with TOG, but TOG had already begun the process of moving once they got the reset notice losing an Aeon in LowSec sadly on the way out.  Honestly there were not really any good fights here past someone from Bloodline dropping their Titan while I was FCing to try and kill a Naglfar which did not work, since you know they didnt let the FC(me) know what was going on so ended up losing a Loki for their trouble....

(tinfoil) In my mind this is the start to the growing problem we could see that XDeath was looking at groups and looking to push them out to help stabilize the area in fear of a civil war.

Though we still had what I thought was a good relationship with XDeath we held an event called BWF party.  Where we spent about 3-4 days to include the weekend gate camping and hopping on XDeath fleets with my goal being top killers in the area!  We were asked to help keep points on a hotdrop in Oijanen and help with a fight in Geminate with some XDeath pets that got grabbed by Volta in their carriers (Battle Report).   Time passed we did some other things some guys went to Fountain for a bit of fun with Brotherhood of Spacers,  So ALTS was kind of in limbo some people looking for more content than just defense fleets that I had been running so we had people out doing their own thing in different parts of Eve.

Time passes and we come to the brink of World War Bee.

There had been rumors that war with the goons was coming, and we were all talking about if we would get involved.  I figured we would not be able due to our ties to Legion of xXDeathXx and their relationship with the Imperium (I call them CFC or GSF still so you will see it here sorry).   

**Now some of this is where this is word of mouth kind of information or things I tried putting together myself so may or may not be entirely correct**

XDeath had a NIP with the CFC meaning basically no SOV//Structure attacking, and so when WWB kicked off it basically kept the larger portion of Drones out of the fight in regards of assisting the MBC.  XDeath from what I could tell could not and would not openly support the CFC or be the next in line after the CFC were attacked. Early in the war Mercenary Coalition reached out to ALTS leadership if we would be interested in coming out for the war.  Other drone residents wanted to get involved for various reason some out of hate for the CFC others just for the content and be apart of what I thought would be the biggest war Eve has seen.  Man was I wrong on that one!

Then came Fafer he would be persona behind a lot the got the Drone alliances into WWB in a big way.  Fafer came up with the idea to gather us into a coalition later to be named Drone Walkers.

    At that point the alliances got together we got a name, but there was a hindrance XDeath's NIP that applied to all of us especially groups like inPanic who wer`e named in it specifically.  So the leaders got things rolling then Karer turned the key so to speak.  Karer is the leader of XDeath from what I have gathered the yes/no man so to speak, even though UAxDEATH is the defacto person when people think of leadership with XDeath.  Karer went to every Alliance on Skype and gave each personally the go for to take Drone Walkers against the CFC.  Warning that if we lose and they come after our takings in Drone Lands/where ever they would not assist or support.   With that Drone Walkers formed up and mobilize to HB-5L3 on the edge of Tenal.  

This is a easy choice for staging since InPanic lived there and was close to their primary staging area.  We took the doctrines that were fixtures of the time for Eve primary the doctrines to rule fights more often than not.  Most if not all the big fights were Euro time zone so that hampered my participation in the bigger fights.   Tenal was at the time owned by Razor & The Initiative who we expected to put up a nasty defense, and one to be honest I did not think we had the ability to fully push them out.  I kept warning that these are not just push overs as INIT (the initiative) are pretty damn good PvP group in my opinion, and Razor has as many people we did coming to fight.  

 Drone Walkers would come to find that the CFC for the most part would not even try major operations against the Money Badger Coalition let alone the new comers to the ring DW. Though DW would come to find its own trials of being a new coalition soon, and in some political intrigue/drama that could be a best seller.

Peace in the Drone Lands and other random thoughts.

      I've heard the stories of the epic fights between Solar, and Xdeath since I join my currently alliance in null sec.  I've been flying with Xdeath for awhile now, and they have some good people, and their leader is one of the best people I have spoken with (well skype'd with).  Solar even with their hate for Xdeath, I figured would get pushed out of the Drone Lands at least or would come to terms like Tri, did, and prepare for Fozzie Sov. 

See this, and this for more info on it.

My thoughts on this is that this coalition will hold its space less a full on incursion from the Imperium comes to call.  Which could happen though after they raid Provi, but I will let others debate on who will attack what and where.  Could this bring some of the other Russian groups in as well maybe?  From what I see most would most likely not want that, and cry BLUE DOUGHNUT WAAAAHHH!!   I am not sure how I feel on the growing coalition as of yet.  Tactically it makes sense, with as much space as Xdeath owns it helps to have others to call on to shore up areas as needed.  Space will be lost I am sure but much less so with Tri in the mix and their PvP prowess with the Xdeath hammer behind them.  My alliance has an different situation in all of this that I wont get deep into, but its different to say the least, and one that makes things difficult at times.

 

 

 

With the changes to Sov, and the new missile buffs I am looking forward to trying out some Sacrilege fleets.  Using the new missile mods you should be able to do some fun things with them, but we shall see!  As it's not in any of our doctrines so it may be awhile sadly.....  Oh and Caracals... Caracals everywhere!  Seems like every time I undock there is a Caracal gang running around, and even on a Spectre fleet we ran into a Caracal gang.  They are cheap, and very damn effective right now, and it makes sense with the Heavy Missile buff that are getting a lot of love.  Myself and Wilhelm Arcturus were excited for the changes, and we wonder when the Drake's will roam once more.

 

Fozzie Sov seems to have everyone terrified or really excited.  I will wait and see what happens, because at this point getting worked up over something that has not happened yet is a waste of time.  My hopes it will bring small groups in to own their little area and to work at holding it.  I have my worries, but till I see what happens I really cannot say if it will change anything. 

 

What will I be doing till then?  I have no idea really past trying to earn isk to buy some ships for the new doctrines.  The shield Ishtar is dead "Thank you Space Pope!", and it seems the Armor Ishtar is a thing though.  I don't think it will work nearly as well as a Armor doctrine, but time will tell if the Ishtar will have a roll in the coming months.

 

Well I have a CTA to attend sorry for the lag RL, and Military training have kept me away.

 

Orion

 

 

 





Lead, Follow, or GTFO

Sorry so for the lack of posting, but RL has been....difficult to say the least, and with the recent patch to Eve, and what this post is about has got me going and 100mph.

This is what was bred into me for 4 years, and something that sticks with me to this day.  We have great people in my Alliance, but getting someone to take charge during a fight at times became an issue.

I am still new to the game, and with only a year in I still feel unqualified to be CEO, and now a FC (Fleet Commander).  My first try of it was a nasty one, and I welped about 600mil worth of ships against a Snails and Frogs gang.  If you do not know who Snails and Frogs are they a Worm Hole group that can give you a nasty fight if you do not respond quickly, and fight on your terms.

LEAD:

Taking charge is key, and setting the tone of who you are going to be as a FC/Leader in general has to be first and foremost.  Do you want zero chatter? Loose and free comms?  Whatever you decide make sure everyone knows as soon as you take control so there is no confusion.  DO NOT! tell your fleet (we are all going to die).... I do not understand why you would do that, even if you know you are going into a fight that you will lose.  Take the fight like you are going to win always, and the reason for this is you'd be surprised how people react even in the face of a losing fight, and what can be accomplished.  Even if you are unsure about a command or what you are about to do act like it's something you've done a 100 times.  Confidence like that even if it does not work out helps show that you are not second guessing yourself.  As soon as you do that they will start to second guess you.

FOLLOW:

This is really the hard part in my opinion as getting people to follow you, is not easy especially in Eve Online.  As trust is worth more than PLEX at any given point, and once gained is a powerful tool.  To you all fleet members follow if you have questions ask just make sure its not during an active part of a fleet.  Educate yourself if your FC, Corp, Alliance, and so on are not so you can be a better asset to the group.  If you do not like the way the FC is running a fleet wait till after or just bow out early if you can.  Disrupting a fleet can get everyone killed and/or kill the moral of the fleet.

GTFO:

Like it says get out if you are not willing to do either.  If you want to be a solo pilot thats great nothing wrong with that, but in a corp/alliance you've got to be able to do one of the above.  If you cant your not helping anyone.  Eve is all about helping helping each other....or helping destroy one another..

Orion