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 Drone Lands War: Etherium Reach Part 1

Jump Range Nerfs

This would be the spark that would set my former home ablaze like we had never thought it would.  The restrictions on jump ranges were/are huge in mitigating responses from the larger blocs in Eve.  I am for limited force projection though while reading this you may think I am not right in the head in being for it.

This is my memories (right or wrong to whomever reads I do not care) of our time in Etherium Reach from Renters to building a Coalition of Industrialists to defend their homes.  We thought ER was a place no one wanted, but us....Others thought it the perfect place to start because they thought the same.....

Its starts literally day one of the patch an upstart group called PFR with a noble goal of freeporting station in Nullsec for all to dock.  To each his own I guess, but thoughts are if it was meant for everyone to dock it would be Low/High Sec.  Neither here nor there so on to the post.....


It all started for us on November 4th 2014 with us finding out PFR had made a move to claim WPV-JN.  They had taken down the Sovereignty structures required to online their own TCU.  We were asked to kill it as we had really just started to grow and get ourselves ready to do PvP due to the new patch we took on the challenge.   We were not alone at the time a local lowsec group was helping us F0RCED ENTRY. a good group of pilots who you will hear more about later.  They had anchored the TCU so to deny them their claim we killed it and its defenders Battle Report.

I at least thought that would be the end of it our Land Lords don't have to come do anything job done we look better, and back to growing our alliance.  Oh how wrong I was!  They were tenacious to the point of absurdity/ignorance. 

We had got intel from a source on them moving a freighter with another attempt at placing another Sov. structure down.  We nearly had stopped them, but sadly we were to slow.... I burned my alt in a interceptor as fast as I could to get tackle and a warp in with help of ROC..  A snall fight with their small defense force was enough time for the freighter to offload, and secure its objective.  Battle report from that event.

At this time there were more groups either at the time scouting out the area Mostly Hammered, and even ROC. had ideals at this time to even try to take space.  With all these factions starting to bleed into ER we were asked to deploy and sport defending the front pocket of ER. So we deployed to C-4D0W. 

This would be our deployment area to defend ER from those coming in as best we could.  Now mind you we did have landlords who did come and help but rarely and only for the final timers normally so keep that in mind.  Though through our early successes we did something no one thought possible we grew a USTZ Renter coalition, and one had it been given more time could have done a lot of good things for the area.

Now to continue...

We fought with a T1 Doctrine of what we called the Mighty Maller, and the Moa.  Since most of us were new to PvP to easy the cost, and skill points needed we went these as our main line ships.  We wanted tank over DPS which helped us early, but proved to really make grinding anything painfully slow! With T1 and eventually T2 logistics we could hold the field far longer than we really should have been able to.  These were what I cut my teeth on as I learned to FC and take fleets out.

As things go people change sides and who you worked with are against you the next.  Seeing weakness in our landlords ROC. and F0RCED ENTRY. both went to either support PFR or do their own thing.  * I will not try to dig to deep on the politics here as my memory is terrible and I don't want to bog this post any more*

We lost WPV and surprisingly we had no idea that CT8K-0's station after the last invasion was never repaired so when PFR struck it was quick, and we woke up to PFR owning their first Freeport on 11 November 2014.  Now with them having a foot hold we were asked to be the force to make their work miserable, and to hit them everywhere.  We continued to pressure them with fights here, here with help from the best solo pvper I know Joffy!, Small things but it was building to one of the most defining fights for me personally as the largest battle I had FC'd. 

Though this isn't all we were battling a group called Anti-Social Club was trying to take space as we were called.  Oh at this point we were no longer renters per our land lords a major milestone for us and renewed our members, and helped us grow our new coalition.  This is one of my first FC battles, and with a ship I had little knowledge and use of the Ishtar.  The Battle Report and Video below.

 



 

 

We win the fight, and kill their attempt of hanging on to Sov in ER.  Then a few hours later we have to scramble to stop the take over of CL-IRS by a group all thought dead, and would eventually be dead again Ethereal Dawn TCU kill.



Now the first fight for CT8K-0 was not to happen.  PFR called for help, and had a NPSI group come and support them so we stood down knowing that we had one timer to win, and it was the one that mattered.  If you would like to know more about that please refer to PFR's Reddit.   The armor timer for the station was where we would make our stand, and one that would change the course of Eve for me, and my want to go full into FCing, and doing what I can to make my Alliance great.

Please see below video, and Battle report here for the down and dirty.  For me it was the largest fight I FC'd, and I was wide eye'd, but determined to fight and lose it all to try to win this fight.  At the time we formed 50 pilots from our Coalition, and were told Legion of Xdeath and/or Shadow of Xdeath were not going to be able to make the timer at all or if so late.  PFR called upon those who believed in their cause, and those looking to get into a fight which I think was their undoing in the end.  Notably TEST / Brave came through a new frigate Worm Hole with a maulus fleet which made our logistics group only able to lock out to 5k at best forcing us to ball up.  This with their other supporters and randoms brought the total if 300 pilots at its peak vs our 50.  PFR switched from their normal Caracal doctrine to Vexor Navy Issues which in my opinion a better choice, but I feel they just didn't have enough time in them to be very effective, and that I focused on their logi to help us drop their DPS quicker, and that caused them to leave the field early the first time.

So due to the Maulus's ships that failed to anchor up died or had to leave field and return later.  In the video any time you here me stop mid-sentence is our logi FC letting me know these issues.  They dual log on comms to avoid cross talk and allow me to call targets without them having to wait till I was done to relay information to the rest of the fleet. 

Yes I know a blue killed another blue I had no idea during the fight, and he like most of us was new.  Anyone that came to the fight and supported us I couldn't say anything bad about especially with the odds we were against so meh.  The Battle Report from Eve Kill as the Zkill doesn't show the total number of pilots.


We won little did we know that this would be the last good battle we would have as a coaltion, as a real enemy was lurking, and slowly approaching....

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