52 replies to this topic

[Corywyn]

what was good? what was bad? always looking to improve

[Zaknapan]

Cool class... Looking forward to the roam tomorrow! Thanks instructors!

[Vayio]

what was good? what was bad?
always looking to improve

I felt the class was excellent and really covered the basic fundamentals of fleet warfare. The sections of fitting and fleet movment was informative and well presented. Corywyn and Esbear are both extremely knowledgable and conveyed their information in a clear and concise mannor. My only gripe is sometime Esbear's mic got cut off on my end so it was difficult to hear him at times. The highlight of the class for me was the 3rd section. I learned the most from dzu's lecture on recon and there was alot of useful information that I never knew before.

A few suggestions that I have:
1) Teaching students how to get out with their pods
2) Solo roaming/getting into fights

Overall, I rate PVP-Basic at 10/10!

[Madbullogna]

Excellent class. For me, the angular approach exercise was the most eye-opening. I know I have lots of practice to do on it, but it helped me understand how to approach much better than I did before. Time to start practicing on rats, asteroids, cans, anything I can find. Overall, a GREAT class. I only wish work wasn't prohibiting me from going ont he roam tomorrow. I look forward to getting in on the next Basic roam. o/

[Esbear]

what was good? what was bad?
always looking to improve

I felt the class was excellent and really covered the basic fundamentals of fleet warfare. The sections of fitting and fleet movment was informative and well presented. Corywyn and Esbear are both extremely knowledgable and conveyed their information in a clear and concise mannor. My only gripe is sometime Esbear's mic got cut off on my end so it was difficult to hear him at times. The highlight of the class for me was the 3rd section. I learned the most from dzu's lecture on recon and there was alot of useful information that I never knew before.

A few suggestions that I have:
1) Teaching students how to get out with their pods
2) Solo roaming/getting into fights

Overall, I rate PVP-Basic at 10/10!

I'll have to look into the mic I guess...

[cr8r]

I'll have to look into the mic I guess...

speaking into it will garner you better results.

[Esbear]

I knew I was doing something wrong.

[Rhoy]

It was a great class! Learned a lot that I cannot wait to have a chance to use. I had never fitted anything other than a point and web before this, so it was helpful to learn about other types of Ewar. One thing that I thought was not very clear... Adding your ship to the fleet tool was a little confusing. I did not know that I needed to remove the tags from what I had copied until someone posted it in fleet chat. Once I removed </url> and the text up to fitting it worked great. The roam was great. Loved seeing bubbles in action. Can't wait for you guys to have a WolfPack class!

[savlon]

Excellent roam, plenty of targets (thanks victims). Was very impressed with the communication between recon and the FC. Looking forward to participating in the more advanced classes.

[Caldak]

Thanks to the die hards. The last 3 way fight was good.

[Razires]

Thanks to all who stuck it out. Went out with a blast!

[Prudance]

Thanks, as alumni only did the roam which was awesome. Syndicate seems to better target wise than the area for the last class that left from Tanoo. Tons of good fights. Thanks for FC'ing glepp and Caldak. The final roam with the 20 or so of us was amazing. The fight with the cruiser gang was the perfect way to end the night. Thanks to both FC's and many thanks to various Covops, bait, recon, dictors Still waiting/looking forward to WolfPacks

[O'Kais]

Thanks for the outstanding class, Agony.

Day one was a good balance of "classroom theory" and prac app, but I'll agree with the others when I say I wouldn't mind some more one-on-one time trying to figure out how to use the Agony Fleet Manager tool. For those of us with timestamps on, it doesn't work correctly unless we parse some information off the Copy+Paste (which should be covered for the next batch of students), specifically everything before 'fitting' plus the '</url>' on the end. I did notice a few discrepancies between the reading material and the information taught by the instructors (where should we send corrections to?), but it wasn't enough to break the overall flow and content of the class itself.

As for Day two, being a UAS Operator and NATOPS Instructor for the US Marine Corps, I must say I was very impressed with the professionalism, and the timely and accurate tactical picture painted by the fleet's CovOps pilots. Seriously, you guys have inspired me to go CovOps that much more since taking this class. Major props to dzu, Toran, and the other CovOps pilots for being the unseen eyes and ears of the fleet. In addition, the FC Glepp, and 'Bait Commander' Caldak have set the bar for all future Commanders. Zero hesitation, amazing situational awareness, good judgment/forethought, and an excellent job directing a fleet of ~80 frigates for maximum effect.

All in all, outstanding class and outstanding roam. You've turned my 1:1 and complete lack of experience/confidence into a 23:1 EWAR pilot who knows what he needs to do to to get the job done, and has a deeper understanding of all the puzzle pieces it takes to piece together in order to FC properly. Now, I can go back to my Corporation to train my pilots (and definitely refer them back here), with some know-how and without playing too many guessing games.

Eagerly awaiting the next Wolfpacks class (and subsequent CovOps class + Alumni roams),
O'Kais

[Aethena]

Really enjoyed the class and the roam. I learned a great deal, and it solidified concepts I'd read about but didn't fully grasp. Dzu's recon/scanning session was my favourite, though I got a lot out of everything. Disappointed I couldn't stay for the second half of the roam, but the first half was excellent. I was tremendously impressed by the professionalism of glepp and all of the leaders of the roam – it showed me that I have much to practice and learn. Looking forward to Wolfpacks and the other advanced classes, as well as future roams. Definitely worth getting up at 3.30am for! Thank you Corywyn, Esobear, dzu and all the Agony folks who made it happen.

[Vjorn]

Stepping in here to apologize for my sudden disappearance 45 min into the roam. But, I had 2 BSOD's within 10 min of each other before/after the first fight; and I decided it wasn't worth it to subject all to my problems. Looking at the PVP-U kb, ya'll had a blast Hopefully, in the next few weeks I'll have a new system built that will handle Agony roams.......and even Plants and Zombies!!! 5yo laptop and Eve ftl... Vj

[glepp]

All right students, here comes something of an AAR for the fleet.

As FC, let me just start by saying i had a blast, and it was a pleasure flying with each and every one of you.

I'd like to extend some gratitude to our alumni who are always willing to step up and play bait, chase tackles and generally be helpful. Good to have you along as always. As Caldak said at 2 in the morning, we expect more from our alumni than from our first time students, and you always deliver.

I'd also like to thank the guys from Agony who took time out to help with the roam. Some special mentions are in order. Firstly, Caldak, thanks for getting up at three in the morning with your cuppa to help me FC this madness. Scondly, our scouts Dzu, Toran and Mandy who did awesome covops work to keep a steady stream of targets coming, without ever getting to shoot anything and constantly getting bossed around with "probe this", "get me a drop on that". Child also needs a thank you for taking the time to place picket scouts before the roam and tripleboxing his skirmisher with two alts. And finally, the rest of the bunch. You know who you are, skirmishers, chasers, dictors etc. Grea work.

As for the fleet itself, very smooth. Any pvp basic roam that spans three pages on the class killboards is a win in itself, but we also got to demonstrate the effectiveness of a hydra frigate fleet to its fullest, which I'm very happy with.

I'll do a rundown of some of the fights we got.

1. Our first fight in 3KNK against BPLAN. They had a gatecamp of about 10-15 cruiser/BC hulls, with logistics and force recon support.
Caldak set the stage with the bait group while we held the fleet a little behind. We brought the main fleet into the +1 system just as Caldak was going through, and they held cloak and then burned back and bubbled them as we were landing. Getting them agressed and preventing them warping off. A fair few of them managed to burn out of the bubble and escape, but we managed to grab a Sleipnir, a Cynabal, a basilisk and two battlecruisers plus pods. We lost something like 3-4 frigs and a dictor, demonstrating how effective distributed ewar and transversal velocity can be. Kudos to BPLAN for fighting well.

2. We then had some random ganks and general roaming before running into a goonswarm fleet in 31-MLU which we chased down to K5. I would expect goons to be all to happy to engage a frigate fleet, but instead they were clever goonies and did their best to dictate the engagement to their advantage. Their FC was good and managed to split our bait squad far enough off our main fleet that they could burn away and do what drakes do, engage from range. We were unable to get a tackle on them and ended up playing station games for a bit. They got some kills on us, all we got was one stinking drake that strayed away from their fleet. Kudos to them, well played.

3. PC9 shenanigans. A great fight, one of the best of the evening. Basically, these guys from Rubicon Legion had a gatecamp on the JH- gate in PC9. We baited them and bubbled them and then split the fleet over both sides of the gate as two battleships, a Hyperion and a Maelstrom were playing gate games (active tankers, they were able to tank us for quite a while bouncing back and forth on the gate). We killed all their friends, even a sniping Eagle and some drakes. They tried to bomb us repeatedly, only to lose their bombers to some fast tackle and deeps, while killing notihng. While we were playing with the active tanked BS, they brought in three smartbombing BS into the middle of our fleet, but most people were able to keep out of range, so we only lost 3-4 frigs to their bombs, while killing them all. In the end, we killed the active tanked Maelstrom while the Hyperion, dishonorable git that he was, decided to self-destruct to deny us the killmail. Silly bugger. Otherwise, good fights were shared in local.

4. The fight on the 97X gate in M2. Killboard mixes this fight with a later one, but we killed like 4 BCs and a BS, losing only glepps Jag and a couple other frigs. Great fight, kudos to them for engaging.

5. The final fight before i went to bed, against Self Destruct in M2-. We were actually unaware of their 10-man BC gang and just randomly warped the fleet into them. Think we were a bit tired, all of us. Well, still crazed on bloodlust, we just engaged them then and there. Lost half the fleet, killed 3 BCs and a blackbird. Caldak went down early, so i had to take over calling targets from my Ares. In the end, we lost all our dps ships, so a tactical withdrawal was made. Hope not too many were tackled by them. I find their comment in local after we disengaged rather amusing:
[ 2011.08.07 00:26:48 ] Captain Cheerios > I love how you guys pay agony to die xD
[ 2011.08.07 00:26:58 ] Captain Cheerios > For yourselves to die

And with that, I bid you all adieu. Thanks for coming, it was my pleasure.

Vroom Vroom

Edit: Please feel free to ask questions or give your impression of the fights and roam.

[Petra]

Absolutely Brilliant couple of days, I learn't a lot about fleet ops and the reasons behind why certain things worked and others didn't. and it left me with a lot to think about ( my head hurt lol) As for the roam, you guys where amazing, previously I had been in a couple of fleets last year when my old corp got war dec'd we where the ones running away, getting station camped, bubbled etc. It was sooooo nice to be on the other side for a bit as for the Comms, bait, cov-ops and recon etc, what can I say it was brilliant and good to see how professionals do it Grepp was great and very clear for us newbies, feeding us just the right amount of information so we didn't suffer from info-overload, I knew exactly what was wanted at any particular time, and where I should be. The last roam with Caldak was more difficult as he treated us in a more advanced manner expecting us to use what we had learnt with grepp and to act a bit more independently, just right for re-enforcing the lessons learnt Overall I lost 2 frigates and a destroyer, one frig and the destroyer to drones and the other frig to a smartbomb, but they cost me very little and I didn't get Podded. Didn't manage to make any kills so my kills are still zero but got in several good hits and I know I nearly got one of the drakes, leaving it with just that last little bit of structure that someone else got, but hey ho the luck of the draw. I'll definitely try to get out on the next basic roam as an alumni, I'm determined to get that first kill. On the roam 9 hrs straight playing eve and it felt like just a couple of minutes! Petra

[Kaeda Maxwell]

First off thanks for the roam awesome as always! I do have a suggestion however, I've been on a couple of roams as an alumni now, and every single time somebody messes up being agressed or not. While that is to be expected with people who are new to PvP, there may be a way around it. Why not use the terms 'yellow boxing' and 'red boxing' instead? It wouldn't be hard to include it in the class materials and since it's descriptive of what actually happens in the overview harder to 'misread'. When somebody says; "Kohana, Hurricane - John Do has red boxed me" there's really no way for that not to be clear I think. Just my two cents hope its useful!

[Esbear]

Didn't manage to make any kills so my kills are still zero but got in several good hits and I know I nearly got one of the drakes, leaving it with just that last little bit of structure that someone else got, but hey ho the luck of the draw. I'll definitely try to get out on the next basic roam as an alumni, I'm determined to get that first kill.

On the roam 9 hrs straight playing eve and it felt like just a couple of minutes!

Petra

looks like 21 kills to me

Getting a killmail is just icing on the cake, not getting that but getting on it saves you the trouble of posting it.

[Vayio]

For the first fight, was there any advantage for the basilisk to be in the bubble with enemy gang? It just seemed like it would be instant primary for any gang that jumped in. Also, I noticed that we essentially had the following types of gangs flying about: 1. Scouts 2. Skirmishers 3. Main Fleet 4. Bait squad I undertand the role of scouts, bait and the main fleet. Are the skirmishers like scouts, but not flying around in covops, looking to get into fights and providing recon? Were they flying mostly dictors or just normal frigs/assault ships? I really had a blast in the roam. It was really well organized and I was really impressed by the quality of scouting information that was relayed back. I would also like to thank the fleet for not shooting me when I came back from a disconnect . I am definitely looking forward to the next roam and hopefully taking the wolfpacks class.

[Dior Saursi]

For the first fight, was there any advantage for the basilisk to be in the bubble with enemy gang? It just seemed like it would be instant primary for any gang that jumped in.

Also, I noticed that we essentially had the following types of gangs flying about:

1. Scouts
2. Skirmishers
3. Main Fleet
4. Bait squad

I undertand the role of scouts, bait and the main fleet. Are the skirmishers like scouts, but not flying around in covops, looking to get into fights and providing recon? Were they flying mostly dictors or just normal frigs/assault ships?

I really had a blast in the roam. It was really well organized and I was really impressed by the quality of scouting information that was relayed back. I would also like to thank the fleet for not shooting me when I came back from a disconnect . I am definitely looking forward to the next roam and hopefully taking the wolfpacks class.

A scout is primarily around to provide intel on enemy gangs, drops on fleets, etc. A skirmisher is more focused on tackling a target, actually holding something long enough for the fleet to arrive and engage.

[Bamar]

Scouts are the FC's eyes, skirmishers are his/her fingers.

[Zaknapan]

I had a very good time especially during the roam! From the first fight to the last, I loved them all. Even the one with the three smartbombers that got me podded ;-). Never a better learning experience than a harsh one I always say! I must say that listening in to the FC with all the recon reports coming in gave it just that extra bit of excitement and involvement. Never take that out! It makes the difference between being a soldier and really being part of a team! This is a 10 out of 10 in regard to quality, learning and fun! Thank you for giving me this experience. I will most certainly be back for more roams as Alumni, but will also be back for more classes! Cheers, Zaknapan

[roigon]

Great class, had lots of fun on the roam. As earlier said by petra, glepp was very clear on what everyone should be doing and where, made it very easy to get into the groove of things. Caldak expected more out of the students but after ~5 hours of roam as "practice" it was still easy enough to follow if one paid attention, for me the highlight was the the smart bombing BS's and the last roam with 20 odd people . Looking forward to a chance at the wolfpack classes, and the next basic roam as an alumini.

[AkJon Ferguson]

Thanks to the scouts, skirmishers and interdictors, as always.

Was one of the better roams lately (and I bailed at the 6.5 hour mark.)

The 2 friendly fire incidents were regrettable (well, 3, but the third one was deliberate.) I'll try to go over the class list ahead of time in the future so I can more readily distinguish friendlies. I recognized Talos' name from previous roams, but the order was given (and there's no law against running into former students/alums on a basic roam.)

The battlecruiser fight at the 6.5 hour mark was a good way to go out. If we'd had a few more tracks, or perhaps spread out the ones we had a little better we should have held the field but it wasn't to be. A fair fight and getting out in my pod is all I ever ask for at the end of these things anyway. Sent 3 of that gang to the clone vat, so it wasn't like they were unscathed. But they popped a daredevil (cheers to you Mr. Fisher) and a dramiel + various t1 frigates, so I'm sure they had no complaints either.