89 replies to this topic

[Othran]

Anwsered your own question It affects align times, if your entire fleet is shield you are a faster fleet this matters. If your entire fleet is armour you're a (often) sturdier fleet with prolly more e-war that also matters. Logis or no logis.

Indeed but its not a factor with align time until we hit BCs. Even then, armour canes aren't that much slower than nano drakes. Below that you don't want to restrict it unless its a specific ship-fit roam.

[AkJon Ferguson]

FWIW, I crunched the numbers on those of us in drakes/hurricanes/rupture (why don't killboards let you do this automatically?) and the Sarek's Whore of the Roam award goes to Sander, who managed to inflict a whopping 41,364 damage to the enemies of our fleet. First runner up was kikutake, with 36,035. Congratulations both. (I didn't look at podkills but I'm sure results wouldn't have changed.)

Don’t agree with you on this one. Don’t think the higher damage dealer is a bad thing. It would be interesting if it is possible to see how mach damage did pilot do in comparison to the km he is on.

I can imagine someone who likes to be on all km to simply spread his damage to all enemies ships instead on focusing his fire on primary and by making that he is unnecessarily prolonging the fight.

You totally misconstrued me if you think I was saying that higher damage dealer is a bad thing. Sarek took a shot at me (calling me a killmail whore) by insulting my usual basic roam Dram fit (which usually performs pretty well if dealing damage and killing things is our objective) and so I named the top damage dealer in his honor.

Highest damage dealer is an awesome thing. We need a 5M chip in every alumni roam from all DPS boats (obviously if you're not flying DPS you shouldn't chip in because you're not eligible for the award) that goes to that person. (Or all the drakes chip in for 'top drake' and all the canes chip in for 'top cane'.)

[AkJon Ferguson]

Opinions on what exactly those are vary wildly though. On most Alumni roams people seem to favour HML Drakes/Shield Canes I find that a poor choice (and mix (due to weapon range differences)) for example.

There's going to be Caldari folks and Minmatar folks. Can you honestly say that a rupture is a superior choice to either or was that a 'protest vote'?

(I considered a HAM drake, and it might have worked better, but the massive range boost from heavies for a pretty small decrease in DPS is pretty hard to turn down.)

[AkJon Ferguson]

The thing we never talk about is offgrid t3 gang boosters. (Which are even more mandatory now that t2 ganglinks are coming.) Does Agony use them in their fleets and how much would it cost our fleet to 'rent' one? Or do we have alumni who could bring one (or bring one with a reasonable 'subsidy'?)

[Kaeda Maxwell]

Opinions on what exactly those are vary wildly though. On most Alumni roams people seem to favour HML Drakes/Shield Canes I find that a poor choice (and mix (due to weapon range differences)) for example.

There's going to be Caldari folks and Minmatar folks. Can you honestly say that a rupture is a superior choice to either or was that a 'protest vote'?

(I considered a HAM drake, and it might have worked better, but the massive range boost from heavies for a pretty small decrease in DPS is pretty hard to turn down.)

Rupture's are quite awesome actually. And when at close range I'm pretty sure mine actually out-damages a lot of the Drakes.
(and yes I'm space rich I fly with implants in null, so sue me! slot 6 is wrong btw I have a pg4 there in reality for my 425 myrmidons)



I agree HML's are generally the better choice actually, what I don't understand is people bringing shield canes to a fleet that isn't going to kite (much). They're a less tanky then armour ones and you loose 2 e-war slots in the deal. And if you're going to be in medium range gate/bubble fights the mwd+shield=massive sig is actually hurting you not helping you.
Bluntly put; I think a lot of people fly shield canes because they read about them/hear about them but don't really understand what they're for (Nano gangs, solo kiting).
Drakes don't suffer from the problem because they're naturally tanky, canes however especially shield ones are quite frail.

I don't think drakes are 'OP' btw, they excel at null pvp because they're so flexible (hard to beat long range weapons+tank+free lows) and good in groups. I've shredded Drakes one on one in Myrmidons though in hi-sec wars (they can't break a Myrms tank before they're out of boosters) I'd never take a myrm to a null fleet though :-) So all situational imho.

[roigon]

I agree HML's are generally the better choice actually, what I don't understand is people bringing shield canes to a fleet that isn't going to kite (much). They're a less tanky then armour ones and you loose 2 e-war slots in the deal. And if you're going to be in medium range gate/bubble fights the mwd+shield=massive sig is actually hurting you not helping you.

This kind of stuff is actually really interesting, and while a good part of it is no doubt acquired by painstakingly following the current meta game, what people are doing, and lots of experience doing it yourself. Do you know of a resource detailing various fleet types and their applications?

I guess the alliance tournament always has some discussion about this, but I was wondering if there is perhaps some written content about it as well.

[AkJon Ferguson]

Rupture's are quite awesome actually. And when at close range I'm pretty sure mine actually out-damages a lot of the Drakes.
(and yes I'm space rich I fly with implants in null, so sue me! slot 6 is wrong btw I have a pg4 there in reality for my 425 myrmidons)

I suppose it depends on what you're comparing them to. Compared to pre-buff thrashers, yes, ruptures are quite awesome. Compared to hurricanes, they're crap. Being space rich and flying in a rupture with implants instead of a hurricane (with or without implants) is strange but whatever floats your boat.

I mean, just look at this cane fit. 1 (dirt-cheap) rig, no implants and it's equal or significantly better than your rupture in every material respect (other than base signature size.) (And it's not even a particularly good fit, you'd never fit a 100mm plate but the rupture's EHP is marginally higher without it.)

[Hurricane, Bionic Rupture]
Damage Control II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
100mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Tracking Enhancer II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive
Warp Scrambler II
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution
Stasis Webifier II

425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
425mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma M
Medium Nosferatu II
Medium Energy Neutralizer II

Medium Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I x1

Hobgoblin II x5


Hurricane vs implanted rigged Rupture:

Tank: 28,043 vs 27,899 (Hurricane negligibly higher)

DPS: 648 vs 515 (Hurricane 25% more)

Range: 1.7+16 vs 1.4+11 (If you take the effective range as optimal+falloff, Hurricane's is 42.7% further)

Tracking: .16433 vs .15635 (Hurricane ~5% better)

Speed: 1433 m/s vs 1236 m/s (Hurricane ~16% faster)

Align: 10.2s vs 10.3s (Hurricane negligibly more agile)

Scan res: 440mm vs 352.5mm (Hurricane ~25% higher)

Obviously the medium neut/nos will be somewhat more effective than the smalls.

This is a classic case of if x exists, why fly y? Hurricanes exist, don't fly ruptures.

[Kaeda Maxwell]

My Hurricane fit is below, that I considered bringing btw, but we were light on heavy tackle, the Rupture can do that to an extend hence I brought the Rupture (cane is to sluggish). Anyways yes the cane is much better (about 20-25%) you get that at nearly double the price though and you don't get rich by spending it ;-)

I agree HML's are generally the better choice actually, what I don't understand is people bringing shield canes to a fleet that isn't going to kite (much). They're a less tanky then armour ones and you loose 2 e-war slots in the deal. And if you're going to be in medium range gate/bubble fights the mwd+shield=massive sig is actually hurting you not helping you.

This kind of stuff is actually really interesting, and while a good part of it is no doubt acquired by painstakingly following the current meta game, what people are doing, and lots of experience doing it yourself. Do you know of a resource detailing various fleet types and their applications?

I guess the alliance tournament always has some discussion about this, but I was wondering if there is perhaps some written content about it as well.

Not really, you can pick up a lot by reading Failheap/Kugu and learning which people talk out of their ass and which don't. Also just paying attention to the FC and trying to figure out why he does stuff helps. Caldak thinks at the speed of light making that hard but Glepp is pretty good actually and I can usually follow his line of thought quite well, so go on glepp roams

Oh and youtube is awesome, watching people fly helps a lot, I've watched some HYDRA vids featuring nano-ships a LOT of times trying to figure out why they do stuff.

for example;

[AkJon Ferguson]

My Hurricane fit is below, that I considered bringing btw, but we were light on heavy tackle, the Rupture can do that to an extend hence I brought the Rupture (cane is to sluggish). Anyways yes the cane is much better (about 20-25%) you get that at nearly double the price though and you don't get rich by spending it ;-)

Too sluggish? Which part of aligns faster, flies faster and locks faster did I not explain clearly enough? You tanked the hell out of your rupture just to get it as much EHP as a hurricane with 1 DC2. Problem is, that made it slower than and almost as sluggish as the hurricane (and one nanofiber later, the hurricane is more nimble.)

If we can't get our 'space-rich' folks to spring for a t1 battlecruiser, we're in trouble. (You bring ~50M worth of implants to make your ship 3% better but you won't spend ~10M (after insurance) to make your ship 25% better?) If you're extremely risk averse, bring a brick drake. It'll cost you less in the long run than flying a rupture would (because you'll lose it less) and it'll contribute more to the fleet.

[AkJon Ferguson]

I agree HML's are generally the better choice actually, what I don't understand is people bringing shield canes to a fleet that isn't going to kite (much). They're a less tanky then armour ones and you loose 2 e-war slots in the deal. And if you're going to be in medium range gate/bubble fights the mwd+shield=massive sig is actually hurting you not helping you.
Bluntly put; I think a lot of people fly shield canes because they read about them/hear about them but don't really understand what they're for (Nano gangs, solo kiting).
Drakes don't suffer from the problem because they're naturally tanky, canes however especially shield ones are quite frail.

Glad to hear I'm not supposed to be armor-tanking my drake.

If your role is DPS, you fit accordingly. Arty shield canes are faster, more nimble, and have comparable DPS that can be applied at vastly superior range. Sander's fit had <550 DPS on paper and yet he dominated in his role on this roam. Don't undersell the massive boost that 3x gyro 2x te provides. (Or better yet, make me happy and prove me wrong next time.)

[Kaeda Maxwell]

My Hurricane fit is below, that I considered bringing btw, but we were light on heavy tackle, the Rupture can do that to an extend hence I brought the Rupture (cane is to sluggish). Anyways yes the cane is much better (about 20-25%) you get that at nearly double the price though and you don't get rich by spending it ;-)

Too sluggish? Which part of aligns faster, flies faster and locks faster did I not explain clearly enough? You tanked the hell out of your rupture just to get it as much EHP as a hurricane with 1 DC2. Problem is, that made it slower than and almost as sluggish as the hurricane (and one nanofiber later, the hurricane is more nimble.)

If we can't get our 'space-rich' folks to spring for a t1 battlecruiser, we're in trouble. (You bring ~50M worth of implants to make your ship 3% better but you won't spend ~10M (after insurance) to make your ship 25% better?) If you're extremely risk averse, bring a brick drake. It'll cost you less in the long run than flying a rupture would (because you'll lose it less) and it'll contribute more to the fleet.

So your argument is; fail fit a cane wit a 100 plate so it's slightly better then a Rupture?

And I'll bring whatever, in fact if you read back up the thread, you'll find I started about fits because *I* believe the thing that would improve alumni roams the most with the least effort is a clearer indication of what to bring. So we don't waste time sitting around pondering if we have people to fly battleships a certain way to then ultimately not fly them at all because we don't have the numbers needed... Being paranoid about spies is all nice and dandy, but we want a fight right? Then let them bring it.
I've flown with you on RvB/FHC/SHC roams in the past AkJon and be honest how often did spies 'foil' those? And they're announced up to a month in advance sometimes.

Anyways I think we're just arguing to argue now, we both ultimately would like to see more 'professionalism' on alumni roams I think. Maybe the rupture wasn't the best choice, mea culpa, it still did well enough by comparison (though 2 tank mods -1 pretty much mandatory- hardly qualifies as 'tanking the hell out of it' it has three, three gyros ffs!), another cane would have added more dps, yes, but I'm seriously not undocking a Cane fitted to tank slightly better then a Rupture when I have a Rupture right there ;-)

Anyway I think we're trying to say the same thing in different words; bring a well fitted ship to a roam an then try to fly it somewhat sensibly. My main point is; it would help if we had some indication of what to bring in advance like; 'armor cruisers with a good dmg profile around 25km'.

p.s. Risk averse? You couldn't be further from the mark, I will engage pretty much anything if I stand even a remote chance of winning (across 5 accounts I loose around a quarter to half a billion in ships a month for reference and I fly mostly smaller t1 stuff since you seem to love numbers) ;-) Not to mention i have no issues loosing isk just to grief people because I'm an asshole like that! (or at least I get called that a lot by victims). Space ships are for exploding, nothing else.

[Othran]

I've always found that if you tell Caldak what you have available at short notice then he has more options and its far more likely your shiny stuff will get used. ie things will usually escalate if he knows he has the dps/tackle. I'm aware that sounds trite and I'm not for one second suggesting you all PM him with a list of ships, but he's not a mind reader. I'm not going to try to second guess stuff that he'd want either. Have a basic selection of ships - if you can then one frigate, one dessie, one cruiser, one BC. Then when things get more interesting you can ship up fast. Resist the urge to fit them out, have the mods there and the fits loaded - that way you can switch. Options. Regardless of skill level you have options. We don't have those options if you don't have the mods/ships available fast though. Hmm never thought of Kaeda as a cheese-eating surrender monkey before Take a while to get my head around that one..... Trite and facile message ends - we return you to the discussion/bickering

[AkJon Ferguson]

So your argument is; fail fit a cane wit a 100 plate so it's slightly better then a Rupture?

And I'll bring whatever, in fact if you read back up the thread, you'll find I started about fits because *I* believe the thing that would improve alumni roams the most with the least effort is a clearer indication of what to bring. So we don't waste time sitting around pondering if we have people to fly battleships a certain way to then ultimately not fly them at all because we don't have the numbers needed... Being paranoid about spies is all nice and dandy, but we want a fight right? Then let them bring it.
I've flown with you on RvB/FHC/SHC roams in the past AkJon and be honest how often did spies 'foil' those? And they're announced up to a month in advance sometimes.

Anyways I think we're just arguing to argue now, we both ultimately would like to see more 'professionalism' on alumni roams I think. Maybe the rupture wasn't the best choice, mea culpa, it still did well enough by comparison (though 2 tank mods -1 pretty much mandatory- hardly qualifies as 'tanking the hell out of it' it has three, three gyros ffs!), another cane would have added more dps, yes, but I'm seriously not undocking a Cane fitted to tank slightly better then a Rupture when I have a Rupture right there ;-)

Anyway I think we're trying to say the same thing in different words; bring a well fitted ship to a roam an then try to fly it somewhat sensibly. My main point is; it would help if we had some indication of what to bring in advance like; 'armor cruisers with a good dmg profile around 25km'.

One of us is definitely arguing for the sake of arguing. I built a hurricane fit explicitly designed to be better than your rupture in EVERY category except base sig (and way better in some categories, 25% more DPS at 40% longer range) and explicitly stated that it is NOT a good fit. And you pretend I'm arguing for that fit. One of us is arguing that ruptures are 'quite awesome actually' and the other is saying ummm, no, here's a BAD hurricane fit that's better than your rupture fit in EVERY way, imagine how much better a GOOD hurricane fit would be. One of us is arguing that he didn't bring a hurricane because we were light on heavy tackle and a cane would have been too sluggish and the other is saying 'Then why fit your ship to be slower than and just as sluggish as a cane with 1 nano?'

And you're the one who said you didn't bring a cane because 'you don't get rich by spending it,' acknowledged that a hurricane is 20-25% better than a rupture, but costs twice as much. That sounds like risk aversion to me. YMMV.

As for spies, I don't worry too much. But if someone is consistently dramatically underperforming, whether they're spies or not I'd have no objection to them being told 'shape up or ship out.' Obviously with the death of the 'group that shall not be named' that won't happen, shrug.

As for the videos you linked, I think there's very little we (as a relatively inexperienced gang of ~50, watching a video of 5-10 highly experienced ganglinked kiters (with snake implants?)) can learn from them. They're entertaining and impressive, to be sure. But you've got to learn to crawl before you can sprint. The one thing I think we can learn from them is that even in a highly skilled group the primary is repeated over and over and over. That's something we probably can apply (or broadcast primary to compensate for the frequent inability of many of us to decipher Caldak-speak in a timely manner.)

[Bamar]

A few things, 1) In my experience signature radius is more important than EHP and tracking/range are more important than DPS. It's easy to get caught up in EFT arguing, but in reality most things are defined by the fleet strategy more than anything. I guess you can argue about what works best in a kitchen sink fleet, but ultimately it's EFT masturbation, and not really useful. 2) Don't even joke about putting 100mm plates on BC, seriously, it caused me physical pain 3) Alumni roams are meant to be fun, not serious. If you want organized cohesive fleets with a focus on kicking ass then I suggest you put in an application to Agony. Alumni roams are simply a way for us to have some fun and keep in contact with our alumni, not a way to vicariously live in Agony without actually joining. 4) As much as I love in-depth discussions of fitting theory, this isn't really the place of it. This is a feedback thread for a roam, try to keep on topic.

[AkJon Ferguson]

Alumni roams are meant to be fun, not serious. If you want organized cohesive fleets with a focus on kicking ass ...

Thanks. A clear statement one way or the other from 'the top' is what I wanted. I'll stop advocating for organized cohesive fleets with a focus on kicking ass.