20 replies to this topic

[dzu]

Thanks all for coming along today. Lemme know what worked well and what didn't. And a VERY large thanks to our AGONY gate camp! Working hard to scare the *7^(% out of you Hope to see you tomorrow.

[roigon]

Was very nice, covered all the things I would expect it to reasonably cover. Would have expected a little more detail on combat probing, but most of it was covered one way or another. In the practical part I felt the decision early on to warp into the bubble and try and make it to the other side of the gatecamp a bit dangerous, but I made it out with 10% armor left, so at least for me it turned out all right. Trying to evade the agony gate camp was much fun, would have gone a third time if I could Also showed nicely how un-catchable a cov-ops is if you just take your time, keep calm, and take the right actions. As well as have a bit of luck with where you spawn All in all some ISK well spent for a fun evening.

[Aethena]

I really enjoyed the class & feel that I got a lot out of it.

What Worked

Small class size While I didn't talk much, I felt that the smaller class size lent itself to people asking questions on TS which then gave the class a nice, conversational feel about it. Plus a smaller number of people meant we didn't have to wait very long for our turn to give recon or do the live fire exercise, and probably made it a bit easier to run the gate a second time.

Live recon reporting & live-fire gatecamp I absolutely love 'learning by doing' and the live-fire gatecamp was great, as was getting each student to do the recon report for each system as we made our way to BY. I have to admit, when the report came back about that first gatecamp I thought, "Oh, cool! They're surprising us with a gatecamp early!"... and then I realised it was for real Kudos to whoever it was that jumped in and gave the intel report for that!

Instructor! Dzu was great – very clear, well-organized and thorough. It was definitely a fun and supportive environment. Of course, all Agony courses are but in this class you have to step forward on an individual basis as a student more than in Basics or Wolfpacks, which can be a bit unnerving at first if you're shy (me) – I didn't even think twice about it, which surprised me.

What I Would Have Liked More Of

Moar practicals! It wasn't that we didn't get enough, I just think they're a great way to learn and I always like more. I could have done the live-fire gate camp exercise a couple more times (heh), plus I would have liked to try some combat probing and warping onto a target at range and maybe some 'advanced' D-Scan techniques. These are things I can (and will!) practice on my own, but it's good hearing / seeing how the experts do it

Bookmarks This was the one thing in the reading that we didn't cover in class. I would have been interested in hearing about how (/if) bookmarks differ for CovOp pilots. The reading talked about each gate having at least one pair of bookmarks, @90 and @30. I wasn't sure what the 90 was for – is that primarily used as a warp-in point for people to warp to you at the gate, or does it have another use (besides just getting you in closer than the 300)?

The class was great and I'm a lot more comfortable in my CovOps ship than I was before. Now I just have to figure out a good excuse so I can go in late to work tomorrow and go on the roam...

A big thank you to dzu, and to Carver and all the Agony folks who manned the gate camp (and stayed to let us do it twice!). I'm always amazed at how much effort everyone puts into these classes to make them such a great learning experience (as well as a whole lot of fun).

[VenUri]

VenUri - VenUri (R-FED)

Very informative. I would have personally preferred a little more practise on ship scanning while in Stacmon rather than WH scanning but I understand why the WHs were priority. The gate camp and trip down to BY- was very good (thanks to Agony Gate Campers and Drake gang for making it real). All in all an excellent course



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PVP-Basic-20101023
WOLFPACK-20101228
Covert Ops-20111119

[Metaloid]

Was happy to get some of stealth artist wisdom as usual a well organized class. Shame that couldn't come to practical section

[Petra]

Well I lost a ship on the first camp, but hey that's what is all about. Didn't get podded which saved a few cheap implants but was scary as I was down to structure on the pod before I managed to warp off. Failed on the agony camp too the first couple of times, and thanks to John mcquirk for explaining after the class what I did wrong. I was hitting MWD before hitting cloak ( it's the other way round which is counter-intuitive, the cloak hides the signature bloom of the MWD ).

Just been out to do some WH scanning and bookmarking in 31-mlu after the reset. My first solo outing in 0.0 ( apart from running home from classes/roams a couple of times) which was scary and fun. None in 31-mlu that I could find, also checked out BMNV found a load of sites in both but no WH's though I didn't finish BMNV as I think a couple of guys where hunting me, definitely some flashy reds lol so I ran back to the station.

A great class and Dzu makes a great instructor, everything was clear and concise, although as everyone has noted we ran the first camp wrong. It certainly made the point that Covops is very much a solo game.

Looking forward to the roam tonight cya all there

Petra

[Sadamu]

Drat.... I'm out for the roam today. Heading out the door for a surprise party in advance of my birthday this week. Have fun! I'll post my feedback later tonight.

[Naythan Farnsworth]

Very useful class and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

What worked

Small class size - As mentioned above, gave everyone a chance to participate.
Gatecamp exercise - Very useful and I would have gone a few more times if possible. Even when you know it's there and "friendly" it still gets the heart pumping and remembering all the recon you need to give out and then how to get out yourself is tough but I imagine becomes easier with practice.
Instructor - Dzu was great, clearly knows what she's doing, has a lot of experience and conveys the information well

What didn't work

Probing practice - I realize class length is a consideration (although I could have gone on we were already losing people to RL before the end) but I would have liked to have seen some practice at d-scan/combat probing in combination. Tough one this as you could probably spend an entire class teaching and practising it.
Trying to run the drake camp as a group - Luckily for me I'd decided to try and slow boat around a bit to find an opening before warping down and quickly scratched that idea when I saw everyone decloaking each other on the edge of the bubble.
At no point did anyone mention that if you're flying around null and your GF distracts you for 5 mins to always warp to a safe . Embarrassing loss When I returned I was sitting in my clone in Stacmon. Apparently I was sitting uncloaked 100km off a station, no idea what decloaked me though To make things worse, I'd only fitted the Sister's launcher before the class and was heading back to Stacmon to remove it after the fitting discussion in class.

@ Aethena - I think the 90km BM is there so you can warp closer to the gate and use the Look At function to gather info on target's ship fitting and still have the distance to warp back to the 300km BM. You always want to warp others to the 300km BM as they then have >150km to be able to warp down to the gate to go through.

See you all at the roam tonight

Naythan

[Alain Kinsella]

Best class I've been on yet, thanks dzu.

Most of the above posts I agree with, I'm going to expand on items:

-> The initial warp to the Drake camp will be a valid tactic after this expansion hits (in an all CovOps fleet), as they'll no longer decloak each other. So I had no initial problem with that (and even today you can disperse pretty quickly after landing, which is what we did as well).

-> The actual running of the Drake camp didn't seem too bad to me, though maybe I was just really focused on getting to the gate fast (and I had specifically dropped one Grav rig so that an Anathema with MWD *can* go over 3K speed). Didn't even bother re-running the cloak, just flew in and power-approached (maybe I turned off the cloak on warp-drop, don't remember now). Same tactic allowed me to run the Agony camp twice and survive (the first I was caught by someone, but I had landed on the gate in time to complete the 'power-approach back' order).

You may well have created another exploration/wanderlust monster (a la the 'Eve Travel' guy). It seems dealing with Null camps in a CovOps ain't too bad, just need to keep your cool and use the time given to think (which I do need to work on a bit more). Overall though, I really love this ship.

Unfortunately, I'll probably need to take a pass on the roam today (bad timing due to working overnight). Still, would like to continue this role in future, as an option for Alum roams.

[Aethena]

@ Aethena - I think the 90km BM is there so you can warp closer to the gate and use the Look At function to gather info on target's ship fitting and still have the distance to warp back to the 300km BM.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks Naythan!

And no roam for me... I was in the game, headset on & ready to go, when I got a message from work that means I have to be in on time. Bah!

[Othran]

Copied from other (bombers) thread... Any chance of Caldak/dzu doing a joint AAR on the roam? I missed it but I'd like to hear what you both think worked, what didn't, what needs work. Gives those of us who missed it some pointers for next time. There will be a next time as its a good combination for the classes. I suspect bait may be required on roam but what's new?

[dzu]

Any chance of Caldak/dzu doing a joint AAR on the roam?

Unfortunately I missed the roam due to internet snafu

It sounds like roigon (and maybe others?) from the CovOps side of the class stepped up to be Caldak's eyes.

[John McGuirk]

...and thanks to John mcquirk ...

If I see this guy I'll let him know.

[Othran]

Any chance of Caldak/dzu doing a joint AAR on the roam?

Unfortunately I missed the roam due to internet snafu

It sounds like roigon (and maybe others?) from the CovOps side of the class stepped up to be Caldak's eyes.

OK it sounds like we need a re-run of this joint class roam perhaps? Whole load of people not around on roams (both covops and bombers) yesterday.

You got some more "alumni" now (/me ducks from bombs flying left right and centre ) so yourself and Caldak need to have a chat about how to make it work better as a joint class/roam. Its a perfect combo and you got loads of time, once we get two weeks into December then its even more tumbleweed in terms of targets so no point in rushing it....

[Sadamu]

I'll post my feedback later tonight.

And by 'later tonight' I meant much, much later...

I as well really appreciated the small class size. Understandably it wouldn't work for something like PVP-BASIC, but it really made it an engaging experience.

Dzu is a great instructor! (Already knew that from previous classes, ofc...) In particular for this class, some of the best material was the voice of personal experience, i.e. "well, some people swear by [technique]; I've made it work in a controlled test but I can't see it working in real combat". Again, probably not as critical in PVP-BASIC, but for the more technical topics, incredibly helpful.

The probe section was probably the least helpful, at least in the demonstration aspect -- but as we discussed it's so visual it's hard to really demonstrate productively in a class setting.

The unplanned live-fire Drake camp was a nice practical lesson in exactly how vulnerable covops ships are when uncloaked - especially unintentionally. Also, a good reminder that the "this seems like it could end badly" voice in the back of my head isn't always wrong. ;-)

[dzu]

Thanks for the feedback, all! It was a fun class.

To pick up on a couple themes in this thread:

What I Would Have Liked More Of

Moar practicals! It wasn't that we didn't get enough, I just think they're a great way to learn and I always like more. I could have done the live-fire gate camp exercise a couple more times (heh), plus I would have liked to try some combat probing and warping onto a target at range and maybe some 'advanced' D-Scan techniques. These are things I can (and will!) practice on my own, but it's good hearing / seeing how the experts do it

The gate camp exercise *is* great and it'd be good to have more time for it, but you can see that it's time consuming even with a very small class. Folks who stuck around 'til the end had three chances to run it . . . and I'll recommend northeast Syndicate on any weekend day for many, many more opportunities for practice

And, yeah, the probing was overly focused on WHs - which I did to support the roam - but next time I'll get back to combat probing+DScan practice with a target ship. It comes up more frequently during a roam . . . and if you can get a drop on a ship with your probes you should be able to find a WH. Although probing WHs is good practice to build up your speed, since they don't move during your scan.

Bookmarks This was the one thing in the reading that we didn't cover in class. I would have been interested in hearing about how (/if) bookmarks differ for CovOp pilots. The reading talked about each gate having at least one pair of bookmarks, @90 and @30. I wasn't sure what the 90 was for – is that primarily used as a warp-in point for people to warp to you at the gate, or does it have another use (besides just getting you in closer than the 300)?

Yes, I completely neglected BMs - apologies. Yeah, as Naythan said . . . the BMs at 90 and 30 are for close-in observation of an enemy camp, particularly weapon types (so you can use the "look at" feature). These may also help if you're trying to sneak in under sub-warp power for a covert drop.


Next time we run this I plan to open it up to alumni also (although you wouldn't get as much gate-camp love as the new students). So you can listen in again and provide some perspectives on life in a CovOps frig.

Cheers.

[Naythan Farnsworth]

Waited a few days to see if there was going to be a roam specific feedback section but figured I may as well throw the cov ops feedback in here. I'll start by saying that I understand that because of Dzu's internet trouble Caldak was left running both sections of the course for the roam and that with the Agony guys providing fleet support in fast tackle etc the scouting/safety of the fleet was left in the hands of cov ops pilots of unknown experience, which I imagine would have had some impact on thought processes. Given the fleet's needs I spent almost the entire roam probing for wormholes which, given the random nature of WH's, ended up being of no use (the only 2 I found that may have been useful were end of life). Because of this I only know what others were up to from what I could gather from TS so I may be wrong here but it seemed that only the 2 of us that could light a covert cyno were really used in a scouting role. Possible solutions Have the scouts arrive in class system earlier than planned to start scouting nearby for WH's in an organised manner similar to some of the recent roams. (I know a few of us did arrive a bit early and did some probing but it wasn't enough time and with no clear organisation I'm sure there was some duplication of work) During the roam itself have some of the non-cyno scouts scouting the distant systems for targets, some nearby actually scouting for the fleet and keep the cyno scouts at a mid distance so it's easier to deploy them if someone finds a juicy target. If the two classes are running together and hot drops are a big part of the SB class maybe have the cov ops students leave TQ and log onto SISI at a prearranged time to join with the hot drops part of the course. At this stage I only have Cyno 1 but having never done a hot drop if I was required to provide a cyno I would have no idea what to expect. On a separate note, now that we've done the course are we allowed to attend say a Basic roam as a scout to gain some practice or do you prefer to keep it just to Agony guys for that more professional look? Cheers, Naythan

[Petra]

One comment, during the roam it was became obvious that cyno is a very useful skill for a covops pilot to have, now trained ordinary cyno just in case it's needed in future. It might be good if this was added as a sugested or optional requirement for future covops classes and maybe covered a bit during the theory part as very few of the class had the skill and even fewer had ever used it.

[Othran]

One comment, during the roam it was became obvious that cyno is a very useful skill for a covops pilot to have, now trained ordinary cyno just in case it's needed in future. It might be good if this was added as a sugested or optional requirement for future covops classes and maybe covered a bit during the theory part as very few of the class had the skill and even fewer had ever used it.

You might be confusing that with a covert cyno - that requires Cyno 5. Or you may not, anyway...

If you light a standard cyno with neutrals or hostiles on grid then your ship is usually going to die if its a frigate. That can get expensive very fast if you use covops to light a standard 10 minute cyno.

I use magnates with an alt usually, decent cargo bay for ozone, cheap as chips. Warp to covops at range (if necessary), light cyno soon as you land, jump to it, log off alt - when he gets popped then pod will warp off the cyno.

Alternatively you could sit there waiting to see if you get popped but that will take 10 minutes, not the 30 seconds a covert cyno takes

I only know this as I have jump capability on an alt and I've lit a load of standard cynos - been popped on the 10 min cyno pretty much every time outside low-sec, covert is better although still not great odds if you're in a covops/bomber. I sort of assume people know this sort of stuff now and they don't, quite naturally since they've never had to do it or had any reason to look at it.

Edit - its relevant to both classes really.

[Carver]

Logofski changes in Crucible will end the warp out on your cyborg alt. Add clone costs to your estimate.

[Othran]

Logofski changes in Crucible will end the warp out on your cyborg alt. Add clone costs to your estimate.

I guess I best go test that - I assumed it'd be the same as now, which is emergency warp on pod unless bubbled, pod remains in space for 15 minutes (pod is aggressed after ship destruction anyway).

Edit - clone costs on a pure cyno alt are minimal anyway.

Edit2 - tested it, works exactly as it works now, unless you bubble pod it will emergency warp when you pop the cyno ship and pod will remain in space for 15 minutes. No change in mechanics. If someone wants to probe the pod out then they can, same as now and they have 15 minutes to do it.