22 replies to this topic

[Greygal]

Roam's still going on as I write this, but so far had some nice fun fights! Opening feedback thread now so I don't forget later

[Xixar]

Had to run early but had a great time while I was around. Always good to fly under new people. Great stuff as usual. 07

[Nos]

Yar! This was a great roam. (I've been practicing my Yar all week)

[Old Toterra]

Once again, thanks GreyGal for doing the XO thing. A lot of work herding the cats but it is the difference between an organized fleet and a welp-fleet.

[Miss T]

This was my first Alumni roam and I enjoyed myself immensely! The fleet was very well run, and the guest FC, Sard Caid, really made an effort to get us killed off. Happy B'day again to Sard, hope you find time to enjoy some cake after all this today. GG & the Agony Skirmishers really know their stuff too, obviously a well oiled machine, tyvm for the fun times.

[Sard Caid]

Hi guys,

This was a fantastic event run by Agony. I can't stress enough how impressed I am not only by the Agony pilots who supported my efforts to lead the gang, but by the alumni that composed the bulk of it. Congratulations!

If you missed this roam, or would like to review the action that took place, I recorded ALL FIVE HOURS and have it uploaded to my stream site. The recording is missing me introducing myself, but that's about it.

linkie to video

SC

PS: If you like what you saw, and would like to help me a bit, give my stream E-O thread a bump! Link to the thread.

[Kaeda Maxwell]

This was quite fun, also I think this is the first time I shot at something in cloud ring like ever! Also I think you did really well for 4 or 5 months of rustiness Sard and thanks for the shoutout too r1fta in the introduction.

[Jerae Carnelian]

Great fun (as always); many thanks to Sard Caid, GreyGal and everybody else. My only mild disappointment was the relative paucity of targets (no fault of Sard's or of Agony's, rather that of everybody else in EVE), which precluded much "proper" piracy - I'd been hoping to run across L5 mission-runners whom we could have relieved of their pimpmobile battleships. (Of course we did steal Viking Empire's PoS modules, which was, I suppose, quite piratical.)

Even with that caveat, however, I had a thoroughly enjoyable roam, learned some things I hadn't previously known, and would been very keen indeed to try the same thing again, presuming Sard could be persuaded to make a semi-regular thing of it.

[Vora]

A very nice roam all around. It covered a compact area where I had TACs at every gate, so thumbs up from me. As expected I lost my BB at the second engagement while unsuccessfully trying to slap a jam on the Guardians. Unexpectedly in the following fights I could successfully jam several Scimis without being locked by anyone.... what a disrespect Sard was a great FC with a differnt style (to Agony FCs). His unwillingness to use bubbles as well as his lack of fear of them when warping to a gate somehow tells me that he is mostly fighting in lowsec I like the idea of guest FCs to experience different styles. A fresh wind for a long-time alumnus like me. You should do that on a regular base.

[Petra]

Brilliant roam shame I couldn't manage to stay, today was the first time I've logged on since then I got the kill mail for a drake in Harroule Posted it juist now sorry for the delay!

[Kaeda Maxwell]

Sard was a great FC with a differnt style (to Agony FCs). His unwillingness to use bubbles as well as his lack of fear of them when warping to a gate somehow tells me that he is mostly fighting in lowsec

Meh I find that bubbles are highly overrated especially when you are travelling with a 'blob'. A random catch bubble on gate isn't a serious threat to a bigger fleet and dictors/hictors trap you as much as the other guy so you're basically relying on the fact that your intel on them is better then theirs on you (wouldn't be the first time somebody bubbles an 'easy kill' just to find oh 'oops that's what they meant us to do').
Furtermore when you're looking for 'a fight' and not 'a gank' then bubbles are a useful tool but little else because lets be honest most fights you have to force by locking down the enemy fleet tend to lean closer to the gank side of the equasion.

Eleborate strategies with an anchored bubble and cloaked hictors/dictors in front basically rely on the enemy having shit CovOps scouts so aren't that useful either I think.

All just opinion ofc, but bubbles have their 'scare factor' inflated quite considerably by people who have no clue (yet) about how they work dying needlessly in them early in their EVE carreers.

Good for getting ganks, not so much for getting fights imho.

[Itkovian Beddict]

Bubbles are useful for getting fights against similarly powerful forces with risk-averse FCs (which isn't a gank).

They are useful to split a more powerful hostile force to try and get something you can fight (and no, this doesn't rely on "shit covops scouts" in the opposing fleet - there are so many situations where a covops would never be able to give them the intel).

They are useful for improving your escape chances against an overwhelming force that you can't split.

They are also good for getting ganks - and half of PvP is getting the gank (or if you're lucky, fight) in the first place.

The above is not to say you have to have bubbles to have fun in nullsec - not by a long shot. They're far better than you're giving them credit for though.

[Othran]

I know what Maxwell means about the "elaborate strategies" - they will tend to fail if they are in place for too long (like last Eve-Uni fight). They have their place but that relies on getting it done fast and everyone not moving out of alignment which provides warp-ins. That isn't the best on class but it does work some of the time which makes it OK provided you don't mess around (eve-uni fight again). The last basic class had a nice little "dance" around gates/suns/stations with bubbles involved. That actually caused the fight to happen which it otherwise wouldn't have unless Caldak warped us into them, where we'd have had a LOT more losses. Small bubbles are great for a very small gang (less than 5) where you can't always expect a dictor to be flying. A quickly deployed drag bubble gives you more options than no bubble. Its a fine line between staying too long on/inline with bubbles and leaving before the opposing force has worked out what they want to do. Options are always good, but bubbles aren't scarey unless you've never seen or heard of them before. Edit - the disco you Agony boys and girls put on yesterday for the goonies in Poitot is another very worthwhile use of bubbles

[Dior Saursi]

Meh I find that bubbles are highly overrated especially when you are travelling with a 'blob'.

I would link yesterday's durka, but the one I uploaded isn't sanitized yet. Bubbles are powerful and dangerous to even a blob. T3 BCs would absolutely love for your tackle to warp across without a care in the world.

[glepp]

Edit - the disco you Agony boys and girls put on yesterday for the goonies in Poitot is another very worthwhile use of bubbles

Just to elaborate:
We had about 25 durka BS (Durka=smartbomb) in Poitot ready to disco. The goonies have a gang moving through from X-M towards us, abou 15 strong, bc+frigs and a Tengu. We set up 70 off the F67 gate, alligned to X-B. Dictor cloaked at 50. Goon scout enters local and most likely goes "WTF? who are these people?" Anyway, while we're sitting there, a Slicer warps to the gate at 100, sees us and no bubble and warps off. A minute later, their fleet enters, and we put our bubble up. Now, i figure their scout reported the gate clear of bubbles and told their gang to warp in at 100 or whatever to kite and kill us or directly to gate, but they landed right in the middle of the dancefloor. So we lit up and even managed to kill some of our own due to excessive durka. Good times.

[Kaeda Maxwell]

I understand the tactical usefulness of bubbles, but my comments where made in light of a t1 cruiser fleet, the one we were in. I only wanted to illustrate that it's often quite possible to operate without bubblers and it's less risky to warp gate to gate in a large fleet then it is solo. And as to Durka's I know where Agony keeps its Titan in lowsec (well I did 2 weeks agao anyway) and I'm a Molden Heath pirate, pretty sure people that actually fight you can figure it out to and get eyes on it (and thus the fleet you intend to bridge) if they so desire. And good CovOps pilots do reduce the chance of succesful use of 'trick' tactics I think we can all agree, yes ofc there's exceptions.

[glepp]

If we had been in T1 cruisers, we could have used the same tactic to get the fight at zero and not get kited to death. Bubbles are useful. Much respect to Sard for being so effective without them.

[Kaeda Maxwell]

Not saying they aren't. Just saying they're not *required*.

[ROX Genghis]

Not saying they aren't. Just saying they're not *required*.

That's totally accurate. I think people took exception when you originally said they are "overrated." Since I've been in Agony, I've seem better application of bubbles than anywhere else in Eve. We love the damn things!

[Itkovian Beddict]

Good for getting ganks, not so much for getting fights imho.

This is what I was disagreeing with. I don't think anyone said they're required and if they did - I certainly didn't...

[roigon]

Nice troll kaeda.

I've been told bubbles can be usefull from time to time

So I anchored a bubble between the Goon POS & Mittanigard. Results were had. http://r1fta.killmai...kll_id=13172105 - http://imgur.com/a/K6Kpa#1

And that's just the thing. Bubbles have a big tactical application. Sure you can run around without bubbles and have no problems at all, but sometimes it's just handy to have a bubble or bubbler around for when a situation presents itself where a bubble is needed.

Which is also why it's common to have some bubbles with you since a small t1 bubble is cheap, or if you have enough people in fleet a dedicated bubbler. The loss in dps is small, and the potential tactical use more then compensates. There's really no reason when you go roaming around null to not take a bubble with you. A small t1 bubble is cheap and could be just the thing you need at one time or another. You might not need it, but the only thing it did then was occupy some cargo space.

[Kaeda Maxwell]

Nice troll kaeda.

I've been told bubbles can be usefull from time to time

So I anchored a bubble between the Goon POS & Mittanigard. Results were had. http://r1fta.killmai...kll_id=13172105 - http://imgur.com/a/K6Kpa#1

[Sard Caid]

I'll be the first to admit that I'm super rusty at fleet movements around in nullsec and applying nullsec only tactics such as good use of bubbles to cut apart and capture enemy fleets. However, I've flown from the seat of a Sabre for the better part of a year in '07-'08, so its not like I haven't used them. Just not in a LONG time. I'm also not used to having nearly a dozen ceptors to scout and grab tackle on ALL THE THINGS in the surrounding 2-3 jumps of systems. Operations in lowsec have moved away from pilots soloing around and finding targets to more centralized operations, and this was a wonderful throwback. I tend to be very aggressive in maneuvers in null because I'm looking for a fight, and try to bludgeon my way through bullshit. I tend to fly in regions I don't have BMs and such, which works for a T1 cruiser fleet.