It’s a compound sentence, with a very simple meaning, and
when noteworthy it either leads to tremendous success or dismal failure.
This is a lesson about failure.
I took out a small fleet from our staging system in Doril on
Friday night. Having checked dotlan and
seen some action in Immensea, we headed up there. My prior experiences with the constellations
in the northwest of the map were not very positive. In each case, I was met with a massive blob
that killed me, albeit after I was able to get some kills.
Now, that usually doesn’t bother me; if I’m traveling into
their space, it’s only fair they muster everything they have to repel me. Killing someone with 14 people on the
killmail is hardly a demonstration of skill, but it does clear your space of
the threat, and sometimes that’s the only objective.
On this occasion, I happened to be flying a Vagabond, with a
Sabre, two interceptors, a Moa, and a Rapier in my fleet. As we were entering GXK-7F, our interceptor
scout reported two Taloses and a Stabber Fleet Issue on the GXK-7F gate. After debating for a moment, I put the
decision on whether we engaged to the rest of the fleet. Everyone was up for it, so we warped. The scout had to jump back through, so we
didn’t have eyes on them for a few seconds.
I told the Rapier to put a web on each Talos, and put
everyone on alert to watch broadcasts for which one we would primary. The SFI, I figured, was likely to do minimal
damage at first, but those Taloses would have to be taken out quickly.
When we landed, they had already warped off, despite our
Rapier warping cloaked. Suffice to say,
I was very disappointed. Two Taloses and
a SFI versus two Intys, a Sabre, Moa, Rapier, and Vaga would have been an
interesting fight. We’d be light on DPS,
they’d have been light on tackle and ewar.
We moved further into the constellation, expecting a fleet
to form up to fight us as we did. Our
intys tried to find some ratters to catch, but the residents were on the ball
and immediately safed up when we entered local.
Part way through, our Rapier had to go. My first mistake was in not turning back once
we lost those webs.
As we were heading back, we saw a fairly large interceptor
gang in GXK-7F on the GXK-7F gate – our exit of that constellation. Included within them was a Sabre, a Tengu,
and a Vagabond. I realized we would
struggle to take down even those three ships with our combined DPS, so I warped
us to a safe and decided to wait it out, but told everyone to align. My hope was that part of the fleet would warp
off, giving us a chance at a more balanced fight. After all, a ship in system but not on grid
does no DPS.
Seeing that their numbers were only increasing, I decided to
take the first chance we had, before even a split fleet would be far too much
for us. When their interceptors warped
off, I seized the opportunity and fleet warped us to the gate for an immediate
jump. Unsurprisingly, the Sabre and
Vagabond followed us, but the Tengu held off at first.
We MWD-aligned for the out-gate, and I called the Sabre
primary, but he quickly burned out of range.
The Vagabond maintained the initial point on me until the interceptors
warped back to the gate, jumped, closed range, and gained tackle.
Let’s take a moment.
The Rubicon mechanics, of course, changed interceptor warp speeds. I don’t think anyone can blame me up to this
point; a fleet that was slowly growing split, and I took advantage of the
opportunity to try to escape. But with
the new warp changes, those interceptors were able to get back into the fight
within less than a minute after warping off.
Our fleet warped as slow as the Moa, so by the time we were aligning out
of the Sabre’s bubble on the other side, the interceptors were already landing
on gate.
My big mistake – and the lesson for this fight – rested in
my target calling (irony of ironies).
Sure, going after the Sabre was a smart move, and switching to the
Vagabond after that made sense, but as soon as those interceptors hit the
field, I should have switched to them immediately. After my jump, I spawned favorably, in line
with my warp out, so they were between 0 and 26 km away. I had my own energy neutralizer, a Sabre, and
two interceptors on my side, so we could have bitten into the interceptors more
than we did. Sure, we probably couldn’t
clear them all, but surely killing 3-4 was a possibility. As it turned out, we only managed to take one out because of
my ham-fisted target calling. If I’d
switched us earlier, we might have even cleared tackle on one or more of us.
But the real story about this fight was one of
expectation. I expected us to have the
time to clear the Sabre off the field and burn away before that interceptor
contingent returned. Without the Sabre,
we could have chased off the Vagabond with our combined DPS. Quite simply, I had hope that we could fight
our way to freedom.
Perhaps it would have been better to have no hope at
all. Had I warped into the entire fleet,
I wouldn’t have wasted precious time shooting the Sabre or Vaga, instead going
immediately after the interceptors to help balance the isk scale and enjoy the
fight.
If warping the interceptors off was a deliberate tactic, it
was a brilliant one on the part of the enemy fleet. It dangled a chance in front of me, only to
snatch it away. Perhaps I’m giving them
too much credit, but if it was deliberate, it was a brilliant understanding of
psychology in Eve, which I’ve discussed before.
Worth noting, though, we were able to escape with our Sabre
and nearly all our pods, despite the fleet camping us in long after our
aggression timers ended (the only pod we lost was from one pilot who spawns on
the other side of the gate and couldn’t break free of the bubble before his
ship popped). Even after the welp, we
extracted what we could by chasing off the enemy Sabre and keeping our poise
when it came time to warp off. We kept
the “moment after welp” in mind by clearing the bubbles, not as much to free
our ship as to free our pods.
So, to sum up, positives and negatives throughout. Short of logging off in system (which I see
as a cowardly way to do it), we were always going to die. Had I shifted my expectation more quickly,
though, we might have been able to take more with us.
If you were with the enemy fleet, please post below whether
warping off your interceptors was a deliberate tactic to bait us into making a
run for it, or if you were simply splitting those intys up to try to find
us. I really want to know!