The Importance of Intelligence

Its been a few days since a relevant post, and to be honest, I haven't gotten much action PVP wise over those days.

A couple days ago we killed an NC gang roaming in Delve. I got eyes on them and tailed their gang, while a roaming gang came to help. It was pretty sloppy but we killed 2x Sleipnir, 1x Curse, and 1x Basilisk. We took some losses that didn't quite offset the kills, but were pretty dumb. I then took off solo for the next couple hours, but found no kills in Catch.

Yesterday I went on an early roam (EUTZ) and lost a Pilgrim. The reasons were multiple failures to communicate and not following basic orders. It kind of goes like this...

We were playing tag with a group that has been haning around Fountain and retreating back to low sec when confronted with an opposing force that can take them. Many faction frigates, including 4x Machariels.

The FC for the gang jumped into their camp and died... not sure how but his ceptor got killed. So I was asked to take over the gang. Not too happy (I was still half asleep) I assumed command and started what was to be a disaster. It would have been better to turn around and march home, but with our superior numbers and many friendlies in the area I assumed we would be able to take the gang (whatever didn't run).

We had them in a pipe system with one outlet, and were sitting on the outlet gate, while they were camping the pipe gate. As we landed and I jumped through, we were scouted by their neutral interceptor alt. As I was warping to where they had been, they landed on our in gate. I immediately had our gang jump through and bubble them in, instructions to reapproach.

None of them aggressed, and they all cross jumped us into the outlet system.

Damn.

So everyone jumped on through, holding cloak. Then the first bit of fail intel came in "they are aggressed".

Ok, in my head this means that I can send in forces and hit their fleet, as they are committed. They are unable to jump due to aggression and they will be unable to warp due to bubbles/points.

Unfortunately whoever yelled this over comms (lack of fleet discipline) had their head up their ass, and as I landed 15km off gate (due to the previous bubble being up), their fleet started jumping back in. Their Malediction was first in, and before I was able to warp off I was tackled. I tried to neut, but he kited me at range as their fleet came in and POP. I went.

Best part was my fleet, sitting on the other side with aggression. So I died, then my fleet came in and with no tertiary FC (I was supposed to backseat this one but the primary FC died in his Taranis before we even engaged) our fleet tried to fight Machariels burning off the gate... bad idea. We took even more losses and didn't kill a single one of them.

Looking back, you wouldn't even know that we had numbers on their gang. Nor would you know their was a blue fleet in the area as well (they didn't convo me, even though I asked in intel). Congratulations to the wretched for playing it smart.

So. Some simple things to pull from this:

1. Shut the fuck up on comms, and if you aren't sure on intel, keep shutting the fuck up. Aggression means a red box aka they are shooting you aka jamming aka anything that is aggression related. Yellow boxing means fuck all.
2. Use your head. If enemy fleet is not shooting you, they are not shooting for a reason. Think before deciding to shoot them first.
3. If you are leading a gang and there is another friendly gang in area, be in communication with that FC. If he isn't making first contact, do it yourself. To not coordinate is retarded. Really really retarded.
4. Don't FC in a Recon. You will die and Recons are expensive to replace.
5. I've said it time and time again, and am guilty of it this time. Don't assume your fleetmembers know the correct actions to take in many situations. In retrospect I should have assumed The Wretched gang would reapproach; it was the natural and intelligent thing to do, as aggressing would lead to expensive losses. Knowing this, I should have specified one individual to point/aggress and have the rest reapproach and jump with them. But I didn't, and I died (and they lost nothing) as a result.

So, being a little emo I didn't play much more yesterday. With luck, maybe some kills tonight.