The Forces of Smugness coming to Delve

[Elo]

Here's the thing. Nulli still use 1400mm Maelstroms, which are extremely dependent on their alpha, not their DPS, to tear through fleets. Our fleet was a fleet of 1200mm (although I guarantee some dumb TEST pieces of shit left their 1400s on), and Rokhs. 1200mm Maels/Railrokhs are still somewhat dependent on alpha to own nerds, but less so than the original 1400mm Alphafleet. Once you no longer have enough Maelstroms in a 1400mm fleet to one-shot a target, you're pretty much fucked. In 1200mm/Rokhs, you can still sputter on and inflict some meaningful damage to the other fleet even without alphaing them.

What this means is that, all other elements excluded, the fact that we had 50 more people than S2N in a doctrine that doesn't hit nearly as hard of a brick wall as S2N's, and we were evenly trading, means that the fact they were evenly trading at the start of the fight isn't particularly relevant. If the brawl had continued down to the last ship with no super-sick bombing runs and no dreads, and we'd continued trading like we were, Nulli's fleet would've run out of gas as soon as they ran out of enough Maelstroms to instantly alpha something whilst the Rokhs and 1200mm Maelstroms managed to limp their way across the finish line.

This is been a DurrHurrDurr Seriouspost(tm), helping you realize why you're all dumb.

u know 1400s do more dps than 1200s right

[progodlegend]

That's not what I said at all. Re-read the post bro.

No it is what you said. You said,

"If we would have kept trading ships evenly like you said, then you would have been no longer able to alpha shit at a certain point, but we would have still been able to kill stuff because we have DPS (I guess that's your reasoning)." Or as you put it, "limped across the finish line".

What I'm telling you is you would have had to kill 60 of our maelstroms before we would have really had trouble alpha'ing at that range (and many of you were beginning to slowly burn at us anyway, alleviating that range problem for us, thank you for that). But you were already having trouble killing stuff just a 1/3 of the way there, and trust me, it doesn't get any easier.

[DurrHurrDurr]

No it is what you said. You said,

"If we would have kept trading ships evenly like you said, then you would have been no longer able to alpha shit at a certain point, but we would have still been able to kill stuff because we have DPS (I guess that's your reasoning)." Or as you put it, "limped across the finish line".

What I'm telling you is you would have had to kill 60 of our maelstroms before we would have really had trouble alpha'ing at that range (and many of you were beginning to slowly burn at us anyway, alleviating that range problem for us, thank you for that). But you were already having trouble killing stuff just a 1/3 of the way there, and trust me, it doesn't get any easier.

Uhh, yeah, trading evenly when we have 50 more dudes means that you lose the ability to alpha us way more than the ability to alpha you, and even if we lose the ability to alpha you 1200s/Rokhs are slightly less dependent on the first round of alpha itself, the Rokhs piss out a bit more damage after the initial alpha volley because of their relatively quick cycle time, and we still have way more DPS than you (because, you know, we have 50 more dudes).

[Berdennol]

I like how you wrote that in future tense.

So you started out making gay jokes about T'Renn and now you can't snap out of it and resume normal posting service?

It's really no longer à la mode, but whatever floats your boat I guess.

[progodlegend]

Uhh, yeah, trading evenly when we have 50 more dudes means that you lose the ability to alpha us way more than the ability to alpha you, and even if we lose the ability to alpha you 1200s/Rokhs are slightly less dependent on the first round of alpha itself, the Rokhs piss out a bit more damage after the initial alpha volley because of their relatively quick cycle time, and we still have way more DPS than you (because, you know, we have 50 more dudes).

dude, we had even battleship numbers, what, are your huiginns gonna start throwing their 1200's on targets too and tip the numbers?

[DurrHurrDurr]

dude, we had even battleship numbers, what, are your huiginns gonna start throwing their 1200's on targets too and tip the numbers?

Are you saying velocity and transversal aren't a factor in target damage?

[progodlegend]

I guess Elise was right about you.

Feel free to elaborate.

[Richter Belmont]

I don't think you understand how alpha works, numpnuts.

When we got dumpstered in C3N we didn't have enough alpha to pop panicgeddons, and even ones properly webbed and fire-synched took massive damage (see: 5% structure) yet still survived because of a single rep.

If you don't have the required number of maels to volley opposing ships you will flat-out not kill your fucking targets, end of story. This is one of the basic tenets of alphafleet.

Rokhs are not alpha-dependent. They don't need an arbitrary critical mass to pop targets, as evidenced by faster target killing than your maels.

If we traded down all things equal you would have still lost because 20 second cycle times.

You're so fucking retarded it hurts. How you manage to get people to follow you is a whole different story.

[Schwa88]

I like how you wrote that in future tense.

ITT: Impending cocksmoking

[Dental Floss]

I don't think you understand how alpha works, numpnuts.

When we got dumpstered in C3N we didn't have enough alpha to pop panicgeddons, and even ones properly webbed and fire-synched took massive damage (see: 5% structure) yet still survived because of a single rep.

If you don't have the required number of maels to volley opposing ships you will flat-out not kill your fucking targets, end of story. This is one of the basic tenets of alphafleet.

Rokhs are not alpha-dependent. They don't need an arbitrary critical mass to pop targets, as evidenced by faster target killing than your maels.

If we traded down all things equal you would have still lost because 20 second cycle times.

You're so fucking retarded it hurts. How you manage to get people to follow you is a whole different story.

So glad I could learn all about how alpha works from the deep and detailed knowledge base of Richter Enderas. By the way, if someone gets alpha'd to 5% structure, the maelstroms can fire a second time and kill them. Meanwhile, the fact that Rokhs are not alpha dependent means scimis should have the opportunity to rep the person being primaried.

[DurrHurrDurr]

So glad I could learn all about how alpha works from the deep and detailed thought knowledge base of Richter Enderas. By the way, if someone gets alpha'd to 5% structure, the maelstroms can fire a second time and kill them. Meanwhile, the fact that Rokhs are not alpha dependent means scimis should have the opportunity to rep the person being primaried.

Except that there are still a shitton of Maelstroms there too.

[Richter Belmont]

So glad I could learn all about how alpha works from the deep and detailed thought knowledge base of Richter Enderas. By the way, if someone gets alpha'd to 5% structure, the maelstroms can fire a second time and kill them. Meanwhile, the fact that Rokhs are not alpha dependent means scimis should have the opportunity to rep the person being primaried.

Yeah you go ahead and make that 20sec cycle time just whiz by. Work your ~elitepvp~ gypsy magic for us all to see.

[Dysphonia]

So glad I could learn all about how alpha works from the deep and detailed knowledge base of Richter Enderas. By the way, if someone gets alpha'd to 5% structure, the maelstroms can fire a second time and kill them. Meanwhile, the fact that Rokhs are not alpha dependent means scimis should have the opportunity to rep the person being primaried.

In theory; in practice. There is a reasonable discrepancy in skills amoungst TEST players, which means the cycle timers are different enough person to person to allow reps to catch on the second volley - you can count down again, but even then, its no guarentee.

[Dental Floss]

Except that there are still a shitton of Maelstroms there too.

20 huginns too stronk.

Yeah you go ahead and make that 20sec cycle time just whiz by. Work your ~elitepvp~ gypsy magic for us all to see.

Is your usual response when proven wrong to just say something nonsensical?

[DurrHurrDurr]

Is your usual response when proven wrong to just say something nonsensical?

No, what he said makes total sense. If you fail on the first round, you have to wait an extra 20 seconds to actually kill the target, and killing only one BS when you could have killed two.

[Jean Leaner]

Christ 24 hours later and we're still on this same arguement

[Dego]

Can a mod read only like everyone for an hour so they can take a moment to read back and all be ashamed?

[Mfume]

no i want to see more of richter outside of his playpen

[Richter Belmont]

Is your usual response when proven wrong to just say something nonsensical?

I'm right.

Maelstroms fit with 1400mm artillery have a cycle time of approximately 20 seconds. You sync your fire to ensure a kill and negate logistics, which is the entire point of alphafleet. If you are even half situationally aware, you'll notice things like Huginns and early birds yellow-boxing you as you're called secondary/tertiary. More yellow boxes, you press your broadcast button, overheat hardeners, get transversal, all that sweet shit. Because they didn't have enough to kill you in one hit and you pre-broadcasted for reps they are already on the way and as logistic ships see you in deep armor/structure they are sending even more love your way. Now the other fleet has to wait another 20sec to attempt to kill a ship while your fleet is doing its own thing.

But you can try to be a witty shitheel and go "lol it's just richter he's a mad posting sperg lord" or some gay permutation thereof.

Doesn't stop me from being right.

[Bocephus]

I didn't know that the concept of alpha fleet was so difficult for SPESH MUHREENS

[Lorren Canada]

All of you are and gay and stupid. richter stop missing the point and falling on your face making arguments that are entirely correct but also irrelevant

[zodt]

I like how you wrote that in future tense.

Future tense?

[Dental Floss]

I'm right.

Maelstroms fit with 1400mm artillery have a cycle time of approximately 20 seconds. You sync your fire to ensure a kill and negate logistics, which is the entire point of alphafleet. If you are even half situationally aware, you'll notice things like Huginns and early birds yellow-boxing you as you're called secondary/tertiary. More yellow boxes, you press your broadcast button, overheat hardeners, get transversal, all that sweet shit. Because they didn't have enough to kill you in one hit and you pre-broadcasted for reps they are already on the way and as logistic ships see you in deep armor/structure they are sending even more love your way. Now the other fleet has to wait another 20sec to attempt to kill a ship while your fleet is doing its own thing.

But you can try to be a witty shitheel and go "lol it's just richter he's a mad posting sperg lord" or some gay permutation thereof.

Doesn't stop me from being right.

The original argument was that even if you're alpha'd to 5% structure, it's a loss for the alphafleet because you survived the initial volley. Given that unless something magical happens and the target doesn't die on the second volley, it takes less maelstroms to kill you on the second volley, which means the remaining maelstroms have yet to fire and can go for the secondary. I'm also not sure why you're talking about broadcasting and transversal since the whole point of alpha fleet with huginns is that you're not going to get transversal because you're not going to be moving and the volley damage is enough to cut through you regardless of reps. Also, I'd really like to see you get transversal in battleships. The cycle time doesn't really seem to matter since, according to the video that was linked, you guys were only occasionally breaking them by snapcounting and that's why you had to bring in dreads.

The whole argument is a moot point, though, since its based on them not being able to volley dudes with 1400s when, according to the video and some of the killmails, they were.

[DurrHurrDurr]

The cycle time doesn't really seem to matter since, according to the video that was linked, you guys weren't breaking them and that's why you had to bring in dreads.

We were breaking them fine, hence the "even trading".

Jesus, you people and your selective memories.

[Fix Lag]

hypothetically speaking you all suck dick

[Elo]

We were breaking them fine, hence the "even trading".

Jesus, you people and your selective memories.

1400s do more dps than 1200s dhd

[Mr Coloredshirt]

they do 10% more dps but with double the cycle time p sure anything can get repped up in 30 seconds

[Opti]

1400s do more dps than 1200s dhd

twice the ROF twice the rape

[Kitty Vintner]

Halpha fleet was designed to reduce wasted cycles when you've got enough dudes to volley everything no matter what you're flying and you don't have the learning SP refund to get everybody quickly trained into abaddons. It doesn't function better than 1400s with lower numbers jesus.

[Boogie Jones]

DAMN NULLI!! OHSEVEN!! No drops and even numbers. Shit is fun. Keep it coming, tia.

[SpaceHermit]

But at least I mention that in my post.

You are, indeed, an honourable poster. I salute you mate.

[Opti]

CHECK OUT THE NEW SHIT ON KUGU COMING SOON ITS AMAZING

[Grogoth]

YEAH, I am on this SoK for about 2 minutes before work literally exploded in my face IT WAS GREAT

[jeffraider]

I gotta say, once PGL ropes in his posting and shrugs the chains of PK he will probably end up as the Shadoo of 2014.

[Grogoth]

Shadoo 2012 or Shadoo 2010?

[jeffraider]

Shadoo in any year is amazing, don't get it twisted m8

[icanhazcheesetoast]

Shadoo in any year is amazing, don't get it twisted m8

I <3 you jeff .. jeffm8er best m8er

[Opti]

I have yet to experience a hot finnish fleet, but i do expect to be not disappointed

[progodlegend]

Ok TEST alliance posters and members alike, yes you too DHD, gather around children its time for a lesson.

What's that you say? 1400 maelstroms simply can't win in small numbers? While DPS ships can still manage to do damage in small numbers, even against large amounts of logistics?

Well I'm here to tell you, you're wrong, and what's more I can prove it to you. Pay close attention to the demonstration on the screen.

I actually happen to have a perfect video of this exact situation you to describe. Allow me to set it up for you.

40 Hellcats/Armageddons (similar tanks really with the way their geddons were fit) with proper damnation bonus's and 19 guardians in support. A sturdy fleet.
vs.
25 Nulli Maelstroms, a few support arty canes, and 16 Scimitars, plus of course proper vulture bonus's.

Now as I recall from months of being so close to TEST (remember, you guys used to ask us for help all the time, we even helped train one of your fc's for you at Montolio's request, though hes a pretty cool dude and we probably would have done it anyway), that you guys would always tell your guys that 30 maels was the MINIMUM that you needed to volley shit, and that you should really have more. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing to say to young fc's, because what you are basically doing is preemptively setting their fleet up properly for them by just telling them they can't win without a certain number. One should always expect losses, and this way your fc's hopefully bring enough maels to be able to still maintain alpha after 5 minutes of trading blows.

But, then I read this from your recent military update, and I wonder if you are misunderstanding your own doctrine.

Why shieldcats? There are many reasons for us to make the transition, one being that we are TEST and Rokhs are pretty. One of the main issues that TEST runs into on fleets is that we often don't have enough or just barely enough maelstroms to effectively alpha things. Now that we are apparently in the "Age of the Triage Carrier" as someone put it, if you can't alpha something with your Maels, the hostiles will just rep that damage back up in the 17 or so seconds that it takes for you to lob off another volley. This problem is solved by the 5.6 second cycle time of the Rokh's 425mm Rails. Lower cycle time means faster target switching and a better chance at beating hostile reps.

[spoiler= Full military update, for citations sake]

Military Update: You can't stop the Rokh
Author:Fras Siabi

For the past few months I have been exploring and testing various doctrines that our wonderful spaceship empire could take advantage of. I needed a fleet that would accentuate TEST and not be as numbers dependent as alphafleet. I looked at Hellcats, Panicgeddons, Thundercats, fun fleets with ishtars and dominix, a megathron concept called "Rapekittens" which is probably the most awesome idea ever, as well as other equally terrible ideas. Most of these fleet comps really didnt mesh well with TEST or were too far off the beaten path for us to try in any reasonable amount of time.

In typical TEST fashion, the obvious solution was staring me in the face the whole time. We have been modifying our Maelstrom fits to work better with Rokhs for the past couple weeks now. We even have tried 1200mm prop mod free Maelstroms which are awesome, but really aren't what the Alphafleet Maelstrom was designed to do. Rather than further bastardize our beloved Maelstroms even further, why not try something logical and switch to the ship we keep trying to make them work with? Thats when Medea and I fell in love with shieldcats. Ladies and gentlemen (and Richters), I give you Shieldcats: The new TEST Rokh-trine that I shamelessly stole from Pandemic Legion.

Shieldcats are fairly similar in doctrine to our alphafleet, the main difference is that our primary source of damage comes from railguns rather than artillery. All of the support still remains the same. We still want your huginn (which should have a Fed Navy Web since they're like 60mil now), we want that lachesis, and of course your hictors and scimitars. Oh and your basilisk is welcome too. In fact your basilisks are encouraged to join and toss cap at people who don't know how to cap booster. This is your chance to dual box those officer fit basi's you've been hiding in APM for the past month.

Why shieldcats? There are many reasons for us to make the transition, one being that we are TEST and Rokhs are pretty. One of the main issues that TEST runs into on fleets is that we often don't have enough or just barely enough maelstroms to effectively alpha things. Now that we are apparently in the "Age of the Triage Carrier" as someone put it, if you can't alpha something with your Maels, the hostiles will just rep that damage back up in the 17 or so seconds that it takes for you to lob off another volley. This problem is solved by the 5.6 second cycle time of the Rokh's 425mm Rails. Lower cycle time means faster target switching and a better chance at beating hostile reps. If your target is burning out of range, you just cycle down and spend a whole 5 seconds switching to a different ammo with a new optimal. Rokhs also have a bit more tank than Maelstroms and better locking range. Oh yeah, and versatility. Hostiles in ahacs? Swap to blasters, drop the prop mod for more tank or even a web, drop triage carriers, load null and laugh your face off at their zealots.

So tl;dr Train Caldari BS IV and Large Hybrids. We're phasing in the shieldcat.

Relevant wiki link: https://wiki.pleasei...mbursement:Rokh

NINJA EDIT: Don't worry about if you're still training Large Projectile/maelstrom stuff. We'll still probably use those on goon deployments and if/when we fail at this.

[/spoiler]

Anyway, back to the video. The great thing about this video is that you get to see just about everything that would matter to this subject. In the beginning we start off too far into fall off because I was being conservative and wanted to make sure we could tank their dps before closing in. You see, with 25 maels, we actually have enough to volley abaddons, but if we were to lose 3 or more, we would be very close to not being able to do that. At the beginning of the video you can literally see us alpha stuff to "10% structure", and sometimes get the kill on the second volley, and sometimes not.

As you can see, hitting far enough into fall off will reduce your damage too much as we aren't able to alpha their BS at 60km. So when we re-engage we close range to 30km (1400's with roughly decent skills can be expected to have 30+52 km falloff, even with t1 guns), and are able to alpha bs properly. Meanwhile, their fleet is never able to break anything, thanks to our logi.

Relevant times in the video: fight starts off with us at range. At 03:30 they warp off, then we come back in at 04:15 and fight goes from close range from then on out.

Also, my timing was considerably off in this video, and overall I focused so hard on making sure we didn't lose a single BS, that I lost tons of time where I could have been firing. I generally kind of sucked here and was way too slow with a number of things, but oh well.



So there you have it, yes the critical mass for "killing things" is much lower for 1400 alpha maels than it is for any other BS fleet, and when you think about it for two seconds this makes a lot of sense. Why you guys are switching to rokh's from maels is beyond me, they are literally the worst fit for you alliance. And looky here, even after all this shit, I'm still trying to help you guys.

P.S: I'm flattered that you guys mentioned panicgeddons by name in your military update. *blush*

[Mr Coloredshirt]

fun fact with 1400 maelstroms though, if you don't volley your target a single scimitar will have time to rep it up before your next volley hits


I mean this is obviously not a problem for TEST elite pvp alliance please ignore, who probably have no issues with syncing their maelstroms up for perfect volley every time.

[srly]

Progod, I think you should let go this Mael debacle, it's really not worth the stroke. Also good post about tactics, but I can't really see why are you proving that maels are more effective than rokhs since you admitted that losing 3 bs from a 25 bs strong mael fleet will cripple it's ability to alpha targets. This isn't an issue for the rokhs, since they are not so heavily dependent on alpha. Just like your naga doctrine.

[Berdennol]

Progod, I think you should let go this Mael debacle, it's really not worth the stroke. Also good post about tactics, but I can't really see why are you proving that maels are more effective than rokhs since you admitted that losing 3 bs from a 25 bs strong mael fleet will cripple it's ability to alpha targets. This isn't an issue for the rokhs, since they are not so heavily dependent on alpha. Just like your naga doctrine.

Ah I see your point, with the CCP enforced max 25 BS cap in fleets, Maelstroms are obviously the worst choice...

[n0th]

I mean this is obviously not a problem for TEST elite pvp alliance please ignore, who probably have no issues with syncing their maelstroms up for perfect volley every time.

Thats the reason. Also with the number of duders TEST gets in fleet its not about reliably alphaing shit every 30 seconds, but maximum targets killed/minute.

Alphastrike fleet is nice because with ~45 duders in fleet you can reliably blap battleships.
But - alphafleet doesnt scale that well past ~70 without excellent discipline/very pro targetcalling. With those numbers and up you need to blap 2+ targets every RoF cycle for the doctrine to be effective - utilizing the alpha potential becomes very hard/impossible. Thats why TEST uses 1200s on Maels (6k-ish alpha)/switches to the Rail-Rokh (3k alpha)

[PDB]

Progod im wondering why are you still trying to paternalize TEST and PL and act like some kind of supreme spaceship tactitian,because it is clearly obvious that the battle was lost by your problematic or clerly wrong decisions.

First:yes 1400 maels can win even in smaller numbers and/or outnumbered,but simply not against force which is able,atleast in opening of the battle alpha them aswell,im wondering if you werent aware of this before the battle started,or you just choose to ignore the truth.

Second:you apparently hoped that you will be able to outmaneuver honeybadger forces and use the wider spreading and shorter range of part of our ships to kite us,while this may work,i think that you was either not aware about shadoo fcing our fleet or you roughly underestimated him,the fact you were webbed (but not primaried)was result of shadoo ability to read your moves and to presume what are going to do

Third:in the course of battle you decided to primary our light tackle,i think that you as self proposed top fc should be aware of miserable tracking of these 1400 artilleries and the fact that your fleet was quite suboptimal in its composition,because the huggins are,maybe to your surprise very important for alpha fleet.

So,as i showed above,battle was not lost because PL supers,not because superior numbers of honeybadger,but because YOU and your overconfidence and tactical mistakes/ignorance of intelligence gathering,and in my opinion,if you are really man you should be able to realize this and admit it...

[Dysphonia]

Ok, so;

You took maels against hellcats/panic geddons at 30km engagement range. I have to ask, did they not have scorch? Was the concept of T2 ammo just alien to them or something? Because otherwise they'd have easily taken a few maels down. You hear yourself yelling that one person didn't shoot, and it wasn't dying as a result. You were really fucking close, and even had to use tremor on canes at rhe beginning. When you're hitting that point, probably not good. I mean shit, I was in almost that exact position down in C3N a few weeks ago with a low strength alphafleet; we didn't lose many BS at the beginning (Mistakes were made afterwards), but we were having a real fucking hard time alphaing things with low numbers. Once we lost 2/3 maels, neutered to fuck.

1400 maels can't win in small numbers, and actually, your video proves as much. If the other FC in that video wasn't pants on head retarded, he could've easily killed a few of yours; then it would have been you, who as you put it, would've been dead in the water. You can talk about theoretical alpha all you want, you can talk about how that stacks up against EHP all you want, but in practical terms, we both know it doesn't work quite like that.

The switch to 1200s, and then rokhs, isn't anything against 1400 maels, I fucking love taking out decent sized alphafleets. Oneshotting things makes my dick hard as diamonds. That said, have you ever taken a 1400 maelstrom on a rokh fleet? I have. It was awful. The two things do not mesh, even slightly, even 1200s have that issue. That is why the switch to rokhs. It allows us to actually mesh in properly with PL fleets. It also, and this is something I think you missed, allows all support ships to stay the same. Scimis, huginns, and all other special snowflakes, they stay the same. As someone put it, its simply changing the meat with the rest of the meal. Sit there and think about that for a minute; all you need to do is switch the DPS ship and you go from fully functioning rokhtrine fleet, to a fully functioning alpha fleet, ready to roll with whatever you'll be facing. It also makes potential deployments with the rest of the CFC work flawlessly, just swap for maels, nbdnbd.

You, like everyone else is looking at this entire 1200v1400 debate wrong. Its not about which is best on paper, it's about what worked best with the people's rokhtrine. If you're not completed retarded*, you'll see why 1200s are far superior to 1400s for TEST as things stand, and that actually, swapping to rokhs just removes that issue entirely.

Also people are actually logging on for rokhs; its something people want to fly, as opposed to the fully functional, but a little boring at this point, alphafleet.

*Nulli posters stop reading here

[Dysphonia]

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to bed for another hour or two. oh seven meights.

[Scotch]

And God said to Noah there's going to be a flood-y flood-y...

[Gorga]

Thats the reason. Also with the number of duders TEST gets in fleet its not about reliably alphaing shit every 30 seconds, but maximum targets killed/minute.

Alphastrike fleet is nice because with ~45 duders in fleet you can reliably blap battleships.
But - alphafleet doesnt scale that well past ~70 without excellent discipline/very pro targetcalling. With those numbers and up you need to blap 2+ targets every RoF cycle for the doctrine to be effective - utilizing the alpha potential becomes very hard/impossible. Thats why TEST uses 1200s on Maels (6k-ish alpha)/switches to the Rail-Rokh (3k alpha)

It's not very hard to split into two gun groups and volley 2 targets per cycle. Hell, appropriate numbers, you can do 3.

[Jean Leaner]

Progod im wondering why are you still trying to paternalize TEST and PL and act like some kind of supreme spaceship tactitian,because it is clearly obvious that the battle was lost by your problematic or clerly wrong decisions.

First:yes 1400 maels can win even in smaller numbers and/or outnumbered,but simply not against force which is able,atleast in opening of the battle alpha them aswell,im wondering if you werent aware of this before the battle started,or you just choose to ignore the truth.

Second:you apparently hoped that you will be able to outmaneuver honeybadger forces and use the wider spreading and shorter range of part of our ships to kite us,while this may work,i think that you was either not aware about shadoo fcing our fleet or you roughly underestimated him,the fact you were webbed (but not primaried)was result of shadoo ability to read your moves and to presume what are going to do

Third:in the course of battle you decided to primary our light tackle,i think that you as self proposed top fc should be aware of miserable tracking of these 1400 artilleries and the fact that your fleet was quite suboptimal in its composition,because the huggins are,maybe to your surprise very important for alpha fleet.

So,as i showed above,battle was not lost because PL supers,not because superior numbers of honeybadger,but because YOU and your overconfidence and tactical mistakes/ignorance of intelligence gathering,and in my opinion,if you are really man you should be able to realize this and admit it...

1)You're absolutely right, had the fight gone late it would have come down entirely to who had thinned out the battleship numbers more, if we had managed to get the rokhs and maelstroms down to a tankable number(which was doable, we did have 26 scimitars on field) We would win, otherwise we'd have to attempt to withdraw, either way it would have been a long bloody and badass fight.

2) m8, everyone knew shadoo had that fleet, webbing progod actually does nothing to an unanchored and aligning fleet, we aligned to planet 11 for all but 3 minutes of the fight.

3) Until we committed to getting out, we never broadcasted tackle and even then we were shooting recons and maelstroms that were still close, antisupport killed your light tackle(also known as doing their job).

The results of the fight are attributed to three things: Equal numbers of battleships, Tracking dreads heavily thinning our numbers, and Vee's badass as fuck bombing run. Had everyone been perfect ~honourable space gentlemen~ and no bombs or capital ships been used the victor of the fight is a toss up, but no one in this game leaves everything to chance, we tried to thin numbers as hard as you did with our bombers. Either way, loss or not I had a good time. All this spaceship rage and slapfighting over honour really has killed my boner though.

I'm wondering if we'll make it to a full 48 hours of talking about this before people finally decide to give up and just disagree.

[Berdennol]

Ok, so;

You took maels against hellcats/panic geddons at 30km engagement range. I have to ask, did they not have scorch? Was the concept of T2 ammo just alien to them or something? Because otherwise they'd have easily taken a few maels down. You hear yourself yelling that one person didn't shoot, and it wasn't dying as a result. You were really fucking close, and even had to use tremor on canes at rhe beginning. When you're hitting that point, probably not good. I mean shit, I was in almost that exact position down in C3N a few weeks ago with a low strength alphafleet; we didn't lose many BS at the beginning (Mistakes were made afterwards), but we were having a real fucking hard time alphaing things with low numbers. Once we lost 2/3 maels, neutered to fuck.

1400 maels can't win in small numbers, and actually, your video proves as much. If the other FC in that video wasn't pants on head retarded, he could've easily killed a few of yours; then it would have been you, who as you put it, would've been dead in the water. You can talk about theoretical alpha all you want, you can talk about how that stacks up against EHP all you want, but in practical terms, we both know it doesn't work quite like that.

The switch to 1200s, and then rokhs, isn't anything against 1400 maels, I fucking love taking out decent sized alphafleets. Oneshotting things makes my dick hard as diamonds. That said, have you ever taken a 1400 maelstrom on a rokh fleet? I have. It was awful. The two things do not mesh, even slightly, even 1200s have that issue. That is why the switch to rokhs. It allows us to actually mesh in properly with PL fleets. It also, and this is something I think you missed, allows all support ships to stay the same. Scimis, huginns, and all other special snowflakes, they stay the same. As someone put it, its simply changing the meat with the rest of the meal. Sit there and think about that for a minute; all you need to do is switch the DPS ship and you go from fully functioning rokhtrine fleet, to a fully functioning alpha fleet, ready to roll with whatever you'll be facing. It also makes potential deployments with the rest of the CFC work flawlessly, just swap for maels, nbdnbd.

You, like everyone else is looking at this entire 1200v1400 debate wrong. Its not about which is best on paper, it's about what worked best with the people's rokhtrine. If you're not completed retarded*, you'll see why 1200s are far superior to 1400s for TEST as things stand, and that actually, swapping to rokhs just removes that issue entirely.

Also people are actually logging on for rokhs; its something people want to fly, as opposed to the fully functional, but a little boring at this point, alphafleet.

*Nulli posters stop reading here

25 Might be dicey, but with 30+ it should be a breeze. While most other battleship doctrines would have to be looking at 40+ to overwhelm reps. I guess the argument just is that there's a sweet spot in BS numbers where alpha works but most other BS concepts just don't (given enough logistics). Under 25 Maels alpha'ing BS becomes problematic, but under 25 ~insert almost any other BS concept~ you'd have little hope to take down battleships just the same.

Back to yesterdays fight, this means that given a <hypothetical> even trading of battleship losses. The alpha fleet would have probably stayed effective for longer.


I might have missed it, but I don't think anyone was arguing that mixing 1400 Maels with Rokh's is a bad choice. What's up for debate is if rokh's are better for TEST, when fielded without the gentle guidance of PL.


And yes Maelstroms are quite boring to fly. I prefer to do my F1-monkeying in panic geddons every day of the week.