Sunday, May 28 saw the wrecking of a Fraternity Machariel fleet to a somewhat smaller sized group composed of a Space Violence Maelstrom fleet and an INIT. snatch fleet. the fight took place on a content generating Astrahus (also called Baitrahus), anchoring in H-ADOC.
Introducing the Alpha fleet to SV
Before going into the details of the fight, let’s talk about doctrines. Space Violence has been using Moas a lot lately, due to their sheer power and tank, and their disposable nature: T1 cruisers are perfect when you engage in fights you could (should) lose.
Along with the so-called Snail Fleet, SV has been rolling Jackdaws and Nightmares. Jackdaws are perfect for third-partying and more hit-and-run-like strategies, while the Nightmare is better for bigger fights and objectives. These doctrines worked pretty well and started to be feared and hated by some opponents.
Everything looked fine… but SV wanted something more punchy. We wanted a fleet to fight against other battleship fleets. We also wanted to fight with, and against capitals. Thinking was performed ( a rare thing for goons), and a choice was made. Bring the Imperium’s Alpha fleet to Violent Citizens.
Of course, some will say Imperium did not invent Alpha Fleet: that is true. I called it “Imperium’s” because it is a setup similar to the one the Imperium uses from time to time.
Why Maelstroms? They are shield and “cheap” (compared to Nightmares or Machariels for example) just like most of SV doctrines right now. Oh, and they kick ass, as you will soon™ see.
Test fight, not fighting Test
So we needed a fight to try out the fleet and make sure we were able to make it work as we wanted to. The decision was taken to take the fleet to H-ADOC where a citadel was anchoring for “content”. A fleet of roughly 130 members was assembled, with only cruisers logistics. INIT. came along with their snatch fleet, a doctrine dedicated to boosh enemies off their fleet using Magus.
Fraternity came to fight, with just over 150 members. In the system, there were also a group of 10 bombers. SV set up on the entrance gate. The enemy warped in with its Machariels… and most of its logistics wing got booshed.
The massacre could start, ending with the citadel anchored, 28 billion isk lost for Fraternity and 11 for the Imperium. INIT. doing gods work certainly made the fight much easier, but the raw power of the fleet was perfectly used to hit where it was needed.
A fellow logibro filmed the whole fight:
And this is where I point out that the Maelstroms are tanking beasts: they took bombs after bombs, soaking damage while facing the strong alpha of the Machariels as well.
The bombers actually dealt more damage than anyone else in the fight.
Which give us a perfect opportunity to pass on a message from all logistics players in the game:
Well, Violent People might be just a little bit better in fleets than generic Goons, but they remain Goons at times.
Thank you for reading, thanks to INIT. for their awesomeness and thanks to Fraternity for the fight!
Caleb Ayrania
+1 a BR that made me want to finish reading 🙂
June 1, 2017 at 1:43 PMZaand
I’m not positive on this, but pretty sure we (as in goons) actually did invent alpha fleet, or at the very least we were the first to use it as a mainline doctrine. Way back in the day before Imperium, before CFC, when the NC was still a thing and Goons were hitting our stride again after relocating to Deklein (deja vu), CCP unfucked the Maelstrom and killed the sniping battleship doctrine that was de rigueur for a number of years prior, ushering in the era of alpha doctrines. This was around the end of 2010 or so, if my memory serves me. Alphas went out of style several years later when changes to bombing made pretty much all large shield doctrines unviable.
June 1, 2017 at 5:01 PMMischa Gau'ss Tesla Zaand
It might be worth it to do a “great history of fleet doctrines” article one day… maybe during this summer…
June 1, 2017 at 5:52 PMVertigoe
Great video, music annoying as hell.
June 1, 2017 at 10:17 PM