How we adapt

In R-NAT we try to fit our ships to be as much use for the small fleets we do as possible, and we try and learn from mistakes and experiences. EFT is nice and all, but it will not tell you if to go for a ECCM or a web on the BS you are fitting. Neither will it tell you what to do with that last high-slot.

This is an good example of how it works;

Last night we had another chance to tussle with Chained Reactions a bit.

After finding their system (a C2 with static Null/C5) from our static we scouted it out to see if there was any activity.

Nat > Gloria > CHAIN home

Activity there was, but very little. A lone Covetor was mining in the middle of the system. Well, theses guys are not exactly known for their vigilance, there's a big chance combat probes would work.

I'm flying a Rapier, so I quickly warped out of d-scan range, dropped probes, found the Covetor, warped there, called in Jimma in a ceptor to get a quick lock and possibly even catch the pod.

We both lands at the same time, and maybe, just maybe I'm a little to eager with the decloak while in warp, because after I have a scram on the Covetor, it warps away. Darn.

How many stabs can you fit on that thing? Well, 2 lowslots... so I guess we would have needed Jimmas point on there to keep him around. Or a faction scram. I guess that's why you fit them. Oh, well..

After this, a lot of their guys start loggin on and getting into battleships. We are starting to suspect they are going to close the incoming WH to Gloria, our static, the way we came.

We are two pilots ready but they have at least 4 - 5, with at least three battleships for closing. How should we do this to get a chance to kill some of them? We also got Danaja coming in from HS a few jumps out in a cloaky Tengu.

Three guys. Hmm.

Jimma have recently finished training for a Guardian, so he is pretty eager to try that out. He asks if we should do "the BS/Logi-thing".

Would that stand a chance against 3 closing battleships if we caught them jumping back into their system on a timer? If we got to the WH from Gloria when they jumped in, we could follow them back into their system and possibly get a point on the other side.

We would need eyes on the inside to time it though. We assume they have cloaky eyes on the outside of the WH, so we can't just warp there and wait for the closers to jump into us, they would simply not show.

In addition this will most likely become a cat and mouse game around a critical WH at some point, and I do not want to be stuck with a BS and a Guardian on the wrong side of a closed WH.

Danaja in the Tengu is the solution, I give order that he should jump into CHAINs system and keep eyes on the WH soon to be closed.

A Tengu is a nice addition to our dps, and he got probes to scan us out when the WH collapses, but it's not exactly the ultimate third ship to go with our BS/Guardian.

• It's shield, so it would not benefit from the Guardian at all. If it gets close to armor, it would have to disengage.
• It's tackle is a bit slow due to the decloak-timer, nothing serious, but it's not optimal, their BS will try and warp away as soon as they jump back. He would have to decloak to be ready for them when they return.
• With the BS as the only tackle, and no webs, we might lose them simply because they pull range. A BS w/o a sensor-booster is definitively not the best tackler

A quick armor-tackler with webs and a bit of dps would be perfect. If we where flying T3s I guess that would have been a Legion, but for our current wallet, that's an AF.

I know Dana fly Enyos, but I don't want to lose the probes and eyes in their system, so I end up asking for his cloaky Tengu anyway.

We end up missing them because of the slow lock of the BS and Dana not being ready and/or decloaked on the right side when they jumped back, just as feared.

After they jumped back into their system they simply warped of. We missed our chance.

Now, what if our AFs had carried a off-lined probe launcher in that last high-slot? Then we would probably have had both point and web on one of the closers as well as a tiny bit more dps (from a ship that could stay on grid). In addition, we could have taken much more chances with the WH.

If you don't have a prober, a crit WH is just a risk to get your whole fleet stuck, with a prober (even a off-lined one) a critical WH suddenly becomes a chance to get the opposing fleet stuck with nowhere to go.

Not that a our Tengu could not have tackled, but a probe-launcher (on a fast armor tackler) would have changed the whole game for us. Since this failed engagement, there is a corp rule that AFs should always have a probe-launcher. That makes them the perfect complement for a BS/Logi duo when a cloaky tackle for one reason or another is not optimal.

This way we adjust our fit little by little, based on real situations. If we could not do something due to lack of a specific function or module in fleet then that specific module gets much higher priority and fits without it are reconsidered.