Warfare & Tactics

Ok, this happened a couple hours ago, and i feel I made the right decision, but was getting railed in militia chat, and started second guessing myself. First, let me describe the situation:

I'm in my incursus, speed tanking a medium plex in gallente space. My ship is set up to fight back, but not necessarily the best pvp fit. It has guns, but is fit in a way to be cap stable running an afterburner and a small repper. I also have a cloak fit, because I was playing at work and sometimes I have to immediately warp to a safe and cloak and go afk. (=1 less gun, my DPS was ~95 and my omni tank was ~30 according to EFT).

So two other milita mates warp into plex and ask to join. I give my consent even though it will mean I will get only 1/3 the LP that i would get doing it alone. We don't join fleet, they just come in doing thier thing close to button. I'm not really watching anything except local, and i have several windows open on my screen. I do make the statement that i hope they have guns fit because i'm tired of trying to help people running around in t1 frigs doing plexes that run from any type of fight because they didnt even fit guns. They make a sarcastic reply which led me to believe that they were doing exactly that.

A few minutes later, three nuetrals show up in local all around the same time. (Until now it was only us three in system). So i open scanner and check max range directional scan and see an Anethema and a Hawk. I switch to 200k range on dscan and start clicking it often. Within a few seconds the Hawk shows up at the gate to the plex we are in.

Now our little group consists of 2 incursuses and 1 Punisher. I have no clue how these other 2 are fit or how skilled they are as far as SP or pvp experience. I do know that the 2 incursuses are likely fitting hybrid weapons (which do kin/therm damage which happens to be the Hawks' highest native resist). Also I know that a Hawk does 150-200 dps, and could have 8-9k or better EHP (especially against kin/therm damage). Also, I have full room aggro, my shields are already gone, and a web alone could kill me within a few seconds.

I warp off soon after the Hawk lands on grid. (know when to hold em know when to fold em right)? I know I said I hate when people warp off as soon as a fight shows up, but i also know an almost guaranteed ship loss when i see it coming. The other two stay and fight and (gasp) get killed. Then thay start talking sh!t in milita chat. They obviously saw the situation differently than I did, and tried to fight (unsucessfully). I survived and come back 5 minutes later to finish off the last 1:30 left on the button timer.

So I warped off from a fight as soon as it showed up. It was a fight, but I felt I had no chance to survive. Was i wrong? What would you do in the same situation?

My first thought is: They shoulda left your plex instead of taking 2/3rds of the LP from it.. IF* they were out plexing for LP*

If they were out for pvp, they shoulda hung close to the warp in , not the button.

If they wanted you to help them... they could have sent a fleet invite .

If you had considered helping them.. you could have aligned out and watched to see if they engaged

With no organised communication. It's every man for himself. imo. They shouldn't have counted on you for 1 second.

I can tell you that I was tailing a 15+ man fleet one time and I was going to help them. Incoming wt had about the same numbers and we all jumped a gate. I was reaproaching gate when the rest of the fleet just warped off... You can guess the rest.

My loss was my fault though and nobody elses. because I failed to do any comms. I am fully aware of that, and I'm ok with it.
You cannot rely on them and they cannot rely on you, and you/they shouldn't.

Me personally, seeing a possible 3 on 3, only risking a frigate, I would have stayed.

If I didn't know them, I wouldn't have stayed and fought with them. Simple as that.
If you can't trust them, you're all going to probably die.
Then when they whined in militia chat, I'd have laughed.

You can "look at" other ships to see if they fit guns (and what kind).

Since you captured the plex in the end, I would argue you won. Thus temporarily retreating was the correct course of action.

Back in Militia if people "ran into each-other" in a plex and grouped like this, then usually pretty damn quickly:
- You'd join fleet
- You'd get on TS

Having organized communications like this is essential for precisely this type of situation.

Answer:

You could have stood to lose an Incursus, but you made a snap decision instead of no decision at all, so good for you. I'd ignore the smack that you got - the real mistake was the total lack of communication on everybody's part, not necessarily your decision.

Another way that situation could play out is, you get picked off and the other two take the opportunity to warp out, for instance.

I'd worry less about justify your actions or worrying whether you were right or wrong and worry more about thinking what you can do in the future to prevent yourself getting into this situation.

Not in your fleet or corp, **** em

I rarely PVP with anyone unless they are on comms with me. I cannot type and pvp at the same time. If you want to coordinate a fight, then hop on comms.

No fleet....no comms....no thank you.

Can't tell you how many times I've died being the "team player" with no organization/comms - .

The only thing you "could" have done was align out away from the warp-in and keep aggro for as long as you could. After all, since you had all the aggro, you could have just held it to see what they would do and be ready to warp out before getting pointed if need be.

You did right thing, those guys came to leach your lp, let them die in fire.

They probably were enemy alts anyway.

Bwaaahaha. That is funny...

Just to point out - that is LEANpockets, not HOTpockets. Different guy!!! Though according to half the minmitar, half of ARETR (including myself) are HOTpocket alts...