Mistakes Were Made

Sunday morning we encountered some hostiles in our wormhole and unfortunately a series of mistakes were made which lead to an unfortunate level of red on the killboard.

As I awoke and logged into EVE, there was report of some possible hostile activity in our wormhole.  The initial report from corp members was of a Proteus on our High Sec static hole, shooting at the Mobile Large Warp Dispruptor II bubble.  I jumped into standing fleet, and pinged everyone to join Fleet comms on TS.

One of the members had an alt in the hole who could warp over and sit cloaked at a perch on the hole.  He logged in that character, and as he did one of the corp members piped up in Fleet chat that he had engaged a Sabre on the relatively new C4 hole we also had.  I attempted to initiate warp to his position, but we received the error message that the pilot was not in our system.  Fail, evidently by the time he elected to say anything he was podded back to high sec.  Now, never during this time did he say anything to us on TS, as he was not on TS.  Mistake #1

Loss #1 Manticore
Loss #2 Pod

I warped the fleet over to the C4 hole at 100, and the Sabre was there.  I bounced us off a celestial and back to the hole at 20.  We engaged the Sabre and he decided to jump back to the C4.  Now, bear in mind no single corp member had elected to scout out the C4.  This may have been important as we shall see soon.

Our cloaky scout was at the perch over the high sec hole and reported that the Proteus was indeed in the bubble shooting at the bubble.  He also was joined by an Ishtar.  I was still trying to organize the fleet and get a relatively decent composition for engaging the Proteus.  It was about this time that we had a 2nd member of the corp decide to poke around at the C4 hole.  SMH.  At least he was on comms and immediately verbalized that he was being shot at by the Sabre.  Again, I warped the fleet over to the C4 hole and immediately the Sabre jumped back.  There were two mistakes in this engagement.  Mistake number one was to fit faction torpedo launchers to a PVP ship with a tank slightly better than an Ibis.  Mistake number two was the independent corp member electing to go to that hostile hole where the Sabre was.  Mistake #2 & #3

Loss #3 Nemesis
Loss #4 Pod

We now had 5 members in the fleet with us, and with 4 of us in BC/HAC hulls I felt reasonably sure that we had enough DPS to kill the Ishtar and the Proteus, especially as my alt was in a Pilgrim, and the neut pressure from her would shut down any active tank of the Proteus.  So, I warped her over to the high sec hole and started to get her positioned cloaked off of the Proteus.  Unfortunately, I alt-tabbed between the two accounts and when I did it appears that she was decloaked by "something".  The mistake here was attempting to dual box without the necessary precautions.  Mistake #4

Loss #5 Pilgrim
Loss #6 Pod

We still had 3 battlecruisers and my Ishtar, so I elected to proceed into the engagement.  I had the fleet warp to the bubble and we began to engage.  His tank was decent, but we slowly began to chip away at his armor.  As he dipped below 50% armor, our Brutix pilot mentioned that he was breaking.  We had no logis, so I ordered him to begin aligning out of the bubble, but he went down and the Proteus jumped back into high sec.  The mistake here was not getting into optimal range for our weapons.  The Brutix would certainly have done better damage projection if he were up close and personal.  Mistake #5

Loss # 7 Brutix

Then, as his pod was beginning to slowly trek out of the bubble, an Astero uncloaks and pods him.  Afterwards, the pilot mentioned that he was closer to the high sec hole than the edge of the bubble.  Mistake #6 was not having him jump to high sec.

Loss #8 Pod

The proteus would now continue to play games jumping into and out of our hole, so we decided to leave him alone for now.  With the remainder of our fleet in the POS, the cloaky scout reported a Prophecy on scan and landing at the high sec hole.  He was a member of the C4 residents and this should have told us more about their intentions.  I had our fleet warp to the high sec hole, but from our POS we were on the opposite edge of the bubble from the Prophecy.  He warped back to his hole when he saw us.  I warped the fleet to the C4 at range, and the Prophecy jumped into his hole.  I left our scout on the C4 hole to hear if anything came through.  A corp member in high sec reported that the proteus pilot was back, but he was now in an Armageddon, and he jumped.  I warped out fleet to the high sec hole and we began to engage the geddon.  He was heavy neut fit and rapidly depleted the cap of many of the fleet members.  Within 10-15 seconds, the C4 hole exploded with hostiles.  I gave the command to disengage and get out of the bubble.  Luckily the Oracle and Hurricane escaped.  Sadly, my Ishtar did not.  Mistake #7 was the failure to properly scout out the C4 hole.

Loss #9 Ishtar
Loss #10 Pod

Some very expensive lessons to be learned, but if the corporation members learn only one thing it is that it is never sufficient to simply scout a hole and bookmark it after adding it to tripwire.  Some holes are empty, but many are not, and the bad scary many may come to inflict space violence upon your ship and pod.

Summarized Battle Report