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And Suddenly, A Random Decision Stampedes In

I made the wildest, most random decision today. Someone came into my channel and asked for advice. They have been war deced, again, by a group that does not like them coming into their low sec area. They are going to fight back and asked for advice on how to fight back. Getting people out and about and focused was a problem. Vov said they needed a FC and that he was a bad one. I said I had no expierence as one. I was told they'd love me to FC for them even if I have no actual FC experience.

Huh.

I decided, why not? I spend a lot of time worrying about being good enough and capable enough and knowledgeable enough. I spend a lot of time not wanting to FC because I'm to embarrassed by everything I don't know. I, however, am familiar with basics and I am familiar with coaching new people into learning the basic fleet movements and developing spatial awareness.

So, why not. Why not at all? Today, I am sick and tired of my own worries and insecurities. I dropped everything. I then hopped over to the Concord station next door, upped my sec, and started getting a war plan together in my mind. I keep saying that I want to help people learn Eve. I say that I want to share my game of Eve with them, my views of low sec, of fighting, of living, of dying. It seems as good a time as any to start down that path. If I can help a group of players develop a bit of confidence I will have done the right thing.

It has been a long time since Lain and I did his practice PvP with his newbie corp. I offered 500mil up front to help cover their ships. I gave the same offer this time. They had already looked up basic PvP fits from Agony and Eve Uni. I added battle Ventures to their list.

No cruisers, I said. It is to easy to set ourselves up for failure due to inexperience. It is to easy to just be meat for the meat grinder. We will start with the basics of a frigate swarm. We will learn to use our DCU and our points. We will learn about ancillary boosters.

My idea is to get into frigates with T1 fits and get out into space fighting. The win here is to fight and not cower in the station and wait for the war dec to end. Along the way, we hope to learn basic maneuvers, fleet commands, and how to handle our ships. I don't care if every ship in the fleet dies, every ship in the fleet will die knowing why they died and trying to do the correct, productive thing. Everyone will die in fits meant to fight.

I want to come out the other side as better Eve players for everyone. If they do not bring the fight we will try to take it to them. If that doesn't work we'll go out on a roam. One way or another we will spend the next week productively learning how to not be walked over, how not to be food, and that dying doesn't have to be scary.

I hope the entire corp comes along. I have a few on board. Just one would be enough. Every one extra is a bonus. It isn't the best week for me to do it, in concerns to my work hours. But we can put an hour or so into space each evening learning together. I think that it will be worth it.

I'm normally not spontaneous like this. But, right now, I need this. I pulled out my Orca and headed to supply. I jumped Sugar into high sec with a clean sec status and headed to this corporations home system. There is some herding cats involved, but we'll get it done. And tomorrow, the learning starts.

I left my chatroom teaching the latest new player who has strolled in the difference between falloff and optimal. I think I will look forward to this week.

Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I hope your Optimal vs Falloff conversation is better than mine. Mine is just, "Optimal is what you want to fight in, falloff is what you actually fight in. Don't worry about it, just figure out transversal.".

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  3. Put them in derptrons! They cost 2 mil a pop, they're easy to fly, and a swarm of them can catch and kill pretty much anything. You know on the discovery channel when they talk about piranhas skeletonizing a cow in 30 seconds? Those are derptrons.

    The combined minnie/galmil fleet has been using them to great effect in hit and run attacks on the amarr in Huola. The other night PL tried to get cute with a kitey cruiser gang, and the derptron cloud devoured a scimi, cynabal, zealot and oracle, and put a shield legion out of its misery.

    Plus derptrons tend to have a short lifespan, so it's also a good way to teach them how to lose a ship, and value the objective over their own personal survival.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With a mix of skills and ages we have an entire slew of newer player friendly ships to fly.

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  4. Good luck!

    2 tips:
    1. Don't let people joggle your elbow. It's your fleet tell them to shut up.
    2. Don't feel you have to take a fight. If you think you'll lose don't take it. Even with cheap ships people don't enjoy FCs who lose fights.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 2. is false.

      Kaeda fleets go home in pods. This is a known fact. Everytime I run a fleet I get plenty of participants. And then when we go out again right after with another batch of ships -none of which will redock- people still want to come along! And by the third time... yup still...

      Epic death > Epic boredom.

      Delete
  5. Give your orders, expect them to be followed. When time permits, explain your reasoning behind the orders. When folks hear the explanation, they will have greater understanding. Especially with new folks, keep commands simple; try to speak slowly, repeating orders.

    Be patient (I fall down here).

    Oh, and enjoy yourself. Its a game.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Patience is the easy part. I hate being yelled at in fleets. I'm going to do explanations before hand and drill s to get the words sink in. We will simply try and that alone will empower this processm

      Delete
  6. Sounds like fun; I want in! :)

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  7. The best piece of advice I can give is what they taught me in leadership school about making decisions: Any decision, even a bad one, is better than no decision at all, because even if you make a bad decision, at least you're doing something and as long as you're doing something, you can make plans to change your course of action.

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  8. Eve is like every other mmo in that the only genuinely difficult part is getting enough people to show up for the same purpose.

    I'm sticking to my position that successful corps are born out of larger ones by necessity. Rarely do people simply flock to a banner. You rely on those who are in the bottom of the pan when all else washes away in the stream.

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  9. I'm quite happy you agreed! I honestly didn't expect so much help... I thought we'd get some good advice, maybe a nod to a merc corp. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have some potential guest FCs and more expierence fleet mates in the pipe too.

      Delete
  10. You take a months holiday and then something cool like this pops up. Well done I say. A nice read to add to my scanning of industry changes that is drawing me back towards EVE again. I'm off to read the AARs!

    ReplyDelete

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