Defiance Fleet - Rykki's Reflections

I asked Rykki to write a guest blog to summarize this last week. This is her post. -Sug

Hi. I'm Rykki, and if you follow Sugar's blog you've been reading about my gang of kittens learning to defend ourselves. It's been quite a journey and I am nothing but pleased with the outcome so far. You see, I'm a self proclaimed carebear. It's not that I'm scared of PvP, it just doesn't get me excited. More than being a carebear, though, I'm an enabler. I started a corporation very early in my EVE career with the stated goal of “helping others achieve what they want to do.” Part of that involves finding players to help guide my newbies in things I'm not familiar with. Enter Sugar with all her lowsec and pvp know-how.

Fitting Ships

Ship fitting for newer players can be somewhat challenging. We all remember thinking at some point “If I put shield and armor modules I'll be even harder to kill.” It has taken us some work to get decent mission ships fit. Few of us had even considered that to kill other players we'd have to fit our ships differently. We learned that without a warp disruptor our prey will just warp off. We learned that to catch a ship something is needed to make us go faster. It's common sense to us now that a mission ship is not a PvP ship.

Losing Ships

For new, and especially PvE, players losing ships is scary. We spent time combing the market for modules to fit and have become attached to our ships. We see losing them as a failure. To lessen this blow I've been handing out PvP fit T1 Frigates free to anyone who joins the defense fleet. I'm pleased to say that every loss of the war so far has been calculated. We decided to engage knowing our ships could be blown up. If we weren't prepared, we avoided conflict. We have become skilled at getting our pods out safely. Every ship loss on the war report so far has been a pvp fit ship that knew it was going into battle. I'm quite proud of that fact. My corpmates are as well.

Low Security Space

If you've played EVE for very long chances are you see low sec as a place to do small ship PvP. If you're new to EVE chances are you see low sec as instant death and a place to be taunted for being terrible. A week ago the general consensus between my newbies was that they would never venture to low sec. That has changed. We know how to move around without being killed, we understand directional scan and creating safe spots. EVE has become bigger than just high security space for some of us.

(Killboard link: https://zkillboard.com/corporation/98224451/)

This Is Our Game

From experience most highsec wardecs usually end up with defenders hiding from the aggressors. Ship spinning is the order of the day for many a wardec'd corp much to the frustration of members who just want to play their game they've paid for. While we certainly aren't doing our regular activities we most definitely are playing our game. This war is on our terms. You could say that we've lost several ships and killed none of the aggressors ships so we are losing. You could say that. I say we're logging in every day and undocking ships ready to fight. I say we're enjoying this war tremendously. I say we're winning EVE because it's fun.

Meeting People

High security space is a strange land. There can be hundreds of people in a system and none of them talk to each other. Many times situations come down to who you know. Before we asked for help in this wardec our circle was pretty small. Sugar put it well when she said “One of the best outcomes of this will just be making a few connections for them. Eve should be much bigger when they are done.” She was right. We've already made connections. One of our members is considering joining public PvP roams. We might not be a huge force in this game, but we aren't alone anymore. It feels good to meet new people.

I've told my members in the past that war decs can be a good thing for us. This time a wardec has brought us closer together, taught us how to survive, and introduced us to new friends. It shouldn't be overlooked, also, that our gang of newbies haven't been the only ones to benefit from this war. Sugar Kyle, who I knew before as a blogger who took time to respond to fan mail has become our friend. She has also grown as an FC and as a player. I would gladly follow her into combat. She underestimates herself probably because she is surrounded by competent people. Little does she know that she is one of those who are quite competent.

Am I ready for this war to be over so mission night and mining fleets can be a thing again? Yes. Am I glad this war happened? Definitely.

-Rykki Atruin
Independent Praetorian Corp