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Being Wrong

One bit of Eve technobabble that has always driven me insane was the way fleet doctrins are named. We have fatcats and slowcats and batcats and mattecats. There are wrecking ball felets, and fleets named after songs, and fleets named after roosters, and fleets named after people and they all mean something.

That is all understandable enough but I, silly enough, spoke up one day in the past and said, "The names of all of these comps are kind of ridiculous and make the fit requested non-intuitive. Can we just use regular names for things?"

The answer was no.  It turns out that I am wrong. And when someone says, "Chocolate Omega Blizzard Watermelon fleet undock!" I should know what I am fitting up. It should make sense to me. My habit of naming thinking of my ships as 'armor projectile' and 'kiting shield cruiser' isn't the way to go. My 'Rawrcat doctrine' is a snarky response to how clear and coherent random fleet doctrine names are.

The topic drifted away from me. Fast forward to earlier, when I was reading a post and someone commented about some fleet comp. I realized that I had no idea what they were talking about.

I understand some of the reason why we name doctrines. The whole internal name code name aspect applies. But in truth, these become a thing. When someone says 'slowcats' that means a particular type of carrier fit. Saying something like sentry carrier isn't the way to go.

Therefore, I am somewhat amused that I understand naming fleet strategies. The wrecking ball fleet is a composition of several different ships and focuses. That makes complete sense to me. But naming every single fit after something cat is frustrating. I even did a web search where I picked up a reddit post about cat named fleet themes from 2012. At least I was not the only one who needed to be caught up on what all of these themes mean.

I may not be wired properly or perhaps I am not into Eve enough for these fleet doctrines to become my go to. I even created a cheat sheet that converted doctrines into real words that I could understand when they'd be called for because I got tired of asking, "What?" "This?" and having to have fits checked.

After all, if they are code names then my confusion is the exact intended result.


Comments

  1. Not just you, how this usually goes for me:

    Random FC: "Please have a XXXXXXcat ready for fleet tonight?"
    Kaeda: "You fokkin wot m8?"
    Random FC: "A XXXXXXcat"
    Kaeda: "I'll fly tackle then, swear on me mum".

    So no not just you ^_^

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've ceased trying to keep it all in mind... Fortunately, most of Razor's fits are pretty straightforward. It's not like all our enemies don't have spies and can read our forums anyways.

    ReplyDelete
  3. But then I can't think of thunder cats every time someone names a fleet.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I want to fly in Chocolate omega blizzard watermelon fleet. What's involved in that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Easy: That's a Minmatar-only cruiser fleet, in which at least half the ships are fitted with smart bombs, and/or snowball launchers.

      Delete
  5. So, the thing is, someone decided there should be a snazzy name. For some reason, these names tend to be opaque, impossible to spell, and short. (One of my alliance's FCs likes to name his doctrines after beetles... get ready to spell "kabutomushi" and "brachinus"...) It probably doesn't make you feel better, but I don't think they named them like this to confuse you. I think a lot of it is that some people just like to name things: it allows them to feel ownership over the thing. Furthermore, as you seemed to get at near the middle of your post, they're named like this because it's a package set.

    Besides, any spy with access to your doctrine forum, assuming you have such a thing, won't be confused; if their job is to learn about you, they'll learn that, too, and it will probably confuse them less than it confuses you. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. It's cause you're a dog person Sugar. It all makes purrrfect sense to us cat folks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm seconding the brilliance of "Chocolate Omega Blizzard Watermelon" doctrine. Doctrines should be named like this as in "if you're gonna obfuscate then ffs obfuscate!".

    I wouldn't try out a Crimson Deodorant Oak Telephone fleet though because that would just plainly be shit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed. A fleet of Prospects, Ventures, and Badgers, who all try to bat phone each other when under attack … not a good idea.

      Delete

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