EVE General Discussion

Hello fellow computer dwellers,

I was wondering if anyone has an answer to this. Is setting a doctrine for a corporation that only sticks to a limited type of ship fittings and/or other limitations good for a corporation? It seems to me that flexibility seems a much needed aspect of success in EVE when you not only have patches that buff or nerf your favorite ship types, but you also face various types of threats from war targets in various wars you are fighting.

Some say that the kitchen sink doctrine is not effective either because its a cluster cluck of ships that all don't work together very well for fleet cohesiveness. Yet, I wonder how successful a corporation can truly be if it doesn't have any organization and ability to adjust on the fly due to the limitations it sets itself up with. Perhaps requiring members that join to have been trained up in many different faction ship types (Not just a blind must have X skill points requirement) to boost the flexibility of the corp overall and their ability to adequately respond to threats with great effectiveness is the right and truly optimal approach.

What are your thoughts? Troll thoughts? Or flaming/raging/etc comments on the matter?

So that sounds like you are saying that there are those that can but simply chose not to out of personal desires despite what would be better for a fleet op? I perhaps forgot to mention that this relates to fleet ops as that perhaps would be the way people operate in a corporation rather then requiring everyone to just go it alone during war time.

Maybe I misunderstood your comment.

A doctrine is only as good as the plan behind it

I think a doctrine is useful for fleet commanders so they know what ships are available and know every member of the corp has the skills to fly them effectively. A homogeneous fleet may not be as flexible as a mongrel horde but you will newer ask yourself what that Skiff is doing in the Ishtar fleet.

If you FC a doctrine you know what you can do at any given time. If you fc a fleet of various different and random fits it is always a bit of a gamble and dependent on the individual skill of your fleet members what you can do.

Yeah and if you take advantage of the bug to Gila 500% drone buff OMG O.O ... Though I have never seen the SUPER wreckingball before I am sure its fun to use.

Mature organisations maintain a variety of doctrines, based on countering specific enemy fleet comps or for specific activities. A lot of FOTM settups appear after gameplay changes which make things particularly effective. But yes, people do abandon or modify them if they don't work or a change is made making something else more effective.

To answer your original question, it's common sense not to mix basic things. Nano fleets need to maintain the same speed, so sticking a slow moving brick into the fleet (unless it's bait) isn't ideal. Mixing shield and armor tanks if you only have one logi/boosting alt isn't efficient. Some settups are broader though, allowing people to use several different racial variations of the same class of ship - eg Armor/Shield HACs. There are also core support roles (logi/point/web/scram/boost) that work better in specific ships, so even very tight doctrines might have a variety of races based on best type.

Sentry archon, sentry dominix, sentry ishtar, sentry prophecy, all the best doctrines were around when we had drone assist.

Also, the Heavy Missiles drakefleets.

OP seems to be implying that doctrine means only 1 set of ships.

Decent organizations normally have different doctrines for different types of engagements.

The people i fly with don't mind tweaks and meta fits of doctrines, but the intent must be to fill the same role. But really doctrine fleets will always welp a kitchen sink fleet all else being equal (of course it never is).

Perhaps the most important aspect is engagement range. A fleet of naga's that can hit out well past 200km is flown very differently to a fleet of blaster cruises that need to be in your face to apply any damage at all. A mix of both is a disaster for an FC.

Its easy to see that MWD/AB mix of speeds and ranges then add logi, would be a mess. That is why basic doctrines are the core of solid fleets.

That is not to say there are not other support ships. We always have tackle, then there are recons/ewar and support T3s as well. But again typically fitted to a doctrine.

The other reason for having doctrines is a lot of people suck at fitting ships.

But we still do kitchen sink fleets as well. Cus they are fun. Also quite often we are trying to travel back via pod death express. Death and glory and all that.