EVE General Discussion

You guys shouldn't knock PVE FCs so much. It takes a great deal of skill to do that as well, when it comes to Sleeper AI in particular. Remembering every spawn, which ships do what, and which to take down first in every potential site and class of wormhole is no small thing. Sleeper AI is also a lot less predictable than NPC AI atm; though that difference may not be so great in the near future.

As far as Fleet FCs go, I've heard of Shadew; though I thought it was Shadoo. I haven't heard of the other two, but I don't get out much. That said, I've seen evidence of at least one Rooks and Kings FC who was quite good as far as that goes, and I've seen similar evidence of a number of other vaunted FCs who were just blithering profanity and repeating the same 3 sentences over and over in high pitched articulated screeches. I wasn't impressed.

Some may be good; others may be awful. I don't honestly know which ones are which, aside from what I mentioned there.

Also, I'm sure it often can take some skill to adapt to changing combat dynamics in Fleets, but often I think the bigger the fleets, the less skill is involved. We're not talking rocket science when you fit 500 ships exactly the same way and just point at another 500 identical ships and say "kill!!!" I think that happens a lot. Evidence indicates that it is extremely common.

And then, there's that comment about dealing with people. Seriously, if you've got a fleet, it doesn't matter who your opponent is or if they are real or AI, you are dealing with people, attitudes, and social dynamics within your fleet. Spamming local with smacktalk doesn't really qualify.

The reason for that, (as I know many of you will say it is, and believe it is), is simple: Smacktalk is primarily one-sided. It is verbally slapping at random people looking for a reaction and hoping to psych some or all of them out.

let me put it some way you'll comprehend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X7_vN5VxS0

Montolio is singlehandedly the greatest FC in the game and people in the nullsec community have immense respect for him because of it.

I am not going to go into who is a great FC and who is not, but I can tell you, running a large fleet is far different that running am Incursion squad.

I have FC'ed groups in wh's, and FC'ed small gangs in my null sec days.
I have run logi in Incursions.

Running a wh gang and running an Incursion gang is far far different that a small gang in null, let alone a large fleet in null.
An incursion or wh gang has to focus mostly on the groups at hand, and they are NPC's. Their is a distinct, repetitive pattern to them.

When you are dealing with PvP gangs, you have a far different paradigm.

Some, and not all of the differences:

1. Multi-tasking: A good PvP squad/fleet has multiple scouts out there, all relaying info to the FC. There are multiple sqaud commanders to deal with. Try sitting in a Fleet channel. I am not talking the soldier channel, but the channel that holds the SC's, the WC's, the scouts, and the FC. It has to follow huge discipline to ensure the FC can handle all the information being thrown at him at once.
2. Personality management: Because an FC has to delegate a ton of responsibility, he must rely on other humans, and these humans may not all be that easy to control. A good FC has to have the respect of his everyone in the leadership channel, and that is sometime not easy to do.
3. Stress level: In an incusrion or wh, you have have 20 or 30 billion tied up in ships. In a fleet, that value ca soars into the trillions. Further, you screw up an Incursion or wh fleet, people suffer the loss of their ships and that's it. If you screw up a large fleet, you can not only lose trillions of ISK, but lose a sov in a system.

Being a good, or great FC, takes a lot of knowledge of all types of ships, tactics, and knowledge of your opponent, plus be able to absorb huge amounts of info coming at you at once, plus control sub-ordinates and get everyone pulling in one direction, all the while you are being shot at.

It is not easy, and there are only a few people that can do it.

Whaaaaaaa?

No, the reason fleets have specific ships (a primary workhorse, logi, and a half dozen or so support filling various roles) is because they operate as a single unit. Not because it is "impossible" or "hard" to coordinate a kitchen sink fleet - because a kitchen sink fleet has no purpose. It is like a ship with every gun type fitted.

A good fleet has a very specific role it is filling - countering the opponent's fleet, covering supercaps, stationary POS defense, etc. This requires every damage ship to be operating at the same ranges with similar tracking, and it requires a uniform tank type across its entirety. Every single ship is a piece of a machine that the FC is operating, each individual member relied on to fill his role. Some roles are very individual skill focused, some involve little more than locking and shooting.

A fleet is a COHESIVE UNIT. You've never been in a real one have you?