Making Mistakes

One of the hardest things to learn as a new Fleet Commander (aka FC) is that you will constantly make mistakes.

Some mistakes will be due to inexperience. Some will be because your opponent is crafty or lucky and got the drop on you. Some will be because you were too confident or too eager for the kill. But the worst mistakes are the ones that happen because you just got careless.

Take last night for example. I logged in to form my usual Sunday Night Fleet in Fliet and I get on voice comms to hear about a RvB gang that was passing through. The fleet is not formed yet but I don't want this target of opportunity to pass us by because I know RvB came to fight and not just gank.

So I jump in my Abaddon and try to muster the people coming into fleet to get into a fight on the Heydieles gate where RvB has seemed to caught wind of us and might engage. The ensuing battle did not go our way; we killed an Armageddon, Scythe Fleet issue, a Stork, and a couple Mallers but lost my Abaddon, two Hecates, a Hurricane, a Falcon, Vexor, Algos, and a handful of frigates. All in all, not a good exchange.

The big problem was I didn't communicate clearly that for the most part sentry guns would not be working for us and we didn't have logistics to cover any missteps. I rushed in to try and get a fight and as a result, some of our losses had a considerable amount of sentry gun damage on their loss mails.

The good news is, we reshipped our losses, formed up a fleet and went on to have some really good fights and kills for the rest of the night, including getting some revenge on that RvB fleet later on in Nennamailia. To the pilots which quit the fleet after the first misstep, you missed out.