MY FIRST FLEET OP AND PLEX!

I was supposed to be doing chores, but decided to jump on EVE instead. I'm really glad I did.

We have a LOT of enemies in Curse, and while we manage to more than hold our own, it's still annoying that all these dime-a-dozen corps keep throwing themselves upon our swords just in an effort to be more than ass-rashy. Fortunately, we managed to get some good intel on a 15-ish ship fleet setting up for a run on us in CL-85V, and since we could throw together a fleet almost twice that size, we decided to go flex some muscle. Usually I'm not online during the good fleet action but I was really lucky this time, and the "sure thing" nature of this op made it a great first-time learning experience. We got together, went after them, and had them running around the constellation trying to regroup and flank for a good hour, picking away at their numbers the whole time. I didn't manage to get any killmail for myself, but I did help.

The learning experience came from the fact that a non-alliance corp was running the op and they were using Vent for comms, which I didn't have. I would have gotten it set up if I had known before-hand, but my comp tends to freeze when it's minimized so I had to rely on Tito for pass-on info. It made things difficult and I found I was lagging behind the group a lot. Later on that day we had a similar opportunity to take on yet another fleet, but this time it was an alliance op and we use TeamSpeak, which I had running. I noticed how much better I could work with the group when we had clear decision-making and organization that was disseminated instantly, instead of reading chat. We didn't manage to catch anyone that time, but it was still a great experience for me.

Also tried my first plex that day. An escalation that only turned out to me 2 targets 5 jumps away. If I knew the name of the event I would have written a petition. During this little outing we used eve-voice, which was cool since it was built into the EVE client and didn't require me to minimize EVE and pray to the gaming spirits that my comp didn't have a seizure. My corp uses it, and I think they should try and integrate better functionality into it to lure people away from TS and Vent. I caught wind of a POS attack early next morning, but since I didn't have a BS or something decent for an op like that, I didn't partake.

Fast-forward to late last night. I was waiting for a skill to finish and chatted up my corp about a few things. The area was super hot and nobody was online so fleets were not forming. I decided to finally ask Kerth if it was OK for me to head back to alliance for a while. He was AFK as usual so I got the opinions of the others, who didn't seem to have a problem with it. My corp pretty much has takes after the old cougar motto when it comes to super-loyal semi-noobs like me, "Invest in them while they're young". They saw I was thinking long-term and actually putting myself in more danger to do it (I'd have no back-up in Empire). At this point Kerth starts chiming in, stating that he'd read everything and acting all fake high-and-mighty dick dictator like he does sometimes for a laugh, which I enjoy playing along with as a loyal warrior willing to throw myself upon my sword for my lord. After a bit of that he said it's be fine as long as I was careful and understood the risks. I told him I did and I'd bust my ass getting what I needed done so I could get back to Curse fast and better-able to serve my demi-god. Anyhoo, I'll be heading back tonight. I'll still have a setup in Hakeri and there will probably be someone online to scout ahead for me.

Ja.