Incursions, Excursions & Diversions

     Well, Incursions are definitely a whole 'nother world in Eve, and yet again a fairly unique game play experience from the meta level.  After my second exposure to Incursions, I went back for more, like the little crack Incursion addict I am apparently becoming.  It's a different world for sure, and slowly opening up new aspects, and I haven't even "done it all" yet, as far as Incursions go.

Ghostly Geddon "shield" on a Harby

     On a demographics level, I am sort of thinking that there are more people jumping on the Incursion isky train, then there are people getting off the other, burnt out, end of the train.  At low ebb times, you'll find maybe 50 to 90 players in system, if you're lucky, and anywhere up to something like 400 during peak times.  I know!  Crazy, right?  Judging by population stats, Amarr seems to be the most popular area lately - not sure why.  There are a few troublemakers and dicks, but most are noted and excluded.  Apparently griefers and shit disturbers are a big problem in Minmitar space.  Over the weekend, after doing my first MOM in the Amarr Incursion, a handful of us from the fleet slow boated over to the Minmitar (~26 jumps) to school theyselves on how to lay the smack down on an Incursion, yo!  ;)  There were very few people around in Minnie space, and while usually fleeting up is a problem because of a lack of FCs, in Minnie space, there was a lack of pilots too.  Where the hell was everyone?  Anyway, after about 20 minutes, we got a fleet together and managed half a dozen or so Vanguards before a big armor fleet showed up and took down the MOM.  An interesting glitch happened with my N Geddon during the process though, and it turned into a ghost Geddon with a small, squishy Harbinger at it's core.  Funky!  Not sure what was going on, but it solved itself on client restart.

     An observation point on Vanguards.  Everyone and their dog tries to/wants to run VGs.  The vast, vast majority of players in Incursions show up in shield fits, and park in the VG systems spamming their boat fit in Incursion channel, sometimes for hours before getting into a fleet, if they even DO get into a fleet.  WTF?  How does that make efficient use of time, unless of course they are otherwise engaged in some chat channel, or vent, or watch Youboob videos at the same time.  I'm a little more aggressive with the fleet action thing, so I'll sit and post the fit a few times, and while I'm doing it, I'll watch the kind of boats that are being posted.  If I see enough logis and shiny ships in there, I'll say screw it and start my own fleet.  Yes Virginia, as an Incursion n00b, I FC them now too :)  So anyway, even after some of these people have flown in hundreds of VG fleets, they'll still sit there, spamming fits, talking shit about other people's boats, and not a one of them will man-up and FC a fleet themselves.  Of course, once they're in a fleet, NOW all of a sudden they are an expert on how to run a fleet, what sites to run and what order to tag and shoot the rats in.  Their prime motivation is maximum isk, minimum effort, and even less responsibility.  I can totally understand a logi pilot not interested in FC duties 'cuz they can be kinda busy at times, but no excuse for a DPS.  It's laughable.  They're like hyenas, and even in the short couple weeks I've been "Incursed", I've seen the populations rise and the quality and level of boats, players and gear, drop.  That's not to say that there aren't good quality people running the incursions, because there are.  It's just that the noise to signal ratio is rising.

     On the point of FCs, yes, I've FC'd a few shield fleets running Vanguard sites already.  Not tough really.  Lots of good FC help info on the intarpipes, plus, after you've done 40 or 50 of them, the small number of select ships you actually have to shoot, is not very tough to remember.  Plus, worst case scenario, there's still the old classical paper and pen to jot down a couple names and numbers.  The onyl problematic thing with the VG FC duties, is Eve voice.  It's a piece of shit for me.  My mic is crystal clear with Mumble, Vent, and Teamspeak, but on Eve voice, I sound like a drunk robot in a washing machine running on spin cycle.  It's fuckin' brutal.  I've gone through all the settings in Eve and on my computard, and I have no idea what the glitch is.  So, when I make fleet, I enable voice, and people like that, but some people have a problem with an FC that uses the tags, broadcasts and simple, short typed commands in chat.  Apparently, they are so stupid, so lazy, or both, that they aren't interested in a fleet where they have to do anything but listen and look at tags.  Some even get pissed if they aren't fleet, wing or squad warped ALL THE TIME!  Wow.  Talk about losers.  People have a very simplistic and naive understanding of what an FC is required to do in a VG.  All they really have to do is give commands and make sure the sheep are following the 1-2-3s.  I've been in fleets where the FC was a squad member and all they did was broadcast the new site to go to.  It worked fine.

isk hunters is going to band together into bigger fleets and head toward Assaults.  The idea is that the VGs are better isk per hour than any other site, but when your fleet is either 2nd, or 3rd or 4th to a site, or it's a weaker fleet and you lose contests, you're likely better trying to duo or solo the easy Incursion sites.  There was an Incursion site on a high sec island in Gallente space.  Very low population in the systems all weekend.  That's quite likely why the Amarr Incursion was so heavily populated.  More and more people will keep filtering into Incursions because once you get going, and if the population is low enough, the isk is prety sweet.

The Point?  Incursions are filled with all kinds of "followers" who are looking for someone else to help them put isk in their account.  If you aren't afraid to read an Incursion guide website and tag a few rats, you can help yourself make isk too by grabbing a handful of them and making your own fleet.