Incursion: Assaults, SF style

     Whilst running some SF vanguards, one or two people had to leave after the one site.  While the FC was looking for replacements, he simultaneously, and at the same time, got a message from a player he knew and this other player was looking for a few people to fill in his SF fleet for running assault sites.  Well, not being one to look too critically at a new opportunity, I X'd up that I was in for some assaults.



SF Assault form-up

      The FC had a . . . unique style, to be sure, and it wasn't the fastest fleet to get set up, organized or get rolling, but as is often the case, if you're a little patient, and let people see that you understand how to take orders and are reliable, you just might get an invite back.  The other thing was that the VG systems were packed with players and nearly every site was either done before we could get there, or another fleet would drop in on us and contest them.  The contests were only about 50% in our favor too.  Suffice it to say I didn't need to be prodded very hard to hook up with a new fleet, in a different, hopefully less populated system, and experience some new Incursion sites.  Once I took my 2nd N Geddon the 2 jumps over to the assault system, wow, no one.  Awesome.  There were 21 people in system, and that was us.  Normally, an assault fleet will consist of 5 or 6 logis, 4 to 6 snipers and the rest DPS.  We had 21 because we had a booster character that was fleeted up, but off grid.  We get the war link bonuses, but don't need to share the ph4t l00tz with them.  It was an alt of one of the fleet members.  The Fc had a Teamspeak server, so he gave it to us and we logged in and formed up at a planet.



Full on SF AS pew pew :)

      Haltingly, we got going.  He wasn't sure on the tagging, and neither was anyone else, so one of the other guys was tagging, verbatim, off an Incursion site guide, and everything went perfectly.  The tagger tagged, we shot the tags, and the FC made sure the cats stayed in a herd and shot when he said shoot, and warped when he said warp.  It worked like a charm.  I hadn't read up on how to fly assault sites because I figured that was a ways off in my Incursion future yet, but it wasn't like I was the FC, so I got to see some new sites, different ways of spawning, different goals, it was cool.  The SF assault fleet was WAY more realxed than the VG fleets were for the most part.  Lots of younger/youngish sounding players who were pretty much min/maxxers looking for speed and violence and tons of isk.  The SF assault fleet however, was far more relaxed, more patient, and generally a lot more tolerant of small mistakes.  Before we started, not knowing much at all about the assault sites, I just pointed out that lack of knowledge, and asked if there was anything special I would need to do, or just follow the tags?  Just follow the tags.  Cool, I can follow the tags :)  And I did.  When you get red boxed in some of the sites though, by at least half the boats, they lay a serious shit kickin' on you :)  You definitely need to trust in your logis.

     In a little over an hour with the prior VG fleet, with all the competition, we'd only completed something like 6 sites in nearly an hour and a half.  As we slowly got rolling in the AS fleet, we did 4 sites in the first hour, and 5 in the second.  With a normal 11 man VG fleet, you get about 9.8 million per site.  With a 20 man AS fleet, we were getting over 18 million.  The atmosphere was much more relaxed, and the cash was better, aaaand, there was no one else scrabbling for the same sites.  Very nice.  A whole lot of fun.  Assaults are the way to go.  Let the impatient min/maxxing type spam the VG systems with their ship fits.  I'll cruise on over to the AS systems, and PM the assault FCs that I was clever enough to add to my contact list ;)

The Point?  Even if cash was the same, I'd still pick an assault fleet over a vanguard fleet as they tend to be far more relaxed.  I would be worried about advising ASs over VGs if anyone saw this blog besides my mother and I, and she only stopped by once, couldn't find anything on gardening, and left.