Incursions: All aboard!

     As mentioned previously, there's lots of apparently badass and opinionated "experts" on running Incursion Vanguards, or fleets in general, but mainly, ONLY from the security of a position of minimal effort and minimal risk.  Not being interested in sitting around waiting to be invited to a fleet, I've run enough, and read enough about the sites, that I decided fairly early maybe, to form my own fleets.

     So anyway, one fleet I'm FCing, we're running VGs, and have done 7 or 8 sites.  Decent fleet, people seem to have a clue, and we were running along at a little over 70 million/hr.  I'm happy, but it's rather intensive as I'm FCing and tagging.  No one else wanted to, or claimed to be able to, tag.  No problem.

     So we hit this one Override Transfer Array.  Our logi pilots were good but one had to leave.  I started looking for another logi, but the fleet members started talking about being able to run sites with just two logis.  I didn't know, so I asked eveyone in fleet, confirmed with the logis that they thought they could do it, everyone said go for it, so we went in with 8 DPS and 2 Scimitars.  I was running a safer shooting order this time.  On good, smart, strong DPS fleets, and if the spawns work as intended, you can kill the first two Augas, leave the Deltole, kill the next two Deltoles, ignore the Augas, do the first Deltole, and boom the site is done and chicks want to go halfers on a "memory" with you.  Problem with this method is that a fairly lethal number of ships can build up and if the logis can't keep up, you're screwed.  I elected to run a little safer, that takes a couple minutes more, and kill the Augas, then the Deltole, rinse and repeat twice more.  While waiting for the next "AAD" spawn, we were shooting Tamas to reduce the incoming DPS.

R.I.P. buddy . . QQ

     Two of the DPS "experts" started a discussion, which turned into an argument, about the shooting order.  I told them to be quiet and just shoot the tags.  The dick that one was, he said FU and bailed in the room, leaving us one DPS short.  I didn't realize this at first as I was making sure DPS, tagging and spawns were being sorted out.  In the short time that it took me to realize this, a new spawn appeared seconds later, and before I could formulate a plan, the one Scimitar got primaried, was popped as the other scimi was trying to rep the first, and then we were down to one logi.  Now supposedly memory is enhanced during traumatic events, but I have no idea about the name of that fucker.  No one else seemed to remember him either.  Too bad.  At any rate, people were starting to freak out, understandably so, the last logi is saying GET OUT!!  I'm ALL OVER that "suggestion", and I'm trying to wing warp the fleet to the sun, which was nearly dead ahead, and lots of stuff is popping, and unfortunately not all of it is rats.  Some got out, some did not, mostly not, but in suitable fashion, I think, I went down with the ship . . so to speak.  I watched as some purples popped and thankfully, as a couple got out.  I was the last boat in the pocket, watching as I was webbed, scrammed, neuted, tarred, feathered and anything else they could throw at me.  I overheated the hardeners and DCM, like THAT was going to save me, and was hoping that the Deltole I was shooting at was third, because at this point now, if it WASN'T the third one, and/or I DIDN'T pop it, I was going to be a whole lot of space debris . . . like some of my fleet mates.

     Point of fact, I really never had a chance, and ended up warping my pod to station to figure out what to do next.  I was sort of overwhelmed.  First, never in a million years would I have guessed that ass would have done what he did.  2nd, I really didn't understand the kind of shit kicking the rats could lay down once things start to go south in a site, mainly because the fleets I've been in have been strong - no problems.  And C, because of points 1 and 2, I never really had a plan on what to do as a contingency.  I thought/think I was managing the tagging and FCing duties well enough, as we had had no problems with the previous sites, even 2 other OTAs, but once the shit started to hit the fan, I think was was pretty much overwhelmed with information.  If I had realized earlier that the ass bailed, I could have tried to warp the fleet immediately.  It may or may not have saved more boats, but I run through mental what-ifs, every time I'm in a site now.  NOW, I always have a contingency ready to GTFO at the least sign of trouble.  Losing a site is nothing.  Losing a boat sucks.

     The rest of the fleet, at least the ones that stayed around or spoke, were pretty cool about it.  I really didn't care about the shiny N Geddon I lost, I felt bad that I had been at the helm when other players lost their boats.  Along with mine, 2 Scimitars, a Nightmare, a Vindicator and a Macharielisk by about 750,000, but the upside is two fold . . . three fold.  If a logi drops, there should be enough DPS to chew up the rats and everyone is safe.  If a DPS drops, we still have 7 DPS and 3 logi - everyone is safe.  If no one drops, 8 DPS and 3 logi should enable the fleet to run the rooms quicker, which compensates for the initial loss of 750K per site.

The Point?  Be prepared for the unexpected and don't underestimate the power of the dark side, or the rats - they're bad monkeys!  You can't know certain things about players unless/until you fleet with them, so make sure there's "head room" to manage emergencies, and I'll be handing off tagging duties to someone else next time I FC - it's really not that hard.