After some hand-wringing over the past couple of days on my part over whether or not we’d killed too many ships for our own good, tonight I got my answer, kind of.
It came in the form of a “maybe” as we packed up and headed out to help our friends in the Fountain region. It seems some of their POS’s had been ref’d and there were some unfortunate Sovereignty Blockade Units that needed to be removed. We weren’t contacted to seige the items, we were contacted to help provide escort support to the much, much larger vessels who would be doing the repping and killing.
We provided this support in the form of a fleet of high DPS fast-movers. Even our logistics vessels are meant to be fast in this fleet buildout. Nothing, however, was faster than the two Ares class interceptors that we had along. One was mine, one wasn’t.
If you’ve participated in fleets you know that scouting is preferably done by an interceptor. Their unmatched speed and immunity to non-targeted warp disruption make them the perfect candidate for seeing what’s one jump ahead, or just on the other side of the gate. Unfortunately, most times interceptor pilots are some of the newest and least experienced pilots in the fleet and scouting is, next to fleet commander, one of the highest pressure jobs to be done.
As I sat on the other side of a gate from my comrades, staring at an enemy only 500 meters away as we sized up each other’s capabilities, I got to thinking about how much fun scouting is and how rarely people volunteer to do it. When a fleet commanders says “I need a scout” there’s almost always an uncomfortable pause. I began to wonder why this might be. And then the dummy I’d been staring and and sizing up jumped through the gate into a blap that took only a couple of seconds. Bad decision on his part, let’s hope he learned a valuable lesson tonight.
Later, when I was asked to check the other side of a gate I found myself staring down the barrel of a cruiser, interceptor and something else. I chose to point the cruiser and try my luck. My fleet showed up 30 seconds later and we proceeded to destroy all three vessels. I can’t imagine that anyone in my fleet had a better time with that fight than me, so I can’t imagine why more people don’t jump at the opportunity to scout. The ships are usually the least expensive in the fleet and the thrills are usually the highest.
Scouting is fun, but it requires that you are attentive. It requires thought and it requires accurate and concise communication. It requires discipline and doing it wrong can lead to disaster. But doing it right can be the most fun you’ll have in EVE. Try it, get better at it and become someone that fleet commanders want in an interceptor.
