Checklist

Grizzled veteran runs through the checklist
from Flickr user tamara

Checklist

I seem to have become an Eve Vet :) I think it happened a while ago, but when you start drawing up checklists of what new recruits ought to know, you're definitely a vet! I did this after a couple of incidents when fleet members weren't aware of some basic concepts in fleet mechanics; I remembered that the same thing happened to me! The FC asked me to do X and I said "?" and time was wasted explaining it to me. And it was done so quickly that I didn't understand it anyway. When I learned it later it was actually quite simple and took only a minute to grasp.

I think these apply pretty widely in Eve, so I'd like to share the checklist I came up with. The idea is to keep it simple; these are the most common stumbling points that a new recruit might get wrong during our regular fleets; Bob knows I clunked into most of these and more than once. The most complex thing you learn is "Scouting 101" - how to report plexes/local population/d-scan (using eve-dingo or similar), since it is quite common for noobs to be flying tackle frigates and get asked to scout too.

SETUP

1. Setting up comms (Mumble and Teamspeak). Refer to yourself by name, not “I”. FC’s hate having to delay by asking “who is this?” when reacting to your messages.
2. Overview, especially ensuring that “in fleet”, “an ally in one or more”  and “in militia” are above “is pirate”
3. Basic Config: Set up “Z” as hotkey for “broadcast for armor”, change your ship name if needed, turn off auto-lockback and the 2950 ISK charge for communication.
4. Which of our ships can you already fly? Change skill plan to get on track.

PLEXING

5. Undock and find a plex - distinguish between available/popped plexes - know what ships can go in.
6. Warp to plex at 10, slide in (video). Orbit at distance appropriate to ship. Announce yourself as you start warp so friendlies inside (assuming they are there) know you’re friendly too. Understand that the gate can’t be bypassed. Understand that you need to be within 30km to run the timer and to be awarded loyalty points when the timer reaches zero.
7. Simple D-Scan - how to use it while inside a plex to monitor the gate (just 360 deg, 200K km)
8. Plexing: how to capture one, how to align out and escape if someone comes in. Understand if the defending NPC ship is friendly or not, and that you can't dock in enemy-held systems.
9. Tackling a target - point a ship and maintain orbit around it.

INTEL/SCOUTING/FLEET

10. Find and join fleet without asking “send me an invite?” on comms.
11. Watching Local: how many war targets or neutrals in system?
12. Basic fleet terminology: “warp to” vs “jump to”, gate is red/green, hold cloak, “anchor on me”, “ball up on me”,
13. warp to a fleet member
14. How to find/link your losses/kills in fleet chat. FCs use this to reimburse you (sometimes :) )
15. create a fleet and advertise it in militia chat (maybe too advanced for new players?)
16. using eve-dingo: get a dingo report and post URL in fleet chat.
17. Advanced d-scan: be able to scan a point (5 degrees, up to 14.3 AU away), report what you see (maybe with eve-dingo)
18. Being a scout: combines several of above skills -- going +1, hold cloak if needed, using d-scan (wide and narrow beam), watching local, maybe warping to plexes to hunt for targets, use eve-dingo to report fleet compositions.
19. Drones: Set to passive/aggressive. Use F key to direct them to attack, Shift-R to come back to drone bay. Don’t deploy until told to.

One of the nicest things about being in a corp is being able to try things like this, helping others enjoy the game and avoid some of the frustrations you encountered.

Other Activities

It was pretty quiet last night, no major push was needed, so I moved some goods around. I've got a rig manufacturing plan going in Yvangier and sell the output at three different systems. I'm going to see which ones produce the most sales; the profit is good at all of them. After setting that up I scanned Fliet's cosmic signatures and found a small Serpentis combat site. I announced it on comms and in corp chat and had three people come run it with me. At least one hadn't tried that before so I was glad I could introduce it to him. We got an escalation from it too, so if enough people are interested we'll run that tonight.