Today, we will talk about circles within circles, and unplanned positive outcomes.
Despite being a proud Khanid, and the lengths I've gone to fight their natives, I have a tremendous fondness for the Republic regions.
A long time ago, back when I first began as a capsuleer, I had grandiose dreams of setting up Imperial colonies in the fringes of Republic space. I imagined myself as some kind of missionary, bringing the light of civilization to the poor Matari savages. Well... we were all young once.
Since I was developing planetary industry there, my goals fell in line with the Republic Fleet, and I worked with them a great deal to drive away the Angel Cartel pirates that infest their space. I spent a great deal of time in Molden Heath, and I consider that region to be my first home in space.
Then King and Crusade called, and I set my guns to the very people I sought to protect, not so long ago. For nearly a year I attacked my former allies, all for the sake of greater diplomatic relations with, lets be honest, an incompetent military ally. (Really, they've been entrenched in a war with the same opponent for years now. Either make a push, or pursue peace.)
Now, making full use of the freedom regained by joining Stay Frosty, I have moved back to the Republic regions. We have a staging area just adjacent to the Marr/Minmatar FW zone. It's a nice 'coming home' kind of feeling.
Quite happily, the Stay Frosty staging area in Heimatar lines up quite neatly with my old Molden Heath staging area, and also my market slaves base of operations in Hek. Everything is on the same 15 jump line, providing a variety of space to explore along the way, from Crusade space to more lawless territory. Much better than that, is that my old caches of weapons and ships in Amarr territories are on the opposite side of the rich FW hunting grounds.
I have a circle of arms caches and stashes around the entire FW zone.
The benefit of this cannot be stressed highly enough.
One of the most demoralising aspects of solo capsuleer combat is the inevitable retrograde pod voyage. In other words, running away after a fight. Depending on your luck, this flight back to your staging area might be only a few jumps, or something much more arduous.
However, by having multiple equipment stashes across space, you cut this particular downtime down to a minimum. You extend your particular range in space by a great deal. It also gives you a clear patrol path to follow... simply plot from cache to cache, meaning that a roaming map is not needed.
Not only this, but the statistics can be useful. If you find yourself re-stocking a particular cache more than the others, then this will give you a good idea of where to find battles, or at least willing opponents. Population is an easy thing to measure, but the willingness of locals to fight is a good deal more difficult to calculate (I chased an Executioner for an hour around Heimatar the other day).
Am I suggesting that all pilots create their own networks of supply caches? Well, perhaps for the logistically inclined.
At an individual level, it might not be worth your time, particularly if all you want is the thrill of combat. However, such supply networks at the corporate level provide a clear advantage, particularly for small gang and solo based entities. Members will appreciate the convenience, and be much more likely to stay with the corporation once the shine has worn off the corp logo.
It depends on how much of a support service you'd like your corporation to be, as opposed to a social group.
So at the end of that rambling, which I'll label as Strategikon, whilst not really being concise enough to be called so, I just wanted to point out my own good fortune, and the benefits of creating circles.
Despite being a proud Khanid, and the lengths I've gone to fight their natives, I have a tremendous fondness for the Republic regions.
A long time ago, back when I first began as a capsuleer, I had grandiose dreams of setting up Imperial colonies in the fringes of Republic space. I imagined myself as some kind of missionary, bringing the light of civilization to the poor Matari savages. Well... we were all young once.
Since I was developing planetary industry there, my goals fell in line with the Republic Fleet, and I worked with them a great deal to drive away the Angel Cartel pirates that infest their space. I spent a great deal of time in Molden Heath, and I consider that region to be my first home in space.
Then King and Crusade called, and I set my guns to the very people I sought to protect, not so long ago. For nearly a year I attacked my former allies, all for the sake of greater diplomatic relations with, lets be honest, an incompetent military ally. (Really, they've been entrenched in a war with the same opponent for years now. Either make a push, or pursue peace.)
Now, making full use of the freedom regained by joining Stay Frosty, I have moved back to the Republic regions. We have a staging area just adjacent to the Marr/Minmatar FW zone. It's a nice 'coming home' kind of feeling.
Quite happily, the Stay Frosty staging area in Heimatar lines up quite neatly with my old Molden Heath staging area, and also my market slaves base of operations in Hek. Everything is on the same 15 jump line, providing a variety of space to explore along the way, from Crusade space to more lawless territory. Much better than that, is that my old caches of weapons and ships in Amarr territories are on the opposite side of the rich FW hunting grounds.
I have a circle of arms caches and stashes around the entire FW zone.
The benefit of this cannot be stressed highly enough.
One of the most demoralising aspects of solo capsuleer combat is the inevitable retrograde pod voyage. In other words, running away after a fight. Depending on your luck, this flight back to your staging area might be only a few jumps, or something much more arduous.
However, by having multiple equipment stashes across space, you cut this particular downtime down to a minimum. You extend your particular range in space by a great deal. It also gives you a clear patrol path to follow... simply plot from cache to cache, meaning that a roaming map is not needed.
Not only this, but the statistics can be useful. If you find yourself re-stocking a particular cache more than the others, then this will give you a good idea of where to find battles, or at least willing opponents. Population is an easy thing to measure, but the willingness of locals to fight is a good deal more difficult to calculate (I chased an Executioner for an hour around Heimatar the other day).
Am I suggesting that all pilots create their own networks of supply caches? Well, perhaps for the logistically inclined.
At an individual level, it might not be worth your time, particularly if all you want is the thrill of combat. However, such supply networks at the corporate level provide a clear advantage, particularly for small gang and solo based entities. Members will appreciate the convenience, and be much more likely to stay with the corporation once the shine has worn off the corp logo.
It depends on how much of a support service you'd like your corporation to be, as opposed to a social group.
So at the end of that rambling, which I'll label as Strategikon, whilst not really being concise enough to be called so, I just wanted to point out my own good fortune, and the benefits of creating circles.
No comments:
Post a Comment