Mistakes of Men


Last month I wrote a post detailing my day long attempt to fit and fly a Hull-Tanked Comet. The post was clearly titled "experiment" and concluded that the Comet simply doesn't have enough base structure to make the fit work properly. As detailed by several fights which eventually ended in the ship exploding in a situation were a normally fitted Comet should have prevailed. No one reading that post should have walked away thinking, "I need to try that."

And yet, suddenly, a wave of hull-tanked Comets are whizzing about in space. I even bumped into, and killed, one of them myself yesterday. This is not new of course, my previous Comet fitting posts and others (like my Slicer) have become rather popular in space. I should have expected it. Apparently people listen to me, except when I tell them to stop fitting WCS in their low slots!

I am sorely tempted to recommend all sorts of horribly fitted ships, just to see what happens. But I won't. I am not Evil, only Ebil. And there is a marked difference in a V being a B. I've said it before and it bears repeating. I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, a fitting Master. I do not use EFT or Pyfa to come up with fits for my ships. I know everything there is to know about fitting ships, modules, cap usage, faction, the ins and outs of ammo, signature radius, and the thousand other things that go into making awesome ship fittings. I know these things because this is ALL I do in Eve. I fit combat ships to undock and engage in combat. That's it.

I may have a working knowledge of every aspect of Eve game-play, and I do, but the only thing that I actually study, learn and apply daily is PvP. And it has been that way for six years now. I fit something up and undock in it. Testing it in the real world out in space against other players. If it doesn't work there then it doesn't matter what the paper says, it is a bad fit. If it works in space then it is a keeper. Simple.

Except it isn't simple at all. This is Eve after all and as much as I know, as much as I have learned, applied, tested and worked on - mistakes still happen. Head scratching moments. Things do not always go your way. And often, something that should work, simply doesn't work. And this is the part that is hard to teach new players. And it is something that I've written about many times before.

Every situation is different.

Nine times out of ten the fight you are about to take, you should win. But eventually, no matter how good you are, you will lose that fight. It just happens that way. Maybe that Incursus is dual web fitted and has a neut? Maybe you didn't pull range soon enough? Maybe you forgot about the over-heated prop mod and poof you lose it? Maybe you manually fly your ship at the wrong angle by accident and lose speed just as his drones finally catch you? Yeah, all of those I did yesterday.

But it was a great day in Eve for me. Lots of good fights yesterday.

The most important thing to be in Eve is smart. And it has nothing to do with the skills you've trained, the years (or lack of them) that you've flown, or who you steal fits from, or where you've flown and with whom. It has everything to do with you, the player behind the character. Be smart. Learn your trade. Eve is insanely complicated and insanely easy, accept that and move on. Eve gets much more fun to play when your head is the right place.

And no, I would never, ever recommend that all of you reading this play Eve the way I play it. Feel free to approach the game on your own terms, I have. And it works for me, it may not work for you. All I can do is tell you what I know, what I have experienced and what works for me. Your results may vary.

I hope to see more hull-tanked Comets in space.