What Does "Solo/Small-Gang" Mean?

I'd originally planned for this post to be a reflection on my experiences since founding Hellcats Reloaded a few weeks ago. This is a question that's come up several times during recruitment, though, and I think it's worth a blog post.

~* if you're looking for the tl;dr, skip to the next tag *~

An awful lot of groups out there identify themselves as focusing on "solo/small-gang" PVP, including Hellcats Reloaded. Exactly what proportion of time is spent solo vs. flying with others varies from group to group, something I learned the hard way when I first tried to start my career as a pirate. Up to that point I'd been flying exclusively with gangs, some of them with fellow squids, other times as part of Wensley's Wednesday night roams. I had so much fun doing the latter that I decided to jump ship from FW and join Gunpoint Diplomacy. At the time, Sard Caid warned me that the play style in RANSM was mainly solo, different than what I was used to in FW and on Wensley's roams. I wasn't too troubled by the idea - there had to be some gangs out, right?

I quickly learned how wrong I was. Between most of the corp's members being in the EU TZ (iirc, Sard, Dirty Protagonist and I were the only consistently active US TZ members at the time) and the others' inclination to soloing, I spent a lot of time spinning my ship waiting for something to happen. Combined with losses grinding my wallet down and not having easy access to ISK from factional warfare missions, I lasted a month in RANSM before I went back to Black Rise with my tail between my legs – or at least, that's how it felt at the time.

Since then, I've noticed that among lowsec pirate corps, solo PVP often makes up the majority of the "solo/small-gang" division. I've jokingly referred to the Black Rebel Rifter Club as the "solo frigate pilots' support group", and a lot of the time I spent there was either FCing my own gangs or flying with ex-corpies in RANSM or FW. I gradually got more accustomed to soloing during my quest to join the Tuskers, but even after I'd reached that goal, I mainly flew in gangs; I just didn't notice it then because RL was cutting into my play time.

In fact, most of the lowsec pirates I've flown with spend the majority of their EVE time not flying in gangs, and sometimes not even PVPing. They might prefer to solo, they might be making ISK (whether through exploration, farming WH sites, level 5 missions, FW alts, or whatever), hauling ships on an alt for their main to explode, doing corp administrative stuff, playing EOH Poker (you know who you are :P), tab out of EVE while playing LoL or DOTA, or just have gone AFK and not bothered to log out of the game (guilty). It was the opportunity to fly with people in gangs that drew me into piracy, but it was only after I took the plunge that I realised the gangs I flew with before joining the corp were most of what I was going to get.

Given that women in EVE are a small demographic as-is and lowsec pirates are a relatively small part of the EVE community, I expect that Hellcats Reloaded will turn out the same way, at least early on. What does that mean for women who've flown with us (or plan to) and want to join the corp? It means that those two things, flying with Hellcats Reloaded and wearing the corp tag, aren't always the same thing. TBH, my emphasis on "you don't have to join us to fly with us" came from how I've usually flown with corpies more before joining them than as an actual corp member.

~* tl;dr starts here *~

For people who are used to having content provided for them, like being able to log in and hop into a fleet that somebody else FCs, lowsec piracy will probably feel like a bucket of cold water. Even if you're able and willing to run your own gangs, Hellcats Reloaded is small enough  that there might not be anyone around to FC, or the people who are online might prefer to fly solo – cats aren't pack animals, after all! If you're comfortable with the idea that most of your PVP will be solo, or have other things to occupy your time besides Hellcats Reloaded fleets, I'm sure you'll adapt to our play style without any trouble. If your goal is to fly with HCATZ you can do exactly that on the public roams, without having to uproot yourself from wherever you currently are.

If you're interested in Hellcats Reloaded, please don't take this as an anti-recruitment speech; I'm not looking to turn anyone away or make them feel unwelcome. Instead, learn from my experience and figure out what you're really after. Take it from me, it's no fun to join a corp for the gangs and end up sitting in station all the time because no one's running them – and if you're not having fun, why are you playing the game?

Not as dramatic a start as I'd hoped.

In my first 24 hours as a Hellcat, I've racked up four losses and... well, this is awkward.

In my defence, three of those were cyno ships and one was a narrow loss to a Tristan in my Atron. We were both deep into structure at the time; if I'd overheated  my guns from the beginning instead of waiting until I started thinking about how close the fight was I might've ended up taking him. I've tried to learn this lesson in the past, so to repeat it for myself: in a roughly even frigate fight, at the beginning of the match, overheat ALL the things. Including the guns.

Note to self: get to work recruiting this week so that other people can cover up my being bad at EVE. :P

Double Down

Some of you may have seen my Twitter update about working on a new project. If you haven't, you can find all the details over at Once a Hellcat, Always a Hellcat. I think there's a genuine niche for the corp in EVE despite the wild differences in the game since they last flew, and it'll be interesting to see what comes of it. On a personal level, I've never had any desire to be involved in running a corp until now.

Why the change? After being more of an off-again than an on-again EVE player the past few years, I'm slowly coming to the realisation that internet spaceships just don't hold my interest as much as they used to. A big contributor to this is my schedule at work; I'm there Thursday-Sunday every week, making it harder to get play time when other people are online.

So, I've promised myself this: Success or failure, if EVE doesn't hold my interest again after this adventure is over, I will very likely unsub my accounts for good. (Cue obligatory "can I have your stuff?") I've had plenty of fun in EVE over the years, and met a lot of great people that I still consider friends - I just can't justify spending RL ISK on a game I'm not playing. I'll give my best efforts to resurrecting the Hellcats, in a way that I enjoy and the original members would hopefully approve of. Either that'll be enough to reinvigorate my interest in the game and keep me going for another few years, or I'll be able to end on a high note.

I guess we'll see which one it is.

Aww, you're all sweethearts.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! Best present: Mynxee’s autograph! (She signs them in autocannon rounds, apparently.)