- The beginning -

Having recently joined SI Radio Corp and all the activities around their new Providence home, I was eager to try out something that was completely new to me, by volunteering as a Logistic Pilot in the corps WormHole Fleet.

This is the first post in what I hope will become an ongoing series of documented learning experiences (both successes and epic failures) as I progressively learn the business of piloting a logistic ship.

To clarify the terminology… Logistic Ships in EVE does not refer to moving and managing resources, but rather the role of healer/medic in the game patching up friendly ships with shield or armor HP.

For details on ships and fittings please refer to Rifterdrifter.com, which has a nice little informative post on “Medics” in eve.

I have played EVE for a while and knew what Logi-ships were used for, but never had any practical experience with them, other than patching up corp. members after internal 1-on-1 matches. I have flown in large battleship fleets putting POS’s into reinforced, while having a nice bunch of carriers repping up the fleet taking damage from pos guns. Though that’s also logistics on a larger scale, it wasn’t really what turned me on about that specific role in fleet.

My interest for Logistics was triggered quite a while back as I started noticing a clear pattern in survivability of small gangs when flying with or without logistics… By this I mean that I HATE getting ganked by an inferior fleet that just nullifies tons of incoming dps and utterly smacks my royal hiney. I just know they should have died miserably, had they not had logistic backup. I hated the logistic pilots that elegantly negated any attempt to take them out of the fight while at the same time generously making sure their wingmen stayed in the fight.

Of course some of the motivation was me wanting to be on the winning team, but even more so there was a fascination for the awesomeness displayed by some of those logi-pilots being able to protect themselves and their fleet simultaneously.

It may not sound like a difficult feat to some, but just imagine for a second having to not only navigate your ship away from threats, but also stay within repping range of friendlies. At the same time of monitoring ranges in the overview you also have to monitor requests for your “magic touch” in the fleet broadcasts while keeping an eye on the watch-list for hi priority fleet members. And on top of that you can’t always have the whole fleet locked all the time, so you need to micro manage locking and repping multiple ships taking damage. If you fly ships like the Basilisk or Guardian working in teams of two or three, you also need to make sure there is a constant link of energy transfer supplying cap for your shield transfer or remote armor repper modules. If the energy chain is broken due to getting out of range or hostiles applying ECM modules, you only have cap for a few seconds of repairs, after which you become useless and the entire fleet is vulnerable. Adding to that you also have drones to manage along with all of the above. There is a far greater risk of information overload than if flying a Battle Cruiser or Battleship into optimal range and shooting at whatever target FC calls primary.

I wanted to learn how to do that… and preferably without dying a lot. Flying under SI Radio colors was a smart move, if I have to say so myself, because I have had a chance to practice flying logistic ships during wormhole operations that offer a lot more predictable learning environment with sleeper targets, compared to PVP roams with far less predictable outcomes. Learning the basics of how to handle the ships role in that way is perfect, and gets some procedures committed to instinct or reflex rather than it occupying percentages of my already limited mental capacity. I need as much of that mental cap freed up to stay on top of the situation and not screw up utterly when I start learning logistics in pvp engagements.

That is how I was planning my gradual introduction into the world of logistics.

• Stage one: PVE in wormholes to learn the mechanics and basics.
• Stage two: PVP to learn how to save the fleet while not to dying fast.

After joining SI Radio and getting myself ready for my first class 5 wormhole operation, I had absolutely no clue what to expect. I was all skilled up for flying a Basilisk or an Oneiros, but was kindly instructed that neither ship was of ANY use in the fleet, since it was all armor tanked and the incoming dps required multiple logistics. Basilisk is for shield transfers, and the Oneiros’s repairs less HP and would cap out. The Guardian was the way to go, but I had no Amarr spaceship command skills what so ever, and needed Amarr Cruiser at Level 5.

I was devastated after having had such high hopes that my Logistics skill at level 5 would make me a valuable fleet asset instantly. Fortunately quite a lot of the new recruits in the corp. didn’t have their T3 skills hi enough yet, resulting in the fleet mostly consisting entirely of Battleships during the first months. With Guardian skill requirements filling up my skill cue, I started my career as a logistic pilot in a slowboating Dominix sharing energy chain link with one or two other Domi pilots and sending armor love towards anybody within my armor repairers’ 8,4km range.

Compare that with the Guardian’s 71,4km remote repper range. I wanted to get in a REAL logi ship so bad. Having said that… I actually appreciate starting up like that, because it all happened at a slower pace and somewhat controlled environment. I later discovered that the it also helped a lot with range awareness compared to the luxury of having the guardians 70km+ range, which easily gets me complacent and not keeping an eye on range. I also felt the enormous power of Sleeper alpha damage on battleships compared to an all T3 cruiser fleet with guardians. It’s is absolutely just sheer awesomeness to fly in a T3 fleet after having experienced all the disadvantages of BS’s in wormholes. It’s manageable with BS’s of course, but nowhere near ideal.

This did however reconfigure my training plan somewhat and divided my future blog contributions into these topics.

• Stage one: WH PVE in Dominix.
• Stage two: WH PVE in Guardian.
• Stage three: PVP engagements

For the next post, I’ll cover Stage One and go in details of my first class 5 wormhole encounters, and how the BS fleet operated. I’ll share some Dominix fittings with stats and a few screenshots of sleepers getting raped by the SI Radio fleet. And I’ll probably end up embarrassing myself a bit when revealing some of my logistic piloting mishaps when trying to make tons of isk in hi-end wormholes.

Until then…
♪♫♪♫ All Hail the Bold ♪♫♪♫

Stryker out

Additional inspirational readings:
Flying Logistics
Wormhole Sleeper Mysteries article