0.0 and observations from affar

As most of you know (at least if you read this blog you bloody well should), my alliance is currently a little short of PvP pilots. Not that some of us can't AC/DC but I need more. That being the case I'm kinda stuck up here in hi-sec for the foreseeable future. This is not to say I don't maintain contacts in the 0.0 PvP world. I do. One of my good friends started playing eve (my fault, yea I know). But coming from the gaming background of Quake and such things, and not being into the crafting side of things, it was prety evident to me what type of pilot he was going to be happiest as. Minmatar combat build heading straight for the Vagabond.

Even with the upcoming speed nerf, I suspect that the whine bunnies are over-reacting and we'll endup with the Vaga as the only remaining "nano-able" cruiser. So in the long run I'm not too worried about his surviving the upcoming nerf.

When he was a newbie and had just gotten his feet under him, I pointed him in the direction of a pure PvP alliance down in 0.0. Although there have been some rought spots along the way the result is that he's definitly a 0.0 PvP pilot. Now that he can fly interceptors he's happy as a pig in mud. At 6mil SP. One of the things we arranged was that once he got the setup to his favorite T1 ships ironed out, I would supply him with some BPCs of the ships and all the modules and the ammo he uses. This ensured that no matter what happend with the supply situation in 0.0 he'd never be without the ability to be self sufficient in T1 combat ships. The wisdom of the move has proven itself out with time. There have been occasions where he's been able to supply Rifters and Stabbers to other much more experienced pilots when those pilots ran out of their usual ships. Although he's now starting to fly T2 ships, he'll never be without a reserve of ships to throw at situations and with a bit of 0.0 ratting he'll be able to keep going indefinitly.

What I'm trying to point out is that no matter what the promises of the corp you join, or the situation when you start, 0.0 is not hi-sec. There are a lot of areas where you can get cut-off from supplies of hulls, modules and ammo to use. If you don't prepare ahead of time to handle the situation you could get caught out without any recourse but to go beg from your corp/alliance mates. And they may have their own problems or they may not fly the ships you fly. Also the more experienced pilots definitly forget the limitations of starting pilots. So they may not be even able to support you if you run into this type of trouble.

On the other hands, ratting in 0.0 provides oodles of meltable loot. Being able to convert that into flyable ships yourself makes you logisticaly independent. There is also the added advantage that if you need to move you can have all your spare stuff melted, setup a contract to move the mins by your corp's jump freighter and re-build your reserves at destination. Or just sell the mins on the local market and move a few ships instead of a whole fleet and rat at the destinanation. BPC's are cheap and easy to move. And if you loose them they are much easier to get shipped down from high sec than entire ships and GSC's worth of modules.

This is why I stated in a prior post that even PvP newbies should learn how to manufacture things. Sure you're never going to be as efficient as an industrialist (well at least till you've played the game for 5 years). But being able to get yourself back on your feet after a setback will make you a more valuable pilot to your corp/alliance.