Just a plex and some thought processes

Last night I had a long conversation with an FC about the smaller frigate blobs and preparation for same. I'll be cogitating on mechanics and how to organize that. Standardized design of ships is also a consideration for what needs to happen for that to work.

On a more personal basis, I almost lost my alt's hauler last night. Note to self: Amamake is not Abudban... After moving a whole bunch of hulls to a good location, i shuffled my hauler back to my manufacturing center and hit a local food joint.

When i got on I didn't notice any chatter like there was a good fleet going so I decided a bit of defensive plex running was called for. Even if there was a good fleet going I probably wasn't going to join as the humidity was a killer last night. Being half out of it is not a good way to PvP. So I found a plex in a contested system and proceeded to sit on the button. It was a major plex so 20 min with open warp in was kind of nervous. Eventually a pirate came by and started moving towards me with 3 min to go. I simply warped out and warped back, got on the button and finished off the plex.

I will note that the major fleet engagements are fun and a rush but that the day to day work on the plexes is what will win the war. Individual pilots can do defensive plexes when the enemy is occupied elsewhere. Offensive plexes are probably best addressed by corp operations since you do need multiple people to pull them off and a mix of ship types - BS and what not for the unlimited plexes and T1 frigates and dessies for the smallest ones. So either an organized fleet can't find a fight and defaults to plex running till the scouts find something. Or a smaller squadron dedicates itself to running plexes for the evening, possibly coordinating with other fleets.

The thing is that this indicates that being part of an FW corp is probably the way to at least find some pilots to fly regularely with. However this won't necessarily meet some of the objectives that I've set myself with this stint in FW. Part of my personal objectives here is to make contacts and fly with a whole bunch of different people. I need to work on the diplo side of things. I suspect I'll need to help organize the logistics for the frigate plan, breaking it down into 5 or 20 packs seem to be the best way to go.

Here is the idea: When planing large frigate gangs or frigate reserves one wants to use a standardized loadout. This way you can simply get x, 2x or 3x of each module/ammo loadout and build everything at once. Due to the manufacturing time of frigates and ammo, a good number for a 24h period is 20 (it's actualy conservative but since it'll be going on overnight it works out). This allows your typical industrialist (defined in this case by PE5 with Advanced mass production 4) to put in the hulls/ammo and the modules overnight and have the entire pack ready to go the next day. This allows for a good mix of quantity and variants to be priced out ahead of time.

The 5 pack is also optimal for logistics. 5 frigates = 12500 m3, using a large can for the modules/ammo 1000 m3 = 13500m3, 2 packs = 27000m3. A lot of hauler alts aim for the wonders of jet can hauling. And one of the mile stones in the development of a hauler is when you can haul half a jet can in one go. This should mesh well with any hauler fleet put together to move these around logistical and makes making courier contracts simpler.

As for putting together the infrastructure for this, it's probably best to put together an alt corp under the control of some min FCs alts. It would then simply contract out the hauling by pack either publicly (for non-rush stuff) or to hauler alts (for rush stuff). The corp would simply be used as a framework to receive donations and control distribution and arrange logistics.

More thoughts as I firm these ideas up later.