Two nights ago I bought and fit my Tempest for Incursions. It was basically the fit posted here with the 800mm auto cannons and a Tech 2 tank with some modifications suggested by TVP. Total cost was something like 200mil.
Last night I got into my first Incursion and pulled in close to 100m isk an hour. Rince helped me prepare so I didn't walk in totally blind.
To get into the Incursion, I went to the system it was active in and posted my fit in the Incursion chat. The Tempest is a DPS build, so my fit is called "Tempest DPS Tech 2 Tank." Other people use a naming convention I haven't figured out yet, but that one worked and I got invited to the fleet. They did require that you have your CPSA (or what ever) charge off so they could easily invite you. It was also recommended that you set your lock backs to "0". Apparently earlier in the day a DPS managed to destroy a logistics ship by accident. The final thing I didn't expect when being invited to the fleet was an optional 10m donation for ship insurance. For 10m this fleet would replace your ship, up to 2 billion, if it was destroyed in the incursion. I didn't confirm but it sounded like when that wallet grew big enough they ran raffles and gave out prizes.
I SHOULD have immediately seen the Team Speak information, but I didn't. If you get into a fleet worth its salt, they will have Team Speak and you will be expected to be on it. I assumed they didn't have one because it didn't jump out at me when I scanned the MOTD 3 times.
Had I been on Team Speak, things would have started more smoothly, but even without, things went fine.
The fleet I was in had a waitlist and they used fleet wings to keep track of who was supposed to be "on grid." When a DPS would leave, they would call up next in line from the waitlist. Several people were confused by this and ended up on grid before they got off the wait list. Pay attention to what wing you are in.
Before every gate the Fleet Commander (FC) would ask "Is anyone new to Incursions?" If someone said "Yes" he confirm that they had tags on their overview and key bindings for "request shield" (request shield is what you broadcast when a bunch of enemies lock you) and "in position" (in position is what you say when they stop shooting you.) He would explain to keep close to the "anchor" and then make them test their "request shield" and "at position" commands.
After that the FC would ask everyone to state their roles. These are the guys in the fleet with special duties, mainly Fleet Commander (FC), Anchor (AAA), logistics commander (lc) and Drone Buddy (DDD). I might be missing one. Another three letter you'll hear is "www" which just means "warp to me." If someone is added mid mission or has to warp out for some reason, when they are ready to come in they will ask who to warp to and people will respond "www"
The FC will tell you when to go through the gates, who to shoot, when to change targets if needed. I THINK he also does the tagging, but I couldn't really figure that out and it didn't really matter WHO was doing the tagging. The AAA is the guy everyone follows. You don't want to approach him as bumping into people is a sure sign of noobery (I did it several times). Instead use "keep at range" or fly your ship manually (double click and then stop when he does. I add him to my watch list so he is easy to find for the "keep at range" command.
The LC doesn't tell you what to do, so you'll mostly ignore him... until you need shields. Then he and the logistics ships will take you from 50% to 100% in the blink of an eye.
Finally the DDD is the guy who controls all the drones, and sweet Jesus are there a lot of drones. When you get into the room where the combat will take place, you launch your drones and then right click on the "In Flight" bar and select "assist" and then find that guys name and forget about your drones. If you are a bad pilot you really will forget about your drones and warp to the next site leaving them to flounder in space. I am a double bad pilot.
After asking people to state their roles, the FC will ask for the logistics team to call out. The logistics ships are the ones doing the remote shield boosting or armor repping. And once everyone is "in grid" (in the area) the FC will tell everyone to align to the gate (double click down the path of the gate) and he will send the anchor in. After the anchor is in and has agro, he will send the rest of the fleet in.
Once I got into my first site, I realized quickly that all the player ships made it hard to find the enemies in the overview. I recommend setting up your overview before you jump in. Remove all player ships and sort the order by tags so tagged ships appear at the top of the list. Once you are in the site the only thing you need to care about is shooting the tagged ships in the right order. Tags labeled with Numbers are for DPS (short range) and letters are for snipers (long range). "J" and "X" are don't shoot. Obviously lower numbers/letters first.
Anything more complicated than that was explained. As DPS so long as you are attacking the correct target and staying close to your anchor your are pretty much doing it right. There is one site type where people have to dink around with a cargo container and those people are called MTAC dropper and MTAC picker (I think picker, it doesn't matter.) These two have to do stuff or the battle station target will repair itself. This doesn't matter to DPS, the FC will tell you when to lock the tower and when to start shooting. You don't stop shooting until the tower blows up.
That was basically 5 hours of my night last night. We jumped from site to site, each handing out around 30m isk when completed, each taking about 20 minutes or so, some quicker. When it was all said and done I had ran through about 15,000 rounds of ammo, accidentally abandoned 5 tech 2 hobgoblins, donated 15m to each of the boosters (this is heavily encouraged, though I don't exactly understand why... I think they boost from off grid and don't get any payouts), and paid the 10m for optional insurance. I also missed out on several sites for various reasons (dinner, and being afarid to ask questions) but still walked away up 300m.
Overall the group, "WarpToMe" was great to fly with. At one point we formed a massive conga line around the battle station while we were shooting just to break things up. TS was also light hearted, but everyone stopped goofing off as soon as anyone said "Hold on" or "cut the chatter." Mostly this only happened if someone requested shields late. They, and everyone in the fleet, were extremely patient with new comers, even people who didn't know how to change their overview settings.
The sites I missed where just because I was afraid of being kicked out of the fleet for planning incorrectly or I was afraid to ask if what I was doing was safe. I ran out of ammo towards the end of a site and had to have Sedais quickly fly more in. She brought some in just as the fleet was ready to start another site and I didn't make it to the gate before they warped through. Instead of saying "I am late to the party, is it safe to come through" I just waited that site out. Really, don't be afraid to ask questions or clarify things over Team Speak. There are very few times you need to be silent, like if the FC is working out roles or explaining something to someone. Other than that it seemed pretty free form. Obviously don't talk over the top of the established members, but don't be afraid to say "I am new, is it okay to grab more ammo from the station now?"
That basically sums up my experience with Incursions. I plan to leave my Tempest in Amarr or somewhere nearby so I can respond to Incursions from there and do them when I get the opportunity, so long as there isn't anything going on with the corp.
I strongly recommend getting your shield tank to tech 2 and getting in a BS so you can do an Incursion.
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On the subject of a WH POS, the only thing really holding back Ten and the others who want to do it is that they don't have permissions to do it and I don't think they have someone with a high enough anchoring skill. Both of those should be easy to fix. If nothing else they can borrow someone who can anchor.
I too, think Ten should be a director, if for no other reason than having someone active with those rights. Once we get another director the people who want to move into a wormhole can start sorting that out.
As for availability, some time in the very new future I will be out on travel. Way way out on travel and gone for probably 6 weeks. I am also out tonight and tomorrow.
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Topic: Eve Online (Read 275394 times)