Incursions: X up for shiny fleet

Fuck your shiny fleets. Seriously.

Oh, right, I should explain what shiny fleets are. But first I have to explain how Incursions work for people who never ran them.

There are 4 different Incursion "levels" : Vanguard (VG). Assault (AS), Headquaters (HQ) and Sansha mothership sites (mom sites). I ordered these by difficulty, VGs being the easiest. Each Incursion type has the max number of fleet members you should have - if you have more you won't get maximum payout from the site. Maximums are as follows: VG - 10, AS - 20, HQ - 40, mom sites - 78. There are no bounties on ships, however each fleet member gets a reward in both ISK and LP for finishing a site. Interesting part is what happens if 2 fleets enter the same incursion site at the same time - that site becomes contested.

In contested sites only one fleet can get the reward. But how do you determine which one? Simple - the fleet that did more DPS. And that's where the "shiny" fleet comes in.

You see, you can bring only 10 ships. You absolutely HAVE TO have logistics. In VG sites it usually comes down to 3 logi ships, mostly 3 Basilisks or 2 Basilisks + a Scimitar in shield fleets. I won't get into specifics of why you use those combos, suffice to say Sansha in incursions can both neut and jam. Draw your conclusions. That means you can bring only 7 DPS ships. And some of those have to be sniper fit because some Sansha love to hang out at 100+ km from your fleet. Sniper ships, by their nature, do less DPS. Solution? Faction BS with faction gear.

And that is fine. The more DPS you do the more effective you are. More sites per hour - more ISK per hour. What pisses me off is they do vanguards. ONLY vanguards. Invite one of this guys into an assault fleet and they leave fleet running. And of course, since they only do vanguards it creates more competition, creating more need for "shiny" fleets.

I only did incursions for the last few days. And I mostly do assaults (did a few VGs and HQs as well). Hell, yesterday I spent my day sitting in station, spinning my ship and talking in corp chat because I couldn't find any AS or HQ fleets around. And no, this is not me whining because I don't have a "shiny" ship. I fly a Scimitar. Everybody needs logis. I can potentially end in any fleet, despite my T2/named fit. What I am whining about is having problems finding 20 people for an AS fleet in a dedicated incursion chat numbering in over 500 members. That's a SINGLE fleet, 20 people, out of 500. I only once saw more than one AS fleet running in a system, and those guys weren't even from the channel I was referring to. Meanwhile there are as many as 8-9 fleets running vanguards in a single system, screaming for more "shiny" ships because they need more DPS to win contested sites. Also, I find vanguards painfully boring and I might as well go semi-afk run lvl4 missions in a heavily tanked ship.

Listen guys, I understand, that Machariel cost you close to a bil. Maybe more if you pimped it out. But grow some balls. You have a minimum of 5 logi pilots in an AS fleet working to keep you alive and well. Hell, we ran one site with 4. In all my fleets we NEVER lost a ship. We did have one Machariel in 3% hull because he didn't have a single shield extender, but we saved him. And once he fixed his fit he never hit armor again. Logi pilots need DPS ships to kill rats so we get our money. You need logis to keep you alive so you can kill rats and get your money. We all work together and try the hardest we can that everything runs smoothly.

If we could cut the elitist crap and let poor people who can only fly Drakes and Hurricanes run vanguards we would all have more fun and more ISK.

But this is EVE, and it's full of stars. Or shit. Depends on your angle.