Who would like to learn a little basic pvp?

[Rubino]

How did you find the course?  Worthwhile? Valuable?
What would you do differently if you were doing it again?

[Warcold]

Well, the theory was... basic. And ofc you can also get theory out of texts, so all in all, theory wasnt all the most useful part of the course imo. BUT I still learned some useful things, so the theory certainly wasnt useless. The practical part was very useful. Experience here is sooo valuable. At first it was one big chaos in my eyes. 50 friendly ships swarming around, a less than perfect set up overview, busy voicecoms that stated all kinds of ships i didnt exactly know. But as the night progressed things got more easy, even when we were locked in a system or when i was podded and my pod's(!) armor was shot to half way down i managed to keep a pretty cool head (or was it just a numb head due to the beer?).

So was it worthwhile and valuable? Yes, because you get practice and ppl take time to explain things to you.
Would joining an alliance and entering pvp with them do the same thing? To some extend I do think so, yes... Nice to see the power of the hydra principle though (should explain that a bit more also, later).

What would I do differently next time?
Pff, difficult question. I'd tweak my fittings towards more dps. Not much else I think.

Will there be a next time?
Hell yeah!

[Rubino]

Sounds good.

Aye - there's 2 things with PvP that are hard: feeling inexperienced & the fear factor.

The fear factor is a hard one - especially early on.  Mostly because you work to be able to buy/fit a ship (and those pesky skills balanced & trained to use the ship & mods).  It's somethign hard to get over.
Experience you only get by doing - and an organised group with experienced leaders helps a lot in getting to grips with the what, when & how.

The main difference with being in an alliance is that PvP happens every almost every day - and a day won't go by without at least 1 PvP gang being performed.
While I'm happy to join an alliance that doesn't have their own 0.0 space - it is very hard for those still getting to grips with things.

I have worked with young corpies in high-sec wars and in hostile 0.0 sieges and the do find the learning curve tough to start with.
A large part is being podded, ending back in Empire and the time to get back into 0.0 - which can be tough if you've hostile gate-camps to jump through.

[Warcold]

A large part is being podded, ending back in Empire and the time to get back into 0.0 - which can be tough if you've hostile gate-camps to jump through.

Aye, thats the rough part I didnt really hit. I ended up in my pod once, but managed to join a small group of 4 ships and 4 pods in the same system (among them one of the agony flight management). We still had eyes on the way out and after a small waiting game, we got all ships together at the gatecamp and managed to kill 2 hacs i believe before most of us went down. I managed to get my already damaged pod through a bubble, powering towards the gate, jumped through, transverse few more true-/lowsec systems and reach base.
i.e. we were close to base and management made sure that ppl that found themselves left behind or podded could join group as soon as reasonably possible. I imagine that in normal warfare this will be very different and less of a 'smooth' ride.

[Rubino]

If you're in an alliance that controls stations in 0.0 - then you'll set your JC there and you'll still be in 0.0.
The serious action of expansion in 0.0 (the kind of action KIA/UFA are involved in currently) happens usually around border regions of the space you control - so getting back into the action isn't tough - just tedious with gate travel.  This however can be mitigated with the right kind of expansion and POS jump gates.

If you don't yet own a station in 0.0 - then it's rough to be podded - mostly due to having to deal with hostile gate-camps and you don't usually do it in larger ships if you're not in a group.

I guess you could utilise a Rorqual as a cheap alternative (it has a Clone Vat Bay) to hostile 0.0 sieges - or a MS.  The issue with a MS is that you would have to buy one (rather than build) if you don't control some safe 0.0 space and they're not cheap.

But you guys did well last night - the killboard (http://www.handsofjustice.co.uk/maadikb/?a=kills) is showing some nice kills - BS's and a couple of hacs to boot!

[Mangala]

Way to ruin an agony class as learned from a couple of random guys tonight.

Sit at a gate in smartbombing domi's just as 70 frigs/af's warp in...

Shit wasnt funny! (well maybe a little).


===========

Corp account with AU is 100mill or so - theyve upped class costs - and even though 0.0 is a pretty good school in itself, directed learning via such folks as Agony is damn good.

[Mangala]

Glad i went as alumnus in the end - got to hear parts of the class I didnt hear last time due to being late and learned a few new tricks too.  Also paid lots of attentiont o their fcing style and such - handy just for that I reckon.

[Warcold]

seems ppl started to see the fun in harassing large organized fleets (GK/Agony)

I will try to remember to post in forum next time an Agony course comes around.
ppl will have to respond fast though!