Roaming up North

Last night I clone jumped up North to fight with some corpmates. By the time the Celtics Lakers game ended, they were loggin off. So I joined a gang that went up, and brought a Curse I had bought from a corpmate. 125 mill, fully fitted. Not too shabby.

We moved out, and immediately I started getting agitated. There was way too much chatter in fleet, there were too many scouts and we were losing kills and opportunities for kills because of the disorganized nature of the gang.

I almost blew my top when, in Deklein, we caught an Onyx jumping into us. Our scout reported him landing on the CCP- gate, and pointed him to push him through. Onyx jumped, decloaked and we lit him up. As he was going through armor the FC started screaming at us to hold DPS. Reason? To get the Vagabond scout on the kill. Most people held DPS, I kept my drones and neuts on him. The FC then ordered the logistics to keep him alive. But he dissapeared anyways.

Our FC screamed. Literally screamed. I felt like I was listening to a 5 yr old. He threatened quitting and logging because we wouldn't listen to him. I felt like laughing on open comms, but thought better of it.

Finally someone who had been trying to talk, but couldn't be heard due to the emo raging, was heard.

"There is no wreck... and log shows no one shot it."

Silence.

"Yeah, he logged off. No kill"

I blanched.

We had just lost a T2 Cruiser kill because of some e-honor bullshit of trying to get a scout on the mail. As a result no one got a kill

I'm very often a scout. When I scout, I accept responsibility for finding targets and know that there are times  I won't get on the mail. I also know there may be times I get solo kills or on mails that slower and larger ships don't get on.

It balances out in the end.

I very, very rarely ask fleet to hold DPS because its almost always a bad idea. Sometimes it can even get people killed.

We moved on, and got 3 battlecruiser kills on the night. Drake, Drake, and Hurricane. We also lost a Vagabond because he made a tackle while gang was spread out over 3jumps after burning far too long without regrouping. We also lost a Deimos who, for whatever reason, warped to a POS.

I counted 4 ships that we surely would have killed had we not flooded local before getting a good tackle or aggression.

The kills were nice, but the headache and frustration I had after fleet ended were not.

So aspiring FCs... remember the above follies. Keep channels clear. Fleet comms don't give the FC an excuse to ramble about useless shit like what happened yesterday and how your ship is fitted. You need to shut the hell up too. You should be giving clear and concise orders. You should keep track of your gang. You need to keep gang together. You need to have ONE scout. ONE. Don't send 4 people into a station system and try and play it like normal FCs do when they send in one. Keep your scout within saving distance.

These things and more will help your fleet members not hate you.

That is all.