How to begin FCing

If you're anything like me, you want to FC but you're terrified to do it.  You might be new to the game and not have the knowledge you need; you might be shy and afraid to make mistakes; you might be completely overwhelmed by all the information; or it could be any number of other reasons.  Hopefully this little guide can help you understand how I was able to do it, and can help you achieve it as well.

What this guide is:

• A way to show you how to lead your first fleet out.
• A way to overcome all the difficulties of starting.
• A way to cope with failure.
• A plan to improve once you've popped your cherry.

What this guide is not:

• A guide on how to be a good FC.
• An overarching treatise on tactics.
• Something for those who regularly lead fleets already.

So you want to FC, but don't know where or how to start.  First off figure out what is holding you back?  Most people probably don't pick it up because they are either afraid of criticism, afraid of looking bad, don't know enough about the game to make sound tactical decisions, or most likely a combination of all of that.

Let me let you in on a couple of facts.

1. If you tell people you are brand new to FCing, no one will make fun of you.  No one will be unduly harsh in their criticism.  People won't avoid you because you are new.
2. Every single person who has ever FC'd sucked when they began.  They didn't understand tactics.  They didn't know how to bait properly.  They all got their fleets wiped.

When you keep these two things in mind, any fear you have of looking bad and being made fun of should go away.  People know this is a game and won't be an ass when you give them fair warning that you're new.  Now if you come across people who are assholes to you, ask this question:  "Do they lead fleets?"  If the answer is no, then remember that you are already ahead of them at FCing, as they can't summon the courage to try it.  If they do FC and they still do this, find another corp because those guys are beyond assholes.

A few tricks I used to get over the fear of leading my first fleet:

• Know for a fact that you're going to make bad decisions and everyone will probably die.
• Know that even a bad FC is better than station spinning.
• Have something to eat.
• Make sure you don't have to go to the bathroom.
• Have a drink.  Don't get drunk, but a shot or two can help calm your nerves down just enough to be able to get over the hump.
• Remember that you're playing a game, and everyone will have fun regardless of the outcome.
• Lead a T1 frigate or cruiser gang, this will keep it cheap.

Now remember when I said you are going be terrible at it?  That doesn't mean you will fail.  Failure is not taking the fleet out in the first place; by simply taking everyone out on a roam you have already succeeded, I'd wager that 90% of Eve players never even reach that point.  So keep that in mind as you learn.

So now you're out there.  What in gods name are you supposed to do?  You surely don't want to go out and suck on purpose, but you have no idea what the next step is.  There are few things as debilitating to a fleet as inaction.  Inaction gets you killed and it's boring.  So for your first few roams follow these two simple rules:

• When in doubt, warp the fleet to the next gate.
• If you think you can take something on, go for it.

It's very simple, as long as you are moving and getting into fights people will enjoy themselves; and that's all you can ask for on your first few roams.

The next step should be a pretty obvious one; continue to lead fleets.  If you continue to FC you will improve your abilities and lessen the nerves.  I set a goal for myself after my first fleet that I would lead a fleet every Saturday.  In my first 5 weeks of FCing I lead 4 fleets.  Now unfortunately real life has severely limited my play time since then, so I've been unable to commit to any more.  I do fully plan on continuing with my commitment though once life has settled down.  The reason I set this goal is I've found that if I set a goal like this it helps me stay accountable to improving.  I'd recommend you do the same, though it doesn't have to be weekly, find a schedule that works for you.

If you do these things, I know from personal experience that you'll get better.  It takes a while, and at times you'll regress (my last roam was a disaster), but the nerves will die down and you'll begin to see yourself improving bit-by-bit.  Make sure to ask for constructive criticism so you are able to correct things you do wrong.  Often times you will know exactly where you fucked up, but other times you won't even notice.  Asking your fleet mates after the roam what you could have done better is something you should do every time, either in AAR format or by just straight up asking over coms.

Anyway, I hope this guide is able to help someone who's sitting on the fence about FCing.  Good luck and may your enemies cower in fear!

Eve Parodies

I love parodies Eve players make of popular music, I actually wish I could sing so I could make some myself, but I digress.  I will be keeping a list of every (good) parody I can find on this page.  I'm omitting some that are either terrible quality or where the singer is so bad it detracts from the song; everything else I find I will post here, so if you know of one I haven't found please let me know so I can add it to the list.  Enjoy.

By Suas
Little Bees
I Robbed A Goon
Seleene Transvestite
109 Stupid Goons
Fuck Goons
Blackbird

By Cearul 
How To Stay Aligned

By Poetic Stanziel
SoCo

By Nitro G
Cynos Down

By Naburi NasNaburi
Eve, Oh Eve
Yesterday
My Guns Were Made For Shooting

By BendigoXana
Gate Camp Strut
Six Days On The Road

By Alekseyev Karrde & Jimer Lin
Pandemic Phone
Clik Lok

By Starstream
I'm Not Moving
Changed The Way You FC
Who's Gonna Save The Fleet Tonight?
Mad Eve World
I Dream Of Paradise, Everytime A Carebear Dies
Reship, Carry On (Blame CCP)
Eve Uprising
The Brightside Of PvP
Eve Players
Batphone

By DavidKMagnus
Pandemic Legion
Elect Elise
Winter Update
Fight Us Maybe?
SuperCaps
Dreads

By Asa Shaddix
I'm In A Rokh
Nyx In A POS

By DJ  Doby
Hey Yaa (So Sacked)
Dear CCP
Dude Your Alt Is A Woman
The Real Slim Doby
Downtime
Carebear Rhapsody
Whatever
Riny XXX
E-R Army
Born To Play Eve

By Dreddit
I Love New Eden

By Sindel Pellion
Titan
Makalu Cries
Good Fight (featuring DJ Starstream)
Dock Game

By Vis Nyliss
(Internet) Starships

By Curzon Dax
Tribute To Sabre A
Romance In Eve
Battle Of The ePeens
Noob, You'll Have An ePeen Soon
ISK ISK Baby
Dax Is Back
Eve-O Logic
Rats Got Loot
Behind Carebear Eyes
Runaway Inflation
Dreaming Of Eve
Flashing Red
Forum Whiners Unite!
Silver Death Bots
M.I.N.E.R.
I Need a New Home!
I'm A Racketeer!
I'm A Big Big Noob!
Because I Got High
Random Pwnage
Amarrian Pie
Flavor Of The Month
We Be Pirates
Carebear Blues
Ballad Of CCP
Eve Online Is For BOB

D-Scan

So I've finally figured out how to "quickly" pinpoint someones location via D-Scan.  If you've been unlucky enough to help me practice you know that it was an exercise in futility, 20, 30 minutes later I might find you.  For those of you who don't know Agony requires you to pass a 3 minute scan test to gain Core level, and for a while there I was truthfully worried that I wouldn't be able to do it.  Now, I am by no means perfect, but I thought I'd share how I've improved my scanning ability to respectable levels.

D-Scan

I'll start with the basics.  The D-Scan is brought up by pressing Alt-D, or the little button to the left of your HUD that looks like a radar sweep.  If you are ever in a potential hostile environment it should be up at all times so you can be aware of who and what is around you.  You'll see a check box labeled "Use Active Overview Settings", a range box, an angle slider, scan button, and a big empty space below it all.  The range can go up to approximately 14.33 AU and the angles for scanning are 360, 180, 90, 60, 30, 15, and 5.  The empty box below is where your scan results will show, and the use active overview settings box will do exactly what it says, that is only show things that would appear on your overview if you were on grid with it.

Use Active Overview

The first step in performing a successful D-Scan is having your overview set up properly.  Some things you need to have on it.  All ships, stargates, warpgates, wormholes, planets, the sun, wrecks, mobile warp disruptor.  Some people also put POCOs, moons, and asteroid belts, on it as well, but I find that they just clutter up the D-Scan results and I personally just use the onscreen brackets when scanning those.  Warpgates and wrecks are useful for determining if the person is running a mission or ratting.

Click the "Use Active Overview" check box to make sure that you can only see the things that you want, otherwise you'll often get hundreds of meaningless results.

The Process

I've practiced my D-Scanning by warping to a random celestial with an alt, then trying to scan him down.  Create an overview setting which shows the sun, all planets, moons, POCOs, asteroid belts, stargates, and stations.  Pick one at random without looking at your overview and press S (the keyboard shortcut for warp).  Your ship will then warp to a location that you don't know.

When you enter the system with the one doing the scanning first analyze the system with the system scanner.  This will tell you if any anomalies are in the system that your target could be at.  For the purpose of our practice you don't need to do that but its good to get into the habit.  Run a 360 scan, if you're target isn't on the scan then warp to a celestial in the middle of a bunch of other celestials, repeat until you find your target on the 360 scan.

When they are on the 360 scan, drop it down to 180 or 90 and scan in quadrants until you find them.  At this point you can probably drop your angle down to the 15 or 5 degree mark and start to scan the individual celestials.  If you press and hold the Alt key you will see a little box around your ship.  Align this box with the celestial when doing the shorter angle scans as this is the point where the angle starts at.  When your target shows up, warp to the celestial.

I find using the 5 degree mark a little twitchy, so if you're having problems pinpointing the location you can use the F10 map and use it to look around.  It is far easier to manipulate the camera while in the map view and it can help shave some time off your search.

Make It Quicker

If your target isn't on the initial 360 scan set your angle to 180 and spam the scan while in warp.  When your target appears on the scan continue to spam the button.  If your target disappears at some point you will know you passed the location and can then focus on the celestials that you passed, this can save you a ton of time you would have spent scanning areas where your target isn't located.  Bringing up the F11 map can help a lot with this.

I find that I don't use the 60 or 30 degree settings much.  By the time I narrow it down via the 90 degree scan there are usually only a handful of celestials to scan and I find it's quicker if I just go straight into scanning them individually. 

I never change the range and always leave it at the maximum.  I find that if I try and do both it just confuses me and I fail terribly.

One last thing is if you show all brackets it will still not show moons in space.  You need to enable this by pressing a shortcut key.  I don't remember what the default is as I've remapped it, but you can find the setting in Esc -> Shortcuts -> Navigation -> Toggle Special Bracket Display.  I have this on all the time, and since I've figured this out my scanning ability has drastically improved as I can now find targets that are at those locations.

Best Time Ever

The shortest time I've ever been able to D-Scan something down is 0:46.  I got very lucky with this though, as my target was on the first 360 scan, and at the first celestial I scanned at 5 degrees.  I'm normally in the 2-3.5 minute range when they aren't on the initial scan.  Clearly there is still room for improvement, but as I practice the time it takes me will continue to go down.  I now have confidence that I can pass the dreaded 3 minute scan test.

Whats the procedure you use for scanning?  What could I do better to shorten my time?  What's your best, or average, time to scan something down?  Any input is greatly encouraged and appreciated, that is if anyone actually reads this silly little attempt at a blog.  :D