21 replies to this topic

[Greygal]

We love feedback! This is the first time we've run this class in a LONG time, and for just about all of us involved, it was the first time we'd ever run a Skirmishing class. We also revamped the class to be far more heavy on the practical (but somewhat failed to deliver the amount of practical we wanted to!). We'd really like to know what you thought of the class, things you think we could have done better (like moving to the class system a bit faster!), things you thought we did great, and of course, what you thought of actually flying as a skirmisher during the roam tomorrow!

Things we know we need to improve/streamline for the next time we run the class, things we're considering changing. We'd really like your opinion on these items:

• Moving the "lecture" about the Interceptor as a ship to reading material
• Moving the "lecture" about fitting and why we fit this way to reading material, change this from "lecture" to just quick discussion and Q&A on it
• Remove mention of defender missiles from the Wiki
• Keep the existing overview-only screenshots but also add some full-screen screenshots to the Recon Reporting section.
• Do something about how we got to the class system... that took way too long! See Poll above!
• Have two bubblers available during the bubble-escape practical, and/or have two students run the gauntlet at a time
• Have everyone in their own TS channel during the buddy practice, right from the beginning

Apologies that this ran sooooo long, we really appreciate how patient ya'll were with us. The goal was mixing approximately two hours of lecture with two hours of practical while lecturing... obviously we were overly ambitious We actually had a lot more practical exercises planned, in particular, we had planned a section on skirmisher-specific use of the dscanner and a more involved practical on spiraling, but by that point we were already 4 hours into the class, so we made a spur-of-the moment decision to drop the dscanner practical, shorten the spiraling immensely, and head into the pairing-up buddy practical asap, as we believed the one-on-one time with your buddy combined with the instructor feedback was the most valuable part of the class. We also intended to have more live practical on giving recon (like several of you did as we moved the fleet back to Berta after the class), but again, time got away from us.

Many thanks to Toran and Itko for putting this together, to all of Agony who supported and attended the class today, and to each of our wonderful students who stuck it out right through to the end. Special thanks to Marvin for reporting those combat probes in 8G, really was fun evading that bubble camp in such a slick manner

Really looking forward to the roam tomorrow, I have faith you will all find us plenty of awesome fights!

GG

[Nemo]

First of all, thanks a lot for organizing this class. Also the Jump Freighter action was a nice thing to have. Thanks Toran. About the poll above: It can make sense to have everybody move to the system on his own, but only if that means there will still be a Jump Freighter to carry all 3 Inties there. I probably wouldn't have taken the class if I had to move all my ships there one after the other. On the other hand, flying in a fleet down there is definitely an advantage to get to know people. You instantly notice who doesn't hold cloak, who warps when instructed to align and all that kind of stuff. So the instructors should be able to see potential weaknesses in their students just by watching them perform in a fleet. But also: the students have a chance to get used to flying in a fleet again. Who knows when they had their basic class and how long they haven't been in a fleet? It's definitely a good start to get into the right mindset. I really liked the screenshot idea, It's a great way of presenting different situations. In fact there should be more of it, because doing that once per person seems a little too less. As you said: situational awareness is one of the key factors. Also I very much liked the bubble escape. For me personally - I had to jump first - that was the moment to actually wake up again after a long period of listening. A neutral saber on grid. I was already looking for D-Scan, checked if I had any bookmarks around the gate and celestials to run to, before I noticed that it was Toran in that ship. Why didn't you do this with everyone, so everyone had to go individually without knowing what comes? It's a great way to get people into the situation where they need to make a quick decision on what would be the best way to get safe. The outcome of the different approaches can than be discussed with all together. There is nothing better than learning from your own mistakes. And in fact what you guys tried to teach us, works. I flew home through Great Wildlands yesterday. There was a camp: Flycatcher, Ares and some AFs. I got bubbled after I decloaked, then pointed by the Ares but I made it out. So either they were bad pilots or I actually learned from my mistake earlier. Who knows And last but not least, the final practical. I'm a bit disappointed about that. First the organization. Make teams at let them organize themselves the way they want, might sound nice but who tells us where our weaknesses are, if only 2 students shoot each other. I would have hoped for some sort of demonstration of how a well trained cruiser pilot would try to break my orbit. How can I - as the Interceptor pilot - detect that he tries that? How do I prevent him from getting away in that situation? In my opinion, that last part lacks the actual feedback of an instructor who sees how you fly that Inty and tells you what you do well and what you do wrong. Some last words. For me personally it was way to much talk about things that are already covered in Basic and/or the reading material. I took a piece of paper at the beginning of the class to write down the most important things. I did the same in my Basic class, 3 years ago. I still have about 4 or 5 pages of notes from that Basic class. Yesterday I wrote down 4 lines: 1st: Raptors are Craptors 2nd: Eyes of the fleet; Tackle; TAM 3rd: Recon <Name> <System> <Celestial> <Local, WTs> <Grid> <Scan> 4th: Report enemy numbers as 5, 15, 30, ... From my point of view, there was very little new about the stuff you told us. But on the other hand I still do not feel well prepared to skirmish for any fleet now. See you on the roam. Nemo

[Itkovian Beddict]

About the poll above: It can make sense to have everybody move to the system on his own, but only if that means there will still be a Jump Freighter to carry all 3 Inties there. I probably wouldn't have taken the class if I had to move all my ships there one after the other.

Well you could use Black Frog. However, you can probably assume that we'd provide the JF service, at least if we run the class in a similar system in future. The poll is more about getting your clone down in a ship.

On the other hand, flying in a fleet down there is definitely an advantage to get to know people. You instantly notice who doesn't hold cloak, who warps when instructed to align and all that kind of stuff. So the instructors should be able to see potential weaknesses in their students just by watching them perform in a fleet. But also: the students have a chance to get used to flying in a fleet again. Who knows when they had their basic class and how long they haven't been in a fleet? It's definitely a good start to get into the right mindset.

I agree that it is nice for those who haven't fleeted for a little while. Having said that, I'm pretty much expecting that anyone taking this class can cope with aligning and holding cloak and if they can't it isn't something we're going to really worry about. In this case the main purpose was just to provide those who weren't confident navigating a (fairly nasty) pipe in Null an easy way to get down without getting blown up.

I really liked the screenshot idea, It's a great way of presenting different situations. In fact there should be more of it, because doing that once per person seems a little too less. As you said: situational awareness is one of the key factors.

Well I'd hope you were looking at the other 10 screenshots and trying to work out how you're report it in your head even if it wasn't your turn. Doing 11 per person should hopefully cover a wide range of situations! We couldn't really do more than one actual "answer" per student as we went over time by a long way as it was and this section took quite a long time. I think we will in future plan to do something similar but possibly with full screenshots (as was mentioned during the class).

Why didn't you do this with everyone, so everyone had to go individually without knowing what comes? It's a great way to get people into the situation where they need to make a quick decision on what would be the best way to get safe. The outcome of the different approaches can than be discussed with all together.

Again, this would really be a time issue. While we intend to cut out significant chunks of the "talking" sections, certain parts still need to be there and we really want to keep the class time down to 4 hours in future if at all possible. If we can squeeze it in it would be nice, I agree.

There is nothing better than learning from your own mistakes.

I absolutely agree - you should not consider the class over yet...the roam is where the real learning will happen.

And last but not least, the final practical. I'm a bit disappointed about that. First the organization. Make teams at let them organize themselves the way they want, might sound nice but who tells us where our weaknesses are, if only 2 students shoot each other. I would have hoped for some sort of demonstration of how a well trained cruiser pilot would try to break my orbit. How can I - as the Interceptor pilot - detect that he tries that? How do I prevent him from getting away in that situation? In my opinion, that last part lacks the actual feedback of an instructor who sees how you fly that Inty and tells you what you do well and what you do wrong.

I do agree that this could have been started better but maybe we were guilty of assuming it was "obvious" what you should practise from the previous talk. In future I think a demonstration might be worthwhile before you all split up. I would definitely like to have this section be a little longer as well so that the instructors could see both individuals in the inty (bear in mind we did come round to check each pair, but maybe you were in the cruiser at the time). Again, once we strip out some of the material from earlier, we should have more time here (hopefully).

Some last words. For me personally it was way to much talk about things that are already covered in Basic and/or the reading material. I took a piece of paper at the beginning of the class to write down the most important things. I did the same in my Basic class, 3 years ago. I still have about 4 or 5 pages of notes from that Basic class. Yesterday I wrote down 4 lines:

Well, its kinda hard to know how much each students knows (and each student will know different amounts). If you took the Basic class now I expect you'd write down a lot less (even if you hadn't attended before) as you have been playing for 3 years. There was definitely information you did not cover in your 4 points which is not covered in any of our other classes, but possibly you knew that from other experience in the game? The Skirmishing articles which you were linked to do have a lot of coverage but I'd hardly want to reduce them so that the class is all "new stuff".

We covered far too much information in the class really, there isn't a huge amount more to say - if you knew it all already, its just about getting out there and trying it out. Luckily there is a handy opportunity to do just that in 5 hours.

From my point of view, there was very little new about the stuff you told us. But on the other hand I still do not feel well prepared to skirmish for any fleet now.

This comes down to the reason the roam is mandatory. You can't "learn" how to do this by sitting listening or even by practising against a friend. You need to go out and make mistakes and die to learn what not to do. The class is really to make sure that everyone is up to the level of knowledge that you already had, so they have a good starting point and when they die, they know what they did wrongly.

Thank you for the detailed feedback. Many of your points were good and will be considered when we improve the class. The points I don't really agree with I've tried to explain the reasoning but if I've misunderstood, please let me know.

[ToranBrades]

Heya, Itko went into the things that I would have tried to respond to already, so thanks for sure, and we're of course interested in further feedback from others, too! Obviously, not everything went as smoothly as laid out in the plan, but that's why we couldn't print more "Prototype class: For guinea pigs!" on it There were strong points, and things to change, and that's we're gonna do for future versions for sure. Prolly not gonna take 2yrs again. Toran

[Maudite 9]

Great job on a brand new class! I'm sure you have a good idea how to trim it down and streamline it for next time and it will be even better. Of course the roam is where the learning really happens, as Itko noted above. I love how Toran and Itko are going to have the extra chat window open to give individual feedback to the skirmishers. That's going to be a treat that very few budding inty pilots have ever had the pleasure of. Students, take this roam day to really learn the MINDSET of the skirmisher as well as the SKILLS you will need to practice.

[roigon]

I'm not an instructor or anything, I was just there to lend a hand, but I wanted to respond to this bit.

And last but not least, the final practical. I'm a bit disappointed about that. First the organization. Make teams at let them organize themselves the way they want, might sound nice but who tells us where our weaknesses are, if only 2 students shoot each other. I would have hoped for some sort of demonstration of how a well trained cruiser pilot would try to break my orbit. How can I - as the Interceptor pilot - detect that he tries that? How do I prevent him from getting away in that situation? In my opinion, that last part lacks the actual feedback of an instructor who sees how you fly that Inty and tells you what you do well and what you do wrong.

I can understand your point, especially on the point of what to practice but as so far as mentoring or demonstrating. That is more difficult.

If Itko and Torran had to mentor personally this 10 man class would have had been even far longer, and there is only so much you can discern from watching two people fly in space.

As for the demonstrating, that's pretty much the same problem. When you are tackling you are keeping a close eye on distance, speed the targets speed direction etc..

However if you are watching this as a third party the only thing you can really easily see is the speed. Looking what moves the inty is making or corrections are nearly indiscernible. So a demonstration of certain principles and techniques would be of very limited value to witness.

Potentially a supplement video could be made similar to the spiralling video to show the exercises, but making those videos is a LOT of work so I wouldn't hold my breath

I'd say as a reasonable inty pilot the most important thing is practice, just lots and lots of hours of flying. A lot of it is just getting a feeling for it, and no amount of theory or demonstrating will really transfer that fingerspitzengefuhl you need to develop.

[Itkovian Beddict]

fingerspitzengefuhl

Awesome word. What does it mean?

[ToranBrades]

fingerspitzengefÜhl

Literally - "feeling in your finger tips". Means just developing a feeling for the slight nuances that can make a huge difference.

[roigon]

fingerspitzengefÜhl

Literally - "feeling in your finger tips". Means just developing a feeling for the slight nuances that can make a huge difference.

Basically that. I thought it was used in english as well, sorry if not.

[Itkovian Beddict]

Basically that. I thought it was used in english as well, sorry if not.

Not that I'm aware of but no apology necessary. I like it.

Edit: Apparently it is used in English but I can't say it's hugely common given that I haven't heard it before and I've spoken English at least twice.

[glepp]

fingerspitzengefuhl

Awesome word. What does it mean?

Literally: Fingertip-feeling.

Used a lot in norwegian, except we say fingerspizgefuhl without the extra en.

And yeah, flying an inty is alot about that.

[Othran]

Well done to the students for the way they performed on the roam. Special mention has to go to Marvin who patiently kept a Vagabond pointed for a ridiculous length of time while the rest of us killmail whored on stuff the other side of the system and even then he had to remind us he still had it pointed Well done Gizz - the recon coming in at the start was way too much for me and I can normally follow who's doing what/where on class/alumni roams. Student skirmishers calmed down a bit later and recon was more relevant but well done for coping Unfortunate with the BL fight, could have been a lot closer but positioning wasn't great, logistics meant we'd have to get all the breaks to take that fight. Worth a try though and I'd do that again. I flat out wouldn't have taken the "Hawk fleet" fight though, that was only ever going to end up one way. A fun night as usual, much appreciated peeps

[Carver]

Marvin got some nice tackles, difficulty rating weighting ++.

[Greygal]

I've been really slack in writing AARs after our public roams, one of my Resolutions for this New Year is to stop sucking and write more AARS

Wow... this sure was a challenging roam today! I never thought I would ever say the following words in my life: We had too many skirmishers.

The fleet was primarily a mixed-bag cruiser fleet. We did NOT lack for targets... Curse was definitely a target-rich environment today

We had ten student skirmishers, which were paired up into five skirmishing "groups" - the thinking being we typically have around five skirmishers on our big roams, so this would be manageable they would back each other up, would provide outstanding scouting coverage, and the fleet would never be blind.

All the fights we had have become a bit of a blur to me all at this point... I think I enjoyed the fight against the CVA gang the best, the Hawk/Logi gang fight was fail, that's all I will say about that! Still, oddly enough, I'm glad we took that fight.

So, on to the good, the bad, and the ugly...

THE GOOD:
Agony! I you! We had a really FANTASTIC turnout of Agony for the roam today.

Toran and Itko: I cannot thank you guys enough for the work you put into developing this class, the time and energy you spent on the students yesterday, the handholding and organizing you did with the student skirmishers today.

We killed more ships than I realized - I'm still counting/cross-posting, but despite whelps and overwhelming odds and some *oops* moments, we exploded at least 32 opponent ships today, the majority of which were cruiser/battlecruiser hulls.

The student skirmishers started terrific right from the start, and only got better as they gained confidence. Even their very first hesitate recon reports were understandable and usually contained the most important information.

Truthfully, the students were AWESOME at skirmishing, I would never have known that this was the first time ever for more than half of you.

The use of a private chat channel for the skirmishing students worked excellently; they were able to keep themselves organized, freely ask questions without worry about interrupting fleet operations,

Gizznitt... omg... I do not have words to express how awesome you were with the student skirmishers, keeping track of and organizing each of those skirmishing groups, the way you deployed and ordered them around was beyond impressive. I bow to you.

We had no problem finding targets.

The fleet moved well together right off the bat, there was minimal accidental hops through gates, aligning was really good, people falling behind or getting lost was quite rare actually. Normally "where is the fleet" is the most common question during one of our class roams, today that question was exceptionally rare.

Firepower was generally well-focused during fights, I didn't see a lot of spread damage during fights (it always happens a bit, today was overall way better than usual).

We took fights we probably shouldn't have yet got good kills.

We took fights we definitely shouldn't have, and nobody panicked, rage-logged, threw a temper tantrum, or otherwise reacted in any way other than to say "Well, that didn't work out too good," reship, and get back into the groove.

Every student got the opportunity to skirmish, to give recon, to get virtually immediate feedback (perhaps too much at times), and to really get a good feel for what the job is about.

Coms were outstandingly good despite the challenges of having way too much intel coming in.

Recon reporting was outstanding, even when it was a bit slow or hesitant, across the board.

Lowkey did not accidentally squad-warp the squad

Overall, everyone involved displayed heroic levels of patience with everyone involved, including themselves!


THE BAD:

Well, actually, nothing was REALLY all that bad, despite the following wall-of-text... but I relate all of the below for in order to share and record much of the verbal AAR and feedback we received after the roam was over.

We had too many skirmishers. Never thought I'd say that. This actually reduced the effectiveness of our fleet. We had upwards of 16 people in interceptors in a fleet of (average) 50, which reduced our potential DPS/EWAR. We're bouncing some ideas around internally already.

There were occasions when stuff was over-reported, such as a student giving a recon report then an Agony skirmisher giving recon in the same system one minute later. Oops!! Listening skills are a Good Thing™, Agony

We lost more ships than we should have in some fights for a variety of reasons - either the way we landed, misunderstanding of targets called, the choices of fights we took, a bit of a slowness on the part of the fleet to get "in the groove" of flying together.

Third person. Third person. Third person. I would spank those of you who forgot to use the third person but ya'll would enjoy that too much.

Just my humble (hah!) opinion, but I think we hung out in Curse too long. I think we should have moved towards Provi or somewhere else after our initial oh, about two hours. We spent too much time toying with the same gangs repeatedly. Keeping a fleet moving, keeping things somewhat fast-paced, also serves to keep the gang on their toes and alert. It is also less exhausting, as those stretches of quiet systems give everyone a mental break between fights.

Related to the above... we didn't take as full advantage of our plethora of skirmishers as we could have. When we have a crapton of skirmishers, we should endeavor to really spread them far and wide, really blanket an area/region looking for opportunities. This is a result of the fact that Curse was so very rich in targets - it's hard for anyone to call for fleet to move somewhere else when there are fights to be had right here! - and also related to the fact this was the first time we attempted running a class fleet like this.

Communications were challenging. We had too much intel coming in at times. This, of course, is the nature of the beast of a fleet we flew today, with so many skirmishers.

Improper use of Break-Break drives me friggin' batty. Seriously throws me over the edge of reason. Break-Break means there is an IMMEDIATE THREAT TO THE FLEET, this information is URGENT and TIME CRITICAL. (Threat can be opportunity, too, btw). Break-break should not ever be used to report a single target four systems away or anything other than an immediate critical threat to the fleet. Break-Break puts everyone on alert and into adrenaline-rush time, do that too often to a fleet, and everyone loses mental alertness from too many serotonin buzzes. Overuse of break-break also means it eventually loses its POWER to put the fleet into defcon-four alert mode. (Ya, I know, I need to spank the Agony pilots that did this today! /me is embarrassed by the fact FOUR Agony pilots did this, but only one student did! Students aren't supposed to be better than Agony, technically! EDIT: One of those Agony break-breaks was appropriate, by the way!)

Having vented about how break-break makes my blood boil... I will soften that with the recognition that we had too many skirmishers reporting too much intel, creating a coms situation that was overwhelming for anyone, much less everyone. I do understand the frustration that some experienced with trying to report stuff at times and the excitement of a nicely supported gang in a target-rich environment with bubbles! bombs! bubbles! Oh my its good to be home in nullsec

We need to develop a few good public cruiser gang doctrines taking better advantage of the opportunities tiercide presents. Kitchen-sink cruiser gangs are just not what they used to be. This is something that is already in the works as part of the new Intermediate cruiser-based class, watch for my post about that Coming Soon™

We hung out at some TACs and on some gates longer than we should have at times. Two TACs were busted (probably were already anyways). A safe spot was busted but that was by design.


The UGLY:

Nothing really ugly except perhaps this. Um, ya, that's a fight I'd rather not relive


And finally... THE GREAT:

We had a superbly supported class roam, the level of patience on the part of everyone involved was beyond measurement. I love you all

[dizzy]

Overall I thought the class was fantastic, and I'm really glad I took it. For me the best part by far was the one-on-one practise session. I learned a great deal during that session, and my partner roigon did an excellent job - the tip about using stations/roids/etc. to destabilise orbits is absolutely brilliant. I do feel that a significant portion of the lecture material was already covered in the wiki article -and very well at that. So well that I would agree the class would benefit from dropping some lectures to accommodate more practicals. I would certainly like to have done more exercises involving bubble camps for example. I also feel it is the responsibility of the student to ensure they are properly prepared for the class; if the student hasn't done the reading, they will likely get less out of the class and so it is in their best interest to do so. There is talk of removing the initial travel to null in order to help ease the schedule. Ironically enough, before the class I would not have been completely comfortable with that (although would probably have tried anyway) and would have preferred to all travel together. However now that I've taken it, I feel totally comfortable with doing that.. In fact I opted to fly back from null (mostly) solo to test my new skills. I think that speaks volumes about the quality of your classes, but unfortunately is not much help regarding the travel time issue As I missed out on the roam I will be looking for every opportunity to put what I've learned into practise, and I can't wait to do so (p.s. I may edit this post if I think of anything else!)

[Fitch]

First up, another great course offered by Agony, thank you for running it. Itko and Toran are very capable instructors/lecturers and that makes for a very good learning experience. This coupled with additional input/advice from Agony members attending meant that I was able to get a great deal from the course.

In response to GG's specific feedback requests;

• Moving the "lecture" about the Interceptor as a ship to reading material

Agree: I feel it would make good pre-course preparatory reading.

• Moving the "lecture" about fitting and why we fit this way to reading material, change this from "lecture" to just quick discussion and Q&A on it

Agree: It was great to hear Toran's reasoning behind the recommended fits. It would have been good to have this on hand as I checked I could fly the ships and looked at the stats with the EVEHQ fitting module.

• Remove mention of defender missiles from the Wiki :)/>

Agree: Anyone need some Light Defender Missiles ? :D/>

• Keep the existing overview-only screenshots but also add some full-screen screenshots to the Recon Reporting section.

Agree: with the addition of the full screenshots the students can give the reconnaissance report in full: I think this would help with with the flow whilst practicing. In the longer term it would perhaps help if the partial screen shots could be replaced with full screenshots that illustrate the same principle.

• Do something about how we got to the class system... that took way too long! See Poll above!

Agree: I like the Idea of travelling as a fleet to the class system, with the students giving recon as we go; Suggestions I can think of would include using an alternative system: or having a run prior to class day to get jump clones in place.

• Have two bubblers available during the bubble-escape practical, and/or have two students run the gauntlet at a time

Agree: I would have appreciated the opportunity to attempt to escape a bubble on a gate prior to the roam.

• Have everyone in their own TS channel during the buddy practice, right from the beginning :)/>

Agree: not all of us have GG's typing prowess. :D/>



There was a really good post roam discussion on TS with lots of ideas on how to give the students more from practical roam element of the course.

One of the Ideas suggested that really appealed to me was that of during the roam, the pairing of a student skirmisher with an Agony skirmisher in order to offer situational advice if needed. I think that this used in conjunction with the classroom chat window, a great idea in itself, would enhance the feedback available to the student.

Despite the proviso of the course being offered as 'prototype' I thought it was great, no problems with the over running, we are all learning :)/> . As with other students I would have preferred more time on the practical aspects, but this has been acknowledged already, and I am sure plans are in hand for the next iteration on the course.

Thank you to all the Agony, Alumni and Students.

Fitch

Edit: Spelling and formatting

[Nos]

First I'd like to thank Greygal for doing the work to organizing this get this course up and running (although I think you fell down on providing snacks it was a long first day ). Itko and Toran were excellent instructors and I'm hoping I can remember a 1/4 of the information they imparted. I'd also like to thank IBallista (my sparring partner) for giving me the chance to practice and for the feedback and suggestions he gave me. And I'm still practicing I've become the terror of my corpmates for sneaking up on them and then zipping in and pointing them.

The Poor:

Was mostly covered by Greygal, but perhaps the fleet needs be reminded that we're (the students) mostly all new at this and doing recon in a live fire situtation is quite different from doing it in a class environment. A comment was made at one point that "You guys need to practice giving recon." (from a fleet member) which was not what I'd call positive feedback. This was not directed at me...but I mostly live in hisec as a mining/indy carebear who weekends in 0.0 from time to time, null is still "scary space" (ok not so much) to me and hopping into a system by yourself as plus 2 with nothing but tiny guns that will swat drones (maybe) and a MWD strapped to your back is quite different from hopping in with nice guns and all my friends with guns.

The Bad:

I have 2 bads I was the student who did the "Break Break Break"...knew it was a mistake the second I said it and the positive feedback I got from Toran re-enforced this, as I felt I needed to break into the conversation perhaps saying "Recon" or just "Comms" would have been better, in my work environment we use "Break Break Break" on comms for important intel that is not a danger we have other terms for shut up and listen or you'll get killed and I guess my work slopped into internet spaceships.

My second bad was not being able to get into the CVA fight (CVA are blues and after they shot at me!), I had intended to drop corp on Saturday so I could be in an NPC corp (and therefore no blues) but my corp got a wardec and because of the new war dec mechanics I'd be unable to rejoin the corp for 7 days (thanks CCP).

The Good:

Most of my thoughts of the course have been expressed above but I have this thought:
This may sound funny but the flight back to where I weekend in Great Wildlands was the most satisfying part of the course. Why? Because on the way back in my trusty Ares "Stormbringer" I was able to escape 3 gate camps 1 where I was actually scrammed and in a bubble on the gate. I know for a fact that before the course I would have been dead...I was in half shields before I broke the scram and left the bubble and I warped off to a celestial. I then did something I never do.... as I warped to another celestial, in a fit of joy I posted "Neener, Neener, Neener." in local...I never talk in local in 0.0 and I certainly never smaktalk and I got about 15 lols from the gatecamp. And yeah "Stormbringer" is sitting in the hangar in my 0.0 weekend place. While I'm sure I'll lose ships it was good to see that I can bust a gate camp now and again.

The Best:

http://eve.battlecli...php?id=18574829

-Nos

[Greygal]

Was mostly covered by Greygal, but perhaps the fleet needs be reminded that we're (the students) mostly all new at this and doing recon in a live fire situtation is quite different from doing it in a class environment. A comment was made at one point that "You guys need to practice giving recon." (from a fleet member) which was not what I'd call positive feedback. This was not directed at me..

That was an Agony member, who was internally snapped at for that at the time I do apologize for that on behalf of us all. Agony was not at our best - we were pretty damn good, but not at our best. It was not positive feedback at all, you are 100% correct.

I have 2 bads I was the student who did the "Break Break Break"...knew it was a mistake the second I said it and the positive feedback I got from Toran re-enforced this, as I felt I needed to break into the conversation perhaps saying "Recon" or just "Comms" would have been better,

And we over-corrected you, which was one of those "Agony was not at its best" moments. Toran had already gently corrected you, then someone else (I forget to be honest) and I think I might have actually typed something in the classroom channel about it also, after Toran had, which is overkill! I personally apologize for that!

My second bad was not being able to get into the CVA fight (CVA are blues and after they shot at me!)

ewww.... blues .... They shot at you during the fight, even though you are blue and did not shoot at them? I hope your director gets on that!

Most of my thoughts of the course have been expressed above but I have this thought: This may sound funny but the flight back to where I weekend in Great Wildlands was the most satisfying part of the course. Why? Because on the way back in my trusty Ares "Stormbringer" I was able to escape 3 gate camps 1 where I was actually scrammed and in a bubble on the gate. I know for a fact that before the course I would have been dead...I was in half shields before I broke the scram and left the bubble and I warped off to a celestial. I then did something I never do.... as I warped to another celestial, in a fit of joy I posted "Neener, Neener, Neener." in local...I never talk in local in 0.0 and I certainly never smaktalk and I got about 15 lols from the gatecamp. And yeah "Stormbringer" is sitting in the hangar in my 0.0 weekend place. While I'm sure I'll lose ships it was good to see that I can bust a gate camp now and again.

That is most excellent!! I laughed out loud when I read this! Fantastic! Cheers for Stormbringer!

Thank you again, Nos, for your feedback, it is much appreciated. I really enjoyed flying with you during the roam and the class, it was a joy to have you in fleet as it always is!

[Greygal]

Agree: I like the Idea of travelling as a fleet to the class system, with the students giving recon as we go; Suggestions I can think of would include using an alternative system: or having a run prior to class day to get jump clones in place.

We are thinking of running it in a system not quite so deep into nullsec next time. We had actually tossed around the idea before the class of running it in our Home system, but thought that would be too busy and we didn't want too many busy-bodies interrupting us

At this point in time, I like the idea of us starting the (much reduced!) lecture material in hisec, then moving as a group to the nullsec practice system while students give recon best. Despite all the practice reporting from the screenshots (and improved screenshots in future classes), there is nothing like The Real Thing.

• Have two bubblers available during the bubble-escape practical, and/or have two students run the gauntlet at a time

Agree: I would have appreciated the opportunity to attempt to escape a bubble on a gate prior to the roam.

Technically, this class requires Basics and Wolfpacks. In Wolfpacks (both the old version and the soon-to-be-run revamped version) we practice escaping from bubbles. The intention of the bubble practical for this class is more to show just how easy it is to escape them when in an Interceptor, combined with further practice actually doing so while giving recon! Which is a different beast than just simply escaping from a bubble

We chose to go with just Basics as a prereq for this class only, partly because of its prototype/test-run nature, partly to test if the class would be appropriate for someone who only had Basics (really do need Wolfpacks I believe), partly because we hadn't run a Wolfpacks in a while (small pool of recent Wolfpacks graduates), and partly because it was just a lot easier administratively on me

For future iterations of this class, this particular practical will definitely be expanded.

• Have everyone in their own TS channel during the buddy practice, right from the beginning :)/>

Agree: not all of us have GG's typing prowess. :D/>

Sheesh, it's not like I type 120+wpm or something... oh wait, I do....

Seriously, that was one of those "DUH!" moments for me - I cannot believe we didn't think of that beforehand. When Neeemoxxx said something about what a pain it was to type to eachother in fleet chat, I totally said to myself "omg duh!" and immediately started getting every pair of you into separate voice channels. Next time we run this class, we'll do that right away.

There was a really good post roam discussion on TS with lots of ideas on how to give the students more from practical roam element of the course.

One of the Ideas suggested that really appealed to me was that of during the roam, the pairing of a student skirmisher with an Agony skirmisher in order to offer situational advice if needed. I think that this used in conjunction with the classroom chat window, a great idea in itself, would enhance the feedback available to the student.

I really do like this idea, even though it does provide its own complications - it is something we are hashing about internally. I do hope we can do it in some form or another, because it is an awesome idea.

Despite the proviso of the course being offered as 'prototype' I thought it was great, no problems with the over running, we are all learning :)/> . As with other students I would have preferred more time on the practical aspects, but this has been acknowledged already, and I am sure plans are in hand for the next iteration on the course.

If anything, we made the mistake of being overly-ambitious in this class - but I am glad so many enjoyed it and learned something from the experience (including ourselves!) I'm so excited to run it again - much improved, of course!

Thank you again for your feedback, Fitch! It is much appreciated - and I truly enjoyed flying with you, yet again!

GG

[Marvin]

I fail at prioritising this thread, been a busy eve and RL week post the skirmish class. I have a few more posts to read before I can sit to properly word my reply. tdlr is that it was well worth the class and I agree with quite a few of the things being said here. I'd not mind getting a PM with excercises planned which didn't end up in the result. That way I can practise it as I will practise also a lot more spiralling. 2km/s makes quite a bit of difference.

[Greygal]

I fail at prioritising this thread, been a busy eve and RL week post the skirmish class. I have a few more posts to read before I can sit to properly word my reply.

tdlr is that it was well worth the class and I agree with quite a few of the things being said here. I'd not mind getting a PM with excercises planned which didn't end up in the result. That way I can practise it as I will practise also a lot more spiralling. 2km/s makes quite a bit of difference.

Marvin, we pretty much completely dropped spending time on using the dscanner, we were going to do spiraling as a separate practical with immediate feedback and instead just had ya'll practice spiraling while with your buddy. We were going to do more "live" recon, also, and another practical that slips my mind at the moment!

[ToranBrades]

dscanner, we were going to do spiraling as a separate practical with immediate feedback and instead just had ya'll practice spiraling while with your buddy.

I totally insisted all the time how you couldn't actually practice spiralling really on short range (battle)cruisers, but noone listened to me . Instead I took a snipy tier3BC and went to practice with six of the students (pair by pair), but didn't get to all of ya actually.

Next class will have a list of "suggested" practicals before the class already - coming to my mind right now:

- landing on an enemy @0: Get tackle, but get into safety distance ASAP (so you don't end up too dead)
- maintaining tackle on a target while target tries to sling shot you
- DSCANing down your opponent at one out of a set of celestials you agreed upon before (e.g. just planets, belts, sun, gates).
- spiralling on appropriate targets, yeah
- maintaining tackle in a belt (requires some manual intervention in regards to the orbiting)
- proper GTFO (mentioned before practical - warping out to a celestial you're going to point towards while orbiting, don't just pick a random one if it's dangerous for you)
- proper tackling on a gate (sitting there with MWD on, point OH and active, waiting for the enemy to come in, holding Control etc)

That's what was on my mind (probably a bit more even), but when I just wanted to start telling "Guys, try those things", you were already all out there pewing each other


We were going to do more "live" recon, also, and another practical that slips my mind at the moment!