A Birthday Party and Bitter Vet's

I.Laws one year anniversary is today. The Corporation itself has been around longer but a year ago it became the home of Shalee, Ryven, Kato, Phione, Czech, Snape, Joni, and myself. Since then many others have joined and left us. It's been a hell of a year. We survived our “CEO's” bio mass, a massive corp theft, and a few long distance moves. While there were whisperings and serious talk about leaving the Amarr Militia we stuck to our guns and saw it through. I'm very proud of what we have accomplished in the last year and look forward to the next! Thanks to all who helped make this thing a success.

I make mistakes every day. In real life and in Eve. The important thing is I also learn from them. As our large fleet activity went down and small gang stuff went up I started watching the kill board like a hawk. I've always been a numbers guy even though I hate math. I liked to look at the fits and the damage taken and all the other little things. Also, it's fun to see how much isk you cost the other guys after a fight. As time went on I started looking at that corporation efficiency number a little too much. After one of our newer members lost a few surprisingly expensive frigates I almost went off the deep end.

I've always looked at our kill board as the worlds first look into our corporation. When I want information on a pilot or their corporation I look them up on Eve Kill or Battle clinic. While this won't give you their complete biography reading the dust cover is better than nothing. So when I see “wtf” losses on our own kill board I cringe a little. I put the fleets I FC under the same scrutiny. Even more so if I'm honest. This is where the bitter vet syndrome starts to kick in.

I started taking losses to personal. I blamed myself for not getting my people fights. Everything that went wrong was my fault. Luckily I had Shalee to talk me off that ledge. For those of you that don't know her very well she is one of the kindest and sweetest persons you will ever meet. She also gives great advice and is willing to listen to me bitching about whatever. After I started getting a little burnt out she suggested I take a break from FCing and I did. When something popped up I would go for it but besides that I relaxed and did solo and small gang stuff. I forgot how much fun that could be.

After some time just blowing some stuff up without all the frustrations and stress that can come from FCing it felt good to get back into the chair. This past weekend has been a blast. It culminated in a six hour fleet yesterday that started on our home station in Egg. About twenty war targets must have thought they were being cleaver camping our undock in a mix of BC down ships. Fweddit had just put a fleet up and a few of us I.Law guys decided to join in the fun. RTSAvalanche of TMFED was already outside poking them with a stick when we undocked a few armor BC. I told my pilots to hold aggression until the Vagabond red boxed. He did and I called for the fleet to undock. Many of the war targets were spread out and out of point range but we grabbed what we could. It was a beautiful site watching almost thirty purple boxes explode from inside the station.

Since we were already in a fleet and in a killing mood we went on a nice roam. We went up metro and got a few kills then came back down once we got word that LNA was messing around in Kourm. A Caldari fleet was asking for help but they welped into the Minmatar before we were ready. We picked off a Cyclone at the sun then set up in our cruisers in a Major plex. Even though we out numbered them by about ten they had two falcons and were in BC's compared to our cruiser fleet. Setting up in a plex was to negate the Falcon issue. After a while they didn't come to fight so we set up on the Houla gate. After a small wait they came into us in mostly armor BC's. We had a nice little brawl and we held the field for once. It felt good calling a larger fight again. I really do get a feeling of satisfaction watching(mostly) focused fire and a primary dropping like it should.

I told Shalee one night, during one of my “bitter vet” conversations that leading a fleet can have dizzying high's and terrible lows. You really do feel responsible for the outcome either way. I can't tell you how good it felt, how my hands shook from adrenaline when I baited out a minmatar carrier and killed it. I also find it hard to explain why I almost fall into a depression when I make mistakes and get us slaughtered. What I do know is that I need to find a balance. I can never be a“didn't want that fleet anyways” kind of person. There has to be a happy medium. Care enough to get people the fights and kills they want while not suiciding them while not emo rage logging every time I lose a fight.