Riding horses

 

If you were to learn to ride horses by reading a book and I were to learn to ride horses by riding horses, who do you think will be the better rider? - author's father in law.

Your author married into a farming family.  Having grown up in the suburbs of the big city this turned out to be another of those humbling and character building experiences that life hands us. I still recall the first time my then girlfriend took me "home" to the farm. Prospective father in law extends a strong hard hand, callouses on both sides, grabs my sweaty little palm and proceeds to crush it.  I might be wrong but I could swear I spotted him glancing at her with a raised eyebrow silently asking: "erm... are you sure...?" Don't get me wrong, they are absolutely fabulous people - salt of the earth people.  But ego to be checked at the door farm gate people - especially for a city slicker like me. This is the place where my wife can do absolutely everything and I can do nothing.  She out rides me (cause I can't).  She out shoots me (Yes, with real rifles. Fml! Right!?).  Drives cattle like a boss (don't worry honey - I've put the bull that chased you up the tree back in the paddock...).  Slaughter, gut and skin a sheep? Yes. She does that.

Damn, Absence!?  That's rough.  Just one hit after the other, but as entertaining as stories of your incompetence and utter humiliations are, what exactly has this got to do with EVE?

Well dear Reader, nothing.  And everything.

Wife: Honey go fetch the bull.
Me: Look honey, no hands.   

You see for the longest time I approached EVE in the way I approached most other things in life - by RTFM.   This is all well and good, but as in the case of riding horses, no amount of reading Feyd (sadly moved on - picture to the right borrowed from him) et. al, watching eve is easy on youtube or theory crafting will make you a competent pilot.

At some point you have to get to doing.

My personal eureka moment was towards the middle of WWB/Casino war (pick your name).
During the so called Fabian defence.  No official defence was mounted, but members were encouraged to harass the enemy.

Your author could fleet up and push F1.  He could farm NPC's with the best of them.  Gate camp in a fleet a bit.  But on his own in this environment he could do nothing.  He had never learned to fly solo.  In effect, he had never experienced EVE.

This realisation and the resultant disillusionment had a lot to do with my losing my mojo and taking a lengthy break from EVE.  How can a player with my amount of SP, and so many years in game NOT be able to play?

It was already clear back then that I would have to approach things differently if I were to return to the game.

Astute readers will already know that I have joined a small FW corporation called  Schneckt.

Schneckt is a small but serious FW corp with a mix of experienced members and rank noobs.  The killboard would no doubt look more like a failboard to the smug l33t pvpers.  Flying and dying is encouraged.

We have guys that go for absolutely everything - sitting alone in a small plex and in warps 3 war targets?  Go for it.  His T1 frigate vs war target's navy/AF?  Go for it.  T1 frig vs Vexor?  You guessed it - go for it.  Of course these guys' kill boards reflect a large amount of losses.  But, and this is a very big but - it also reflects an astounding amount of unlikely wins.  Wins from fights most people would never have taken.

It is in this environment that your author has finally got to doing.

As can be expected, doing, mostly involves dying (almost through my stack of 15 Tristans).  Though your author is more cautious than some of the guys, he also takes some fights that he should not.  Mostly he loses those, but so far those losses are more than made up for by that single solo win against a Republic Fleet Firetail in his Tristan.

Life is looking up... now all I need is a horse that will fit into a novice plex...