Rainmaker

In times of low activity, stresses appear.  Alliances crumble because weaknesses within become that much more apparent.  Corporations find their reason for existing isn’t sufficient to satisfy their members.  Sometimes, corporations can even find that they don’t have a reason for existing, only an enemy to fight, and crumble once that fight ceases to drive them.

In the best of cases, you simply get bored.  When this happens, leadership tends to respond with, “So, make your own content!”  They forget, of course, that the whole point of joining a specific corp/alliance is to participate in the content provided by it.  If a person wanted to exist solely on his own content, he’d go it alone.

But, all slow periods end, and it’s always wise to measure the value of a corp/alliance by the length of your experience.  For myself, Razor is somewhat low on meaningful activity right now (we still have inty roams, honor fights, and thunderdomes).  It’s a pervasive problem throughout the entire CFC.

But, I love my corporation, and I realize that Razor itself has done well by me over the past two and a half years.  So I consider all of that history in giving the benefit of the doubt, and I’m not going anywhere because of a temporary lull.  So I’m going to take them up on the, “So, make your own content!”

But this can be hard.  We don’t all have the time to scout out twenty systems to find a target.  Some of us have only a couple hours a day to play.  Some of us don’t have the resources to spend organizing a fleet.  We play Eve for immediate fun.

So here are a few ideas to generate immediate fun, regardless of the alliance you’re in.

1) Tell the doctrine managers to shove it.  So, your alliance is running an interceptor fleet, but you think interceptors are overpowered, offer no risk or require no effort, and are a cheap tactic to flying.  Why not fly an assault frigate instead?  Say “screw it” to SRP and fly whatever ship you like.  Give yourself the extra challenge of NOT being bubble-immune while the rest of your fleet runs from trouble.  It’ll make you a better pilot to fly with a disadvantage.  If anyone gives you grief, tell them to shove it too.

2) Go solo in FW space.  Faction warfare space is a great place to find 1v1 fights.  Sure, most of them happen in T1 frigates and destroyers, but flying and fighting those ships will help you hone your own skills.  No allies or ship superiority to hide behind.  Just remember to leave your links at home, or it negates the whole purpose of this kind of education flying.

3) Suicide roam through null-sec.  Pick a ship, choose a destination at least 20 jumps through null-sec, and try to survive.  Take any fight you can find, regardless of how outnumbered you are.  I once did this against 12 T1 frigates with a Blarpy and ended up killing 6 of them before leaving (and surviving).

4) Take a gang to someone else’s war.  Right now, the Providence area is hopping with activity.  While your alliance may not be officially joining the fight, that only goes for sov warfare (dropping SBUs, TCUs, hitting structures).  There’s not reason you and some of your corpies can’t deploy to a nearby area and kill targets of opportunity.  Aim for anyone… much like snipers, the point of shooting defenseless ships is to attract more meaningful targets (gangs) that try to save or avenge them.  Forget “honorable third party”, deploy yourself and some friends if your alliance won’t deploy. Chances are the group that comes with you will be more hardcore PvP than the rest of your alliance at large, and you may be able to fly some ships you’d otherwise not in this smaller gang setting.

It’s easy to forget that, even though you’re part of an alliance, you don’t HAVE to be dependent upon that alliance for content.  Do your own thing, take some friends and have fun.  If the alliance won’t provide the content you want, there are a lot of low-effort ways to get that content.  It doesn’t require a lot of coordination, dozens of intel jabber channels, and coordination with other coalition FCs.  With all of these options, your goal isn’t results or improving your alliance’s killboard, it’s about improving your own personal skills.  That’s the most important objective you can achieve.

The one thing that doesn’t help anything is complaining.  Get in a ship, point it in a direction, and kill all the things.  Or don’t, and hush up.