Wild at Heart

WTE Update and Ship Provisioning

With recruits still pouring in from OUCH in the wake of certain leadership decisions there, WTE is sitting nice at around 43 active pilots at this point.  No megacorp to be sure, but we're getting up to the numbers where critical mass can be achieved for corporate operations across all timezones.  Our goal is still to house 75 active pilots by the end of February, and it appears that we're well on our way to achieving that number.

With the influx of new pilots, we've been running scheduled ops every night this week.  Mining op on Monday night.  Standings op on Tuesday night.  PvP roam on Wednesday night.  The next two nights are "off nights" where everyone can just hunker down and do whatever they want to do.  Maybe get another 2-3 ships into the area from way down in Berta.  Maybe fill their wallet a little more to handle the upcoming weeks and months.  And maybe roaming around looking for targets to kill.

Last night we debuted our "Ship Provisioning Program" to the new recruits.  The basic gist of the idea is that, for corporate ops, corp members can "check out" ships from the corp hangar and use them for whatever is going on.  Valid ops aren't just PvP (security roams), but PvE as well (security grinds and mining).  These ships are corporately insured so that, if destroyed for whatever reason, the corp recoups the ISK investment and is able to restock that ship type.

Unlike some other SPP's, though, our ships come complete with mods as well.  We have a couple of corporate fittings that we work from for each ship type, and when a person is requesting a ship they specify whether they're taking the Mk1 (Tech 1) or Mk2 (Tech 2) variants of the fitting.  By providing these ships plus fits, we're really allowing pilots to get in and learn PvP or PvE at no cost to themselves.  The knowledge that they receive in return more than supplements the ISK expenditure on behalf of the corp.

To put this into practical context, let's use our next Standings Grind night as an example.  We have 16 people online, and 12 are going to be able to participate.  Those 12 are provisioned Mk1 or Mk2 Drakes, Caracals, Moas, Hurricanes, and Ruptures.  We split up into 3-4 groups of mission runners (just two squads, though), and blow through the L3's and L4's rapidly...ensuring that everyone is making a lot of ISK while simultaneously raising everyone's standings with the NPC corp.  Salvage, in turn, gets donated to the Logistics Division.  At the end of the night, the ships are returned to the corp hangar and are "checked in."

What did that op do for everyone?

1)  Padded their wallets
2)  Padded the corp wallet
3)  Raised their standings with the NPC corp to get them closer to jump clones
4)  Raised their Loyalty Point level for purchases from the LP Store
5)  Supplied the Logistics Division with a ton of salvage for rig manufacturing and sales

For the pilots it was completely free.  They got to use ships they didn't have to purchase, with mods readily supplied to them.  If they lost their mission-running ship for whatever reason, no biggie...it happens, and the corp simply purchases another with the insurance payout.

But, let's be honest...this program was really designed with PvP in mind.  One of the chief rules in PvP is: "Fly what you can afford to lose."  On corporate roams (read: roams with a Senior FC leading them), our pilots don't have to worry about that rule.  They are provisioned ships per their skills for use on those ops.  Thus the people that may normally only be able to affordably lose a Caracal, for example, can instead be flying a Mk2 Drake.  A Mk2 Hurricane instead of a Stabber.  A Mk2 Blackbird instead of a Griffon.

A fleet of 15 Battlecruisers has many more realistic engagement opportunities than a fleet of 15 mixed Cruisers and Frigates.  By allowing people to check out ships for PvP ops, we're ensuring that we can always field the very best that the pilots can fly, rather than whatever their individual wallet would normally allow them.

So, let's recap, shall we?  Corp members can use corp ships for money-making ops, ensuring that they can make money for "free".  They can then turn around and use corp ships for combat ops, ensuring that they can PvP for "free".  All the while, their individual wallets are getting bigger, and thus they are better able to supply themselves with ships and fittings for non-official corp ops.  Sure, the corp is taking a loss through providing these ships, fittings, and ammo...but it is ok for the corp to be "red" in one area as long as it is balanced out with income from others.  Luckily for WTE, we have an absolutely stellar Logistics crew that makes that happen.

(I promise we'll try to avoid losing too many, Schwigg)