Almost every fleet you raise that covers basic fleet training before you head into action qualifies as a MQP fleet. The primary goal with the GRIP fleets is to teach your pilots how to fly in fleets and also show them some fleet action.
It doesn’t matter what type of action the fleet is aiming for as long as it is not a mining fleet. So a fleet that you take into wormhole sites will qualify as GRIP fleet if you teach the basics of fleet mechanisms for your members before you start running site to make sure they are all aware of them and know how to use them!
You are always also allowed to take members with you that already have completed the MQP training or are older members who just like to stick around. Obviously they do not need to attend the training phase that happens before the fleet departures.
When running a GRIP: Fleets & PvP fleet it is important that:
If you are a Fleet Commander Trainee you will need to have someone to back seat your fleets! Each full Fleet Commander or qualified CEO can back seat you.
Before you even undock there are several things that you should do to make sure your fleet is set up the right way.
As a fleet commander or a fleet commander trainee you need to setup your systems before you can start running fleets.
Make sure that you have a shout key configured in Discord if you have the necessary roles to use it. This can be found in Discord settings under Keybinds. Set the action to "Push to Talk (Priority)" and assign a key that's different than your normal push to talk key. If using Mumble, verify you have the appropriate whisper and shout keys setup.
Verify you're happy with your overview. Make sure all of your tabs are fully setup with various things you may want them to show.
Consider setting up broadcast hotkeys ingame. These can be found in the Eve settings under Shortcuts->Navigation. Align, Warp, and Target shortcuts can be handy in addition to the more common Need Shield/Armor/Cap ones that you may already have setup.
A fleet that is only aimed to complete the parts needed for GRIP training is a null sec roaming fleet. This can be done by roamining into one of the nearby low sec regions, by using a filament, or getting to null via nearby wormholes. Current closest null sec entry is in Curse.
The whole fleet should take 1-2 hours in total including the training part (one third training and two thirds traveling and fighting)
Select what voice comms you are going to use. In most cases you will be using Discord as it is a bit easier to use. Mumble is used for larger operations or operations where we have multiple fleets out at the sametime.
Most often you want to use Discord for GRIP: Fleets & PvP fleets. If you plan on using another service like Mumble, be sure to provide advance notice to your fleet so they can configure Mumble in advance.
Make sure all of your members are on discord as this is a requirement for the GRIP fleet. With this we will make sure that the members have activated their discord service.
Make sure that all of your fleet members are in mumble. Make also sure that you have set your own keybiddings correctly
To use Mumble as it is intended to be used you as the commander should sit inside a command channel while your fleet members should sit inside the fleet channel that is linked to your command channel. Each fleet channel has a command channel that is linked to the fleet channel with a similar name (alpha, bravo …).
In order to not provide possible “hostile” pilots information about our fleet composition a player waiting for a fleet to form up should always be docked up in the form up station.
Fantastic, We should all be Docked in station… whenever you are waiting for your fleet to form you should wait docked in the station. The reason we do this is because if we are going into a fight against enemy players we don’t want to let them know in advance what ships we are flying, and your ship is not visible while docked in the station.
Before heading out you will need to make sure that each player is in the right ships. To check this you can use the fleet composition tool which you can find from the burger menu of your fleet window.
Before you head into action you will need to cover basic fleet mechanisms and the usage of the fleet window
Make sure that players are in the right ships. Only GRIP frigates are valid for SRP. The second reason for the correct doctrine is that each member needs to have a ship that behaves similar in combat ie. prop mods.
SRP only covers the GRIP: Fleets & PvP doctrine!
Make sure people do not have implants on them. Explain that they can change their clone in the station without JC cooldown. Possibly set medical clone to high sec HQ to get back faster.
Ok, before we start does anyone here have any expensive implants they don’t want to loose?
Y- In the top right of your screen under red star manufacturing you should see a head in a little border, if you click that it will open up the clone bay. you will want to install a jump clone, you need at least Infomorph Psychology level 1 to do this. People may also want to use the button at the top button of the three to set their home station.
Once you have a jump clone installed you can go to your character sheet by clicking your portrait on the top left of the screen in the neocom menu, go to the character tab, below that you will see jump clones and should be able to jump into your clone.
The reason we use these jump clones is so that if we get podded we don’t loose our implants, they will be stored safely in your jump clone to pick back up again.
Ask your fleet to verify they have their rigs installed and not in their cargo. Be sure that they also have adequate ammo, drones, and/or cap boosters.
Make sure to remind your fleet not to take ANY aggressive action if you are going to use a filament.
After you have given the undock command you will be able to cover the next section of the GRIP training phase.
After undocking the fleet should stop their ships by pressing ctrl + space. This shortcut can also be used in mid warp to prevent any after landing actions such as jumping gates from happening.
Make sure your fleet members have loaded the Z-S overview. Explain them briefly the benefits of a good overview:
Broadcast settings set to broadcast history – To make sure they are not seeing junk notifications that will pile up on the history tab.Broadcast directions – Make sure they have this set to everyone (4 point arrow)Broadcast colour and filtering – Mention where they can filter their broadcasts and colour them but do not spend time on thisYou can also share your own broadcast settings with the fleet after explaining how they work
Tell your fleet members how to add their FC/scouts to the watchlist and explain what the watchlist us used for
After you have covered all settings your members should be able to anchor up easily on the FC.
Anchor on FC – Tell your members to anchor on you by using the watchlist. make sure all members are following you. In MQP fleets you want to use the approach as your anchoring up as its faster and easier.Usage of propmod – Tell your members to listen to FC commands for prop mods and also that if they are far behind from the fleet and the FC that they should determine themselves if they need to cycle the propmodWhile we are out in a fleet you will hear several commands, the first one we will be learning is Anchoring up. To anchor up you want to right click your fleet commander, that being (name), and right choose “Approach”. Anchor up please! ->(check everyone is anchored)
the other command you might hear is prop mod on. This means you should turn on your propulsion module… Your prop mod is your afterburner or your microwarpdrive, As we are using the latter does anyone here not have a microwarpdrive? ->(tell the numpty they should be flying a doctrine ship)
so can we turn our prop mods on please, prop mod on!
Target broadcasts are something that your fleet commander can use to mark important targets and help the fleet to focus their fire so that we burn down our priority targets ->(get someone to broadcast you as a target)
You should see a number above my head and a crosshair, you should also see a broadcast at the bottom of your broadcast window. Control click the broadcast now to lock me as a target please, Do not engage your weapons as concord will get angry
Next you will teach your members how to broadcast and read broadcasts as well as use the hotkeys to interact with the given broadcasts.
Broadcast for shield or armor – Tell your pilots that with fleets that have logistics in them this is the way to receive reps. Also mention broadcast in time and ask them to broadcast for one of theseBroadcast target – Ask one of your members to broadcast you as a target and make sure they lock you up. Mention locking from broadcast window by pressing ctrl + click.Broadcast align to – Broadcast align to a system where you are headed and make sure all members align. Mention that they can align both from the broadcast and from the overview.You should all have your fleet window open, if you don’t see your fleet window you should be able to click the three chevrons on the neocom menu at the left of your screen to bring it up, can anyone not find their fleet window? ->(Hold for the Yes and walk them through it)
whenever you join a fleet you should watchlist your fC, can you please find (name) in the fleet list and right click it and select add to watch list, you should see a box appear with (name) in it, you can see the health of your watchlisted party members and easily access commands from here.
Now on your fleet window we will be spending most of our time on the History tab, can anyone not find the history tab? ->(get everyone in history)
at the bottom right of your fleet window you will find a number of arrows, you should have arrows pointing in all four directions, if you have any other number of arrows displaying then click it till you have four, this will make any broadcasts you put out head to everyone in the fleet
Making broadcasts is an easy way to give information to the rest of the fleet, you should see a selection of buttons at the bottom of the fleet window, of you hover over them you will get information on what they mean, can you please make a broadcast now.
As you see the boradcasts are kind of messy, clicking the four lines at the top of your fleet window will open a menu, you will want to select broadcast settings, in here you can filter out broadcasts you don’t want to see and colour code them to make them easier for you to identify.
Explain your members the different route settings. In pvp fleets you most often want to use the shortest route but in high sec when you want to avoid death you should again use the safest route.
you should see a system in your fleet chat highlighted in orange, right click it and select “Set Destination”. Now above the green and red squares you will see the word route with a big A to the left of it, if you left click on the big A it will open a menu, the main things to look at here are prefer shorter and prefer safer route, in your normal travels you will most likely be using prefer safer as it will attempt to avoid low security systems wherever possible, today we will be using prefer shorter since we intend to be in these systems. We will often ask people to allign to the out gate, the outgate is always the yellow gate on your overview, please select the yellow outgate in your overview and allign to outgate.
When speaking in voice comms, always try to speak in the third person. Saying "me" or "I" doesn't work unless everybody knows your voice. GRIP fleets are full of first time participants, so you need to use your own name.
Sometimes when things are heating up and there is a lot of chattering going on it is a good idea to use some of the comms status commands.
It is mportant that you teach your fleet members about voice comms discipline
Comms black – Only FCs are allowed to talk. Any other chatter is forbiddenComms open – All chattering is allowedCheck Check – For important information such as incoming hostile fleet that is not reported by scout.You should have noticed us all warping together, warping as a whole group means that none of us drop behind so can’t be picked off by an enemy as the rest of the fleet are leaving. Now we want to Hold on the gate, that means we will wait at the gate and not click the jump button, speaking of the word jump… as a fleet member we never want to use the J word, it can easily confuse a large group with a few people having similar voices and leave half your fleet stuck on the wrong side of a gate.
if you are unsure of if you should be moving through to the next system the best way to check is to ask your FC for the gate status, the FC can then tell you if the gate is red or green, you should never take a gate when it is red, and should jump a gate on arrival if the gate is green.
so this gate is now green, Jump jump jump. ->(jump gate)
and allign to the out gate.
Take the warp ->(fleet warp)
(as we get close) Gate is green, jump jump jump on landing
now we are going to want to Hold Cloak, this means we should stay still when we hit the other side, when you move through a gate we will get a cloak for 60 seconds, in this time your FC can make a decision on the situation around you ->(approach gate) Now you will notice one of us has broken cloak and would be visible to any enemies in the area forcing the FC to panic and make a snap decision.
In a moment we are going to burn back to the gate, Burning back to the gate does not mean the gate is green, it jsut means we should approach the gate as quickly as possible, so we should target the gate we jsut came out of and approach it with prop mod on, Burn back to gate please
->(fleet warp to outgate) Now this is what we call a cold warp, it’s a lot messier than a warp we have alligned to and is only really used as an emergency getaway when the fleet is in danger, this gate is red. Hold at the gate ->(hold a gate from LS)
Red and green – Explain what these terms means.Fleet hold – Explain that fleet should not jumpFleet jump/take gate – Well, this ofc means that the fleet should jump the gate they are atOrbit gate at x – Sometimes you want your fleet to orbit the gate at a set distance.After you have jumped your first gate you will need to explain the following terms and then execute those commands with the fleet.
Fleet hold cloak – Tell them not to move so they do not break cloak. This is to allow FC to have time to think in hostile situations etc.Burn back to gate (and jump) – That they burn back to the gate that the fleet just came from with their prop mod on. Possibly also jumping back.Burn out of the bubble – If there are bubble have them look at the fastest way out from the AOE effect and burn out with their prop mods onAnchor up – same as beforeTell the fleet to “take fleet warp” but only warp yourself out. Explain to them that sometimes fcs fuck up and the members have to use their own brains for moving and warping if this happens.
If not done previously: When you are about to enter a hostile area or if you are only traveling in high sec space ask one of your members to do scouting. All that a scout needs to do is:
A fleet should always have a scout
The best way for a scout to stay exactly one jump ahead is to go +1. As soon as they enter the next system they will report any information about the inbound gate to the FC after or during which they will warp to the outbound gate of the +1 system and hold. After they see the fleet jumping in on local they can take the next system and repeat the previous.
Ok we are going to want a scout moving forward, a scout is an important role in the fleet and feeds information back to the FC so they can make informed decisions on the next system. Who would like to learn to scout today? (take a volunteer)
Ok scout, you are going to want to stay +1, this means that you always want to be one system ahead of the fleet. you will also want to be in local chat. When you arrive in the next system you should tell your FC how many whites we have in local chat, what we can expect at the next gate, for example there could be npc ships, Players that pose a danger to us or could be nice targets for the fleet or even an interdiction bubble that would prevent us from warping out, so scout, if you would like to go +1 please…
(let the scout feed you information)
->(Next system) Fleet align to out gate, (warp self) and take the warp. Now I’ve called take the warp but you may notice only I moved, sometimes the FC will mess up and accidentally warp themselves instead of the fleet, when this happens either a vice fc will try to cover it up for them, or you will need to warp yourselves, warp to the out gate please.
Depending on what your fleet is focusing on execute normal fleet actions and use the mechanisms you just teached your members. If you are roaming in a pvp fleet which is the standard MQP training fleet give out a destination for the fleet and give align commands. If you encounter pvp try to take it unless it’s against overwhelming odds.
In Pve fleets target broadcast your targets and if you have logi make sure your members are broadcasting for logi.
Members in your fleet should never shoot at something unless the FC tells them to. There can be several reasons for this such as not wanting weapon timers or low security space gate guns
(Hitting Low Sec) Ok, so we are now in Low security space, Scout hold on in this system for this part… that means if anyone takes shots on a player concord will not come to the rescue, there are however stil guns on the gates, if someone engages a target within 150km of a gate they will be attacked by the gate guns, they are extremely accurate and will destroy you, so if we want to find a target in low sec we will need to Shotgun the system, there are two types of shotgunning, if you open your probe scanner with CTRL+P or by clicking the small radar icon to the left of your capacitor and selecting the bubble like icon that appears to the left of it.
If you have new logistic pilots in the fleet you should briefly mention to them how logistics work. However this is not a logistics fleet and the new logistic pilots are there simply to experience the role. For more advanced logistic tactics we will try to raise logi fleets.
Once you reach an empty or quiet null sec system it is time to teach your members about shotgunning. It is important that you make sure your members understands that you are only hunting for players and that they should warp out immediately if they have nothing to tackle.
The two types of shotgunning are short, and far… shotgunning short will mean warping to any of the green signatures that are 14AU or closer, and shotgunning far will be anything further away. When you shotgun a site you will want to warp to it, if you find a player target that you can tackle you will want to lock and orbit it and activate your warp scrambler, sometimes called a point, in order to prevent it from warping away, then you will put an X in chat and inform us that you have a target so we can all warp to you and engage the target, if there are no players at the site then you will want to immediatly warp to the out gate and wait for the fleet to regroup, if there is not a target at the site it will be filled with npc’s that your ships can not handle so you will want to warp away as quickly as possible.
(after regrouping)scout, if you would like to +1 again for us and give us information on the next system
If you are able to get a bubbler with you you need to teach your members about warp bubbles. If not try to find one in the hostile areas.
(Null sec) Hold cloak. now that we are in null sec we have no gate guns, you can also find interdiction spheres, commonly called bubbles. These are big bubbles that prevent warping, when you are trying to escape one of these you will be told to burn out of the bubble, when this happens you will want to activate your prop mod and double left click in space, your ship will head in the direction you clicked, this is a form of manual piloting, since we don’t have a bubble available at the moment lets burn away from the gate, click in space in teh direction that is appropriate for where your ship is to move away from the gate to get to know how this works.
(just let the mess happen XD)
Now fleet allign to the out gate.
Once you are back from low and null sec space and enter the high sec space again you will give the command to free burn to destination. Explain that if you would be free burning in dangerous regions each member acts as a scout and has to report any hostile actions.
(Hitting High Sec) Ok, the last command we will cover today is Free Burn, Free burn means you are free to burn to your destination at the fastest speed you can as fleet warping will always move you at the speed of the slowest ship in the fleet to keep the group together, this means until you hit your destination the fleet will split up. Free burn back to HQ
Give out a FAT link. Rename the FAT link as GRIP | <possible fleet description> like MQP | Wormhole diving
GRIP FAT links must include the phrase GRIP in somewhere in the links name or we can't track it as an GRIP: Fleets & PvP FAT
If you had losses you can SRP the GRIP: Fleets & PvP doctrines. Any other doctrines are up for your own consideration and wallet.
Notify people about our SLTRN military response program and briefly tell it how it works: Make a new account with a buddy invite and create a caldari character in it. Then inject the SP for the doctrines and voila you have a pvp ready char always in the right place with the right skills!
Now while you guys are on the way back I’ll give you a FAT link, FAT stands for fleet activity tracker and is used to work out who has been on waht fleets when we are splitting loot or seeing who we need to give out there member status to. if you click this link you will be taken to the SiCo Auth page, select the portrait of your character, it will log your fleet participation and your corp will be able to hand out your new rank.
(if, and we hope that one did… a ship in our fleet died) We also on official fleets using doctrine ships will be using the ship replacement program, Here is a SRP link and a link to Zkillboard, you will want to go to Zkilboard, find your death, click on the picture of the ship and copy the URL into the SRP page, when someone with permissions is able they will refund the cost of the ship to your character.
For those who have Successfully used their FAT link and done their SRP if they need to we are done and you are free to leave, if you are struggling I will be here for a little bit to help you through it, thank you everyone and I look forward to seeing you in a full fledged fleet
Ikarus will check the MQP participation from the FAT link and provide member titles for the members later on.