Staying the course

So as some of you may remember from a previous blog entry I talked about how I was going to spend a while rounding out my fitting skills as they are key to letting you properly fit larger and more advanced vessels, suffice to say my original 30 day plan to fix these things has grown into a monster 80+ day effort to get them done before I commit to a remap specifically for training Ships, Guns and Missiles, but has it been worth it?

To answer that question I've been looking at the things I've trained and trying to determine if it was right to push so many of those support skills as high as I have. First are the essential prerequisite skills for further training, Evasive Maneuvering to Level 5 so I can train Interceptors being an excellent example, to me these are a given and whilst several had to go to Level 5 to allow me to best maximise my training for many advanced ship types without a need to rely on remapping to train them effectively in the future or worse still train them on a completely non optimal remap.

The next set of skills are the essential support skills, those which are not required to unlock further modules or skills. These are mainly Capacitor and Tanking skills and as such are two areas I was keen to ensure weren't lacking especially as larger ships (such as Battlecruisers and Battleships) whilst having larger capacitors tend to have more toys to use it up and better fitting options allow to live longer (in theory at least).

The last set of skills are what I like to call "nice to have" and is an area where I've trained some skills to low levels (3's in most cases) to allow me to assist a force by reshipping into a Tech 1 Logistics ship (either shield or armour), many EWAR types (all except ECM oddly) as well as numerous ancillary skills to reduce capacitor use for specific related modules and their optimal ranges etc.and additional Leadership skills. This final category has perhaps added  around two weeks to my training but the sheer versatility has been fantastic, I'd encourage everyone to get at least basic skills to allow for some varied play and let you appreciate the intricacies that they bring to field, who knows you may like it so much you dedicate a future part of your training plan to becoming a specialist.

As I currently sit as plan plus 32 days I have to say it has been worth it, especially I can see from my existing ships how much better their tanks are, the need for less fitting rigs and better tanking or weapon rigs in their place but perhaps the best thing has been my ability to fly with different pilots such as the famous Logibros, getting some valuable experience about boomarking and fighting aligned with the EWAR guys, all in very helpful especially as I plan to take my first steps into small gang warfare soon and feel this experience lets me better understand the capabilities of the ships that may join such a force.

In conclusion then, I didn't stay the course and stick to my original plan but I'd like to think that this has opened my eyes to other playstyles and the challenges each specialist role faces in every engagement and as a result I've become a better player for it, again I guess only time will tell though.