So, as I'm sure a lot of you have seen, the Coalition made a run to VFK for the timers this evening. I joined the Spectre fleet because why not? Thought it would be fun. And oh boy it was.

I had the good fortune to have a cool guy gift me some ISK and give me a fit so I could mod my Catalyst to the max. I then went to the staging system, set up on Mumble, and chatted to the dudes in Spectre. They were all really welcoming. This was a theme throughout the op; whenever I asked the stupidest noob questions, they'd always answer nicely and in good detail. It was a great atmosphere.

The hype built up to fever pitch. We were going out to cop a fight, and we were ready for it. We were ready to bulldoze some goons. Eventually the fleet had set up, and so many people arrived that we had to split into two fleets: the Gila fleet and the support fleet (in fact so many Gilas turned up that there were enough for the support fleet too!). Then we set out on the long journey to battle.

Along the way, we had a few little skirmishes involving our interceptors, engaging enemies camping the gates, but nothing big. The whole thing went pretty smoothly from where I was standing. But then we got into the badlands. We got hit by bombing runs as we exited/approached the gates; one of these almost destroyed my ship (I was down to 0 shields, 0 armour and 50% hull health) but it survived and I was able to jump out of the system. Shit was hairy, yo. But fun as hell.

It was once we reached (I think it was) UQ9 that things went shitways. Bubbles everywhere, big numbers of ships (I had no idea which sides most of them were on), the whole bloody lot. Problem was, not much progress was being made. Our FC decided to bypass and head straight for VFK, which was fair enough. But once we got there, we saw that the goons had upped sticks. Seemed that they had put their chips on UQ9 instead. But we were left in a pickle; we had no entosis so we couldn't exploit the advantage in the VFK system. So we hung around a bit, hoping to bait something, but nothing much turned up. So we headed home. As we went back, it was passed around that TEST and some of the other fleets/alliances had taken pretty heavy losses and had pulled out (turned out to be an exaggeration or misinterpretation; see this comment chain). It was quite a shock, because I had felt that our fleets seemed pretty bloody unbeatable. But hey ho. You win some, you lose some.

We made our way back to high sec and broke up there.

So all in all, it was really enjoyable. I think the lack of any real action (for me) was actually a good thing; it allowed me to learn the ropes of basic fleet ops without having to worry about the added stress of needing to tackle, hit targets etc. I loved the atmosphere; everyone was really cool, there was good banter, and we won the race back home. As I said above, it was very welcoming for a newcomer. I am definitely going to join another fleet. I have my catalyst fit now, I have an Incursus fit for speedier work, and I'm training up for T1 cruisers (aiming for a Thorax) so I can get in on the real action.

If any of you are thinking "I'm too low on skills/don't have very good ships, so I can't join one of these fleet ops :(", I'd say to just join a fleet chat (I'ma recommend Spectre, but I'm sure TEST etc. would be just as welcoming) and ask if you can be of any use. You have nothing to lose by doing so!

Sorry for the rant.

TL;DR: Three-day-old player joined Spectre Fleet for VFK, managed not to die, while seeing some cool shit along the way. Highly recommended.

Also shout-out to our FC, Dizzop Bengal, for doing solid work in keeping most of us alive and happy!

Edit: no idea why I ended up calling it VMF instead of VFK halfway through. I'll blame it on being tired.