Considerations: an enjoyable fleet experience
Pre-flight check & assistance
- Double-check fits when new players join to ensure nobody brings the wrong setup.
- Encourage experienced pilots to assist the FC (e.g., finding new HF sites). Ask openly if anyone wants to support with navigation.
Assessing Player Experience
- Ask if players have flown Homefronts or Raids before. This helps gauge how much detail you need to cover. Some may still need to learn very basic concepts like:
- Navigating and using the overview correctly
- Finding acceleration gates
- Avoiding autopilot
Communication
- Strongly encourage everyone to join comms — many ship losses happen due to poor communication.
Ship & Role Guidance
- First-time fleet members should generally fly DPS Caracals.
- Maintain a clear fleet hierarchy and manage squads effectively.
- Track who is in which role
- Track who is in the queue
Fleet Management & MOTD
- Use a clear MOTD to save time and reduce repeat questions.
Setting Boundaries
- Define limits for yourself: e.g., “I’ll run X amount of sites” or “I’ll run for 2 hours.”
- Communicate this clearly to your fleet members.
- If you’re ending soon, stop accepting people into the queue unless there’s another FC ready to take over.
Example - Raid: Deserters Hideout
Starting a fleet
- Start by forming a fleet and selecting the Fleet Setup template you want to use. The Store Fleet Setup function allows you to store MOTD / Wing & squad layout / Free-move settings & default squad.
- One benifit of having a comprehensive MOTD is that you can point pilots to it to find out more info, especially to newer players, it helps you save time not having to explain everything every time.
- Fleet hierarchy setup: helps you keep track of who is flying what role? The FC role allows you to drag & drop pilots into squads. howover if fleet has 'freemove' option checked, pilot's can drag themselves into the squad of their choice. Having a default squad (Lobby) helps you find new pilots easily when people join your fleet via the fleet advertisement.
- Queue management: Try limiting the queue to only 3 pilots. You can set your fleet size to 8 pilots via the "..." three vertical dot icon in the upper right part of the fleet window.
Recruiting for fleet
Fleet advertisement
- Starting an advertisement is the first step to in-corp recruitment for your fleet
Start a fleet advertisment 1 - Pay attention to settings: Fleetname / Description /My corp / My Alliance / Application requires approval / Auto update advert on Boss change
Start a fleet advertisment 2 - Use the Agency window > Fleet Up! tab to find your advert. You can link your advert into corpchat from this location.
Find your fleet advertisement
- Pay attention to settings: Fleetname / Description /My corp / My Alliance / Application requires approval / Auto update advert on Boss change
Corporation callouts
- Create a recruitment message with sufficient info should minimize responsetime to alot of questions like "where do I go? what do I train? what do I fly" . It will draw people to your fleet advert and they can join you with you having to manually invite everyone (!timesaver!)
corp chat recruitment example
Contact list management
- Adding people to you contact list / buddy list helps you keep track of people and may prove useful for future fleet recruitment.
- Meeting new players in your fleet? Add them to contact, keep track of who you fly with.
- Keeping notes helps you keep track of where you've met people, what they can fly, what timezone they're in.
Alternate homefront channels
- if you struggle finding enough pilots to run a fleet you can try shouting into one of the following channels for extra pilots. Beware that some of these might need more time to travel to your staging area, they might not use comms, they might suffer from 'bitter vet' syndrome.
Folding a fleet
Lead your fleet back to your staging area, thank the people for flying with you. Maybe if they have anymore questions about homefronts this might be a good time to do a little Q&A. Also pointing out the fact that they can setup jump clones is always a good reminder for joining future homefront fleets.
Fleet ettiquette
it's advised that new players are introduced to our homefront ettiquette. Not only does it minimize wasting people's time when dropping a fleet without any notice it also boost our corporation image to outsiders who take an Unista on one of their homefront fleets.