Joining an Indy Corp

Finally!  It took a few days to scout down some good corps, and even longer to go through their application processes (only to be rejected once and ignored twice), but I believe I've found a good corp for my indy corp research.

For obvious security reasons, I will not disclose the name of the corp or any of its members, nor will I publish the names of any systems we operate in..  However, I will base future posts off experiences within this corp using aliases and generalizing situations.

My goal here is to give my readers an idea of what they can expect from being in a corp without compromising my new corp's safety.

Alright, my disclaimer is out of the way.  Now I want to give you an idea of what all I went through trying to join a corp, and explain a few new recruiting techniques that I learned along the way.

When I first started searching for a corp, I had a few simple goals in mind.

1. The corp had to be indy based.
2. It had to have been around for more than a few months.
3. It had to have a professional recruitment pitch and not openly advertise pirating or griefing.

I started my search in a place I never bother much with: the corp recruitment ad board.  There were two corps here that I picked-out.  One was quite old, a couple years, and another a little newer but still professional.

I sent an app to both without speaking to a recruiter.  The new corp ignore me, and although the old corp sent me a message saying they would convo me about accepting the app, they wound up rejecting it.  Didn't even say why, prob didn't care either. 

Don't take things like that personally, though.  Big corps can sometimes get lots of apps from randies, and the threat of espionage in EVE is very real, so being accepted to a good corp can be an honor.

After that, I threw out a few lines in the mining channel (which happens to be one of the most active chat channels in EVE (mining is boring)).  I asked if any indy corps were recruiting, and actually managed to get a response.

I was invited to a private chat that then lead to a group interview.  To my disappointment, the corp recruiting me was not much of an indy corp, however they did refer me to a good prospect.

I applied to corp #3 with high hopes.  Their info seemed positive and concise, their website was professional, and their application procedures were easy-to-follow for me yet very secure for them.

There was one catch with them, though.  They had recently been wardec'd.

It's really not a good idea to recruit during a wardec for security reasons, and they were right not to be accepting apps.  I applied anyway just in case, but before I could get an answer, I tried one last method of joining a corp.  It also happens to be the most obvious first choice, but one I wanted to avoid to test other methods first.

I joined the recruitment chat channel and asked if any indy corps were recruiting.

If you recall, I advised against this if you were recruiting because any amount of corp advertisement can get you targeted by other corps.  However, there was a very simple and obvious method of recruiting here that I feel quite silly for not considering.  It involves, patience, though:

You wait for someone actively looking for a corp to speak-up, then private chat them.

Duh, lol.

This was how I was recruited to my new corp.  I was also told to mention who recruited me for referral.  Using this method, a corp can recruit without fear of advertising themselves in a place where people are looking to join.  I guess I had not considered this method because when I saw the copy/pasta ads so many corps use in the recruitment channel, I just though 'this is how it is,' and never gave it a second thought.

At any rate, you can add this to your list of recruitment tactics.

Upon joining my new corp, I was given a few simple, but important instructions.  First, I was told to pick a base to operate from depending on my interests.  Next, I had to sign-up for the corp mailing list, join a separate chat channel than corp chat (still don't get the reasoning here since the channel was advertised in corp chat), and I was also given an assignment for 'graduating.'

Apparently, the referral was necessary to complete a graduation req in the corp.  One of the grad reqs is to recruit two new members - a clever recruitment strategy as well.  Also, I get 20 mill for recruiting :)

I'll post more about my adventures in my new corp this weekend.  I'm excited to get started :)

New Player's Guide

Don't have much time to write today, but I did find this very useful guide for new players from http://www.battleclinic.com/.

Enjoy:

Battleclinic's New Player's Guide

A Poke Into Wormholes

This weekend, I got bored of mining and decided to poke around the various chat channels available.  Most of them were quiet with few people (the mining channel being a tremendous exception), but I did get a response from a few people in the wormhole channel.  Two of them, s1had and Akia Ahishatsu, were more than willing to share their exotic experiences in the risky business of exploring wormholes.

Both Akia and s1had agreed that 5 things were necessary for running regular wormhole ops:

1. A POS anchored in the wh.
2. A team of very skilled, very experienced players.
3. Rorqual and Orca Support.
4. Strong PvP supporting your miners.
5. Good intelligence gathering (scanning, locating wh connections, etc.)

They each had different methods of running ops, and different standards on what they believed was safe.

For example, s1had said that a team of at least 7 experienced players were necessary for running wh ops, though more would definitely help.  However, Akia, who seemed much more protective of her wormhole, said that it would take a corp of at least 50 members, 25 of whom are active daily, to be able to not only run ops, but also effectively defend your POS in a wh.

Akia stressed the importance of scanning as well:

Akia Ahishatsu > you scan the wh systems down maybe 4 times a day
Akia Ahishatsu > everyday
Akia Ahishatsu > its a must
Akia Ahishatsu > always on d scan
Akia Ahishatsu > ususally
Akia Ahishatsu > you take deffense in an offense manner in a wh

When it came down to running ops, they both mentioned that a proper mining op technique looked something like this:

- Hulks with cheap mining fits in the belts.
- Rorqual (preferred by s1had) or Orca sitting behind the POS force field.
- Itty Vs hauling between miners and Orca/Rorq.
- 3 or 4 PvP guards with Hulks.

s1had also suggested not refining ore before you ship it out of the wh.  Instead, he said it was more effective to compress it in a Rorqual if possible, then ship it.  Otherwise, you have to deal with poor refining of POSs.

In addition to defending the wh itself, the two suggested using scouts to chart a course for a safe entry into a highsec system near a trading hub.  s1had said that its not unusual for there to be 6 jumps from a good wh to a highsec system.

CEO Guide > when you do ship it out, just load it onto some indys and hope you come out near a tradehub?  or do you do a lot of scouting before hand?
S1had > u need scouts
S1had > it depends which wh u live in
S1had > c1 - c2 got standard high sec entries
S1had > c3- c4 got low sec
S1had > c5 -c6 got only openings in 0.0 sec and sometimes in another whs where u can with some luck go a straight route to a high sec opening
S1had > example: c6 -> c5 -> c5 -> c4 -> c2 -> high sec
S1had > this is a route which can occure
S1had > and sometimes if u are fkn lucky u can hhave a route like this c6 -> high sec
CEO Guide > lol, how often does that happen?
S1had > well... depends on ur luck^^

While mucking about in wormholes is a bit more dangerous and complicated than being good little pod pilots in highsec, both of our experts agreed the work is worth it for the reward.

CEO Guide > lol, so im guessing the higher class systems have better stuff in them, too?
S1had > let me say it this way... in a c6 with a good 7 men team u can farm 20mrds in 2 weaks
S1had > and i just talk about the salvage loot not on the part where u maximazie ur win ratio with producing t3 ships

Finally, although I ended our interviews satisfied, before I hopped-off Akia thought I could use a bit of advice.  I admit, I felt ashamed at my inexperience with wormholes, but I was not fool enough to listen to advice.

She told me of an apparently well-known corp called Rooks and Kings who have several videos on youtube about their endeavors in W-space.

I'll post the link to the videos, along with a few other useful links for wh activities, below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrYe_4vHzgE

http://s8.multiplexgaming.com/index.php/page,page3880.html

http://www.wormnav.com/index.php?locus=J230049

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uBcK_c8Gy4

Progress Report

I've been doing a lot of research this weekend in regard to indy corps, and I've turned up some interesting results from the EVE forums and interviews with various players.


The link below will take you to the thread I posted.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=95599&find=unread

From my research, I have concluded that I am, in fact, a "noob."  But hey, all the best players have to start somewhere :)

So, taking these suggestions into consideration, I'm going to be changing my goals up a bit to aid the success of my future indy corp.

First, I'm going to join an indy corp rather than start one up on my own right off the bat.  I suggest all new players and new CEOs to do this.  Join a corp before you start a corp; you'll gain experience, capital, and be able to do some networking that can very well help your future corp's endeavors.

Next, I'm going to train to be able to pilot a hulk first (rather than just a retriever), and then an orca.  My goal here is to gain income with the hulk, then later use the orca to boost my corp's mining amount and productivity.  One of the benefits I left out of the 'corp benefits' post is the bonuses you receive via fleet boosts.

You can read about the various fleet bonuses through skills, ships, and equip here:

 http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/430571-eve-online/faqs/50762

The next few weeks will be fairly uneventful as I eat rocks while training to fly ships that eat rocks faster.  In the mean time, I'll be interviewing players I see around the verse and writing several feature articles based on those interviews.

Look forward to an article tomorrow about wormhole operations laced with tasteless innuendo.

Cerlestes

Found this one yesterday.  Cerlestes is a website that has all the information you need to know about mining and refining.  It has ore yields with ISK/can calculations, ice yields, drone alloy yields, and up-to-date mineral prices all based on market information from Jita, Rens, Amarr, Oursulaert, and Dodixie.

Definitely a useful tool for every industrialist.

http://ore.cerlestes.de/index.html#site:ore

Recruitment

There are a lot of ways you can go about recruiting players to your corp, and most of them suck.

Here are just a few of the recruitment strategies you can use (and reasons why they suck):

1. Joining the recruitment channel - For a new player, this seems like an obvious place to find corps to join.  For a new CEO, it seems like a great place to recruit players.  But it's really not the best place to be looking for the latter if you're starting a new corp.

This is because there are a lot of established corps who advertise here, too, and a good portion of them who are PvP corps.  Any time you advertise your corp, you run the risk of being targeted by a bigger corp who likes stomp small corps into the ground.

Until you're confident you can fight-off waves of tech II battlecruisers, don't go around waving the "join noobie corp" flag.  You may not like the attention you get.

2. "Waving the noob corp flag" in local - There are few instances where mentioning that you're recruiting for a new corp is ever a good idea in local chat.  No one ever really talks in local in EVE, and when they do they're usually uneasy to discuss any sort of corporate plans.  It's just not good policy for your corp's security.

3. Purchasing ads from the recruitment menu - Don't waste the ISK.

4. Sending EVE mails with a recruitment message - This one works sometimes, but be careful about who you send it to and how you write your message.  If you write a general 'join my new corp' message, then don't spam old toons with it.  Odds are they'll either not pay any attention, or decide you're a juicy target.

If you send this to days-old toons, you'll have a little bit better luck, but not every new toon is a new player.  In fact, there are several who are just alts that established people use as scouts and spies.

Take your chances, but this method isn't worthless.  I've recruited a dozen or so people in my last corp through this method, and it takes less effort than the most effective method of recruitment, which is -

5. Private Chat - This is the best way to not only convince someone to join your corp, but also get an idea of a prospective recruit's personality and see if they're worth recruiting.  Personality does mean a lot (I recruit fun and dependable people over maxed-out skills all the time).  However, this method is the most intense for a CEO to undertake, the most delicate to practice effectively, and one of the most time-consuming activities you will do.

Before you even begin recruiting, you need to be able to communicate exactly what your corp does and how it does it.  This is half the reason why we started off making a corp structure and business plan.

You will also need to be prepared to answer these questions:

"What is a corp?"
"What does your corp do?"
"How will your corp help me?"
"What are the requirements for being in your corp?"
"Where does your corp spend most of its time?"
"What times (in real life) does your corp mostly play?"

Have an answer prepared beforehand for each of these.  Nothing looks worse to a prospective recruit than a recruiter who cannot give them the entire spill on their corp.

The best recruiters have more than just answers prepared for these questions, they have a process through which they deliver it (and a proces through which they judge the responses of the recruit).

Here's where your interviewing skills come into play.  It seems almost ridiculous to suggest this for a video game, but googling interview tips can help give you some ideas as to how to form your questions.

My process worked like this:

1. Scan local chat, hitting show info on everyone, looking for who might be good recruits.

2. Send them a chat invite and keep searching.

3. If they accepted, I lead of with a general, casual question to lead them get them interested in a conversation.  Usually it was something along the lines of "hey, how long you been playing?"

4. If they seemed up for a convo, I would keep it going, bating them toward my recruitment pitch.  Often it was with the phrase, "You ever do any work with corps?"

5. Depending on their answers here, I would either start my pitch, letting them know that my corp was recuriting, what kind of players we're looking for, and asking if they would be interested.  Or they would just say 'not interested' right off the bat, in which case I'd say 'thank you for your time, fly safe o7,' and leave.

6. If they were interested, the convo could go any number of ways.  Most players will ask the questions I listed above.  Your goal here is to answer them concisely while at the same time driving them toward giving you an answer

Something like:

"We offer perfect reprocessing rates, too, so you won't have to train those skills unless you want to.  The corp takes x% of the minerals, but it's less what you would give to an NPC faction.  So you get better refines, train fewer skills, don't have to build standing, and we've got some pretty cool peeps in corp chat :) Sound interesting?"

7. Even after your recruit sends an app, your job isn't over.  You have to make sure they receive a warm welcome from the people in your corp so they feel like they've made the right decision.  When you first start out without any members, you will be the one to keep the convo going.  However, once you have people in corp chat, all you have to do is ask your recruit to introduce themselves, and maybe even pop on over to corp chat yourself and say "hey guys, everyone welcome SPACE FIGHTER 9000! :)"

That was recruitment basics.  If you want to really boost your numbers, however, you need to create strategies.

A good strat for new corps is to camp a noob system and talk new players into joining.  Often they will oblige if you agree to teach them more about the game (and always remind them that they can leave a corp).  Having lots of new players join may not make your corp more effective, but the numbers make you look like a worthwhile venture for older players.

In turn, having experienced players makes you look appealing to both new and old players.  The first week I started recruiting for my first corp, I managed to recruit 20 players this way.  Not all of them were active, but the numbers made us look appealing enough start finding experienced players.

If you're looking to fill skill gaps in your ranks, then you should add that to your recruitment pitch.  Nothing too complicated, just ask them what they're levels in x skills are, and if they would be willing to train x skill to fill a role.  Careful with this one, lots of players don't like having their skill que restricted, so you want to make the goal a small one.  e.g., "We're looking for someone with good veldspar reprocessing, think you'd be willing to train for it?" instead of "We're looking for a goo reprocesser, think you could train (all these skills)?"

When you need to really make your numbers soar, then you can organize a recruiting night for your corp.  Mine once did this when we were faced with wardec.  We put guys at all the high traffic systems nearby and spent several hours chatting people in private, asking if they would be interested in PvP.  We were not only going for numbers here, but also filling skill gaps.  We managed to recruit about 12 new members in around 3 hours this way.

Also, don't forget about the online forums.  You'll find more experienced players here looking for corps than you would running around inviting people to private chats, but you'll also find lots of trolls (and again, people looking for new corps to smash).

Keep in mind that these are just the strategies I'm familiar with.  There are likely other, better ways to find new members, but you won't figure them out unless you ask experienced players.  For this reason, and many other, it's almost always a better idea to join an established corp before you try starting your own.

Hope this helps your recruitment efforts, good luck o7

EVE Influence Map

Found this online a bit ago and thought it was something good to add to blog.  Apparently it's an automatically updated map of EVE's player-controlled systems.  Using some sort of formula that I don't have time to explain, it grades the influence of the systems in nullsec to determine what Alliances assert more influence over them than others.

I might add this to the sidebar so it's always displayed...

http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/Verite/influence.png

Corporate Structure & Business Plan

I’ve been playing my new trial account toon for a couple days now.  At the moment, my goal is to start mining in a destroyer, then devote the rest of my trial account’s time to getting into a retriever.

In the mean time, I’m going to mine until I save up about 50 million (not counting the cost of my future retriever).

Why am I pursuing these goals, though?  If I’m putting together a corp, wouldn’t it be better to start recruiting right off the bat and getting organized for production?  Well no, unless you’re the perfect CEO who’s been playing EVE for years, doing that pretty much dooms your corp to failure.

Here’s why.

When you’re starting a brand-new corp, you need to have a few things in place before you ever start recruiting.  First, you absolutely have to establish corporate structure, something that says ‘this is what my corp is, what it does, and how it does it.’

This doesn’t have to be an all-out constitutional document.  It can be as simple as a mission statement, followed by a few operating procedures and something that will make people want to join and stay.  For example:

“X corp specializes in mining highsec ores to be used in the production of tier I items.  Profits are shared by all members fairly according to their role in production."

There you have it.  Simple, clear, and informative.  It lays out what my corp will do and our members’ benefits.  Now I have something that I can communicate to prospective recruits and we can always refer back to this statement for guidance.  ( Notice is says profits will be ‘shared,’ not ‘shared evenly.’  I’ll get to that in a moment).

Now back to why I’m doing what I’m doing at the moment with this new toon.  I haven’t been recruiting yet because it took me a couple days to decide what kind of corp I wanted to make, and then figure out how I will run it.

Also, I’m in a mining frigate at the moment, and don’t have much in the way to offer any new recruits yet.  I’m training to at least a retriever before I start the corp so that I have some sort of credibility.  As soon as the retriever is out of the way, I’ll be going straight for a hulk, and probably an orca later.

The point here is that a recruit’s opinion of you depends a lot on what you’re flying when you’re first talking to them, or at least what your corp’s members are flying.  If they see you mining in a frigate, odds are they’ll be skeptical of joining you.

The 50 million will serve as start-up capital to help pay for station rent, manufacturing costs, research costs, etc.  It will also give the corp some padding in case we lose ships.

Which brings me to my second reason for not starting the corp yet.  Arguably, it is also my most important.

Wardecs.

Wardec is short for War Declaration.  In EVE, any player corporation can declare war on another corporation for a relatively small sum.  This allows them to attack your corp members anywhere, EVEN IN HIGHSEC.  Wardecs last for a week and can be renewed for the same price.  The costs change according to certain variables, but odds are if you’re corp is wardec’d, the enemy corp can afford it for awhile.

EVE is full of corps that specialize in smashing new corporations to drive-out competition.  If you start a corp without any ability to defend yourself or replace your losses, your members will quickly grow frustrated and leave.

My plan is, in a couple of weeks, to start talking to people I meet in local, in the NPC corp chat, and in Rookie Help, and find a few guys interested in starting an indy corp and a sister PvP corp (or find an established PvP corp that needs industrial support) before I even open the corporation creation box.  This way, I can have some members prepared before the corps actually launch should we be hit with wardecs from the beginning (it happens more often than you may realize).

In the meantime, I’ll be eating asteroids and working on my business plan.

A business plan is different from a corporate structure.  A corp structure is a general summary of how your corp works, what they do, etc.  A business plan lays out specifically how your corp intends to turn a profit.

In an industrial corp, it will state how your corp gets from ore to the final product(s) you will be making.  For example, my corp will begin going from highsec ores, to minerals, to teir I items, all of which will depend on the local market prices and available ore, facilities, etc.

My plan in particular will go one step further, assigning specific members to specific tasks in the production of our items, and how our members will be paid. 

Here’s the plan:

X players will run mining ops, all of which goes to the corp.  They will be paid FULL MARKET PRICE for their ore, - 2% for every jump from their base of operations to the manufacturing station, and another -2% from the manufacturing station to the nearest target market for our product.  They will be paid individually according to the excel spreadsheet found on EVE UNI’s website.

The advantage the miners receive here is a guaranteed market price no matter where they are (rather than having to sell to a low buy order), and not have to bother with hauling their ore to a trade hub.

Y players haul ore from the miners, to the miners’ base (unless there’s orca support), then the refined minerals to the manufacturing station.  Later, they will haul our product to market (until we’re able to place remote sell orders).  They are paid the 2% per jump cut from the miners’ pay.  If a mining op turns in 1,000,000 pyroxeres in a night (which goes for roughly 50 ISK/unit (50 mill ISK for total op yield)), then the hauler will make around 1 mill ISK/jump.

Z players manufacture our items at the manufacturing station.  When the items are produced, they are paid 85% of the ISK the items make.  5% of the ISK goes to the purchase of blueprints, 5% of it goes to the re-purchase of researched blueprints, and 5% of the ISK goes into corp savings.

XX players will research corp blueprints.  They will sell them back to the corp at 10% the cost of the blueprint.  This may need some more explanation.  Blueprints are bought by the corp and given to researchers who essentially are paid for their service at 10% of the value of blueprint for improving it.

So if we buy a BP for 1mill ISK, the researcher will make 100,000 ISK for improving it.  This allows the corp to make more profits faster and at less cost, which in turn will lead to the purchase of more BPs.

Profit margins will be small at first using this method, but as we grow, we will be able to produce more, diversify, and bring in a lot of ISK.  Also, everyone will be paid fairly, and make more ISK than they would have on their own.

This plan will likely change some as I spot obvious logical flaws in it (as is often the case with any plan), but it seems to work for now.

I’m going to keep eating away at asteroids till I reach my target of 50 mill, which I should be able to do before my trial account runs out.  Now that I have a corporate structure and business plan, however, my next goal will be to start looking for possible recruits.

In my next post, I’ll discuss different recruiting methods, strategies, and what to look for when you’re starting a new corporation.

Fly safe o7

Corporate Benefits

The most common question I was asked when recruiting a new player to my corp (after “what is a corp?”) was “what are the benefits of being in a corp?”

One would think the answer would be obvious - 'teamwork,' 'division of labor,' 'specialization.'  But how do those concepts apply to EVE?

Well, here are a few ways player corporations benefit can their members:

1) Skill Point Specialization <<< NEARLY ALL OTHER CORP ADVANTAGES FOLLOW THIS PRINCIPLE

In real life, people are born with natural talents and abilities wildly different from each other.  In EVE, every toon starts life with the same attributes and very similar skills.

Also, training time is an objective resource in EVE, meaning that unlike real life where two people can study the same skill set for a year and achieve wildly different levels of knowledge, in EVE players are getting the exact same skill points for every second their toon trains a skill.

However, it takes a long time for skills to train, and being able to produce the more expensive items in the game takes a lot of training very specific skills. 

It saves players training time if they synch their skill ques to where, rather than creating one toon with all the skills, they could be a multitude of toons with the same skills and only a fraction of the training time.

  

When you form an indy corp, you should not only come up with a business plan, but a training plan for the people you recruit as well.  You can have your mining guys specialize in nothing but getting to a hulk.  Have your refining guys specialize in refining the ores you commonly mine.  Have your manufacturing guys specialize in the type of item you're going to make, etc.

When they reach those goals, you can then look at specializing into a different product using the same technique.

PvP and PvE corps have a little more leeway in this because there are lots of ways to achieve the same results in combat, whereas industry corps have to train specific skills to make a specific product.  However, letting members train whatever they want will still not be as effective as assigning them certain combat roles to work toward.

The difficulty in achieving this, however is that players many players want the freedom to train their character how they like, so it takes some convincing to get them to train the skills your corp needs.

Prove to them how much ISK they will make specializing with you rather than generalizing on their own, and they just might be convinced.

2) Division of Labor & Pooling Resources

In real life, we split labor for many reasons, but almost all of them have the same goal: having more resources for everyone involved.  Two people can work together to chop down a tree and have energy left over to chop down another, whereas one person chopping down a tree may not even be able to finish the first one.  In the end, more people doing a task benefits everyone in real life.

In EVE, two players doing the exact same thing will achieve the exact same results, the only difference in their end product being the time they’ve spent training certain skills.

This applies to a lot of things.  As Margin Call states, “there is no product differentiation in EVE,” meaning that every product a player makes is the exact same.  In a similar aspect, there is no way to pull more ore from an asteroid than another player aside from training skills (and everyone can reach the same level eventually).

Because of this, there is little point in having a corporation where everyone does the same thing (unless it’s combat) since you can achieve the same results as the next guy eventually.  The resources a group pools will not be more than what you could earn on your own, unless you have someone who can gather more resources than you, and if you can’t yield as much as another guy, what reason does he have to help you, split the resources, and lose profit?

The way to get around this is by having your corp specialize their skills to where you can manufacture a product for fewer resources than the next player or corp.

For example, if one player wanted to make Miner I lasers using the fewest resources in the fewest time, and be able to consistently bring in enough minerals necessary to make them in bulk, it would take months of training. 

If a group of people wanted to make Miner Is, they could split the training time.  Two or three players could increase their mining yield.  One player could train to refine Plagioclase at max efficiency (plag has all the mins necessary for Miner I production).  Another player could train to manufacture Miner Is in the fastest amount of time and with the fewest minerals.  Another player could train to be able to research Miner I blueprints at max speeds, and another to research for max material efficiency.

You’ve just split your training time 7 different ways.  You’ve also split the profits, but if you pick the right products (Miner I is a bad example here for profit) and are able to produce them in enough bulk, then your team will be making more ISK together than they ever could have on their own.

By specializing your skills, your ten man corp of month-old accounts now has the capability of a six month old (or more) character.  Plus, you have the added benefit of having more eyes to watch the market, which leads me to my next point.

3) More players = more eyes & more brains

This one is simple to explain, but nonetheless important.  It could have fit with division of labor, but the resource here is information, not items or ISK.  Really, it’s all about scouting.

Having more people in your corp means you have more eyes than can study market trends, more eyes watching local chat for possible pirates during mining ops, and more people to compile knowledge about the game.

Having people in neighboring systems watching local can give your mining op one system over more time to get to a station if things go south.

Also, if you get to where you’re running multiple hulks and an orca, having people fly to the different belts in a system and scan them in advance can keep you from wasting time warping to thin or empty belts.

You can send people running around the galaxy looking for new places to move your ops, places with little traffic, good belts, cheap stations with science and industry facilities, etc.  As they search systems, they can also scan down asteroid fields for rare asteroids in highsec, or wormholes if you’re a wormhole corp.

Information is just as important as productivity, because without the right info, you won’t know what to be producing.  Plus, info is the one thing that can be shared simultaneously by your corp members.

4) Mutual Defense

More often than not, the team with more guns wins the fight.  So an obvious advantage of being in a corp with more players is that you’re more likely to win fights.

You have to be careful with this one though, because this is not always the case.

It takes more than a lot of guns to win fights.  Different fights require different guns and players who’ve invested the training time to use them well.  You also need to be well-organized and know the combat mechanics of EVE.

If you’re a PvP corp, then I suggest going all out and gaining as many members as you can to help you take down bigger targets.  This is one of the few areas of EVE where more bodies yields more products.

However, if you’re an indy corp, I suggest not having any PvP guys at all.  The organization require by a CEO to handle both combat operations and industrial operations is intense.  Plus, more numbers will not scare away other corporations from declaring war on you, unless they’ve done their intel and know you can defend youseves (and they will do the intel).

Instead, a better option would be to found a sister corp that handles PvP for you, or get in good with an established PvP corp that needs industrial backing.

In the mean time, use your numbers to conduct recon in an effort to avoid combat, not excel in it.

5) Sharing is easier

After spending so much time saying that you can’t share in EVE like you can in real life, it’s almost contradictory to suggest joining a corporation for the sharing privileges.

However, you will need to share resources if you’re going to follow the models I mentioned above.

Staying in an NPC corp will keep you safe from wardecs, but sharing resources means having to initiate a trade every time you move to the next process in an item’s production.

With corp hangars, you can just drop stuff in the hangar, and when the person handling the next step of production can take it when they need it, even while you’re offline.

For PvP corps, having hangars set aside specifically for fleet ships makes logistics easier.  You can have 50 ships with the same fitting prepared in a system and ready for any nearby pilots to hop in and fight with them, rather than having a mix-mash of various ships all over the place that members may have to trade in order to form a well-organized fleet.

6. Exclusive Socialization

Another easily explained one, but very important.  Most people play games to have fun, and most people play MMOs to have fun with other players.

You can make friends in the default NPC corp’s chat, but you’re forced to see their remarks there.  In a player corp, you can recruit people you like, or join a corp with people that seem friendlier than whoever may be in a default corp.

Playing the game with the right people can make it ten times more fun.

That’s all I have for corporate benefits.  There are likely others, things that may apply to nullsec operations and operating POSs, but these are things players are more likely going to run into when they first start looking for or managing a corp.

With that, I bid you adieu o7

Starting a Blog and a Corp

When I browse the internet, it's to get information, and get it quickly.  Unless it's poetry, I don't like writers who beat around the bush.  I like to get to the point.

So here's the point:

This blog is about the MMO "EVE Online."  Specifically, about managing player corporations.

Odds are if you're still reading this, you're already somewhat familiar with the game.  So, I won't explain any more about it.

I started playing EVE a few months ago, and now I'm kinda addicted.  A few weeks into the game, I started my own corporation with dreams of galactic conquest.  We did pretty well, but as finals neared at my university, I had to relenquish command to our directors. 

To my knowledge they are still flying.  I left them in the hands of capable leaders, and am confident that they will be around for awhile.

I'm not able to invest the time to manage them anymore, but my obsession with the game won't let me quit playing, either.  Therefore, I've decided to start this blog to feed my EVE monkey while I passively play and actively study.

The intent of this blog is to teach new CEOs not only how to manage a corp, but also how to make a corp succeed. 

So here's the experiment.  I'm going to start from the ground up, with a trial account toon that I will later upgrade to a subscription, and walk you through the process of preparing, starting, and then running a corporation: reporting my progress along the way.  I might even thow out trite "tips of the day."

For now, I plan on building a simple mining corp. My objectives are to get as far as I can to a Retriever on my trial account (trials cannot train mining barges), and raise some captial before I even start the corp.

There are several reasons for not starting a corp the moment you create a new toon.  I'll outline them in my next post.  Rest assured that, even experienced players, will tell you that building your SP and assets before you start a corp is generally a good idea.

I believe that will do for the introduction.  The next post will go into more detail about the ways corporations can benefit players and my plans for how this corp will operate.  Even though corps are everywhere in EVE, most new players don't understand how a corp can help them, and most new CEOs don't know how to build a corporate structure that will help its members.