Instantaneous, reliable communication is one of the most if not the important aspect of battle. Before you even undock in your vessel you must set-up means to which communicate with your fellow pilots, without it your effectiveness is wasted and you might as well no even bother to read the rest of this guide.

We have found an amazing means with which we use to co-ordinate everything from buying equipment in a market place to raping entire alliances, its called Team-Speak or TS for short. It can be downloaded from www.teamspeak.org for free, although a server will have to be obtained which can cost money, but its money so well spent that I cannot stress enough how vital it is. Your Teamspeak server needs to be reliable and stable so not to cut you out in the middle of a fleet battle. Another program used for communication is Ventrilo.

There are other programs like TS, however our experience is only with this 1 type of communication and as such is all I will addressing, but the others are by no means less effective. Also forums and corp mails are useful so not to bog down communication with people constantly asking the same questions but beware, spies are everywhere and these give written proof of your actions so do NOT send sensitive information via these lines. Trust is something not to be relied on within Eve, we have seen the worst kind of scams where people scam their friends out of billions of ISK.

Be careful with who you let into your corp, who gets access to sensitive information and items.

Security

When you have your Teamspeak server set-up you will need to make it secure. Lets face it, if your enemy has tapped your communications line you're as good as dead, and tapping your enemies communications will give you an immeasurable advantage. The best way to do this is to setup multiple channels/rooms. For example, a un-secure welcome room that all user's are put into when they initially log into ts, one for each individual Corporation with other secure rooms for meetings, operation's etc.

To enter the secure rooms a person must be registered to the server, with there own private username and password, otherwise all they can access is the initial welcome room. Extra passwords can be placed on rooms for more sensitive discussions to take place. Kicking players who are AFK (away from keyboard) for too long is also a good idea. If you are a Teamspeak host for a lot of corporations, get information about the members of that corporation. Have every person on the server put a corporation tag in front of their name, without the tag, they get banned. If a person has a tag but no-one knows who he is, he gets banned. This is a good way to secure communications.

Coordination

Unless you can co-ordinate your communications your effectiveness will be slashed, and your advantage gained from TS wasted. Unfortunately the more and more pilots you have in one channel the chatter will increase. When in intense and dangerous moments I.E battle, people can get very excited and will forget their place and overtalk everyone else with useless information (from a tactical p.o.v (point of view). Granted you may have just got 3 wrecking shots of 1000+ each but in the middle of a battle NOBODY WANTS TO KNOW, save it for afterwards.

So what soldiers need learn is basically STFU as when 40 people are in a channel, this is vital.

The best set-up for this is to nominate 2 fleet commanders prior to engaging with 1 been in charge, the other backup. These should be selected by there combat exp and understanding of how fleet battles work. In battle these should be the ONLY people issuing instructions. Of course if you have some vital info to relay like there’s 20 enemy BS about to jump in through the gate on top of you then relay it but silence needs to be maintained so the commanders instruction are heard clearly by all.

Tips for future Commanders

1. You need to have a lot of experience in fleet battles to assume this role, as there are so many different things that can happen yet so many familiar and learnable issues that you need to know how to address.

2. With many people in one channel you will have to repremand people who won’t stop talking. Its not personal just necessary so use your authority when needed.

3. With many ships in the one area of space you will be hit with one of the strongest forces in Eve, LAG. This will never be removed completely so get used to operating in it. It will cause delays in firing weapons, activating modules, locking ships (in fact a ship could already be warped out and from you p.o.v will still be there) and in the worst cases your screen will not even load. Sometimes warping out and back in will fix this.

4. Learn how to pick targets, you don’t want to your soldiers scanning around for 20 secs looking for targets because you keep hopping from 1 end of the battlefield to the other, especially in lagged situation’s. Best thing to do is stick to one area of the enemies fleets which is at optimal firing range for the majority of your fleet, start with the closest and work your way back, you should call for your second target to be locked so pilots can swap guns to it immediately.

5. Always have your fleet shoot one target at a time, when it’s destroyed, all shoot the next one.

Know Your Enemy

This is what a good fleet commander does best, knowing your enemy in all aspects. You have to know how the enemy fleet will and and react, know their pilots and who their leaders are. If you know this, you can predict what your enemy is going to do ahead of time. Going in with a 20 ship blob to attack that 7 ship pirate blob only has one result. The pirates are going to check the map, they will see you coming and they will run. This is why it is essential to know your enemy, you have to know how to trick your enemy into fighting, you have to know the routes they take and the tactics they use. Being a mind reader helps too.