30+ PSA: Kerr's Guide to Fleet Management

This may or may not be of interest to all of you, but here goes:

Kerravyn's Guide to Running a Fleet

First, once more, background. I joined Star Pirates at the behest of my friend redlion. Redlion had a teeny little fleet called The Star Fraction, loosely based off the book of the same name, and which I recommend you all read as it was very good. (I had never read it prior to joining the fleet; now I own the whole series.)

Redlion's a busy guy in real life, and not on Star Pirates a heck of a lot. I, meanwhile, was online almost every minute of every hour. So after several people kept PMing me to join the fleet I asked red to be promoted to fleet leader so I could join folks. Red agreed.

Mind you, this was two weeks after I started playing the game. So everything I learned, I learned the hard way, or from friends I made in game. I ran TSF for over a year, but eventually Mod duties made me realize I needed to step down - logging in and dealing with fleet issues had stopped being fun.

The Cool Stuff

If you are the fleet owner, your fleet tag will be in bold.

Fleet owners and fleet leaders get access to all the nifty commands: you can declare war, set the fleet tax, change the fleet titles, name, page, etc. You can withdraw from the vault and the armory. You can set who has access to what. You can invite new people, and kick people from the fleet.

The Not-So-Cool Stuff

You're in charge, so you're responsible. You get PMs from fleeties and players all the time. (More when you're a mod. ) You are in charge of the armory and making sure it's well-stocked (or appointing someone to do so). You are in charge of fleet funds and using them wisely. And you're in charge of kicking people from the fleet, for whatever reasons. and when there's a problem - you are who they come to.

Armory and Vault

If you are a war fleet, you want a well-stocked armory full of goodies. Everyone wants a good labcoat (made of VR gear) and everyone wants access to C8 and CX stuff, and VRs aplenty. Stocking the fleet armory can be rough, especially with a low tax rate - but you don't want a high tax rate either.

You can run contests to help raise funds. Contests also help build fleet unity and identity, which is something else you keep an eye on.

Co-leaders

Most fleets have at least two leaders. TSF had three - redlion, myself, and then someone else to help out once I got made into a Mod and my ability to devote time to the fleet dropped dramatically. (I truly don't know how Arva and ceymz do it, I really don't.)

Co-leaders is a great idea because you get to share the burdens out. If you've the numbers, you can assign folks to be in charge of certain areas - armory, vault, war, research - and then everyone has less to do, and the fleet has a good command structure overall. The 633s do this - they have a war leader, a builds expert, spy division, etc. TSF always had a Quartermaster in charge of the armory and a War Leader.

Recruitment

Fortunately, you guys are large; recruitment will likely never be an issue for you. Lucky. Recruitment in the smaller fleets eats a LOT of time. You need to be active, post in the shoutbox (just in general, so people want to join you), post in the forums, and look for likely candidates. I used to PM folks all the time when we were recruiting.

Fleet Rules

Every fleet has rules or guidelines they expect their members to follow. This can be as simple as "Just have fun" to the slightly more common "We don't online or raid, if you log out with the labcoat we'll kick you and reinvite you" to the more complex rules some fleets follow like BFS (with codes, special commands, etc.)

While everyone in the fleet should have some say into the rules, it's the fleet leader's job to enforce them and make sure they are followed. They need to be communicated to new members. they need review to make sure it's what people want the fleet to be like.

Kicking People Out

Kicking people out is one of the harder things a fleet leader has to do. Fleets generally agree on a set of rules they will follow, and the fleet leaders are responsible for enforcing those rules, whatever they are.

There are other reasons to remove people from a fleet: they are inactive too long, they are being disruptive to the fleet's gameplay and won't cooperate, they are not fitting in with the fleet.

I had one player in TSF who I had to ask to leave; he wasn't fitting in well with the fleet's general gameplay style and he was grating on people's nerves. It was causing problems within the fleet, and there hadn't been a way to resolve it. So I and another member went searching for a fleet we'd thought he'd fit well with, and asked the fleet leader there to take him on, explaining the situation. I then went to my player and let him know what we'd arranged and why. It was very rough to do, because for all his problems he'd been a loyal active fleetie, but it worked out well. He thrived in the new fleet which fit his playing style much better, and TSF all calmed down and relaxed.

Most of the time you end up kicking people because they aren't active players. TSF used to demote people once a week for inactivity - and then kick when there was no place left to demote. This had the advantage of favoring the longer, more established fleeties and giving them a long time to return, while quickly ridding the fleet of newbies who dropped the game after a week or so.

Warring

Even if you aren't a war fleet, eventually you will go to war. I would suggest FTW prepare for it, because a nice big fleet like this is always going to be a target.

If you decide the warring ways are not for you, surrender is always an option, and a lot of non-war fleets simply surrender outright. Only a fleet leader can surrender a war.

Encouraging Fleet Activity

Contests are a great way to encourage fleet activity and identity. Contests can be things like Most Onlines in a day, Making a fleet banner, or forum banners for sig files, creating the fleet page, best research improvements over a week, etc.

M1N does this very well - they give the fleet a new theme each month for everyone to play with. When I visited we were taking time at the beach; currently they went back to their original fleet design and are being haunted for halloween. G also does this well - they run experiments in gameplay and expect the entire fleet to show up and have fun.

One of the cool things with G is everyone gets a personalized G avatar. This really makes you feel part of the fleet.

Regular chatter is good too. In the shoutbox, in PMs, in an IRC chat - all help keep fleet activity high. TSF had a fleet chatroom on IRC and we used to chatter in the shoutbox a lot.

Stepping down

Not everyone wants to run a fleet forever, so it's always good to have some folks around who are likely leaders and groom them towards the leadership position. you also never know when Real Life will eat someone.

Disbanding the Fleet

Only the fleet owner can disband the fleet. It's important to note that when a fleet is disbanded the armory and vault default to the fleet leader.

I'm not sure this is as exciting as my previous Guides but I hope it is helpful in some part.