Well, that's not entirely true - I still strive to avoid all losses and maximize my own kills, like normal. But as the contract is progressing, I'm finding that our participation isn't measured in the killboard as much as usual. We're doing a lot of ops, pretty much constantly, in fact, but the kill count is actually fairly low often times. We've turned the tide of at least three fights from bombing drones, making our employers very happy, but not having anything to show for that on paper. We're saving stations, chasing off offensive SBU bashers, and much more, really driving the cost and effort of war home to CVA, with little physical evidence of our involvement. And I'm loving it.
I have kind of a weird work schedule where I work 40-46 hours a week, seven days a week, for forty-five days at a time. Then I'm off for two weeks or so, and back to another 45 days solid of work. I haven't personally been able to contribute large amounts of time to the CVA war so far, but if it continues for another week, that would change. Even so, I get to play an hour or so a night, and while that's not enough time to really partake in the festivities, I'm really enjoying this type of war we're in now. Remember, we just got done with three weeks in Delve where we harassed TEST's home-front, barely had any losses, and got many, many expensive kills. That war was fought in a completely different manner, and it had a totally different day-to-day feeling, too. This war is hectic; emergency fleets are put together only to reship a few minutes later based on a new situation emerging. The battlefield itself is chaotic, with CVAs fleets being...unpredictable, not always to their detriment. Our students are being asked to react faster, smarter, and better than they've ever been required to before.
This is definitely a war where our contribution is measured in the outcomes, not the kills, and so far we're doing amazingly well. SOUND has continued to keep their knees straight in the face of CVA, despite the opposition thinking they would be defeated quickly. Many other organizations have helped make this a reality, of course; it hasn't been us alone, not by a long shot. Dirt Nap Squad, Brave Newbies Inc., Verge of Collapse, even TEST and Goonswarm have showed up.
CVA didn't expect the war to go like this, that's for sure, and I didn't expect to measure it in the way that I am. It's been a really interesting and enlightening lesson, tracking progress by the days that SOUND still has their name on Dotlan rather than by the amount of kills we've made. The amount of kills are still part of it, of course, but to me, they're secondary.
