Public fleets - X up!

About a month ago I got into my first Spectre fleet. That might seem odd considering that I live in a WH. But, variety is the spice of life, as they say! I ventured out to dreaded highsec and rolled the dice on a stealth bomber fleet and I had a blast. After that I x'd into a few more Spectres, each one with a different doctrine: long-range destroyers, shield BCs, a horrendously efficient hawk gang, and the amazing (but short-lived) kitchen sink. A few of my corpies also tried out different doctrines, like a blops gang. Every fleet is different, but they are all a lot of fun, and serve as a temporary reprieve to the quiet, cloistered wormhole that is our home. Spectres are NPSI - not purple, shoot it. I personally don't fire on blues, even when in an NPSI fleet, but the rest of the fleet will certainly kill them if they enter grid.

Spectre is mainly rooted in SASH., an FC-heavy corp with a long history of public fleets. Included among them are Jayne Fillon, a founder of Spectre and an accomplished FC who is also running for CSM this year. I've been in one fleet commanded by Jayne so far, and I got primary'd pretty early but it was still fun. I managed to whore onto a basi kill before I went down (yes, that's me in the gang's sole drake. SO. SHAME.)

My most successful public fleet thus far was a Spectre hawk gang. The hawks were fitted rather interestingly, and as there were 20 or so of us supported by a heavy logi squad, we were able to wipe out dozens of ships. I whored a good 30 of them, including a faction Stabber, my first Hyena (never actually saw one of those in space before), this Thorax, and a rather fail Sabre, among many others.

After that first nonstop weekend of Spectres, I started slutting around.  Spectre offers little in the AU TZ, where I am active due to being nocturnal and weird. Turns out that Redemption Roams offers a weekly "Down Under" AU fleet, and even has a few random prizes for pilots who fly with them. Sefem Velox also leads the MATE initiative with frequent AU TZ roams.

Spectre is also associated with RvB Ganked, a (usually) weekly public fleet led by longtime RvB luminary Mangala Solaris. Because their events are weekly and backed by RvB, the Ganked fleets can get pretty huge. I've flown in one, their Super Troopers roam last week. It celebrated the re-release of the Police Pursuit Comet by putting together over 150 of the frigs, combined with assorted scouts, logi, and ewar. What followed was an epic roam into Provi, Curse, and Catch, steamrolling most of what we came across until PL was finally able to stop us with a hawk gang. I managed to whore my way onto a mere 14 kills during the roam, but the fleet as a whole netted far more (whoring is a bit more difficult when flying a close-range frig). Here are some of the highlights: Damnation, Prophecy, Guardian, and a Drake. The best part was acting like retarded policeman and shitting up local with terribad cop memes and jokes.

TL;DR: Public fleets are the best, join the Spectre Fleet channel ASAP and start flying with those guys. You'll get a lot of great kills, meet cool pilots, and learn a lot about pvp. I do recommend training a broad variety of t1 ships and modules, as the pubfleets can roll out with just about anything.