Kill mails. You know ‘em. You love ‘em. You want ‘em! For a great many people in EVE it is all about the Killboard. We will race across New Eden with complete abandon for the chance to get in on a juicy capital kill mail. We will frantically unplug implants to keep them off of someone else’s kill mail. It’s all about the bragging rights which come from juicy kills and high efficiency ratings. So yeah, we love kill mails.
You know what else everyone seems to love? Logi support and fleet boosts. Time and time again we read battle reports documenting how logi support, or the lack there of turned the tide of a battle. Small gang or large fleet, the repair ships doing what they do can pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Fleet boosts can be every bit as pivotal by enabling every ship in a fleet to be better than the sum of its modules. If you have good logi and you have good boosts, it is as though Nike herself was your co-pilot.
Maybe it is time we show these philanthropic capsuleers some love. It is my firmly-held opinion that logistics support and fleet boosting should show on kill mails. I don’t know beans about the technical hocus-pocus that goes into kill mails and I don’t really care. If the guy who shoots a civilian auto cannon from 100 km off the target gets on the mail, then the logi pilot dodging incoming fire to keep the tackle alive sure as hell should! A kill mail should reflect who played a role in the battle, not just who activated an offensive module or drone.
The argument for including logi and boosters on kill mails goes beyond just fairness. Accuracy also demands we have a proper accounting of all factors involved. How many videos have we seen of amazing ‘solo’ pvp in which everyone but my aunt Bea knows at least one off grid booster is in play? A more thorough kill mail system would give much-needed perspective to after-action reports and at least keep braggarts honest. Intelligence Officers across New Eden would dance a jig at the thought of knowing the fleet they plan to engage is likely to have boosts or how many logi ships will likely need to be overcome.
Full disclosure requires I should confess to regularly flying as both fleet boosters and logi pilots. I like the challenge of flying logi and keeping my buddies alive. It feels good to know my ship had directly impact the entire engagement. Flying my off-grid booster is perfect on those nights I am too drunk to remember which button is F1. I chose to spend the significant time training into both roles, knowing at the time how kill mails are generated. Nothing was taken from me and yet, when the kills get posted in fleet and that smug-ass little ‘ceptor pilot starts crowing about yet another kill shot, somewhere in my tattered, pickled soul, a little something dies.
Let’s take a step towards a bright new future by looking into changing up the vaunted kill mail to include everyone involved. It is the right thing to do and the right time to do it.
Your Drinking Buddy,
Rupert Foulmouth
