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Originally Posted by Ska
At present, I'd say anyone with half a brain that can use a bcalc effectively is as good as anyone else. The people named these days are generally those who stay on the longest...as it really is draining after a while.
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I'd disagree on that. There are people who will not be as effective. eg using last round's example, I was defended against at least a few times by a small fleet of scorpions or mandrakes which was insufficient to cover me, and then 4-5 fleets of banshees, amounting to 40 or 50,000 ships. Meanwhile, the wave of xand frigates that were ahead of me and the waves that were behind me and the waves that were on galmates from the same alliance went completely uncovered.
That was pretty stupid from the DC's PoV. A lot of the time, I calc for myself any places I'm sending defence, or when I have incs. Certain DCs will always cover efficiently (this is particularly noticable with FI incs for some reason. Less skilled or experienced DCs will try to stun/kill everything in the fleet, I actually saw a planet that had 2 fleets of mirage, 2 fleets of thieves and 2 fleets of beetles headed to it where the mirage alone were enough to persuade a recall). Additionally, certain DCs will not fall for fakes easily (eg. round 14, sending just ghosts to def zik BS that was actually CR and stole all the defence), and others that will suicide insane numbers of ships.
And when there's multi class incs, especially in big fleetcatches, there are a lot of DCs that just can't handle it and throw everything at it. I remember having to get fleets containing useful defence recalled in one instance because theere were ships in the fleet that did nothing but got stolen and encouraged the attackers to land. Picking which classes/types of ship are acceptable to send is troublesome for a lot of DCs who just do not have sufficient experience or vision.
I've found it's also possible to judge what sandmans will look like the next day for my alliance judging by who has been BCing, who has been MOing and a quick check of the defence tool. When an officer can make the difference between 5-6% green or 10-20% green, there has to be something more than just using a bcalc.