Retirement Advice by David McCallum #701548

A question came up in our clan chat the other day that got me thinking.


A pilot asked at what level should he have outgrown Injection Beams.


Now most of you will have an opinion on that, or at least the senior piots will have. More junior pilots will still have them in their arsenal and won't have got to the stage of asking that question. Very senior pilots will be trying to remember and will no doubt get it wrong because a combination of senility and/or drinking away the brain-cells that will have remembered that pertinent information will make it a dim distant memory.


And even if you were to ask two pilots of the relevant level, you'd get two different answers.


So how are the young pilots to know who's advice to take?


Well, the obvious answer is mine. At least its definitely better than Patrick's who can only function by a carefully balanced intake of caffeine and alcohol, the scales of which can tip from moment to moment depending on the time of day, his mood and which particularly unsavoury publication he happens to be reading at the time, and can be totally thrown out by the unexpected introduction of a cup of decaf.


Not that I've done this you understand because I'm generally a nice chap.


And honest to boot.


But I digress.


The thing is, usefulness is subjective.


I have clan mates who have come up through the ranks with me, keeping pace as we gain level after level, fighting war after war. They still cling on to that single remaining Ammonite in their lineup while I have long since relegated mine to Rainbow duty.


They cling to it like a talisman, the last vestige of something they know to be reliable in the face of the new and unknown mech models and configurations facing them.


The thing is, they aren't wrong.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it. If that Ammonite or Injection Beam is still working and doing the job in a notable fashion for them, why should they ditch it?


Success is subjective, and what works for one pilot is rubbish to another. Sometimes what works for one pilot is just the way the RNG is working while they are on.


So the best advice I can give in answer to any question about when to retire a class of gear?


It's when it feels that the time is right... and when you can handle the emotional separation.


You will know when the time is getting close because you start asking questions like the one at the start of this article.


Submitted by David McCallum #701548