So, it seems there is a bit of a migration happening at the moment. I found my way through to Podion a few nights ago, and there were four cyno frigates on station. Well, three after I used my alpha panther. But you get the idea.
I was there to collect a stash of crap. There were half a dozen ships and 450M of crap which had been there for about a year, collecting dust, since I moved out of NC Dot. Back then I had all my caps, save for my cheaply bought Chimera, out in Immensea. It had taken me quite a while to move alll the shit out there via wormholes, and then we were redeploying to Stain, to have a crack at some Russians because of reasons. I got sick of moving shit around in my Nidhoggur(s) and had a half-arsed go at moving the crap out of null. So there it was in Podion.
Seems that there's a lot of people doing the exact same thing, punching out massive numbers of jumps of cap ships before the 4th of November. In the hour I was in Podion, there were no fewer than 30 carrier jumps, and 4 dread jumps, plus a JF or two. A lot of activity half an hour before downtime as nullbears rationalise their existence and get the logistics sorted before Phoebe drops and they can only do it twice a week.
I think that by and large the player base has come to terms with this. Like a band-aid being ripped off quickly, the paain is gone now. Indeed, the majority of people who are at least semi-active will have made their decisions.
You can also see this in sov changes. Brothers of Tangra has been rationalised - 50+ systems and 3,500 scrubby botlords were handed over to Shadow of xXDeathXx holus bolus last week, comprising a few constellations in the Dronelands and several corporations. There's theories that these AFK neckbeards are just abandoning sov and packing up to highsec to avoid the jump changes and the decrease of utility in access to highsec, but I'd be wary of assuming that losing a few hundred rental peons and changing sov and corporations between allliances correlates directly with organisations abanddoning far-flung space.
From what I've seen, as I lurk these areas for the upcoming murderfest, there is still a lot of industry going on in these areas. It is overstating things to say that it's now impossible to live out there - after all, if you can produce 1,000 Garde II's a month, what else do you need to carrier rat 23.75/7? You have virtually no consumables beyond POS fuel and topes, and there are ice belts. Ice belts that are heavily raided and farmed, mind you, so I don't see a lack of local supply.
For the non-carrier ratters, a couple of industry guys with a BPO can supply T1 ammo fairly effectively. Ships can be a bit more of an issue, but again, not impossible. The difficulty of just buying them in jita and using a shopping and carting service provied by your alliance or corp logistician is maybe worse than it was before - but if it's truly abysmal, then in theory you have two options: produce locally or use a wormhole. The first option is what CCP wants to see in nullsec, clearly - organisations producing locally and consuming locally and fighting locally, not having 80% of toons existing in highsec to drive the sinews of nullsec.
Without a doubt, there are large ructions underway. Just looking at some of the Dotlan behaviour recently:
Brothers of Tangra. 350 systems to 144 and falling; 12K members to 5,500.
Shadow of xXDEATHXx. Recieved the majority of those losses via the transfer.
Greater Western Co-Prospecrity Sphere. Definite trimming of the ranks going on.
There is also a general increase in interest in w-space, due to the buffing of blue poo, addition of nullsec relic and data to C1, C2 and C3 space, the above-mentioned nerf to supercaps online, and so on. BUGRY is seeing a lot of new join requests, some from spais and clearly unsuitable dweebs, and others more genuine and honest. It is definitely good. It will be interesting to see if this is a sustained population icnrease or if it will ebb and flow, because what has happened over the past 3 months in w-space is likely to be what happens to nullsec: people panic, throw the toys from the cot, move out, find that life is not better and grass is not greener, and then return to their old ways and old haunts. We shall see - after all, migrations happen on instinct, not by organisation.
Thursday, 30 October 2014
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
C4 Wolf-Rayet Ratting with Enyos
Here's my very first YouTube video.
Theoretically, we should be able to get this down to 8 or 8.5 minutes per site. With the new (slight) buff to blue poo income this should be about 100-120M per hour per toon if you use 4 Enyo's and 2 Guardians and the Enyo's have MWD's, with the Guardians positioning themselves properly. Unlike in the video, where it was more or less "let's see if we can do it".
Sig on the Guardian is 269 with MWD on, taking into account the W-R effects. 23 on the Enyo without MWD, and 123 with. This is a survivable level of damage application from the Sleepers, even accounting for the poor piloting skills (ie; lack of transversal) in evidence.
Fits:
Theoretically, we should be able to get this down to 8 or 8.5 minutes per site. With the new (slight) buff to blue poo income this should be about 100-120M per hour per toon if you use 4 Enyo's and 2 Guardians and the Enyo's have MWD's, with the Guardians positioning themselves properly. Unlike in the video, where it was more or less "let's see if we can do it".
Sig on the Guardian is 269 with MWD on, taking into account the W-R effects. 23 on the Enyo without MWD, and 123 with. This is a survivable level of damage application from the Sleepers, even accounting for the poor piloting skills (ie; lack of transversal) in evidence.
Fits:
[Enyo, Sig Tank]
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Dark Blood Adaptive Nano Plating
Centii C-Type Explosive Plating
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator II
Small Hybrid Ambit Extension I
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Dark Blood Adaptive Nano Plating
Centii C-Type Explosive Plating
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Light Ion Blaster II, Void S
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator II
Small Hybrid Ambit Extension I
Hobgoblin II
[Guardian, Wolf MWD]
Damage Control II
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Corpii A-Type Thermic Plating
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Reactor Control Unit II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Large 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Large 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Damage Control II
800mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Corpii A-Type Thermic Plating
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Reactor Control Unit II
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Large 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Large 'Regard' Remote Capacitor Transmitter
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Large 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Hobgoblin II x 5
We will try this out with dualprop Augorors in the near future.
Sunday, 26 October 2014
The Boondocks
I have a job to do at the far edges of the k--space map. It involves a murder, some capitals, and a Panther.
In real life, one thing I learned as a geologist, managing drilling programs with budgets of $13M per annum, is that scheduling and logistics are as important as having a plan (or in the case of mineral exploration, a target to test). I became pretty good at project management, scheduling, and organising. I also have a knack for finding unconventional ways of getting the drill down to target.
In EVE, for the current project (which I won't get into details on, sekrit skwerls), because it can only really kick off after Phoebe drops, the incoming jump changes and mobility nerf for capitalss and BLOPS fleets puts a bit of a barrier in front of my scheme.
Our target(s) live at the literal edge of the EVE maap and we all live in a C4. Its not really a big problem getting out of the C4 on any given day, it just requires a clean clone and 2 minutes. We even suicide pod ourselves at the Alter of Bob anchored within the sun in our wormhole. That way our corpses become sacrifices to Bob, and we scream the prayer as the suicide timer ticks down to zero.
Getting from lowsec to the target system, Dotlan says, requires 5 BLOPs bridges. Or 45 k-space jumps. Or maybe a combination of the two. Or maybe a wormhole.
Doing it all via BLOPs will be, post-Phoebe, just as time consuming (on average) as taking gates. It will however, maintain the intel blackout for the enemy more effectively than banging through 45 jumps. It won't be very good to get all the way out there and suffer jump fatigue on the vinegar stroke. It also requires 5 alts to be in position with Cyno 5 and appropriate ships, which is a nightmare to organise.
Doing it all via gates is possible. Hoofing 45 jumps through nullsec in a T3 / Bomber / BLOPs fleet isn't impossible given the location, the people who live there, and the fuel, fatigue and other impediments to portal and jump movement. The problem begins in the last 5 jumps before the target, wwhich are all bubbled to hell and back. You may be getting an idea of what this project entails, by now.
Nullified T3's, ceptors and MWD-fit bombers are the go, for getting through bubbles.
But most importantly, and my preference, would be to find a N943 to lowsec, somewhere, and just carve 40 nullsec jumps off the whole thing. The problem of course being that wormholes aren't reliable conduits, despite being perfect for clandestine movement between k-space regions.
i have even considered finding a K346 hole and locking the fleet inside and ragerolling it into the general vicinity of the target. In a way this may be just as effective.
The problem with all this? I really want to bring a Nag. This is because when Phoebe drops, a key element of carebear defence of their -1.0 upgraded bear dens will be essentially neutralised because caps will be able to take gate. Having a cyno jammer in system will stop a hotdrop, but not stop someone who cynoes into the system nextdoor and jumps gate like a scrub.
So, this is my challenge. Mathematically work out a route for a nullified T3 fleet to get 45 jumps into deep backwoods Carebearistan, with or without a BLOPs component to the travel, and somehow get a murder of nags into position in case of success.
The tradeoff studies commence.
In real life, one thing I learned as a geologist, managing drilling programs with budgets of $13M per annum, is that scheduling and logistics are as important as having a plan (or in the case of mineral exploration, a target to test). I became pretty good at project management, scheduling, and organising. I also have a knack for finding unconventional ways of getting the drill down to target.
In EVE, for the current project (which I won't get into details on, sekrit skwerls), because it can only really kick off after Phoebe drops, the incoming jump changes and mobility nerf for capitalss and BLOPS fleets puts a bit of a barrier in front of my scheme.
Our target(s) live at the literal edge of the EVE maap and we all live in a C4. Its not really a big problem getting out of the C4 on any given day, it just requires a clean clone and 2 minutes. We even suicide pod ourselves at the Alter of Bob anchored within the sun in our wormhole. That way our corpses become sacrifices to Bob, and we scream the prayer as the suicide timer ticks down to zero.
Getting from lowsec to the target system, Dotlan says, requires 5 BLOPs bridges. Or 45 k-space jumps. Or maybe a combination of the two. Or maybe a wormhole.
Doing it all via BLOPs will be, post-Phoebe, just as time consuming (on average) as taking gates. It will however, maintain the intel blackout for the enemy more effectively than banging through 45 jumps. It won't be very good to get all the way out there and suffer jump fatigue on the vinegar stroke. It also requires 5 alts to be in position with Cyno 5 and appropriate ships, which is a nightmare to organise.
Doing it all via gates is possible. Hoofing 45 jumps through nullsec in a T3 / Bomber / BLOPs fleet isn't impossible given the location, the people who live there, and the fuel, fatigue and other impediments to portal and jump movement. The problem begins in the last 5 jumps before the target, wwhich are all bubbled to hell and back. You may be getting an idea of what this project entails, by now.
Nullified T3's, ceptors and MWD-fit bombers are the go, for getting through bubbles.
But most importantly, and my preference, would be to find a N943 to lowsec, somewhere, and just carve 40 nullsec jumps off the whole thing. The problem of course being that wormholes aren't reliable conduits, despite being perfect for clandestine movement between k-space regions.
i have even considered finding a K346 hole and locking the fleet inside and ragerolling it into the general vicinity of the target. In a way this may be just as effective.
The problem with all this? I really want to bring a Nag. This is because when Phoebe drops, a key element of carebear defence of their -1.0 upgraded bear dens will be essentially neutralised because caps will be able to take gate. Having a cyno jammer in system will stop a hotdrop, but not stop someone who cynoes into the system nextdoor and jumps gate like a scrub.
So, this is my challenge. Mathematically work out a route for a nullified T3 fleet to get 45 jumps into deep backwoods Carebearistan, with or without a BLOPs component to the travel, and somehow get a murder of nags into position in case of success.
The tradeoff studies commence.
Saturday, 25 October 2014
The Long Game
One thing which fascinates me about EVE is that you can play the game at three paces simultaneously - the short game, medium game and long game.
The majority of the time you play the mid-term game; resourcing, logistics, petty day-to-days. This is fascinating in and of itself, and here I put in PVE in all it's forms, and industry. PI, for example, you do for mid-term goals such as affording a new PLEX, or a new ship, or saving versus a rainy day. You may not know what the rainy day is yet, but you save for it. This includes, incidentally, skill queues etc.
Some of the time you play the short game; tactics, PVP, marketing. This is the most exciting part, obviously, mid-term game that you've been playing for days, weeks or months to get whaat you need to get in order to do PVP, you couldn't really PVP. Not outside of noob ships.
When you get up to the level of bittervet (it's an official rite of passage whining on the forums) you get to play the Long Game. This is the engine room of content creation, emergent game play, diplomacy, wholesale spying and insertion of rogue elements into foreign entities to gather intelligence. This is the game you play in nullsec, we are told.
But, honestly, the boiler room of the Long Game is really the wormhole environment. You hear about people plotting super kills in nullsec for a month? Well, in w-space, feuds last several years. People seed caps into wormholes a month ahead of schedule. Corporations and members plot betrayals over the course of months, and execute them on command.
People camp systems for shinies, for capitals, for ganks regularly. Literally at any time, BUGRY has 2-3 alts camping various bear dens, just in case. I have a couple of corps, entire corps, on watchlist, gathering behavioural patterns and noting them down in logs, to hopefully map out the golden time to seed a cloaky fleet for a gank on a weekend.
But sometimes, just sometimes, you play the Long Game solo. Like when your alt gets trapped in a wormhole. This tips the intel gathering process on its head, and so you stay logged out all weekend and gather intel on watchlists, and you discover 17 toons really are only 3 guys. You discover that they all sign in prime Russia time, and only then.
So, plans to tip over at least 2 POSs on Tuesday. Or at least get the second into armour, so they can't unanchor it without significant logi humping, which I don't know that they will do.
Gambaratsu!
The majority of the time you play the mid-term game; resourcing, logistics, petty day-to-days. This is fascinating in and of itself, and here I put in PVE in all it's forms, and industry. PI, for example, you do for mid-term goals such as affording a new PLEX, or a new ship, or saving versus a rainy day. You may not know what the rainy day is yet, but you save for it. This includes, incidentally, skill queues etc.
Some of the time you play the short game; tactics, PVP, marketing. This is the most exciting part, obviously, mid-term game that you've been playing for days, weeks or months to get whaat you need to get in order to do PVP, you couldn't really PVP. Not outside of noob ships.
When you get up to the level of bittervet (it's an official rite of passage whining on the forums) you get to play the Long Game. This is the engine room of content creation, emergent game play, diplomacy, wholesale spying and insertion of rogue elements into foreign entities to gather intelligence. This is the game you play in nullsec, we are told.
But, honestly, the boiler room of the Long Game is really the wormhole environment. You hear about people plotting super kills in nullsec for a month? Well, in w-space, feuds last several years. People seed caps into wormholes a month ahead of schedule. Corporations and members plot betrayals over the course of months, and execute them on command.
People camp systems for shinies, for capitals, for ganks regularly. Literally at any time, BUGRY has 2-3 alts camping various bear dens, just in case. I have a couple of corps, entire corps, on watchlist, gathering behavioural patterns and noting them down in logs, to hopefully map out the golden time to seed a cloaky fleet for a gank on a weekend.
But sometimes, just sometimes, you play the Long Game solo. Like when your alt gets trapped in a wormhole. This tips the intel gathering process on its head, and so you stay logged out all weekend and gather intel on watchlists, and you discover 17 toons really are only 3 guys. You discover that they all sign in prime Russia time, and only then.
So, plans to tip over at least 2 POSs on Tuesday. Or at least get the second into armour, so they can't unanchor it without significant logi humping, which I don't know that they will do.
Gambaratsu!
Thursday, 23 October 2014
Groundhog Day
I logged Miskoranda out in the C4 after blapping the tower. The killmail shows 2.9M damage because the shooting dragged on past downtime. So, off to bed I went wondering what the response of Eaters of Planets EVE would be?
Would they online all the other blocking towers? Would they put guns up? Would they be online?
No, they'll jimmy up another small Amarr tower in exactly the same spot as the dead one, and I'd get another chance to blow it up, unopposed.
So, it has begun again, AFK dozering the blocking tower out of the way for the second day in a row.
I've let as many people know to keep an eye out for J111009; hopefully a can with a probe launcher will arrive, or someone will hop into Beggars Bowl channel that has found their way in, and I'll get a way out. Or indeed a way in.
Because I am now interested in how many of these towers I can topple before they kill me or someone else kills me. I'm estimating...4.
Would they online all the other blocking towers? Would they put guns up? Would they be online?
No, they'll jimmy up another small Amarr tower in exactly the same spot as the dead one, and I'd get another chance to blow it up, unopposed.
So, it has begun again, AFK dozering the blocking tower out of the way for the second day in a row.
I've let as many people know to keep an eye out for J111009; hopefully a can with a probe launcher will arrive, or someone will hop into Beggars Bowl channel that has found their way in, and I'll get a way out. Or indeed a way in.
Because I am now interested in how many of these towers I can topple before they kill me or someone else kills me. I'm estimating...4.
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
J111009
I done fucked up. I packed everything into my collapsing Geddon except the actual probe launcher. I've got the probes, got the depot. But no launcher.
The good thing about this, if there is in fact a Good Thing, is that the residents are Russians and have jimmied up small placeholder towers on all the moons. So, in a Geddon with Curator IIs, I have begun AFK bashing said POS sticks and, within a few hours, will have some solo POS kills.
The Geddon is already dead to me, unless someone rolls in and is feeling generous (hint: at least find me a probe launcher!), or I manage to find my way back in eventually. So, worst case scenario the local sign on and gank me. Or randoms gank me. Or i farm a half dozen dead sticks in the next few days and SD.
The good thing about this, if there is in fact a Good Thing, is that the residents are Russians and have jimmied up small placeholder towers on all the moons. So, in a Geddon with Curator IIs, I have begun AFK bashing said POS sticks and, within a few hours, will have some solo POS kills.
The Geddon is already dead to me, unless someone rolls in and is feeling generous (hint: at least find me a probe launcher!), or I manage to find my way back in eventually. So, worst case scenario the local sign on and gank me. Or randoms gank me. Or i farm a half dozen dead sticks in the next few days and SD.
Prolapse. [TBGRL]
So, i started an Alliance, more as something to achieve than any great plans to dominate EVE or be super-elite. I went with the theme of all wormhole alliances, being a play upon words relating to holes. Loosely, one may say.
I'm not exactly sure, but I think if we have 100 members and have been around as an alliance for 12 months I can make an Alliance logo, which I'm thinking is either a rainbow fountain, a bathtub, or a pink sock.
You know, because of reasons.
Prolapse. will also allow me to spread the good word of Bob via anchoring TCU's via my alt corp, Unknown Monument Archaeology Division throughout wormhole space, in odd locations and inconvenient spots. Often this will be achieved as a mechanism for gathering corpses and pew pew, for the TCU will show up like a beacon on Overview after it's anchored. This, when deployed in front of people who you want to fight, may draw them in to a trap.
We shall see.
What is certain is that Prolapse. will turn holes inside out looking for PVP.
I'm not exactly sure, but I think if we have 100 members and have been around as an alliance for 12 months I can make an Alliance logo, which I'm thinking is either a rainbow fountain, a bathtub, or a pink sock.
You know, because of reasons.
Prolapse. will also allow me to spread the good word of Bob via anchoring TCU's via my alt corp, Unknown Monument Archaeology Division throughout wormhole space, in odd locations and inconvenient spots. Often this will be achieved as a mechanism for gathering corpses and pew pew, for the TCU will show up like a beacon on Overview after it's anchored. This, when deployed in front of people who you want to fight, may draw them in to a trap.
We shall see.
What is certain is that Prolapse. will turn holes inside out looking for PVP.
Sunday, 19 October 2014
Flights of the Planet Dollaz 4
I have recently recruited a couple of guys whose mains are in the CFC and who are bored shitless. So they've stuck their alts in BUGRY to soak up the Aussie TZ presence and relaxed derring-do atmosphere.
Day One activites for one guy involved 3 T3 kills and flying the Execquror properly for the first time ever. Day two involved learning wormhole mindgames and ganking a few things.
The other guy tonight learned the mystique of the Planet Dollaz tonight, as he jumped in from highsec in his scanning Anathema and reported a Stratios camping the highsec. Not unusual, but definitely doable. Previous encounters with neuting drone boats have been suboptimal for the ancestors of the current Planet Dollaz, but I was encouraged by one previous encounter where I fought a Stratios to a standstill, Geckos and neuts and all, and cracked his tank, solo. Would have been an impressive kill, but I capped out. Nevertheless, i decided to go in.
Phase one was of course to do a run past the camp out the B274; wait a minute as if dropping off loads of blue poo I'd been farming, and then come back. The Stratios bit on the second run, and did what you'd expect; webbing me up and bumping me off while his neuts fucked my capacitor over.
The Nos did it's job, just barely. I got one cycle of web and scram off on the Stratios as my support was landing. I jumped my Protato in from hisec (this is the one which got Goat Sects it's KB; it has been a museum piece gathering dust on it's c. 1.8B hull) and we all added webs, neuts, DPS, and popped the hostile Stratios. Killmail was fruity to say the least.
That's not a bad bit from a late night logistic run as a new bro hauls his ships in to the C4.
Then of course, the hapless victim comes back, rage-undocking a Proteus, deploying his anemic cloaky Tengu alt on the B274 to nibble ineffectually away at my Proteus for ever and ever (4% armour damage after 6 minutes; 3 more minutes to chew through an Enyo's negligible buffer) and he gathered his forced, including a Raven.
So, what do you do when you've been baited by the Planet Dollaz?
Day One activites for one guy involved 3 T3 kills and flying the Execquror properly for the first time ever. Day two involved learning wormhole mindgames and ganking a few things.
The other guy tonight learned the mystique of the Planet Dollaz tonight, as he jumped in from highsec in his scanning Anathema and reported a Stratios camping the highsec. Not unusual, but definitely doable. Previous encounters with neuting drone boats have been suboptimal for the ancestors of the current Planet Dollaz, but I was encouraged by one previous encounter where I fought a Stratios to a standstill, Geckos and neuts and all, and cracked his tank, solo. Would have been an impressive kill, but I capped out. Nevertheless, i decided to go in.
Phase one was of course to do a run past the camp out the B274; wait a minute as if dropping off loads of blue poo I'd been farming, and then come back. The Stratios bit on the second run, and did what you'd expect; webbing me up and bumping me off while his neuts fucked my capacitor over.
The Nos did it's job, just barely. I got one cycle of web and scram off on the Stratios as my support was landing. I jumped my Protato in from hisec (this is the one which got Goat Sects it's KB; it has been a museum piece gathering dust on it's c. 1.8B hull) and we all added webs, neuts, DPS, and popped the hostile Stratios. Killmail was fruity to say the least.
That's not a bad bit from a late night logistic run as a new bro hauls his ships in to the C4.
Then of course, the hapless victim comes back, rage-undocking a Proteus, deploying his anemic cloaky Tengu alt on the B274 to nibble ineffectually away at my Proteus for ever and ever (4% armour damage after 6 minutes; 3 more minutes to chew through an Enyo's negligible buffer) and he gathered his forced, including a Raven.
So, what do you do when you've been baited by the Planet Dollaz?
Rhea-lly Cool
The announcement at EVE Vegas, including concept art, for T3 Destroyers (aka Tactical Destroyers) in Rhea (the December update) piques the interest.
The idea is the T3 Destroyers have three modes; a tanking, manouvre and sniping mode.
It makes a lot more sense than T3 Frigates, because right now there's basically only a handful of the T1, T2 and pirate frigates which see any widespread use solo, or in wormholes. In J-space you cannot go very far past the Astero, with an AAR, or maybe a bomber, covops for probing (but not combat). You rarely see much else, in the frigate sphere. This is because (with the proviso you wish to cloak) you realistically cannot get more tank and DPS out of a frigate than the Astero; bombers are good on DPS but terrible with tanking, and covops are just outmatched in the DPS department, and can't really fit the lowslot tanks to make AAR's work.
A tech-3 frigate with 5 subsystems would be too costly, and if it had the tank to protect the ISK sunk into the subs, it would be far too powerful in comparison to even T1 cruisers. This is probably one reason that we have T3 Destroyers and not T3 frigates.
Given there's no cloaky destroyer, and destroyers have a stupidly large signature and barely more EHP than frigates, there's little use to put them to in wormholes. This is even given the addition of frigate holes, which are properly destroyer holes. There are a few souls who run RR Algos in C1's, and I've seen the odd gank Cat in W-R holes, but beyond that nothing.
The whole idea of frigate wormholes is to provide more options to wormhole dwellers than the typical T3 and Guardian blobs. The problem as above is that there's not really a lot you can do with frigs and dessies that satisfy the need for tank and gank in brawling. Even our punchy Enyo doctrine struggles because they aren't that tanky, and T1 logi frigs are anything but tanky. So we have struggled to make a coherent doctrine to take through frig holes to attack people.
Thus, I am interested to see exactly how ganky the T3 Destroyers are; how tanky they are in tank mode; what their manouvre mode allows them to do, and whether they have any hope of fitting or getting bonused EWAR. This bodes well for frig hole assault doctrines, giving such mass-constrained gangs the ability - perhaps - to take on larger ships like Rattlesnakes, marauders, etcetera.
The Tug? What a ridiculous punching bag suicide gank target. it'll be fantastic watching a whole Tug full of pimped Nightmares getting suicided on the Niarja gate. Because fuck me, if CCP think pandering to the mealy-mouthed mewling cockbag incursion bears via putting this in the game is smart? Bring on the Talos ganks!
The idea is the T3 Destroyers have three modes; a tanking, manouvre and sniping mode.
It makes a lot more sense than T3 Frigates, because right now there's basically only a handful of the T1, T2 and pirate frigates which see any widespread use solo, or in wormholes. In J-space you cannot go very far past the Astero, with an AAR, or maybe a bomber, covops for probing (but not combat). You rarely see much else, in the frigate sphere. This is because (with the proviso you wish to cloak) you realistically cannot get more tank and DPS out of a frigate than the Astero; bombers are good on DPS but terrible with tanking, and covops are just outmatched in the DPS department, and can't really fit the lowslot tanks to make AAR's work.
A tech-3 frigate with 5 subsystems would be too costly, and if it had the tank to protect the ISK sunk into the subs, it would be far too powerful in comparison to even T1 cruisers. This is probably one reason that we have T3 Destroyers and not T3 frigates.
Given there's no cloaky destroyer, and destroyers have a stupidly large signature and barely more EHP than frigates, there's little use to put them to in wormholes. This is even given the addition of frigate holes, which are properly destroyer holes. There are a few souls who run RR Algos in C1's, and I've seen the odd gank Cat in W-R holes, but beyond that nothing.
The whole idea of frigate wormholes is to provide more options to wormhole dwellers than the typical T3 and Guardian blobs. The problem as above is that there's not really a lot you can do with frigs and dessies that satisfy the need for tank and gank in brawling. Even our punchy Enyo doctrine struggles because they aren't that tanky, and T1 logi frigs are anything but tanky. So we have struggled to make a coherent doctrine to take through frig holes to attack people.
Thus, I am interested to see exactly how ganky the T3 Destroyers are; how tanky they are in tank mode; what their manouvre mode allows them to do, and whether they have any hope of fitting or getting bonused EWAR. This bodes well for frig hole assault doctrines, giving such mass-constrained gangs the ability - perhaps - to take on larger ships like Rattlesnakes, marauders, etcetera.
The Tug? What a ridiculous punching bag suicide gank target. it'll be fantastic watching a whole Tug full of pimped Nightmares getting suicided on the Niarja gate. Because fuck me, if CCP think pandering to the mealy-mouthed mewling cockbag incursion bears via putting this in the game is smart? Bring on the Talos ganks!
Saturday, 18 October 2014
Ode to Santo
Santo Trafficante is a legend. I am nowhere near his level of evil expertise at podding and farming pod goo. However the Phoebe expansion will see Nullsec Data and Relic sites put into Class 1 through Class 3 wormholes. This will see an influx - hopefully - of Herons, Imicii and Magnates with warp stabs, cloaks and nanos who will book it the moment anything decloaks. Let's be honest, 5 seconds plus lock time is far too long to get a point on anything with a 3s or less align time. I've had success with dual-point Vigils in lowsec, but I have always wanted to use a smartbombing Proteus like Santo to farm pods as well as these annoying little fucks raiding Data and Radars.
Today's maiden voyage of the Dick Virus saw me trace an imicus to the N766 in its wormhole, whereupon i figured he'd warp at 100, and duly so did I. I de-cloaked, ran the bombs and as if by magic a wreck and then a pod appeared.
Bueno!
Fit below. Of course, faction (let alone officer) bombs are best but....700M, not in wormholes mate.
Today's maiden voyage of the Dick Virus saw me trace an imicus to the N766 in its wormhole, whereupon i figured he'd warp at 100, and duly so did I. I de-cloaked, ran the bombs and as if by magic a wreck and then a pod appeared.
Bueno!
Fit below. Of course, faction (let alone officer) bombs are best but....700M, not in wormholes mate.
[Proteus, Dick Virus]
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II
Reactor Control Unit II
Imperial Navy Energized Explosive Membrane
Damage Control II
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 800
Warp Scrambler II
Sensor Booster II, Scan Resolution Script
Large 'Vehemence' Shockwave Charge
Large 'Vehemence' Shockwave Charge
Large 'Vehemence' Shockwave Charge
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Large 'Vehemence' Shockwave Charge
Large 'Vehemence' Shockwave Charge
Medium Ancillary Current Router II
Medium Ancillary Current Router II
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Proteus Engineering - Power Core Multiplier
Proteus Defensive - Augmented Plating
Proteus Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Proteus Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Proteus Propulsion - Localized Injectors
Thursday, 16 October 2014
Siggy Stats
According to Siggy, between my toons, in the last week i've mapped out 120 wormhole systems, so let's say 240 for the month to date. I have gathered 48 kills in w-space. This averages out, for argument's sakes, at about one kill per three wormholes I explore.
Accounting for the fact I am not the only person in corp, nor the coalition of Swift Buggery, it's fair to say we should triple that, to one per nine systems.
That i am aware of, in the past 2 weeks we have had 3 visitors entering our hole, resulting in one Geddon loss.
This was the first loss to combat in 2.5 months.
Wormholes are, on average, very safe. So I don't know what anyone's talking about, and why you wouldn't move in and just go about your business.
We've started running sites without hole control. We aren't going to get fights any other way, clearly.
Accounting for the fact I am not the only person in corp, nor the coalition of Swift Buggery, it's fair to say we should triple that, to one per nine systems.
That i am aware of, in the past 2 weeks we have had 3 visitors entering our hole, resulting in one Geddon loss.
This was the first loss to combat in 2.5 months.
Wormholes are, on average, very safe. So I don't know what anyone's talking about, and why you wouldn't move in and just go about your business.
We've started running sites without hole control. We aren't going to get fights any other way, clearly.
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Sentrytero
Every so often you encounter a small POS wth no guns. Often these are the temporary pup tent camping spots of itinerant nomadic farmers; somewhere to safely AFK or somewhere to refit. You only need a DST or an Orca at most, and it can fit a small stick, a few weeks of fuel, and perhaps the odd bit of infrastructure. You can fit a few guns and a dissy into an Orca for this kind of adventure, but often it's not neccessary because it won't deter a serious attack anyway. In the least, this is somewhere to cool your heels without needing a cloak.
Often better things to do prevent you from testing these defenceless and temporary little sticks for stront; every so often the theory goes, someone will fuck up and not put in stront. Mostly, we aren't that bored.
However, last night we had been watching the owner of one of these things go about his very nubbish business in our static C2 and he had stored up his Orca and logged off. So, with nothing better to do an hour before downtime, we set about testing it for stront.
It had none, so we blapped the POS (sentry Astero ftw) and farmed the structures. Not noted is the compression, equipment, intensive refining array and ammo assembly array which we scooped, but alas the Orca didn't drop from the SMA.
Best of all, old mate signed in at the POS with 10% structure remaining on it, and sat in his pod. Final blow was the Sentrytero with a Garde II, which was most hilarious.
We rolled the N766 and hopped in to the next system, and on scan was a Nemesis, Viator, some shuttles, 6 enormous freight containers and another compression array. So we scooped these, and left.
Weird shit.
Often better things to do prevent you from testing these defenceless and temporary little sticks for stront; every so often the theory goes, someone will fuck up and not put in stront. Mostly, we aren't that bored.
However, last night we had been watching the owner of one of these things go about his very nubbish business in our static C2 and he had stored up his Orca and logged off. So, with nothing better to do an hour before downtime, we set about testing it for stront.
It had none, so we blapped the POS (sentry Astero ftw) and farmed the structures. Not noted is the compression, equipment, intensive refining array and ammo assembly array which we scooped, but alas the Orca didn't drop from the SMA.
Best of all, old mate signed in at the POS with 10% structure remaining on it, and sat in his pod. Final blow was the Sentrytero with a Garde II, which was most hilarious.
We rolled the N766 and hopped in to the next system, and on scan was a Nemesis, Viator, some shuttles, 6 enormous freight containers and another compression array. So we scooped these, and left.
Weird shit.
Monday, 13 October 2014
The Fifth Column
SWIFT keeps getting wardecs. I think it is partly to do with the exposure they get via running the MATE roam, talking on the EvVE Downunder podcast every week, and generally being an Alliance.
Wardecs for wormhole corps are basically a waste of time for the aggressors, unless the have a way in to the wormhole or a spy inserted, etcetera and so forth. Anyone who has half a brain and a spare couple of weeks of character training can and indeed should prepare an out of corp hauling alt, and use this little shitheel to haul in fuel, ammo and victuals for their POS. This means you can efficiently hole up in a wormhole for a week, month, or even longer, without ever giving the aggressor a kill.
However, due to the poor state of wormhole excitement at the moment, SWIFT is actively engaging their various aggressors. Due to being a trollish douche and a friend, BUGRY is coming along to ensure that hisec remains a lame place to fight. This is of course despite the fact I suck at station games.
Phase one of the douchery was probing down the aggressor's boosting Tengu at his safespot, allowing SWIFT to gank it. Sadly, what was thought to be an ASB loki baiting a Prophecy on station turned out not to be, and got capped and died. This nominally put the aggressors ahead in the war, but it's only day one.
Phase two was deployed last night, which involved using another BUGRY toon, this time to provide neutral bumps. Because if you are a highsec wardec corp, you of course sit at zero on a gate and don't move. The WT's had 2 bricked up Proteus and 2 Guardians. Once the bump was effected, SWIFT jumped in and began the pew pew, and the WT's warped in their Guardians...at zero.
Of course, that didn't go so well due to an Armageddon on field, and it also didn't help that as soon as the Guardian began bleeding structure some douche suicided a Catalyst onto it.
Q.Q began in Local, accusing us of being neutral RR. Because of course, they can't tell when people bring their own logi cruisers. This is also piqquant coming from a guy who puts his alt into corp 20 minutes before the engagement, and then loses the alt's Guardian because he warps it in at zero.
Believe me, there will be neutral logi at some point but old TF has a whole shitload of dirty tricks up his sleeve to trial yet, and going for neutral Logi is well down the list.
The problem, of course, is that the wardec in hisec recipe is fairly simple, even considering there's a chance of neutral logi, which we'll be ready for if the foe employs its own.
You just use a pair of bricked, DPS Proteus, a pair of Guardians, and play the jump gate or docking timer crap and you reasonably ought not to lose as long as you stay homosexually close to your escape hatches. However, it will be interesting to see if they spread the war to BUGRY eventually or can put up with the shenannigans.
In the end, on the way back from teabagging these poor fools, I landed on our highsec entry and saw an Orca sitting there. He jumped in, depite my Anathema sitting there, and I yammered loud and incredulously enough to get the fleet back to destroy him. Another round of Nishin Maru Employee Of The Month.
Then of course, it was time for the bad jokes.
Dex: "Why did he have the compression array?"
TF: "Well, he was trying to crush the hole."
*rimshot*
Wardecs for wormhole corps are basically a waste of time for the aggressors, unless the have a way in to the wormhole or a spy inserted, etcetera and so forth. Anyone who has half a brain and a spare couple of weeks of character training can and indeed should prepare an out of corp hauling alt, and use this little shitheel to haul in fuel, ammo and victuals for their POS. This means you can efficiently hole up in a wormhole for a week, month, or even longer, without ever giving the aggressor a kill.
However, due to the poor state of wormhole excitement at the moment, SWIFT is actively engaging their various aggressors. Due to being a trollish douche and a friend, BUGRY is coming along to ensure that hisec remains a lame place to fight. This is of course despite the fact I suck at station games.
Phase one of the douchery was probing down the aggressor's boosting Tengu at his safespot, allowing SWIFT to gank it. Sadly, what was thought to be an ASB loki baiting a Prophecy on station turned out not to be, and got capped and died. This nominally put the aggressors ahead in the war, but it's only day one.
Phase two was deployed last night, which involved using another BUGRY toon, this time to provide neutral bumps. Because if you are a highsec wardec corp, you of course sit at zero on a gate and don't move. The WT's had 2 bricked up Proteus and 2 Guardians. Once the bump was effected, SWIFT jumped in and began the pew pew, and the WT's warped in their Guardians...at zero.
Of course, that didn't go so well due to an Armageddon on field, and it also didn't help that as soon as the Guardian began bleeding structure some douche suicided a Catalyst onto it.
Q.Q began in Local, accusing us of being neutral RR. Because of course, they can't tell when people bring their own logi cruisers. This is also piqquant coming from a guy who puts his alt into corp 20 minutes before the engagement, and then loses the alt's Guardian because he warps it in at zero.
Believe me, there will be neutral logi at some point but old TF has a whole shitload of dirty tricks up his sleeve to trial yet, and going for neutral Logi is well down the list.
The problem, of course, is that the wardec in hisec recipe is fairly simple, even considering there's a chance of neutral logi, which we'll be ready for if the foe employs its own.
You just use a pair of bricked, DPS Proteus, a pair of Guardians, and play the jump gate or docking timer crap and you reasonably ought not to lose as long as you stay homosexually close to your escape hatches. However, it will be interesting to see if they spread the war to BUGRY eventually or can put up with the shenannigans.
In the end, on the way back from teabagging these poor fools, I landed on our highsec entry and saw an Orca sitting there. He jumped in, depite my Anathema sitting there, and I yammered loud and incredulously enough to get the fleet back to destroy him. Another round of Nishin Maru Employee Of The Month.
Then of course, it was time for the bad jokes.
Dex: "Why did he have the compression array?"
TF: "Well, he was trying to crush the hole."
*rimshot*
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Nishin Maru Employee Of The Month
Decorations. In EVE, corporations can award medals for reasons. What those reasons are, and how the citation is written and for what it is awarded is of course up to the infinitude of human thought and ingenuity. In Sudden Buggery, we choose to award not only incredible badassery via awarding the Order of Podomy, but more often than not we award the morederpish of achievements perpetrated by our members. I invite you to search for and chuckle over the citations gathered by members current and former.
Currently, one of the the most awarded citations is the Nishin Maru Employee of The Month, which is awarded to those who scientifically cull Orcas for their whale blubber. Today Darth Bex and Miskoranda achieved this illustrious award by sailing into the oen ocean and laying about with their harpoons like a pair of rum-sodden Captain Ahabs re-enacting the shower scene from Psycho.
The odd thing was that the Skiff, though clearly an alt, warped himself back in. Initially it seemed to be a kind of table flip manoeuvre, perhaps the guy was raging and said "fuck it, kill me!". Then the bomber decloaked, a bit of cavalry which came far, far too late.
I began probing the exit, and then we noticed a Procurer, Hurricane and Vexor on scan. So back we went to the belt and culled Procurer and Cane. I fucked up on the orbit on the Vexor and it escaped back to highsec. I also fucked up by running out of ammo, leaving a single shot to put into the guts of the Procurer when it was in hull. Oops.
A deserved award for Nishin Maru Employee Of The Month.
Later, we murdered a Tengu, 2009 style. The key here was to lightly neut him while the Geddon vaped his tractor, preventing it from dickthieving the wreck.
Currently, one of the the most awarded citations is the Nishin Maru Employee of The Month, which is awarded to those who scientifically cull Orcas for their whale blubber. Today Darth Bex and Miskoranda achieved this illustrious award by sailing into the oen ocean and laying about with their harpoons like a pair of rum-sodden Captain Ahabs re-enacting the shower scene from Psycho.
The odd thing was that the Skiff, though clearly an alt, warped himself back in. Initially it seemed to be a kind of table flip manoeuvre, perhaps the guy was raging and said "fuck it, kill me!". Then the bomber decloaked, a bit of cavalry which came far, far too late.
I began probing the exit, and then we noticed a Procurer, Hurricane and Vexor on scan. So back we went to the belt and culled Procurer and Cane. I fucked up on the orbit on the Vexor and it escaped back to highsec. I also fucked up by running out of ammo, leaving a single shot to put into the guts of the Procurer when it was in hull. Oops.
A deserved award for Nishin Maru Employee Of The Month.
Later, we murdered a Tengu, 2009 style. The key here was to lightly neut him while the Geddon vaped his tractor, preventing it from dickthieving the wreck.
Thursday, 9 October 2014
Operation Fussbodenschiefmaschinenverleih
Yes, that's German for "floor polishing machine hire".
We had found a Dark Blood Large tower with 19 Silos, one of each of everything, 3 CHA's and 3 online SMA's and Capital Ship Assembly Array, defended by 8 medium guns, a faction dissy, and a web. No hardeners.
So we decided to have a RF come out on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, and aided by the shitty attempt at defences attempted by the residents, this allowed a Thursday night bash for us. It went swimmingly, with 8 oracles, 4 ishtars and a Navy Vexor or two punching the POS over within 2 and 3/4 hours.
It came out with 14 hours of stront, which put it in the a.m. in Australia, Friday. This wasn't ideal, but us unemployed bums, including a ISBoxing pilot, would make short work of it. I'd have to wake up early-ish to attempt hole control, but no biggie.
Buh bow.
The POS is bugged, or the POS code has more bugs than a maggoty vagina, so the residents managed to online 40 gun batteries on us during the reinforcement timer. Suddenly a cakewalk turned into a fucking joke.
This is seriously annoying bullshit that happens time and again. Apparently the guy who wrote the POS code had the mental acuity of a stranded lungfish and the coding puissance of a dyslexic midget, and then he did the smart thing and left CCP, taking whatever ability to interpret his code with him (or so the myth in EVE goes), which now precludes CCP from fiddling with POS code in any meaningful way. Allegedly.
However, CCP can add compression arrays, XL SMA's, and Personal hangar Arrays whenever they want, but leave vulnerabilities in security, bugs in the management, and an horrendous onlining/offlining chore. Nothing suss! Totally i believe the myth.
Thus, people get stuck with a vital piece of wormhole infrastructure which is buggy, insane (like, our POS shoots everyone, blues and corpies included, no idea why), barely functional, not intuitive, and did i mention buggy?
People put up with it, including munted insecure shit like SMA's, because they have to. it's a stupid situation and everyone wishes they would fix POS's, but CCP is more concerned with space barbie items and making people hate their space (null, wormholes).
So, operation Fussbodenschiefmaschinenverleih is a failure, and we retreat to the Mullet Hole to consider our next move, our next victims and our next content creation attempt.
Noobship roam tonight, 0800 GMT, for the MATE roam, just FYI.
We had found a Dark Blood Large tower with 19 Silos, one of each of everything, 3 CHA's and 3 online SMA's and Capital Ship Assembly Array, defended by 8 medium guns, a faction dissy, and a web. No hardeners.
So we decided to have a RF come out on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, and aided by the shitty attempt at defences attempted by the residents, this allowed a Thursday night bash for us. It went swimmingly, with 8 oracles, 4 ishtars and a Navy Vexor or two punching the POS over within 2 and 3/4 hours.
It came out with 14 hours of stront, which put it in the a.m. in Australia, Friday. This wasn't ideal, but us unemployed bums, including a ISBoxing pilot, would make short work of it. I'd have to wake up early-ish to attempt hole control, but no biggie.
Buh bow.
The POS is bugged, or the POS code has more bugs than a maggoty vagina, so the residents managed to online 40 gun batteries on us during the reinforcement timer. Suddenly a cakewalk turned into a fucking joke.
This is seriously annoying bullshit that happens time and again. Apparently the guy who wrote the POS code had the mental acuity of a stranded lungfish and the coding puissance of a dyslexic midget, and then he did the smart thing and left CCP, taking whatever ability to interpret his code with him (or so the myth in EVE goes), which now precludes CCP from fiddling with POS code in any meaningful way. Allegedly.
However, CCP can add compression arrays, XL SMA's, and Personal hangar Arrays whenever they want, but leave vulnerabilities in security, bugs in the management, and an horrendous onlining/offlining chore. Nothing suss! Totally i believe the myth.
Thus, people get stuck with a vital piece of wormhole infrastructure which is buggy, insane (like, our POS shoots everyone, blues and corpies included, no idea why), barely functional, not intuitive, and did i mention buggy?
People put up with it, including munted insecure shit like SMA's, because they have to. it's a stupid situation and everyone wishes they would fix POS's, but CCP is more concerned with space barbie items and making people hate their space (null, wormholes).
So, operation Fussbodenschiefmaschinenverleih is a failure, and we retreat to the Mullet Hole to consider our next move, our next victims and our next content creation attempt.
Noobship roam tonight, 0800 GMT, for the MATE roam, just FYI.
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
Shibboleth
I have moved the corp into a larger POS, mostly for achievement reasons. See, I came up with a ridiculous POS fit. You all know how I like playing around with POSs (c.f. the Golem), so I believe this is the Ultimate Dampstar. I have taken the Dampstar meta to its inevitable apogee and like anything which is done to excess, it should operate like the most annoying thing ever and provide encroyable defensive benefits which are only apparent once you make the mistake of investing 24 hours in attacking it and give up 5% of the way through.
Testing will commence shortly, but probably after Operation Fussbodenshliefmacschinenvelieh.
The other POS related achievement i wish to do will require, hmm, about a billion ISK, a lot of hauling, and brain deadening stupidity, but should result in amusement factor and a good gif.
Testing will commence shortly, but probably after Operation Fussbodenshliefmacschinenvelieh.
The other POS related achievement i wish to do will require, hmm, about a billion ISK, a lot of hauling, and brain deadening stupidity, but should result in amusement factor and a good gif.
A Lame Gambit
Just in case anyone didn't notice, there is a "competition" on whereby you donate your cruiser and frigate blue poo to one of the four Empires for research purposes. Ignoring the fact that there's been metric fuckbuckets full of blue poo bought by the four Empires already for the past 5 years, these smartasses are now, in a total lack of coincidence, deciding to have some naff arms race within weeks of Fozzie faceraping wormholes close to extinction via some asphyxia porn related shit.
So what the deal is, is that four of the game's biggest fancy-pants rich cunts, or biggest carebears, or this idiot from SSC and all the idiots who sell their poo to him at list price and don't sell it to the other idiots in k-space, will all gain a unique monogrammed piece of space barbie clothing. I call it the monogrammed space mankini.
The faction with the greatest amount of donated blue poo is the first to get access to some new tech.
Speculation runs wild, of course, with tinfoil hatters claiming it's a T3 frigate. Others speculate it's a T3 module, or a new type of subsystem, or a T3 module, or a jump drive for T3's or fuck knows what.
Then there's the whole question - is this a way of removing blue poo as an isk fountain? Currently NPC stations buy blue poo from capsuleers for set prices. Some speculate this whole exercise is an effort to deplete the stocks of blue poo sitting idle in people's hangars. One chap, who shall remain unnamed, said that some people have stocks of it because it is like a gold standard in EVE. I can make a whole blog poast about how that idea is fucking stupid, but there you have it; a tawdry attempt by CCP to remove stocks of blue poo ahead of turning the blue poo into a component in manufacture, or a desperate attempt to breathe more life into low-class wormholes to encourage people to enter a zone of space they all left far, far behind when Fozzie pulled the cling wrap of sexiness a bit too tight around the mouth and nose?
Who the fuck cares! You can sell your blue loot to fucktards and egomaniacs for 300% list price!
See what happens is this. Some fucking brainwipe decides that having a space mankini with his name on it in rhinestone rivets is worth it, so he goes around buying up blue poo at 300% the price he can sell it. That ISK transfers to you, my avid blog reader, and you spend it on decent, wholesome things like gank catalysts and fuel to evac nullsec ahead of Fozzie's attempt to cling-rape it. The idiot, having spent metric billions on buying everyone else's blue poo, then donates it for zero ISK to CCP, and the poo disappears.
He is competing with hundreds of other dickbrained troglodytes who do the same thing. The four biggest idiots get a few lines of code in a server in the UK, and are down billions of ISK. CCP removes tens, maybe a hundred billion ISK from the market, and considering the activities of people who do go into C1/C2 space to farm this shit would otherwise have made ISK off rats humping L4's and C2 space is an exercise in self-flagellation , this also diminishes the ISK supply even further.
This is frankly a troll upon wormholes. Everyone who participates in this except by selling to the idiots is actually wasting their time in-game and losing out. Bravo CCP for actually making wormholes less profitable for anyone involved in your dickbrained competition.
It will be totally uninteresting to see what craptacular module we get. I bet it is a goddamned microjump drive subsystem to let your nullified Tengu escape bubble traps and make the game even more fucked.
So what the deal is, is that four of the game's biggest fancy-pants rich cunts, or biggest carebears, or this idiot from SSC and all the idiots who sell their poo to him at list price and don't sell it to the other idiots in k-space, will all gain a unique monogrammed piece of space barbie clothing. I call it the monogrammed space mankini.
The faction with the greatest amount of donated blue poo is the first to get access to some new tech.
Speculation runs wild, of course, with tinfoil hatters claiming it's a T3 frigate. Others speculate it's a T3 module, or a new type of subsystem, or a T3 module, or a jump drive for T3's or fuck knows what.
Then there's the whole question - is this a way of removing blue poo as an isk fountain? Currently NPC stations buy blue poo from capsuleers for set prices. Some speculate this whole exercise is an effort to deplete the stocks of blue poo sitting idle in people's hangars. One chap, who shall remain unnamed, said that some people have stocks of it because it is like a gold standard in EVE. I can make a whole blog poast about how that idea is fucking stupid, but there you have it; a tawdry attempt by CCP to remove stocks of blue poo ahead of turning the blue poo into a component in manufacture, or a desperate attempt to breathe more life into low-class wormholes to encourage people to enter a zone of space they all left far, far behind when Fozzie pulled the cling wrap of sexiness a bit too tight around the mouth and nose?
Who the fuck cares! You can sell your blue loot to fucktards and egomaniacs for 300% list price!
See what happens is this. Some fucking brainwipe decides that having a space mankini with his name on it in rhinestone rivets is worth it, so he goes around buying up blue poo at 300% the price he can sell it. That ISK transfers to you, my avid blog reader, and you spend it on decent, wholesome things like gank catalysts and fuel to evac nullsec ahead of Fozzie's attempt to cling-rape it. The idiot, having spent metric billions on buying everyone else's blue poo, then donates it for zero ISK to CCP, and the poo disappears.
He is competing with hundreds of other dickbrained troglodytes who do the same thing. The four biggest idiots get a few lines of code in a server in the UK, and are down billions of ISK. CCP removes tens, maybe a hundred billion ISK from the market, and considering the activities of people who do go into C1/C2 space to farm this shit would otherwise have made ISK off rats humping L4's and C2 space is an exercise in self-flagellation , this also diminishes the ISK supply even further.
This is frankly a troll upon wormholes. Everyone who participates in this except by selling to the idiots is actually wasting their time in-game and losing out. Bravo CCP for actually making wormholes less profitable for anyone involved in your dickbrained competition.
It will be totally uninteresting to see what craptacular module we get. I bet it is a goddamned microjump drive subsystem to let your nullified Tengu escape bubble traps and make the game even more fucked.
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Flypaper
Here's a decent Flycatcher fit. If you know what you're doing you can dunk a hauler, escape a Vengeance, dodge an Ishtar and get out from under hard tackle from a cloaky "DPS" Legion.
[Flycatcher, Spider]
Power Diagnostic System II
1MN Microwarpdrive I
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Medium Shield Extender II
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Interdiction Sphere Launcher I
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
[Flycatcher, Spider]
Power Diagnostic System II
1MN Microwarpdrive I
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Medium Shield Extender II
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Interdiction Sphere Launcher I
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Friday, 3 October 2014
Ye Olde Fashioned EVE
A point was made by Manfred Sidious on netgameradio last night that (install rose coloured glasses) back in the day, EVE didn't have teleportation (a 5th level spell in D&D but essentially a cantrip in EVE). Back then, conflicts were localised, region-based or constelllation-based and involved months of low-level subcap brawls, small gang actions, etcetera.
Certainly, if you look at the aspirational PVP ideals put about on the recruitment forums by shiftless vagrants, around one third of toons looking for PVP corps put in "small gang" as a requirement. A bit more than a third say large nulllsec (read: blob warfare) and the remainder are broken down into a hodge podge of wannabee wormholers, starry-eyed noobs, FW linkwhores and general pretense-faggots who think that having been in a blobby nullsec fleet a few times and having a 90% K:D ratio gained from 5-10 individual batttles qualifies them as super-awesome. But we can tell.
Small gang and solo PVP are the pinnacles of a lot of people's ideas about what EVE PVP is, in the world's best PVP MMO (as voted by some people).
So, looking at the jump changes for nullsec, and taking into account the yearning for small gang content, and the misty-eyed reminiscences of the elites who cut their teeth and built their pyramids of wealth five or more years ago, these changes are sensible, and may help grow the game onto a seam in the pants-leg of history it's gone down which is closer to the other pants leg of history which is 2006-8.
Another point which was made was that, since subscriber numbers are struggling to pick up and stably grow, CCP has to make some drastic changes to the game to grow the customer base. A reimagining of nullsec based on fond and often completely false reminiscences of Ye Olde EVE is as good a choice as any.
Make no mistake, the game needs some changes. I support these changges even though they don't affect me or my vested interests and I really can't care less either way what effects they wreak, except if it does end up killing EVE due to everyone unsubbing. A risk worth taking.
However, i think there are other changes EVE needs to make. Let me list them.
Putting customers first.
This is just plain and simple the most important thing out there. it's elementary business practise, especially for a subscription service that - rightly - avoids pay-to-win overtly.
What I mean is illustrated by the abysmal treatment of the wormhole changes on the forums, and the lack of care and attention given to the whole area. For example, the whole of w-space has apparently been deployed for 5 years with broken code. The neuts used to never affect players until 2011 when they were turned on one day with minimal warning. The sleeper RR was turned on, apparently again not properly coded since deployment, with absolutely zero clear warning. True, it may have been missed if it was put in a sticky thread on the forums but a bulleting in This Week In EVE would be a minimum.
This is symptomatic of a culture at CCP where people like Fozzie just seem not to consider that they are changing the experience of their customers, and it is simply courteous to let them know that they better not try soloing some of the C5 sites as of Oceanus dropping, sorry for the inconvenience. There is clearly more of a focus on banging out 6 week mini-expansions than having a structured deployment process.
The deployment process must include a checklist which includes - 1) Have all changes been documented? 2) Are all changes advertised in the patch notes? 3) Is this legible in English and available in the other languages, in such a way people cannot feel gypped by the changes?
Managing Change properly is Key
If you have to change the rules to save the game, and it's not a 6 week till bankruptcy choice, then change management is key. Change management in large organisations is a cult in and of itself with consultants and wonks and twinks charging an arm and a leg. But in the end all CCP Seagull needs to do is devote 1 day to flipping through Machiavelli's The Prince, and she will see that Machiavelli devoted a fair chunk of his book to how the prince could deal with change and command-driven leadership. EVE is not a democracy, so this is apposite advice; but likewise Machiavelli's reader wasn't expected to be ruling over paying customers. There's no point, as he says, in changing so much so soon that the change that cmes about is your own downfall.
Focus on the Mid-Term Player Experience
CCP focused on the New Player Experience through 2011-12, and grew the customer base moderately. The NPE is key to getting new customers to convert the trial account to a paying account. Part of this strategy resulted in Tiercide and the throwing open of useless ships to newer players to usefully fly about the joint, being useful.
However, since Incursions and the (relatively) subdued MUDflation has set in, the problem is not so much one of making people pay the play after a week or two. The problem is keeping people engaged in a PVP game where frigates and cruisers begin costing a bunch of hours work. I mean, if you look on an Incursion as a base rate of affording a ship, then a battle cruiser is about 1 hour's work. Back in the rosy old past when a Cyclone hull was 15M and you could make 80M in nullsec or wormholes, you could bang 3 Cyclones out in a night's play. If you lost one a week, you could make headway against clone costs, insurance, skills, etc.
Nowadays you not only have woefully unbalanced T2 and pirate ships (Deimos, Ishtar, Orthrus, to name a few) depriving 2-12 month old toons of ships with impunity, your cruiser hulls are creeping past 12-15M a pop. They just got slightly more expensive to make in highsec too with the industrial rebalance. Any new surge in supercap production vacuuming New Eden of all materials to supply a second round of super alts as a response to the jump cooldown will drive prices up. Highsec ganking is out of control and wormhole mining is suicidal (see previous post).
My point is...as said before, if the only rational response to making sufficient way in game is to ISBox mining, PVE activities then how is the game going to keep the maturing player interested? You know, the guy who plays a few nights a week and runs one account and has half of a life? Its getting harder for these people to break out of an incessant grind for cash, harder to progress in a game of massed alts and uncounterable unfun fleet concepts.
EVE needs to convert these players into addicts, versus trying to get hordes of people into the game to convert a few off their trials.
Make Changes That Enhance, Not Nerf
While changes like those foisted off unwanted on the wormhole community is a two way street (those who adapt and those who don't) and proposed to be dumped on nullsec, the reality is that there has to be a reason and it has to result in a more playable game.
This was the biggest criticism of CCP Fozzie's assault on w-space. Yes, you can roll holes. It won't be a rageroll, it'll be a dullroll because it takes longer. Great, you made an already tedious and time consuming activity even more time consuming. Manfred Sidious made a point that the idea of the jump cooldown and fatigue was to make it faster via gates than jump in 90% of situations or more. That's fine, but it basically results in a slower transit, full stop. This may be the idea in nullsec, to force granularity and break up the blue donut into more regional blocs and regional biffo. However, in w-space it has simply resulted in too much bullshit.
However, Fireflynine raised a point: maybe the rose coloured glasses are being worn by CCP Fozzie and he is simply trying to force wormholes back into their original vision by CCP; somewhere to visit briefly but nowhere to bother living.
That's a valid question, and a reasonable assumption, but if true it is also incredibly stupid and has galling amounts of hubris and blinkered vision. I mean, OK, you had an idea, we took it and ran away with it. Deal with the reality of now (pissy sleeper RR, people building de-facto empires in wormholes, dread-blapping and elitist T3-only bullshit doctrines), and work on the NPE and MPE, don't just make life less worthwhile and less frustrating for everyone. People are quitting the game over this, and trimming numbers of accounts.
Have a Structured Progression
One of the mysteries of EVE as it stands, taking into account the NPE and MPE (as above) and PVE as it currently exists, is the nebulous idea put about by CCP that there's a 'progression' of risk/reward. Even if not true, certainly it's a concept the customer base wants to see. Highsec has low rewards due to increased safety, or so the theory goes, and wormholes top the ISK/hr tree. Well, aside from printing Barghests because you live in the Mordus station and got a fucking giant freebie. Or the rare level 5 missions, and a few exceptions. True or not, this is the theory.
The reality is that Incursions topthe list, followed by C5's, nullsec (due to safety) even with the competition for Sanctum and Hub running, you can still turn over 18M ticks. Thereafter, level 4's in Lowsec for a few key corps on some LP items is worthwhile. Lowsec radar and mag sites top 100M/hr on average. C2's you get 40M/hr. And below this is various other stuff. None of this fits any real structure.
Ideally as you progress from noob through level 4 running, then Incursions, you should gain more ISK, simply to pay for your more expensive ships. This progression breaks down somewhere in the middle, right in the midst of the MPE, i feel. You aren't skilled enough to realistically do the high-end PVE, nullsec sees you compete with carriers and AFKtars for Sanctums and Hubs, and middling toons doing C3-4-5 PVE is problematic.
If CCp can sort this out, and sort out the Storyline items and missions and LP store revisits, sorting out the pirate tags and the faction tags to cheapen up and provide a reasonable supply of all items in LP stores, then there will be a more enriching variety of ways to skin the same cat, in and out of highsec.
MUDflation
CCP also needs to address MUDflation. Cyclones costing nearly 60M ISK for the hulls is crap. Adjust ore yields, adjust build costs, adjust something or, again, the MPE will be shit. How many hours of humping level 3 missions will you need to do to afford your first BS to run a Level 4? Far, far too many is the answer.
Certainly, if you look at the aspirational PVP ideals put about on the recruitment forums by shiftless vagrants, around one third of toons looking for PVP corps put in "small gang" as a requirement. A bit more than a third say large nulllsec (read: blob warfare) and the remainder are broken down into a hodge podge of wannabee wormholers, starry-eyed noobs, FW linkwhores and general pretense-faggots who think that having been in a blobby nullsec fleet a few times and having a 90% K:D ratio gained from 5-10 individual batttles qualifies them as super-awesome. But we can tell.
Small gang and solo PVP are the pinnacles of a lot of people's ideas about what EVE PVP is, in the world's best PVP MMO (as voted by some people).
So, looking at the jump changes for nullsec, and taking into account the yearning for small gang content, and the misty-eyed reminiscences of the elites who cut their teeth and built their pyramids of wealth five or more years ago, these changes are sensible, and may help grow the game onto a seam in the pants-leg of history it's gone down which is closer to the other pants leg of history which is 2006-8.
Another point which was made was that, since subscriber numbers are struggling to pick up and stably grow, CCP has to make some drastic changes to the game to grow the customer base. A reimagining of nullsec based on fond and often completely false reminiscences of Ye Olde EVE is as good a choice as any.
Make no mistake, the game needs some changes. I support these changges even though they don't affect me or my vested interests and I really can't care less either way what effects they wreak, except if it does end up killing EVE due to everyone unsubbing. A risk worth taking.
However, i think there are other changes EVE needs to make. Let me list them.
Putting customers first.
This is just plain and simple the most important thing out there. it's elementary business practise, especially for a subscription service that - rightly - avoids pay-to-win overtly.
What I mean is illustrated by the abysmal treatment of the wormhole changes on the forums, and the lack of care and attention given to the whole area. For example, the whole of w-space has apparently been deployed for 5 years with broken code. The neuts used to never affect players until 2011 when they were turned on one day with minimal warning. The sleeper RR was turned on, apparently again not properly coded since deployment, with absolutely zero clear warning. True, it may have been missed if it was put in a sticky thread on the forums but a bulleting in This Week In EVE would be a minimum.
This is symptomatic of a culture at CCP where people like Fozzie just seem not to consider that they are changing the experience of their customers, and it is simply courteous to let them know that they better not try soloing some of the C5 sites as of Oceanus dropping, sorry for the inconvenience. There is clearly more of a focus on banging out 6 week mini-expansions than having a structured deployment process.
The deployment process must include a checklist which includes - 1) Have all changes been documented? 2) Are all changes advertised in the patch notes? 3) Is this legible in English and available in the other languages, in such a way people cannot feel gypped by the changes?
Managing Change properly is Key
If you have to change the rules to save the game, and it's not a 6 week till bankruptcy choice, then change management is key. Change management in large organisations is a cult in and of itself with consultants and wonks and twinks charging an arm and a leg. But in the end all CCP Seagull needs to do is devote 1 day to flipping through Machiavelli's The Prince, and she will see that Machiavelli devoted a fair chunk of his book to how the prince could deal with change and command-driven leadership. EVE is not a democracy, so this is apposite advice; but likewise Machiavelli's reader wasn't expected to be ruling over paying customers. There's no point, as he says, in changing so much so soon that the change that cmes about is your own downfall.
Focus on the Mid-Term Player Experience
CCP focused on the New Player Experience through 2011-12, and grew the customer base moderately. The NPE is key to getting new customers to convert the trial account to a paying account. Part of this strategy resulted in Tiercide and the throwing open of useless ships to newer players to usefully fly about the joint, being useful.
However, since Incursions and the (relatively) subdued MUDflation has set in, the problem is not so much one of making people pay the play after a week or two. The problem is keeping people engaged in a PVP game where frigates and cruisers begin costing a bunch of hours work. I mean, if you look on an Incursion as a base rate of affording a ship, then a battle cruiser is about 1 hour's work. Back in the rosy old past when a Cyclone hull was 15M and you could make 80M in nullsec or wormholes, you could bang 3 Cyclones out in a night's play. If you lost one a week, you could make headway against clone costs, insurance, skills, etc.
Nowadays you not only have woefully unbalanced T2 and pirate ships (Deimos, Ishtar, Orthrus, to name a few) depriving 2-12 month old toons of ships with impunity, your cruiser hulls are creeping past 12-15M a pop. They just got slightly more expensive to make in highsec too with the industrial rebalance. Any new surge in supercap production vacuuming New Eden of all materials to supply a second round of super alts as a response to the jump cooldown will drive prices up. Highsec ganking is out of control and wormhole mining is suicidal (see previous post).
My point is...as said before, if the only rational response to making sufficient way in game is to ISBox mining, PVE activities then how is the game going to keep the maturing player interested? You know, the guy who plays a few nights a week and runs one account and has half of a life? Its getting harder for these people to break out of an incessant grind for cash, harder to progress in a game of massed alts and uncounterable unfun fleet concepts.
EVE needs to convert these players into addicts, versus trying to get hordes of people into the game to convert a few off their trials.
Make Changes That Enhance, Not Nerf
While changes like those foisted off unwanted on the wormhole community is a two way street (those who adapt and those who don't) and proposed to be dumped on nullsec, the reality is that there has to be a reason and it has to result in a more playable game.
This was the biggest criticism of CCP Fozzie's assault on w-space. Yes, you can roll holes. It won't be a rageroll, it'll be a dullroll because it takes longer. Great, you made an already tedious and time consuming activity even more time consuming. Manfred Sidious made a point that the idea of the jump cooldown and fatigue was to make it faster via gates than jump in 90% of situations or more. That's fine, but it basically results in a slower transit, full stop. This may be the idea in nullsec, to force granularity and break up the blue donut into more regional blocs and regional biffo. However, in w-space it has simply resulted in too much bullshit.
However, Fireflynine raised a point: maybe the rose coloured glasses are being worn by CCP Fozzie and he is simply trying to force wormholes back into their original vision by CCP; somewhere to visit briefly but nowhere to bother living.
That's a valid question, and a reasonable assumption, but if true it is also incredibly stupid and has galling amounts of hubris and blinkered vision. I mean, OK, you had an idea, we took it and ran away with it. Deal with the reality of now (pissy sleeper RR, people building de-facto empires in wormholes, dread-blapping and elitist T3-only bullshit doctrines), and work on the NPE and MPE, don't just make life less worthwhile and less frustrating for everyone. People are quitting the game over this, and trimming numbers of accounts.
Have a Structured Progression
One of the mysteries of EVE as it stands, taking into account the NPE and MPE (as above) and PVE as it currently exists, is the nebulous idea put about by CCP that there's a 'progression' of risk/reward. Even if not true, certainly it's a concept the customer base wants to see. Highsec has low rewards due to increased safety, or so the theory goes, and wormholes top the ISK/hr tree. Well, aside from printing Barghests because you live in the Mordus station and got a fucking giant freebie. Or the rare level 5 missions, and a few exceptions. True or not, this is the theory.
The reality is that Incursions topthe list, followed by C5's, nullsec (due to safety) even with the competition for Sanctum and Hub running, you can still turn over 18M ticks. Thereafter, level 4's in Lowsec for a few key corps on some LP items is worthwhile. Lowsec radar and mag sites top 100M/hr on average. C2's you get 40M/hr. And below this is various other stuff. None of this fits any real structure.
Ideally as you progress from noob through level 4 running, then Incursions, you should gain more ISK, simply to pay for your more expensive ships. This progression breaks down somewhere in the middle, right in the midst of the MPE, i feel. You aren't skilled enough to realistically do the high-end PVE, nullsec sees you compete with carriers and AFKtars for Sanctums and Hubs, and middling toons doing C3-4-5 PVE is problematic.
If CCp can sort this out, and sort out the Storyline items and missions and LP store revisits, sorting out the pirate tags and the faction tags to cheapen up and provide a reasonable supply of all items in LP stores, then there will be a more enriching variety of ways to skin the same cat, in and out of highsec.
MUDflation
CCP also needs to address MUDflation. Cyclones costing nearly 60M ISK for the hulls is crap. Adjust ore yields, adjust build costs, adjust something or, again, the MPE will be shit. How many hours of humping level 3 missions will you need to do to afford your first BS to run a Level 4? Far, far too many is the answer.
A Bad Day For Mining
Today started off like so many others: coffee, blog poast, forum sperge, scan the chain. There were actives only in the C1 off our C2, some miners, and about 8 of them online, in a Proteus, blah blah, so I decided not to provoke that fight.
About 10 a.m. WST I finally got around to checking out the X877. It led to a massive 200 AU across system. I warped from planet to planet checking for POS's. Near planet 3, sure enough, and offline POS. In turning off the overview settings in order to check for Pinata I noticed suddenly a Mackinaw. Sure enough, a warp at 100 on the ore site confirmed there was a Mackinaw.
I faffed about getting my alt into something that could deal with the possibility of stabs. Can't fly a Sabre. Can't fly a Phobos, well, not with a bubble at any rate. So i settled on a dual-scram Astero, and dropped into the site...right as a second Mackinaw turned up. So, dual decloak delay and point each Mack with one of my two toons. In came a Nighthawk to save the day, but it promptly did a u-turn (200m outside scram range!) and POSed up.
I was intived to do some baiting with Rules of Acquisition and Orphans of Eve, but the connections were all 20 jumps away, and my Sigil ain't that fast. So I ended up deciding to go have lunch and my daily constitutional - a 5km walk - before tackling the housework. But first, I decided to check in on the miners in the C1.
I warped to their POS at the far planet, the one of the 3 there for which i had BM's. I noted a Rorqual was on scan, so my interest was piqued. People were mining somewhere in system, I could feel it. I checked the other two POSs....no Rorqual. Dafuq? I double-checked and confirmed it was outside the POSs, but within 1 AU. Dafuq dafuq! I began getting a battlechubby, and launched combats off scan. I warped back to one of the POSs and noted a Rorqual sitting in the bubble. Shit. Maybe someone was washing the system with off-scan probes, and saw mine, maybe the gig was up. Shit.
Then, fatefully, a Retriever logs in, sits for a few seconds, and warps off to the belt, whicch is 26 AU away. Fuck it, I haven't got a Rorq killmail yet, today will be no different, but at least I can gank a Retty or two. So I folllow to the Common perimeter Deposit. Enroute, I notice a Chimera on scan. Probably at a POS, which is also on scan, I think momentarily as I land on grid.
The battle chubby got painful at this point, so i withdrew to 160km and picked up the batphone.
"Yolla! Mining Chimera in a C1"
Automagically, within 15 minutes a series of U-turns were made and the fleet came barreling in from the highsec, and I #YOLO hero tackle it in my active tanked Loki, with a Stratios for backup point, in a fleet consisting of Vigilants, Pilgrims, Guardians, Proteii, etc.
It turns out that with Guardians feeding my Loki cap I can tank a carrier's DPS forever, basically, so I did the majority of the tanking until we cap-raped the poor thing and sent him and some of his mates back to highsec.
https://zkillboard.com/br/8641/
3B in ISK killed is a good start to the month, plus the 400M in Macks from earlier. If we can keep this up, we'll be the unofficial #5 on the league ladder of wormhole corps again.
About 10 a.m. WST I finally got around to checking out the X877. It led to a massive 200 AU across system. I warped from planet to planet checking for POS's. Near planet 3, sure enough, and offline POS. In turning off the overview settings in order to check for Pinata I noticed suddenly a Mackinaw. Sure enough, a warp at 100 on the ore site confirmed there was a Mackinaw.
I faffed about getting my alt into something that could deal with the possibility of stabs. Can't fly a Sabre. Can't fly a Phobos, well, not with a bubble at any rate. So i settled on a dual-scram Astero, and dropped into the site...right as a second Mackinaw turned up. So, dual decloak delay and point each Mack with one of my two toons. In came a Nighthawk to save the day, but it promptly did a u-turn (200m outside scram range!) and POSed up.
I was intived to do some baiting with Rules of Acquisition and Orphans of Eve, but the connections were all 20 jumps away, and my Sigil ain't that fast. So I ended up deciding to go have lunch and my daily constitutional - a 5km walk - before tackling the housework. But first, I decided to check in on the miners in the C1.
I warped to their POS at the far planet, the one of the 3 there for which i had BM's. I noted a Rorqual was on scan, so my interest was piqued. People were mining somewhere in system, I could feel it. I checked the other two POSs....no Rorqual. Dafuq? I double-checked and confirmed it was outside the POSs, but within 1 AU. Dafuq dafuq! I began getting a battlechubby, and launched combats off scan. I warped back to one of the POSs and noted a Rorqual sitting in the bubble. Shit. Maybe someone was washing the system with off-scan probes, and saw mine, maybe the gig was up. Shit.
Then, fatefully, a Retriever logs in, sits for a few seconds, and warps off to the belt, whicch is 26 AU away. Fuck it, I haven't got a Rorq killmail yet, today will be no different, but at least I can gank a Retty or two. So I folllow to the Common perimeter Deposit. Enroute, I notice a Chimera on scan. Probably at a POS, which is also on scan, I think momentarily as I land on grid.
The battle chubby got painful at this point, so i withdrew to 160km and picked up the batphone.
"Yolla! Mining Chimera in a C1"
Automagically, within 15 minutes a series of U-turns were made and the fleet came barreling in from the highsec, and I #YOLO hero tackle it in my active tanked Loki, with a Stratios for backup point, in a fleet consisting of Vigilants, Pilgrims, Guardians, Proteii, etc.
It turns out that with Guardians feeding my Loki cap I can tank a carrier's DPS forever, basically, so I did the majority of the tanking until we cap-raped the poor thing and sent him and some of his mates back to highsec.
https://zkillboard.com/br/8641/
3B in ISK killed is a good start to the month, plus the 400M in Macks from earlier. If we can keep this up, we'll be the unofficial #5 on the league ladder of wormhole corps again.
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Elite Warriors
There's a reason that BUGRY plays the game with SWIFT, and isn't in SWIFT. Well, a couple.
First and foremost is the tactical options which this provides, in and out of wormholes. If Yuri the Russian bear sees a BUGRY member jump through a wormhole, and then a few minutes later a SWIFT member jump through, it's likely we won't necessarily be associated with one another. That allows more efficient baiting and trapping.
Secondly, we can swap or share logistics in a time of war. You can get a war, we have found, by getting a freighter alt and logging it off on a gate in view of some of the "elite" highsec griefer alliances. They drop a dec on you within minutes, thinking that if the freighter doesn't log in within 24 hours they can camp that gate 23.75/7 and snag a juicy freighter gank.
Thirdly, in a time of war, one of us runs neutral logistics for the other. This is good fun, starting off with the Enyo gang and taking out the enemy AF gang, progressing to a period of logon traps, trolling a second war so they eliminate the neutral logi by deccing that corporation (guess what, fuckers, I have 3 separate corps with T1 logi cruiser toons in them), bumping war targets on gates and generally teabagging them until they give up or get so distracted they fail at ganking anything, and general douchebaggery.
But mostly, I will soon be starting my own alliance, the name of which I shall for now keep secret, likewise the ticker. I'm doingg this entirely as an achievement unlock in-game, due to having done pretty much everything else short of wasting a toon on putting it in a supercap. I also haven't done the -10 experience, so that might be the last thing I will do in game.
First and foremost is the tactical options which this provides, in and out of wormholes. If Yuri the Russian bear sees a BUGRY member jump through a wormhole, and then a few minutes later a SWIFT member jump through, it's likely we won't necessarily be associated with one another. That allows more efficient baiting and trapping.
Secondly, we can swap or share logistics in a time of war. You can get a war, we have found, by getting a freighter alt and logging it off on a gate in view of some of the "elite" highsec griefer alliances. They drop a dec on you within minutes, thinking that if the freighter doesn't log in within 24 hours they can camp that gate 23.75/7 and snag a juicy freighter gank.
Thirdly, in a time of war, one of us runs neutral logistics for the other. This is good fun, starting off with the Enyo gang and taking out the enemy AF gang, progressing to a period of logon traps, trolling a second war so they eliminate the neutral logi by deccing that corporation (guess what, fuckers, I have 3 separate corps with T1 logi cruiser toons in them), bumping war targets on gates and generally teabagging them until they give up or get so distracted they fail at ganking anything, and general douchebaggery.
But mostly, I will soon be starting my own alliance, the name of which I shall for now keep secret, likewise the ticker. I'm doingg this entirely as an achievement unlock in-game, due to having done pretty much everything else short of wasting a toon on putting it in a supercap. I also haven't done the -10 experience, so that might be the last thing I will do in game.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Tyranny Rises Again
When I was in high school we were given a book - The Tyranny of Distance - to read. The context was the implications and impacts of Australia being on the other side of the world to Old Blighty. Ironically enough, here I am, living in Perth, and experiencing it first-hand in the modern world.
Extra-ironically enough, we see it being reintroduced in EVE with the Long Distance Jump Changes dev blog.
The problem, or shall we say one of the many problems, with nullsec as it stands now is the great blue donut of the GSF and CFC and, well, everyone out there. This is EVE's Pax Americana - an artificial peace brought about by the infinite force projection of annihilatory force across the whole globe and the threat of imposition of it by the single sole power (although, of course, China and Russia provide a reasonable counterpoint IRL).
Nevertheless, discounting the dissimilarities and realpolitik, in EVE, you have a reasonable analogue to ICBM's in the form of PL, CFC and N3 (+/- BL and Shadow) super and dread blobs which can, with proper intel and boredom and Jabber pings, assemble irresistible force more or less at a moment's notice. Cue B-R5RB, Asakai, etcetera, which everyone holds aloft as the pinnacle of achievement of the MMO, and discounts the number of times super capitals gank stuff or small entities get crushed instantly by larger ones, or the stratification and stagnation of nullsec or, as pointed out by CCP, the fact no one really commits small capital fleets because of the bogeyman of PL, Goons, etcetera.
These negatives are clearly a price paid for the rare mega-fight. CCP has decided to begin making the elite pay a greater price to hold their Empire together. Arguably, there will be some additional smaller entities feeling they can take a greater risk and nibbling around the edges, but let us not forget that even thought Tyranny of Distance described the effects of being at the literal end of the world at the end of the British Empire, the Australians didn't rebel because it took 6 months to get a letter back to mam. The Empire held together, and Australia held truck with the values of Empire despite the isolation and the laughable scarcity of British protection.
The same will become true in nullsec. I wouldn't expect any of this realistically addresses the Blue Donut, as long as diplomacy and commonality of purpose is maintained within the CFC, blah blah. Sure, you may be further out and logistics may be difficult (cue wormholes, lets be honest) and force projection may be nerfed, allowing raiders to come in RF a few TCU's or smash and grab, but it's not hard to track down an aggressor entity and for the big blob of 80 supers and Titans to go pay them a visit and give them overwhelming retribution. Yes, more fights, but no real change to the status quo.
It's like if Russia raided Sydney during the Crimean War; a surprise fleet and a small army of Tartars could have landed in the colony, taken the city, and the far-off annihilaatory force of the British Fleet could have done nothing about it. The British would have sent a fleet from Cape Town and an army and taken the colony back. A terrible nuisance, chaps, but nothing a bit of biffo won't fix. Then a voyage up the globe to Vladivostok and bloody the nose of the borscht eaters! Empire control maintained.
In fact, the jump cooldowns and timers which cannot be washed by clone jumping are more penurious to smaller entities (1-10? caps) than the larger ones.
The first recourse will be mathematics. Staging bases and staging systems will be changed as soon as Dotlan updates or creates a travel time calculator to factor in the cooldown and jump fatigue timers. This will rapidly cause the major entities (like, they've probably already got it sussed) to reposition assets in the key regions and constellations to address the tactical and strategic opportunities they want to exploit. Maybe there's a tradeoff for PL between camping Osoggur gate like fuckheads 23.75/7 and being available to teabag the whole of Venal like a bogeyman for a week. Can't do both with one toon, have to choose. A Good Thing, I'd argue.
Secondly, as highlighted, jump clowns and ship caches will be a thing. This holds true only for capitals, not supers and titans, as you can't dock those bad boys and can't really deal with them besides having sitting alts. Which is of course an option; have a Super toon in system A, a sitter alt in System A and a super in System A, and then a super and sitter toon in system B. Jump clown from A to B, job done. The effect of this may be another great surge in supercap building to provide the hulls for the alts, but it is a little inefficient in the sense that you are taking a main between two ships, and require 3 toons.
Lets be brutally honest here - no matter how CCP blocks off the workarounds for any individual toon to transit from the drone-fucking slave camps of Perrigen to deep Stain for a gank inside of 3 minutes, there is one workaround that CCP cannot block off, and that is having two fully fledged super pilots and two supers. In fact, some people basically already have this anyway.
The idea of moving capitals through gates (and was that a hint of highsec caps on the horizon?) is both hilarious and ridiculous. The thing about cap fleets is their ability to lurk (possibly cloaked next to their depot) a region or several constellations away from the likely battle, ready to hot drop in. The very idea of super-slowboating a cap through lowsec, to be pointed on a gate by a daredevil with an execquror, is just...well, someone will do it, but it's kind of defeating the purpose of capital ships as we know it.
True, the Tyranny of Distance will have an effect, but not on the elites. The small raider/harassing groups will have a set of options opened up for them for guerilla warfare which is ultimately pointless in the sov game (timers, dude, and being tracked back home and assfucked hardcore and dry), and be given many and varied ways to trap themselves for super ganks by the big boys (timed out on POS or station), but to break the Blue Donut will require a whole other set of changes.
Extra-ironically enough, we see it being reintroduced in EVE with the Long Distance Jump Changes dev blog.
The problem, or shall we say one of the many problems, with nullsec as it stands now is the great blue donut of the GSF and CFC and, well, everyone out there. This is EVE's Pax Americana - an artificial peace brought about by the infinite force projection of annihilatory force across the whole globe and the threat of imposition of it by the single sole power (although, of course, China and Russia provide a reasonable counterpoint IRL).
Nevertheless, discounting the dissimilarities and realpolitik, in EVE, you have a reasonable analogue to ICBM's in the form of PL, CFC and N3 (+/- BL and Shadow) super and dread blobs which can, with proper intel and boredom and Jabber pings, assemble irresistible force more or less at a moment's notice. Cue B-R5RB, Asakai, etcetera, which everyone holds aloft as the pinnacle of achievement of the MMO, and discounts the number of times super capitals gank stuff or small entities get crushed instantly by larger ones, or the stratification and stagnation of nullsec or, as pointed out by CCP, the fact no one really commits small capital fleets because of the bogeyman of PL, Goons, etcetera.
These negatives are clearly a price paid for the rare mega-fight. CCP has decided to begin making the elite pay a greater price to hold their Empire together. Arguably, there will be some additional smaller entities feeling they can take a greater risk and nibbling around the edges, but let us not forget that even thought Tyranny of Distance described the effects of being at the literal end of the world at the end of the British Empire, the Australians didn't rebel because it took 6 months to get a letter back to mam. The Empire held together, and Australia held truck with the values of Empire despite the isolation and the laughable scarcity of British protection.
The same will become true in nullsec. I wouldn't expect any of this realistically addresses the Blue Donut, as long as diplomacy and commonality of purpose is maintained within the CFC, blah blah. Sure, you may be further out and logistics may be difficult (cue wormholes, lets be honest) and force projection may be nerfed, allowing raiders to come in RF a few TCU's or smash and grab, but it's not hard to track down an aggressor entity and for the big blob of 80 supers and Titans to go pay them a visit and give them overwhelming retribution. Yes, more fights, but no real change to the status quo.
It's like if Russia raided Sydney during the Crimean War; a surprise fleet and a small army of Tartars could have landed in the colony, taken the city, and the far-off annihilaatory force of the British Fleet could have done nothing about it. The British would have sent a fleet from Cape Town and an army and taken the colony back. A terrible nuisance, chaps, but nothing a bit of biffo won't fix. Then a voyage up the globe to Vladivostok and bloody the nose of the borscht eaters! Empire control maintained.
In fact, the jump cooldowns and timers which cannot be washed by clone jumping are more penurious to smaller entities (1-10? caps) than the larger ones.
The first recourse will be mathematics. Staging bases and staging systems will be changed as soon as Dotlan updates or creates a travel time calculator to factor in the cooldown and jump fatigue timers. This will rapidly cause the major entities (like, they've probably already got it sussed) to reposition assets in the key regions and constellations to address the tactical and strategic opportunities they want to exploit. Maybe there's a tradeoff for PL between camping Osoggur gate like fuckheads 23.75/7 and being available to teabag the whole of Venal like a bogeyman for a week. Can't do both with one toon, have to choose. A Good Thing, I'd argue.
Secondly, as highlighted, jump clowns and ship caches will be a thing. This holds true only for capitals, not supers and titans, as you can't dock those bad boys and can't really deal with them besides having sitting alts. Which is of course an option; have a Super toon in system A, a sitter alt in System A and a super in System A, and then a super and sitter toon in system B. Jump clown from A to B, job done. The effect of this may be another great surge in supercap building to provide the hulls for the alts, but it is a little inefficient in the sense that you are taking a main between two ships, and require 3 toons.
Lets be brutally honest here - no matter how CCP blocks off the workarounds for any individual toon to transit from the drone-fucking slave camps of Perrigen to deep Stain for a gank inside of 3 minutes, there is one workaround that CCP cannot block off, and that is having two fully fledged super pilots and two supers. In fact, some people basically already have this anyway.
The idea of moving capitals through gates (and was that a hint of highsec caps on the horizon?) is both hilarious and ridiculous. The thing about cap fleets is their ability to lurk (possibly cloaked next to their depot) a region or several constellations away from the likely battle, ready to hot drop in. The very idea of super-slowboating a cap through lowsec, to be pointed on a gate by a daredevil with an execquror, is just...well, someone will do it, but it's kind of defeating the purpose of capital ships as we know it.
True, the Tyranny of Distance will have an effect, but not on the elites. The small raider/harassing groups will have a set of options opened up for them for guerilla warfare which is ultimately pointless in the sov game (timers, dude, and being tracked back home and assfucked hardcore and dry), and be given many and varied ways to trap themselves for super ganks by the big boys (timed out on POS or station), but to break the Blue Donut will require a whole other set of changes.
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