Regional Local

This week during Eve Vegas, CCP expressed their long-held displeasure with local as an intel tool, but that they weren’t ready to launch a comprehensive change to the mechanics.

At the core of the problem is a need to communicate with people in the same system that doesn’t also announce the presence of new pilots entering that system. Some players simply advocate wormhole local, in which players don’t show up until they speak, but CCP has been resistant to this in the past for all areas of space, and I tend to think this would take something special away from wormhole space.

At the same time, CCP expressed a general dissatisfaction with the ease of null ratting isk generation and the speed of level 5 mission blitzing. In both cases, a new pilot entering local is a cause for concern, albeit much more so for null ratting. I don’t think the payouts are the problem as much as the early warning detection local provides; when you feel incredibly safe, it’s very easy to earn isk in null, perhaps too easy.

So, let’s kill two birds with one stone: Regional Local.

Am I Starting to Like PvE?

In my last post, I talked about taking a few moderate risks to get a ratting carrier into the dronelands. My goal wasn’t just to earn isk, though that is a nice side effect. Rather, I wanted to become more comfortable with flying a carrier and comfortable with the fighter controls. While I’ve been able to fly capitals for a few years now, I really haven’t used them often in combat. Most of my experience with them came in the form of POS repairing.

But now that I’m in system and settling down to actually use the carrier, it’s quite profitable, in more ways than one. In some ways, it’s a bit different than I expected.

Wormholes, Gates, and Risking It All

Recently, I shared some musings about the constant risk/reward decisions occurring inside the heads of every Eve player every day. While sometimes it's not worth the risk to try to go through the Nourvukaiken/Tama gate in a hauler, other times, you just need to take that risk.

A week ago, I moved a character into a dedicated ratting corp, with the intention of doing a little carrier ratting to generate isk. My reasons for this weren't purely economic, though. I tend to be very nervous about cosmic anomalies; the fact that anyone can warp to them makes me a bit skittish. While carriers are capable of holding their own against subcaps now - something not true in the days between carriers being able to field light drones and the new squadron fighter mechanics - I've grown up on stories and experiences killing ratting carriers, and that kind of lesson doesn't quickly go away.

One of my corpmates, Alice Karjovic, won me over by suggesting that carrier ratting is quite different than it used to be. No longer is it the afk activity it used to be. In fact, he was pretty adamant that it's a good way to become familiar with the new fighter control mechanics, and actually serves as good training for carrier PvP. I'm very inexperienced with using capitals, so it sounded like a good thing to try to gain a little practice in a safer (yet still exposed) way.

But, first, I needed to get a carrier in the ratting system.

Propaganda: Basic Reactions

Balancing equations has never been easier, thanks to the Reddit comments of our friends in Circle of Two!

When balancing equations, don't skimp on the salt.

Enjoy the war, and study for Chem 101 at the same time.

Random Encounters

Eve is a social game, at its core. At the most basic level, having more people allows you to accomplish bigger goals, like taking down larger targets or completing more difficult missions or sites. Some aspects of the game simply aren't possible without multiple players, like supercap production, incursions, or carrier ratting. Others aren't viable - moon mining and PI are far easier and more profitable with multiple players.

When it comes to PvP, more players always makes it easier. Sometimes, that's not a good thing, like when you're specifically trying to fight outnumbered to stretch yourself. But in some situations and against some enemies, it's prudent and useful.

While most people offer the advice to join a player-run corporation so you have a group of people to talk to in game, that advice is usually offered more to ensure long-term engagement than to occupy each play session. The simple fact is, joining a corporation isn't enough. Nor is it enough to have a certain corp size.

The real factor you should be looking for is how many mains your corp has in the same place.

A Beautiful Thing to Behold

I remember the first time I ever saw a Titan. It was very early in my career as a Roving Guns pilot in Razor. We landed on it in our Drakes (yeah, back then!) and got ready to bridge into a fight.

This was back in the times when bumping titans was a serious problem and FCs would rage for years about knocking it out of the POS. It was in the time of the black screen of death that sometimes happened when you loaded grid. That problem was always made worse by multiple pilots jumping at once, making a titan bridge a serious concern for those of us with lower-end PCs. After any jump, you might have found yourself dropped, only to log back in all alone.

Only a few weeks after seeing that first titan, I participated in my first two Titan kills, an Avatar and an Erebus in Venal, of all places. This was back when Titans weren’t used that often. They were utterly helpless when caught by themselves, and rarely traveled, or were even used that much in combat.

In the interim, though, I’ve participated in a wide number of move ops, but until Citadels, supers and titans had to be parked in POSes, and were often moved on their own, separate from capital and subcap fleets. While I might pass an occasional titan in transit, it was infrequent.

That all changed today, and I've got the evidence to prove it.

Don't Ever Try to Sell Capitals

Two days ago, I faced the unenviable discovery that my alliance had changed its priorities, and no one had bothered to tell me. I found myself about two months behind the meta, holding onto ships I didn't need any longer.

Now, this happens all the time, of course. Doctrines change and ships become obsolete. This time, though, the problem was the kind of ships. We weren't talking about a few frigates here.

This is how things typically go when you decommission a doctrine. You somehow get your ship to Jita (typically contracting or hauling it), you repackage it, and sell the components on the market for either whatever you can get, or you set up sell orders to move it at the optimal price, if you don't need the isk quickly. Then, you pick up the new ship and make your way (or ship it) back to your staging. 

Of course, there are complications. Maybe you're deployed in deep null with camps along the way, and you need to use a courier service and alliance contracts. Or maybe you want to repurpose the ship and just need a few modules to retrofit it. I've certainly done that more than once. In the latter case, that involves inventorying what you have and what you need. There's nothing more annoying that going through the effort of hauling modules in only to realize you forgot to bring the T2 rig that makes the whole fit work.

But with capitals? It's a giant headache.

Lessons: It's Not About Whether You Lose…

Recently, I’ve been trying out a new roaming system that involves Valeria in a fast-warping interceptor with Talvorian in a wicked neuting Vexor Navy Issue. It requires me to multibox, something that’s definitely outside my wheelhouse. But, that’s kind of the point, to get out of my comfort zone and stretch myself.

Originally, my goal with the setup was to use it to catch ratters more efficiently. I’ve often entered system and managed to pinpoint my targets in my Stratios, only to miss them by a few seconds. I wash hoping a fast-warping interceptor might be fast enough to pin them down and survive long enough for my back-up to kill them. I really haven’t gotten that chance; though I’ve flown the setup three times, I haven’t managed to find any ratters to test it against.

That’s not to say I’ve come up empty, though. While the planned engagements haven’t done well, it has performed admirably in surprised PvP situations, particularly against blobs.

Remembrance and Idealism

Lately, there's been a lot of talk about Dominion sov and Aegis sov. Caprisunkraftfoods, a former alliance-mate and veteran of Black Legion and TISHU, shared some concerns about where Eve is headed. His concerns are incredibly valid, and demonstrate an awareness about the fundamental nature of conflict within the game. I share his concerns, for instance, about industrial citadels, and agree that I don't want POSes to be completely overridden by citadels.

Another former alliance-mate and fellow writer, Seraph Basarab (leaving out the Roman numerals) countered with his own perspective. In his write-up, he widens the focus conveyed within Capri's write-up to show that the story isn't as narrowly focused as one might think. His arguments are all incredibly reasonable.

Though both of them are in TISHU, they have some different interpretations about gameplay, the trajectory of Eve, and the general quality of recent changes. Both of them are right, and that fact alone reveals the complexity of what CCP is trying to accomplish. The simple fact is that yes, CCP has blindly followed their roadmap while completely ignoring player warnings about the inevitable results. This can have terrible consequences if they do everything they intend to do. Yet, the changes they have made to date have a lot of positive results to the game, as Seraph points out. I don't blame Capri for his lack of faith; that position is well-supported by recent rebalances. But nor is Seraph wrong in seeing the positives.

This discussion, though, has spawned a lot of conversation, though, and through that conversation, I've seen a lot of poorly constructed arguments, filled with fallacies that need to be addressed. This piece isn't an attempt to refute either Capri or Seraph, but rather to unpack and deflate some misconceptions and deliberate tricks being used by those supporting the both of them.

Nothing Whatsoever Happened in SH1-6P Yesterday...

...well, unless you count the destruction of 1.4 trillion isk worth of ships, including a handful of titans. Take a look at that battle report. Then scroll down. And down, and down. Then, you might hit the end of the list of titans who participated.

And who said Eve was bereft of reasons to fight?

The interesting thing was that this fight emerged over a CSAA that had been reinforced a couple days before. In a remarkably brilliant example of "I knew there was a reason CO2 wasn't annihilated", CO2 sounded the alarm and mustered their new allies against NC. and PL. Escalation followed escalation until we had a knock-down brawl that lasted several hours and wiped out a bunch of isk. It was the very best kind of battle... an impromptu one. I doubt many expected it to escalate as far as it did. A good time was had by all.

Well, almost everyone. Within the first minute of the fight, I found myself being yellow-boxed by the entire Snuff Box Nightmare fleet. I immediately broadcasted for armor reps, but I was dead before my logi even locked me. MintyRoadkill helped escort me to staging a couple minutes later. I only managed to get on the first two kills before I went down. Sad panda. So, I can't give much more on what happened since I was out so quickly, but a good summary can be found here.

But regardless of my own kill count, it was a good night for the good guys, and NC. lost only 71 bil. A good trade any day!

Citadel Traps

I’m a big fan of gameplay that requires plays to do work to catch targets. Generally speaking, if Eve is about improving your skill and defeating a human opponent, using a cheap trick completely defeats the purpose.

That tends to be why I don’t really respect pilots who fly with boosting alts, particularly as they’re still of the off-grid variety. To me, that smacks of throwing money at a problem and pretending it’s skill. It’s certainly a viable, effective, and permitted tactic, but it’s not a very skillful one.

One of the tactics that fit into that category from the moment citadels deployed was dropping a citadel and drag bubbles in line with a gate to pop anyone who warped directly from gate to gate. From the safety of your citadel, you could kill everything with ease. It was a cheap tactic.

And, with the August patch, it’s no longer possible. Drag bubbles will now only catch ships if placed within 500 km of your warpto location (a gate, a planet, etc.)

What surprises me isn’t that Eve players chose to take advantage of this, or that CCP didn’t anticipate this application of the mechanic. It’s that it took this many months for the change to come. I mean, I can understand that it might require some development, and that citadel mechanics are new and prone to surprising effects when you change.

But in null-sec, a citadel-bubble combination is just ridiculous, and systems were lousy with them.

Regardless, it’s another one of those problems we can relegate to history and the “wow, that was really a thing?” category.

A Third Hotspot?

For years, a very limited number of interesting things happened in nullsec. You essentially had two major empires, the CFC and the Russians, with Provibloc seemingly content with its modest region in Providence. But - largely, nothing of much importance happened in other regions of space. The whole south, for instance, was a vast renter wasteland.

Mind you, things happened. Empires lived there, they built up their space, and did all the things people do will null systems. But when you were planning a roam or deciding whether to roam around the systems near where your wormhole popped up, would you even really waste your time going through any other area of space? There was simply too much of nothing around.

And on top of that, Russian space outside of RUTZ was pretty well-known for being botland, filled with pilots who dock/safe up like clockwork when you entered local. I mean, ridiculously consistently, with - dare I say? - machine-like efficiency. It was kind of a dead zone for entertainment, despite the population.

Around each of those areas, you saw satellite activity pop up. the pirates moved there, and provided more targets for you to shoot. Both the owners and the pirates had to make isk and enjoy the content, so they tended to spread into the nearby FW areas, buoying the action there. You ended up with two main hotspots surrounded by opportunists and hunters. Two centers of content, if you will. But it was all made possible by the concentration of active players in the north.

And that's all about to change. Goonswarm is leaving the north.

That's Who I Want to Be

About a month ago, Repercussus left Violence of Action and joined NC. I was a little surprised. It's well known that NC. wants every player to have the ability to fly and live out of a capital. With some of RP's newer players, I wasn't sure it'd be a good fit.

But after a few weeks, I've been enjoying it so much that I've moved Talvorian back into RP. First impressions have been strong. On comms, pilots are cool and collected. The alliance flies the shiny ships that initially drew me to join TISHU last year, and has both the ability and interest in flying smaller doctrines. And when they do throw down, they do so with the support of PL and a robust capital SRP program. If I lose a dread, I can get back into the fight regardless of how much isk I have tied up. Suffice to say, I bought and fully decked out two Naglfars in the first week.

But that's honestly not what impressed me about NC. It's not the doctrines or the SRP, but rather the FC corps. These people know what they're doing.

And I've found myself increasingly wanting to be like them.

Razor Leaves(ish) the Imperium

My in-game activity has been somewhat diminished over the past four weeks or so as the NHL playoffs came to an end. But now that they have ended - and successfully, with my Penguins winning the Cup! - I'm turning my attention back to Eve in a big way.

There are some groups in Eve I can't help but track based on fond memories. Alliances and corporations where I had a lot of great fun, but ultimately left for various reasons. Unlike when I was a member, I'm able to look at them a bit more honestly now and see them for their strengths and weaknesses... warts and all, as they say.

One of those groups is Razor Alliance, of whom I was a member for over two years. So, you can imagine that I was somewhat interested in the fact that they're leaving the Imperium. But thye are keeping blue status to "the Imperium" for the time being.

The first reddit posts announcing this departure didn't provide much more information than this, and my reaction was predictable. If you leave the Imperium but don't change your standings, you really haven't left. It's a cheap attempt to remove the target on your back without actually taking on any more risk. And the whole point of World War Bee was to smash a stable coalition to introduce more risk and more conflict into the game. Kill the "big blue doughnut" by smashing the entity most responsible for it.

Now, since then, more info came out in a soundcloud in which it became clear that the blue status would be short-term to help Razor extract its assets and ships from allied areas. And that's a very different animal than keeping permanent blue standing. This is a temporary status to help them disengage from coalition functions.

But, I had the inevitable person comment about unfair standards. And that just doesn't do to go unanswered.

Sometimes, You Have to Give Up

Sometimes, persistence yields benefits. We've all read those stories about players carefully stalking targets over the course of days or weeks, lining up the perfect opportunity. Titans and supers tend to be a target of these kinds of players, and through them we learn never to be predictable when we're flying "the thing". Some players afk cloak for hours on end until the residents relax long enough that they finally let their guard down and get caught.

But for each carefully researched and laid trap is that opportunity that just doesn't pan out.

What separates the "persistent" from the "stubborn"? In the end, doesn't it have to come down to likelihood? The persistent player reviews the situation and recognizes an opportunity that may be somewhat distant. The stubborn player clings to a hope not borne out in evidence.

That afk camper knows - as sure as the sun rises in the east - that the people she's camping will eventually shrug their shoulders and put out a bait ratter. She might respond to comments in local hours after they're made, just to reiterate that she's not sitting at her computer. After nothing happens to it, more pilots will start ratting, then they'll bring out the bling. It's a certainty.

That titan hunter can point to the habits of the target, knows its travel routes, knows active time periods, and has scouts ready to relay intel. Evidence. Fact.

Then, there's the other type. Yesterday, I came across a stubborn player whom I kind of felt bad for.

Enough with the False Parallels

I really like Wilhelm Arcturus' perspective on the game. He's a good writer, but recently, he parroted the latest talking point in the Imperium's increasingly desperate repertoire of attempted propaganda:

"In their effort to defeat us, our enemy has had to become us. As the CFC/Imperium had often been called Band of Brothers 2.0, the Moneybadgers have begun to look a bit like the Imperium 2.0."

This is an obvious propaganda point, and a pretty bad one at that. Why? Because it relies upon a false parallel that assumes the reader is foolish enough to believe all coalitions are the same. It's disingenuous, and it frustrates me to know end.

Here's a tip to those who resonate with this argument: the people shooting you aren't a coalition, despite the naming.

Let's consider the nature of the two groups being compared.

Hunting Ratters, A Guide

In January, I spent a lot of time in CFC space (at the time) hunting ratters in my Stratios full-time. This was before my alliance, TISHU, deployed to start brutalizing SMA in Fade. At the time, one of my readers suggested I put together a guide about doing exactly that. I apologize for taking so long.

Now, it's worth noting that I'm probably not the best person to write this guide. Stunt Flores, for instance, is phenomenal at this kind of activity. Following his recent un-ban, he celebrated by killing over fifty pilots in a period of about two days. That's tremendous. But, I haven't seen him put one up; if he makes comments to this one, I'd be happy to append the post with his tips.

This post is going to focus on null-sec ratting, and it's going to start with the assumption that you're doing it solo; I'll get into some small-gang advice later on. I'm not going to talk about black-ops dropping, though, since that's really just an easier form of solo hunting.

So, let's start with a little psychology, move to the vital facts, and end with some tips.

Why do pilots rat in null-sec?

Lessons: Breaking Reps Through Trickery

Earlier this week, White Legion had one particular battle with the CFC and the MBC in the thunderdome known as Saranen. In this case, TISHU brought Machariels, Pandemic Legion brought Armageddons, White Legion brought slippery pete Tengus, and the CFC showed up in Hurricanes.

Now, as to what happened, Wilhelm Arcturus's write-up about the battle was incredibly detailed, so I'm not going to even attempt to do so again. Just go ahead and read that post for the full story.

Rather, I wanted to talk about one aspect of it in particular. Early on in the battle - at least from the White Legion perspective - we were having some trouble breaking the reps on the MBC fleets. In particular, we would target a TISHU Machariel, only for it to catch reps well before we could apply damage.

Now, part of it was because we were applying damage at 200 km. Yet, a pete Tengu is capable of projecting incredibly well without being able to be probed, which, of course, is crazy overpowered.

But the other part was the result of standard target calling behavior, and that's where our story begins.

Lessons: It's Not How You Win, But How You Lose

In Star Trek lore, there's a psychological test cadets go through at Starfleet Academy called the Kobayashi Maru scenario. The basic premise simple. You're a starship captain, and your ship happens upon a distress call by the freighter Kobayashi Maru, which is under attack by Klingon birds-of-prey. No matter what you do, no matter what decisions you make, the simulation escalates the situation by introducing new threats and variables in pursuit of a true "no-win" scenario. You can respond to the distress call, or leave them to their fate. If you search for additional back-up in the area, your search will turn up dry. You can pretend to want to join in on the attack and claim to be a rogue starship captain, and other Starfleet vessels will attack you. If you attack the first ships, you may find they have an experimental shield you can't break through. There's no way to win.

The purpose, of course, is to see how a cadet will react to defeat, to constantly having one's efforts thwarted, and to being responsible for having a ship full of lives lost around you. After all, Starfleet doesn't need weak-willed officers on the command track.

There's a power to a no-win situation that we as humans recognize. Whether it's the Alamo, the idea of a "forlorn hope" company, the Song of Roland, the Charge of the Light Brigade, or the countless times in Lord of the Rings that individuals step into harm when it seems they have no hope of victory, we're deeply moved by the way people react when they face no hope.

In Eve, we see it all the time. You find yourself in a wholly untenable situation in which your ship is at mortal risk. It becomes obvious that you will lose that ship, but the way you lose it is a great test of how far you've come as a pilot.

A Ship in Every Citadel

Sure, the title of this post wasn't the tagline of Empress Catiz' coronation celebration, but given the timing between the conclusion of the Amarr Succession Trials and the release of the Citadel expansion, it might as well have been. If you're curious about the lore implications of Catiz Tash-Murkon's ascension to the throne, check out the CZ article by Tarek Raimo. It's very good and informative.

Citadels are coming in about half a day, and with them are coming widespread capital rebalances. What was two is becoming three, with fighter damage and logistics being split up into Carriers and Force Auxiliaries respectively. I still hate that awful name, by the way. It's terrible and doesn't really apply. In my mind, auxiliaries have one of two meanings: either allied forces you don't rely upon, but use to "mop up" or a reserve force you keep until you identify where along a battle line you need some help. They should have called them triage and been done with it.

But, I digress. I won't waste your time talking about the detailed effects these changes will have on capital warfare, more because I honestly don't know than because of personal restraint. I'm not a very experienced capital pilot, and couldn't say how it'll affect the meta. I do predict that the new capital modules will provide some local repping power to offset the danger presented by the new doomsday weapons, and I generally expect more caps to die in engagements than in the past. But I'm not putting any money on it.

Upon first glance, it may not appear as if there's a lot in the Citadel expansion that directly affects subcap PvP. After all, we aren't getting ship rebalances, new ships (which, honestly, we don't really need), or the desperately warranted assault frigate rebalance we've all been asking for. And, generally, I get it. Subcaps have gotten a lot of attention, and it's time to let them sit for a while until all of the ramifications of the whirlwind of changes settles down.

But it'd be a mistake to believe this expansion won't affect subcap pilots.