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.

Boost Me Up, Bro!

Fleet boosts (links) are a challenging topic. As they stand right now, they're heavily broken because there's virtually no way a pilot can know if another ship is being linked before deciding to take a fight, nor is there any record of that fleet booster's participation in the fight. It's a largely silent mechanic.

Instead, a single ship sits alone in the depths of space, completely isolated from its fleet, providing a system-wide boost to all ships beneath it in the fleet structure. That fleet booster will never see either its fleet members or the enemy ships. Pretty much the only meaningful gameplay that ship needs to do is watch short scan for probes and incoming ships, and remaining aligned to quickly warp out to escape anyone trying to take it out. Its function is very similar to sitting at a safe and hoping you don't get probed down. For all intents and purposes, it's not playing the same game as anyone else in system. When attacking, by default you'll need a probing character with Virtue implants to be able to get a 100% lock on a halfway decent boosting fit.

And yet, links are viewed as absolutely essential to any well-run fleet. Even some individual and small-gang pilots (I use individual to refer to multiboxing individual pilots running multiple ships; they are not solo) will absolutely require links before undocking.

The demands of large fleets and small gangs are very different, and whether fleet boosts are present or absent affects each differently. In most large fleets, links help increase survivability, but not necessarily viability; they keep ships alive, but the fleet would operate similarly with or without links. In other cases - such as doctrines that rely on additional webbing range or glass cannon sniper fleets (Tornadoes, slippery pete Tengus) that need additional lock range - links are absolutely vital to effectively fly the doctrine. A slippery pete doctrine that operates within a Maelstrom fleet's lock range stands no chance, for instance.

For small gang work, links can often mean the difference between using and not using a given ship. many kiting ships, for instance, rely on a speed advantage - often coupled with implants - to maintain range, and without it, they simply wouldn't have a role. Links also provide a meaningful advantage when facing the blob; without links, the solo pilot doesn't stand a chance, so no fight happens.

It's a thorny problem. And CCP has decided to tackle it. Finally.

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.

Theomachy: A Litmus Test Against the Unknown

On this blog, I've talked about the value in putting yourself in unfamiliar scenarios and trying to fight your way out. True growth, after all, occurs after the unpredictable experiences. Recently, I caught a ratting VNI and found myself having to contend with reinforcements. It wasn't an ideal situation, and things didn't go as planned. But as the engagement progressed, I kept my head and carefully moved from target to target, clearing the field in the process.

That didn't happen in a vacuum.* In fact, the Talvorian Dex of two years ago would have panicked and fled. The Talvorian Dex of three years ago likely would have died. The battles that I took part in during the interim directly led to me surviving and succeeding this past week.

It can be expensive, though, learning those lessons. A quick look at my killboard shows about a trillion isk of destruction and around 41 billion in losses. Now, a sizable chunk of those losses were of fleet doctrine ships for which I received SRP reimbursement, but the cost of those lessons is still enormous.

As I learned, cost was a factor for me. I'd find myself feeling hesitant to take an engagement because of the cost of my ship. And while isk and skillpoints don't improve how you fly in and of themselves, they do unlock some possibilities that a pilot who works hard to improve can take advantage of... if you've the courage to try them.

That's why Theomachy, a player run event happening on August 27 on the Singularity test server, is the answer to all of your unspoken prayers.

Lessons: Try, Try Again

Universal axioms are rarely useful; in almost all cases (see what I did there...), the devil is in the details. Take, for instance, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." In certain cases, it just doesn't make sense to follow that advice. If you fail to kill a carrier with a single battleship, don't try again. Give up. It's foolish.  Or if, say, you aren't willing to inject, repurpose, or buy a neutral jump freighter pilot, don't fly jump freighters.

Yet, that's not to say the axiom is wholly worthless, because there are a lot of situations where slight differences in details can make a world of difference. Sometimes, victory or defeat comes down to a slight fitting change here or there, or knowing more about the habits of your target. In many cases, even the experience of losing once provides critical information you can use the next time to turn the tables.

One of those situations happened to me this weekend. In between hunting Goonswarm supercaps as they moved and killing a couple carriers that wanted to commit insurance fraud, I made two quick whaling trips to a nearby ratting system. During the first one, I tried to jump two Vexor Navy Issues, but it didn't go as planned.

The second trip ended much differently as a direct result of the lessons I learned, though.

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.

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?

Praise the Skill, Not the Form

A family vacation chained on top of a work trip (one day in between) left little computer time this past week, but I did have the opportunity to read an interesting post by Eve Hermit. In it, he responds to JohnnyPew’s opinion on what real solo PvP is. If you’re interested in the nuances among different definitions of “solo”, both are worth listening to.

What is solo PvP? There are a few definitions people tend to use:

1. A single pilot flying without any support of any kind.
2. A single combat pilot doing damage and applying effects.
3. A single human fighting without the assistance of others.

It may seem like a difference in terminology only, but the ramifications are significant. The second and third options open up the possibility of using link alts or scouts to give an advantage, while the third option covers multiboxers, like Zosius, the very skilled writer of Cloaky Bastard.

Really, the question of what “true solo PvP” is comes down to gloating rights, in the end. At what point do you have the right to link the kill in Bringing Solo Back without it being a sad attempt to make yourself feel accomplished? Let me give you a few scenarios to consider:

1. You fly two characters at once, your dps ship and a covops scanner as a scout. You jump your scout in and see three ships on the other side. You wait until your scout sees a single ship vulnerable and jump in, killing the ship and moonwalking out before the other two arrive to assist their friend.
2.  You fly with two characters, a link alt and a Merlin. Using your links, your Merlin kills a Federation Navy Comet in a novice FW plex.
3.  You control four characters, a cloaky tackle Proteus and three remote rep Dominixes. Using your Proteus, you find a fleet of four Tengus running a site in a WH. You tackle a couple with your Proteus, warp in your Domis, and kill the two of them, while their two friends escape.
4.  You fly a Garmur and kill a series of ten T1 frigates in FW plexes, most of which are fitted with T1 modules.

So, which of these scenarios earn you the right to feel proud of yourself?

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.

Reputation

Ever since I started this blog in mid-July 2013, I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten a lot more attention in-game. I’ve been pretty transparent about who my main is, and I’m willing to talk to anyone who convo’s me while I’m flying around. My wife jokes and says I’m space famous, even though I know I’m not. Far from it.

On one or two occasions, people have tried to use what they know about me against me, typically by trying to lure me into situations where they can blob me given my well-known dislike of links and hot-dropping. Fortunately, I’m usually pretty savvy in those situations and can typically smell a trap. It’s also ridiculously hard for one or two pilots to catch someone floating through low-sec – or even null-sec – if they think something’s fishy and don’t want to engage, even in a destroyer or cruiser.

More often than not, being well-known gets me more fights. People want to kill pilots they know. I admit – without shame – to thinking the same thing about Rixx Javix, again as a result of his easygoing nature and aversion to links.  It’s safe to say that being known for disliking links has more often given me more engagements than it’s cost me ships.

A lot of times, as I’m roaming, people will comment in local or convo me with opinions about Target Caller. Usually, it’s positive.  I’ve actually found that Eve players are quite courteous – if they don’t have anything nice to say, they just stay quiet, or mention that they recognize the name without any opinion about WHY they recognize it.

And that’s all well and good. I’m always happy to talk to folks, engage people in conversations, and hear their Eve stories.

Yesterday, though, something happened that I can honestly say I’ve never experienced before.

Lessons: Always Honor Ransoms

Let’s face it; you don’t decide to “shoot all the things” and engage in generally satisfying PvP because you want to get rich. Generally speaking, the kinds of PvP that earn you lots of isk are massively disconnected from genuine piracy. If you want to get rich, camp the trade routes and engage in war decs, gank freighters or mission boats, or camp low-sec entrances.

These activities, I’d generally refer to as true piracy – there’s a natural money-making element of them. Why did pirates attack merchantmen instead of galleons? Because that’s where the low-risk profit was.

On this blog, I talk about improving your PvP skills. That usually means learning to fly better, it often means learning to cope with “the blob” and being prepare to manage multiple targets, and it sometimes means preparing not for an easy gank, but the more difficult act of getting away with the loot and dodging the response fleet that hits you afterwards. All of them are skills that you need to cultivate, else you end up whining about blobs, cheap tactics, and start getting bitter.

But, every so often, you have the opportunity to conduct a good, old-fashioned ransom.

Just Because I'm Trying to Kill You…

Eve really is a funny game. One of the first rules you hear is that you can’t trust anyone. Every pilot who isn’t a blue is trying to kill you. If you don’t learn that lesson by rote, you learn it by experience. We disregard dscan and a search for probes at our own peril.

But on the other hand, the status of another pilot can change in an instant. One day, you’re all part of the same alliance, but the next, a CEO decides to pull his corp and suddenly you’re enemies. Back when I was in Razor, we experienced a similar thing when hirr decided to leave the alliance. Instead of an orderly evac and well-wishing, they decided to burn their bridges, cloaky camp our space for a few weeks, and kill people who were allies a day before. Such is life.

But, ultimately, that only tells part of the story. Reality in Eve isn’t about what alliances and corporations do, but what happens on the individual level. It’s about friends becoming enemies overnight. It’s about alliances of convenience springing up. “When did we blue Black Legion?” I remember asking once. All of a sudden, the people you were killing are your allies, only to change when the moment passes.

The consequences of that add a level of complexity missing from other games. Sure, some players just hate PL or Goonswarm, and will never see beyond it. Every pilot with either in their history is a hated enemy, never to be redeemed or to remove the stain.

But for most of us, we recognize that pilots come and go. Corp or alliance membership is often temporary, and it doesn’t do to burn your bridges.

And, on occasion, that kind of attitude wins you support when you most need it.

Lessons: Trusting Your Instincts

Rarely do I immediately have an interaction with a player and immediately drop what I’m doing to sit down and write an article. Normally, I mull it over for a time and think about things. I try for each of my articles to contain a lesson a reader can take out of it – either from me doing something right or, more often, me doing something wrong.

In this case, the lesson was so obvious that I had to share the tale.  So sit down, my friends, and hear the story of a chance encounter sure to rile some of you up, but worth the listening nonetheless.

This is a story of Talvorian Dex and Papusa, the Goonswarm FC and personality.

How to Fly a Dual-Rep Harpy

RIP the obligatory Damage Control, may you live forever in memory.

For those of you living under a rock, all hulls now receive a base 33% hull resist across the board, with damage controls now offering only a 40% boost. Combined, fitting a damage control still gives you a 59.8% overall resist, pretty close to the normal 60%.

Since then, we've seen a number of threads on Reddit from fitting warriors talking about why it still makes sense to fit a damage control on your ships. And generally, I agree with the comments they made. At the moment, damage controls still don't suffer stacking penalties, which means those shield and armor resist bonuses are in addition to and don't result in penalties for other resist modules.

That's a great benefit, of course, and it does provide a lot of value. But the simple fact is that ships that fit the damage control have a slightly smaller tank, while ships that do not fit a DC now had a slightly larger tank. This change is perfect for my dual-rep Harpy. it's time for a "How to fly" article!

I Give Up....

In theory, I really like the idea of keeping Talvorian's security status high enough to travel through high-sec. I do, honestly.

Granted, when I travel through empire space, I tend to "prefer less secure", but having the ability to run to Jita for a battleship or battlecruiser is more convenient than waiting for corp logistics to delivery them. Well, usually more convenient. I really appreciate the freedom to do as I will. Particularly when I was relocating all my ships from Syndicate to Fountain (which I can talk about now that I got my dread out), cutting through high-sec without being killed was incredibly useful.

That said, the allure of running below -5 is almost irresistible. Gate guns hit hard, and a lot of pilots don't want to initiate an engagement for fear of gate guns. When I was on my descent to -10.0, I found that the additional fights i got from pilots freely engaging my pirate self far outweighed any disadvantages from me not having gate gun protection.  and I've found that me being perma-flashy really loosens the inhibitions of pilots I come across.

And let's not forget the psychological effect. I've always found myself to be more concerned about a red flashy pilot with a skull next to his name landing on grid than I am about a normal pilot.

Reassurance

I've been spending a lot of time working on standardizing the format and content of the PvE guides I transferred over from the Evelopedia, which has now been discontinued. So, you could say that I've had a heavy PvE focus over the past few days. I've held off on posting other articles that might get lost within the pool of PvE guides.

(Note: The main Cosmic Signature Guide is also linked to the right on the web version of the site. Bookmark it, use it, help me improve it.)

But I've also done some PvP recently - including a fleet of low-sec shenanigans that left me with a loot-filled cargohold - and made my way up to Vale of the Silent for some action in my trusty Stratios. At the same time, I was running a Guristas Military Operations Complex (the five-room site) on my ratting alt, alt-tabbing every so often to verify local was clear and I wasn't in trouble.

Now, typically, I don't have much problem dual-boxing wildly different accounts. I have to pay a little more attention right at the beginning of a cosmic signature room as I clear the frigs (they get one-shotted, so I have to lock a bunch of ships very quickly), but once I work my way to the battleships, there's a lot of waiting.  PvP actually fits into that nicely.

In this case, though, I jumped into a new system with Talvorian and pinpointed an Ishtar on dscan at a Forsaken Hub. Hitting warp, I switched over to check on my ratting alt as Talvorian started to accelerate. As I did, a neutral entered local where I was ratting.

Lessons: Lose Small

A lot of folks use isk measures to identify how much you kill and how much you lose. That's one way to do it, but it tends to overvalue low-risk PvP. Things like station ganking, high-sec war deccing, suicide ganking, and covops hotdropping ganks all paint a picture that you're an awesome PvPer... if you look at only isk values.

That said, this blog isn't about high kill/death ratios; it's about helping you become comfortable relying on your wits, staying calm, and making good decisions when you fly. It's the "soft skills" that matter most and best define which of us is "capable" and which isn't.

To cultivate those skills often involves pushing your limits, flying dangerously, and living wholly outside your comfort zone. That's a high-risk/high-reward education experience much more akin to "Step 1: lose 100 frigates" in attitude. Education is expensive.

But that doesn't mean it has to be ruinously expensive. You're going to lose and have to replace ships, but by flying intelligently, you can "lose small", which can help you fund your PvP while cultivating those skills.

Fulfillment of a Dream, or The Beautiful Death

On this blog, I’ve written many times about the search for the good fight. In the real world, that same sentiment is shared by the dramatic character of the wandering warrior, searching for a beautiful death in service of a great cause. Whether this archetype is legit or not in the real world is up for debate. But in Eve – with our immortal capsuleers – it’s very much a thing.

At its core, what it means is that you wander through New Eden looking for that perfect fight in which you experience artful PvP. Win or lose isn’t the point; what you’re searching for is the opportunity to be part of true skill, and excellence of action.

It’s actually quite rare to witness the pure thing. Though, you can get diluted glimpses of it – the Vexor pilot who stayed to defend his mining friend I wrote about, for instance. The pure execution of a well-laid plan flawlessly enacted with exactly the minimum force and perfect situational awareness the opportunity requires… that perfect balance of necessity and power that results in an artful attack stays with you.

I experienced it last night, with an added twist because it involved a reader of mine, someone I’ve watched grow in ability for several months now.

Getting Back on the Horse

Just like riding a bicycle, the best way to recover from a ship loss is to get right back out there and try again.  In my case, after losing the Fortuna, I woke up in Venal and immediately jumped into a Heretic.

I always fly with a 603 CPU implant to squeeze a little extra out of my fittings. I maxed my fitting skills a long time ago, but that little bit can mean the difference between an ideal fit and having to make compromises in a surprising number of cases.  But having been caught by the hictor, my implant was gone.  I had to offline the web on my Heretic to undock.

Making my way back to empire space to buy a new implant, I quickly headed down the Tribute pipe leading to Taisy. All systems were clear except for E-OGL4, which had five reds.  I decided to – wisely as it turned out – warp to a perch on the M-OEE8 gate and saw a Sabre, Svipul, and Oracle running a gate camp.  The Svipul and Sabre were right on the gate with a bubble up, and the Oracle was about a hundred kilometers away.

The Fall of the Fortuna

Today at 5:25 am Eve time, the Stratios-class ship Fortuna was finally – after a reign of terror lasting three weeks – destroyed by a hotdrop by members of Theta Squad, primarily from Goonswarm.

Upon its death, the Fortuna had generated 19 killmarks, delivered 24 final blows, participated in 48 kills, and 16 solo kills (once rats were taken off). Those kills represented a total of 7.2 billion isk of damage.

More importantly, it represented more than three weeks behind enemy lines, dodging response gangs, fighting outnumbered, and choosing the right time to strike.

I originally came down to Fade from Venal with that ship, intending to reship into a dictor once I lost it. At the time, I thought I’d be reshipping within the week.  But instead, I had a great run of good luck, leading me to actually name it – something I’ve never done before – the Fortuna.