FC Lessons: Jumping the Gun

Friday night, I noticed that no one had pinged for a fleet yet, so I imported some Comets and Merlins right in the middle of Black Rise and sent out a ping. 7 people showed up – honestly not bad considering no one could plan their schedules around it and NC. had fleets earlier in the day that saw a lot of people clone jump to alliance staging.

I’m sure the ship selection probably raised a few eyebrows. My initial plan was to fly only the armor Comets, but I had space in my Occator’s hold and decided to fill it with some ships I might use solo or on another fleet. The Comets were MWD fit and the Merlins were AB fit, but in most cases we were fighting on the button of FW plexes anyways, right in scram range.

This was one of those pre-planning mistakes you can make that dramatically affects the success of a fleet. I didn’t expect to go through as many ships as we did during the night, but I should have planned better for the possibility by sticking to one – either MWD or AB – in case we got into a mixed fleet situation.

Suffice to say, it wasn’t the only mistake that happened that night.

FC Lessons: My First Roam, Gallente-Strong

A few weeks ago, I ran my first full, pre-planned corp fleet with a defined doctrine. Compared to my first roam, this was a wholly different kettle of fish. In the first place, we had about three times the number of pilots, but beyond that, we weren’t doing a kitchen sink fleet.

Instead, we were flying armor Comets with Navitas logi. It took me a long time to come up with exactly the right doctrine to use. I knew I wanted to keep our options open, and a lot of our Friday night roams involved novice FW complexes. It wouldn’t due to fly anything but T1 frigates; a mixed fleet would work for nullsec, but we’d more often than not find ourselves unable to field our full strength and be easily prone to being split up.

But, my ships needed some survivability. A Comet is ideally suited to hull-tanking, but one of my corpmates shared a nice armor fit that benefited from logi. So, I quickly added a logi to the doctrine. The Navitas could field a decent tank for a T1 frigate logi. Gotta love those Gallente for survivability.

At first, I considered bringing a tackler ship as well, but quickly discarded the idea. Any T1 tackle ship I considered performed less effectively at the task than the Comets. Why overcomplicate things?

It ended up being a good decision, and a good night.

When the Risk is Too Much

Eve is a game about risk, of course. Every time you undock, you risk the destruction of your ship. For that reason, any good mentor will suggest that you shouldn't get too attached to your ships. Save your fits so you can recreate them when they die. Don't covet them. View them as the tools they are, not good friends.

And, try not to think about how many innocent crewmen die when your ship goes boom.

For that reason, everything we do goes into a cost/value analysis. Everyone does this, from the freshest newbro to the most grizzled, cutthroat veteran. Sure, the former may not have as much information feeding into that analysis and the veteran will tell you he flies recklessly even as he very carefully and automatically selects his fights, but they're asking themselves essentially the same question.

What are my chances?

Fear the Battle Venture!

On Friday night, I logged in to comms not really sure what to expect. While RP runs a Friday drunk roam (don’t let the name fool you; most of us are stone-sober, and it’s really a code phrase for low-sec roaming), we haven’t done it the past couple weeks, so I wasn’t sure what was happening.

The first comment I heard was, “X up if you need a Venture.”

Oh, God… what was I getting myself into?

FC Lessons: Room for Improvement

Over the weekend, I ran my first small gang roam as FC with some corpmates. I've taken a few days to think it over before drawing some conclusions about how I did. While the tl;dr is that we lost two scouts, none of the main fleet (except one who did a silly thing - not taking responsibility for that one!) and killed a blue Worm who didn't stop shooting us. Not that great. But, it could have been much worse. The story behind it, though, is where the lessons lie.

NC. moved this past weekend, so there weren't many planned ops for the days immediately preceding it as folks gathered up their ships, divested what they didn't need, and prepared capitals and jump clone timing to convoy to our next home. With some help from corpmates (I heart you, Basta...) I was done a little early and wanted to have a little fun. So, I clonejumped to Tamo and started up a fleet.

After all, if the content isn't around, create the content, right?

Sparta was planning on solo roaming in the same general direction anyways, so he and four others came along. It was a good size gang, with everyone armor-tanked, an additional armor link ship, and a Cruor as a scout. I brought Talvorian in a Confessor as a second scout and Valeria in an Auguror Navy Issue to manage fleet warps and have on-field eyes for fights. With that, we headed out towards Tamo.

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.

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.

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.

Hunting Guristas (Unlike what we do every day...)

I felt the subtitle was necessary, as far too many folk hunt Guristas like it's their job already. And, honestly, if you define your job as something you do specifically because you need to earn money, then yes, it actually is our jobs.

But not, I'm talking about the Guristas Hunt, perhaps the least originally named special event of recent history (particularly after the Crimson Harvest and Frostline, the former of which was just... chilling). That said, it seems like the same folks who brought us the T3D development meta had an influence here. Crimson Harvest was wildly popular because of the amazing rewards, just like Confessors and Svipuls. Frostline was a bit lackluster because of the poor rewards (Hecate), and Guristas Hunt appears to be shaping up like the Jackdaw, good in niche situations.

In reality, it reflects well on CCP that their first offering of each was so wildly overpowered. It shows that they really want to give players something good, and initially err on the side of extravagance. They pull back too far, and sling back in the other direction.

But with Guristas Hunt, it seems they've provided some interesting, and while the rewards aren't insanely wonderful, they are worthwhile.

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.

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.

Lessons: Take a Chance

A lot of Eve players operate under the principle that losing a ship is somehow a negative, and should be avoided at all costs.  These players view it as a negative ledger item, a debit in the overall accounting books of their character.  That’s one way to look at PvP, but it completely misses the point.

Ultimately, PvP is about squeezing enjoyment of the game.  I view it as the end game because it’s the only activity in Eve (other than giving your isk away or buying plex) that consumes resources by nature, when done effectively.  Everything else accrues assets, but without something to spend that money on, there really isn’t a point to that exercise.  Getting rich matters because of what it enables.

And the best PvP enjoyment happens on the edge, when you’re facing long odds and still manage to pull out a victory.  Not only is the victory sweeter when it isn’t certain, but when being defeated by greater numbers or stronger ships, you can avoid the “regret” and “anger” stages of the process and get right to learning what you did wrong and improving.  After all, if you take a fight you should probably lose, you can’t very well get mad at the result, right?

Sometimes, you have to take a chance, like I did in my Harpy.

Re-thinking High-sec in Light of the Lore

This is not a post about nerfing high-sec.  Not at all.  In fact, my argument isn't going to be about player engagement, income distribution, or any of that stuff.  I just want to talk about a cool thing I thought of while replying to a comment on the reddit post for my last article.  To do that, I'm basing my argument on a bit of logic and some lore.

First, some context.  CONCORD exists to apply precise "rules of war".  In part, it also serves to protect the empires from capsuleers, who cannot be killed permanently and represent a borderline xenophobic threat to the empires, even as they represent the empires' key way of fighting each other.

But, Concord (no caps anymore, too annoying...) also serves to manage intel and payment for activity against pirates, as well as classifying the security status of every system of New Eden.  Yet, Concord hasn't revised it's security status calculations in a very long time.  To the point, they haven't revised them in response to the discovery of wormhole space, the change in customs office ownership, sleepers, drifters, and the general weakening of the military forces of the empires, both in comparison to the past and to capsuleer empires.  A full fleet of capsuleer titans is a thing, yo.

I think it's high time Concord revises it's security status calculations to reflect this shift in power away from the four main empires.

Plus, it's time pirates get a seat at the table.

We've All Got Blood Fever!

So, over the past couple days, I've been working on my revenue stream a bit more.  I'm all set now, and to my delight, I discover a whole new set of activities to engage in: Blood Raider hunting!

I've said before how delighted I am about all the lore work being done by CCP.  I love the story of Eve, and I'm definitely experiencing a deeper level of engagement because of the attention they're paying to it.

And now, we have some more fun activities to do.

I'm finding that the temporary Blood Raider Gauntlet sites are an enjoyable activity in lowsec.  In many ways, it's exactly the kind of variety i was asking for in high-sec (the sites also spawn in high-sec, as well).  Right now, the loot is actually quite expensive, though I suspect the price will drop as more people become aware of the kinds of fits you can use and they saturate their own characters with these injected boosters.

In particular, I'm really enjoying how this temporary opportunity presents a mix of PvP and PvE opportunities.  Every site I've been in has been challenged at some point- either by a friendly or a hostile.  You have to be on your guard when running these sites, for you should expect company.  And that's just good fun, all around!

In the interests of ruining that market, allow me to share the fit that I've used successfully:

I Actually Used a Target Spectrum Breaker!

In the past year, CCP has released a lot of new modules.  I really haven’t been interested in sov warfare since Aegis – the wind has been knocked out of the conquest sails entirely – and I rarely fly anything larger than a cruiser these days.  That may change with the battlecruiser rebalance, but I’ll likely dip my toe in to test their new agility first, as that was my biggest problem with them.

There are some striking differences between life in the Imperium and life in an independent alliance.  Most noticeable is the difference in content.  With no sov to babysit through tedious timers and no “strategic rating fleets” – yes, this is a thing – the activities the alliance does are all centered around PvP.  And that PvP tends to involve rolling large to make up for a lack of numbers.  Our fleets tend to top out around 50 people, but those 50 people are using every bit of their sp and expensive doctrines to overcome any lack of numbers.

Forty Machariels can put out some serious damage.  And within that expense comes another sort of pleasure.  It’s liberating to flying a Machariel instead of a Caracal, and feeling the urgency in every action to preserve your ship.  The more expensive you roll, the more powerfully you feel the dopamine rush as you head into battle.

I can’t stress enough how much more enjoyable it is to fly into a fight with a thin margin for error.  You can’t do that when your ship is nearly worthless (bloc doctrines) or you have 300 other allies going into battle with you.  Being the scrappy one is tougher, and the victories are much sweeter as a result.  I’m heartily enjoying it. 

Entitlement and the Brick Wall

As may be no surprise to readers, I'm a big fan of trying to improve myself through my life.  In the same way RPG players try to amass new skills, abilities, and assets to take on the big boss, I believe you should constantly assemble more tools to help you thrive as an individual.  Now, that "thriving" can mean different things to each individual, and the skills and situations you pursue are different from person to person.

What matters isn't that you seek a specific goal, of course, but rather that you regularly test yourself and throw yourself into the fire to be tempered by it.  To me, everyone is born in a state of uselessness, and you harden and improve yourself through your experiences.  It's not possible to "corrupt" or "ruin" yourself, and "purity" is synonymous with "untested" and "unimproved".

So, as one can imagine, in Eve, I genuinely look at losses and hardship as the very point of the game.  Let the simple level-grinding, pushing buttons to earn candy, and going through a process to achieve a desired result rest with single-player games.  Eve, at its core, to me is a live test environment, where the entire point is to implement your success strategies in an environment of friction, chaos, setbacks, and unpredictability.  Eve is the chaos and the resistance pushing against your desires, and within that tension lies all of the satisfaction when you finally overcome and succeed despite all the forces arrayed against you.

I desperately value this element in Eve specifically because the rest of the world seems to be sliding more and more towards a sense of entitlement.  Getting a college degree entitles you to a good job, or even A job, right?  And if you don't earn six figures, why we better sue to have our money returned or our student loan debt forgiven.  Never mind that your degree was in theoretical extraterrestrial sociology...

Or, when you forget to cancel your account by the start of the next billing cycle, you're entitled to have the charge pro-rated, right?  Or you're entitled to not being offended... ever.  Or you're entitled to play an online interactive game exactly the way you want without anyone interfering with your own ego-maniacal Vision playing out before you.  These days, we deem ourselves as gods of our own lives.

I ran into one of these little Gods who decided to throw a tantrum last night, and he exemplified the quintessential bad habit of failed Eve players.

Into the Great Wide Open

Ultimately, Eve is a game that thrives on the desire of each player to log in and interact with the world.  The game is only as powerful and valuable to you as your engagement with it.

If you read my last post, you may be wondering why I was moving a carrier full of ships by myself.  The savvy among you recognized it as a relocation of assets.  That's not so surprising, right?  Null-sec alliances are relocating all the time, and Goonswarm recently redeployed.  Maybe I missed it and had to move on my own?

But, no.  Taken with some of my comments recently about the state of null-sec, it's not as simple as all that.  Increasingly, I'm finding being part of a null-sec alliance uninteresting, and after three months of building status-tension, I've decided I have to act.  The choice was between leaving a corporation I love to find the content I want, or leaving the game entirely.  And I just can't do the latter.

So, my time in Repercussus has come to an end, as a direct result of the changes happening in null-sec.  I'm doubling down on some lowsec "Adversity.".

It Had to End Sometime...

I have been very luck with my expensive ships.  When I’ve flown carriers or dreads, I’ve done so safely and without incident. 

I use solid practices to move them around.  When I light cynos, I do it off of only stations with plenty of clearance in docking range.  I give plenty of distance between my 5 km sphere and all elements of the station, and have never bumped when I lit a cyno myself.  Before I hit the cyno, I do a quick dscan to make sure no one is inbound, so I know I won’t wind up in some random part of the system.

On very rare occasions, I’ll light a cyno in a system that has no station.  When I do, I watch the traffic for a while before I jump, and if it looks to get a fair bit of through traffic, I’ll use the self destruct cyno (setting your ship to self-destruct and lighting the cyno only during the last 10-15 seconds of the cycle, so the cyno is on grid for the barest amount of time), then immediately warp off to a safe and cloak up.

And, generally, that works really well.  So well, in fact, that I’ve never lost a carrier.  I’ve never lost a dread either, but I don’t fly them frequently enough for that to be a habit, as much as a lucky string of events.

So, I’d say I’m a very safe capital pilot.  Or, at least, I was.  My run ended yesterday.  All tolled, the butcher’s bill was about 4.5 billion isk.

And it all happened because of module positioning.

Lessons: Take the Bait

There are many different kinds of bait in Eve.

A lot of times, you see a situation that’s almost too good to be true – for instance, a veteran low-sec pirate in a corp that almost certainly has its own logistics team traveling gate-by-gate in a Megathron.  Sure, you may think you can tackle and whittle down that Megathron, and things are looking good when you get him into half-shield and he still hasn’t called in help.  So, you inch a bit closer to ensure you’re under his guns, and he hits you with dual webs and a scram as local fills up.

This isn’t an article about that kind of bait.  It’s obvious he wanted to be caught, and you should feel bad for falling for it (well, okay, only a little bad, as you were willing to fight and some pilots really do pilot around solo in exposed ships).

But on the other hand, a pilot who’s trying to bait you represents a pilot who thinks he’s in charge of the situation.  And as you know from reading this blog, thinking you know something is usually the first step in a great fall.  Sometimes, walking into a trap with either a firm exit strategy or a means of turning the tables on your opponent is worth the risk.

Tinkering with Soldiering

We’ve now had quite some time to see how AegisSov (I’m going with the generic name now, as there are too many good ones to pick from, including FozzieSov, Space Wands, and PotterSov) operates in a real-space environment.  Goons did their ProviSmash thing, demonstrating – if nothing else – the speed a which player assets can be wiped away.  The Russians protested the whole thing, which isn’t surprising since they were buying up renter space just as everyone else was getting rid of it.

The devs have clearly been listening to player reactions.  They made some modifications to the capture times and base capture status in Galatea.  Proof is building that the devs genuinely want AegisSov to be enjoyable, realize the limitations in this current iteration, and want to create a balanced yet engaging experience.  That’s incredibly reassuring, and shows that they haven't slipped into old, pre-Incarna habits as some had feared.

At the same time, AegisSov is here to stay and CCP isn't pulling back from weakening the need for coalitions and encouraging chaos in null-sec.  By this time next year, I think we'll be there.

Player engagement appears to be picking up, although a lot of the really capable PvP organizations are moving to low-sec from null.  Whether that’s a temporary reset or not is up for debate, but it’s happening.  Low-sec is booming as a result, albeit not for the reasons we’d like (the health of low, but rather, the perceived unhealthiness of null).

Some time ago, I predicted that hunters would leave sovereignty in favor of attacking sov holders without facing retaliation.  By and large, we're seeing that.  Corporations, players, and whole alliances are leaving for low-sec.  AegisSov makes sovereignty an isk-generating resource, with the obligation to spend most of your time cultivating indexes and repelling attacks.  That just doesn’t suit with the attitude of pre-Aegis null players, and they're adapting... by leaving null.

I’ve spoken before about the way tension and discomfort build up for several months before players make a change (moving to a new corp, moving an existing corp to a new area of space, or following some other paradigm).  We’re thickly in the midst of that tension-building stage, but as the months roll by, I’m certain we’ll see more and more people leaving null-sec alliances to join pirate and “aggressor” corporations.

And this may all be part of the design… to undermine the former main draw of null alliances to weaken and split them before adding in the added benefits CCP promised.  And yet, CCP still has a desire to keep those players in the game, and has a long-stated goal of reducing hassle without reducing the advantage of organization and player experience or increasing the safety.

So, with that context, I’m encouraged and excited by the changes Team Five-O announced for Vanguard and Parallax.