War

[Hakeldaima]

...and the time when I claimed to have had Dianabolic or someone banned...

That was Digitalcommunist, a former member of the GHSC. We still have had no explanation for his leaving Evolution and the lack of drama regarding that depresses me.

[lac]

Well yes.
The war has run its course. BoB won.
Mostly because they didn't die. There isn't much more you can throw at a single alliance, really. Goons rallied an amazing potential, the largest army ever assembled in Eve. It was a fucking crusade.
A crusade that splattered on the walls of Jerusalem.
Bleh, so be it. As a loyal Amarr servant I'm not surprised by the many recent incursions of our enemies. They have little place left to focus their energy. The great war has left a lot of powerblocs confined within their little owned space, a space to little to entertain their pilots. In the end something will have to give.

[Endie]

Well yes.
The war has run its course. BoB won.
Mostly because they didn't die. There isn't much more you can throw at a single alliance, really. Goons rallied an amazing potential, the largest army ever assembled in Eve. It was a fucking crusade.
A crusade that splattered on the walls of Jerusalem.
Bleh, so be it. As a loyal Amarr servant I'm not surprised by the many recent incursions of our enemies. They have little place left to focus their energy. The great war has left a lot of powerblocs confined within their little owned space, a space to little to entertain their pilots. In the end something will have to give.

You're right about the last sentence - that's one reason for Provi getting busy - but it's a bit early on the crusade being over: there are more goons in Delve now, which we've made our home, than ever before.  Whether this works or not is still to be seen, but we own everything Bob owned except Delve, and we share that with them, now.

The war started because Bob, who owned everything they looked at, and controlled vast swathes of territory, chose to pick on and grief a bunch of newbs who lived in NPC 0.0 in a single region.  Now, those newbs have taken everything Bob had, bar their one single region, and now we're the ones invading.  It's not a bad way to be losing.

[Vedi]

It's not a bad way to be losing.

So... a Pyrrhic loss?

[lac]

Now, those newbs have taken everything Bob had, bar their one single region, and now we're the ones invading.  It's not a bad way to be losing.

Well yes, that too

[jape]

there are more goons in Delve now, which we've made our home, than ever before.  Whether this works or not is still to be seen, but we own everything Bob owned except Delve, and we share that with them, now.

So your master plan is to keep BoB entertained by giving them targets to shoot at in their home region? :)

[Llyse]

Sounds like a win win situation, constant targets 

[Simond]

there are more goons in Delve now, which we've made our home, than ever before.  Whether this works or not is still to be seen, but we own everything Bob owned except Delve, and we share that with them, now.

So your master plan is to keep BoB entertained by giving them targets to shoot at in their home region? :)

A significant amount of the boB membership doesn't play EVE in the traditional sense; instead, they idle on irc and wait for fleet ops. Unless BoB starts calling fleet ops for Delve patrol, they're going to be getting bored - roaming gangs don't ususally have much call for non-carrier capitals, for instance.

This is probably why BoB is invading IAC space...again. 

[MahrinSkel]

Most of what is still in BoB is combat alts.  Most of them, if they still play for anything other than PvP, do it on other characters, in shell corps, front corps, or newb corps, and never touch 0.0 with those characters at all.  You can't starve them out or "make it not fun to be the enemy".

--Dave

[Kitsune]

Makes sense.  If I had some combat-heavy character who went around blowing up other people on a daily basis, I sure as hell wouldn't use them to run to the corner store for milk.  I'd be working super-hard to keep the other characters on the account super-secret so I could use them to haul my stuff and make my money undisturbed by vengeful people.

[JoeTF]

Goonies decided to commit their capitals to defend their POS in 319-. Here is what happened next (battle report ripped from bob forums):

The Goon POS was due to come out of reinforced at 06:52, 4 hours earlier we had hotdropped one of their carriers at the POS and incapped all their guns. Over the next 4 hours there was some small skirmishes at their pos as we tried to stop them repairing the guns, but we were heavily outnumbered and took a break to regroup at 06:15.

As the regroup was only set 3 hours before the scheduled time we werent expecting big numbers, even the ever optimistic TWD didnt think we would be able to take out the POS. The scheduled regroup time came and passed, and at 06:40 it wasnt looking promising. Come 06:50 our gang had hit 69 (22 dreads, 5 carriers, 1 MS and 20BS and 11 support). Sitting at the 9-22 goon POS (which had fully repaired guns at this stage) was 112 goons (25 capitals, 47 BS and 40 support). I personally thought we didnt have the firepower to engage, TWD thought otherwise.

We cyno'd in our caps, whilst our fleet held on the ingate to 319. The order was givent o allign to the 9-22 pos, and then warp in, at the same time the fleet was ordered to jump in and also warp in. The dreads immedieately siezed and started working on the hostile capitals that were right on the shields popping in and out. Our fleet was stupidly outnumbered at a fully armed hostile POS, so they warped in took some agro and warped out, regrouped and warped back in repeatedly, they were vital in drawing fire from the POS and the hostile BS which had now hit close to 60. In this time we were slowly working through their capitals as some support would web the goonie capitals long enough for us to pop them.

We continued to light cynos as the word went out that there was a cap fight ongoing and more and more bob captials logged in (finished maxing out at about 45 caps) and we continued to take ascendancy of the cap battle. At about halfway through the battle a goon MS poked his head out of the POS shield and was instantly primaried, he wasnt very far out of the shields so we couldnt get anyone between him and the POS shields very effectively, and eventually he was bumped/flew back into the shields at 25% armour, as he was agressed we were going to put a dictor bubble on him and finish him off when the POS died, but all our dictors were dead by this stage. As soon as most the hostile dreads were down, our fleet was told to stand down back at our friendly POS as their role of a distraction and cannon fodder had been complete. The goon caps popped one by one, and the carriers put out their fighters and heavy drones and started to pound on the goonie BS.

The POS was then destroyed and 1 goon capital was still inside and perished.

The stats from the fight were;
dread 9 killed / 5 lost
carriers 10 / 1
BS 14 / 17
fleet 35 / 8
POS 1 / 0

The fight was really intense, we knew going into it that it could go very badly, and 3 cloaked tortugans could have meant anything. Looking at the initial numbers BoB 69, goons 112 + fully armed POS, we really should have been spanked by all rights, but TWD did a really great job and our fleet was amazing.

[Endie]

Yep, I was gutted that I missed this fight, but it started as I was going to work :(  Seems like it was fun.  Plus, it was a fully reimbursed op, so ship losses were free, courtesy of our new regions full of dyspro moon mines 

[Endie]

I think that nobody posted to say this, so it's worth mentioning that GF reset most of our blues recently.  I suppose it's a logical corollary of moving into Delve NPC space a la Syndicate.

[Vedi]

What do you do with all your other regions? Are there no one left in Scalding Pass?

[Endie]

The rear areas are relatively safe from attack at the moment.  There are some roaming gangs, but I don't think anyone minds if those damn shirkers in the rear with the gear get blown up a bit.

Stain, with Bob's help, made a play down in the far south, but as far as I understand it TCF, UNL, GF pubbies and some Russians beat that down.  Someone else may know better than me on that, though: I'm really not certain what happened there.

EDIT: that read a little like propaganda.  Let me caveat this by saying that Bob is on a bounce right now, courtesy of a bunch of things that they doubtless planned at the Bar Mitzvah for Molle's grandfather.  There's nothing much stopping them from just taking Querious, which is completely undefended right now (it's not GF space), while IAC is getting kerb-stomped by a bored AAA with time on their hands.  It's all in a kind of a lull right now, and I sometimes wonder if this pause for breath is in anticipation of the likely titan and cyno-jammer nerfs.  Way above my pay grade...

[bhodi]

I was in the early parts of the PoS battle last night and I think everyone agrees that it was incredibly fun. The battle (won or lost) was makes eve for me. There was almost no lag. CCP must have reinforced the 319 node. It made for an absolutely amazing time. Unfortunately, it came out of reinforced about 3am my time, and I simply cannot stay up that late - I missed the large cap battle slugging match at the end when the shields actually came out.

4 hours before the PoS came out of reinforced, though, we were grouping up at the PoS for the night. Somehow, a Nyx pilot managed to stray outside the shields which is what started the battle. He says he was desynched and showed up in the shields on his screen. BoB dropped their entire fleet on us to try and kill that Nyx. Several of our battleships made suicide runs outside the PoS shield to try and bump him back in. Eventually, he was saved and with only minor losses to our fleet. BoB stayed to incapp the guns, then warped off to their friendly PoS. They took some losses, and we took some losses trying to fight them.

They warped away and we began repping the guns back up. The BoB commander decides he's going to play sniping games against our PoS reppers with his battleships -- he warps on and off grid, trying to catch our PoS reppers who have to go outside the shields to rep the guns. They thin the GoonFleet herd of three or four people too stupid or slow to react to the command to get back inside the shields. This goes on for about 15 minutes, maybe 4 warp-ins, and eventually the command is given to leave our carriers out there to take the pounding. At this point, the BoB fleet only numbers about 15 battleships and 2-3 smaller craft (cerebrus and rapier I believe). The commander sees all our capitals outside the shields repping, not moving back to the shields as before, and he hesitates on the fleet warp-out.

He who hesitates is lost. We drop two dictors directly on their snipers, warp our tacklers and snipers in, and completely destroy their fleet.

These were taken (from different angles) at the height of the BoB PoS gun incapacitation:

[Grand Design]

Good reports from both sides.

[Phildo]

I like the one neutral all the way on the left of that second picture.

[LC]

Looks like Goons have patched up their relationship with MC.

[bhodi]

Looks like Goons have patched up their relationship with MC.

Indeed.

MC is now blue with goons. There's been no official director post on the matter yet. From the rumors, this is an alliance of convenience (duh) and the goons have not paid them for any sort of contract.

[lac]

Seems like the smart thing to do for both parties.

[Endie]

Looks like Goons have patched up their relationship with MC.

Realpolitik itt

[JoeTF]

At least  they won't die before we finally get to them.

[lac]

The MC? You already killed them with your love.

When the BoB contracts ended up north, while immensely respected, they had lost all credibility as a neutral entity 'for hire', Goon propaganda had made sure of that. They either had to sit out the ride with BoB or somehow reattain that mystic mercenary aura that was the core of their identity. They chose the latter, of course, but spaceship history was unkind on their mercenary souls.

Seeing no other option after the campaign in the north and the coalition backlash they had faced the MC took another Bob contract in Catch where, unlike in their previous engagements, they collided head on with an equally determined force. They managed to stalemate the invasion of Catch for a while but took heavy losses and got mightily peeved off because they felt BoB's two front war was a mistake which they had to pay for in cap losses. They were right on the mistake part of course, as BoB had to abandon their eastern front eventually and fell back to defend Delve not much later.

Fuelled by their disappointment in BoB their new, and rather clumsy, leadership got caught with their pants down trying to broker a mutual jump on the Goon bandwagon with a FIX director. Relations with BoB got a bit muddied after that. Meanwhile the coalition attack on Delve was at its peak and the new MC leadership, fearing the train wouldn't stop in Delve, rather opportunistically declared their independence by blowing up a couple of BoB towers and join the coalition, if only for a couple of ops.

But fate is a cruel mistress, in eve as she is in life, somewhere along the path to victory an enterprising young lad was selling bikes and the army who would have won decided not to ride to victory but rode home,  becoming the army that could have won, leaving our mercenary friends in the rather awkward position they are in now.

BoB has every right to feel betrayed by the MC but then again, they didn't leave them any choice.
As in the best of drama's, the MC, longing for its lost identity, betrayed its friend only to find out that even when you go back to that village of your youth, the boy will be long gone.
Those who don't evolve become victims of evolution, indeed.

[LC]

Here are a couple of the screenshots I took:


Undocking in pr-


The capital fleet jumps into 319.

[Teleku]

Stuff

Someday I'm going to find a way to sink Iceland into the ocean just in retaliation for the amount of massive, over the top, melodramatic posts that Eve has caused to flood the internet. 

[caladein]

Stuff

Someday I'm going to find a way to sink Iceland into the ocean just in retaliation the amount of massive over the top melodramatic posts that Eve has caused to flood the internet. 

Well... serious business is not contained to CCP's projects.

That said, I thought it was pretty well written.

[lac]

Someday I'm going to find a way to sink Iceland into the ocean just in retaliation the amount of massive over the top melodramatic posts that Eve has caused to flood the internet.

Haha, so true. Drunk drama posts for the win!

[JoeTF]

Yeah, I was about to comment how poetic it was.

Although, I belive the whole thing was much more down to earth - MC leadership had a great plan, they just forgot that EVE is a mmo and there are other people playing it.

They had 3 options:
1. Stay with BoB till the end.
It would cause them to lose PB and force to relocate to Delve for period of time, but they would be getting PB back about now.

2. Forfeit BP, declare themselves neutral and move to some contract work in the north, leaving in amicable (or at least truly neutral) to both sides.
That would have taken balls to do and BoB woudn't be exactly happy either, but at least they would affirm their widely doubted mercenary status.

3. Backstab BoB and attempt to be come third large power in the South.
That seemed brilliant, except...it's a mmo. BoB leaders to the betrayal deeply to the heart and decided to make an example out of MC. On the other front, leaders of both IAC and AAA shivered the idea of new large enemy (in NBSI would of 0.0, neutral=enemy) on their footsteps and quickly declared that "(MC) ...will be shoot to the head". What would be brilliant in RPG, become a suicidial mistake on MC part.


BoB didn't killed MC, it killed itself (with bit of nudging from AAA, BoB and IAC).

[Endie]

Seems a fair description.

I've been pretty unimpressed by MC throughout the whole episode, particularly in the quality of their leadership.  Their second volte-face (as opposed to this, thir third) was particularly inept: being hated by the coalition would not make Bob hate them less, after all.

They seemed to have taken Churchill at his word when he said "Anyone can rat — it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat."  The problem here is that they didn't have a Churchill handy.

[Ratadm]

Looks like tri is having a bad day.


Also I need to play more.  Don't think I've logged in for much more than changing skills in way to long.

[bhodi]

The Illuminati were kicked out of Triumvirate for loudly trolling DORM in alliance about being worthless carebear fucks. DORM had, apparently, declared a solid week of mandatory carebear operations wherein if you went on a pvp op instead of mining for their un-as-of-yet-conceived titan ol' GD kicked you out, which The Illuminati took vocal issue with.

Tyrax Thork's thread on the topic can be found here, an excerpt from Tri TS which is definitely worth listening to here (DORM diplomat speaking to Demoria of SPA), and the killmail of the Illuminati nyx that was bumped out of a Tri pos and killed while afk after being kicked from alliance here.

Dungar, who was kicked out of Goonfleet in January, and who joined the Illuminati in March, is a (supposed) member of GHSC, who has claimed responsibility for this in the first page of that eve-o thread.

Also, a few billion was raided from DORM's corp account.

Things are still developing, but from the way things are shaking down SPA might leave too. Possibly VSQ as well because that's where a fair number of OSHIT people came from.

[Simond]

Aw man, and I wanted to see TRI vs BRUCE. It'd be like a "Who can fit the worst ship?" competition*. But yeah...this is pretty much the beginning of the end for TRI - Darkness sided with sodding General Disaster Dynasty & DORM (ex-V, Ex-Fallen Souls, Ex-any other alliance he could install his carebears into and hoover up dyspro moons without actually fighting) over his active PvP corps


*BRUCE have standard fleet fits...it's just that they don't work (medium range remote rep BS - means they get blown to hell by snipers, and melted by close range ships. It's a neither fish nor fowl type scenario). TRI, outside of their competent PvP corps (like, say, The Illuminati used to be) are just plain bad at fitting. "Quintupal-plated Domis with multispec ECMs" bad.

[bhodi]

*BRUCE have standard fleet fits...it's just that they don't work (medium range remote rep BS - means they get blown to hell by snipers, and melted by close range ships. It's a neither fish nor fowl type scenario). TRI, outside of their competent PvP corps (like, say, The Illuminati used to be) are just plain bad at fitting. "Quintupal-plated Domis with multispec ECMs" bad.

My MK III battleship!!!!!

Seriously though. To give you an idea of how bad it is:

Gallente Megathron Mk III
General Usage Guidelines: Like all the MK III fits with neutralizers, please take great care to make sure your Heavy Neut is set to "manual" and NOT to automatic. You don't want it firing over and over by default.

Highs
6x 350mm Railgun
1x Large Remote Armor Repairer
1x Heavy Energy Neutralizer
Standard MK III package. Antimatter: 25km, Lead 50km, Iron 79km all with 23km falloff.

Mids
1x 100mn Microwarp Drive
1x Heavy Capacitor Booster
1x Warp Disruptor
1x Sensor Booster
Standard package. Sensor booster can be pretty easily swapped for a Tracking Computer with minimal named mods.

Lows
2x 1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates
2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
1x Damage Control
1x Magnetic Field Stabilizer
1x Co-Processor
A fairly sturdy package.


Rigs
3x Trimark
28k armor, 73EM/40EXP/56KIN/56THRM.


Drones
5x Heavy Armor Maintenance Drones
High drone skill pilots could field sentries that would work out to 40km... but since you know Heavy Armor Drones will always be able to reach their target with everyone in one sphere of ships, unsure sentries probably aren't better.

We strongly recommend you train for Tech 2 Railguns if you plan to fly the Megathron as your primary battleship. They improve your range to 27km with Antimatter, as compared to the 350mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannons we reimburse, and do a good deal more damage. As always, we also strongly recommend you use faction ammo!

Their Mega goes all the way out to 79km.

Also, they have medals...

[Amarr HM]

I like the way the medals go to people who have trained up their skills, dib dib </sarcasm>