War

[Sparky]

I did say there was 1% of cool  !


Even in the small scale stuff, there is this total detachment in the movement from the fighting. I think this is one of the big turn offs for a lot of people who try EVE. They go in expecting something they see in StarWars or BSG or Babylon 5, and what they end up with is dramatically different.  There is no jockeying for position in the traditional sense. I'm not going for the blind spot or trying to out maneuver anyone.

What I want is my ideal range, at my ideal speed so I can commit to my ideal orbit. Which is probably more 'realistic' in terms of space combat, but it's very damn boring to play as well.

Wouldn't say I 100% agree with that.  There's a lot more AOE to worry about these days with bubbles and whatnot so positioning can be a big deal.  Also you have to watch enemy positions, especially tacklers, and switch targets or GTFO if something is getting too close.  Very rarely am I at my ideal range, you have to compromise that constantly to keep safe.  But I take your point, it's way more detached that say Freelancer and a lot of the excitement comes from the adrenaline when you think how much boring shit is required if you go pop.  That's why I don't find AAR the slightest bit interesting if I'm not an involved party.

However the politics and intrigue are endlessly fascinating no matter who is involved.

[Slayerik]

I did say there was 1% of cool  !


Even in the small scale stuff, there is this total detachment in the movement from the fighting. I think this is one of the big turn offs for a lot of people who try EVE. They go in expecting something they see in StarWars or BSG or Babylon 5, and what they end up with is dramatically different.  There is no jockeying for position in the traditional sense. I'm not going for the blind spot or trying to out maneuver anyone.

What I want is my ideal range, at my ideal speed so I can commit to my ideal orbit. Which is probably more 'realistic' in terms of space combat, but it's very damn boring to play as well.

Never been in a nano gang have ya? You do a LOT of piloting and have to be quick to recognize and eliminate threats such as tacklers or rapier/huginns. All the while facing 2-3 times your numbers, avoiding being tackled for too long by ceptors, trying to isolate and pick off enemies that stray too far from the main group.

I have heard these gangs refered to as nano-fag gangs, but in my experience it is by far more exciting and skill based than a "Approach, MWD, warp disrupt, web, f1-f8". Add the fact that a good nano gang can face very bleak odds and get kills (and most importantly escape, which is huge when you are 30 jumps behind enemy lines).

Remote repping gangs are a little more advanced as well. Boring turtling though.

[Murgos]

What's a nano gang?

[Slayerik]

Basically, its fitting ships for speed. You lack any sort of tank (well , besides a speed tank), as all your low slots go to mods such as Overdrive IIs, Nanofiber II's and Inertia IIs. If you have 45 mil per rig, you put in Polycarb rigs for more speed. If not you can get away with the Low friction nozzle joints (inertia equiv) and aux thrusters (Overdrive equilvalent). Vagabonds naturally work well in the gangs due to their speed. Some insane romanian friends of mine like flying around in Snakes costing more than all my assets combined.

I personally use a rail deimos or Ishtar, I get them to about 3500 m/s. The Ish is nice with the extra mid slots as you can through a Large shield extender or 2 for more tank.

[dwindlehop]

There is no jockeying for position in the traditional sense. I'm not going for the blind spot or trying to out maneuver anyone.

The first part is false, though second part is true enough. It's not Wing Commander. But small gangs and solo are all about maneuver. You've got to catch 'em on the gate, and have someone on the other side when they deaggress and jump through. You've got to catch the orbiting stabber in web range by timing your MWD burst. You've got to fly your inty within scram range while keeping your transversal up or you go pop. You've got to run back to the gate twice in quick succession, so you get enemies on both sides to aggress then burn out of scram range on the side without Huginns. You've got to keep bouncing from planet to planet while making safespots so that they can't probe you out. You have to keep dive bombing the carrier with interdiction spheres and then burning out before you pop. You don't have to pick off the T1 cruisers while staying out of range of the command ships and BS, but you get major style points. Same goes for damping down a small BS gang and dancing right on their lock range so they can't keep a lock but your DPS breaks their tank. Or chasing an outlaw gang and catching them on the lowsec gate just before 0.0 so they get sentry fire. Eve combat is nothing but maneuver, at least the way I play.

[Fordel]

I'm not saying there isn't tactical gameplay, it's just all abstract. Kind of like how in say WoW, I don't dodge an attack, my RNG roll determines what happens.

Like, when I play EVE, I feel like I am playing an RTS, except I only have one unit. It's frustratingly limiting.

[Slayerik]

I do agree with what you are saying, but there are many engaging aspects to our gang warfare.

I still love the fuckin rush I get when I know we are going to engage. "Hold your cloaks, X will be primary"

At that point, like any good PVP game, you have to overcome the stomach nervousness. You need to be able to recognize that you are being primaried and escape, either by stopping aggresion and re-approaching gate (if you can make it that long) or hope you aren't tackled and try to warp out. My heart pounds in every PVP encounter in this game. If im ganking a hauler on the gate, I'm always worried it's bait (as I have been caught before). When I go down, I'm usually taking about 250 million in ship with me...with like 15 mil insurance payback. Luckily I'm good at poker ;)

There is no game on the market like it. It has the risk I miss from other REAL PVP games.

[Fordel]

Which is probably why I find EVE combat as dissatisfying as you find it satisfying. I don't get a 'rush' from those things. The only thing I enjoy being 'on-the-line' is the actual victory or defeat (probably why I don't enjoy gambling much either :p). It's the experience itself I seek the fun out of.

[Slayerik]

I find half the experience is putting your assets on the line and well as the desire for victory. Our differences are the usual, and I am the minority I know.

[Fordel]

So now that we've derailed the thread, how's the war? 

[Comstar]

Nothing happening due to Patch Deployment. Ask next week.

[Endie]

At that point, like any good PVP game, you have to overcome the stomach nervousness... My heart pounds in every PVP encounter in this game.

That is what I miss in the GF fleet actions that make up most of my PvP.  I remember that excitement the first couple of times, but now I am relaxed about it.  Appleboy lost me more ships than I have Rokhs in fleet fights (true story).

As regards the war, my speculative guess is that we celebrate the anniversary of -1V with an appropriately big bang.  But I am no Jingu Himiko (GF member whose predictions are so unerringly accurate that the Mittani had him invstigated), so you'd be unwise to hold your breath.

[5150]

I do agree with what you are saying, but there are many engaging aspects to our gang warfare.

I still love the fuckin rush I get when I know we are going to engage. "Hold your cloaks, X will be primary"

At that point, like any good PVP game, you have to overcome the stomach nervousness. You need to be able to recognize that you are being primaried and escape, either by stopping aggresion and re-approaching gate (if you can make it that long) or hope you aren't tackled and try to warp out. My heart pounds in every PVP encounter in this game. If im ganking a hauler on the gate, I'm always worried it's bait (as I have been caught before). When I go down, I'm usually taking about 250 million in ship with me...with like 15 mil insurance payback. Luckily I'm good at poker ;)

There is no game on the market like it. It has the risk I miss from other REAL PVP games.

Which is probably why I find EVE combat as dissatisfying as you find it satisfying. I don't get a 'rush' from those things. The only thing I enjoy being 'on-the-line' is the actual victory or defeat (probably why I don't enjoy gambling much either :p). It's the experience itself I seek the fun out of.

I'll meet you both halfway, I love the fact that the other guys is losing his hard earned shit but dislike it when it's my turn

I'll have been in the small time high sec war/piracy game almost a year now (having got bored with mining/missioning) and the PvP buzz is still there - I can only imagine that the huge zoomed out laggy fleet fights are the primary cause of 'loss of buzz'

[Slayerik]

Luckily, Viper Squad does roaming gangs all the time...anywhere from 2 to 25+ ships so my flavor of encounters vary greatly. Then throw in TRI fleet actions and I pretty much have all the PVP I could want and then some.

Anyways, in our little conflict in the South a TRI roaming gang caught a CVA Aeon gate camping, but we were unable to seal the deal (had only 1 dictor, got out in half armor) and some say he escaped while in the bubble. They better be smarter than that in the future.

[Simond]

War update: CCP are screwing us again!
Jumpbridges are semi-broken, some POSes are pretty much flat out broken, and dreadnaughts have a...fascinating ROF bug. Should be interesting to see if any major fleet combat actually happens.

Oh, and The Church seem a little twitchy nowadays.

[Simond]

Oh hey: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=655809

Dear players,

Due to issues that affect Player Owned Structures we are forced to temporarily prohibit POS warfare. This means that no attacks are allowed on starbase control towers, their attached structures or outposts. This also means that no control towers may be set up where a different alliance holds sovereignty . Players found in breach of this will receive warnings and structures will be removed.

Fixes for the issues will be forthcoming as soon as possible but until then we ask you to bear with us and refrain from any sort of POS warfare.

Thank you,

EVE Online Team

EDIT:
Clarification: Abusing the current POS warfare mechanics after the posting of the news item is
considered an exploit. Those that participated in POS warfare prior to the news item will have nothing
to fear.

 

[Comstar]

It's the Christmas cease fire! That stupid star in every system caused this, I'm sure of it.

That and nearly every system having the SUN IN THE WRONG PLACE and this not being cought by QA..guess the entire QA department had their windows machines reformatted due to an unfortunate and completely unexpected patch failure.

[Chenghiz]

By the way guys, don't play our PVP end-game or we'll ban you. Our bad.

[JoeTF]

I really wonder how thei QA looks like, but more importantly - how fucking poor their programmers are?

[Endie]

I really wonder how thei QA looks like, but more importantly - how fucking poor their programmers are?

It may just be professional courtesy, but I think that their programmers are pretty awesome, if a touch overambitious in the occasional design decision.  But their QA?  Rapidly heading for comedy SWG territory.

Anyway, war news!  Bob brought a gang to F4R to shoot station services, and presumably to provoke a fight.  This duly occurred.  I'll let someone more concerned with K/D ratios bang on about that, but basically Bob lost a ton of ships (more BS on their own KB than they killed, if you really care), and it was even worse when you count all the hangers-on: a large contingent from Southern Cross, Executive Outcomes, some bunch called Styx (?!?) and a few others.  Most of the harm occurred in A-803L, and a lot was as a result of some odd decisions by their FC that I am not leet enough to understand, mainly regarding warpins.  Lag was kinda meh; not great but not biblical.

It is traditional, of course, to liberally gift "mad props" to our vanquished foes for "bringing it".  Consider such props madly dispensed.

On the home front, Triumvirate have been very kindly flying around Scalding Pass persuading reluctant conscripts to get to the front line with the PvPers.  They've killed a bit more than they've lost to us (who would have expected anything else?) and although I'm not in Scalding Pass myself it looks from the KB and descriptions like just the sort of fun roaming stuff that we can all look forward to when the war is won and standings get reset all over the place.

[cmlancas]

By the way guys, don't play our PVP end-game or we'll ban you. Our bad.

Killing people is wrong. That's the true message in EVE. But trick your friends out of billions of ISK for fun and profit.

[Comstar]

edit- removed because it's probably not allowed to be posted.

[Miasma]

edit- removed because it's probably not allowed to be posted.

Well now I need to know.

[Kirth]

Almost 50 pages of win. I've never played EVE, only heard a few people talk about it. But this is Epic.  all around. Can't wait to see how the invasion into BoB space goes.

[JoeTF]

Neither do I.
We're really bored down here.
So bored, we went for that comedy short-range-gank-fittings.

Silly ccp and their POSwar ban.

[Endie]

Neither do I.
We're really bored down here.
So bored, we went for that comedy short-range-gank-fittings.

Silly ccp and their POSwar ban.

The POSwar ban was over by then, which is why, unless something happens, Bob* will lose another station system in (I think) six downtimes.

*Or rather, their "honest we're not pets" pets, Fix.

[JoeTF]

You still cannot shoot POs that are bugged or assault cyno jammed POS with dreads, or use jumpbridges...

[Comstar]

You still cannot shoot POs that are bugged or assault cyno jammed POS with dreads

Um, what?? That got fixed two days ago...right?

[Endie]

You still cannot shoot POs that are bugged or assault cyno jammed POS with dreads

Um, what?? That got fixed two days ago...right?

Yep, and it has been announced on the front page in big letters on login ever since.  If Joe logged in he would see it.

[Chenghiz]

Jumpbridges are sorta fixed too - they work now, but only for the owner corp.

[JoeTF]

And in small letters (aka devposts) they said that the fix was incomplete and you still get banzor if tower you decided to take on tower that happened to be bugged.

[Sparky]

And in small letters (aka devposts) they said that the fix was incomplete and you still get banzor if tower you decided to take on tower that happened to be bugged.

It's very obvious if a tower is bugged though.  Right after the announcement that POS war was allowed we found an apparently offline BoB POS, bought out the BS but the instant you fired at it the guns would cycle off and could be fired again (aka the 0 ROF bug).  I petitioned asking if we could kill it anyway but was told that'd be an exploit.  A little while later they made the clarification.

[Endie]

Yep, and even those very specific bugged towers are supposedly up and working again (hands up who suddenly got a six day hit for fuel on towers that did nothing in the meantime?).  GF accordingly indulged in very successful POS warfare last night, and has not, thus far, been the subject of mass bannings.  If Bob doesn't know this, or failed to communicate it to their offline members, I don't imagine the effect on the game will be huge.

It will be interesting, over the next weeks and months, to see whether Bob can maintain anything of their Catch offensive, or whether that, like the Detorid one, will prove to have been unsustainable.  Or indeed, whether they have to call MC back in!

[Comstar]

This is what I deleted up the thread: the author said I can post it here.

For all those confused on the war, and need a map, here's one that's been prepared by Desiderata Fabian in Eurosquad, Goonfleet.

[Slayerik]

Classic.