War

[Gets]

Some guy I haven't heard about robs Majesta Empire: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1495341

[Kageru]

PL definitely hired. Which means the currently Bi-polar Eve has the potential to become dominated by a single faction. A high likelihood the goons will get drawn in given the NC seems to be on the defensive. And ME having all their stuff stolen isn't going to help that.

[tgr]

Oh, we're definitely being dragged in, ev0ke and NCDOT seem to be very insistent on fucking with us. It's funny, because I don't see the point of us getting involved in geminate given the number of pilots NC and DRF routinely field there. Not with the reactions the servers have in those cases.

Oh well, so sad. Killmails for the killmail throne.

[Sir T]

Well, to be honest when has the NC NOT been on the defensive. Any look at eve history has everyone else basically piling into them while screaming what a threat they are.

Of course this time Molle is not on the leadership I would imagine, so they might have a better chance of actually killing the NC

[tgr]

I think Molle is busy trying to scrape together another ~mighty space empire~ in the 1-A81R constellation:

http://www.kugutsumen.com/showthread.php?8835-Mannyfest-Destinty-Versus-the-Gilded-Drake-Grinder-(Delve-amp-Querious)&p=204834&viewfull=1#post204834

[Phildo]

Razor was just recently attacking Providence, and you know firsthand that they gave Goonswarm a lot of help taking Delve from BoB.

[Sir T]

True, but the Delve thing was not really a territorial expansion as such. Anyway I suppose thats nit picking.

[Simond]

So what's the story behind the crapheap implosion, anyway?

[tgr]

From what I've gathered it's a two-step process. First calmdown got tired of hosting the forum AND something about costs (thus the first takedown), then he put it back up to give everyone the chance to grab what they needed, until someone figured out his password for his email or something, I'm a bit fuzzy on that bit. This lead to the forums/mysql database being taken down a second time.

[Fordel]

Scrapheap is gone? Oh noes, where will I get my totally unbiased war reporting now. 

[tgr]

You've got failheap-challenge.com now. Exactly the same bunch of awesome people as before.

[Fordel]

What is funny/sad about scrapheap, it used to be a really neat little place for ship builds once upon a time. :(

[Gets]

SHURK decides to leave TEST on the 7th of May:

This mail was sent out in game:

Oh babby, don't pull it out!
From: Wes Maggs
Sent: 2011.04.23 06:34
To: Test Alliance Please Ignore, 

Unfortunately we are. As of the 7th of May, two weeks from now, SHURKS will be withdrawing from TEST on voluntary terms. We've had a pretty good stay, but unfortunately our culture doesn't quite mesh. Shurks will be moving out of fountain in the next two weeks, until we can camp ourselves into another alliance's colon. Please don't shoot at anyone as we will still be alliance bros.

I can confirm that this is valid. TEST & SHURK at the moment don't mesh well on several issues. It has been a passionate and traumatic relationship. We stuck our dick in crazy for awhile and it was fantastic, but then it started to watch us sleep. We tried medication, but that only dimmed the crazy for short periods.

I have no hard feelings towards SHURK, they won't be hated. SHURK members will not be blacklisted or otherwise harmed in any way if we can help it. Its sad to see it end this way, but at least you got an interesting corporation name out of the time in TEST.

I wish them the best of luck.

I've been getting requests to declassify threads, there is nothing to declassify though.

I had a jabber conversation with Wes Maggs and offered the following options for SHURK:

-shake up of SHURK leadership
-schism of SHURK into two entities
-SHURK leaving TEST.

SHURK decided on the latter voluntarily. Any other questions I get on jabber that I can answer I will also post the reply here.

Question 1
Quote
(3:08:03 AM) Xikuan [B0RT]: Montolio: Can you post in the thread what made you offer the 3 choices? What brought this whole thing up?
(3:08:16 AM) Potasio [B0RT]: I want more information, why did you ^ that

Basically post-war we've been looking to clean house and evaluating all corporations. A few weeks ago SHURK was up for consideration and we had a conversation with SHURK leadership. It basically boils down to SHURK had a habit of shit stirring and causing internal drama for no reason. This is specifically focused on a few key individual. The amount of bad posting and smug actions coming out of SHURK had really reached an all time high. SHURK requested that they be allowed to do some restructuring and purges, which I allowed. If you check dotlan they lost 100+ members during that purge. Mostly dead accounts.

Anyways, the purge didn't help. Leadership still wasn't willing to make hard decisions or challenge/call out the more popular members of the corporation.

From: http://forum.pleaseignore.com/index.php?topic=13500.msg153728

SHURK CEO wrote a lot of bullshit as well: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wycbVS7K-hccX0420jKtu1DjaUpEjulXiBM69u0Fu30/edit?hl=en&authkey=CMC14c4O&pli=1#

[Gets]

tl;dr

[Teleku]

Ok, somebody has to link me the story behind that gif.

[Kageru]

The 4chan corporation was part of test (the "broski" meme) and had some directors who irritated the alliance leader. They got asked to replace them and the leadership took this as an assault on their freedom and left. White tree in the video being a member of the corp but heading the faction who wanted to stay in TEST (and at one point holding their assets to encourage them).

Retarded drama.

More interesting would be a core NC system (RAGE's headquarters) getting blobbed by the DRF coalition such that the NC, after calling an all-hands, wasn't even willing to risk jumping into system. Something like 150-300+ DRF super-capitals on field and more suspected logged off. Eve end-game in progress which should be hella fun to watch.

[Teleku]

Well, that does help explain the text parts of it.  However, I was also interested in the story behind why a car was driving through a building.

[tgr]

I'm going to shamelessly rip off elise's war report, since I'm not involved in the fighting. Expect bias.

A bit overdue, and a bit long, but this about sums up the events in the North for the last week.

War Update: April 16- April 23 - Vale Ablaze as Geminate Smolders

This week was a one to forget for the NC, a definitive turning point in the conflict from both perspectives. Asset-wise, NC are down 4 Titans, 7 Supercarriers, 7 CSAAs, 24 Technetium moons, and just over 100 conventional Capitals. It's not all bad, the NC did manage to kill 11 carriers, though still not the trade-off they were looking for. The week saw the final nail in the Geminate coffin, with both NC and DRF forces taking the fight to Vale. The NC stood defiant, timing everything for the US timezone in an attempt to recreate the success they had early in the campaign. With Pandemic Legion in the picture, however, this proved to be disastrous.

Saturday the 17th, a careless RAGE-led NC fleet went cavorting with a meager capital and subcapital gang doing logistics and infrastructure repair. Previously these types of gangs went about uncontested, and obviously the FC in charge thought his numerical superiority would make up for a complete lack of tactical awareness. Much to his dismay, a PL dictor managed to bubble the entirety of the Capital gang and they were quickly mowed down. In full panic mode, the NC support gang zerg'd in to help. Too little, too late; the support gang met the same fate. The NC, clearly disparaged, called for a High Command meeting Sunday night. Things were about to change.

At the NC High Command meeting, the powers that be decided to scrap the NC-developed Alpha Fleet doctrine and instead shifted toward a PL-developed Abaddon-heavy makeup. Additionally, they decided it was time for a counter-attack. With -A-wagon being persuaded to open another front - attacking White Noise assets in Feythabolis - an NC counter would shift the advantage firmly in their direction. Monday, NC stalwart Imperian led a hush-hush op of Capitals through low-sec in order to reinforce DRF assets. The operation ended abruptly, with DRF forces pouncing on the support-less NC Supers and Capitals. Fortuitously, with low-sec being terrible, only 4 NC Supers were lost in this debacle.

On Tuesday, a full NC CTA was called - all members, all supers, all A-Team FCs; no expense would be spared. With over 1,300 in fleet, the NC behemoth was ready to steamroll through stations, moons, and reclaim all lost assets in Vale. The plan was not without fault, though, as the NC Logistics team neglected to protect their SBUs. As such, the NC Fleet lumbered over itself, in a 9-hour long CTA they managed to reinforce two moons and one station system. To make matters worse, they clumsily lost three Supercarriers to the tenacious Legion. By all accounts, the day was an abysmal failure on the battlefield. For all their faults, the NC is not totally inept. The evening of this catastrophe served as a springboard for another meeting, this time only between trusted leaders. The topic: making the Geminate and Vale campaign an isolated travesty. NC High Command had the foresight to pin the campaign upon the narrow shoulders of a former BRUCE diplomat Ronan Teisdari. Using RAGE and Majesta, two entities whom many believe to have long since lived out their usefulness, as scapegoats for a failed defense would open up the possibility for a fresher, more active group to take their space: Fidelas Constans. In essence, if Vale were to fall then it would be seen as a form of Spring cleaning and core NC morale would be left undisturbed, possibly even boosted. Furthermore, if the NC were to prop up RAGE long enough to tire DRF Legion forces out, but not give them any major Supercapital victories, perhaps their attack would peter out at the borders of Tribute. A shrewd maneuver, indeed. While the NC members would not simply roll over, as that would set a dangerous precedent, the decision was made that they would refrain from committing Supercapitals to the cause.

Fighting continued through the week, punctuated with utter domination in ZLZ and 7-K. After a cyno-jamming debacle, the ZLZ's IHUB, along with a 250 man NC support gang, fell in US prime. The next day in 7-K, the NC put on a brave face and formed 800 sub-capitals in Euro-prime to save a station. DRF Legion forces formed up late with 450 support, but unlike the NC they were willing to throw Supercapitals into the mix. With two-hundred Supers and Capitals at the ready, DRF Legion forces jumped into the system. Lag ensured that damage was applied every ten minutes, and after about forty minutes of slide-show fighting, NC forces mustered a 25-man suicide Dread fleet and cyno'd in on the SBU. If they were going to lose the support fight, damned if they weren't going to save the system. NC support made the interesting call to break away from the station grid to apply damage to the SBU, and the race was on: DRF Legion fighter-bombers began grinding through the station while NC Dreads went after the SBU. The SBU dropped slowly while the fighter-bombers loaded the system. As the SBU entered armor, the fighter-bombers were in full swing and DRF Legion DPS had quickly surpassed that of the NC gang. With the SBU at 50% armor the station flipped to Legion control, but the race was not yet over: there was still a TCU to grind through. By this point the node was too far gone, as DPS began applying to the TCU the SBU was destroyed. NC forces, given at least a three-hour reprieve, seemed to hold an advantage. After trying to gank Capitals with limited success, the NC cut their losses and opted to go home. Three hours later a replacement SBU onlined and the TCU was killed without incident.

7-K was a worthless stationed controlled by pets of pets, and still 750 showed up; ZLZ would be the final showdown. Although the jammer was down, the timer was still deep in the US time zone and thus the NC had a bit of an advantage, or so they thought. Cautiously optimistic, NC High Command made a risky gamble: they would publicly declare that saving ZLZ was the number-one priority. Platitudes and cheers echoed through the NC community: "We call upon every member of the NC to assist in crushing our foes once and for all. Come to our defense for it is not just our assets and space that is at risk but everyone's. We must stand strong and united or we must stand weak and defeated" and "What's the hardest rock? Diamond. What's harder than Diamond? The NC! Εach one of you are heroes, each one of you are legends, you carry the NC's banner now, keep up the reputation for excellence. I say to those faceless Drones: 'COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH!'" just to cite a few. Understanding the importance that the NC placed upon ZLZ, DRF Legion responded in turn; as time drew nearer, ZLZ local became more and more populated with the DRF Legion forces. After weeks of CTAs and crushing defeats the NC morale speech did nothing for their numbers, instead it served as a springboard for DRF Legion. NC scouts looked in horror as some 80 Titans and 185 Supercarriers loomed ominously in ZLZ. Having already decided not to commit Supercapitals, NC head-FCs realized there was nothing to do and passed the reigns onto their underlings. NC grunts stood anxious, while first-time FCs waffled on what to do. After an embarrassing navigation faux pas, the NC eventually accepted that ZLZ was a lost hope. Eight hours later, without any attempts to down the TCU, ZLZ was in DRF Legion control; RAGE HQ was captured.

With ZLZ down, Vale was on the verge of falling. Junior SVK, a dominant NC FC in RAGE, held a corp-only meeting to discuss leaving RAGE. The NC Inner Circle decided to fully put into motion their contingency plan and named Fidelas Constans full NC members; distance was placed between core NC members and RAGE & Majesta in order to salvage morale. Feeling betrayed by the NC core members, and rightfully so, RAGE decided to strike back. Early Monday morning, sovereignty in Y5J - a pivotal system adjacent to Tribute core - "mysteriously" dropped. A loud, albeit passive-aggressive, message was sent to core NC members. While the the fate of Vale is still a long way from being inked, the events of this last week threw a proverbial money wrench in the status quo of the NC. It will be interesting to see how the events of this devastating week will effect the NC as a whole, and if the relationship between RAGE/ME and the rest of the NC is beyond repair.

[Kageru]

Well, that does help explain the text parts of it.  However, I was also interested in the story behind why a car was driving through a building.

They're "escaping" the TEST prison and ready for the freedom of being their own alliance in low-sec.

Unless you mean the original source of the image in which case now idea :)

[tgr]

Also, Mittens announced that we were deploying to Cobalt Edge in the SOTG on saturday, which in turn seems to have pulled raidenDOT over there to protect IRC space.

[Comstar]

How far can the Russian's push west?

[Kageru]

If the NC evaporated there's pretty much nothing in the game that could stand up to the DRF coalition. How sturdy that coalition is remains to be seen, but with morale high and lots of space for the victors, there's no reason for them to turn on each other. If the NC can hold them, present a credible threat to their super-cap fleet, and the goon and -A- attacks nibble at their flanks maybe things will be held in balance or even setup for a comeback but at the moment the momentum does not favor the NC. It will be fun to see if the western NC is an empty shell or not though.

Currently the momentum is all on the DRF side. Gem and Vale are effectively done it seems. R.A.G.E have lost their capital system and are now staging from tribute.

Goons are not going to deploy to Cobalt Edge since there's still various hostiles (Evoke,NC.,Agony,Merciless) they need to keep under control at home and IRC just isn't important enough. But they can be an irritant and maybe draw some people away from the DRF fleets.

[Gets]

No posts in a week so here's a Montolio leak:

Post Delve we will be deploying to Curse, more details to follow later this month. Why am I telling you now? I've been messaged by maybe six or seven different alliances leaders (neutral alliances) asking me if we are going to Curse.

If they know, most of you know or will know shortly anyways.

Standings aren't finalized, but it is currently looking like it will be Fountain residents vs everything (wagon, drf, randoms etc.)

#### SENT BY - montolio to all @ May 04 2011 23:19:30 EVE Time ####

[Gets]

And now he resigned.

On June 24th 2010 Dank Nugs resigned and made me CEO of Dreddit. For the next 6 months I had a blast. We toppled empires. We caused drama. I made a fat girl sing for us so that we wouldn't declare war on her corporation. Good times. We grew Dreddit & this alliance to one of the bloc powers in EVE.

Unfortunately being the top guy for so long causes an obscene amount of stress. I am always hooked into EVE. Texts, phone calls (at 3am), constantly drama, pettyness, all sorts of shit just seep into real life. Over the past 2-3 months I've had a number of drama shitstorms that were related to people I considered friends. It affected me far more then I thought it would and I have been very aggressive and erratic as a result. It used to be easy to ignore things, rise above them, but after so long its hard to see beyond them. The one thing that has kept me going for so long is the overwhelming support that the membership has given me. I don't know why you guys support me, but it makes a huge difference in my motivation to actually do things. Thank you for all the support.

So.. I need a break from all the authority. I will still play EVE. I am still going to PVP & lead terrible fleets. But don't come to me with anything related to diplomacy, diplomatic incidents, funding, whatever.

What now? Rob3r will be taking over TEST & Dreddit. He is an ancient Dreddit director and I trust him. As of today he is the supreme authority in TEST. I will transfer any ~in progress~ business to him and tie up loose ends.

~insert picture of burb~

http://forum.pleaseignore.com/index.php?topic=14292.0

[Phildo]

Rumor has it that Montolio resigned because some Goons were mean to him in Delve.

[Gets]

No, SHURKs did it. It was SHURKs.

[Kageru]

I think TEST can expect to burn out a CEO every 6-12 months. Being a small pocket in goon Deklein is one thing but running a full space empire with the chaotic and random assemblage they have has got to be taxing the leaders time and patience.

In continuing news the NC continues to embarrass with the only limitation on that being they might not be "serious" until their final regions are challenged. It has been happily observed the NC has shed about 2.5K members and I wonder how many of them have just unsubscribed. I still reckon the main loser out of this war is likely to be CCP.

[Kageru]

Russians enjoy their public holiday by wandering into the NC core regions and starting the process of claiming Sov. Since one of them is a regional capital the NC can't bluff and bluster and has to show more coordination and participation than it has shown for weeks. Good luck with that.

The "bipolar" Eve is quite possibly going to become dominated by a single coalition for the first time in its history. But people hiding in their station, camped by a stupid number of super-capitals, will at least be able to walk their shiny new avatar around a small prison cell... yaay!

[Comstar]

The "bipolar" Eve is quite possibly going to become dominated by a single coalition for the first time in its history. But people hiding in their station, camped by a stupid number of super-capitals, will at least be able to walk their shiny new avatar around a small prison cell... yaay!

I think the last time we came close was BoB and it's amazing 10-minute-a-DoomsDay traveling circus.

Just ban all Super-capital's.

[Fordel]

I for one welcome our new Russian overlords!

[Pezzle]

I think the last time we came close was BoB and it's amazing 10-minute-a-DoomsDay traveling circus.

Just ban all Super-capital's.

I have been saying this for years now.  Supercaps were a terrible idea. 

[tgr]

Titans I can agree on could be in the game as-is, with a few changes to make them absolutely ineffectual against subcaps which aren't standing still (except the doomsday device). At least that means they've got a logistical role. Supercarriers I would personally have made into a fleet transport ship so that it would function as a mobile reshipping station. Fuck giving them offensive capabilities as well. In fact, I could argue the same for normal carriers.

[ajax34i]

It's a "carrier" you have to give it offensive capabilities. 

EVE is an MMO; enough ISK has accumulated that the biggest ships are common, nothing unexpected about that.

High-sec dwellers are happily going on about their business not caring about the alliances at all, and generating most of the income for CCP.

But yes, 0.0 decides whether the game stagnates and becomes stale.

I think CCP will nerf supercaps AND income generation, but what they should do is revisit ship balance to make sure everything still has an Achiles heel when used in numbers.  To me that means buff small ships so they still have a role.  To me, the biggest problem is two-fold:

- the "completely immune to ewar" ability that all capital ships have
- the sorry state of ewar

Of course, CCP nerfed ewar because it was pissing off their empire playerbase (crowd control in PVP always does).

[tgr]

It's a "carrier" you have to give it offensive capabilities.

I'd argue that while it's a carrier, its offensive capabilities wouldn't come from the fighters as in AI-driven fighters, but the quick refitting it could bring to a fleet. It'd still be a nice power-multiplier, while not being a complete rape-mobile in and of itself.

I think CCP will nerf supercaps AND income generation, but what they should do is revisit ship balance to make sure everything still has an Achiles heel when used in numbers.  To me that means buff small ships so they still have a role.  To me, the biggest problem is two-fold:

- the "completely immune to ewar" ability that all capital ships have
- the sorry state of ewar

Of course, CCP nerfed ewar because it was pissing off their empire playerbase (crowd control in PVP always does).

I thought it was only supercaps that were immune to ewar, but anyways, I've no real problem with them being immune to ewar.

In my mind, battleships should be used to gain control over the field, dreads used to pound structures into dust, carriers to rep, supercarriers bring more ships to the battlefield, titans to bridge things to the battlefield.

Today it seems more like it's subcaps to get rid of dictors and supercarriers/titans (and if you're a fat scrub, a mere carrier) to pound structures into dust, and once you get past some number of supercarriers, they're basically invincible unless you bring more supercarriers.

Take away the offensive capabilities of the supercarrier and they can sit there and circlerep eachother until the cows come home, they'll still just sit there and be a giant target for everyone to shoot at.

It's probably not going to be the direction CCP take things, but it would be interesting to see how it would end up if it was the way SCs worked. It certainly wouldn't make it so damn attractive to pour literally a gazillion of them into a single system as they are now.

edit: re normal carriers, a 200 man maelstrom fleet has no real problem alphaing a carrier, so I've no real problem with leaving them with fighters. They're not overpowered as such.

[Thrawn]

Who would want to spend that much training and isk on a ship that can could only act as a refitting service with a jump drive?