War

[Murgos]

Putting losing Sov in 1Iy to a logistics snafu is imo gilding the lily.  How can a system with Sov 3 and a jb fall so easily?  49.....1Iy.... I'm starting to see a pattern. 

Just cracked Sov 4 in Period Basis in record time but a 29-25 POS swing over the space of a week in 1IY means the Titanic is going down with all hands?

Get a grip.

[Jayce]

We took Delve starting in February.  Fast forward to May - almost June - and all of two systems have been taken.  Sky status: not falling (yet).

[setar]

Pretty sure BOB does have the majority of POS now, and sov should switch pending further major events. And agree with Endie: all it takes is one major screw-up, a titan loss, a capital battle, and the balance tips easily in the other direction. Right now the only thing Goonies really have to worry about is their allies getting more irritated with them, even beyond their will to see Kenny disband.

[Endie]

I love this sort of thing, and the difficult parts of the war are what makes the good parts rewarding for me.  I just don't "get" the people who love always being on the winning side.  Some of you will remember that profiling quiz thing about "what sort of eve player are you?" that someone posted here a year ago?  I was firmly placed into the "in it for the strategy and big story" profile.  I bemoan the lack of big fleet fights in this war, but I still get to shape things by dropping towers n hostile systems and hostile timezones then suiciding supertanked moas (all there was on the market with a tank and a cargohold) into the middle of fleets with fuel to online the tower they're shooting!  Or ninjaing untanked rorquals in to fuel them.

Those who are turning up in 1IY and ED- night after night will be able to look back on this later the same way as I do on those long weeks in 9-9 two years ago, when BoB had the capitals, the numbers, the titans and the money but, ultimately, not our will.  And that applies whichever side people are on, and whether they win or lose, because Eve really only excels in one area, and that is providing a story.  Maybe this is Goonfleet's latest strategic defeat coming up, following Delve 1 or the D2 war or the Syndicate camp?  I hope not, and I genuinely don't think that it is, but I can't pretend it's not exciting to wonder what we'd do next.  I'm not saying "our ~wulfpax~ will be more dangerous than ever."  But I am saying that the next episode would be fun to discover.

Unless, of course, you only want to win, in which case I'd suggest another game because, in Eve, everyone loses at some point.

[rand]

Apparently we're going to lose sov in XZ- (part of our jb network to period basis) to some random romanian faggots, possibly due to a logistics fuckup. I don't know what the fuck is going on

[nizar]

Apparently we're going to lose sov in XZ- (part of our jb network to period basis) to some random romanian faggots, possibly due to a logistics fuckup. I don't know what the fuck is going on

The last several days have been nothing but one giant :welp: after another but the previous week and a half was pretty much :rape: ...  We can't fight -A- and Kenny by ourselves or with nominal alliance help from Razor and we need the arrival of major parts of the Northern Coalition and soon to staunch the bleeding and get things moving back in the right direction.  Just the ebb and flow of battle but this may not be over for many more months and it seems like a daunting mess.

[Thrawn]

All it would really take for a big turnaround is for something to happen to get Goons to log in.  A lot of them just aren't that interested right now and don't feel our space is even in much danger with how slow the progress against us is.

[setar]

The last several days have been nothing but one giant :welp: after another but the previous week and a half was pretty much :rape: ...  We can't fight -A- and Kenny by ourselves or with nominal alliance help from Razor and we need the arrival of major parts of the Northern Coalition and soon to staunch the bleeding and get things moving back in the right direction.  Just the ebb and flow of battle but this may not be over for many more months and it seems like a daunting mess.

Again with Endie. Damnit, this is turning into a trend. Very much in the 'build a story' category, although occasional epic fights help. The assault of -A- on the FIX'ian egg in ED- firmly put me into this corner as I spent a whole weekend sleeping next to a computer, with teamspeak running, trying to protect an egg which the alliance had worked for incredibly hard for 36 hours.

Now I'm part of -A- and we're fighting over the same system again, with completely different roles. Love it, and I'd be disappointed if this was over soon.

[trevorreznik]

I think what we see happening is that once a system is cracked, it falls really quickly.  Look at 9cg and h74-gkc went in and got hammered hard within days.  But in i1y, gkc held on for a few days and then started killing some poses while saving most of theirs, and that convinced most people it wasn't worth showing up because the system was already screwed.

[Endie]

Apparently we're going to lose sov in XZ- (part of our jb network to period basis) to some random romanian faggots, possibly due to a logistics fuckup. I don't know what the fuck is going on

It's called repping a tower but not stronting it, and not noticing that the other tower in the system was in reinforced, too.

Not a glorious week.

[trevorreznik]

Apparently we're going to lose sov in XZ- (part of our jb network to period basis) to some random romanian faggots, possibly due to a logistics fuckup. I don't know what the fuck is going on

It's called repping a tower but not stronting it, and not noticing that the other tower in the system was in reinforced, too.

Not a glorious week.

it's not like that system mattered-jumpbridge to get down to PB is literally your last priority of any jumpbridge/station/highend system

whats interesting to me right now is atlas vs unl, pt 2 (pt 1 was in omist).  this should actually help out gs/nc if unl decides to move over to pb/querious, but they could also move in with RA.  I'm not too familiar with UNL's current situation, but I do know that aianostre is one of the top few fc/alliance leaders i've interacted with (joshua cane, nync, shamis orwhatever are the others (i havent interacted with et))

[MahrinSkel]

Your problem is that if you can freely choose where to live in the former BoB core space, there's no reason to be anywhere but Delve.  More stations, harder to raid, and the same rats.  But if nobody is living in Querious, it's hard to defend that region, and if you don't hold Querious, you won't keep Delve or PB.

You guys needed to find someone to live there.  Q is not a particularly bad chunk of space, the pocket between I1Y and Z-U is good TrueSec only 3 jumps from Empire, and you can bind in the other good chunks of Q with just a few JB links.  But you have to *live* there to see the investment as worthwhile.

--Dave

[Endie]

Your problem is that if you can freely choose where to live in the former BoB core space, there's no reason to be anywhere but Delve.  More stations, harder to raid, and the same rats.  But if nobody is living in Querious, it's hard to defend that region, and if you don't hold Querious, you won't keep Delve or PB.

You guys needed to find someone to live there.  Q is not a particularly bad chunk of space, the pocket between I1Y and Z-U is good TrueSec only 3 jumps from Empire, and you can bind in the other good chunks of Q with just a few JB links.  But you have to *live* there to see the investment as worthwhile.

We literally couldn't give the space away.  We offered it to a whole bunch of alliances - even throwing in the huge number of high-end moons - but none wanted it.

[setar]

Wheeh. If reports are true and the whole North stops by in Querious we are looking forward to an extended weekend of dying nodes, dead BOB/AAA POS and a nice pushback. Will be great to see what the situation is like a week from now.
 

[Gets]

Speaking of the North the NC just got kicked in the chin pretty bad by Triumvirate MkIII with the help of massive desync/lag/gate jump bug. The scales between ships involved and k/d ratios are hilarious, but keep mind mind it's all buggy as hell as the killboard shows only the killing blow since 50 Tri BSs were smartbombing. An NC pilot claims they only lost about 100 ships.

http://triumvirate-alliance.com/?a=kill_related&kll_id=3347422

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Kebabski/2009.05.21.19.13.43.jpg

[MahrinSkel]

We literally couldn't give the space away.  We offered it to a whole bunch of alliances - even throwing in the huge number of high-end moons - but none wanted it.

All alliances that already had an established 0.0 home?  I know at one point Sangre Azul had Sov in Z-U and was adding corps around a core of former FIX while blue to your faction, then suddenly they disappeared from the map and Razor took the systems they had claimed.

Nobody who already has 0.0 turf is going to relocate if they can avoid it, even if offered better space.  Nobody strong enough to defend Querious as they stand is going to want it, you're going to have to grow a tenant while shielding it, similar to how BoB shielded FIX after the CODA war cut their numbers down to 300-400.  If you had started that process when you took the space, you might see the end of the tunnel in sight with a committed tenant capable of providing the core defense and strategic development of the region.

Otherwise you're looking at an endless round of and unpopulated Querious falling to the enemy and needing your allies called in to purge them, until they don't show up and Querious falls to someone who will then be in a position to ruin your fun in Delve and PB.

--Dave

[MahrinSkel]

I'll give you guys the quick rundown of Q: ED- seems like a pointless place to have a Refinery, but in practice the true-sec of ED-, LS-, and 9SBB is good enough that Exploration sites in all three systems give ores as good as you'll find anywhere (and LS- is worth mining in its own right).  ED- can also be JB linked to the high-value systems in the arm off of K7D that ends at UVHO-F (which are otherwise nearly impossible to exploit).  The high economic activity this made possible in combination with its Empire proximity let us gather the funds for *4* outposts simultaneously in only a couple of months (before the Great War fucked up both productivity and the actual placement of the outposts).

Z-UZZN also seems oddly placed, but it is where it is because it "corks the bottle" of the high-value systems of the Central Querious ring, with I1Y being the other cork (Z-U and BX2 have 51 belts between them, even though they aren't the best they're easy to strip, plus of course the mining Exploration sites).  Those three systems in the pocket (C-7, DS-, and RF-) are about as good as you're going to find (21 high-value belts between them with max-value Exploration sites), and are only 3 jumps from empire, 1-2 jumps from the Z-U refinery, and RF- could be JB linked to Z-U *and* the high-value systems on the other arm off of K7D (A-5, Q2-, and LNV being especially yummy concentrations of good ores, rats, and high-value moons, A-5 is the best system in the region bar none but so ass-end of nowhere it's hard to do anything with it without JB's).

I1Y and ED- are both only 2 jumps from Empire and easily reachable by freighter even without JB's or a jump-freighter (I've done it many times, and a Jump Freighter could probably jump directly to either from Efa).  9SBB would be an excellent location for a Factory outpost (also only 2 jumps from Empire and within JF range), and would fill out the set for ConSov (which would remove ED-'s 11-moon vulnerability).  Z-U was going to be matched by a Lab outpost in RF- and another Factory in C-7, resulting in a string of 6 outposts in a line of 8 systems drawing from the material wealth of 4 high-value constellations, all with easy Empire access and redundant JB linking capability, for example the I1Y<->3-F JB pair was routed through ED- when that system was attacked by IAAAC.  There are at least 4 R64 moons in there that BoB never knew about (and no, I don't remember where they were).  And all of this independent of the 49-U area and firewalled from it by 14 standard gates (but still able to link to it by multiple potential JB paths).

The IT plan for developing it was pretty much as I've stated, with a shell alliance to be created for mining ops out of Z-U and another for ED-, with 49-U and XLL to be the FIX exclusive zone (JB access would ensure rapid response to the central ring, and living there would give maximum defense to the PB<->Delve chokepoint behind it).  The occupant alliances would not be renters, there would be a nominal Office charge to keep dead corps from cluttering the alliance and otherwise it would be an open economic zone in Central Q and we'd make our money off refining taxes (the JB link to 49-U would not be configured to allow their passage).  There was also talk of having an Outpost in one of the trio off 3-F that would have wide-open docking, a Free Trade Zone for anyone not Red to us.  Then we changed Chairmen, and the new one decided to give XLL away to MC (kicking out the second strongest corp in the alliance in the process), forbid the planting of more outposts, and refused to authorize the access for the shell renter alliances.

It has more potential for improvement than just about any other region, because of its unique geometry that wraps constellations around a central core with long stargate routes but good JB shortcuts, and the proximity of that core to Empire.  But you've got to live there to want it, and you've got to want it to defend it.  Until someone does that, it will remain Delve's soft underbelly.  If an enemy controls the area, there are multiple ways they can use it as a staging area for attacks on Delve and the A2 pipe, including gaining Sov3 somewhere in Delve or the Lost Constellations and opening a JB highway right into your core systems.  It also offers much more secure and redundant routing for JB's as an alternative to the A2 pipe, which otherwise would be easy to cut.

--Dave

[rand]

We literally couldn't give the space away.  We offered it to a whole bunch of alliances - even throwing in the huge number of high-end moons - but none wanted it.

All alliances that already had an established 0.0 home?  I know at one point Sangre Azul had Sov in Z-U and was adding corps around a core of former FIX while blue to your faction, then suddenly they disappeared from the map and Razor took the systems they had claimed.
--Dave

They hopped onto the delve/querious invasion right after the bob disband without bothering to set standings with us. They were still neut to goons when they were sieging kenny POS in some system, when we hotdropped them and killed a bunch of dreads. After that they didn't seem inclined to help us out

[Endie]

The defence of I1Y is going pretty well right now: we've owned the system for pretty much 24 hours so far, and there shouldn't be many hostile towers left of the thirty-something they'd worked hard to get into there and ED-by the time the bank holiday weekend is over.  Yesterday, we presented AAA with the choice of defending their R64 moons in lowsec or protecting Kenny's offensive in Querious.  When they decided their moon income mattered more and went to lowsec, we onlined our jammer, jumped into I1Y, and it's been pretty solid ever since.  As of half an hour ago or so we had 14 titans in there (maybe more, but not congaing), our cap pilots have had a chance to rotate while keeping 100 and more in-system and active, and we have over 500 pilots active in Goon teamspeak op channels for now.  Kenny's regroup at 1800 didn't seem to do much, although to be fair even if they had got numbers they would have to be dumb to jump into us like this (even without the gate bug).

The AAA decision (especially considering the misdirection applied by DBRB) is understandable from a tactical point of view, but I really think it was strategically daft.  Kenny's losses in towers have been in the same ballpark as a couple of lost R64s for a month, during which time they would have got them back anyway, while the morale effect on some Barbie in particular of being back to square one (and risking the sov-4ing of the constellation, I suppose) could be an issue.

Anyway, they still have time to save some staging towers over the next day as the intensity dies down.  But for now it is going , as the meme says, rather favourably.  Even if my overview is set up wrong so that having all the -10 security snigg members makes the fleet look patchily hostile to me...

Edit: 

Molle> ladies atm we are out of option , everyone stand down

we cant do anything in i1y

They have another alarm-clock tomorrow am to save their remaining towers.  Should be an interesting comparison.

[trevorreznik]

what was the dbrb misdirection?

[Quinton]

what was the dbrb misdirection?

I wasn't there for the fun (though I did enjoy some of the pre/post downtime hellpurging of I1Y today), but I believe this is what Endie's talking about:

DBRB outwitted the -A- and RKZ fcs when we began the purge of I1Y today. He yammered endlessly in fleet about how we were going to make a play for -A-'s lowsec R64s. He even had a goon scout fire off cynos in those systems and acted disappointed in teamspeak while an 'error' meant the cyno wasn't ready, or unfueled, or offlined by accident. Our fleet was waiting at a Titan to bridge from 9CG, impatient. Meanwhile, the I1Y jammer was onlining. -A- was waiting in lowsec for us. One minute before I1Y onlined, a cyno fired, and all of our capitals and subcaps streamed into I1Y, where only RKZ was there to defend.

[Endie]

I'm off to bed: euroswarm has done its bit for now. I think we've killed 17 towers so far, but it might be more, I dunno. The only form of pvp easier than gate-camping is surely camping bubbled poses waiting for poor sods to bounce off the shields because systematic-chaos changed their password at a shared staging pos and the individuals neither checked their forums nor their teamspeak before logging in. It is strangely pleasing, nonetheless.

[trevorreznik]

what was the dbrb misdirection?

I wasn't there for the fun (though I did enjoy some of the pre/post downtime hellpurging of I1Y today), but I believe this is what Endie's talking about:

DBRB outwitted the -A- and RKZ fcs when we began the purge of I1Y today. He yammered endlessly in fleet about how we were going to make a play for -A-'s lowsec R64s. He even had a goon scout fire off cynos in those systems and acted disappointed in teamspeak while an 'error' meant the cyno wasn't ready, or unfueled, or offlined by accident. Our fleet was waiting at a Titan to bridge from 9CG, impatient. Meanwhile, the I1Y jammer was onlining. -A- was waiting in lowsec for us. One minute before I1Y onlined, a cyno fired, and all of our capitals and subcaps streamed into I1Y, where only RKZ was there to defend.

Due to my opinion on DBRB i'm going to disbelieve that his misdirection did anything, and believe that it was the poses coming out of reinforced that drew -a- up there, not dbrb's chatter.  Impossible to know though :)

I'm glad I'm not playing right now-the jump bug sounds like it's completely horrendous. One question though, is it only for jumping gates?  Or does the bug occur when briding/jumping to  cynos/through bridges?

[Quinton]

Due to my opinion on DBRB i'm going to disbelieve that his misdirection did anything, and believe that it was the poses coming out of reinforced that drew -a- up there, not dbrb's chatter.  Impossible to know though :)

I don't think anyone is going to think less of you for expressing skepticism at the portrayal of Boat as a genius tactician.  He does seem to have his moments, but I'm more of the opinion that his greatest strength is his ability to poopsock like no other FC I've ever flown under can poopsock.  There is some impressive dedication to the cause in that man.

[Jayce]

I'm glad I'm not playing right now-the jump bug sounds like it's completely horrendous. One question though, is it only for jumping gates?  Or does the bug occur when briding/jumping to  cynos/through bridges?

I've heard of it happening to people bridging or jumping to cynos.  I've only experienced it once myself.

[setar]

Everyone was aware of the R64 being a misdirection, but if I1Y was blocked the moon could still have been taken. That said, I'm less than convinced that this was the right strategic choice for the same reasons listed above. It's much easier to regain one moon then it is to work through a soon-to-be Sov4 system, not to mention having to deal with far fewer frustrated pilots.

Think this one will bite us, long term.

[lac]

This deserves some linkage: Apocswarm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlcDXg517XE

[Pax]

It's nice to watch a movie like the Apocswarm one and be able to say "I was there when it happened" :)

[Quinton]

Yes!  I was excluded from apocswarm because I fly a rokh.  Bastards.  Though I believe some of the shots in the video are of the whole fleet, including those of us in "lesser" battleships. ^^

[Endie]

I was in my unkillable Delve-1 Rokh, though I am almost ready to hop into a T2 reimbursable fleet apoc, so no movie stardom for me.

Setar, the lowsec R64 in itself wasn't actually a misdirection: if AAA had defended Kenny (and I bet they do next time!) then that R64 pos would undoubtedly have died (as would other stuff elsewhere).  But DBRB's achievement was in keeping attention away from the onlining jammer until we could basically guarantee I1Y was secured.

Even after a day's thought, I still cannot see what ET was thinking of (if it was his call).  AAA surely cannot be short of cash to the extent that a single R64 being lost - probably for no more than a few days - matters a jot.  Whereas all those 12-hour kiting sessions by them and their allies in I1Y are going to be a little harder to replicate next time, when it has been demonstrated that a fortnight of all-out effort can be undone in a couple of days.  The momentum for three weeks had been behind the Russians and their pets, and discarding that for a few billion in moon materials seems almost calculated to accelerate the haemhoragging of pet pilots.  It's what Bob used to be guilty of, and which I believe MC used to get frustrated by: an inability to focus on the core strategic goals of one's alliance (by which I mean one's allies and oneself) and to ignore possible tactical reverses in other theatres in order to achieve those goals.

[Trigona]

It just goes to show what happens when the goons decide to fight.  Querious is important and deserves the attention from the goons that it is now getting. 

In amongst the orgy of self congratulatory posts I would like to mention a negative - losing sov in a-b is a bitch, because no matter how much crap is said about re setting the jb network in a neighbouring system, (and therefore where's the problem), UHKL was NC's staging system and now unless we are bridged, we have to run the gauntlet of red camps to get to 1IY etc - very dull.

Nevertheless it would seem that -A- have made a bad mistake in letting 1Iy slip through their fingers, just when it appeared that they had put together a successful strategy for the taking of Querious.  I think it's going to be increasingly hard to mobilise people after this.  Kenny and -A- need a morale boosting strike quickly.

[setar]

Would love to know what your long-term plan is though, Trigona. Unless BOB completely fractures in the next few weeks it is likely we'll be in a similar situation very soon. That means either one of the big entities (TCF, Razor?) settle in Querious to balance numbers, or GS finds a tenant that survives long enough to become a force on its own.

That, or lots and lots of roadtrips?

[Predator Irl]

Would love to know what your long-term plan is though, Trigona. Unless BOB completely fractures in the next few weeks it is likely we'll be in a similar situation very soon. That means either one of the big entities (TCF, Razor?) settle in Querious to balance numbers, or GS finds a tenant that survives long enough to become a force on its own.

That, or lots and lots of roadtrips?

I think -A- and atlas have already found the new tenant for us in UNL! ;)   

I would love to see Razor move in, those guys seem to be really busting a nut for us since this all started, but chances of that happening are slim I think.

[Meester]

Why don't goons just move in to Querious?

Its not like the goons havn't held vast swathes of territory before and since they are the biggest alliance in eve in terms of numbers they could probably inhabit both Delve and Querious at the same time.

[setar]

Goons alone won't have sufficient numbers or attendance to keep -A-/GBC/SE/C0ven out for long; they need extra people. Provided neither side tires of the grind first, of course.