War

[Stabs]

Sitting in a VFK "something might happen, but probably not camp" and listening to people discuss movies, comcasts illicit traffic shaping and Eve politics took me back to that.

That's one of EvE's big problems too though.   Seems like if you don't know anyone playing you'd spend eons trying to find a corp where discussion didn't revolve around how many bowls X person just smoked.   The playerbase is in general a bit meh.

If you don't know anyone you play it like Elite, like a single player game. Fly around trying different things, playing ProgressBar with several different sorts of numerical scores and experimenting with interesting features.

There's a bit of a meme that Eve is a terrible game unless you're highly social which isn't true for me and I don't think it's true for most Eve players.

[Pezzle]

I disagree.  Eve can certainly be a terrible game.  We simply have lower expectations.  Sure, I had fun in my small gangs or talking with people etc.  We gloss over the things that piss us off.  Terrible UI, ridiculous policies, horrible customer support.  Like any game I suppose, it is fun because we find a way to make it fun.  At the core?  Eve is not a good game.

[Brolan]

I disagree.  Eve can certainly be a terrible game.  We simply have lower expectations.  Sure, I had fun in my small gangs or talking with people etc.  We gloss over the things that piss us off.  Terrible UI, ridiculous policies, horrible customer support.  Like any game I suppose, it is fun because we find a way to make it fun.  At the core?  Eve is not a good game.

I agree, but until the eventual "Eve-killer" comes out, it is what we are stuck with.

[DLRiley]

Perpetuum 

[Thrawn]

Perpetuum 

makes EvE look like an exciting and easy to learn game full of fun stuff to do.

[DLRiley]

But I heard they gotten so many disgruntle EVE players that there servers are crashing 

[Miasma]

I disagree.  Eve can certainly be a terrible game.  We simply have lower expectations.  Sure, I had fun in my small gangs or talking with people etc.  We gloss over the things that piss us off.  Terrible UI, ridiculous policies, horrible customer support.  Like any game I suppose, it is fun because we find a way to make it fun.  At the core?  Eve is not a good game.

It was the waking up early/staying up late to sit on a titan bridge for hours just in case a battle breaks out that will either only last a few minutes or lag the grid and wind up taking forever to do nothing that made me stop.  If I had ever bothered to get into a small roaming gang I'm sure it would have been much more fun however.

[Stabs]

I'm doing the small gang thing at the moment and it's not without its frustrations. Running out of ships is an issue as bringing new ones in is a pain (I suspect other alliances are more organised about this) so too is fitting off the local market. Finding a gang to fight that isn't bait can be tricky.

Still it's a blast when you do get good fights.

[MahrinSkel]

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Eve makes you find your fun, you have to work for it.  Then it randomly delivers a toe-curling orgasmic blast of pure awesome, and like any good crack monkey you will keep punching the button for the rest of forever, hoping to get another one.

--Dave

[palmer_eldritch]

I'm doing the small gang thing at the moment and it's not without its frustrations. Running out of ships is an issue as bringing new ones in is a pain (I suspect other alliances are more organised about this) so too is fitting off the local market. Finding a gang to fight that isn't bait can be tricky.

Still it's a blast when you do get good fights.

When I spent a short amount of time in Mostly Harmless, it was clear that they despised industrialists and didn't want them around. The result of course was that people had to import ships and equipment from Empire. I don't know if they were unusual in their approach but I suspect not.

A sensible alliance and coalition of alliances will actively encourage members to take part in industry and importing, to ensure they have a strong market in their own space. Not only does this help the alliance by making it easier for pilots to equip, which allows them to PvP more easily, but it encourages players to value their space more by seeing it as home. You don't want them constantly flitting between your space and Empire if you can help it.

[Kageru]

Goons having standard fit fleet ships on alliance contracts is pretty much the way it should be done.

It still amuses me endlessly that if mostly harmless had not been mostly useless they could still exist and be holding space.

[Stabs]

I was in MH too for a bit. I think the issue is they were insanely possessive of their cap industries. If you gain industrialists they need to move to building capitals and using poses as part of the natural progression of the game, you can't have them making Rifters forever. However in MH strategic decisions by the leadership seemed to be made on the basis of how can I make more isk rather than how can we improve the Alliance.

It was a strange cliquey insular alliance and I don't think it's missed.

[Kageru]

Isn't that pretty much the NC in a nutshell?

MH lost all respect when I heard that one of their guest alliances asked for permission to build super-caps and was told "pet's don't need them". That and them being asses about bubbles in EC-8.

[Stabs]

I was also in WI and it was a much more normal friendly place. I think in the 2 months I was in MH only one person spoke to me.

[Numtini]

I was also in WI and it was a much more normal friendly place. I think in the 2 months I was in MH only one person spoke to me.

Let me guess, to yell at you?

[Stabs]

 he he, no, he got on comms with me and took me out to where we lived which was quite a long way from EC-. He was actually very nice.

Just a shame that neither he nor anyone else spoke to me after that. If I asked a question people would answer, I also piped up a few times in the rather intimidating atmosphere of hundred people fleet comms but no one said "hi, what you up to? want to come do this?" in the whole time I was there.

WI on the other hand, which I've been in twice, that happened all the time.

[Phildo]

LOVEU joined Mostly Harmless primarily because I thought it was a more stable place to be than WI at the time.  WI had just lost all their space and looked shaky, plus they were taking in Battlestars.  I wanted to distance ourselves from that at the time.

Turns out WI were the safer bet in the long run.

[Comstar]

Not much happening in Eve up north right now. AAA is losing to the DRR, and may lose HED shortly. PL is the only hostile group active up north, killing a few Clusterfuck dreadnoughts at a time before scampering home before the vengeful Whelpfleet can assemble. Winter is still coming.


The Requesteia continues. The last Ev0ke stations are falling, EC- is the last. I attained an achivment few in Eve have done - Whelped a Whelpfleet. EveNews24 isn't paying me for battlereports :(

If you're looking for me, I'll be in a tripple sensor boosted Hurricane off the EC- Torrions gate.

(2:42:56 AM) directorbot: Strategic Op forming VFK- WELPFLEET. Bring your Hurricanes, dictors/logi and lots of T1 ammo, damage drones. Mumble Op 0. Fleet name:  Stratagic Op VFK. Comstr fleet.  Should be easy and is in a fun locale!

***  This was a broadcast from pmchem to all, replies are not monitored ***


No one was interested or willing to FC the fleet to do the armour reinforcement timer in EC-. So I volunteered.

Never  volunteer.

We got about 130 or so and headed out by bridges.

Never take bridges.

As we came into 2-K, no one noticed the PL in system. Someone said in fleet a covert cyno was up..but didn't say where. I thought they meant 4-A,

Always ask where the covert cyno is.

It was on the 2-k side of the bridge, and PL sent in 12 or so bombers in 2 waves. The order to jump was given...but too late. We lost an entire wing. We killed one bomber.

Whelp achieved.

Lost:
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564179
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564182
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564183
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564184
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564186
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564187
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564189
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564191
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564196
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564197
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564198
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564200
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564202
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564203

Single Bomber Kill:
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564178

I managed to get to EC- without any further incidents, and our fleet was joined by FA in bombers, a Domi gang from Space Monkeys, and a reinforcement gang TITAN BRIDGED down from VFK.  A lone Ev0ke bomber did some bomb runs, and eventually died for his troubles.

Killed:
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564205

Always bubble around the fleet to prevent stealth bombers having easy runs.


EC- is now on it's last timer and will fall in 2 days. On the way back, I ordered the tacklers ONLY to go to the 4-A gate. PL had one in system. An Onyx. I ordered the tacklers to attack it only, no one else. Some of the battlecruisers went anyway.

The Onyx opened the expected covert op cyno and the bombers came in. We lost several ships, but the battlecruisers who didn't die were enough to kill the Onyx too. The bombers warped off and I got everyone through the gate and home without further losses.

Lost:
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564211
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564210
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564220

Killed:
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564208
http://killboard.goo...t.com/km/564221

Links won't work due to SOLO.

[Endie]

We've been working on small gang stuff with some guys we picked up a few months ago.  It has now reached the point that we took 19 Bat Country (plus Courthouse, an alliance diplo) to IRC space on Sunday because we knew they'd form up a big gang to fight us.  Most people were in hurricanes but we had support from two sabres, three scimitars for logistic support, a lachesis (me in the only non-minmatar ship) to hold long points, a huginn to web tackle, an inty and a command ship (comstr) for tackle bonuses.

We fucked around for an hour trailing our coats and shouting in local in order to get them to form up, and were astonished when we discovered that they had formed up a 90-man fleet to deal with us.  It had more drakes than we had ships; it had more canes than we had ships; it had battleships and faction ships and various scouts dotted about watching us.

We fought them for over an hour, moving spot about 20-30 times as their shit-hot on-grid prober warped their massive fleet onto us again and again, but Halo is an ace small-gang FC and they just couldn't grab us.

Eventually, we began to lose DPS and decided it was time to leave.  They chased us through gates, and each time we would burn off and kite them for as long as possible in order to kill their tacklers before moving on, while our remaining sabre dropped bubbles off each gate to snag them and give us time to make range for the next skirmish.  The final gate was so close that Comstr had to burn out his microwarpdrive in order to escape, while I only just got out with less than a second to spare.  At that point, we were totally vulnerable, with our most expensive ship capable of only 20% of its top speed, and the next two gates surrounded by a dozen or so warp interdiction bubbles that we could not have escaped.  But we'd inflicted yet more kills on them, and IRC just gave up and began to burn back to their home system, tales between their legs.

We lost two people to disconnects and one to his kid giving him a present just as we had to move again, while some others got killed in unlucky tackles or foolish solo manuevres.  But when we added up the butcher's bill we had killed about twice as many of them as they did of us, and we did so outnumbered by almost five to one:

We killed:

Federation Navy Comet, 2xSabre, Pilgrim, Harbinger, Kestrel, Caracal Navy Issue, 4xDrake, Jaguar, Flycatcher, Vagabond, 2xStiletto, Merlin, Kitsune, Hurricane, Malediction, Dramiel, Heretic, Breacher, Wolf, 11xPods

We lost:

8xHurricane, 2xScimitar, 2xSabre

[Vedi]

Awesome! Thanks for the reports, guys!

[Comstar]

Sitting off the EC- gate in my triple sensor boosted Hurricane.

Elite PVP Alliance cynos in 4 smart bombing typhoons to kill the stupid goonies who are undoubtedly camping in nothing but tacklers. One of them got out after they killed..a tech 1 cruiser and a frigate. The warp core stabs did not save the other 3.

http://killboard.goonfleet.com/km/564473
http://killboard.goonfleet.com/km/564474
http://killboard.goonfleet.com/km/564487

Before that a neut Battlecruiser gang got whelped when they let one of our Dramiel's get 30km BEHIND them...and the rest  of us warped on top of them. And apparently there was another battlecruiser killed before then, before some other random Dramiel gang whelped us, and before that a hostile Sniper Battleship squadron got wiped. We just killed a guy from Eve Radio who came into system to advertise his show.

The bubbles will never set on the Torrinios gate.

[Kageru]

The Deklein coalition has certainly been strengthened by the threat of invasion... It helped unify the region and helped us get rid of mostly useless. The two being strongly related.

[Slayerik]

*SMALL GANG REPORT*

This is the stuff I miss about Eve. Sounded like fun!

[Lum]

I think we won Eve.

[Stabs]

Has everyone blued everyone else then?

[amiable]

This is the best Mittens troll ever. 

[tgr]

It's such a good troll I actually sort of wish he'd go through with it.

[amiable]

I am assuming that he is trolling CCP with this more than any of the alliances.   But still the lulz are glorious.

I haven't heard anything about release of the CSM minutes, and admittedly I know absolutely nothing about the larger political game that Endie/Mittani play, but I get the distinct impression that CCP is going :fuckplayers: and this is the response (since the CSM cannot say anything due to the NDA).

But honestly, I have no idea I just fleet up and shoot what folks tell me to shoot.

[Sparky]

The majority of 0.0 actually coming together and going "You know, fuck Dominion - we're just going to ride bikes" would be amazing.

[ajax34i]

Also amazing would be servers being up and no one logging on for a few days.  And I mean 0 players online.

[Kageru]

Um... that is pretty much how the game is. The DRF is satiated in terms of having more territory than it knows what to do with. It can't even really get up the enthusiasm to evict -A-. Goons and friends don't have the super-capital muscle to challenge them. Even if super-capitals get severely nerfed I don't think they have the enthusiasm for the game to take, hold and rent out huge expanses of space. Meanwhile the assembled null-sec numbers, logistics, super-caps combined with the small numbers of new players mean the emergence of some new, conquest hungry alliance having any capacity of holding space under its own name is highly improbable.

CCP thought it could let the null-sec game coast for a couple of years in a state of not-fun and poorly balanced. And now I suspect they're going to find it a lot harder to revive meaningful conflict than they think.

[tgr]

I've been thinking, and I've come up with one question: Is it just me, or are we missing one enemy for goons to actively take a disliking to to the degree we go after them to outright crush them, ala BOB?

[Phildo]

Only because someone decided to stop vilifying Red.Overlord once their entire founding playerbase joined White Noise, and the hate mysteriously failed to transfer along with them.

[Sparky]

I've been thinking, and I've come up with one question: Is it just me, or are we missing one enemy for goons to actively take a disliking to to the degree we go after them to outright crush them, ala BOB?

For me the golden age of EVE ended the day we crushed BoD underfoot.  Sir Molle tried to warn us! 

[Furiously]

I've been thinking, and I've come up with one question: Is it just me, or are we missing one enemy for goons to actively take a disliking to to the degree we go after them to outright crush them, ala BOB?

For me the golden age of EVE ended the day we crushed BoD underfoot.  Sir Molle tried to warn us! 

PL?