War

[Phildo]

To be fair, most of the people that IT fattened their ranks with were Finfleet and DICE.  Neither is a big surprise, and ANZAC Alliance was functioning pretty closely with Kenzoku during their last few campaigns anyway.  Wouldn't be surprised if ANZAC had something to do with bringing The Maverick Navy on-board, either, since they were in SCA together.

[Endie]

The point of those three, weaker targets I listed is not the attractiveness of their space, of course, whether or not it is more worthwhile post-Dominion.  The real attraction for Molle should be building a tradition of success.  Eve being a game, the winning habit is a very useful one, both internally (building cohesiveness, morale and participation) and externally (making people look elsewhere for targets).

It's one reason why the Esoteria campaign was dumb.

Re the PL vs IT fights, I really don't see any chance at all of IT achieving anything beyond a lucky few days holding a reinforced moon or two.  IT Alliance are 40% bigger than SoT and PL put together, and have a very large capital fleet, but GS won't leave PL alone, so IT are always going to face being hotdropped.  And in a long, grinding assault I really do believe that PL+SoT would be able to fight IT to a standstill.  IT's problem is that so many people find it funny to grief them that they'll never get the chance to find out otherwise.

If you look at the alliance histories of each corp in IT, they have, between them, 18 previous entries (some are duplicated).  Only three did not end in abject failure.  Of those, one is Mostly Harmless, which is basically just replacing "abject" with "persistent" in that sentence.  One is Error., who don't have much history, and part of that was an unsuccessful coup and faile doffensive, but at least they didn't die.  The third is Krautbreak.  Molle needs people to rediscover winning, especially since large numbers of those pilots actually conceal even longer lists of failure as individuals, having been recruited from defeated GBC corps during and after Delve I and Delve II.

tl;dr - Molle's obsession with an end-run is vain and foolish.

[Endie]

Out of the realms of speculation, a nice even fight for those looking for e-hono(u)rable space duels: Goons and SoT against IT Alliance and Quarantine Zone over a badly-timed SoT R64 that got ninja-reinforced and came out this morning.  IT had numbers but SoT had the tower.  Unfortunately for IT alliance they got fixated on tactical kills and SoT were able to rep and stront the tower.  Not great maths, there: the odd carrier isn't really worth a month of R64 income.

The good thing for GS is that we had a decent gang up there to help on an op that was posted 1 hour and 12 minutes before leaving.  That'll be more important in Dominion.

[Endie]

My blog day 1254.

Mittens just burned a director-level spy (IT Alliance, apparently?) in Goonfleet with one of the oldest tricks in the counter-intel book: tell someone something in private, make them think you also mentioned it somewhere public, watch it leak aaaaand gotcha.  At least, i think that's what he did.

[Comstar]

Mittens just burned a director-level spy (IT Alliance, apparently?) in Goonfleet with one of the oldest tricks in the counter-intel book

I'd never heard of the guy. Mittens should write a novel about all the spy stuff that's gone on in the last 3 years. It would end up as required reading by the CIA or something.

[trevorreznik]

Just looked on SA-who is Captain Mutiny?  I don't recall him at all.

Also I'm kinda tempted to check out Dominion when it releases because I'm realizing my computer will be unable to handle any MMOs created after 2003.  Too bad my mothballed character wasn't ghost training this whole time :(

edit-holy lol someone stole my eve account, 5 months after i quit playing.  i did  a battleclinic search on myself to figure out when the last time i'd played was and saw killmails from this october.   guess i better change my passwords :(

[Phildo]

Supposedly he was involved with the mentoring program?  I don't know beyond what the wiki tells me.

Good luck with your character, Trevor.  I've missed seeing you pop up in GSIntel!

[trevorreznik]

I can't believe I have to submit a petition to try and get the account back, dealing with CCP's silly stuff is part of why I quit.

I do want to fuck this guy over though so I'm torn on what to do- the whole effort vs being a dick choice :I

[Endie]

Yeah there was a post on f13 - maybe in this thread? - saying you'd been spotted a month or two ago.  I seem to remember it was somewhere like Syndicate or Cloud Ring or somewhere up that way.

[Sir T]

Yeah, I remember seeing that somewhere too.

Regardless that's a pain in the ass trev. Hope ccp sort it out for you soon.

[setar]

Bit of a change in activity here on the IT vs PL front; six R64s changed hands unless I miscounted, a few more still coming out of reinforced. Was anyone present for the small capital scrap (GS vs IT)?

[Endie]

I can't tell you a thing. I'm having way too much fun on the forums to actually undock, and there is nothing here since the smallish capital fight you mention, which was in US time. I think we'll turn up to save PL/SoT towers when they do, too.

[Comstar]

I was at the cap fight. GS showed up with Dreads. PL did not. We won the (meaningless) subcap battle but lost the dread fleet in the process.

One thing I've noticed about IT- a lot less tacklers or even dictors used than I recall seeing in the Delve invasion. Nothing came within 100k of our sub cap fleet till we pulled out. I just happened to warp back in just the same minute everyone else warped out. Scratch one battlecruiser (half or sub cap losses where in that 2 minute period).

Goonswarm participation to come save PL moongold towers seems to be declining, as well as it seems PL's interest in trying to defend them.

[setar]

Which is to be expected giving the remaining time in which they remain relevant. I'd expect a fight or defense if there's a reasonable chance for a hotdrop, but otherwise.. why bother? Cap replacements are most likely going to be a bit more difficult in the future, might as well preserve the stock a bit.

[eldaec]

One thing I've noticed about IT- a lot less tacklers or even dictors used than I recall seeing in the Delve invasion. Nothing came within 100k of our sub cap fleet till we pulled out. I just happened to warp back in just the same minute everyone else warped out. Scratch one battlecruiser (half or sub cap losses where in that 2 minute period).

Delve tackling was handled by pets, Clowns don't have EXE doing all the heavy lifting this time around.

[Phildo]

Sure they do Eldaec, just that The Executives are now in IT itself instead of another alliance.

[MahrinSkel]

More that tackling is done by newbies or non-PvP focused characters, the kind that don't have the SP for HAC's or battleships or capitals.  And IT doesn't have many of those, and thinks that's a good thing.

--Dave

[Endie]

Considering the number of 900k SP characters inserted as spies into the clowns (many but not exclusively in anzac) I am amazed they don't have at least a few goons, nc and pl tackling for them.

[Pennilenko]

Considering the number of 900k SP characters inserted as spies into the clowns (many but not exclusively in anzac) I am amazed they don't have at least a few goons, nc and pl tackling for them.

Anyone being enthusiastic for tackling would surely give them away as spies.

[trevorreznik]

Yeah, I remember seeing that somewhere too.

Regardless that's a pain in the ass trev. Hope ccp sort it out for you soon.

Well it took about a week (a day turnaround per email) but the character/account is banned now.  Someone somehow sold the account on a site I'd never heard of, and CCP's sticking with EULA violation as the reason to keep the account banned.  I wish i'd known of said site so I could've gotten the money myself :V

Oh well, the dominion patch notes aren't very enticing anyways.

[Slayerik]

Ouch. Sorry man, that sucks.

[Sir T]

Goddam. :( sorry to hear that man

[Endie]

So die all enemies of goonswarm.

Mission accomplished, Agent Xei Man Chi, return to base.

[Endie]

Disclaimer: I'm stuck in work so this is passing on forums porn and a brief stint listening on TS over a 3G modem (painful from this basement to which we've been banished til our office move).

Anyway, ROL spent pretty much their whole TZ kiting then reinforcing our A2- empire entry system, and while some timers were ok, a couple were terrible.  The first awful timer came out this morning, at 09:41 Eve Time.  That's historically not a good time for us (except special efforts like R2TJ or VNG in the war vs AAA/ROL, when we put 500+ in multiple fleets), and we'd been busy on a PL tower defence op (where yet another PL tower was set up to shoot Goons) earlier, but just over ninety goons and half a dozen ZAF turned up to defend against a combined ROL/AAA/AAA Citizens/Atlas fleet (who repeatedly state that they despise those who take part in "naptrains") of about 150 or so.

Obviously, those were bad odds, so a couple of doomsdays single doomsday evened things out a little, taking out thirty or forty hostiles.

Once the fight itself started, poor hostile FCing (increasingly obsessed with taking out one of the triage carriers repping the tower - perhaps the FCs all got DDed?) meant that the hostiles ended up losing dozens of battleships in return for tacklers in the actual fight.  The result was that the first tower was saved.  The last two to come out, around 0800 on Saturday, will be pretty tricky but as long as we save the two US TZ towers tonight then sov is, for the moment at least, safe.

ROL did the work on this one with the kiting, despite their limited numbers.  Their hatred for us must really drive them on.  On Kugu and eve-o, some people call ROL pets of AAA.  I think that's inaccurate.  They're more like a rich but small state in late classical times, like the late Byzantines, who pay off the stronger "barbarian" states.  Right now, they have a common enemy, but if AAA were to reset ROL they simply cannot realistically hold Feythabolis with no logistic routes to empire (by which I mean no access to HED).  That's why someone like Blaster Worm, who moved to fellow anti-Goon holy warriors ROL a while back, attacks fellow Russians quite so fiercely on caod.ru when they complain about the lack of nearby targets in the south.  The paradox is that, were Goons ever to lose, ROL would lose their lifeline.

[Simond]

Seriously, what the hell did we even do to Blaster Worm?

[Endie]

We gave a point and a focus to his otherwise empty life, I think.

[Comstar]

We tried to kill his baby at birth and he does not approve of abortion.

[Sir T]

Appears all the A2- towers have been saved. I imagine there will be more Blaster Worm ranting on Russian CAOD as a result. Seriously, he would be a lot better off if he just admitted he lost a fight/war once in a while.

[rand]

He'll probably gloating about taking TPAR instead

[Endie]

I took TPAR once.  It's no biggie.

[Miasma]

There's no I in TEAM  .

[Endie]

It's pretty cool being back here in TPAR again.  I have to say that I'm complemented that the four hostile alliances who have come to play took a look at the chances of them just taking the system and decided to spam it instead.  38 towers so far, and they've taken a pounding in both skirmishes and in the only fleet fight thus far, which was in euro prime.  That said, there's a lot of hostile caps logged out here, and no doubt they'll be able to bring in another four or five alliances if needs be.  For now, though, we've had system superiority since the fight happened.

My personal complaint is that my basi has been useless so far and the only ship I could find for sale in the system that I could fly with a 40-million SP alt was a kitsune  

Also, IT Alliance tried to take a 0.0 PL R64 tonight and got a reminder that they can't fight very well in 0.0.

Edit: In other news, a AAA fleet decided to try and interdict our reinforcement route.  Mister Vee's Goonwaffe bomber force ripped them apart - killing a few dozen HACs - so that is over.

[Amarr HM]

There's no I in TEAM  .

No, but there's an an M & an E.

[setar]

Despite the 0.0 mishap PL seems to be down 15 R64s at this stage. They are obviously not going to be the gold mines they are now after Dominion, but it's least some income for IT.

[Endie]

I've spent the last three hours or so in TPAR.  Stainwagon are very, very bad at Eve, and Goonfleet, Zaf and Rebellion just wiped the floor with them over the whole of euro prime.  We've killed their tower, despite the collaborative efforts of them, Rol and AAA (the latter two wisely deciding to help at a distance by interdicting the jump bridge route down until PL chased them off.

Anyway, Stainwagon tried copying our bomber tactics and were in turn taught by Goonwaffe how to do it properly with things like bait cynos claiming scores of hostile bombers.  When it came time for a fleet fight we were moderately outnumbered.  The guy who did the last hostile count announced before we warped that we were 380 friendlies out of a local count of 800 or so, but I didn't count them myself.  All I can say is that there were noticably more reds, not counting their logged-off capfleet, and that we killed several dozen hostile battleships and some support.  Killboards are misleading because we don't have ZAf or Rebellion losses on ours but so far we have two goon battleships dead in return.  Our K/D loss backbone!  Earlier on there was an even more one-sided battle with even more kills for even less losses, but I wasn't logged in by then so can't comment.  My alt's Kitsune has set an all-time survival record for the ship class by not dying over two days.

Atlas were there, too, with a decent fleet, but they took a long, hard look at the awful tactics from the Stainwagon forces (who attempted to bomb our cap fleet, a la Jade Constantine) and left in disgust.  I don't think that they actually engaged.  PL turned up right at the end with the HAC gang that they'd chased AAA out of NOL with, but lag was pretty bad so I'd not be surprised if they only scrape a few places onto a handful of kills.

That's two very solid euro timezones over the last couple of days.  Tomorrow may well be another matter, however.  There are stacks of towers coming out through the day, too late for the US alarm-clockers but too early for anyone west of Petropavlovsk.