War

[Endie]

I helped provide one of the stations on that!  Watch as I bask in my faintly reflected glory!

[JoeTF]

Wow, things are going to get ugly really soon.

PS, How much did that cost you Endie?

[Endie]

Wow, things are going to get ugly really soon.

PS, How much did that cost you Endie?

Huh?  has something expensive been blown up?  All i did tonight was fly to some bob system in Catch, shoot at guns and a cyno jammer, then fly back.  No excitement here at all :( .  Except for the IAC entrepreneur who I paid for a Rokh and fittings after podjumping :/

Ninja Edit: or do you mean the station comment?  All i meant there is that he asked about Providence.

I agree that stuff is going to get ugly.  The system next to where we were had a bazillion bob capitals and supercapitals in it.  I suspect we'll have to keep flinging ourselves at that for weeks until we grind down participation levels enough.  Time for another meatgrinder 

[cmlancas]

Time for another meatgrinder 

More like  for this thread.

[Endie]

A really nice move by Bob last night that nearly came off, but our most excellent and robotic of fleet commanders managed to escape their trap.

As foretold by prophecy (2 posts ago) Bob brought out the supercap menagerie in the system they were attacking towers in: 4 titans, slightly more motherships and a bunch of capitals (we had pretty much the same cap numbers).  They got the password for the POS out caps were set to defend (and were sitting in at that moment), and quarter an hour before it came out of reinforced they sent in heavy dictors into the shields to lock down our capfleet*.  This meant that when the tower came out of reinforced and Bob destroyed it our capfleet would be locked down and vulnerable when the shields went down, unable to warp to the spots set up for them to attack at their chosen optimals.

But Bob had pulled their trap waaay too early.  Our FC had time, not just to work out what had happened, but to .  It was almost as if Bob wanted us to know what would happen, thinking they were bound to win, and that they could have some fun in local waiting for us to die.  What actually happened was classic goonthought: our FC warped in the conventional fleet despite four enemy titans in space.  That was absolute suicide for the sub capital fleet, but he used that to successfully extract the capitals without a single capital loss.

Just my opinion, but I really feel that Bob blew a big chance to slow us up here.  As it is, they did kill our towers (although they lost sov 3, too, which is a big deal), and that must be a boost for them as they rarely manage to do that compared to us (we killed over double the amount of Bob towers yesterday).  They also doomsdayed the substantial conventional fleet we suicided in to save the caps, and lost far fewer ships but four capitals to our one on the night.  I'm reminded of what one of the Bob guys said when we blew up a bunch of dreads when we pulled a trap on their titan a month or two ago: that if bob FCs had been in charge they'd have killed far more.  Instead our FC rapidly out-thought a very clever trap. This really was an excellent idea that was horribly executed on their part.
----

*OK, this was clever and funny and cunning on their part and we'd try the same thing if we were smart enough to have figured it, but make no mistake, it's an exploit: it'll get patched.  POS shields are supposed to be invulnerable, so while they were quite right to be able to warp into the shields they were pushing it to be able to do offensive action while inside them (other AoE stuff like smart-bombing inside shields will, for instance, also get successfully petitioned and see the person doing it warned or suspended).  Kudos for the idea, though: even if we'd got our fleet back (by no means certain) it would have been a big, if temporary, morale blow.

This is all very recent and apologies if fog of war means i've got anything wrong.

[Morat20]

*OK, this was clever and funny and cunning on their part and we'd try the same thing if we were smart enough to have figured it, but make no mistake, it's an exploit: it'll get patched.  POS shields are supposed to be invulnerable, so while they were quite right to be able to warp into the shields they were pushing it to be able to do offensive action while inside them (other AoE stuff like smart-bombing inside shields will, for instance, also get successfully petitioned and see the person doing it warned or suspended).  Kudos for the idea, though: even if we'd got our fleet back (by no means certain) it would have been a big, if temporary, morale blow.

This is all very recent and apologies if fog of war means i've got anything wrong.

They had the password? I'd put 10 to 1 that CCP doesn't see that as an exploit. They used inflitration to take your passwords, and thus circumvented the security of your shields.

It's possible CCP believes that NO combat, of any sort, can take place inside of a POS shield -- in which case I'd agree. But I suspect that they see it more as "You have to have authorized access to engage inside the shield" -- in short, BoB's password theft and use would be legit, whereas some AoE tricks from outside would defintely be an exploit.

Nonetheless, springing it too early and letting you escape was stupid. Better to take the capfleet than the subs.

[Endie]

No, everyone makes use of leaked passwords to get into the shields, that is totally fine.  The problem is that when someone is inside the shields of a POS they're supposed to be invulnerable.  That's why CCP (eventually) acted to stop the infamous Bob titan bowling exploit, for instance.

The only bit of the Bob plan - which I reiterate was smart as hell - was that it involved actively.  I believe (hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong, now) that you can't go into an enemy POS and anchor a bubble, for instance, in a normal dictor.  The way to bubble dreads in a POS is to bubble around it and hope you catch them.  The reason this trick worked is presumably purely because the heavy dictors are new. and Bob are the first to think of it.  I seriously doubt that CCP would have reimbursed our capfleet if we'd come out behind, but I do think they'll declare it an exploit (eventually!).

If it's not an exploit then this will radically change POS warfare for good: everyone has each others' POS passwords and if this worked you'd be daft to deploy capships in non-cyno-jammed systems.

Edit - This one I admire less.  Everyone knows that there is a bug in the POS code that allows you to doomsday inside POS shields, affecting those inside the shields but not those outside.  Been that way for ages.  Shrike just exploited this one in an IAC pos.  For those who don't think it is him exploiting a bug, let me head you off at the pass with an official reponse to the immediate petitions.:

Thank you for your bugreport - ID:49606 Title: Doomsday inside POS shields
We are already aware of this problem, and have added your bugreport to the existing issue in our defect tracking system.

The BugHunter Team

Second edit: we got a response to our petition and the heavy dictor inside the shields thing is a bug.  The meatgrinder rolls on :)

[Endie]

Needs a new post!

Hahaha Merry Christmas: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=660955

It's no new enemies for us, obviously, but I eagerly await how they will set Bob, Rise, and the last couple of other Bob-aligned alliances.

Edit - and so it begins: not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Here is some of the sweet forum porn everyone likes.  In this thread Bob corp BNC's head Coranor cries then goes all "freed from our space we will become more dangerous than ever!!!"

Originally Posted by Coranor
You all should have copped onto whats coming by now, if you didn't you've been hiding under a rock. We're about to get hit by at least 80 % of eve on multiple fronts. We are going to lose stations, probably rapidly.

MC is probably going to hit us tonight in period basis. Traitorous bastards tbh. The goons and company are hitting us tonight in catch. Pretty much every northern alliance is due to hit us tomorrow in fountain. If you have expensive assets in period basis or fountain then i'd recommend getting rid of them quick as stations are gonna go damn quick once this kicks off.

We got fights on our doorstep every day now. These idiots think that we're scared of them. They think that they can actually drive us out of delve and kill us. They think they're actually better than us. They think we're panicking. We're fucking zen over here. We're the Spartans at Thermopylae. We're the unkillable alliance and we're gonna bleed them for every system they take. If we lose our outposts then we move to the npc stations and take them back. We're not leaving delve.

Our plan basically consists of dancing on everyones heads and causing as much damage as possible. POS are dread bait, outposts are just somewhere to store ships and ships are just there to shoot them with. We know we're gonna lose outposts but we're damn well gonna kneecap this shower of fecking bastards first. Delve is the Alamo and this is gonna be fucking epic.

The Mittani, as ever, sends his regards.

[Comstar]

Yes but the Spartens LOST at Thermopylae. What BoB needs is a Salamis. Perhaps Selenne will be Sicinnus to BoB's Themistocles. FIX gets to play the Athenians and get to see their city burned to the ground first.

I need someone who can draw a cartoon.

A man wearing the armour of a Greek Hopilite with BoB written on his shield is making a rousing speach:

"Much like the Spartens at Thermopylae, will we Triumph!"

Standing behind him are 2 smaller guys with "D-L" and "FIX" written on their shields. The FIX soilder turns to the D-L solider and wispers:

"Which one of us is going to tell him that the Spartens lost?"

[Chenghiz]

Yeah I have to laugh at the spartan reference. Didn't the guys defending the Alamo die too?

[Comstar]

In news just to hand, MC has been reported to be laying seige to the BoB outpost G-Q, in Period Basis. MC Cap fleet is even as I speak attacking the Cyno Jammer. BoB now has a terrible stratagic problem: They can defend the stations in Catch, or they can defend the stations in Period Basis. They cannot do both.

My guess is the'll give up Period Basis because MC won't attack out of Period Basis. RSF will however attack out of Catch.

[Miasma]

So does this mean someone hired MC to attack BoB or are they doing this on their own?

[jape]

So does this mean someone hired MC to attack BoB or are they doing this on their own?

Linky

Subject: Eviction Notice

Applies to: All Period Basis Residents

As of Saturday the 15th of December MC, KIA, Ev0ke and 0utbreak claim the region of Period Basis as our home. We urge all current Period Basis residents to make other living arrangements. Those who do not will be put to the sword. We ask for no quarter and shall give none.

We do this for ourselves, our fellow brethren of space. Once our new home is secure, MC and KIA will be available for regular contract work, unfettered by the agendas of foreign powers.

[Endie]

So does this mean someone hired MC to attack BoB or are they doing this on their own?

This seems to be genuinely self-motivated on MC's part.  I was suspicious of a huge prankapple, but hey... vOv

I like the Salamis idea, but here MC are playing Themistocles, except that this time when he went to the Persian court the night before the battle his decision went the other way and he told the Persians the real Greek plan.

Furthermore,

Edit, jape, it's your first ever post: QC that fucker!  Your link is to "http://%22http//myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=661207"!

[JoeTF]

What I can say, MC is already hired and recent post by Seleene is part of their contract;-)
So, Endie, ask I asked you two days earlier -  how much did it cost you guys?:)

[JoeTF]

I reread all the forums talked with the people and all I can say is:

THE SWITCH IS OVER.

The BoB is now fun-loving underdog and goonz are the soulless, POSgrinding empire.

Look at this topic, all the talk about Greek battle strategies, strategic importance of certain regions, further POS war stages and noone of you goons got the idea that killing motherships is much more fun that fighting endless lagswarm.

[Fordel]

I'm hoping the RSF doesn't cut any deals with MC+Friends, I wouldn't trust those shenanigans. Maybe if they said "were neutral, and were leaving" or something, but "were neutral and were staying right in the middle of the warzone". No, not as far as I can throw a cap ship.

Even if RSF were the ones who hired them, I still wouldn't trust em.


Where's that tinfoil hat of mine 

[Endie]

What I can say, MC is already hired and recent post by Seleene is part of their contract;-)
So, Endie, ask I asked you two days earlier -  how much did it cost you guys?:)

Yeah I only worked that out this evening: well played ;)

And I don't think we paid them.  Maybe we came to an understanding (hopefully a "mutual warfare but no pos warfare" type thing).  I guess it was something like that.  Or maybe they just saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to make a region-sized profit out of it.  When your only "allies" are mercs and over-charged pets, and you abuse the lot of them for all that time, you can't really expect them to feel any loyalty to you.

And the underdogs thing would make a good plot, but for one eensy, teensy flaw: we're Rocky in this movie, and this is the last reel.  We were getting pounded, but we came off the ropes in 9-9, and started swinging.  Now, we're in the bit where the dramatic music is swelling and the bad guy who cheated earlier in the fight is getting set up for the big knock-out.  The bad guy never comes back from that bit.

To mix my movie metaphors: "there ain't no comin' back."

Edit -

Look at this topic, all the talk about Greek battle strategies, strategic importance of certain regions, further POS war stages and noone of you goons got the idea that killing motherships is much more fun that fighting endless lagswarm.

You still don't get it.  You were on top of thegame, and you chose to pick on a bunch of relaxed, easy-to-kill newbies.  You told them - and you'll remember these ill-advised quotes because they are thrown back at you every day -  that you'd make them play your game, that you'd stop them ever doing anything of note in the game again, that they only survived at all on your sufferance.  You said you were omnipotence itself.  You cheated in every way you could.  You abused game mechanics.  You stole from the average player by getting free stuff from devs.

And now that same bunch of people who just think it's all a laugh found that the best game to play was taking it all away from you.  That the best joy was watching Bob members do what Keiron spoke about them doing in the NYT article recently: realising how hollow their achievements were and quitting the game. That thread is full of Molle and others crying their eyes out, and it's just delightfully funny.

[Simond]

Molle is dragging BoB out of Catch en masse to attack MC. 

[Endie]

Molle is dragging BoB out of Catch en masse to attack MC. 

Man, and all I got to do was shoot at POSes.  My KB will never show I was there for another campaign.  This has been happening for months.

[Drogo]

So does this mean that BoB is feeding FiX to the RSF wolves to buy them time to fight MC? It really seems like BoB is running out of time and allies. Any bets on which BoB corp is the first to bolt from the alliance? My wager is on DICE.

[WindupAtheist]

Man, it sounds like it's almost time for the Führerbunker.

[Comstar]

Not yet, we're just crossing the Oder after the BoB high command pulled back from the river defences just before the Red Army Artillery hit their former forward positions in 5-N and V2.

It will all be over in time for the May Day parade in Red Square.

[Endie]

It's only early June 1944.  We're mounting Operation Bagration on Army Group Centre, MC just landed in Normandy while Morsus Mihi/Razor et al will start breaking out of the Anzio beach-head today (in Fountain).

You see, Eve is a lot like WW2.  What is more,

Edit: I see Mahrin perusing the Eve board right now: wtf are Fix going to do?  Split down the middle between the two camps?

[MahrinSkel]

I don't have the slightest clue, I am *completely* out of the loop.

--Dave

[Sparky]

Man, it sounds like it's almost time for the Führerbunker.

I don't think we're at Führerbunker stage until the fanatical BoB remnants are hiding in Delve NPC stations.  That's a way off probably.

[Comstar]

It's only early June 1944...Morsus Mihi/Razor et al will start breaking out of the Anzio beach-head today (in Fountain).

ROME FALLS. Or in Eve terms, Rise disbands.

Thus another Player Empire that rose has now fallen. If CCP really had some good mission writers, you'd be able to get NPC missions to investigate an old RISE stronghold, instead of some random drone hive. The history of EVE should count for things, winners and losers.


Is there anyone apart from FIX still with BoB now? D-L are losing the area they lived in, in Period Basis (despite them having a mino-failure cascade, they actually didn't lose any space to RSF attacks from Paragon Soul). In a day or so, everyone's going to be looking at FIX and wonder, when do they jump? That includes BoB who probably know more about what's happening in FIX command than most FIX pilots. Is FIX going to send pilots to Catch? I only saw 10 FinFleet pilots in 5-N today, but I wasn't really looking at corp tags as I sat during the op at an empty Finfleet POS (6-2, Large Minmater POS, 5 Med arty, 5 Med AC's, 1 Warp Disrupter).

[JoeTF]

I'm curious about FIX myself, but a lot here depends on Endie side's actions.

Funny how IAC and AAA are reacting to MC thing, to quote Evil Thug:

When GS changed 2 ceo's in 2 weeks - i was there. When RA was busy with "they are 3 regions away from us" and nobody but nync was leading RA gangs - i was there. When RAT. directors played card "they are cheaters and its useless to fight em, so i have better things to do irl" - i was still there. And when everybody was getting ready to move their assets to NPC stations - i was still fighting bob, and yes, they were at their peak.

Its funny to see remarks like "bob is not what it used to be", No. You sucked bob's dick for fucking 2 years. You were playing "hay, i`m innocent virgin". You build 3 titans and 10+ motherships under bob's kilt. You had 20 hulk gangs mining safely, while your pvpers had fun, destroying carebear alliances. And now - you are turned into bunch of vultures, who wants to get some meat from fallen lion.

You know... Sometimes you are "fucking" people in a real life. Because you will have better salary, better car, womens with long legs and pretty faces. Thats life. I have one question still. Dont you all tired of real life bullshit to reflect it in-game ? I guess thats question is pretty much rhetorical.

P.S. To all circlejerkers. No. I didn`t became pro-bob. I will be still dancing on their grave. I will be poking Molle on eve-o, when they will lose FAT-. But in my memory - bob will be enemy, who held its colors till the end. And hyenas, who decided to get some advantages - will be shot in the head.

See you on the battlefield. Gl. (not typing hf - because you arent getting fun, when you are getting pwnd. Am i right ?). 

I wonder how is mittani going to clean that out;-)

[Simond]

Aftermath Alliance (ex-)BoB pet just reset their standings.
FIX have to be feeling just a smigeon twitchy right now. 

[Endie]

I'm curious about FIX myself, but a lot here depends on Endie side's actions.

... Snipped Evil Thug quote...

I wonder how is mittani going to clean that out;-)

To be honest, ET's view seems fair enough, and I agree with it and with you on this one.

Of course, Bob had no choice but to stick with it: having alienated so many, there was no prospect of mercy for them.  So no mad props are going to be dispensed for that bit.  But yes, I think that Evil thug was right to call MC "hyenas" in another post: I thought it was a great description.  MC waited until the RSF had Bob vulnerable and only then started biting at their heels.

MC are not our friends.  At the fanfest they seem to have made a good impression on a lot of people, in stark contrast with the attitudes of their masters at the time, but apart from the guys like Stoffer who were there, I don't think there is any affection there.  But the Mittani riled them over a period of months into this, and it is convenient for us to have them knock a couple of weeks off the Catch campaign with their backstabbing.  There is still a long way to go, of course, and once PB is taken i doubt if MC will play a big part (at least against Bob).  But for now it is fine enough.

MC hit you when you were down.  But you hired mercs and called it an alliance.  Are you surprised?  Your leadership and "diplomats" have been laughably incompetent in the face of their opposite numbers, to the extent where the few remaining fanboys can claim with a straight face that it was an intentional move.  And you backstabbed many, many so-called "friends" for the best part of a year.  What did you think would happen when you were obviously losing?  Who in all of Eve did you feel owed you anything?  What friends did you expect to make by your actions?

Edit: re the Rise thing, can non-goons see this: http://goonfleet.com/imagehosting/1919347658d89e01fb.png ?

[Slayerik]

Rise above brosef.

[WindupAtheist]

I'm enjoying the MC backstab, at least as far as my interest in all this extends.  The mercenaries going "Hey, our employers are losing.  Let's shrug and go home pillage their shit!" is classic.

[Drogo]

I'm enjoying the MC backstab, at least as far as my interest in all this extends.  The mercenaries going "Hey, our employers are losing.  Let's shrug and go home pillage their shit!" is classic.

That is pretty much the definition of mercenary in my book. When the going gets bad, the bad start looting.

[Kamen]

I'm enjoying the MC backstab, at least as far as my interest in all this extends.  The mercenaries going "Hey, our employers are losing.  Let's shrug and go home pillage their shit!" is classic.

That is pretty much the definition of mercenary in my book. When the going gets bad, the bad start looting.

MC leadership made this decision months ago.  It started by going neutral, to "take a break".  While resting, they started an internal PR campaign of "we are merc's, not Bob pets" along with a liberal helping of "Bob fucked us" to make the change of course more palatable for the grunts (most of whom have no love for the goons).

As I said a while back, they had 4 options:

* Go down in flames with BoB - Die now.
* Stay neutral and ensure themselves to be next in line for the goon pain train after BoB dies - Die later.
* Head back to empire - Worse than dying.
* Help in the destruction of Bob, and see how things look after that.

MC leadership isn't as stupidly suicidal as BoB's.

[ajax34i]

Except, I think the Goons are gonna fight MC anyway.  I'm an outsider with no clue, but I don't see peace happening in EVE, and once BOB disappears, I expect the remaining big players to then go at it.  So maybe nobody can claim the moral high ground, but there will be a war.