War

[Phildo]

So AAA's response to LFA taking unclaimed systems in Catch is to invade a different alliance?

[setar]

Been a while I've taken a good look at the map, but so far this is mostly focusing on entry systems to Catch. Think that's just a case of being in the way, really. And hey, given our attention span we might never make it past the first system anyway.

[Pezzle]

Pretty amazing.  

[Endie]

I am not exaggerating when I say that I cannot think of a decision by AAA/Sys-K et al that if I'd been asked to decide what they should do next, as a Goon, would have been much preferable to this.  This would certainly have been right up there on the list.

It's almost as if AAA believe the hypocritical Blaster Worm line that they and Providence are "partners" in PvP, but that that partnership should be limited to AAA sending huge HAC gangs through to gank ratters and industrials.  In this view it is OK for AAA to drop towers in Providence (I remember fights where they did so before) but that Providence reacting is an act of unwarranted aggression.

That said, SVN in particular is provocative.  I cannot see a move more calculated to provoke a reaction short of openly aligning with Goonswarm or invading HED itself.  AAA may no longer be the Russian-dominated alliance it once was, but there still seems to be the paranoia about encirclement and betrayal that you might expect if they were.

Edit: first sentence made no sense at all...

[Simond]

This is HAVOC trying to prove to the -A- membership that they can actually lead. Their first plan ("Kill Goons") fell at the first hurdle so they're going to try bullying their local RP alliance instead.

[setar]

And you base that on.. what exactly?

[setar]

Actually, let me try that again with more content. You won't find anyone in -A- who would call 49-U a success. The alliance had a leadership handover, we've not been involved in major fights for months, and pilots are rusty, to say the least.

Attacking 49-U served three aims: a) to support IT and ensure SOT/PL do not end up rallying around GS support at the last possible minute, b) as a wake-up call for the alliance, c) to learn more about sov warfare in Dominion. It would have been lovely if we'd managed to get 49-U as a result for our efforts, but only the more optimistic alliance members were positive about our chances. We failed to take the system, and I'm not even sure we have a good, viable solution of taking any system against an active Goon defense. Well, maybe one if we really want to alarm-clock for a week, but what about the other dozen key systems?

At the same time we have CVA (well, Libertas) who now attacked us for the second time just when we moved out to attack Goons. That may or may not be a coincidence, but it *does* hamper our ability to conduct any long-term campaign, be it in Delve or elsewhere, and yes, it also pissed of tons of folks in the alliance. We also have an easier time learning our way around sov warfare against an enemy mostly in the same time zone, so it's a win-win on all sides. Maybe we'll take whatever we learn to Delve at some point, maybe GS decides to come to CVA's rescue, and heck, maybe Providence doesn't need to be rescued at all and hands us a defeat.

I love the 'bullying' meme though. Being an RP alliance does not give you a free pass at backstabbing your friendly neighbors, whether they are red or not. CVA decided to declare war and now seem surprised they are actually getting one.

[lac]

Well they were getting a bit cocky but if you believe their incursions into -A- lands were orchestrated (there is no coincidence in eve), aren't you guys just a tad too eager to take the bait and divert your focus to Providence, which would have been the point of the Liberatas provocations all along?

I'm probably too jaded but it looks as if the goons/cva/yourselves provided -A- with an easy way out of the delve siege and you guys went for it the first chance you got.

Something which probably satisfies all parties involved.

We need some IT posters. Doesn't anybody have an alt that can use some in character posting routine?

[Jayce]

I think JoeTF was part of GBC back in the day. He's disappeared (at least from this thread) since the end of the last war.

edit: ok it seems he was active today but has only made three posts since August of last year.

That said, I can't help reexamining this quote in light of not-so-recent-anymore events

MahrinSkel:
You're being clouded with goon propaganda calling AAA/ROL 'BoB pets'. Auahahahahaha. I mean, we're talking "I'll be dancing on BoB graves" Evil Thug here. Now, the goon campaign was just temporary blue standings with very limited cooperation. We're not even allies and AAA has absolutely no obligation to go and help us. Nor it's really expected from them. In fact only reason why they would consider helping us would be the fact that goonies want to run the entire naptrain on them after they're finished with BoB.

That temporary blue turned out to have legs!

[Sir T]

We need some IT posters. Doesn't anybody have an alt that can use some in character posting routine?

No we don't. Trust me, I've just finished an internet argument with a DICE faggot (he started sending me the worst form of tripe messages to my account on youtube) and it was a load of insults, ignoring bald facts that don't agree with his self image and general shit that makes me despair for humanity. IT/BOB people are all the same, just enclosed in their own little world. Every thread with them turns into a shitstorm.

An example.

"i didn't look up that battle report but was it the one where you were beaten and lost more caps by a decent margin in 1-s (oopsie, lol)"

That's the one where we lost 2 more caps than they did.

The vast majority of the stuff he sent is frankly unprintable and utterly self contradictory, and I finally decided he wasn't worth my time. He just lives to insult and denigrate everyone else. Every BoBit that comes to every forum I have ever seen is the same.

If people are desperate to see the exchange I'll put it somewhere but frankly its not worth the read. For every line of fact (every one of which was wrong) he wrote pages of throwing insults at everyone else's intelligence. He also let slip once he spends all his time wring letters to enemies to insult them.

And don't you dare say his insults were my fault, aside from getting suckered into bieng yet another target for his low self esteem.

Anyway, Its probably not relevant to anything, but a gang blew up a SYS-K TCU this morning.

http://kb.rebellion.su/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=58674

[Endie]

Sir T not all IT people are idiots.   And not all goons are good posters, if you get what I'm trying to say.

JimFromIT, Snsmasta, even Ripline are pretty good posters in the main.  And I'm pretty confident nobody wants to see a Timmy vs Jimmy youtube slapfight chatlog.

Setar, I certainly don't say "how dare AAA attack little Paxton."  I do think it's funny that AAA could believe that they are allowed to drop POSes in Providence space (under the old mechanic) but that the opposite is a "backstab".  Backstabbing is accepting money to set your long-standing allies red and invading with no notice.  Dropping SBUs in unclaimed systems near the space of a very hostile power is about so far from backstabbing that, even if you ascend a nearby hill and climb a moderately high tree you still can't see backstabbing from there.

I have no doubt that Paxton was picked because they are small, very moderate at PvP, probably logistically rusty, close, almost totally lacking in supercaps and should provide a nice boost to morale.  The risk for AAA is that Providence don't stop once any target systems fall.  Do AAA continue to fight every time SBUs are dropped, even when any war on goons is renewed?  Then you're back where you started but with two sets of US TZ timers to fight for instead of one.  Or do you let them fall and focus on the other target, losing internal morale and risking yet more atempts on northern Catch from a now-it's-serious Providence block?

[Simond]

And you base that on.. what exactly?

Logic? Evidence? Common sense?

Come on, admit it. -A- and your pets were sucked into the assault on Delve by the ease with which IT stomped PL back to Empire, and you all thought that was how the game worked post-Dominion. When it turned out that if space is actually, you know, defended then it's p. difficult to take, then you lost your appetite for it. Combine that with HAVOC taking over from RAT and having precisely not a damned thing to show that, in fact, they had a plan past "Let's do what Molle orders us to do" and it's hardly surprising that "We didn't want that 49-Uguuuuu~ anyway" meets "Let's go beat up the roleplayers for a quick morale boost" was the course of action.

Although if you're looking for a meaningful victory, I hear the alliance holding Fountain is pretty terrible and led by an incompetant egomaniac. 

E: f,b.

[setar]

No idea yet, Endie, and if the higher-ups have any idea they certainly don't tell. Paxton isn't the aim, but they happen to be holding the staging systems.

Let's recap: we attack GS in A2, Libertas drops POS. We attack GS in 49-U, Libertas anchors SBUs. We push back a little, CVA officially declares war (even though in their RP way) on the EVE forums. And now we are the bullies if we actually dare to shoot back? That's not even revising history, that's revising current events ;-)

Either -A- is a paper tiger that can be pushed around, or we are the bullies who do not play nice with our neighbors.

Simond: Not seeing anything you are stating that I haven't already said. 49-U worked, taking space turned out to be harder than expected, and we are rusty. All stated multiple times, but I'm not sure where your fixation on Havoc is coming from. And while we are talking about cheap shots and meaningful victories, when was the last time GS kicked someone out of their region who were, you know, not disbanded and without infrastructure?

[Endie]

Oh wait yeah I meant to say that the "we never really thought we could take 49-" revisionist thing is dumb and either people at the top are either lying now or lied then to their members.  A lot of people- hundreds of people - fucked up their IRL shit in order to try and take 49- from us and saying "yeah it was a diversion though PL had already pulled out and ignored all their station timers because they might have used the Sands of Time from Prince of Persia to do a mulligan" is just daft.  Nobody believes that AJ Regard stuff.

Anyway, in proper news, after failing to break our least important empire entry jump-bridge point Molle decided that the whole kiting high-ends thing was definitely, 100% the way to kill us off.  Unfortunately he caught a whiff of what we were able to gather at short notice and called it off after a while.  Maybe the ~wulfpax~ will work vOv

[setar]

Endie, again: it was meant as a distraction, but it would be stupid *not* to give everything to try and capture the station. Chances of actually capturing it in the case of an active defense were slim, however, unless you are saying this is easy and we were just completely incompetent about it, in which case I have to disagree.

We found it even harder than initially expected, you guys managed to get an excellent defense and good turnout going, and there is no point in pursuing this further for the time being, so it was dropped. I'm not sure what exactly is revisionist about this, or shameful. Again, make up your mind, guys. We *either* fucked up our RL for a week in an attempt to get this, and should be expected to do this week after week after week until we get all Delve systems, or the last -A- member stops logging in, or we use Providence as an excuse to get out of 49-U. It's neither -- we found an actively defended system in another time zone to be too difficult, period. Now we are trying something else. Yay us.

[setar]

Actually, I missed the more interesting part of your post: so what _is_ IT doing these days? They only have a limited window before either TRI breaks, Atlas decides to go for something else, or GS support becomes available in another form. You guys have never been more isolated -- are they settling for the second prize (Fountain isn't bad by any means), or are they staging and preparing?

[Sir T]

They have moved literally EVERYTHING into Sakht, which is the last low sec station system beside Delve. The spent the weekend hitting towers. Today they were kiting towers all day till we chased them off with a gang half their size. They got a few kites complete but we repped most of the towers they were hitting. They have been hitting the R64 in Sakht for all they are worth. They actually got a semi decent timer on it for about 6 hours from this post, so its time for goodfights(tm).

There's been the odd roaming gang around delve as well.

So yeah they are going for it in a roundabout way, hitting the r64s in NPC delve anyway. Some of the usual camping bridges with stealthbombers as well.

And while we are talking about cheap shots and meaningful victories, when was the last time GS kicked someone out of their region who were, you know, not disbanded and without infrastructure?

Hate to mention this, but IRC, Ethereal Dawn, Veritas Immortalis, Scorched earth and Cardshark Influence would like a word...

[squirrel]

We found it even harder than initially expected, you guys managed to get an excellent defense and good turnout going, and there is no point in pursuing this further for the time being, so it was dropped. I'm not sure what exactly is revisionist about this, or shameful. Again, make up your mind, guys. We *either* fucked up our RL for a week in an attempt to get this, and should be expected to do this week after week after week until we get all Delve systems, or the last -A- member stops logging in, or we use Providence as an excuse to get out of 49-U. It's neither -- we found an actively defended system in another time zone to be too difficult, period. Now we are trying something else. Yay us.

New to the EVE politics. But this seems interesting to me. Because nothings going to change much - so still have to 'fuck up your RL' for weeks to attempt Delve or not. Good you found something else to do and have fun, but Delve is still here. We're still here. And you haven't done anything other than waste alarm-clock time. 'Cause you'll have to do that again unless I'm mistaken. You can say "Yay Us" all day long, but you burned a lot of alarm clockers on those 2 weeks. Perhaps that's not relevant, and IT will takeover. We shall see, but what you wrote above is poor propaganda at best.

[setar]

They have moved literally EVERYTHING into Sakht, which is the last low sec station system beside Delve. The spent the weekend hitting towers. Today they were kiting towers all day till we chased them off with a gang half their size. They got a few kites complete but we repped most of the towers they were hitting. They have been hitting the R64 in Sakht for all they are worth. They actually got a semi decent timer on it for about 6 hours from this post, so its time for goodfights(tm).

That's pretty low-key given their overall numbers. Probably gets interesting once they manage to grab a few high ends -- how do they react when their own towers get hit a bit later on?

And while we are talking about cheap shots and meaningful victories, when was the last time GS kicked someone out of their region who were, you know, not disbanded and without infrastructure?

Squirrel: the next attempt most certainly would either have to involve more numbers (i.e., shutting you out of the system entirely), concurrent attacks on multiple fronts (forcing you to chose which one to defend), or some creative Sov-Structure-Fu that somehow would allow us more control over when a structure comes out of reinforced. All three come with caveats, namely server crashes, freeing up GS-friendly entities by calling in allies that are currently engaging them, logistical nightmares and a lack of understanding of sov details.

Hate to mention this, but IRC, Ethereal Dawn, Veritas Immortalis, Scorched earth and Cardshark Influence would like a word...

Sorry, the emphasis was on meaningful, otherwise we also need to mention IAC and.. I kid, I kid! Point was, sometimes things don't work out the way you were hoping for. Then you can continue to run into the same wall over and over again, find something more interesting to do, or come up with a better plan. We went with option two while (hopefully!) working on #3 in the meantime. No luck so far, though.

Actually, the best answer to all of this would be for GS to just stomp into 4-07 or FAT and take those systems vs an active defense. Given that you guys tend to be more creative _and_ more focused for short campaigns that might even work out, and settle the silly argument ;-)

Edit: Fixed the quotes.

[squirrel]

Point was, sometimes things don't work out the way you were hoping for. Then you can continue to run into the same wall over and over again, find something more interesting to do, or come up with a better plan. We went with option two while (hopefully!) working on #3 in the meantime. No luck so far, though.

I think you got the quoting in your post messed up - I got lost. I understand this bit though, and I say good luck. Seriously. I personally think there's flaws in your current approach, but then I fly with your enemy.

[MahrinSkel]

Well, if 49-U was just a diversion to let IT run out the Sov clocks in Fountain so they could reposition for an offensive, then it would seem to have succeeded.  But if IT is on their own, it's unlikely they can assemble the mass to take even the "least important" of GS's empire gateways (and it is, Sakht is a long run away from Jita compared to 3-F).  They need the goons distracted, and if AAA is fucking around in Providence, they don't have that.  Of course, getting someone from Providence to distract AAA was exactly what I thought GIA *should* do, so that works out nicely.

Without a second front, I don't see IT making any significant territorial gains against GS.  On the other hand, as long as they're on the offensive, defensive infrastructure is still getting planted and wallets refilled in Fountain.  Seems like time for Black Ops, maybe even a expeditionary force.  Kick in some doors, make the stay-at-homes yell for help and complicate their logistics planning.

--Dave

EDIT: The one thing Sakht does have going for it as an invasion port is an NPC station to stage out of.  But Logistics aren't nearly the problem they used to be, you don't gain as much from having Sakht as a base compared to what you lose with the low-sec jumps to get there (I'd rather fly freighters through null-sec than low-sec).

[Pennilenko]

Guys, common, this is not called the bait and troll eve thread, this is the War thread, please keep it to war updates.

[Phildo]

Someone pointed out an interesting fact about IT's choice of staging outpost in Sakht: it has no repair service.  Several of their members have been playing docking games with our fleet tonight and have been undocking with armor damage.

Sakht forces them to choose between a station with cloning and a station with a repair service.  Which do you choose?

[squirrel]

Someone pointed out an interesting fact about IT's choice of staging outpost in Sakht: it has no repair service.  Several of their members have been playing docking games with our fleet tonight and have been undocking with armor damage.

Sakht forces them to choose between a station with cloning and a station with a repair service.  Which do you choose?

Well IT has to appear serious about they're intentions in Delve. Sakht is a funny choice, particularly since they've spent 2 days docked there, but how else are they going to show -AAA- that all that time wasn't wasted?

Doh! Shit. I'm baiting again. Sorry.

[Kitsune]

I'm not conversant with alliance logistics on the scale of the big players in EvE, but I find it very hard to believe that the money poured into the 49- offensive could possibly be justified by an 'oh, we were just stretching our legs' sort of motivation.  If I were planning how best to get a few hundred pilots familiar with new mechanics and in a fighting mood, I'd have sent them against the smallest possible target and have them shoot fish in a barrel.  I would most certainly not have sent them against an equally large and ready to rumble alliance in their heavily-entrenched territory.  That would be stupid.  And the breathtaking bill of ships lost in 49- bears out my assessment, I'd say.

So either the people in charge of strategy are imbeciles and vastly fucked up their 'pilot training program' into a huge fiasco of burning capital ships, or they were genuinely making an effort to invade and are now trying to make the huge fiasco of burning capital ships sound like less than a rout.

[Phildo]

There weren't very many dead capitals in 49-.

[Kitsune]

I'd been hearing that a few score were lost in the fights.  Was that not in 49?

[Phildo]

-A- crosspost from another forum:

What is really funny is that you actually believe you, and GoonSwarm, have any chance whatsoever in the conflict that is approaching. You are going to be skullfucked in the most epic e-news making fashion that legends will be told of it. The hard part is figuring out WHO will be first and last to shit on your grave. I have personally sat and listened to near internet nerd brawls between allied alliance leaderships and leaders regarding who fucks you from which end. You are a goddamn dead alliance.

We are systematically murdering you you fucking twit. Garble that propoganda cum that your leadership so shamelessly spews into your gaping faggot jaws.

Today we cut off CVA's access to empire space and will soon take a critical station system as punishment for their treachery. Wait your turn to die.

Tonight we repaired and reinforced our own POS in Sakht to get a more favorable timer tomorrow night.  IT had the advantage in numbers of capital ships, but we had an advantage in subcaps and they didn't make a move until most of our caps had left the system.  Afterwards, they reinforced our jump bridge in 1-S and are still active as of this post.  I have been assured by a member of IT that this is "just foreplay".

[Setanta]

Their idea of foreplay is the equivilent of driving a rusty nail through one's genitals - actually, the rusty nail might be less painful.

[dingusxavier]

-A- crosspost from another forum:

Link that shit, I need to call the poster rude names.

[tgr]

-A- crosspost from another forum:

Link that shit, I need to call the poster rude names.

Not that it's awfully hard to find it (I mean, I found it), but...

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/27167-eve-war-thread-826.html#post1614217

[dingusxavier]

Damn, I was hoping that was from kugutsumen. Sounds like something Dekanor would say.

Well, he's already been laughed at so eh.

edit: Holy shit they've been trolling that guy for pages. He mad.

[setar]

I'm not conversant with alliance logistics on the scale of the big players in EvE, but I find it very hard to believe that the money poured into the 49- offensive could possibly be justified by an 'oh, we were just stretching our legs' sort of motivation.  If I were planning how best to get a few hundred pilots familiar with new mechanics and in a fighting mood, I'd have sent them against the smallest possible target and have them shoot fish in a barrel.  I would most certainly not have sent them against an equally large and ready to rumble alliance in their heavily-entrenched territory.  That would be stupid.  And the breathtaking bill of ships lost in 49- bears out my assessment, I'd say.

You are missing two points:

* money is a non-issue. Really. Unless we are talking multiple titan losses any such operation isn't even going to register on the alliance wallet, whether it's GS, -A- or (probably) even CVA
* the key is to motivate people. Get them to log back in. You cannot do that with some random target, but tell -A- pilots they get to kill GS ships and they _will_ log in in large numbers

Getting invaded by CVA also does the trick, the number of old players coming back for this particular round is almost amusing. But we didn't know about that event yet when 49-U kicked off.

Also, who the hell is 'Badass' in-game? Need to make fun of him on our forum. We really do have our share of horrible posters (note, if you could not tell, not everyone is happy with the shift to Providence, a fair number would have loved to continue around Delve).

[bhodi]

* money is a non-issue. Really. Unless we are talking multiple titan losses any such operation isn't even going to register on the alliance wallet, whether it's GS, -A- or (probably) even CVA
* the key is to motivate people. Get them to log back in. You cannot do that with some random target, but tell -A- pilots they get to kill GS ships and they _will_ log in in large numbers

Not to add more fuel to the fire, but the alliance wallet does not generally reimburse individual subcaps (completely), so while at an alliance level money is a non-issue, at an individual level it most definitely is. Losing fleet after subcap fleet generally destroys morale and motivates people in the wrong direction. Pilots are notoriously fickle; they'll only log in so many times if all they are doing is taking a pounding to both their pride (K:D in this case) and their wallet. Morale falls into the toilet (on all sides) with astonishing speed and regularity.

Not that I'm saying anything new or innovative, it's just that this point is so clear and obvious and that you seem to be (deliberately?) ignoring it.

[setar]

Bhodi, absolutely, but we were talking about 49-U here, and losses were really light. If anything what stopped people from logging in were the alarm clock ops, not a lack of ship supplies or logistics. Also keep in mind that -A- runs a dictor, covops, logistics and fleet BS replacement program, so even if you run out of your own ships you can always hop into any of these and rejoin.

Also don't think we've been taking a particular beating. General fights tended to be balanced with an edge to GS, frequently due to their excellent bomber runs until we learned to deploy properly. But K:D certainly wasn't crushing in any way as to have an impact on morale (note: I was only around for five CTAs, might been other fights that were lopsided... )