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May 20, 2024, 06:24:33 AM

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Quote from: Meester on June 28, 2009, 10:46:23 AM

Wonder if there will be a sort of Yalta Conference of the big major powers left. Maybe at the fanfest the Goon, NC and Drone Region leadership folk will meet - discussion topics include which government shall run Curse, the demilitarization of AAA and pets and free elections in Venal awesome, for real

What would be on the menu at such an event?

Let me preface this by saying that most of this happened in US, not Euro TZ, so I wasn't there.

The chatter had been that a full-scale invasion by the Atlas coalition was on for the Drone regions. I can tell you for absolute certain that they had a range of very big strategic ops planned, which were due to start on Friday, doubtless aimed at saving IRC, whose territory we are now invading (on Saturday, xDeathx dropped 30 towers in their territory, and reinforced 25 more). However, given that Capswarm, along with caps from the NC and PL, are in the area, they called their plans off. During the day, yesterday, Atkas ally Aggression's main FC decided he'd had enough and started stealing everything not nailed down, booting corp members and generally causing havoc.

This left the NC free to go home and form a 900-man fleet to deal with Tri. Atlas, ROL and AAA had spent the day shifting their capfleets north to help Tri, but when they saw the NC forces they decided this was not a realistic prospect and called that off, too. Apparently a chain of Atlas caps in particular are logged off at various midpoints on their route home, and that only half their capfleet actually made the full journey.

Later on, xDeathx dropped more towers but, while they were onlining, IRC brought 150 people to kill them in increasingly late Russian time. I have to say fair play to them rousing 150 people after a bad weekend. xDeathx only have 90 in fleet, and with the Goonfleet forums and jabber broadcasts down for much of the day we only have 30 people at first to help them. Worse still, xDeathx have to leave, and though more Goons are arriving, IRC/ED bring in caps to shoot some new Death towers. All seems lost! Bu then what is that? The sound of gate activations?

Someone from PL can pick up the story better than me at this point, but basically PL brought in a hac gang and shredded IRC's support, allowing them and a bunch of goons in T1 tacklers to hold down caps long enough for PL to jump a capfleet on top of them. The result was that IRC/ED lost 10 carriers and 2 dreadnoughts, as well as seventy or so of their subcaps. PL lost seven ships while goonfleet losses were a little heavier (30), but were mostly t1 frigates and cruisers: http://killboard.goonfleet.com/battles/1413

Also, for comedy value, an IRC pilot had earlier lost a Legion T3 ship to a small, Goon gang, despite the help of his friends in falcons and SBs: http://killboard.goonfleet.com/km/381563 Lookit dem rifters... Note that the manticore was a hostile trying to clear tacklers off him.

Looks like the NC siege of Venal is in full swing - Triumvirate, Red Overlord and Against All Authorties tried to persuade them to leave but then this happened - http://kb.morsus-mihi.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=227917

Gosh, that is so huge it pretty much breaks the blackberry browser. Is that a fifty capship kill by the NC? What is the story?

Triumvirate.
Triumvirate never changes. awesome, for real

That seems to just be MM kills so unless the others got veeery lucky I'd not be surprised if the losses were pretty equal. Which, of course would be a strategic win for the NC but not a tactical one.

I believe there are more losses for the NC, as I only quoted the MM killboard. Think some Atlas were going to join up and decided against it in the end.

Dreadnoughts, the new battleship?

900 man fleets? jesus christ

Holy Hell, what is with all the Moros?

Seems after Triumvirate, the NC went head to head with Solar Fleet in the northern drone lands next. Looks like two Solar titans were involved as well as a solar dread fleet.

Quote from: Endie on June 29, 2009, 03:40:57 AM

Tactical victory for sure and the DR are starting to feel fairly unsafe during normal US hours. The strategic objective seems to be NBW, 7 towers to 5 good guys as of right now in a 40 odd moon system. One XdX tower still in WU but really that seems a pretty tough get. GDBW is a decent looking constellation if you're one for pretty maps but nothing anybody in IRC would freak out over if it fell off the map from what I've picked up. As for me, I'm interested in how long the constellation holds out.

I'm slightly disgruntled that I begged and pleaded for goons to reset IRC/ED because they were the only other entity in eve to be us timezone based, and it never happened outside of that one time when we reblued them within 24 hours due to vilerat doing something which I no longer remember.

I hope you guys are having fun :)

I wish I knew what the hell any of this meant. I used to enjoy this thread, but now that bob/ken/beaver/whatever is finally dead, I don't know what's going on. Color code this shit by friends of f13 and enemies or something!

I think it goes a little something like this....

NC vs Triumvirate/Solar Fleet/AAA/ Red Overlord/ERROR/IRC/ED

Goons/KIA/ZA/RA & RA (Red Alliance/Rebellion Alliance)/XdeathX vs Aggression/Veritas Immortalis/AAA/SE and allies/Atlas/Scorched/GZC remnants

Correct me if Im wrong

Correction on my part too, seems the NC had their dread fight in Geminate and not the drone lands.

Just to throw more acronyms onto the fire, NC is the group name for MM, TCF and RZR and PL tends to work alongside NC & GS more often than not.

It's actually all the same people from the 'Great War' just on a broader front.

Quote from: WindupAtheist on June 29, 2009, 11:16:59 PM

OK, giant post incoming, but this is tricky. It is a lot easier if you look at the current influence map and some of the recent historical versions.

----------------

The Great War (post-boss Bonus Level)
or
What do you mean we're not quite finished yet?!?

OK, here is your primer on the current conflict.

The First Great Southern War was fought from west to east across the bottom of the galaxy map, with Goonfleet and RA at bay in Detorid (GF's second-last region at the time) against Bob and a bunch of pets. As those pets were chewed up in the advance west many collapsed, but their individual components usually simply rearranged. So RISE collapsed but many were absorbed into Skunk Works, with similar processes making up Executive Outcomes, Blade and others.

The Second Great War was fought in the south-west, and again saw Bob abandon their pets over time (despite their touching but frankly incomprehensible loyalty throughout). By the end, most of these pets had again bled out, and many of the losing pet corporations shifted to join Aggression or Atlas, who as a result are hugely increased in size and intrinsically hostile to the RSF (Red Alliance, Goons and the French of TCF) and the North who together had twice destroyed many of their alliances. On the downside, they are also made up almost entirely of people who have been thrown out of their space at least twice by the RSF, either in the Great Wars or (in Atlas' case) in the Geminate and Esoteria campaigns.

So the bottom-right hand side of the map, abandoned in February when the Goons left for Delve, has filled up with Atlas and their clients. But Atlas's territory is horrible and fragile to supply logistically (I know, I used to make those runs), requiring a route through uncontrollable NPC 0.0 space for both capitals and subcaps. A safer route does exist, but it happens to go through the space of Red Alliance, Intrepid Crossing and Ethereal Dawn.

Now, those latter two, led by IRC, were traditionally allied to us, but had decided to reset Red Alliance a few months ago, when they were trying to help Goons and the North against AAA. This was a huge gamble on their part on the outcome of the war. If AAA and Kenny had won, then they might be able to secure RA's space and share a border with Atlas and Aggression, both hostile to RA. But if AAA did not succeed then they had just stabbed Goons, the North and many of the Drone Region Russians in the back at a hugely crucial time (so critical that many still suspect it was no coincidence).

Significantly Red Alliance, in fighting AAA, had been helping the Drone Region Russians Legion of Death (who had splintered from RA after Reunion and Daira Lir almost destroyed Red Alliance with illicit real-money trading when the entire RA leadership got blanket-banned for a time during Delve 1). Legion of Death had been the guarantors of Ethereal Dawn and Interpid Crossing, and while their leader, xDeath, had remained neutral to them during their fight with RA, their actions had allowed Atlas, Aggression and Sc0rched Earth (who had done their own bit of backstabbing and reset TCF a few weeks after the French had saved their space for them) to push forward almost to Death's borders.

After a display of Russian solidarity by ex-AAA Daira Lir (all but destroying Red Alliance in an attempted but ultimately abortive coup), RA lost most of their space to Atlas et al, since they were now being attacked by an almighty coalition of many alliances on 5/6ths of the length of their borders and Daira's anti-Russian backstab (and theft of a corp) had lost them sovereignty in many key systems.

However, at this point Goonswarm, Pandemic Legion and the Northern Coalition were only tidying up a few loose ends in Querious, and all are now moving east again to help RA and xDeath, who have also now reset standings with ED/IRC. After three years of war, the ramp up hasn't been as rapid as it might have been, but the entire capital fleets of all three are in-theatre, while from a purely Goonswarm point of view, growing subcap fleets are now big enough for us to have started taking down hotile US TZ towers, while Euro/Anzac Goons and the newly-deployed Goonswarm blackops team will starting to make logistics, reinforcement and money-making harder, as well as helping Death as needed.

There are some unknowns. Solar Fleet, the more northerly Russian Drone Region spin-off from RA, and a traditional ally of Legion of Death (but enemy of the North), are rumoured to have been "persuaded" by Red Overlord's cash-rich purchaser to remain neutral. The position of AAA is yet to be seen: they've been deploying caps alongside Triumvirate, ROL and Atlas against the North this week but Evil Thug and ROL's Nync have been trying to sell themselves as the defenders of Russians in the game: to attack Red Alliance and Legion of Death would make that even more laughable than it currently is (AAA ceased being a homogenuous Russian alliance some time ago, for one thing). Triumvirate themselves seem to have missed their chance to secure space in the North in the absence of the first-rate Northern alliances and may try to do what Bob did last year: to move south-east and join in an attack on the Drone Regions as an excuse to withdraw from a bogged-down Northern conflict that looks unwinnable.

The prospects? Red Alliance seem to have survived withdrawing from their space fairly well for now, but if they were to truly fracture then that would be a setback for the Coalition. On the Atlas side, the two problems are relative poverty and tenuous morale. Atlas doesn't have enough money to replace lost capitals, and in the two big engagements I've been eeither at or watching they have either jumped their capitals out very quickly leaving allies to die or decided not to engage. Sc0rched Earth are truly awful (the number in the name should be a clue) and Aggression are made entirely - as in 100% - of corps who have lost to us in the last 3 months already, having been founded by one of the first corporations to buckle and abandon their alliance in both Great Wars. Finally, IRC and ED held out pretty well for a longer time than most expected but, having failed to defeat RA, Sc0rched Earth and a dying UNL, I'd be surprised if they don't lose all their space to the Russians now, with our help. That will leave Aggression and Sc0rched Earth in particular pretty exposed if the Coalition rolls south, and leave Atlas's subcap logistics with a choice of three lowsec chokepoints.

If, however, AAA attacks RA/Death then all bets are off, I suppose.

Simple, really! Any questions? Remember not to take the credit like you sometimes do when you C&P it to the other places I find my :walls-of-text: :(

Thanks Endie, that's much more clear. ^_^

What do you think the end goals of the northeastern war are right now? Wiping out irc/ed seems to be the current plan, but do you forsee going much further against aggression space or even atlas?

With those fleet sizes it seems like it's in the best interests of tri/atlas/aggression/whomever else just to go home and wait and hope for the gs/pl/nc/xdx powerblock to split up a bit, because they aren't going to be able to take it on.

Aggression. is too terrible to live.

Quote from: Simond on June 30, 2009, 12:02:58 PM

Aggression. is too terrible to live.

Sc0rched Earth are too terrible to die. We should really, really let them keep that space.

aggression will probably implode on their own, who gives a fuck about immensea

Had no idea the amount of space our enemies have.

Also, is Wicked Creek and Scalding Pass really that bad? I mean in general; Of course it's junk compared to Delve - I was there, and it's not exactly great, but the rats dropped missile stuff at least.

Terrible rats + bad logistics.

Well xdx was busy last night. To no one's suprise they put up a bunch of towers in GDBW. 15 in LO5 and NBW giving them a 3'ish to one Tower advantage. xdx's still mucking about in SLYP the 'spiritual home' of IRC (if there is such a thing) and managing to divert some IRC resources but eh.. Don't think it's much more than that.

I'm curious if we're going to do anything about it. If we are it's going to be in the next couple hours.

I imagine that the Drone Regions would be pretty happy to return to the status quo of half to a year ago, keep on keeping on living in peace, with the current boarder skirmishes winning them time for negotiations.
Kalevala is good space and will hopefully be taken by the good Russians in the process, but who the hell needs Ethereal Reach beside Ethereal Dawn?

I'd really like to see CCP create a new, uncontrolled/stationed region like the drone regions. Except make it filled with R64 moons on top of Ark. Then watch the fireworks. It would be GRAND.

Current drone regions are boring as shit since nobody gives a fuck.

Quote from: Kovacs on June 30, 2009, 08:27:53 PM

I take it that you do know what we're after that's currently building in that constellation? Very often alliances don't tell their members about that sort of stuff, I suppose, since the morale loss when they pop is so substantial. We've killed two alliances quickly after doing it that I can remember: LV and Kenny. It's not so much the loss as the demonstration that if the alliance cannot protect its most valuable possession, what hope does the individual have? At that point the industrialists start taking steps to protect their BPOs, the flow of ships and mods on the market dries up, manufacturing and mid-end, personal mining towers start to disappear, and so on.

Anyway, towers reinforced and timed to come out in prime for IRC/ED and Goonfleet. We'll see if enough Goons are in-theatre yet or if we'll have to try again.

Here's a couple of extracts from IRC after-action reports, the first posted at about 5am on 29th June:

Quote

I know all of you are tired. And I know that at times the constant flow of reds is depressing. BUT - So are they. Goons have certainly been financially drained by their wars in Delve / Period Basis / Querious and their support of RA. And xDeath is soft from years of NAPs. We will now finish what they started those months ago, and the IRC will be cemented as the next great power of Eve.

Of this I have no doubts.

This is ours to lose. Let's not.

First off, the idea that Goons are financially drained is a pretty harsh lie to tell his members. We dropped a new outpost this week and I only found out from dotlan since nobody has even mentioned it on the boards. Why bother? It's a touch over a day's moon-mining income for us. And for individual members, Delve is everything we dreamed of in terms of ratting: thanks to our ship replacement programs you could rat for a little under two hours and replace five or six lost battleships. We're not financially drained, we're the Berverley Hillbillies: all cash and no class.

Anyway, the second AAR, although nominally about an earlier fight, was posted at the end of the same day as the first, as pressure began to build:

Quote

Our main problem in low participation was discussed in length. It is a vicious cycle - our officers get burnout flying inadequate fleets against overpowered enemy. At same time our pilots get burnout from defeats caused by people that just use 2000+ people alliance to explore 0.0 space.

We need to increase fleet participation of every corp. Otherwise it is all for nothing.

Edit: Kovacs, for goodness sake, have a word with your people about having a word with their people:

http://killboard.legionofdeath.info/?op=kill&id=333533 - You can at least see where he's going with this
http://killboard.legionofdeath.info/?op=kill&id=333626 - Not so sure about the grand plan behind this one, though, which is probably the worst fit I have ever seen in Eve. A hardened carebear told to get out of his raven and bring an apoc taking it badly?

Actually no I didn't. And really no reason I should given I'm a carebear who's been in the alliance all of what, three weeks? And about that post, standard rhetoric as far as I can see and one of many rah rah posts that don't have a lot of thought behind them. Fine, it is what it is. Now here's the thing, the really interesting part is that you have better access to the IRC forums than the director of our corp. There's actually only 2 of us in our (small!) corp that have accidentally mastered the intentionally complex and esoteric art of asking for IRC forum access. Wish I were lying.

As for those fits, they pretty much speak for themselves. I have no words.

On the plus side our little corner of the univers has been pretty quiet,minus the daily, how the hell do I get to Empire and which JB's are still online mix and match game. My biggest problem seems to be whether the 10 minutes we have left in Drone Regions is worth investing in another Crane.

Heh, its ok Kovacs: I didn't actually hold you responsible for the fitting crimes of your new alliance.

Anyway, tonight was awesome. My bs and hac had just arrived from Jita, and after rigging and fitting the rokh I realised I'd forgotten guns. Worse, the flood of goons had emptied the region of all but a single 350mm railgun II, so I had to use 425s. Fine by me: I prefer the 425, but two hybrid rigs meant I had now way of shoehorning the 8th gun on, despite perfect fitting skills up to AWU V. So before leaving the station I just stuck on a cyno as DBRB calls for a fleet.

Sure enough, we titan-bridge on top of a much-bigger IRC/ED fleet with twice the battleships. In seconds, the cyno is dead and DBRB calls for another. Has to be me. Welp. Ten minutes in an outnumbered fleet fight with the rest of your BS fleet aligning away at full speed isn't really survivable, even without the 'shoot me' placard of a cyno beacon.

But the two carriers are heroes. In pour more goons and some Russians to whittle down the hostiles, and then, 8 minutes into my cyno cycle, Vee warps the fleet out. The two carriers stay there with me, and my whole overview flashes red as everyone targets me. A mass of drones pour in, obscuring my ship. And I still never go below 30% shields! Triage carriers are awesome. The hostiles are so sure I must die that they don't even tackle or bubble me. Ten minutes come up and I warp out. Massive relief.

Anyway, we came back just as the hostiles start saying 'gf' in local DRILLING AND MANLINESS

The slaughter is pretty total, especially as more tacklers come in in two subsequent titan bridges. A lot of the victory is due to the hostile fleet composition: maelstroms, ravens, domis, ishtars and masses of stealth bombers are not good fleet ships.

Then we went and killed a smartbombing dread who black ops had had tackled on a gate ten jumps away throughout the fight. He raged and self-destructed, dying on 10% structure, then smacking in local about goonie failure from his pod :cripes:

Quote from: Endie on July 01, 2009, 06:29:17 PM

Then we went and killed a smartbombing dread who black ops had had tackled on a gate ten jumps away throughout the fight. He raged and self-destructed, dying on 10% structure, then smacking in local about goonie failure from his pod :cripes:

"Ha ha you didn't kill me I just accidentally hit self-destruct"?

Is it Stockholm syndrome when you're abusing yourself?

Quote from: Glazius on July 02, 2009, 07:35:41 AM

Quote from: Endie on July 01, 2009, 06:29:17 PM

"Ha ha you didn't kill me I just accidentally hit self-destruct"?

Is it Stockholm syndrome when you're abusing yourself?

If abusing yourself gives you Stockholm Syndrome then call me Sven awesome, for real

Is ED/IRC even fighting back ? I took a peek at the goon kb, and there's really not much in the way of battle reports going on there. I take it they're calling us tz ops, show up and see they're outnumbered, and call them off?

Quote from: Endie on July 02, 2009, 07:44:13 AM

Quote from: Glazius on July 02, 2009, 07:35:41 AM

Quote from: Endie on July 01, 2009, 06:29:17 PM

"Ha ha you didn't kill me I just accidentally hit self-destruct"?

Is it Stockholm syndrome when you're abusing yourself?

If abusing yourself gives you Stockholm Syndrome then call me Sven awesome, for real

Thanks for Americano in my nose.