f13.net

In case you didn't see the news, Goonfleet has left OSS.

I'm not sure what corps that leaves in OSS, but I'm glad we aren't in that alliance anymore. I would like our 300mil back now plzthx.

... are you posting on a one-month delay timer or something?

I only saw the news yesterday, and it said something like it happened earlier in the week so my bad if this is late.  :|

Oh yah, I'm out for the weekend for vacation, so Yoru is in charge while I'm gone.  :-D

It happened.. oh.. first week of June. Look at the founding date of GoonSwarm, which is their new alliance.

But yeah, glad we decided not to re-up with OSS. It pretty much went into the shitter immediately afterwards.

On a semi-related note, I'm finding the D2/GoonSwarm thread in the official Alliances forum highly amusing. 

the battle for XZH has been quite fun. so far, we've killed something like 9 of D2's dreads. I think the loot from their dread cans pays for all the ships we've lost so far.

I don't. Because the EVE-O mouthbreathers actually believe the shitloads of crap D2 is telling.

So, whos going to win?

Whoever wants it more.

This whole thing has been pretty silly.

Some of our goonswarm guys fired on the station as a joke, causing us to realize their sovereignty claim was lost. Within a couple of hours, we swarmed the system and brought in SMASH alliance's dreadnaughts to start blowing up their unfueled POSes and retook the station.

Commence a huge amount of forum wankery, mostly D2 and co. saying IT'S OK WE DIDN'T WANT IT ANYWAY, WE HAVE BETTER SYSTEMS LOL WE DON'T CARE and then sending in 18 dreadnaughts and 240 support ships with the combined forces of D2, RAZOR, SPARTA, NORAD, and one other alliance that I'm forgetting. To date, we've killed 9 of the dreads and at least one carrier, possibly two. Way too many battleships to count.

Apparently D2 really was planning to leave this area, however the handful of member corps that lived in this particular system (XZH) thought it was too valuable to give up, so they left D2 to stay behind in this system. So really it's D2 fighting for their former members, though most of us in Goonswarm suspect the real reason is because of all the forum warriors who absolutely cannot believe that goonswarm is capable of accomplishing things, thereby forcing D2 to stand up for their honor. Despite all the smack on the forums, it's been a lot of fun - that being said, I've only been playing the game for about a month and a half, so this war has pretty much drained all of my financial resources and I'm down to throwing frigates at them, but that's what the goons are famous for after all!

Things like this are why I love eve.  I'm rooting for the goons, btw - love to see the young powers proving that the old powers aren't as invincible as thought.

If I was a bit better off financially and had a few decent ship bpo's, I bet I could make a mint selling cruisers and BS's over on the edge of empire.

Whoever buys more isk.

The truth.. it burnnnzzz.

Negative.  One of the things that Goonfleet has proven is that a small force with lesser ships CAN win a war against a much larger force.  One of their first battles was against a well established corp who were astounded by a bunch of little frigates attacking them.  Fast forward a month later, and that corp was forced out of their section of the galaxy, licking their wounds, and completely humiliated.  Its pretty funny watching as things unfold.

Small force?? Goonfleet is ZERG. nothing more than mass of unskilled pilots who barely know how to target and shoot.

you say it like it's a bad thing.

btw, Cheddar, you win the avatar prize.

It's possible to raid territory like that, but you cannot take territory (excluding NPC-held stations) like that. Once you get out of Syndicate and the other NPC-held 0.0, you need POSes to hold your stations. POSes require either mining fleets or a transport fleet. Making sure those transports get through or miners get to mine, that can be done in a zerg, somewhat - if you're gatecamping, you'll want some interdictors or bubbles.

When you actually want to take an enemy system, you'll need something to blast their POSes into oblivion - dreadnoughts and/or sniping battleships. Dreads cost isk to buy/build and maintain, as well as needing an escort (this latter part, again, zergable). Plus you'll need to lock down the system you're sieging while you're doing it.

When you inevitably lose those dreads/POSes/transports/barges, you will need more isk. Which will require either running L4 missions (requiring a BS... or maybe a really uber BC pilot), mining in 0.0 (see above) or other things that will require ships that aren't pennies to lose.

In the end, sustaining a war requires isk. If someone can take down a POS with only frigates and cruisers, then it won't come down to quite so much isk, but you'll still need to lay out some isk to set up and defend any territory that's taken.

Hence, I stand by my original assessment - in a protracted war, the winner will be he who has the most isk (and thus the cynical comment about buying it).

Unless it's been configured *totally* for anti-Dread (no EW, all large guns), a battle-POS could eat a nearly unlimited number of cruisers and frigates before they could do any significant damage to it.  Put a basic EW suite and a few small turrets on it, and it just plain cannot be killed without dreads.  And unless the system is totally locked down so those dreads won't get attacked by significant mobile defenders (impossible, if they have Carriers), you're going to lose dreads.  3-4 NOS'ing BS or equivalent throw weight in lighter ships to kill the cap and drop Siege mode, and the POS guns will do the rest, or one carrier's worth of heavy energy destabilizer drones.

GoonSwarm can take care of the "lock the system down" part, but they are having to depend on other alliances to provide the big guns.  Sure, they've killed probably 12-15B worth of D2 dreads, but D2 can take that loss (they're one of the major powers for precisely that reason).  Could the goons?

Don't get me wrong, I've been very impressed by the rise of the Goons.  But what I find impressive, the major powers find disturbing, and unless GoonSwarm finds a way to fit the needs of territrial  warfare into their MO, they're not going to be more than someone else's cannon fodder.

--Dave

Of course, this would be an ideal time for someone on D2's other borders to start getting ambitious, expansionist ideas.

Classic.  Sig worthy.  Well struck.