f13.net

I learned today from the Q2T forums that -V- has joined ASCN against BOB.  I'm not really sure if I should be happy or sad.  However, I'm glad that I won't be a BOB war-target.

I guess -V- got bored with locking RA down constantly.

I think you are forgetting they are elite PVP'ers.

MC got hired..and attacked IAC. FIX joined in. One guess who payed for the 22 MC dreads (IAC got their station back last night. Guy I know got the naming rights, though he didn't use them) and they start with the letter B.

For a laugh, take a look at the 'Latest' map on the Alliances and Corps board.  RA now has several regions again.

I think V is in a slow death spiral.  The leadership just isn't there.

Siding against BoB might remove the "slow" modifier from your statement.  Then again, BoB has no reason to waste effort on -V- as far as I know.

Yeah, BoB might lift a hand to maybe incite a few other people to pirate in or attack V, which can't commit resources outside of its own region without getting swept by RA. I doubt BoB'd waste their time directly. They have much more immediate matters to attend to.

Like where to put the money vase: next to the money TV or on the money endtable?

Or maybe whether they should slap ASCN around a bit. Although I hear ASCN has (or had?) a titan too, so it might be a good fight.

Popcorn anyone?

I would like to see the clash of the titans if it ever came to that. As long as Harry Hamlin wasn't involved.

Is there any particular reason this is in War, by the way? I think our non-corp friends might have some interesting insights into this.

They should put engagements with capital ships on EveTV. That'd be cool, we could learn a lot from stuff like that.

Only problem is that you'd either get a close-in shot of everyone else with the giant ship as a backdrop, or you'd see the entirety of the capship and everyone else would look like little exploding gnats.

There is some info from a ASCN member on the Q2T boards if you want to read up, or you can wade into the official shit, but it seems pretty simple.  BoB attacked ASCN because they built a titan, first in the game.  ASCN has actually used it in this war, too; funny thing is that they took out some of their own people with the doomsday weapon, with exact losses dependent on who is posting at the moment.  What I'd love is an official killboard, ingame or via IGB even.  That might stop a lot of smacktalk, though.

From the postings I have seen, it seems that the doomsday weapon is fired into a cyno field and the blast comes out the other end.


I'm just paranoid.

What's a Titan?

The ultimate toy for the ultimate Eve Catass. Think the Death Star.

And yes, it comes with the planet-explody ray.

Titans are the big lumps in the following pic:

http://www.eve-files.com/media/12/eve_chart-rmr.jpg

(http://filmovezvuky.fdb.cz/spaceballs/jpg/01s.jpg)

Even better, here is a BSG-ish video of ASCN's titan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h5UJpO5Mik

It's rather large.

The BOB fleet ran with their penises between their legs (logged off) when they fired the doomsday weapon. Since it needs about 15 seconds to fire, they had enough time to notice and get out. The 15 secs are a lightshow, only after that the damage applies.

Seems like a titan would be bad a sneak attacks, anyway.  But yeah, logoffski is what I read... from the ASCN posters of course.  The thing is that I also heard the doomsday (Judgement?) "only" does 64k damage?

I really don't know much about the BOB/ASCN war, other than the fact that the lag-monster is forcing the most interesting battles into the forums.  FIX was invited by MC to assist them with their contract on IAC in exchange for services to be rendered later.  About half of those 22 dreads were FIX, and most of the standard fleets are FIX pilots and FIX commanders.  Nobody seems to have expected the flood of reinforcements behind IAC, I'm not sure if they're really there to support IAC or if they just think this is a piece of the BOB/ASCN war and they want a piece of it.  If BOB is the client for Operation Prohibition, they're spending a lot of money for a strategy that I can't see the goal of.  Nobody in FIX short of the most senior leadership knows who MC's client is, and I'm not totally certain about them (MC is *very* serious about client confidentiality, they don't even tell their own pilots).  Rather than thinking FIX and MC are doing BOB's bidding in some byzantine strategy of misdirection and domino theory, I'd look at IAC's neighbours and ask the obvious question: Que bono?

--Dave

Starting at 32.5k, it ranks up 10% per skill in Doomsday Operation which is a rank 14 (!) skill.  With hardeners, it's possible for a BS to withstand a shot from that weapon.  Most capital ships have tons of shielding to survive out of the box, and you can't shoot the weapon again for like an hour, so Doomsday is a one shot deal.  However, with 8 high slots and hundreds of m3 in drone capacity, the Titan isn't.

long term, this is becoming Risk-in-Space?

No, RISK are up north generally being a pain in the ass in Pure Blind  :-D

Allegly MC has *failed* in thier attack on IAC and has pulled back.

BoB (and MC/FIX/rest of their peons) strength is based as much on their EVE-O presence and board-warrior skills as their in-game ability (for example, they've somehow managed to portray the Goonswarm debacle as a BoB victory despite BoB failing utterly at their goals and giving up within a fortnight).

If reports start consistantly coming in about ASCN not giving up, about IAC driving back MC and so on, well - it'll be interesting to see how they spin it. Especially if ASCN manage to pull off a deep-strike counterattack that a) actually works this time (unlike their miserable failure last weekend) and b) hits the intended target...BoB's Titan(s)-under-construction.

Lookie:

http://i10.tinypic.com/34guic6.png

Tee hee.

I don't get it.

Look harder.  Or not.

That's a very BoB system with ASCN sov. Wonder how long it'll stay.

Even if ASCN loses sov, their commanders are getting lots of experience, it's a black-eye for BoB, and I understand ASCN is a very industrial alliance with POS stockpiles.  On top of that, I hear some vultures are venturing into BoB space while they are preoccupied.  Too bad I can't believe everything I read.

There was a thread on Eve-O by Celestial Apocalypse inviting one and all to Fountain (a region held by BOB in everything but Sov) while BOB are away on their crusade, the reaction of the BOB forum warriors was.....amusing (and can all essentially be summed up as 'we wont be gone forever you know')

Oh, that's perfect.

There are four racial doomsday weapons, each doing one damage type for 32000dmg. The ASCN titan apparently had two of them, hence the 64k damage.

Does it still take 1 person to fly titan or is it a team ship?

Well its a 'team' (or should I say 'alt') ship as much as any other capital ship (Carrier, Dread, Mothership) in that you need someone in the system you want to jump into to create a cyno field for you - but its flown just like any other ship (albeit probably much much slower  :-D)

The ship itself can be flown by just one person, but it has a few significant drawbacks.  One, you can't dock at a station so either you leave it floating in space, in a POS, or you have one char who always flies the ship (this is the only way to take the ship out of the game while you're offline).  Second, the Titan can't use jumpgates so you always have to have someone else (or alt) open up cyno fields to jump between systems.  You can, in theory, jump to any cyno that other people open but you never know what you will land on when you get there and they are fairly rare, so it's best to avoid.

Realistically, because the thing is so obscenely valuable you'll never want to take it out without fleet support.  Even then, you could afford to rebuild the entire fleet cheaper than you could replace a Titan so it's not the sort of ship you just go ratting in.  Not to mention you can't insure a Titan, so a loss is a total loss.

So why is it a good idea to fly Titan... ever?

epeen.

There's a new update on Eve Tribune (http://www.eve-tribune.com/index.php?no=19&page=1) on this war now. It seems ASCN has lost 263 battleships and some dreads, while BoB has lost 33 battleships and no dreads. Those are some quite horrible stats!

You get a ton of slots: 21 total, in a 8/8/5 or 8/7/6 layout.  You can fit several warfare links which assist your gang's strength.  You get a huge weapon, which can outright kill everything smaller than a BS and leave them crippled.  It has somewhere around 60k shield and armor each (BS has 5k-6k each).  It's also immune to electronic warfare.

All told, it's not worth the cost; if you could field a dozen battleships you could replace one for sheer power, and the massive expense means that in most cases people will only field them in order to use the doomsday weapon and then leave.  If fielded, it could significantly affect the outcome of a fight; but because it takes months of effort by the largest alliances to construct, that's unlikely, leaving big weapon and epeen.

It's mostly about the e-peen.

--Dave

Titans, they can equip clone vats and hangar bays and whatnot?

Not only is the titan mostly for e-peen, it's pretty much the reason BoB is attacking ASCN.  BoB likes swinging the biggest dick in the galaxy.  Now I suppose we get to see if a combat dick can defeat an industrial dick.

I call bullshit on that, alone for the reason that BoB has never been honest about their losses.

I think the BoB losses are from the ASCN killboards and vice versa.

Didn't we see that already with the Taggart Transdimensional thingy years ago?

I think the answer is "yes" simply because the combat guys are getting the gameplay they want, so they'll keep at it, whereas the industrialists are being denied the gameplay they want.

Economic powerhouses should never fight a gun war.

Of course, the problem is EvE disallows Economic PKing in favor of Combat PKing.  ASCN is doomed to die.

As an outside observer this thread is pretty fascinating with all the acronyms and such. So an entire super-guild spent months building a single ship?

More or less, yes. Not exclusively, but it does represent a significant portion of their overall economic output.

Think of it this way.  Estimates put the cost of the Titan at around 160 Billion Isk.  Mid level players make somewhere around 5-10m/hr.  All the while, the alliance (super-guild) is involved in wars which costantly drain resources of the alliance and guild members, so not all of that is going toward the Titan.  Plus, not everyone is quick to empty their pockets into the alliance coffers so not many are going to be fronting 100% regardless, although some do or get close to it.  The amount of effort required is staggering, and apparently they materially affected the game economy (with over 100k active players) due to their efforts.

And as a "reward" they are attacked by the top Pvp superguild, deployed their supership and apparently killed more of their own than the enemy.

I imagine the Death Star in the hands of Jar-Jar Binks and crewed by Ewoks.

Maybe you want a short rundown of the acronyms?  Just scanning back...

IGB is the In-Game Browser which is a mostly-useless piece of junk unless your computer is so gimped that you can't alt-tab or run EVE in a window.

ASCN is the tag for Ascendant Frontier (http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Ascendant_Frontier), apparently the largest alliance by number of pilots.  Others can be seen here (http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=The_Alliance) and should be easy to figure out: BoB is Band of Brothers, FIX is Firmus Ixion, RA is  Red Alliance (yes, they are Russian).  F13 used to be part of -V- (Veritas Immortalis) for a little bit.

There might be others, just ask if you need a program for the show.

There is also

BS - battleship, the largest non-capital ship. Most players can afford one of these after some months. The basic types cost around 100 million.
POS - Player Owned Structure, a space structure you can put up around moons. Used to control space and as a field base. Costs around 150-600 million to put up.
Dread - Dreadnought. Capital ship. Costs around 2 billion.

IAC, MC and FIX are other alliances. IAC is under attack by MC and FIX. FIX is almost a vassal of BoB, and MC is a mercenary alliance. BoB is fighting ASCN, and ASCN had some skirmishes with MC, but have now patched it up.

More wacky rumors from the Q2T forums:

The first reply summed up my thoughts: "Trap!"

You forgot to mention that MC is a suck-up alliance for BoB.

News from the IAC front is they have beaten back the McFIX attack with some losses, but the assault seems to have been a complete failure. No IAC systems have fallen and the McFIX attack has petered out. It hasn't stopped, but it from IAC's point of view, it was a failure.

Further update: McFix is apperntly claiming the misson was a sucess as they tied up IAC. Tied up IAC from WHAT isn't clear, though my guess is was so IAC couldn't go help ACSN (not they they probably would).

All I think it accpolished is IAC got some good practice at PvP fleet and POS warfare and is now more able to go on the offesive.

Since I don't know if the MC is telling the truth for the motivation of the client (some billionaire with lots of money who wanted to stir up trouble), I don't know if the overall mission was a success or not.  But FIX got everything we wanted out of it, so we consider it a success.

--Dave

What did you want to get out of it, then?

To simplify: Live fire combat excercises and an IOU from MC.

--Dave

On a possibly related note, MC lost two of their member corps fairly recently.

Speaking of BoB vassal corps...oh dear. (http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=416852)

That just made my day.  Thank you. 

MC Member corps often disband from the alliance to carry out solo contracts, then rejoin upon completion. It has something to do with the mechanics of +/- standings or something.

Any chance of some context for the politically naive here?  Does this seriously impact the ability of Xelas to support BoB to an extent where the effect on BoB's war effort is noticeable?  Would a coherent strategy of targeting smaller, vulnerable corps be likely to peel them away from BoB's alliance?

What I mean is: is this an Ardennes, 1944-5, Battle of the Bulge thing where local superiority and tactical surprise can be temporarily achieved, but where on a strategic level BoB can, ultimately, always win any large-scale (ie fleet) action ASCN engaged in?  Or is it a Napoleonic wars thing, where ASCN's (as I understand it) economic power can allow them to draw off support from BoB?

At the moment, it's too early to say really, but if ASCN et al. can keep this second front open (or even open up a third front as well), and if they can hang on to their own territory, and if the rest of the south keeps going up in flames (LV/-V- booting KOS and then wardeccing them, AAA vs AXE, RA/Goons (and KOS?) vs everyone else)...BoB may just find the situation untenable in the longer term.

Especially if other corps (*cough*D2*cough*) think that they've got a chance to start nibbling at BoB's borders. Hell, I'd imagine the only reason that the Goons aren't taking potshots at BoB right now is that they're working with RA atm and they have to keep RA sweet so that they get first pick of the new regions opening up with Kali.

[totally glib and unconfirmed comment warning]

D2 seem to be occupying themselves by camping in and around ISS station atm

Does any of it have any effect on F13?  Where are you based?  Nowehere near the fightiness?  Last thing I remember was you getting charged, like a million-billion ISK per month per member by your alliance (which put po' me off in my poverty).

F13 is currently un-aligned and just surfing around low-sec.

We told them to screw off when they came up with the 500m isk bill. Most folks are off in some lowsec area, a few others are missioning, and I'm quietly working on skills and plinking omber rocks in my Fortress of Solitude.

So, really, it doesn't affect F13 much at all, except indirectly through market forces. Wars mean demand for our stuff. :)

I want a Fortress of Solitude. I have to make do with some annoying pharmacutical station in high-sec space.

*snicker*  I guess I could have predicted this since KOS doesn't seem to be composed of retards.

EDIT: Hopefully it means the prices for nitrogen isotopes will go up.  Five more days until I'm flying a Mackinaw.

Check the map, RaGoon is doing pretty damn well against the coalition.   :evil:

The main effect of the situation with Xelas has been that FIX has gotten very beligerant towards ASCN.  See, in spite of ASCN treating all of the various alliance and corps under the umbrella of BOB-claimed space with equal measures of contempt, there are three levels to them:

1) Pure care-bear "renter" corps that do not fight.

2) Renter corps/alliances that contribute to local security

3) Independant alliances that exchange police services for residence

Xelas, FIX, and MC are the only ones in that third category, in ascending order of PvP capability (FIX can field a lot more ships than MC, but MC has a much higher average level of SP and PvP experience).  Xelas has always been less militant in orientation, and they've had a low-grade war going with Celestial Apocalypse for months, which is straining their ability to sustain operations.  Even so, Celes was no real threat to Xelas on their own.

ASCN attacking a Xelas outpost looks like a victory against BOB to those not aware of the circumstances, but in fact means almost nothing to BOB's ability to wage war.  But the fact this came with no announcement of hostilities being opened and following endless "BOB lapdogs" and "BOB slaves" rhetoric has FIX very pissed off.  We've been sitting out the BOB/ASCN war (or the Great Southern Clusterfuck, as we call it), but we're making it very clear now that if ASCN thinks opening a *third* front in the war is a good idea, FIX is a much different animal than Xelas.  We've been rebuilding for the last 4 months, our hangars are stocked, we've got a substantial reserve of POS's and fittings, and a "critical mass" of dreads sufficient to take down a battle-POS.  All of this was put together with a very different target in mind, and we were already a little annoyed that their e-peen contest with BOB forced us to put that plan on hold.

Our forces aren't nearly the quality of BOB's, but we can give better than we get against the majority of 0.0 alliances.  And we've definitely acquired the Samurai mentality, having been beaten to the point that destroys most alliances several times in our history, the prospect of yet another round of it doesn't scare us, we are the "already dead".

What ASCN keeps doing, by treating all renters/vassal states as if they were already hostile, is steadily decreasing their numeric advantage.  There are already a lot of Period Basis/Delve renters that are actively fighting on BOB's side because ASCN treated them as enemies.  Now they're adding the Fountain groups to that as well, and if they don't watch it they'll get FIX and and maybe ESA from Querious as well.  1600 BOB were beating them alone, add 1000 FIX, 1500 Xelas, and a few hundred more from various BOB renters, and suddenly they don't even have a numerical advantage anymore.

Damn, this is so much fun compared to any other game on the market right now, it isn't even close.

--Dave

Truth.  And thanks for the post, very entertaining.

All the alliances that live in BoB space are, well, living in BoB Space and should be expected to be treated as such.  You don't seriously think BoB's roving squards aren't attacking ASCN's non-combat corps? 

I don't understand how getting that Xelas outpost was anything but a great move by ASCN.  Huge morale boost, a black eye for BoB (I can't believe people are arguing that it doesn't matter because it's not an official BoB outpost - They took territory in BoB space. It doesn't say Xelas territory on the map), and a perfect way to make BoB split it's forces. 

Complaining about insulting comments from ASCN?  Come on.  BoB is unmatched when it comes to bratty forum warriors.

That said, I'm sure ASCN is smart enough to realize that antagonizing FIX at this point would not help them at all.  I just don't get why FIX is complaining about a rather smart move by ASCN.

And how do you figure BoB is winning?  Kill Ratios are fairly meaningless in war between two huge powers.  The way I see it, ASCN is the one who's actually taken territory (though I'm sure not permanently)

Just my thoughts as a outsider.  One that is rooting for ASCN, admittedly.  :-)

Kill ratios matter because it seems wars in Eve are often determined by attrition. Individuals and corps stop fighting when their wallets run out of isk. ASCN is probably very rich, but who knowns if their individual members are?

Whoops, BoB took a station in ASCN space. 

It's only a victory for ASCN if they manage to keep it, it's another embarassment if they don't.  And trust me, kill ratios are *everything* in a protracted alliance struggle, as opposed to a blitz attack, having not been resolved in the first couple of weeks, this will come down to who runs out of materiel first (and ASCN is definitely showing all the signs of cracking there).  BOB is coming up short on renter income, but the backbone of their economy has always been the incredible number of T2 BPO's they have (they were the first alliance to actively subsidize and encourage their pilot's Research Mission farming, back over two years ago before everybody and their brother was in the T2 lottery).  That's independant of the territory, and ASCN can't touch it.

Why does FIX care?  Because the same logic that led them to attack Xelas makes FIX an equally "valid" target.  There are also other signs of preparations by ASCN for an attack on Querious.

And why is it anything other than a victory for ASCN?  Because at a stroke, they have doubled the number of combatants against them, as well as divided their forces (who were already barely managing to make up with numbers what they lacked in quality).  And they would triple it if they came to Querious (there's a renter alliance founded by an ex-FIX corp in Q that would probably not sit it out if they were actively attacking).

Don't count on ASCN being too smart to attack FIX.  They've already done things that would have had us in this war, if BOB hadn't asked us to stay out.  Frankly, I'm not sure the ASCN leadership is all that bright at strategy and diplomacy, compared to their abilities at internal management.

--Dave

BoB's T2 advantage is going to have its back broken in Kali, though, through a combination of the invention stuff and also the indirect nerfs T2 is getting. It'll be interesting to see what happens then. :)

Anyway, I've changed my mind on this - I want BoB to win and ASCN to sign up as a BoB vassal...just to see what the reactions of D2 et al. would be to BoB backed up with ASCN's manufacturing muscle.  :lol:

BoB doesn't need ASCN's manufacturing muscle, BoB has it's own.

Odds are, the only thing keeping BoB from just burning everything to the ground currently are the games mechanics themselves. I eagerly await the day the stations in 0.0 are not just conquerable, but destroyable. Watching all but a handfull of alliances get sent back to the 'stone age' would be entertaining.

Yeah, but being able to build titans in six weeks instead of three months would be fun. ;)

I'd say that once all of Kali (1+2) goes live, there's going to be some major changes in 0.0 space anyway - at least, if CCP manage to figure out how to kill the things they want gone (POS wars, blob vs blob, instas, etc).

I'm quite curious as to what's going to happen in the new regions opening up.  I can certainly see Goons making a move for it, but who else?  0.0 is already pretty damn empty as it is. 

Anyone know if the new regions are coming with Kali 1 or 2?

I'm not sure, but I think even if you had all the materials handy at once, a Titan would still take 3 months. That is how long its Craft Bar takes to complete.

New regions come with Kali 1.  Most of the links to it from 0.0 are in either D2 or Red Alliance space, which should make things interesting.  The current war between RA and LV is probably about RA staking out control and pushing back the perimeter.  They want to get in there and find the phat money exploits before anyone else even knows about them, so they can replace the revenue stream they lost when CCP found out about and nerfed the 8/10 respawns.

--Dave

When does the exploration changes happen? I was under the impression that things would be changing so that you first had to scan to locate belts, and then move there to mine (and also hidden deadspaces, etc) -- in order to cut down on gold-farmers, and spread out the mining game so it isn't a bunch of people popping the new spawns into pre-anchored cans.

Also, has there been anything more hinted at in terms of handling instas? I remember  Dev discussing how bookmarks were killing them with people making tons of instas per system.

To derail for a moment...I've always thought there was something game-breakingly "wrong" with instas. Granted, I used them too, but I always felt a little dirty doing it, but only until I happened upon a group camping the gate i jumped onto.

What mechanism are they going to come up with to replace instas?  Presumably they're not just going to say "everyone not in a covert/blockade runner/similar is now going to get ganked a lot more: suck it up"?

I don't know, and I don't get paid to think about stuff like "answers" or "solutions."   :-P

It does seem that CCP is not real huge on instas either.

Easy. You jump where you want without waiting 15km to get there.  This won't change combat because people who fight use insta's anyway.

CCP have (again) said that they want to kill instas, but they're not being rash about it. They dislike instas for both the gameplay reasons, and also because they're causing the EVE database server(s) to go into meltdown on a pretty regular basis.

My guess is reducing the 'warp to' distance significantly (but not to zero*) combined with a "You cannot bookmark within X km of a gate/station/etc" code change and a wipe of all bookmarks that break that rule (laz-e-boy version: Wipe of all bookmarks)

*+50% shield/armour hp is going to make gate ganks slightly more survivable anyway - the trick will be finding a sweet spot between making gate camps impossible to survive (from a defending PoV) and impossible to do (from the camping PoV).

Edit: Apparently, the NPC 'rats' in the new regions are going to be...rogue drones, therefore no named modules, lots of minerals (and, apparently, lots of parts for rigs). That's going to be an interesting local economy.

One idea tossed out was to give a trainable skill that increased jump accuracy. Fully trained, you might end up warping in a km or 2 off the gate -- rather than 15. There was a running argument about how close to the gate/bookmark/whatever you should land with the max possible skills, implants, etc. I believe they were also considering changing it so that 'random distance from the gate' for untrained dropped you somewhere in a 15 to 20km sphere around the bookmark/gate/beacon/whatever -- instead of a straightline Xkm short of target thing.

In that case, instas are useless -- bookmarking the exact location places you as close to it as possible (on average) on each warp, no matter where you come from. Train up the skills, and you might drop within 2k of the bookmark each time.

I don't see that as impossible, although I remember there was some drawbacks to it.

If I could stab people in the face over the internet, the 'Oh, let's nerf something, then tack on a month's worth of skill training to what you need to even pretend that you're on semi-equal footing" types would be first. It kind of ties back in to what was being said over at the RMT thread. And it applies much more heavily in Eve where the consentualness of PvP is ... debatable. That's just my take on things.

SOMETHING will be done about bookmarks. They're stored server-side for reasons CCP isn't going to budge on, and it's killing their DB's when people load into the system because people who use instas tend to have a hell of a lot per system.

A skill system isn't actually that bad -- if nothing else, training up in the skill means you're safer when jumping into new systems (rather than requiring instas you bought from someone else or an escort) and safer on autopilot. Yeah, until you train up the skill you're not as safe as you were -- but on the whole, it makes it harder for ganks and safer to travel.

I didn't whine like a little bitch when they nerfed drones -- I just trained DI and got on with my life. And I'm looking forward to using sentries.

And for the record -- PvP in EVE isn't supposed to be 'consentual'. It is, in fact, generally the exact damn opposite. Instas were a reaction to gate-camping -- it's gone on for so long because the CCP Devs aren't fond of gate-camping either. Whatever replaces it will probably result in a better overall situation for travellers, and a crappier one for gate campers.

Even with instas you can get snagged at the gate. And if you don't have instas for a system, you're fucked even if you're just trying to travel through. I suspect that between the shield and armor changes and whatever they use to replace instas (skills to allow jump targetting and more random arrival at a gate/location/bookmark) that gate-camping will be harder and travel safer. Training a fucking skill -- which you do all the time anyways -- for that isn't so much of a price, is it?

The problem is the skill becomes "required". Not having the skill at all would suck so badly that it isn't even a consideration. The learning skills have the same problem currently. They were put in, in a atempt to allow younger pilots to catchup somewhat with the vets in SkillPoints. In practice they do the exact opposite and require every new player have atleast X rank in each learning skill, or fall even further behind the curve. In a competitive game, that already heavily favors the vets in terms of power and advantage, adding in more mandatory skills that just increase the time for a new pilot to become viable is a bad idea.

You already spend your first month or two training up learning and the basic piloting skills before you start going into your specilization. Adding another potential few weeks/months of skills is just going to make the game even more harsh on the new pilots. The game is already significantly harsh on the fresh meat as is, no need to add in another 'SP Tax'.

Actually, before you guys get too mad at the skill being required, it is ONE of the solutions they're considering.  Another that they've mentioned is everyone being able to warp in at 0 KM manually, with the autopilot defaulting to 15 KM.  So, basically free instas for everyone, provided you take the time to click.

Whatever they do, I don't see a solution working properly unless they also address gate camping with a massive blob, in some way.

Oh good lord. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? "Oh noes! I can't travel to low-sec space without my 'harder to gank at the gate skillz'!". Well, how the hell did you manage to get to low-sec space to mine, trade or move around in the first place?

Did you buy instas? Which meant you had to grind out some cash (or buy it) to pay for it. Did you just go there, suffer the occasional attack, and make a horde of instas for every system?

Both of those are fucking work. Work for the cash to buy them, or work to make dozens of damn boo marks in every system so you have an insta network. Fuck that, I'd rather just train a skill.

And you don't need fucking instas to be a viable pilot. If you want to be a viable combat pilot right out of the damn gate, you're going to train frig skills and play tackler for friends -- you're travelling in a group and don't need the goddamn instas -- or a skill that replaced them. If you're mining in fucking gank-land, you better have fucking friends escorting you as well. If you're trading, well --- how do you plan to survive long enough to make all those damn instas in the first place? Going to train up some combat skills? Do it in a series of disposable shuttles?

Fuck, you waste more time making -- or getting --  instas than training some skill would cost you. It's a nice generic skill that's handy in any damn ship you ever fly, in any system you ever go to, to any station you ever dock at. And you'd turn it down because you'd rather rely on lag-causing instas that have to be painstakingly made for every goddamn possible route through every goddamn system you want to use them in?

Skills in EVE are an offline affair. You're always training one skill or another, and it's ALWAYS a trade off. This doesn't change a damn thing. The only people that are going to need it are people who travel solo in low-sec space a lot. Those people -- generally well advanced folks, as the newbies tend to either fly disposable or in groups -- are going to be able to train them damn quick and go about their business with less damn lag.

It's not going to make the game "more harsh on new pilots". Low-sec space -- which is where instas come in goddamn necessary -- are already harsh on new pilots. This gives them an alternative to "Dying a zillion fucking times putting together instas for one damn system" or "Spending a shitton of ISK I don't have, because I'm a fucking newb so I had to buy, to get instas so I can travel to a goddamn low-sec system". I think if you ask the actual newbs on that one, they'd probably prefer the skill.

Ajax: Either works for me, although I prefer the skill -- can you imagine how mind-numbingly atrocious long flights would be with manual clicks? Ugh. As for gate-camping blobs -- I suspect that'll be addressed too. The CCP folks don't seem to like that either.

They'll go with the manual selection of warp to zero eventually because they have to.

With instas, everyone who can afford it already has a "warp to zero" option.  Any change to the mechanics of the game that forces people to land anywhere other than on the gate increases both their travel time and risk.  An increase to travel time and risk will result in even less people in low sec and 0.0.

Instas are indeed a problem, but 80-90% of the players hugging high sec is a bigger problem IMO.  Replacing instas with something less accurate will make that problem worse.

Sometimes I find CCP amusing.  They don't even realize that what they were saying for the longest time was "Please spread out into low sec and 0.0  Quit hugging high sec.  Ohhh, BTW, we are going to nerf instas which of course will make travel take longer and more dangerous."   :roll:

Where did I say I thought the current Insta system was great?


What I'm saying, is if you put in a skill that is SO good, that *everyone* will take it, no matter if they are high sec or low sec, miner or pirate, solo corp or mega alliance... why is it even a skill to train and not just base functionality? You've just added another week/month (no idea on what CCP would be thinking of in terms of train time/prereqs on such a skill) of training to *everyone's* character, to what end? To have everyone equal out with the same functionality insta's provided? At that point, you should just have ships warping to the gates as default.

I know I'd much rather be training up my specialization skills (in my case, drones mostly :p) then having to put it all on delay so I can reclaim my lost insta functionality.

I think Fordel has a point. Adding yet another compulsory skill and time sink that everybody absolutely must have in order to play competitively is a bad idea and the learning skills are a good example of what happens when you add one. It's not particularly fun to be forced to take two months away from training useful skills just to get them. Oh, and Morat - not everyone only logs in once a month to switch skills. Try to calm down.

How it could work (IMO, of course):
The randomised warp-in of whatever distance works best for balance.
A 'cheap' (in training time terms) skill called something like "Navigational Accuracy" which would reduce the warp-in distance to a few km (2-4km or so) but still in a randomised area around the location. This is your "Everyone in low-sec needs this" skil and as such is designed to be as painless to train as possible.
A much more expensive (again, in training time terms) called 'Pinpoint Navigation' which further reduces the warp-in distance to 0-2km. This is your "Pirates/Big Corps/People in dangerous areas of low-sec need this" skill.
No bookmarking allowed within 25km of jump gates or stations.

Totally agreed.  You could mitigate that by giving new characters the skill right off the bat, but then if it's such a no brainer to train why not just let everyone warp to jump range anyway? 

My favoured solution would be a navigation module - probably highslot - that comes with either a combat penalty of some kind or a high CPU requirement.  So haulers/runners would be pretty much uneffected, solo combat pilots could wiegh up the cost/benefit of having instagate ability and gangs would be just dandy with a dedicated instajumper.  That would add a new layer of strategy to travel without fucking people over.  But as of now new characters are being fucked badly - insta copying is hellishly slow and prices are through the roof (if you're lucky enough to know a reliable seller) while established people already have their instas.


But a "warp to 0" skill wouldn't just help running hostile gates, pretty much every action in the game would become so much faster.  Mining, hauling, mission running, scouting and trading all involve a lot of moving towards gates or stations too.  If I was a fresh faced newbie I'd train this hypothetical skill to 5 before before tackling advanced learning even.

My opinion is that they do realize what they're saying, but the majority of the playerbase, and especially the influx of new players that they desperately need, don't agree with their Vision.  They've captured and exhausted the pool of "let's wage perma-PvP war and play Alliance politics" players long ago, and the only people left that may be interested in the game are of the "I want an easy, PvE, WoW-in-space game" variety.

How the hell is endless catass gate camping Grand PvP and politics?  I think 90% of low sec combat in Eve consist of gate camping.  The problem is they have there "Vision" like EQ, and much like EQ, it involves pounding nails into your dick to play the game.  You can only find so many players who enjoy that before you get normal people who want there damn game to be fun and not punish you for playing.  Instas were one way to get around some of the mind numbingly painfull aspects of playing Eve.  They should take that as a hint and try to take some of that pain away, rather than keep it.

Eve has alot of potential, but ultimatly, I find it falls short on delivering in actual game play experience.  The who politics and empire building is cool, and an aspect I really like and want to see more games impliment, but unfortuanatly I found that what we are doing right now is the funnest part of that.  Talking about it on a message board.  Its a great read, but actually taking part in alot of this is just painful.  Im having more fun reading about this BoB war than I did taking part in any battles in low sec space, heh.

Let someone else make that game then. There would be no point in practically breaking the current game to make the one you refer to.

And besides, it's already been done. Earth and Beyond, anyone? Granted, it was partially EA's fault for killing the game the way they did, but still. Diku-in-space is no great shakes.

Yup, not saying I want EVE changed, just that the recent influx of newbies seem to be of the carebear variety, and that that clashes with CCP's goals for 0.0.

1) Look, objecting to solving a problem via a new skill in EVE is like objecting to leveling via "killing shit" in WoW. (Even quests boil down to killing shit). The whole entire goddamn advancement system in EVE boils down to training skills. Even to use the loot, you've got to have the fucking skjills.
2) I suspect that a skill-based solution to the problem would be two-tiered -- a quick to train basic tier, and an advanced tier that takes longer. Just like basic and advanced learning skills.
3) If it's module based, I bet you'd need a skill to use it....
4) No, it would not be a 'required skill'. It would be a fucking useful one, however, for anyone playing in low-sec. However, that's true of most skills. People in high-sec would train it just to cut down jump times between stations and high-sec systems, and would do so casually. By the time they moved to low-sec, they'd already have the bulk of the skill trained and be ready for the advanced version. (The same way I'm currently ramping up fuel conservation -- it's suddenly more useful to me than it was two months ago, so I'm training it).
5) Newbs being carebears: Of course they are. They're fucking new to the game. Unless they join a corp willing to outfit them, they can't afford to fly in low-sec. They can't survive there until they gain the required skills, ISK, and modules to make it possible to do more than die. That will change as they grow into the game.
6) I can understand why it's upsetting to, say, have your giant collection of painstakingly gathered instas invalidated and replaced with a skill or set of skills that might take three or more months to train to get you back to where you were. It sucks, and I'm not going to argue that. On the other hand, you'll get a hell of an improvement in lag and you won't have to keep gathering instas everytime you settle into a new system -- like the new areas opening up soon.
7) I don't think "Click to warp to Zero" is going to be a solution, simply because that invalidates the autopilot and the autopilot is damn necessary. Or if they do have a "click to warp to zero distance" they'll ALSO have the skill to allow warps with higher accuracy to keep the autopilot useful.. In that case, it wouldn't be a necessary skill to have, but a damn nice one for anyone doing a lot of travelling. (Like traders).

How is the Autopilot not invalidated by the insta system currently? All I use it for currently is to see which bookmark to mash next if it is a unfamiliar route.



I still don't understand how the idea of making everyone train for an extra month is superior to just making it a base mechanic of the game. By your own admission, it would suck. WHY would we want 'suck'? I'm saying, if the solution is to just let people warp in on top of the gates, just let them do it by default then. As far as I can understand, you want the same thing, but with a extra month of training tacked on because... "that's just how shit IS in EVE!" or something.

Of course the REAL issue is the gate system itself, it's like every system in EVE has its own AMG in Emain. Pair that up with the more or less improbability of actually seeing another soul outside of a belt/planet/moon... small wonder people camp gates ;)

True -- instas invalidate autopilot. You don't use autopilot if you have instas in system. A good portion of people getting snagged by gatecampers are people travelling on auto through low-sec. Without auto, moving any real distance is a pain in the ass. With it, you run a too-serious risk of gatecamping.

If you had a "click to zero distance" option then you wouldn't need instas. If you added a trained skill to reduce warps that weren't clicked (IE: Autopilot) then you'd ALSO allow people doing long journeys to be harder to gate camp. (You could still set up a bubble, of course -- but instas don't help you there either). That would result in PvP moving to asteroid belts (ganking miners) and the new encounter areas you're supposed to find via scanning, rather than harassing travelers.

Probably a kick in the nuts to pirates, but it'll move people around more by making travel easier. And then the pirates will have to buy scanners and find folks that way (and I understand the scanners might make it easier for them to do that).

Edit to add: Not sure I'm being clear. I think adding a 'click to zero' feature (or click to 1k or something) as a change, or as a module or something, is a good idea. Further, I think adding a skill that reduces auto jump distances as you train the skill is good too. Both seems even better, as it totally rids you of the need for instas and makes life easier on multi-gate trips. I don't think CCP had in mind Gate-camping or station camping in any case. With the new scanners, PC rats should be able to locate anyone doing anything in system (mining, exploring, whatever) and of course actual "go looking for battle" fleets will be webbing and scrambling and generally making warping impossible anyways.

From the dev chat for those of you who haven't read it:

Oveur: Instajumps is something we've been talking a whole lot the last weeks
Oveur: and getting feedback from all around about what to do
Oveur: personally, I'm standing between in two camps, the "warp to 0 with autopilot on 15" and the "remove them and use the tools you got to begin with, mwd's and ab's to move"
Oveur: pretty much lost faith in any thing between that, but i'm not the only one with an opinion on this and in this case, much more than chairs have been broken

What I'm saying is make warp to 1k (or whatever the ideal range is) default behaviour. Making people click the 0km option out of the list of 15k, 30k etc... is pointless busy work and having a skill to train to auto 0-1k you from the gate is just another mandatory skill that isn't really needed. This of course, assumes CCP actually wants us to keep instas, they were never intended in the first place :)

To elaborate, say they put in the Click to gate, 15k on auto... what will end up happening is exactly what happens with bookmarks now. You setup your auto-pilot route but don't actually turn it on. Then you just use it as a checklist as you click your next warp target. Only difference would be the removal of the 40billion gate bookmarks everyone has, which would be a good thing but wouldn't actually change any practical mechanics in the end. Now add in your skill idea, which does the same thing as clicking but less busy work with the GUI at the cost of a week/month of training time. I say remove all that crap, and just have everyone autopilot or manualpilot, warp to the 'insta' range to gates and stations. As far as actual gameplay, all of the above methods result in the exact same thing, be it Bookmark Insta's or Click to 0km or TrainedSkill to 0km... I say if CCP decides they do infact want insta's to stay, just make it default warp behaviour with no strings attached. No need to keep existing loopholes or create new ones.

The thing that worries me a little bit, I'm not so sure CCP actually wants insta's to stay in anyform at all. So umm, hurrah to quadrupling traveling times if they remove them all out  :-(

I could live with the removal of instas if they put in the manual "click to zero" jumping. If they did that I wouldn't mind if they added a new skill that would reduce your default warp in distance. That skill wouldn't be necessary except for afk travel in high sec so I don't see any harm in making those guys invest a few days/weeks of training time to do it.

But if all they do is take out instas and put in the skill it will be mandatory for anyone who does any travelling at all. The same way having your advanced learning skills to 4 is mandatory for anyone who's played more than 6 months.

I personally don't care too much how we get to the place we all want to get to.  Another skill or two is OK with me.  Skill+module is fine.  I would not even argue too hard against making so anyone, including the farming trial accounts, could simply just warp to 0km without any effort... although I don't care for that too much.  We want to be in a galaxy without instas.

Autopilot is already only useful for AFK highsec travel.  I would like the skill-based solution since it would help me everywhere, thereby encouraging travel which is what CCP wants, and me too.  A module would require a skill, but I'm not opposed to that either.  I don't like the idea of letting everyone do it without any expended effort.  Since I am mining ice already, why can't I just have it appear in my hangar instead of requiring the kludge of hauling it manually?  The mining barge skill is a must-have, so I should just have it right from the start.  I am, of course, being ridiculous but there is a line somewhere between default behavior and tedious skill grind.  In the case of a Warp Accuracy skill, it is unlike the Learning skills since the hypothetical WA skill actually does something.  All I can think of while training a Learning skill is how I'm not training something that makes me a better pilot.  The Warp Acc skill fits naturally into the Navigation group, along with such necessities as... well, most everything in Navigation.  Skills for AB and MWD are pretty much a requirement, and I feel that one or possibly two more isn't going to hurt.  Three is too much, though.

Eliminating the bookmark system, I assume, means we cannot set bookmarks at all and we will then have to rely on warping to objects.  Some method of warping into jump/dock distance will be required, the notion of wiping instas and not having a replacement system is lazy and bad.  We would still be provided bookmarks by mission agents, of course, we just would not be able to set our own.

Would a warp-to-zero option make gameplay (for non-pirates) too easy?  This is probably where most of the arguments lie.  I submit that travelers will still need to be at the controls due to warp bubbles, so allowing an autopilot-to-0km system isn't going to break things, really.  People in slow ships can still be caught by faster ships, as happens currently even with instas since you still have to align to warp out.  Not having to manually click will free the pursued pilot to do other things, if only ask for help from his corp and bite his nails.  So I guess I'm in the "skill up to autopilot down to 0km" camp.

Call me strange, but I think they should leave it at 15 and encourage gate camps.

Imagine KNOWING that nothing is going to get through. It would be great. (To be a gate camper).

I was wondering if they had considered that, what with the push towards increasing defenses and all.  Maybe giving the tissue-paper ships more of a chance to run the 15km gauntlet?  You don't want to make lowsec and 0.0 trivial to enter, I guess.

Don't understand why the hauler ships are defenseless...  that was a bad design decision in my opinion.

But, eh.  Their main concern is with removing the lag, and not really with altering the gate-camp / instajump dynamic.  The way EVE is designed, most combat will still happen at gates, regardless of how easy it is to scan or hide, etc.

Not all of the hauler ships are defenseless.  Minmatar ships especially tend to be tough nuts, since they are intended to shield tank (so you can tank while leaving the lows clear for expanders/WCS/nanos).  A battle-Mammoth can be a nasty surprise for an Interceptor when he turns around and scrambles/webs the ceptor, then starts chewing him up.  Battle-rigged Prowlers can take out just about any frigate, and a Mastodon that has a good active tank can pretty much just ignore them unless there's 3+ (I once tanked a Taranis and a Stilletto for over 5 minutes, until friends finally gated in and killed one).

You can also fit ECM on just about any of them to break a raider's lock and warp away.  You're not going to run a gate camp without special preparation and the right ship (I do it all the time in my Prowler), but that's true of anyone flying solo in 0.0.

--Dave

Latest (political) rumour: Strange things are afoot at the Circle K on the borders of Fountain...freighter movement, covert ops ships, etc. Depending on who you ask, the ships belong to either D2 or RISE.

D2 is currently fighting in that mess up in Venal, and I really don't see them as likely to want to add a piece of territory as hard to hold as Fountain to the mix (they're more likely to want to add more of the Kali region links).  RISE is a much stronger candidate, the only way I see D2 involved is if they've struck a deal with D2 for later support in Venal.  Just what that mess needs, another couple of alliances in the mix.

I can see D2 doing it on the principle that anything that weakens BOB improves their own position, and supporting a RISE expansion gives them a stronger buffer against BOB.  But not trying to take it for themselves, they'd turn towards IRON or Freelancer first.  Frankly, D2 is probably at their limit of expansion, getting much more widespread will probably cause them to fracture.

--Dave

Did I mention I fucking love this game? I wanted so bad to go to the fan fest. I HATE fan fests. I wouldn't attend a fan fest if it occured two miles down the street for any other game. But EVE? Hell yeah.

Just to sit around, drink vodka, and wait for some of the forum warriors to realize their arch-forum-nemesis is that chubby dude over there.

Plus, I think CCP deserves some public support. I honestly think smaller game companies (IE: Everyone but Blizzard) should pay more attention to what CCP did than Blizzard.

BOB has a titan now : http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=423174


Let the E-peen wagging commence!

Fantastic, I hope we get some titan-on-titan action soon.  Seems unlikely, but one can hope.