f13.net

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=442186

Bastard, I was coming to post this.

Looks like my predictions about the BoB-ASCN war were entirely wrong.  I wonder how much longer before ASCN tries to negotiate a cease-fire?

I got the impression it was an afk kill -- something to do with an aggression timer and scanning? How does that work?

Heh, I wonder what the wreck dropped when they salvaged it.

Not as much as it would have dropped after Wednesday!

I am pretty sure even I could find a titan with my n00b scanning. Hell, there is probably a good chance of picking it up with the naked eye  :-P

ASCN keeps saying he CTD and couldn't log back in, but that just seems too convenient. I hope CCP doesn't reimburse them.

Has to be something, the things are practically unkillable under normal circumstance.

What's CCP's criteria for a reimbursement? Surely they have some client and server data to indicate whether a client suffered a CTD. There should be a pattern of repeated login attempts under his name, for one.

Holy shit.  That must have been an interesting five minutes for his roommate.  Something like that happened to me, the echoes would still be bouncing around.

While a CTD is certainly possible, do you think he would honestly say anything else?

That would be the real shocker in a Titan kill, the pilot just owning up and going "yeah, I lost it, the end."

Psha, I kill titans all the time, it's hardly a big deal.

...

Oh, I suppose there's a considerable difference between BF2142 titans are the ones that takes months or years to get on EvE.

The ASCN stories are all over the place. Power failure, CTD, lag..etc. None of them are consistent. One rumor is that he was having problems with his computer and decided to switch, logged off with aggro and BoB scanned at the right time.

What is the relationship between the aggro/aggression countdown and scanning? The context I'm getting is that he'd have been safe IF he hadn't still had his countdown ticking.

Unlikely - any login problems are more likely to have been on the client end, or a problem with his internet connection getting through to the login server or somesuch.

From CCPs perspective it's never going to be easy to see the difference between a CTD and someone yanking the network cable out the back of their PC.

As far as I understand the aggro timer keeps you in the game. It's 15 minutes on a Titan (or all ships?) Apparently he was at 13 and logged off anyway. BoB scanned the Titan down and demolished it.

Aggro timer is 15 minutes for everyone.

It's AROUND 15 minutes...

Does your ship despawn when you're out of the game? I thought it just warped you off to the middle of nowhere -- a nowhere that, I suppose, could now be found by the scanning system. Did they change it, or was I just wrong on what happened when you logged in space?

It warps you off to the middle of nowhere and then, if you're not aggressed, it despawns you and your ship. There's some minor delay even if you aren't aggressed, I think.

Player aggression timer or any aggression timer ?

If you've shot at or been shot at by someone, 15 minutes, including NPC's.  If somebody hits you with anything in that time, it resets.

--Dave

RA was killing dreads that way in the battle for their home system. Dread pilots were crashing, the ship would warp out into where ever space, RA would scan it and kill it.

Dear ASCN,

(http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=8837.0;attach=2231)

Hugs,
  World.

RA fights especially dirty.

So, about how much effort goes in to making a titan?

I think it took ASCN, what, 1.5 months of concerted effort? And they're one of the largest (in terms of money and player-power) alliances in the game, with some very rich space. BoB also got one, I think around after 2-2.5 months of effort, and they're also quite rich and powerful.

So... A lot. A couple man-years, probably.

Takes a couple of man-years just to haul the bits to the POS it is being contructed at.

--Dave

Didn't BoB win theirs in the last tourney? At least that's what I heard.

It was an inside job, you know it was. Now the real question is...shouldn'y it have had a serious escort?

Wouldn't matter if the pilot DC'ed and the ship got warped to a random spot in the system.

BOB won a couple of motherships in the last two tournements, reports have it that LV's titan was actually the first one built, and there was a sighting on scanner of an Erebus (all the confirmed Titans are Avatars), that was several months ago and no sign of it since (some of us think it was just a ship of some other type *named* "Erebus").  Odds are that every major alliance either has one, or has plans to build one in various stages of development.  So far, the only Mothership to be used in combat belongs to a pirate corp, who used it in combination with interceptors in low-sec.  Hasn't been seen since Kali and the scanning changes (it was always parked in a deep safe, which would no longer be so safe).  If D2 doesn't have one, I'd be very surprised, ditto for RA.

--Dave

If they have these ships why don't they use them?

Why all the stupid Amarr Avatars?

Ship doesn't warp off to random spot, it warps off to nearby spot when you CTD/log off, and then it either despawns, or remains there if you're aggressed.  They were apparently scanning for it, and with the scanner it wouldn't matter whether the ship was at its original spot or at a nearby spot, heh.

As far as reimbursement if it was a real CTD, there are options.  Personally, if the logs clearly indicate a CTD / whatever (a real reason for reimbursement), if I were CCP I'd figure out something in terms of reimbursing ISK / materials / whatever, so they can make another one perhaps in a shorter period of time, but I wouldn't reimburse the titan itself.  It's a historical kill.

I asked about this, apparently 2 years ago Amarr ships were Ubar, and there was little else to train for (almost no T2 ships, few T2 modules) so a lot of the oldest characters wound up with Amarr BS 5.  Since BS5 is the largest chunk of what you have to train for capital ships, those characters went on to fly Amarr dreads and carriers (even thought the best ones are Minmatar and Gallente, respectively), and now Amarr titans.

Myself, I'm skipping HAC's, Command Ships, and really BS (I'll train BS 5 skill but not the large T2 guns), and going straight to Carriers.  Should be in one in about 3 months, might even have enough money for my own mothership (depends on whether someone else in the alliance has already bought the BPO's).  Motherships don't really need any more skill than carriers, Carrier 3 rather than 1 but you really need Carrier 4 for both anyway (2 week train) because of the fighter count bonus.

Nyx (Gallente mothership) is bad-ass for fleet fights, immune to EW and up to 22 fighters with 40% damage bonus so they do the damage of 30 (or about as much as 10-12 BS).  Sucker could probably solo a POS.  As for why BOB doesn't fly their motherships, could be as simple as the teams that won them not being able to agree who gets to fly them.

--Dave

It's Gang bonus is the most universal, some bonus to cap regen rate.

From the official thread:

Oooo....someone is in trouble.

Is "warp to gang-member" out since the last update ?

Still need need to shell out the ~750 million ISK for cap ship III and Caldari Carrier I to play around in a Chimera myself (can't afford a Wyvern).  Not the best carrier out there, but I already have Caldari BS V.

That, and I have to find a good time to risk the freighter hauling cap ship parts out to low-sec. :P

BoB claims that the Avatar was supposedly parked in a known ASCN safespot, instead of your typical 'Warp in random direction and wait for x minutes' disconnect.

To me, that implies carelessness with the aggression timers rather than a crash. If it's true, of course. ;)

I recall seeing someone from ASCN saying that it was him in a safespot switching chars or computers. A couple of choice quotes from ASCN members can be pulled from that thread too.

At least when you CTDed in EQ your character would fight back.

That's the beauty of auto-attack :-D

I've kinda had the goal of flying a Gallente Carrier sitting around in the back of my mind. On the one hand -- I don't really have a need for it. On the other hand, it appears to be the ultimate expression of my belief that "Drones = Awesome".

I re-upped yesterday to train to Carrier. Polysorbate80 just torpedoed the idea by mentioning it costs 750 million for the two carrier skills.

You also can't jump them into systems with a security rating higher than 0.4, or take them into dead-space.  They're 0.0 territorial warfare toys.  An interceptor with 5 of them (EDIT: fighters) assigned to it has the throw weight of a couple of battleships.

--Dave

You're killing my dreams, man. :)

More seriously -- sooner or later I have to leave the happy place of Empire space for 0.0. So far the only PvP I've been in was when a pair of idiots tried to jump me when I was in a .4 belt. I didn't get a chance to see who would have won (their T1 frigs versus my T1 cruiser) because they fled as soon as I dropped my drones. I guess they thought I was there to mine or something.

I know it's completely impractical for a one-man corporation to play around with a carrier, but I'm still getting one for the fun of it :)

EVEtv mouthpiece Spiraljunkie reports that Cyvok is resigning, with a screenshot from ASCN's private forums. (http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=443078)

When even BoB says you crossed the line in the forums... wow.  Looks like he posted with the wrong character and tried to delete it. 

Does explain his favortism towards BoB and animosity towards ASCN during the Alliance tourney.

About the Dreads and Carriers - I beg to differ, both merc corps I've been in (Rage of Angles before and KIA now) have had almost exclusively Thantoses (gallente carriers) and a healthy mix of dreads, with Moros (gallente again) being the most common. While what you're saying is most likely true, I don't think that's the reason to choosing the mushroom as the preferred titan. I think it mostly has to do with the set bonus it gives to fleets (namely - 7.5% bonus to gang members’ capacitor recharge rate per level). Anyone can use some better cap recharge, while not everyone armor tanks (+7.5% Armor - Gallente Titan), shield tanks (+7.5% Shield - Caldari Titans) or flies an interceptor (-7.5% Sig Radius - LOL MINMATAR).

As for CYVOK - his PC crashed. Plain and simple. Tough luck. But does he really believe bob put a trojan on his PC and rebooted it? I mean w-t-f? Than he goes all emo on his blog and blames CCP for not reimbursing him? Over the past few weeks I've lost any respect I previously had for CYVOK, too bad he drags down his' alliance's accomplishments along with him.

btw - what's the corp of spiral's main? Is he in maelstorm like everyone thought?

what's the insurance on a Titan?  Does the game allow you to buy insurance on such a thing?

you can't dock in a titan, hence you can't insure it. You only get basic payout... maybe. Only CYVOK knows :)

there must be some compensation.  Not like CCP to design out such a punitive thing.  Build the ultimate and lose everything from that effort?  Doubtful.

I'm sure you get a newbie frigate when you dock, so it's not a total loss.

loler

Word is that the payout is 40%

I'm sure that's what the Emperor said when they got the Death Star. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGwBqqeJKMI)

I would expect 40% of the itemdatabase value because every ship automatically gets that (since Cold War? Exodus? I really don't know).

Thanatos and Nyx (Gallente) are definitely the best carriers, nobody argues about that, the fighter damage bonus is Teh Ubar for a ship class that depends on its fighters.  And the best dread is arguable, depends on "best for what?", with the incredibly powerful alpha-strike of the Minmatar Naglfar tipping the balance post-Revelations, IMO (now that they can actually be used in fleet battles, being able to insta-pop a BS makes you the ultimate sniper).

But that sig-radius bonus is *far* under-rated.  The only obvious effect of the signature radius of a ship is how fast an enemy can get a target lock on you, but it is all *through* the combat calculations.  It determines how often you get hit, how hard you get hit, ties in with transversal for whether you get hit at all (this is why ships with MWD's on get killed so fast if they don't completely outrun the tracking).  30% sig reduction means that in any calculation where your sig radius is not hugely larger than that of the guns you're taking fire from (battleships taking fire from frigate-grade guns) you're going to take about half as much damage overall.  That blows the tanking bonuses out of the water.

Cap boosting bonus is important only to ships that are significantly cap-limited, and to fully exploit it you have to fit your ship based on it, otherwise it just saves you cap charges.  Tanking bonuses only to the ships that are fit to tank that way, but Sig Radius boosts everybody.

--Dave

There must have been some sort of client issue. Titans can take quite a bit of damage, have a huge tank and usually come with one or two Doomsday devices, which could have taken care about a lot of ships, and if only about the near-by tacklers to get the fuck out.

Yeah, that goes without saying. The only question was "Did he CTD and was unable to log back in" or "Did he log out?". Both are technically client issues.

I don't know anything about EVE, but letting major capital ships blunder around unescorted does seem like sort of a boneheaded policy...  Especially one worth fifteen god damned thousand dollars, or whatever.

You'd think that a guild organized enough to build the thing would've been organized enough to have a fleet following it around to make sure nobody destroyed it.

The guy flying it was the CEO of the 4000 member alliance.

Why would it impossible to tell whether someone CTD'd or logged out? Latter should record a proper signoff in the database (CCP logs playtime).

This thread could now be called "BoB kills ASCN" because it is pretty much carved in stone at this point. CYVOK quit after the Titan was destroyed and now corporations are bailing left and right. Many of them had BoB spies and/or "cooperatives" in the leaving corps and they stole goods and offlined POSs left and right on their way out. I do not see a light at the end of the tunnel for ASCN. Who is next for BoB to destroy?

D2, if you read the official boards. 

The looks of the current strategic situation is that what we have fondly referred to as the "Great Southern Clusterfuck" (IAC vs. whoever they managed to piss off this week, plus MC and FIX) is becoming the trigger for the Great Southern War (RAGOON + AAA in support of IAC vs. everyone else in the south), and that in turn may suck in D2, RAZOR, and their allies and become the First Galactic War.  It's all very 1914.

--Dave

Ooh, a galactic war!  Sounds like fun!

Especially for the industrialists.

War profiteering FTW!

I'm looking forward to when fleet battles with dreads on both sides become the norm.  Oh what a lovely isk sink that willl be.

So, what little corner of neglected space should we go hide in then?

News from the IAC front: ISS parked a dread just a little too close to a POS bubble 2 days ago. Grand Theft Dreadnoght ensued. MC is pulling out of F4...and seemed to think ISS would be able to provide cover for them while they pulled down their POS. Grand Theft Amarr Large POS ensued.  Eailer today a ISS Dread that was MINING was also taken down.

I got my first kill mail on a ISS cruiser. Only taken...what, 7 months of playing and a 50 man gang to do it.

Only now do I regret not getting into weapons trade.

Meanwhile in AZN....

(http://www.eve-evol.com/eve/screens/titan.JPG)

Someone linked this in corp yesterday :P

They're using their titan to mine.

...

Wow. Only in the BoBverse.

I'm not sure if they're using their titan, but they have sov. on ASCNs home system. 

Look at the bottom-right corner of the screen. That's a doomsday device icon. Only Titans can fit those, IIRC.

Question: how does one fit ships that can't dock? Did they have to put up a POS to put on those Miner Is?

Also, the Doomsday device icon wins for being... mean.

You can change fitting while in close proximity to a Carrier, Mothership, or Titan.  Not sure if you can do it if you're *in* one of those and you don't have another one close, but our carriers change gang modules and move fighters into their drone bays all the time.

--Dave

Dont forget Ship Maintenance arrays in POSes.