War

[Hellinar]

Are the major alliances putting much effort into achieving constellation sovereignty? To a casual observer, it looks like consolidating your current holdings would be the priority at the moment, rather than expanding. Is that new sovereignty stuff not that big a deal? Or just takes so long to achieve its not having an immediate effect? Not trusted to work anyway?

Any comments? Or is it all secret just now..

[ajax34i]

From what's been said here, it sounds like they're trying to figure out WTF to do with their titans, and trying to avoid a situation where their fleet gets destroyed by that desynch bug, so everything is pretty much on hold until CCP fixes the bugs they re-introduced (and the new ones) with their patch.  It was a typical CCP patch, after all.

[Yoru]

Are the major alliances putting much effort into achieving constellation sovereignty? To a casual observer, it looks like consolidating your current holdings would be the priority at the moment, rather than expanding. Is that new sovereignty stuff not that big a deal? Or just takes so long to achieve its not having an immediate effect? Not trusted to work anyway?

Any comments? Or is it all secret just now..

Sov is ticking up in the home constellations of most of the major alliances, as most of the big ones had seen this change coming a mile away and put up the spare outpost it takes to boost a constellation from 2 to 3 stations well ahead of time.

[Comstar]

In the north, the disappearance of MC to restock and prepare for whatever their next contract is - here's a clue: it won't be for RA, Goons, TCF or AAA

Word on the street is it'll be IAC for round III of Prohibition. Considering Part I and II of this action move thriller ended in the near destruction of their employer (ISS) and the threat of AAA still hangs in the darkness close by, it will be an interesting encounter (though I don't know how attached AAA is to Catch now they arn't complex whoring it any more).

FIX is regualry losing entire fleets when they come into Catch (and carriers in Querious), so unless Uncle BoB shows up and AAA is willing to counter MC's cap fleet, opening a new front when you're in a quagmire elsewhere I can't see working out too well in the end.

Perhaps BoB is tired of Tyraxx renting out BoB claimed space to ISK farmers, it must be a bit humiliating. Or it could be before IAC gets constellation capatils on both ends of Catch. MC would want to attack before we can get Cyrno Jammers up to counter their cap fleet advantage (which is a huge card in their hand IAC can't match without AAA/GS help).

[Simond]

Apparently, GONAD didn't want Omist after all and, after trying to sublet space from ISS, are strongly considering going back to empire. BoB can't find any tenants to replace them, either.

Told you that Omist was a nightmare. 

Edit: Awesomely fun CAOD thread. :D

[Endie]

Edit: Awesomely fun CAOD thread. :D

Brilliant!  Nopbody riles Bob like james315 (maybe because of his killing so many of them in the Kill Bobby video!).  His success can be measured by the huge number of Bob mains who immediately flamed him with ad hominem attacks.

James, I wish to remind you that all successful entities are bonded by a unique glue. For Red Alliance, Russian; for TCF, French; for GoonSwarm, being goons. But pilots come to the Band of Brothers from all over for one reason: to win, every time. The purpose of BoB is to win an unbroken string of victories. To never persevere through loss or hardship, to never risk a real defeat.

That bit is particularly clever.  The constant niggling about the difference in goals between MC and BoB (continued from his last uberpost) is smart, too.

[dwindlehop]

Anyone got an update on the North? I've been on vacation and haven't had a chance to log in.
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Looks like TITS lost a bunch of stations to RAZOR in Tenal, and I believe MM was involved. My forum intel indicates maybe RAZOR is not currently engaging MC in hostilities? I haven't heard whether RAZOR is shooting M. Pire yet.

[Endie]

No longer very opsec: for all those asking how the war is going: Bob just got one pos destroyed and nine put into reinforced in 9-9, of which eight are due to come out in Russian prime-time, tovarischen.  Normally, this would be due to comedy Bob stront timing (the one that's coming out at a different time is as a result of that).  This time, however, it's because we made the conscious decision that we could comfortably attack in Bob's prime-time, which threw their stront timings right out.

Of course, as LC made clear, Bob must have known about this attack in advance due to their hundreds of spies, so we're just falling into a cunning trap.  Current odds: siege settled by mass desynch on either side: 11/2 on.  CCP's patch tomorrow resets BoB timers: evens.  CCP's patch tomorrow accidentally resets BoB timers: 7/2.

[Nija]

Sounds about right except "fofofo" and "how do i shot web" are not Somethingawful memes. 

In the holy name of Tiger Fai, you need better spies!

No, he's right. We personally know Spleen. Hell, I work on his car.

[Simond]

That bit is particularly clever.  The constant niggling about the difference in goals between MC and BoB (continued from his last uberpost) is smart, too.

If I were Seleene, I'd be getting mildly irritated by now re: having to clean up various problems for BoB (D2/IRON first, now IAC/AAA) while merely viewed as a particularly dangerous pet (while BoB continue smacking away about how great BoB are). I mean, it is MC that's done all the heavy lifting in the last couple of months - BoB's recent victories were at least partially reliant on POS-spam & invincible supercaps and now that both of those were nerfed, BoB seem to have stalled somewhat.

If the rumours (from the Goon that came in from the cold) about some of the BoB playerbase are true*, BoB may need a significant victory of their own soon...or at the very least, no more major losses for a while.

*OK, the rumour: Quite a few BoB players 'play' EVE by idling in IRC and only log in once an op is called. When the op is over, they log out again - no PvE at all, just pure PvP combat. When you're winning, that's certainly a fairly viable tactic (especially with communist corps, which is how at least one core BoB corp is run). If, however, you're losing ships (and battles) every time you log in...you might just stop logging in at all.


Edit: welp, opsec appears to be lifted now so - new outpost in KZF thanks to Darkstar One (assuming that the patch doesn't break things). :)

[Endie]

First Wang decloak the titan, now DS1 put a refinery right next-door to our factory, in a superb mining system, potentially solving the logistical problems we've faced ever since we moved our centre of ops closer to the enemy.  And they did it with three people in Bob primetime.  Our allies are awesome.  I wonder if Cyvok's ultrabillions will help us with the push for const sov.

PS For those listening in, we put a couple more Bob POSs into reinforced this morning.  They come out at the same-ish time tomorrow as the other lot.  Damn my euro playing hours: I'll have to watch and see which way the desynch dice roll from work.

[Krakrok]

It's like playing Axis & Allies in space! Maybe CCP planned the desync mechanism all along...

[Yoru]

HZF, not KZF, dude. Making two triple-outpost constellations for one alliance. The mind boggles.

Also, looks like GONAD has pretty much crumbled after 23/7 harassment by the coalition - word on the street is that they're retreating to Essence, which is 0.0-proximate empire, near Syndicate and some tightly BoB-controlled parts of the northwest. No news yet on who's going to replace them in Omist, if anyone.

[Morat20]

Did this latest update tackle the desynch problem, or is CCP still scratching their heads over that one?

[Simond]

Answer unclear, ask again later.

[Morat20]

Answer unclear, ask again later.

Goddamn CCP 8-ball.

[Furiously]

23/7 harassment

That's cute.... :)

[Fordel]

*OK, the rumour: Quite a few BoB players 'play' EVE by idling in IRC and only log in once an op is called. When the op is over, they log out again - no PvE at all, just pure PvP combat. When you're winning, that's certainly a fairly viable tactic (especially with communist corps, which is how at least one core BoB corp is run). If, however, you're losing ships (and battles) every time you log in...you might just stop logging in at all.

Most long time EVE players are the same really. So much of the game is just wait or 'maintain' while it runs itself, its only natural.

[Morat20]

Answer unclear, ask again later.

Dear Magic CCP 8-Ball: Has the latest patch fixed the desynch problem? Because the whining is making me kill kittens, and the local shelter is getting suspicious.

[Ratadm]

I'm hearing the problem has actually gotten worse with smaller scale engagements becoming more prone to it now.   Might just be a few patch day quirks but not comforting.

[Endie]

Desynch-wise, we just had a 60-a-side fleet fight with fighter and drone swarms deployed on both sides, with Bob jumping in on us 6 times, and nobody seemed to desynch on either side, judging from the way they jumped targets around.

The result of what was pretty much straight goon-vs-Bob was absolute, one-sided murder.  We knocked down a small POS (they forgot to password too, lol) filled their KB with their own battleships, AFs, HACs etc, and took down a carrier to boot.  My first merlin was a significant percentage of our losses, and despite having to jump two systems to get back, I still got on two KMs and got the points and webs (truncated) on two more.  T1 frigate backbone survives.

Now it's almost 3am and I didn't notice til now :)

[Simond]

HZF, not KZF, dude.

Meh, I was close. 

[Endie]

22 POSs.

We put 22 POSs into reinforced last night, most of them after we cleared BoB out of the 9-9 system in the big fleet action.  Other than a couple of half-hearted inty raids (not wise when Huginns are in the target gang  ) we just rolled around blowing crap up and having fun.  I eventually took the dog out for her last walk at 4am, got back in, and set my alarm for two and a half hours' sleep.  The carnage was still ongoing at that point.

Bob's killboard will surely change today, but it looks lovely right now.  Especially since almost every kill is by goons, not allies.  No doubt they'll manage to get their shit together for today's series of towers coming out of reinforced, but last night was delicious.  It got to the point where I was thinking "Bob cannot have got this soft.  Surely this must be setting up an immense Bob/MC login trap for the RA dreads in the morning?!?"

[Simond]

Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the BoB+friends take on the 9-9 situation is - even from my blockade-running POV & following the actual conflict via messageboard, something slightly odd is going on down there.

There's an entertaining rumour kicking around that BoB higher-ups have been telling their people that Goonswarm only managed put two smalls into reinforced and nothing else...which is going to make explaining why sovereignty went to neutral over today's downtime a fun job for someone.

Desync bug: Difficult to tell - nobody's seriously complained about it in GS since the tuesday patch but whether that means that it's been fixed or if we've just all been very lucky is unknowable.

[Endie]

I've been dying to hear from Joe or LC just what they've been being told by their leadership is going on in 9-9.  We've been blowing up POSes literally faster than BOB can put them up - I know because I've been there for the last few nights until after 3am, watching POSes go into reinforced and reinforced POSes go bang.  Some of them have terrible stront.  Others have no passwords set.  We put one into reinforced last night literally within 2 minutes of it being onlined, before guns, hardeners, fuel or the like could be set up.  Huh?

And yet the Bob pilots in local, who are almost always on the gate or the station undock and who virtually never come to any POSes, seem from what they say in local honestly to believe that we are getting hammered.  That Eve-O ("I hear") thread has Bob pilots who have obviously been told we are just spamming smalls into moons in 9-9?!?  Our two fleet fights in the last week - both of which saw huge GF victories and us left looting cans - have been in latish Euro time (thus me being able to be there for the second) with pretty even numbers. But the Bob pilots still seem to really, genuinely believe that 9-9 is safe.  Or was, until downtime when they lost sov.

I logged in in my lunch break but all we did was shoot more POS guns in preparation to take down a large and run high guard for a counter-attack attack that never came.  Bob eventually tried to snipe at around 2.30pm, and lost 4 battleships a command ship, a battlecruiser and a cruiser in return for two cruisers, a frigate and a (ho-ho) raptor.  I'm not saying that matters - we certainly wouldn't care if the k/d tables were turned - but it's weird.  Eve's biggest rope-a-dope strategy?

Even while I'm at work, every few hours there is another update on the GF forums on another BoB POS - often a large - which has been destroyed (one more large an hour ago).  Do Bob pilots know this is happening?

This honestly isn't meant as dick-waving: I'm noty saying for a second that we'll be seiging POSes in NOL within the month.  I am just really interested in what Bob pilots know, and what their take is.

[Simond]

BoB have gone very quiet in the EVE threads on a couple of other boards I read (FoH and an old EQ board) - I'm guessing that they're up to something, so they've been told to keep quiet about everything...just in case.

Loose lips sink ships, and all that. 

[Miasma]

What did you guys do to Mahrin, he hasn't posted in ages.

[Morat20]

BoB have gone very quiet in the EVE threads on a couple of other boards I read (FoH and an old EQ board) - I'm guessing that they're up to something, so they've been told to keep quiet about everything...just in case.

Loose lips sink ships, and all that. 

Whatever they're doing, they've been neglecting 9-9 -- whether because of bad timing (holidays), or they're tactics for Revelation don't work, or whether they're still trying to readjust to the new role of titans, or because they're planning something -- I don't know.

The Titan nerf hit them hard, no doubt. BoB's always had good FCs, though, so I can't understand the total collapse in 9-9 over the last week or so. It wasn't like they got to be so powerful JUST from having Titans, so I don't know what's going on. I'm sure they're planning something, but it's more likely to be in response to 9-9 than an excuse for it.

[Krakrok]

Channeling Ackbar!

[Simond]

Something happened which is either an awesome prank or an utterly hilarious corptheft. 
I'm not quite sure which, so... + leekspin

[LC]

Something happened which is either an awesome prank or an utterly hilarious corptheft. 
I'm not quite sure which, so... + leekspin

I haven't heard of anything like that.

Yes we are up to something. No, I can't tell you what it is. I'm sure you will find out soon enough.

[Yoru]

Something happened which is either an awesome prank or an utterly hilarious corptheft. 
I'm not quite sure which, so... + leekspin

I haven't heard of anything like that.

Yes we are up to something. No, I can't tell you what it is. I'm sure you will find out soon enough.

No, this in Goonfleet-internal stuff. I think it's hilarious. But then, I wasn't directly involved and don't have a personal stake in it.

[Fordel]

The suspense is killing me! 

[tmp]

The suspense is killing me! 

There's thread on eve-o forum, no idea if it's related or anything of it is true, but knock yourself out:

"Remedial steals goonswarm's titan fund" http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=551286

[Morat20]

The suspense is killing me! 

There's thread on eve-o forum, no idea if it's related or anything of it is true, but knock yourself out:

"Remedial steals goonswarm's titan fund" http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=551286

I blame CCP.