War

[MahrinSkel]

1) it takes a huge amount of scanning to find the amount of towers, especially in the non station systems, so it's unlikely anyone really knows, but there was at least 500 pre invasion from numbers I've seen and what I remember from the last time GS scanned delve thoroughly

If all you want is a count, it can go fairly quickly (still tedious, but manageable).  If you want real intel (exactly which moons, what kind of defenses, are they online or off), it can take forever (especially if they start fucking with you by planting cans on the default 100km warp-in points to break your cloak).

--Dave (I spent many hours doing trade runs and managing orders on one screen while bouncing from moon to moon in CovOps on the other)

[Furiously]

1) it takes a huge amount of scanning to find the amount of towers, especially in the non station systems, so it's unlikely anyone really knows, but there was at least 500 pre invasion from numbers I've seen and what I remember from the last time GS scanned delve thoroughly

If all you want is a count, it can go fairly quickly (still tedious, but manageable).  If you want real intel (exactly which moons, what kind of defenses, are they online or off), it can take forever (especially if they start fucking with you by planting cans on the default 100km warp-in points to break your cloak).

--Dave (I spent many hours doing trade runs and managing orders on one screen while bouncing from moon to moon in CovOps on the other)

They took out cans/wrecks breaking cloak.

[MahrinSkel]

Didn't know that.  If someone wouldn't mind pinging Avernus in-game for me and asking him to get in touch (either give you his email to pass to me via PM or come here and register so I can PM him), I'd appreciate it.

--Dave

EDIT: BTW, CCP is telling me that to them it looks like I got burned by account sharing.  They won't tell me why they think it was account sharing, but I did get a list of reasons why they would come to that conclusion: Stolen assets wound up in the control of a member of my corp/alliance (or former), the IP's involved were the same as mine or in the same city, or they found chat/mail logs that explicitly confirmed that I gave out my log-in info.

I never gave out my full log-in info except for one (pre-API) security audit, I used a one-time password for that and it wasn't communicated through the game.  I do share a city with some other Eve players that I know of, but there's no reason they would have my log-in (I've never logged in from someone else's computer or network).  It's possible that someone found my account names in FIX's records of the security audit, and at some point I got sloppy and used the same PW for something FIX-related that I used for the account.

My best guess is that someone from FIX saw my accounts go inactive, dug out the old information, and took my stuff.  They tell me I'm not *completely* broke, there is actually still some non-trivial assets in stations and even some cash left (probably the stuff I had on Sell orders when I quit), and I still have ships (they won't tell me what except that they're valuable, so it's probably the Carrier and Freighter my mains were in when I gave up).  They won't unlock my account yet, so I will have to wait a bit to find out.

Dammit, I think the game is sucking me back in.

[MahrinSkel]

On an actual war-related note: One thing that is always interesting to watch is how many systems an alliance under pressure is losing simply by not having any POS there anymore.  It's kind of a proxy for how severely their logistics are strained, or who might be getting ready to evac permanently.  And in the last couple of days, KenZoku has been losing sovereignty in quite a few systems that nobody took away from them.  Some of that has to be because they were supported out of outposts they no longer own.  But it's still a useful datapoint.  Not a sign of alliance collapse in and of itself, but worth watching (the first crack in IAAAC's offensive against 49-U turned out in retrospect to have been the loss of sovereignty in 6 systems in western Catch, as they stripped fuel and towers from a reaction chain to feed to the offensive).

--Dave

[JoeTF]

Or you could read our directors forum to find exact amounts of POs deployed.

[Murgos]

Or you could read our directors forum to find exact amounts of POs deployed.

Link pls.

[Sir T]

On an actual war-related note: One thing that is always interesting to watch is how many systems an alliance under pressure is losing simply by not having any POS there anymore.  It's kind of a proxy for how severely their logistics are strained, or who might be getting ready to evac permanently.  And in the last couple of days, KenZoku has been losing sovereignty in quite a few systems that nobody took away from them.  Some of that has to be because they were supported out of outposts they no longer own. 

There's a post on the goon forums about how Kenny is dying too bloody fast, and there is just too many offline towers to shoot and mods to steal. Basically towers are running out of fuel and they are not bothering to restront them anymore even if we don't get around to immediately killing them. They haven't even been timing their towers for over a week now. I strongly suspect that they stront in their towers is the stront that was put in there originally and not from what stores they have left. They have attempted some counter spamming, but I don't know the full details of that.

I'm currently onlining a deathstar using mods that are just floating in space from the last towers detonation, for example.

[trevorreznik]

Sounds a lot like when they pulled out of Eso/Feyth over a year ago, just a lot of tedious pos shot to do.  Thank god we all learned from that and trained amarr!

When warping to poses to scout them, I actually like to warp to 0.  If you warp to 0 and hit the tower, you'll just land 41km off of it because you don't have the password, which usually puts you far enough away from mods to be safe.  Warping at 30 or 100 or anything else seems like it'll end up dropping you onto mods sometimes, at least from my limited experience.

[Endie]

A ton more hostile towers dead today, as the cleanup continues.  I know of twenty-five POSes killed, but there are always others for which mails go missing, or are never generated, or where no Goond were involved, so there will have been more.

The 49- system in Querious was the main focus today.  I honestly thought that Kenny would time a full-scale, red-pen breakout op to coincide with a AAA/SE/ROL capship hotdrop on our fleet and our support fleet being called on to intervene, but that didn't really happen: we bridged a fleet in (badly!), lost a few ships, then did a bit better and killed a bunch of ships, and the hostiles headed back to South-Central.  We therefore took a tower majority in the second-last hostile station system in Delve and Querious.  I suspect that ED- was left longer because, from what I can see, it is inside jump-range of Stain for a hot-drop (9.02LY as I see it), but what do I know?  There are still 8 days until it ticks over to sov 3, so no rush, and the first towers there come out in late US prime.

As it is, I think the sov maps will look pretty dramatic tomorrow after downtime, with Kenny probably holding sov in only one Querious and one Period Basis station system (one of which they will lose after the weekend), and no station systems at all in Delve.  With reference to what Mahrin was posting about yesterday, Kenny lost sov in five additional Delve non-station systems on the 25th without us hitting towers: two went offline for lack of fuel, two were evacced and one turned out to be held only by a single small that we in LOVEU countered.

[Endie]

Since I saw some Kenny guys trying some passive-aggressive "those figures sure are hard to believe are you certain you're really getting more than a dozen towers a day?" I thought I'd share an image from our forums a week ago, and which is now safe to show.  This picture shows the "POSes to kill" target list of reinforced towers at that moment.  The list is fluid, of course, as towers die or are added, but it will give you a snapshot of the majority of towers that were in reinforced at this point last week.  There are thirty-five coming out there on the Friday, and there were probably only two or three more that actually died.  More will have died on the Saturday but were not either reinforced or reflected back to the FCs at the point the image was made.

You should note that every single tower on that list died.  All seventy-three.  The list is unusual in that only a relatively restricted number are faction towers - normally the proportion is even higher - and there are more smalls than usual.  But the total numbers of towers involved were not particularly high for that phase of the campaign.  Some days were nearer fifty.

[Fordel]

The Picard image means it's legit.

You(Goons) Totally posted one of those lists in that giant cluster fuck of a CAOD thread, when GF.com when down.

[MahrinSkel]

The sheer rate at which Delve stations are falling makes it pretty certain that if they're running propaganda, it's not by much.  Delve has *always* been defended about equal to the strongest level BoB ran into anywhere else (although it looks like one BoB corp was going on the cheap with only 7 towers an outpost).  They simply couldn't be achieving the results the Influence map shows without doing pretty much what they say they are, or KenZoku pulling down a lot of towers in their OP systems.

ED- is within range of Stain, but so is I1Y.  Once upon a time ED- was the toughest nut in Eve, but changes to POS defense mechanics and the sheer number of dreads running around these days makes it a lot less daunting.  11 moons, so you need to kill at most 6 POS to get a majority, and with the capfleet you're throwing around, unless AAA compromised your operation you could have them all in Reinforced before they could react.  Do it a few times for shits and grins, force them to mobilize and move halfway across the map, only to sit in Stain with their thumb up their ass.  Eventually, as in 49-U and FAT many moons ago, they'll either stop coming when you whistle, or their participation will drop so much they won't have the means to hot-drop you.  And maybe the horse will learn to sing, they won't have the stront, and you'll get it on the cheap.

You don't have a lot of time, and ED- is not a station you can starve out (too easy to reach from Empire, only 2 jumps in even for standard gates, I ran freighters through the middle of the D2/Iron/Razor siege two years ago with only my own CovOps for escort).

--Dave

EDIT: There's also only a few systems in Stain they can jump in from.  It would be possible to deny them the chance for surprise hot-drops by simply picketing *all* of them with newb alts.  We did it a couple of times.

[Phildo]

Kenzoku attempted to attack our camp on PR- a few hours ago with a roughly 40-strong HAC gang.  Within about 30 seconds of this being announced there was a huge Goonswarm gang up to counter them and it resulted in this: http://killboard.goonfleet.com/battles/1138

I was still stuck burning through a gate bubble by the time the battle was over and Kenzoku had retreated.

[JoeTF]

lol @ Kenzoku icon.

[Endie]

The trouble for Kenny is that we have SMS alerts set up now, as part of our infrastructure (on top of the jabber ones we've had for a while, now).  So if someone tries a breakout (or a break-in) attempt then an alert goes out and everyone who is playing Dawn of War II/doing logistics on alts etc logs in and within minutes you have a maxed-out 255-man fleet.

[JoeTF]

We were thinking about setting something similar about half a year ago, but the idea was shoot down as being too hardcore and intruding.

Now let that sink in...

[trevorreznik]

noghrivir's dream come true...

[Murgos]

Tenerifs is now a Thunderdome.

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1009997

~*~*~*~*~*~ Official Goonswarm Diplomatic Message ~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dear Eve Universe,
For three weeks we have let our old space sit vacant. Occasionally goons will rat on their way to delve or evac some last minute assets but in large part Tenerifis has been a region with no owner. After AAA failed to abort our titan they never bothered taking the region and none of our allies would like the space. So for those of you who have asked, what has goonswarm ever done for eve? Now is the time for us to give back.

As of this moment every station in Tenerifis will allow anyone to dock (except those we are hostile to, screw you guys) Check http://standings.goonfleet.com to see if you are hostile to us.

Tenerifis is now a THUNDERDOME, all are welcome.

We are never coming back for this space.

The alliance who manages to hold the space wins.

There are dyspro moons located at:
9-980U VIII - Moon 8
Q5KZ-W V - Moon 19
Q5KZ-W V - Moon 1
ZMV9-A IV - Moon 9

Here is the list of cadium moons:
B-6: 7-7, 7-9, 7-10, 8-1, 9-1
9-9: 8-15, 8-18
XGH: 5-19, 8-13
Z-0: 8-12, 9-19
OP: 4-1, 6-20

There are two sov 4 constellations waiting for the taker, don’t mind the neighbors.

Also, Kenzuko diplos please contact me about renting Detroid.

Love,
Goons

JADE CONSTANTINE NOW IS YOUR CHANCE

[amiable]

We were thinking about setting something similar about half a year ago, but the idea was shoot down as being too hardcore and intruding.

Now let that sink in...

Serious question:  Why is this hardcore?  No one is required to log in or punished for not logging in.  It is just a communicaiton tool, and quite awesome one at that if you want to know when the fights are.  I'm pretty casual and I don't find it intruding at all.

[Arthur_Parker]

All I can think about is that film with the four guys (navy seals or similar) in church, one is getting married and all their pagers go off.

[JoeTF]

Well, asking members to give us their personal cellphone numbers.

Another issue was that people can login only when they are near their gaming PCs, you can simply use IRC. Only advantage of SMS notification system is that it can send you notifications when you're not around to play. Is getting spammed with SMS during work meeting, or really an advantage?

And there is an obvious security issue:/

[Sir T]

We were thinking about setting something similar about half a year ago, but the idea was shoot down as being too hardcore and intruding.

Now let that sink in...

Serious question:  Why is this hardcore?  No one is required to log in or punished for not logging in.  It is just a communicaiton tool, and quite awesome one at that if you want to know when the fights are.  I'm pretty casual and I don't find it intruding at all.

Especially ironic considering that one of the stock BOB lies was that one of the reasons for their success was their "great and superior IRC communications" etc.

[tmp]

Especially ironic considering that one of the stock BOB lies was that one of the reasons for their success was their "great and superior IRC communications" etc.

Well, the irony is also it's part of the 'BoB culture' the Goons used to mock -- that the BoB people would idle in irc channels and get alerts when to log in, presented as inferior and drone-like no-life approach vs the 'rifters, lol' carefree bumbling swarm of bees.

Anyway, regarding "why is this hardcore". The mindset itself, that a computer game and what happens in it might be important enough to even warrant such heads up ... it's certainly something beyond casual interest in my eyes (the casual level of interest being "i'm doing something else now so i don't give a fuck") But then very little in the EVE alliance business isn't poopsock level hardcore to begin with.

[Quinton]

We were thinking about setting something similar about half a year ago, but the idea was shoot down as being too hardcore and intruding.

Now let that sink in...

We have become what we despise!

Seriously, I actually think it's pretty casual-friendly in that I can be doing something else instead of watching EVE or irc or jabber and get a notification if something entertaining is happening that I might want to login for.

I guess if we had mandatory participation or crap like that, being paged to the game via sms/email would be pretty miserable.

Also, this is fun to watch:

[LC]

BoB pets were told to evacuate all of their assets to empire. I'm too busy right now to scroll up to see if it was posted already.

[eldaec]

We were thinking about setting something similar about half a year ago, but the idea was shoot down as being too hardcore and intruding.

Now let that sink in...

The fundamental difference is that nobody is going to bat an eyelid when 80% of goons don't sign up. Or when the vast majority of people who do sign up ignore the messages.

This is a bigger deal than people realise.

Goons are not defined by success in 0.0. And frankly, they'd survive without it.

A huge part of why goons wiped out Kenny in Delve, is that they were able to bet the farm and overcommit, since if they has lost, they would still exist as a community held together by something other than success in EVE, Goons are the only major alliance who could survive a move to NPC space.

Because they aren't defined by their space or by their k/d ratio - they can run poop socking features like SMS alerts without everyone in alliance feeling it is compulsory to sign up. End result, people who like the idea take part, but those who don't are not excluded.

This, is why you fail.

[Quinton]

A huge part of why goons wiped out Kenny in Delve, is that they were able to bet the farm and overcommit, since if they has lost, they would still exist as a community held together by something other than success in EVE, Goons are the only major alliance who could survive a move to NPC space.

Because they aren't defined by their space or by their k/d ratio - they can run poop socking features like SMS alerts without everyone in alliance feeling it is compulsory to sign up. End result, people who like the idea take part, but those who don't are not excluded.

To step back a bit from the hurf blurf, I think the important key point here is the purpose of goonswarm is to allow goons to have fun in EVE.  Not "to win".  To "have fun".  Betting the farm on delve and moving everybody down on no notice to blow up things seems to be working, but hell, it could have been the stupidest decision ever made (maybe it'll still prove to be unwise, but so far so good).  One thing it is though, is a lot of fun.

[MahrinSkel]

It's kind of a chicken and egg problem.  It works for you because you're so big, if most people don't sign up and most of the ones that do don't respond to most pages, you're *still* going to be able to raise a scratch fleet that can contend with the fleets most alliances can field with days of prep.  And you're so big because most of your people aren't invested in the politics and territorial attachment of alliance life and don't split to make their own alliance because they think your leadership is out of touch with their needs, so you've jumped to a different level of size where that is possible.

Being big has given you the capacity to not give a shit, and not giving a shit gives you the ability to be big.  The transition state, where you didn't give a shit but weren't that big, you got through by letting RA sweat the territorial control problems.  Even if someone could clone the GS cultural patterns, they'd have a hard time finding a place to shelter for that transition.

--Dave

[Endie]

BoB pets were told to evacuate all of their assets to empire. I'm too busy right now to scroll up to see if it was posted already.

I don't think so: you're first with the news, again.

Regarding the SMS thing, it's a useful tool for the hardcore (who want to be on every op they can) and the casual (who don't want to log in for the 23/7 camp in PR- except when necessary).

Goonfleet has always had players of every playstyle, from poopsockers who run massive moonchains, through Specops who were supposed to commit 100% of their logged-in time, to Epsilon, who, erm... don't even log in.  It's a balance, and one which has served to maintain both our culture and our imaginary space empire.  The SMS system is one part of the huge infrastructure that we now run which has allowed this invasion to work.  Being able to shoot spaceships is one thing, and numbers are great, but Kenny had more numbers than us for much of the campaign.  One key difference is that we take external factors seriously, whether that is diplomacy or C4ISTAR.

Edit: LC, do you have a source?

[LC]

Edit: LC, do you have a source?

A director from a bob pet corp (in EXE) that's a good friend of mine. They were told to take everything but a few combat ships.

[MahrinSkel]

I get that Endie.  The point is, if most alliances tried to do it (and I know a couple who have done that or something similar), they'd sight a big enemy fleet incoming, send out the alert, and get a force that was too small to do any good, and the people who responded would get to spend a few hours doing nothing while the enemy did what they came to do.  They'd then go to the alliance boards and bitch about how the freeloaders that didn't show up were to blame for whatever bad thing happened while they fumed inside POS shields.

Being big allows you to do things in a way that lets you stay casual, and staying casual lets you do things that allow you to grow big.  But there was an intermediate state where you were big enough to need a big chunk of 0.0 territory, but your casual attitude wouldn't have let you keep that territory with those numbers.  You may remember that as when you were in Cloud Ring.  If you hadn't cut the deal you had with RA, you might *still* be going through a constant cycle of going into a 0.0 region, provoking a territorial response and losing it, and as a result losing membership, because I don't care how "casual" you try to pretend to be, getting your ass spanked and sent to the corner like a disruptive child is not fun.  You survived the debacle in Cloud Ring, but you didn't *enjoy* it, and you did lose a big chunk of your numbers as I recall (around 20-25%).

--Dave

[Endie]

I wasn't disagreeing with you.  Quantity has a quality of its own, as Stalin said.  Our advantage is learning how to make use of that quantity in a way that others (such as Bob and their pet structure) failed to do.

[Jayce]

This discussion has become more interesting than its Macguffin, the SMS system.  But I think it points to why it is successful in Goonswarm: if its stated purpose was to make people log in, it would fail.  As it is, it was a pet project that some goons find useful, but no one expected it to cause participation to raise by x%.

In fact there's a survey thread right now to determine whether it's too spammy.  Nowhere in there is anyone bitching at each other about people not logging in when summoned.  They're bitching at each other for other reasons, a perennial and necessary ingredient for any thread containing goons  

[setar]

MC had the same text message system (I actually set it up using twitter which gives you some amount of control who is and isn't following you), but we only used it for emergencies -- e.g., having a supercap tackled and in danger. But yeah, the irony here is on GS -- what happened to taking internet spaceship games too serious?

[Endie]

MC had the same text message system (I actually set it up using twitter which gives you some amount of control who is and isn't following you), but we only used it for emergencies -- e.g., having a supercap tackled and in danger. But yeah, the irony here is on GS -- what happened to taking internet spaceship games too serious?

Irony is not "on" someone.

Anyway, we have taken making Bob/Kenny's lives miserable seriously for some considerable time, and the fact that keeping 230-odd caps locked into PR- until we're finished dismantling their space benefits from the use of SMS in order to make it easy and casual (so that we need not log in constantly, poopsocking) hardly strikes me as "OH GOD WE HAVE BECOME WHAT WE LOATHED".

I reiterate: our infrastructure is there to make things easy and fun, not to make us some retarded mandatory ops alliance.  Don't worry.  We're still terrible at Eve.  We're just not as bad as the people we've had to fight in the last few months.