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Thursday, July 12, 2012

Away for a week or two

I'll be away from the blogging scene for a week or two. I'm moving to start a new job, and the new job actually starts a few days before I can get into an apartment with internet, utilities, and the like. The entire process will take about a week just to get into the apartment, maybe another week to get my schedule worked out and some refresher learning in to help me out with work.

Not that much has been going on in null-sec anyways, and I've been unable to log in for days just because of all the last minute stuff that always comes up when you move. From the looks of the mails though, Delve is pretty much a done deal and Catch is about to become the trenches.

Everyone fighting for the South, good luck, stay strong, get some inspiration from Captain Picard. Everyone fighting for the North...well I don't really have anything to say. I'm sure you wouldn't take it seriously anyways.
Everyone else, easy kills are the supply chains from Fountain to Delve/Querious. You could really rack up the muppet kills. You could also get pounded into dust if you aren't careful. I'm sure you guys already knew all this though.

It'll be interesting to see the map when I come back.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Tactics and Tacticians

Entry: eight hundred ten
 
Lately, there's been a pretty set pattern of tactics used on both sides in the Delve conflict. To be fair, it's less of a conflict and more of the South being steamrolled, but we'll go more in depth in that with the tactics and attitudes of leaders.
 
As seen in my last deployment in Delve, an enemy alliance anchored bubbles on our station undock and picked us off from range with Tempests. Since the advent of the Tornado, Naga, Oracle, and Naga, this has been taken to a whole new level. The new battlecruisers are faster and cheaper, making them much harder to kill. Combined with that has been the sheer number of bubbles being anchored on the 319- station undock. It started off with just one tech two large, then several tech two larges, and as of yesterday I saw what must have been fifteen to twenty anchored bubbles of varying sizes on and around the station.
 
As much as I hate it, you can't argue against a winning strategy. Southern forces have been dying in droves, in part to these bubbles, but more in large part due to being camped into the station the majority of the time and being unable to defend Delve because of it. Unable to leave the station, Querious began falling as of yesterday.
 
When the South does manage to put up a fight under the odd fleet run by Maka, the fight from two versus to one to four versus one. Again, another winning strategy, just by sheer attrition. Our skills and expensive fits do allow us to do some serious damage, and the killboards even show these fights swinging in our favor, but we simply cannot win a fight like that.
 
Suffice to say that the South is at a such a disadvantage that the North has been carelessly camping the 319- with supers and titans from time to time, even managing to Doomsday the occasional Southern idiot in a capital on the undock.
 
In an attempt to strike any sort of blow back at the North, there have been the occasional roams out of 319-, and lots of bombers camping in 319-, waiting for the right opportunities to strike. They have, however, been few and far between. Many pilots are losing bombers due to impatience.
 
As for necessary funds to fight the north, the costs are exorbitant. The two main doctrines both heavily utilize tech three cruisers, and even though it is out of necessity because of the way the war is being fought, many pilots cannot replace these ships when they lose them. To further this, costs to buy even basic Hurricanes and Drakes have skyrocketed. One hundred million for a tech two fit whelpcane is a bit much. Fifty-five for a bombing-specific bomber is also a bit much, though much more manageable. Three hundred for a Scimitar is absurd. this presents the third front to the war: finances. As long as this continues, the South is destined to lose any coalition level conflict. You can't bilk your allies and expect them to still be able to fight.
 
So far, all I've done is lay out the facts about how the South is losing. Numbers, costs, and morale. But what's the solution?
 
There is only one possible solution, and while it will still be hard at best, it stands a much higher chance of success than our defensive plan. The concept is that of a base race.
 
There is literally nothing we can do to stop the North from rolling over anything they want in the South. They have too many pilots, plain and simple. However, if they are in the South, how many can they muster in the North? It'd seem pretty clear that they couldn't muster nearly as many members. Pilots also tend to put all their ships into the trade hub stations for each alliance. It then seems simple that the South should move north, disrupt all of the jump-bridge routes, then take the main stations where pilots pile their ships and goods.
 
Chances are high a similar action would be executed against us. Both sides would take heavy losses in numbers, mostly from what gets termed the carebear contingent. The more combat oriented would be just fine living out of towers, wormholes, and NPC null-sec. I think ultimately, either the conflict would halt at a certain critical point before total annihilation, or both sides would lose all of their space.
 
The chances are extremely small in my mind that this would happen though, to be completely honest. The tacticians aren't willing to put everything on the table as they should be, and so the South is stuck with a losing strategy. We're looking more like IRC everyday: unable to hold our space, but no one cares enough to evict us.
 
It'll only be a short time longer before Delve, Period Basis, and Querious are lost. Then we'll see what the new Southern strategy becomes. Hopefully not more of the same.
 
I think this sums it up the best.
 
Computer: terminate recording.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Back To Delve

Entry: nine hundred eight.
 
That out-of-pod line I was talking about in my previous public entry: it came through. I've got to admit to being excited about it. I've been rather busy dealing with the particulars, but I've still found some time to be embroiled in the Delve war.
 
Yesterday on evenews24 I came across a TEST State of the Alliance recording. How much is truth, propoganda, and outright lies I will likely never know. I am not what anyone would call a power player, and in politics, things get kept close to the inner circle that rules the galaxy. Still there are parts that feel more honest than others, and parts that feel more like lies mixed with propoganda. Overall, I think the main thrust of the recording are accurate enough, along with the reasons for attempting to leave Goons out of the war and why it escalated: it's the stuff on the side that strikes me as misleading. I'll leave it to you to decide. You can skip the last half of the recording if you just want the gist of the situation.
 
If you were paying any attention to the alliance tournament broadcast yesterday, you may also have noticed a sudden livefeed of a large battle in 0-H in Delve, just a few jumps away from Querious. CFC/PL forces were taking the station with supers and apparently a large number of Drakes. SOCO forces had a bomber fleet, a sniper tier three battlecruiser fleet. The conflict eventually took place at the PUIG gate, stringing out towards the star. There's not too much to say about it. SOCO killed an absurd amount of Drakes between the bombs and sniper battlecruisers, but there were simply too many enemies to prevent the station from being taken.
 
Aside from those major events, it's been huge fleets rolling around on both sides. Lots of kills and lots of fun to be had for sure, simply because everyone is in the same area. It's an exciting time to be in null-sec.
 
Computer: terminate recording.