BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?

Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic comes to us from @Tetraetc - "Tetra's EVE Blog" - who asks: "Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modification of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?"

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Since I live in null sec I feel I have decent view of this:


I don't feel the removal/modification of Alliance mechanics would greatly affect how things run in null sec. Even if you take away Alliance mechanics completely, you are left with the same people doing the same general thing: holding sovereignty over null-space. If I remember correctly, there was a time when there were no Alliance mechanics, and space was held by sole corporations. While I have no experience from those times, I see how things are now, and Alliance blue or Corporate blue both mean the same thing: don't shoot it. While I agree Alliances would be more dynamic without Alliance mechanics, in the end the same space gets held by the same group of people with the don't shoot blues rule.


Because of the above rules, PvP is no more forced there than it is now. Given that Alliances can exist without being in an actual Alliance, it's my feeling creations like NC. would still exist, just that they would be known by the smaller names and not the big ones like NC.


Have alliances limited RP and PvP? I don't honestly think they've impacted either. Anyone can RP at any time regardless of Alliances, and anyone can find PvP if they want it (rather easily too). Alliance mechanics, even gone, because of the above statements, wouldn't increase PvP.


A null sec where anyone can build anything? Such a thing was never meant to be, as even Alliances without the Alliance mechanic would not tolerate this. To operate as a group, and stay unified, resources would need divided equitably, and that runs counter to building whatever you and your corp want to build willy nilly. The alliance mechanic just makes distribution of those resources easier, the TAKING of such resources by an Alliance easier, by a single corporation harder. Thus Alliances are more stable, but overall PvP remains unchanged.

It could be argued that null sec PvP isn't really PvP, just blob warfare, which I myself agree to to a certain extent. The battles and experiences are no less riveting or intense however. You still stand to lose your ship, and while you may only be one in a long list of pilots, if the other side wants you dead, chances are you are going to explode and there is nothing skillwise that will save you except Logistics pilots, and even then, that is determined by how much ALPHA STRIKE damage you take.


One last thing on Alliance mechanics: If I remember correctly, corporations are allowed to house up to 5000 members. I'd argue that many Alliances may only just barely meet or indeed number less than this. Admittedly, 5000 ruled by one iron fist seems unlikely, but if everyone wants to hold space so that they can make ISK faster and better and not have to worry about CONCORD, it could and probably has happened. With Alliances as they are now, you can essentially have one giant corporation not limited to a number of pilots, not solely ruled by one person, and able to fill various needs and desires of every pilot under the Alliance banner. It's my feeling that Alliances allow for more player enjoyment because of the opportunity for differing kinds of government. Think of an Alliance in EVE as the UN, only not impotent like the UN, but something powerful, willing to act. While it is possible that it be run like a dictatorship as was done by IT, we can all see the result of that in the end when the dictator is not a benevolent one.

The Art of GTFO

I've noticed lately that I have rather good luck in not dying. The luck has been so good that I've actually had to do something suicidal to get killed.




Incident 1:
The farthest back (yet recent and relevant) example of this is roughly a week ago when FA had a frigate roam. At some point about halfway through the roam I got separated from the pack of 40 frigates and was on some gate in null-sec somewhere close to where we were roaming (sorry, it's the best I can do really). As I orbit this gate trying to figure out where everyone has gone, the gate fires. I toggle the guns, scrambler, keep orbiting with the AB going.


A Rapier decloaks and webs the crap out of me. A Sabre hops and decloaks also. Because of how close I had been orbiting the gate (7500 meters) I simply burned for the gate, and even with 2 webs on me I made it back to gate with only a little bit of shield damage. I jumped through, and found myself on the meatier end of a rape stick. I keep my calm, see what's there and report it to the FC who I thought might want to go after it. After doing that, I warped to zero on some other gate, toggling both my small armor repairers and DCU and my cap booster (just in case), and got away with no damage.


I made several safe spots, bounced around a tad, kept dscan on the gate in question and eyes on local, and jumped through when it was clear to rejoin the frigate fleet.


I will admit that my fit, while unusual, was far from super fast. In the lows were 2 SMA II's and 1 DCU II, and I had an explosive rig. Mids were AB II, small cap booster (150's), and warp scrambler II.




Incident 2:
Yesterday there was a suicide fleet, destination someplace (IRC I think, wherever their home systems were). Everyone formed up in the expectation of Jihad tradition, and we set out to meet the Goons. Once we (eventually) met up with the goons to stage an ambush (goddamit NC. keep your friggin JB's fueled) on IRC, we got reports that IRC had turned around because they saw one neutral at our ambush point (we were still 2-3 jumps out), and had decided to turn around because they thought NC was going to drop capitals all over them.


So much for that. Hence the Jihad DBRB decided on, and us lemmings followed. We went to IR'sC base, caused a bug ruckus without killing really anything, then left. We had reports of DRF forces shooting an SBU with a subcap fleet numbering about 120. With haste, we screamed across null and low sec to reach them in time.


4 jumps out we heard they were disbanding because they were tired of shooting it. DBRB actually convoed the DRF FC to tell him we were on the way.


The DRF FC didn't believe DBRB that 1) we were on our way (true), 2) where we were coming from (I dunno), 3) how many jumps out we were (3). So, he sent scouts in the wrong direction, and then warped his fleet to a gate at zero where we weren't coming from. We jumped in, smashed the 70 or so that was left in their fleet, losing only 6 ourselves (80 some with only me and one other as logistics). We wiped them out and only lost something like 6 ourselves.


At this point, we were tired. Our options were to return home through null, or through Jita, both routes being equal jumps. We went to Jita. DBRB acted as bait while the Orphanage whaled on him, and eventually got blown up. We did however smash a 1 billion isk Proteus in exchange for a Claymore, quite the deal, and we made Orphanage looks like the scrubs they are camping Jita 4-4 undock. What's the point of even playing if that's all you do? ISK isn't THAT valuable.




Incident 3:
Today I helped a Logistics operation for BDEAL run by FA. It went well, right up until the point I landed in BDEAL space, which is cut off from FA space by about 4 jumps by Important Internet Spaceships Alliance. Naturally, I took the shortest route home, ie through their space, which is notorious for being active and camped.


I was flying a Jaguar, AB tank PvP fit. I literally warped to zero at every gate, saw quite a few interceptors, and even got scrambled by a Taranis once on a gate. I simply jumped through, and that was that. A Claw on the other side targeted me, and I was slow about warping out, but I warped out like it was nothing.


And I got home. It really was nothing for me. My two corpmates in a Vagabond and a Scimitar almost didn't make it back home, and they went the safer route!




With all that in mind, I'm either extremely lucky lately, not terribly appetizing as a target (mixed blessing, because I'm poor but bloodthirsty but not stupid), or invincible. Until I find out otherwise, I'm invincible!!!

Waiter, 2 eggs for breakfast please!

I remember my first kills. I made them in a probe, in Wormhole space.


You must thinking to yourselves, "Hmm, how did this happen?" And then you look at the title of this post, and it suddenly comes to you. 2 pod kills.


It happened just before me and company were about to embark into Wormhole space, more particularly, in the few months before we were about to embark, when we were still sorting out startup funds and making regular forays into W-Space.


I was in Eystur, and had determined that Class 1 wormholes regularly opened up into that system. So, regularly, I took a probe in and did some scanning to get used to the rules of W-Space, the scenery, needing to scan everything down. This particular time, something was off.


I ran D-scan, like always, and saw two wrecks on scan. Strangely, one was a Cormorant and one was a Rifter, and to everything that I could tell, they had blown each other up. It only occurs to me now that they probably were destroyed at a Sleeper Site, but that's beside the point. Seeing two wrecks was strange, and not knowing any better, I set about trying to scan them down. What came up on my scan results were 2 Capsules.


Greed knows no season, and I was in a probe with a massive armament of two Hobogoblin I's for RAW TERRIFYING DPS. 


I set about scanning them down, and found them somewhere...I warped to them, set my drones one of them...and one of them blew up! I set my drones on the other capsule, but he warped off.


"pbbt, I'll just scan him down again." And I did. I bookmarked his location, and left to get a rifter.


I re-entered the Wormhole with my rifter and destroyed the remaining pod. Huzzah! Two kills under my belt! Sure they were defenseless, and easy pickings, but I KILLED THEM.

Now I Understand

I switched into logged in mode and tuned into comms. It became apparent quickly that I was just in time for an op to save -FA- capitals and super capitals from the Drone Russians {DRF}.


Plans set it motion, I rolled out with the savior fleet. Our route was planned.


Halfway through our route, which included jump bridges, the fleet got separated because a Jump Bridge ran out of fuel. Separated, the fleet stuck behind the bridge planned a route involving other Jump Bridges, and the fleet stuck in front of the Bridge free burned to a rendezvous system.


The fleet stuck behind the aforementioned Bridge encountered several more hiccups in the form of deactivated, reinforced, but mostly unfueled Jump Bridges.


After the first one I was groaning at the poor job of holding up infrastructure. At this point, I was pretty much fuming, wondering why the hell we were even helping NC.


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Finally we made it to the system just outside of the target system, where several -FA- capitals and supercapitals were in danger of being destroyed by DRF capitals and supercapitals. Hearing the order, the fleet of roughly 100 jumped into Uemon.


My ship was beyond sluggish to respond, I'd never encountered something so soul crushing as this thing I had previously known, in the most academic sense, as lag.


My ship slowly managed to crawl its way into semi-functionality, and I opened fire on a pod. I have no idea if I destroyed it, but I sense not as only 4 bullets manage to strike the target despite my computer telling me I was firing at it.


Order came to warp to Planet 8. I did....eventually.


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30 minutes after the warp to Planet 8, little had occurred, and my systems were extremely sluggish. All other pilots in the fleet were reporting the same, however many were worse off than I, as their ships were completely nonfunctional on every level, hanging on boot into the system.


Some time later the warp to 8-8 came, as the supercap battle was going on there. I initiated warp.


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An hour later, warp still had not initiated. Completely frustated, I logged out. Hopefully I'm alive, but I won't be surprised if I wake up somewhere in -FA- once lag dissipates.


I now understand why people prefer to live in low-sec as pirates and not in null sec to join these massive supercap battles.


EPIC FIGHTS say the FC's...


EPIC...indeed....unable to do anything for nearly two hours because the system is so overburdened that my ship is unable to connect, and caught in the programming, the ship failed to function, failed to do anything.


Sure it was epic, in the way that sitting around doing nothing is epic while pirates are going about their merry lives raping, pillaging, plundering and ransoming.


I will not be participating in future events such as this one. As important as supercapitals are, there is no excuse for putting up with that kind of tedium. If it results in leaving null sec by being forced out, so be it. I'm sure Anjali had more fun just being able to chat in local with her newfound friends.

So much for Respite

I suppose I should have expected it out of a PvP alliance...

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To: Fatal Ascension [-FA-]

Move out guys. If you are not in H-W or D7, start getting here now. Get in fleets, use jump bridges... cap chains are setup, convo myself to get your caps moved.

If you like being in -FA-, come to this op. These are the epic fleets the NC is known to put together.

1. Caps/Supers deploy to H-W. We're getting a tower setup now in H-W which is set to alliance. No password needed.
2. Conventionals (Alphafleet/Shield BC's) get ships stored in H-W. Use jump bridges/scouts.
3. Small gang dudes: Start roaming Vale/Gem/Trib for easy targets who are sniping our stragglers. Keep pipes clean up here.


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FW: Re: fyi: Forward Redeployment: H-W
From: Lucian JamesSent: 2011.02.13 20:24
To:
Your NC leader, Vuk Lau, has spoken earlier today:
ALL NC ALLIANCES GET TO TRIBUTE NOW and stage out of H-W or D7-ZACIf you can read this msg, that means your entire alliance redeploys their combat to Tribute.

Get it done folks! Use carrier trains to make it easy on your members by x-poring their crap.

Get large amounts of fuel in H-W or D7- so you can refuel cap pilots after ops.

See you there!

Lucian James
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fyi: Forward Redeployment: H-W
From: Komoz KatariSent: 2011.02.13 14:47
To:

fyi: MH Redeployment to aid our Geminate Comrads!

Forward Redeployment: H-W
From: Komoz Katari
Sent: 2011.02.13 14:35
To: -Mostly Harmless-,

ALL MONKEY HANDS ON DECK!

It's time to get our pew on and help out our Russian Comrads (Rebellion Alliance) and smite the dispicable bastards who are invading Geminate now. If you guys haven't noticed yet, the Alliance from our Russian Comrads has been disbanded and they have lost half their Sovereignty in the entire Geminate region! Hostile TCU's and Ihubs are anchoring and onlining as we speak. Imagine how that would be if it happened to our Alliance! You would appreciate ALL the help you can get, so let's be BFF's and o0k it up for our Comrads! Corporation activity WILL be noted!

Shiptypes:

Cap Fleet: Super Capitals Dreads Carriers

Alpha Fleet: Maelstrom Shield Logi Vulture Claymore HIC Lachesis Huginn DIC Tackle Drake (if you seriously can't fly anything else)

Bomber Gang: Stealth Bombers Combat Probers

Form up: H-W, MH POS
When: Now, start moving!
Deadline: Monday (tomorrow) 20:00 EVE

Join NC Fleets to the real front from H-W. NC will be redeploying forward over the coming few days. More information on exact details to come!

o0k it up!

- Komoz

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It doesn't bother me, this is after all what a PvP alliance is all about: killing stuff. I just wish I'd had more foresight before I wrote my last entry.

So back into the fray I went. I didn't have time (or the mental composure) to join any operations after I made the roughly 12 jumps from PNQY to H-W after cloning from V6 to PNQY. I fall in the "Tackle" category as an MWD Disruptor Wolf. Anyone reading the above as  "Tackle Drake"...think again. Drakes don't do good on tackling for various reasons, the least of which is a slow lock time.


Before logging off at the -FA- tower however, I did get to hear the amount of boredom that had been occurring at that time, and how poorly the initial -FA- fleet move was conducted. An alpha fleet was being mobilized to break a gatecamp so that one stealth bomber could be brought in from Jita.


All of that for one ship...one has to wonder...when will the action really happen? And as for the initial fleet move to H-W, I heard it was like being in a pack of retards it was so poorly done.


When I decide to switch to logged in mode, hopefully there'll be some action.

Respite from War

Since taking the BLAST pocket a few days ago, things have gone mostly quiet on the warfront. PvP pilots have returned to ratting and plexing, industrialists have returned to whatever industrialists do, and explorers have returned to exploring.


There was a recent reset of standings with former allies I've heard: Fatal Ascension has reset The Godfathers to neutral. Given that Fatal Ascension is largely a PvP alliance (from what I'm told), this was done to keep Fatal Ascension pilots happy, active, and ready for large-scale war when it does come back around. I've seen the two sides making pokes at each from the cockpit of my Hound. Fleets are small, but still powerful. In my opinion however, these small fleets are small-scale replicas of the large-scale ones, meaning that most of the ships are Battleships and the few that aren't are either tacklers or scouts (read Interceptors or CovOps).

I admit however that I am not very interested in joining these small fleet battles for several reasons. 

The first would be that I am poor for a PvP pilot. I have less than 100 million ISK to my name. I COULD remedy this with a plex, but I feel it would be a spiralling descent towards being dependent on it, so I've elected to never buy one unless I am so broke and shipless that I have no other choice. 

The second would be that while I like PvP, smaller scale re-enactments of war doctrine don't particularly feel...fun...or imaginative. I understand that you need raw DPS to kill other fleets, but a fleet comprised of 9 battleships, 1 battlecruiser, 1 CovOps, and 1 Interceptor smacks to me of blob warfare, as was typically employed during the war. This sort of PvP is less about combat and more about raping some unlucky pedestrian.


The third reason would be that I like flying small ships, and my role in such a fleet would be limited while the risk would be exponentially higher than those of the battleships in my opinion. For a small fleet, being tackled is likely to mean the end of your ship, so what's the answer? Kill the tackler, and since I'm a tackler, I'd be shot down rather fast without accomplishing much. At least, this is how it plays out in my mind.


Since I am not participating in this PvP, I am occupying myself with other endeavors, namely, making money, because as I mentioned before, I'm quite poor.


The day before yesterday, I found a wormhole linking directly to hi-sec. Given the state of our new market in Fountain (Minotaur constellation), I, Ranger, and two other enterprising souls took it upon ourselves to make some ISK while helping the alliance by seeding our market.


It was rather unfortunate that the high sec system was in Amarr territory. Because of my low status with Amarr, the Imperial Navy tries to destroy me at every turn. While they are usually just an annoyance, if I were to fly any sort of industrial vessel, well, you can imagine how the Imperial Navy would feel about that. So I didn't, and instead watched the wormhole while Ranger and the other alliance-mates carted stuff in. Gyrostabs, Tracking Enhancers, Warp disruptors, Stasis Webifiers, ammunition, missiles, anything you can think of. I estimate somewhere between 0.5 billion ISK and 1 billion ISK was spent seeding the market. I expect the profits, while small (10 to 20 percent), will make those 3 quite rich very quickly. Missiles couldn't come in fast enough, and the Gyrostabs sold out so fast they were gone the next day.


Yesterday I found a class 5 or 6 wormhole and two Serpentis plexes. The first was a Serpentis Ruined Temple, the second a Pristine Serpentis Pod Cluster. while neither site yielded anything exceptional aside from a 2 run copy of a large tech 2 rig, I did make some small ISK and was more or less entertained discovering what was in the wreckage. The wormhole, however, I left unexplored.


Today I found myself puzzling over something I had heard earlier in the war and coming to some realizations about myself as a pod pilot.


I was thinking about how someone was talking about laying bookmarks and making shortwarps. I am quite surprised, and disappointed, that it took this long to realize it, but here is how it is done: Pick a strategic point, and for the sake of this example let's use a stargate. Lay a bookmark about 100-150km behind the stargate, where no celestials are. Now for the scenario: you are sitting 40km in front of the stargate, and it activates. A vessel decloaks 12 km from the gate.


The whole purpose of sitting 40km away from the gate was to avoid any blob jumps. No blobs have come through as evidenced by the one activation and lack of a local spike.


You select the bookmark you laid, some 190-230 km off, and warp to it at maximum range. You transit approximately 50 kilometers and arrive almost on top of the stargate, plenty close enough to place a warp disruptor on the target. From there, you smash the target with your weapons, or disable him, or simply hold him in place while reinforcements arrive.


In the case of the weapons activation, I would call this the Picard Maneuver. In the case of anything else, I'd simply call it a short warp because I lack a cooler description. Either case, it's far better than attempting to burn into range in time to lay a point, as attempting to do so would bring your transversal to zero and the enemy incoming damage to maximum (except for missiles).

A Week Passes by...

I've heard that the campaign for more Fatal Ascension space goes well. Either last night or today, the final systems and stations are supposed to fall to us. I admit not having really been a part of it all. My time has been...strained...this week.


Even so, I was able to manage a few hours out and about.


I clone jumped out of PNQY into XZH- and podded out to 1-N. When I arrived I found two of the previous hostile campers gone with but one remaining, some guy by the name Ypegae something-or-other. It's cumbersome, and no one cares anyway. I had also discovered on arrival, that the residents, all 5 of them, were hold up in their towers doing a whole lot of nothing.


Without much ado, I contacted the locals without Ypegae noticing, and asked if there was a fleet up so that in case I did manage to get attacked, they could warp in and smash his ship. A few minutes later I got one response, in the form of, "Sorry, I'm semi-afk."


...


Moving on. I hopped in my Hurricane, let my shields recharge from 40%, then raided the belts. There are about 15-20 plus an ice belt. It took about 20 minutes to raid, clear, and loot anything worthwhile from them. I had been spamming D-scan while out and about smashing Serpentis' ships, but nothing ever attacked, decloaked, or blipped on my D-scan. Unhappy after my short 5 mil ISK run, I switched ships to my 6 month old Jaguar and left system, hold filled to the brim with small ammunition carted in from Empire forever ago.


Having left the system, I made way to XZH-, getting reports of Lady Shaniqua + 5 travelling through friendly space. I believe the space belonged to Wildly Inappropriate, not Fatal Ascension. However, on my way to YI it was determined the pirate gang was 1 jump away from me, and a counter fleet was flying by.


I should have joined.


Ah well, I made my merry way back to XZH-, followed quickly by a shopping stop for an invulnerability field 1 at YI-. I was currently facing a fitting dilemma. It is as follows:


My original fit was like this, minus the nosferatu, tech 2 mods instead of faction, and in the lows: TE 2, nano 2, DCU 2.


Since I was unable to fit the nosferatu, my thoughts were as such: should I fit an invulnerability field to get almost 12,000 ehp, or do I fit a webber, to smash the opponent harder.


Having written about this, and realizing the range of the nosferatu and those of my guns with R.F. Phased Plasma (roughly 7k), I've decided on the Stasis Webifier 2, which will lock my opponents down, allow me to completely dictate range, and beat the living snot out of any frigate sized opponent and likely most cruiser sized ones. I'm not sure I would take this against a Destroyer however, as with my skills even a tech 1 fit should have immense tracking speed and roughly double to triple damage of my jaguar. Granted, it won't have as much tank, but I would suspect said thrasher to be buffer fit in some way, most likely shield buffer as it would allow for gyros and TE's in the lows to accompany the DCU 2.


I'll give it a try in some PvP (if there's any to be found around null-sec), and discuss the results.