PvP and EVE Part 2: LoSec

LoSec has been the source of a lot of heated discussion over the years. Is it broken? Working as intended? Can you "fix it"? I could go on and on, and as a long time resident of LoSec who has managed to keep my sec status above -2.0 I think I can speak a bit on this topic. But that's for the end of the post. If you missed PvP and EVE Part 1: Hisec, check it out first. With that in mind, let's start looking at PvP in LoSec.

Ship Combat
LoSec has been sold as the "pirate haven" in EVE. You can engage anyone here, on gates, on stations, belts, missions, anywhere. But that engagement comes at a price, everywhere. Hostile action reduces your security status, and podding your opponent reduces it even further. But beyond that, ship combat in LoSec is fairly wide open. A few things to keep in mind is that Titan Doomsdays, Bombs, and Interdiction spheres (bubbles in general) don't work. This (along with the pervasive security status hit of combat) are the big differentiations between LoSec ship combat and NullSec ship combat. In addition, the existence of sentry guns at stargates and stations means frigate combat must occur away from these public areas. Battlecruisers (and even cruisers) can tank the gate or station guns for a while in LoSec, but
frigates and destroyers will pop quickly to the nearly perfect tracking and signature radius of these guns.

Market Combat
The markets in LoSec are poorly represented. Sure, some residents run missions, and some may even sell their loot on the open market, but in general the market in LoSec is weak. With less than 10% of all pilots in EVE residing in LoSec, and easy access to HiSec markets and trade hubs, there isn't a lot of profit in the LoSec market. Not to mention the fact that eventually someone will manage to destroy your hauler on the way in or out of a station or system, means that the market in LoSec really needs to be a self-sustaining one to be viable, and with the low population it just isn't. Most items are priced closer to NullSec than HiSec, and are "emergent" purchases rather than planned ones. There was a move a while ago to change this in Intaki - but I haven't heard how successful that was. If you know, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Resource Combat
LoSec should be the haven for the majority of planetary interaction. With increased returns and the ability to install player-owned customs offices (pocos) there should be significant competition for resources here, but this doesn't seem to be developing as well as it could. Most corps that are installing (or killing) pocos are doing so fairly unopposed, although some fights are happening over pocos, a flight through a losec area of space will still contain more Interbus customs offices than pocos.

Issues with LoSec PvP
I think the biggest issue with LoSec PvP is perception. PvP happens a lot in losec, and recent reports by CCP Diagoras support the fact that ship combat in LoSec is alive and well. However, the volume of actual players in LoSec suggest a much higher concentration of combat than experience (living in LoSec)

There's a proposal on the official EVE forums about this, and it's not bad.

(addendum 4/17/2012:17:00EST)
My biggest complaint with most LoSec proposals is that they are focused almost exclusively on Faction War or Piracy. Both of those are valid activities, but LoSec industry is just as valid, if even more difficult to work with. Reactions, R&D, even mining in LoSec should have some validity, with an appropriate risk:reward balance.

PvP and EVE: Part 1

EVE is by nature a game of Player vs. Player (PvP). Many people unintentionally or unwittingly participate in PvP, not realizing it goes far beyond ship vs. ship combat. I'm going to look at PvP in EVE in a series of articles, covering the different types of space (HiSec, LoSec, NullSec (NPC and Sov) and types of PvP (ship, market and resource). This first one will look at PvP within the bounds of HiSec Empire space. But, before that, I thought I'd define PvP in the most basic sense:
PvP occurs when any player interacts with another with the intention to profit in some way.

Ship Combat
This one is easy. Two ships engage in combat, consensual or non-consensual, and the desired result (for one of them) is an explosion (not theirs).

Market Combat
Ok, a lot of eyes just glazed over. Come on, people compete in markets all the time. Can you make a profit undercutting that sell order for 20 rifters in Dodixie? Do you have a solid grasp of the Covert Ops Cloaking Device II market in Rens? Buy low sell high is the basic idea here, whether all in one place or with a bit of shipping in between. Is it profitable (enough) to just sell your mission loot to open buy orders, or is it worth posting sell orders?

Resource Combat
Sometimes intimately tied with ship combat, this is the battle for moons and moon goo, asteroid mining for higher value ores (or any ores in busy systems), planetary interaction (resource extraction), and exploration. A lot of the NullSec wars tend to (lately) revolve around resource combat for Technetium moons, but this can apply just as easily to a lower value Vanadium moon in LoSec.

HiSec PvP
Ship combat in HiSec exists in one of three basic frameworks: wartime, assault, or theft. Theft is the easiest mechanic to get lower-risk PvP in HiSec - steal someone else's loot and they have permission to defend themselves. Once they engage you are free to strike without intervention by CONCORD. This mechanic is often used by mission griefers and ninja salvagers with great effect and some amazing kill mails. If there is an active declaration of war, the parties involved (consensual or not) can engage in combat in hisec. HiSec wardecs are often used to grief nullsec logistics, or industrial alliances with great effect and profit. If there is no active war declaration, pilots can still engage in combat, but CONCORD will intervene and punish the aggressor (often after the vicitim has already lost a ship). This form of PvP (lovingly called ganking) has been the most popular recently, with events like Hulkageddon and the Gallente Ice Interdiction. Gankers often target miners in their thin-hulled industrial ships. There is no way to defend against a gank. Attention and luck are the only things that can minimize your loss.

Market combat in HiSec is often summed up as "0.01isk bidding bots in Jita." But that barely scratches the surface. EVE's market combat has been the source for many economics papers, and CCP even employs an in-house economist. Beyond Jita, there are 3 other large regional markets (Dodixie, Amarr, and Rens) and 22 other HiSec empire regions. Each region has pilots who buy and sell goods with the intent of profiting off of others. There are also pilots who buy in one region or system, and ship to another for even greater profits. Even large alliances have played the market, most recently Goonswarm by buying up Oxygen Isotopes then selling off in huge profits during the Gallente Ice Interdiction. A patient or attentive pilot with a knack for spreadsheets can turn a small starting capital into billions quickly and easily in EVE.

Resource combat in HiSec is the simplest form of PvP in EVE. Extraction of materials in planetary interaction is affected by the number of extractors in an area, and popular planets will provide less resources than less popular one. Finding a quiet, out of the way planet for your extraction means you get the maximum return (limited by the reduced returns in HiSec overall). Mining for low- and mid- grade ores in busy systems where fleets of Orca-supported Hulks strip belts bare is the easiest example of this type of resource combat. Find a quiet system with a good variation of minerals and clear the belts from high to low value ores. Another type of resource combat in EVE is in production. NPC stations with research slots (and to a lesser extent copy/manufacturing slots) are always busy, with a long queue to get a blueprint researched, or copied, and in some stations, manufactured. Learning which modules or ships are the most profitable to build and sell based on the region of space you are playing in (or in general). The last type of resource combat in EVE is the exploration sites. There are a limited number of sites, and more pilots than sites in most areas. First-come first-served isn't always true, and this occasionally leads into ship combat as well.

Issues with Hi Sec PvP
I'm going to go out on a limb and say there really isn't a lot wrong with HiSec PvP. There may be issues with individual PvP mechanics (neutral remote-repair comes to mind), but in a broad sense, I think PvP in HiSec isn't horribly broken.

In the next article, we'll look at methods of PvP in LoSec.

The cold harsh reality of space

For a long time, I was the epitome of what is wrong with some EVE players.

I played alone (I even formed a one-man corp to put up a tower in hisec).

I ran missions.

I mined Scordite in hisec

I avoided losec like it was a pile of rancid meat.

Nullsec wasn't even in my vocabulary.

I was, as is hinted in the title of my blog, the penultimate carebear.

Things change, or they should, if you keep playing EVE. Because eventually, those tasks in EVE become so mind-numblingly boring, you will do almost anything to avoid them. I took the easy road out of Carebear hell - I joined a corp that was friendly to training folks for PvP. But this blog post isn't about me.

EVE has always been marketed as a sandbox. A game where anyone can impact any part of the game, independently or with friends. Some of the greatest marketing stories about EVE involve the actions of one person bringing about world-shaking events. And there is a growing movement to destroy the sandbox.

If you thought "Goonswarm" when you read that last line, you are actually part of the problem. If you thought "entitled whiners" then you are not. If you don't like what category I just put you in, you might want to stop reading this post now.

EVE is a game that, in every way but two, pits players against each other for everything. The obvious PvP I will only mention in passing - combat. If you buy or sell on the market, you are playing against others. If you build or invent ships or modules, you are playing against other players. If you mine (in some hisec systems) you play against others on an intermittent basis, since the belts can be mined dry. If you explore, you play against others. There are only two places in EVE you don't compete with others directly - mission running and ice mining.

However, these activities are not (and should not) be risk free. EVE is a sandbox. EVE is a multi-player game, and because it is these things, there should always be competition. Missions (and ice fields) are always there, with no competition. You can't go to an agent and be told "Sorry, I have no more missions today." You can't mine a hisec ice field dry. And therein lies the problem (and, perhaps, the answer). Below I line out proposals to change both of those activities. In my opinion (which is wrong at least 50% of the time) these proposals are better for EVE as a sandbox.

Ice Mining

• Ice should not be a limitless commodity. The sliding scale of value -> security should apply to ice just as it does to minerals, missions, rats, and any other PvE activity in EVE.
• There should be at least 3 tiers of ice in each type, with variable quantities of refined materials in each type.
• Ice tiers should also change in block size. HiSec ice should have the largest blocks (in m3) with the fewest refined commodities, losec ice should be smaller, with more material per block, and nullsec blocks should be smaller still, with even more materials per block.
• Ice fields should be smaller, and it should be possible to mine a field dry with a dedicated fleet, within a short amount of time. I don't know the exact numbers, but the amount of ice in a belt should be reduced so that a well managed squad (9 Mackinaws and an Orca) can clear a field of ice in about 4 hours. Of course, ice would respawn at downtime, just as it does today.
• Ice fields should be added to gravimetric sites. This would allow people to find and exploit small quantities of ice anywhere, and provide a tiny amount of additional security when attempting to harvest ice in LoSec or Null. Personally, I'm a fan of all mining being done from gravimetric sites, or all minerals except Veldspar being limited to gravimetric sites (and a higher frequency of spawns than exist today).
• A new rig should be introduced to further reduce cycle time: Ice Harvesting Optimization Rig I and II. A fully trained Mackinaw pilot with a fully T2 rigged and fitted ship, should be able to run a complete cycle in 3 minutes or less. This, in conjunction with the volume changes of ice blocks in losec and null, will help reduce the risk while mining. A full cycle would still be required to acquire a block of ice (per Harvesting module). Ideally, this ship (in nullsec) could pull as much (or more) ice as a Cargo-rigged Mack in Hisec in the same amount of time.

Ice Harvesting is the most mind-numbing activity I have seen or done in EVE, which means it is the easiest to script for botting 23.5/7. These changes, as a whole, reduce the raw income potential of risk-free botting in HiSec. Ice Fields would run dry, so the bots would run out of easily scripted targets. The massive reduction in cycle time (in conjunction with the reduction in hold size) would make LoSec and Nullsec ice harvesting slightly more viable (but still the riskiest PvE activity in ISK/hr for those areas). Moving ice to gravimetric sites would provide small opportunity to have low-risk higher-income ice mining.

Mission Running

Beyond the intervention of ninja-salvagers and mission-griefers, mission running in EVE is the other big lonely activity in EVE. You don't need friends to run missions through level 4, and you can (usually) do them completely unmolested for hours on end. Recent changes with the Orca has negatively impacted the small amount of PvP in mission running, so I'd like to look at this from a different perspective. Competition is at the heart of this proposal.

• Each agent should have a limited number of missions/hr to distribute. The number of missions should be inverse to the quality of the agent, so L1 agents have 4x more missions than L4 agents.
• A mission is "reserved" after a player accepts it. If a player declines a mission, it remains in the pool that agent has for that hour. If a player fails a mission within the first hour, it returns to the pool for that hour.
• The missions/hr do not "rollover" - each hour the number of missions is reset whether all of them were used in the previous hour or not.
• Agents without missions can "suggest" agents that still have missions available, within their own corporation and mission type. A player can "reserve" that mission if they so desire, then fly to the recommended system to run the mission. This reservation is good for 60 minutes only, after which the mission is released to the local mission running population.

A nerf to L4 mission running? Yeah, sort of. There are 661 L4 Security agents across EVE. If each one of these had only 20 missions per hour, that's still a pool of over 12,000 L4 missions per hour. Of course, a decent number of those are in LoSec or Null, so let's just drop 1/4 which leaves only 9,000 L4 missions per hour available. That's one L4 mission for every 4-5 players in EVE on an average hour. That means you may need to move about to get a mission, and there would be competition for the best agents. This is a nerf designed to add the smallest flavor of PvP to mission running - you are competing against the other mission runners for the limited number of resources (missions) every hour.

EVE is a sandbox. Competition against others is at the heart of this sandbox. These two humble proposals would bring the nature of PvP competition to two of the most risk-free activities in EVE, without actually increasing the risk to assets.

Alliances and Sovereignty

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 modifcation 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?"

Before I even begin, I feel the most important part of this particular banter is whether or not the writer has any real experience with any of this. Like any argument, there are multiple side to the questions about the state of nullsec in EVE. So here is the position I write from. In the summer of 2009 I joined a corp that was in an alliance based out of NPC nullsec (Outer Ring). Vanguard[dot] had recently moved there as a stepping stone to bigger nullsec experiences. Living next to Fountain when held by Pandemic Legion, pre-Dominion, and Cloud Ring, when nobody really cared about it (except the station systems in the northwest). Vanguard[dot] was not as PvP focused as my corp leadership, and after a few months we left for a different alliance in Syndicate - Art of Defiance. This small alliance was strongly focused on PvP, with a small internal industry wing to occupy combat-free times, and was quickly absorbed into Dead Terrorists when they decided to experience nullsec and created a difficult environment for Vanguard[dot] in Outer Ring (Vanguard[dot] joined the NC and moved up into a back-end constellation in Pure Blind). As a part of Dead Terrorists I participated in Max 2 (the northern war of Spring 2010), and then held sovereignty in Cloud Ring before the ill-fated decision to assault the south, and the final occupancy (and fall) of Feythabolis. I have been in sovereign holding alliances. I have fought against sovereign holding alliances before and after Dominion. That's the background for where my discussion of this topic will come from.

So on to the show...Have Alliances and the Sovereignty System limited the amount of PvP and RP Potential in Null Sec?
Let's get the easy part out of the way. After the reduction in the lag beast over the last few weeks/months in 2010 and early 2011, PvP from small gang to large fleet is alive and well in 0.0. Sure, targets aren't sitting out belly up on the beach, but they are there. The biggest worry with PvP in nullsec is whether some trigger-happy cyno-dropping fool is the one you catch, and you find yourself facing a bored cap/super pilot, and this isn't even that common. More common is the target-less roams out and around the NPC cores in nullsec and the occasional defense fleet to fight with. Although I personally am not a fan of the current state of the west/north, as long as you are only a bug (small gang) and don't mind flying 10-20 systems for a target, you can roam in the western blue ocean. Alliances and the Sov System have not limited the amount of PvP in Null Sec. There could be objectives and targets within sovereign systems to generate more PVP (which is a whole other topic), but it does exist.

RP is a whole other beast. A recent post by GoonSwarm leader The Mittani on Kugutsumen is a valid perspective. Role Playing in nullsec is a slippery slope, since the expansionist and combative nature of most groups in nullsec will usually not be limited by the character constraints of an RP player. In that selfsame thread, there is an underlying theme that the e-honour of the CVA alliance would have been their undoing had other factors not brought their fall about sooner. In fact, corporations from their RP opponents, Ushra'khan, seem to have mostly lost their RP perspective after breathing too much of the reprocessed air in nullsec stations. In an environment where any system can have value with a fully upgraded iHub, and powerblocs form for mutual defense and cooperation, there is no backwater region that would be left alone for the role-players in EVE to play the game as they choose. In post-dominion EVE, RP seems to be relegated to NPC nullsec and Empire if it is to thrive.

Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation 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?

This sounds like a question from someone who hasn't taken a lot of social courses like world history or politics/government courses. Lets ignore the mechanics at first (yes, they are broken, that's a whole other story). People form communities for shared resources and security. This is actually something that all primates appear to do, and part of what makes us able to live in a modern society. Giant power blocs like the NC, DC, DRF exist because people inherently form groups when overcoming larger challenges. Making this hard to do in EVE is counter to human nature, and not good for the game. The bloc will still form, just in a less obvious way (unless CCP were to do away with standings all together, and that would be a total disaster). Take away the ability of an alliance to do anything, and corps will just form an unofficial one with standings.

And now the beast that is sovereignty. It is a fairly well known fact amongst the nullsec bittervets that the concept of Dominion Sovereignty and the implementation of Dominion Sovereignty are as similar as a blue car and a red car. Like many features in EVE, CCP deployed sovereignty and promised to "tweak it" as they went. Unfortunately they didn't and the current implementation is a mess. Let's revisit what Dominion Sovereignty was supposed to be like. Reading that, and then seeing what came in Dominion, you wonder why they hint at these things at all. The new Sov system was supposed to:

1. improve the pain of structure shooting (failure)
2. enable upgraded systems to support up to 100+ pilots (failure)
3. increase the cost of a sprawling empire (failure)
4. move sovereign battles away from tower shooting festivals (success)
5. enable official treaties and rental agreements with other entities (MIA)
6. enable small "roaming gangs" to impact your day-to-day activities (failure)
7. force players to develop strategies for conquest beyond warp-target-shoot (failure)
8. improvement of the industrial base of a nullsec empire (failure)
9. Return the mothership to the battlefield as a combat ship (success)
10. Limit the use of the supercarrier (aka mothership) as an anti-capital weapon (failure).

In fact, now's a great time to revisit CCP Abathur's blog series, which sounded pretty good, and does not seem to be anything like what we have today, which actually makes sense since Abathur appears to be gone from the CCP roster. If you took the time to read the Dominion blogs, you know that much of what was planned never happened, including, of course, the ever-mentioned and never-followed iterative development updates.

Now that I've got background in place, here's the thing. Nullsec Sovereignty should never be possible at the corp level. Nullsec Sovereignty should require alliances, but the individual alliances should not be required to sprawl across entire regions just to support a thousand pilots. In addition, the scaled cost of sovereignty should have been implemented in a way to encourage alliances to consolidate in smaller spaces. Small roaming gangs should be able to incite fights or affect your sovereign activities (but not actual ownership) by reducing indices on the iHub modules. Supercapitals shouldn't be able to do significant damage to smaller ships, and shouldn't be nearly invulnerable with a quick CTRL-Q when things don't look good. If you want to "force" more PvP into nullsec, you need to have variable targets that generate combat opportunities or have consequences for choosing not to engage. A quote I love from kugutsumen is "the barbarians should be able to burn the crops if you choose to sit safe in castle, and right now there are no crops to burn."

1. BB25 What sov changes will come? | A Mule In EvE
2. Confessions of a Closet Carebear: Alliances and Sovereignty
3. Blog Banter 25: Nerfing Nulsec « OMG! You're a Chick?!
4. Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? | Nitpickin's
5. Blog Banter #25: Alliance and Sovereignty Limiting PvP in 0.0? | Sarnel Binora's Blog
6. Blog Banter #25 - Mad Haberdashers
7. Alliances and sovereignty | Eve Online Focus
8. ...Shall we not Revenge?: BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?
9. Blog Banter: Alliances and Sov
10. EVEOGANDA: BB25: Sov 'n Go!
11. » TBG:EBB#25 – Alliances and Sovereignty To Boldly Go
12. Freebooted: BB25: Leviathans of the Deep
13. Wrong Game Tetra ~ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
14. EVE Blog Banter #25 – Human nature what art thou? | Way of the Gun
15. Who cares about Sov? - Hands Off, My Loots! ~ well sorta like an entry! :p
16. The 25th EVE Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty - The Phoenix Diaries
17. Achernar: The space commute
18. Wandering the Void…my EvE musings. – Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty
19. (OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #25: How To Break EvE. « Prano's Journey
20. Captain Serenity: Blog Banter #25 - Crappy mechanics
21. Helicity Boson » Blog Banter #25 Nullsec and sov.
22. BB #25 – “With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?”
23. More to come...

Learning how to fly (again)

Last night (like many nights) started out sitting in station. Some of our neighbors were in local, ratting (or mining), when a (now frequent) visitor appeared in local: Conall anDuntrune from the Tuskers. He's been flying around in an Amarr Navy Slicer, and came close to taking out one of our associates the last few times he popped his head in local. Night before I chased him him in a Proteus, but he could easily outdistance me, so tonight I boarded a Taranis. My 'ranis is pretty standard:
[Taranis, Standard]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II
Small Inefficient Armor Repair Unit

J5 Prototype Warp Disruptor I
X5 Prototype I Engine Enervator
Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters

Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Ion Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Small Nosferatu I

Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
Small Ancillary Current Router I


Warrior II x2

She does about 3500m/s and about 230DPS (according to EFIT). I've used a fit like this for a couple years now, mostly in nullsec, as light tackle. I felt like it was pretty successful, so I hopped in and went out after Conall. Meeting at long range (about 80k apart) in a belt, I started to approach, MWD and DCU active. Launched my drones and targeted when I hit range. Then I overshot (with Faction Antimatter it's about 1k optimal+2.4 falloff). Of course, my orbit is set too wide, so I'm orbiting (or trying to) outside of my own damage range as his lasers eat through my shields and into armor quickly. I still haven't hit him with my blasters as I realize my orbit is too wide. Two shots from him and I'm almost out of armor - I didn't prepare well for this at all, so I cross my fingers, activate the armor repper, and try to warp out. He didn't have me pointed or scrammed, so...

80% hull and I'm in warp. My repper gets armor back to about 95% before I'm capped out. I reset my orbit to 500m. That plus the MWD should have me orbiting around 1500-1800m, outside of optimal but well within falloff. We chat in local - after all it's a game - and he's just getting used to the Slicer. We talk about fittings, rigs, ships in general while his GCC wears off (and I honestly try to scan down if he is at a celestial to engage again). We chat for a while but don't get on grid again - and he leaves system once his GCC is clear (which was wise because there were 4 of us looking for him now).

I have no real experience in solo PvP, all of it being small gang or large fleet, mostly in 0.0. A good chat - I probably have higher trained "skills" but he is a better pilot - and I would have lost the ship (and deserved to) if he'd had a point on me. Guess the moral of the story is: learn to fly solo PvP in a frigate. I'm going to have to do some practicing, it seems, if I am going to "defend" our losec home.

Solo PvP isn't dead in losec (I already knew that) - but how many folks do it, and in what ships? I'm sure there is a large crowd of Rifter pilots running the solo game (I'll probably use it for my training since they are a bit cheaper than an Interceptor), but if you solo in frigates, what do you fly?

Roaming for Destruction...

So this week on chat, a couple of us decided we really needed to see some pretty explosions. So the plan was formed to go roaming in 0.0 in Vagas/Rapiers Destroyers. We put the word out across the loose alliance of pilots we party with, and after much haggling for cooperative time, scheduled a 20:00 start on Saturday night. Our EU friends would be just settling down for a quiet evening, US would be somewhere in the middle of a Saturday. We would start out in losec, go visit the so-called "Pure Blind/Fade Short Bus Crew" and see the newly formed "Eye of Terror" in Cloud Ring. With 3-4 ships each, medical cloning moved to the staging system, and a handful of unfit backup ships, we should get a couple hours of fun.

The unofficial count had us at 6-7 folks, which is kind of small for a destroyer roam, but at formup we finally ended with 10 in fleet, which is just about enough to take on any single ship, BS or smaller, with luck and good planning. Form-up was a bit haphazard, since most of the pilots coming aren't part of a combat crew by nature, so we were far from ready at the 20:00 start time. EVE was busy that evening, with good sized gate camps and fleets moving through losec, rumors of a hot-drop carrier roam in Syndicate, and over 55k pilots logged in overall. Although we didn't lose any ships that night, earlier in the week a couple had been lost moving to the staging system (I personally lost a Thrasher and Pod to a super-sensor-boosted Phobos/Hurricane/Sleipnir gate camp that insta-locked pods two nights earlier). Anyway, so we are forming up around 20:00, and our initial staging system has become a bit active, with a known losec PvP alliance setting up gatecamps on the local travel routes, staging out of the same system. We adjust accordingly, and move a couple jumps to a less-active staging point while the last 4 stragglers travel to the staging system.

Finally, we have 6 of 10 pilots in the main system, and start our roam. First jump into 0.0 Cloud Ring - 3 neuts in local. Nothing on scan, so our scout checks a couple of belts, and we move off to the next gate. Jump into system 2, set up on gate for a minute. As we set up, local starts to climb and we start seeing ships on directional. Vagabond, Vagabond, Rapier, Buzzard, Purifier, Hurricane, Rupture. Any one of them, maybe even two, would be a possible target if our whole fleet were there, but this is an obvious response fleet to our arrival. We scramble into a rolling safe as the Buzzard pops combat probes and starts looking for us. Fortunately the pilot in the Buzzard is not very skilled, and we are able to avoid any warpins as we roll through the system. We decide to stand down back in losec while the defense fleet is up, and work our way back out of Cloud Ring. Jumping simultaneously with both hostile Vagabonds into W-4, we warp to a safe then bounce to the gate into Okagaiken. We scatter or dock in Okagaiken, while the response fleet enters local, starts looking around for us (total group was about 6 hostiles, so 1:1 ratio, except they were all in T2 Recons or BCs at this point, and we are in Destroyers). We hang tight, while the last 4 of our fleet are still working their way to us from Empire, and wait out the hostile fleet. Finally we have all 10 of us within a couple jumps, and the FC decides to try and back-door into Cloud Ring from Placid, through F7C. We work our way to Kehjari and meet up with the rest of the fleet (now 10 destroyers strong) but we are cut off by the hostiles, who are surprisingly effective on hampering our undisputed entry into 0.0.

As they cut us off on the way to Placid, we backtrack to Okagaiken and enter again through W-4. As we jump into 6-4, RL intrudes on my ability to continue the roam, as my 7 month old daughter (in my lap at the time) suddenly goes ballistic, and I have to logoffski while the roam continues. Note to self: trying to PvP with small children on your lap is not a good idea.

...

I was given an update by one of my corpmates later, that they made it into Fade, and were trying to take down a ratting Hyperion when a defense gang (I assume) from Sev3rance spoiled the party and destroyed the whole fleet. Although all ships were lost, it was deemed a successful op as we introduced 4 folks to nullsec in that roam, everyone was in implant-free clones, and ships that cost less than some of our medical clones. Everyone had fun, and (perhaps) next time we will try to organize a more balanced DPS/tackle/scout fleet and have a bit more success on the kill side.

Killboard link here.

The roam ended at that point, apparently the FC and at least 3 other pilots had RL interventions which could not be ignored. I got my ship and pod out unscathed the next night, during the SuperBowl, without seeing another active pilot in local in any of the systems.

EVE Blog Banter 18: It's the yellow box, stupid...

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week 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 out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who've been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has your gaming style evolved through the years or months since you've started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance - say manufacturing. Let's hear your story!

Let's say this - I don't roleplay in EVE. I did the roleplaying thing - I still have a set of the original paperback Dungeons & Dragons manuals in a box in my office. I play a harder, more aggressive version of myself in EVE, so RP isn't hard and isn't part of what I want to do. I respect those that do, and occasionally I'll dabble with it for enterainment, but it's not my style anymore.
I started playing EVE with the release of Trinity, in December 2007. I hadn't played games seriously in about 7 years, since I retired my old Windows 98 machine in 2008. I have had computers and consoles from Pong to XBox 360, but I have been a Mac guy for over 14 years. I was in the original beta test for Everquest on the Mac, and that really soured the flavor of modern MMOs for me. When Trinity came out, and I could play it on my beefy Mac Pro workstation, I thought I could finally get into EVE, a game I had read about for years. I was a part time dabbler in MegaWars back in the day, and space combat/MMO had a soft spot in my heart. EVE allowed me to re-enter that world in 2007. I am still driving my first character, and the distribution of skillpoints shows that fact. As I have about 35 million SP at the time, it would seem like I could be a PvP king, or an Industrial Baron, or a Trade Tycoon. Because of the winding road that is EVE, I am more a jack of all trades, master of none.
I flew my trusty Velator through the (then rudimentary) training sessions, and took it mining in the 1.0 system I started in. There were no rats in the belts up there, but back then the world was less crowded, and I often had little company mining Veldspar with the Civilian Mining Laser I got for free. Life was simple, I'd run Level 1 missions (and get lost every few missions, not mapping my way through the region I spawned in) or mine Veldspar, dreaming of ruling an empire in EVE, but having no idea how to start. After meeting the CCP promotions group at MacWorld 2008 (and coming home with an EVE: Concord T-Shirt) I realized I didn't really pay attention to the game I was paying to play. It was then I learned there was a skill-based system, and I needed to buy and train skills to fly other ships and items. Yes - I played EVE for almost two full months and never trained a skill. I flew a Velator through Level 1 missions (that was hard, by the way) and mined Veldspar and sold the raw stone on the local market. Then I started training skills, and got into a Navitas and Tristan. I flew nothing but those ships (and Level 1 missions) for another 3 months until my daughter was born in RL.
As with everyone in that position, my game time became a stolen moment here and there, so I trained up to a Retriever and strip miners, and became a full-time miner. Funny enough, after having run (literally) hundreds of L1 missions for Astral Mining, I had great refine rates with them, and made enough money to buy and fly a cruiser. I still ran missions, but had discovered that there were more levels of missions, and L2 missions were awfully hard to fly solo in a Rocket/Blaster Tristan, so I fit up my first Thorax with Dual 150mm Railguns and succeeded in completing L2 missions with ease, when I had more than a baby's nap to play (nap time = mining time). I took all of May 2008 to train both tiers of Learning skills to V, but never used more than +1 implants (since that's all you get in L1 missions). Funny enough, I tried out almost every module dropped in my missions, and learned how to use things that were useless in missions. I looted, I salvaged, but I never sold modules with names on them - they just didn't seem to have good price offers on the market compared to the Meta 0 items.
I introduced two co-workers to EVE that spring, one of them (Crescendar) turned into a PvP whore - and was the first person to call me a carebear to my face. It was insulting, no matter how true. At that point I'd lost two destroyers to pirates in Losec - and a mining cruiser to a corp with (what I know now) was an NBSI policy in their losec home. I hemmed and hawed, but didn't join a player corp for another year. With the Emyprian Age, I joined Faction War and ran the FW missions until I realized it was consensual PvP, and I didn't know how to fit or fight for PvP. I dropped Faction War quickly at that point, knowing it would cost me ships and isk to learn the hard way. With the release of Apocrypha, and wormholes, I became quite skilled at scanning, and hopped in and out of wormholes and anomalies in my quiet corner of the universe. I was even nice enough (early in Apocrypha days) to fleet up with folks who lost their way in wormholes and get them out into empire. That led to several invites for player corporations that I mulled over, but RL was coming up again, and a move across the country meant I wasn't going to commit to anything new in EVE for a while. I started working up through missions until I was about to do Level 4 missions for 3 different corporations, when I finally joined a PvP corp that was in Faction War.
Aurora Security has a long history in EVE, and the directors in that corp had experience in everything EVE had to offer. I saw a post from the CEO, Pierre Dumonte, in the recruiting forums, and it sounded like a good match. I evemailed him, and eventually got a convo from the industrial director at the time. They were happy to welcome me into their industrial wing, and I would work with them on POS maintenance, mining, missioning, more of the activities I'd done for the past 1.5 years in EVE. I explained I wanted to learn to PvP, and was passed to a combat director named Mr. Teu. Teu was a hardassed pilot from the U.S. southern states, and a great person to learn from. My 1.5 years in EVE had prepared me to be in fully T2 fitted T2 frigates, sometimes with better fitting skills than the experienced combat pilots in the corp. I learned how to fly a Covert Ops frigate first, then an Interceptor, then an Assault Frigate, and finally a Stealth Bomber while in A.SEC. I was in high damage and often top damage in frigate roams due to luck and my high skillpoint base.
A.SEC was filled with mostly mature pilots - people who were usually over 30 in RL, had families and other responsibilities, and knew EVE was a game, not a lifestyle. The common sense of humor and level of maturity in the group spoiled me - my first player corp was an adult experience, no kid gloves but no kid emorages either. Like many 0.0 corps, we bounced around a couple alliances where I met, flew with and learned from other great pilots. I will always be a member of A.SEC at heart, but when RL for a lot of pilots caused a significant change in the direction of the corp, I went where I was enjoying EVE the most - 0.0 PvP.
My current corp (and alliance) has a solid base in 0.0 PvP, and I continue to learn with them, now more about the medium sized ships (HACs, HICs and BCs). I can (like any decent 0.0 pilot) fit all the way up to a Sniper BS, but I don't like the battleship - too damn slow to align, target, and warp compared to a frigate, or even a HAC.
My history in EVE: Miner, Mission Runner, small-time Trader and now PvP pilot sounds like a lot of others who have wandered the spacelanes, and have found that combat against other people is truly the heart of this game.


Participants:

1. CrazyKinux's Musing: The Heroes with a Thousand Faces


2. StarFleet Comms: Life. Evolved.


3. A Carebear's Journeu: This Carebear Thinks He Is Developing Teeth


4. The Elitist: Our ventures in EVE


5. A Mule in EVE: From a guppy predator


6. Travels of the Ronin: Evolution and Adaptation


7. The Ralpha Dogs: The Past Through Tomorrow


8. Where the frack is my ship: A journey, not a destination


9. I am Keith Neilson: 7 Year Itch?


10. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Evolution Me


11. EVE Opportunist: A long history of a short time


12. Roc's Ramblings: Things Change


13. Guns Ablaze: Onwards and Upwards


14. EVE On Real Life: Haven't you grown up yet?


15. The Fang: The path of the ninja


16. EVEOGANDA: Whoops Apocalypse!


17. EVE SOB: Learning to swim


18. The Life of a Dead Jester: My Time with EVE


19. Personal Files, Ciarente Roth: Personal Diary 18.6.112


20. Learning to Fly: Change is Good


21. Depths Unknown: Falling With Style


22. Morphisat’s Blog: Jack of all trades 


23. Sarnelbinora's Blog: Thoughts of EVE


24. More as they get published...

War and Piracy (second rebirth)

(originally written and posted July 2009)
The war rages on. But does it impact the life of a lonely pod pilot?

The war between the Empires continues, the blood toll rising daily. Families torn asunder, friends now turned to enemies; such is the cost of peace and politics in New Eden.
Some events go unheralded; victories and defeats all in the name of duty and honour.
Economies collapse, piracy is on the rise. Is there an end in sight? Can there ever truly be peace?

I never felt like a patriot. It wasn't me. My family were immigrants and industrialists, not warriors or statesmen. I had already drifted far from my origins. Becoming a Capsuleer, I knew I had become more than anyone in my family before - immortal, rich beyond their imaginings, and a wanderer in the darkness between stars. When the empire wars began nearly a year ago, I watched from the sidelines. It was, after all, not my problem. However, like many others, I was curious about the war. In the springtime after war broke out, I decided to take a short stint in the Gallente Militia.

As a solo pilot, I had never put much stock in the corporate experience. The company that helped train me was quick to let me go without a second thought, although life in The Scope wasn't much different. A large group of pod pilots fly in The Scope, but they don't have any common goals, aspirations, or the ability to really coordinate and work as a team the way other corporations seemed to. So when I went into the militia office to sign up for a term in the Gallente Militia, I didn't really pay attention to the details, and simply signed on the bottom line. That was not my first mistake, nor would it be my last.

I had recently relocated to Jufvitte, a border system on the edge of the disputed regions. There was a Federal Defence Union station in system, with a variety of agents to work for. I'd been running missions my entire career, and thought this would be no different. I called up the local agent on my neocomm and applied for a mission. I was shocked at the mission offered - fly 13 systems across high- and lo-sec Caldari Space and assault an outpost in their border zone. This mission went smoothly, although flying to and from the system was challenging, as I was chased 4 systems across The Citadel by the Caldari Navy. Several other missions were similar - fly far across space to a Caldari border system and assault an outpost.

One evening, as I was assaulting an outpost, I was surprised to see a Caldari Capsuleer warp into the mission. I hadn't paid close attention to the information packet handed out by the militia recruiter - and didn't realize that my arrival in the system would be noted, tracked, and I would likely be attacked by either Caldari militia or local pirates. My initial reaction was best - I immediately aligned and warped to my exit stargate. There was no ship waiting there, and I should have just jumped out and accepted my failure, as my ship was not configured to battle experienced pod pilots. But I was so used to the life of a hi-sec mission runner I just re-aligned to the deadspace gate and warped back in. At the gate there were two other Caldari pilots, and they were prepared to battle other capsuleers. Within moments I was webbed and scrambled, unable to get away as they locked weapons onto my Catalyst-class destroyer and began assaulting me. I returned the favor, targeting one of them and opening fire, but they were just out of range of my 125mm railguns, especially with antimatter charges. I was missing as often as hitting, and the well-known Caldari shield tank was holding up easliy against my intermittent fire. I continued to attempt to warp away as they quickly ate through the shields on my ship, and began to penetrate the armor. In an unbalanced fight (3 to 1) I sat basically unable to strike back and merely watch my ship dissove from under me. The explosion of my ship disrupted their scramblers just enough for me to get away - but having failed to complete my mission. My personal disappointment (and the frustration from the agent who had hired me) led to a quick end of my contract with the Gallente Militia. I flew for them for a mere two weeks, and had nothing to show but a Pend Insurance payout on my overpriced Catalyst. I was done, disgusted with my lack of understanding and unprepared to lose ships anywhere, anytime, to the raiding Caldari militia pilots. I contacted the local militia office, and resigned, realizing I wasn't made of "the right stuff" for the war.

Fast forward to high summer. I watched from the sidelines as the Caldari conquered system after system across Gallente space, reducing the "safe" space to fly in to small pockets of high-security systems scattered across known space. I was a more experienced pilot today - I still hadn't had to take out a fellow capsuleer, but I was smarter about how to avoid pirates and other pilots, and I had been studying the techniques of ship combat, improving my ability to command and utilize the offensive and defensive systems in my ships - I had even qualified to fly the advanced frigates and destroyers available to the Gallente pilot, although I felt I wasn't quite ready to fly and lose a ship that expensive. I was, after all, still a solo pilot. That was all about to change. I had come across a corporation that seemed willing to let me learn the actual techniques of combat against other pod pilots, and they had recently signed up with the Gallente Militia to fight back against the Caldari horde. I felt like it was time to try again - time to step back up and sign on the dotted line. I was going to re-enlist.