Pod FLuid

Right about when it became clear that IT wasn't in a position to present oppose Test/Goons/NC there was allot of spouting from the Sys-k/IT camp about how the fall of IT meant that nullsec politics are doomed to be stagnant and hegemonized. That without the 'forever war' (amazing book btw if you're interested in hard scifi; that book make it vogue to be gay) between Goons and BOB everyone in New Eden were bound to form alliances and suffer no reason for strife and conflict. For many reasons I find that preposterous and entirely unfounded. There is tons of conflict in the world of null sec EVE, and even enough to spill over into high and low sec sometimes. If you're not one for some random links as evidence, then maybe physics is better for ya;

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated macroscopic system never decreases

I'm not here to argue about whether or not Deklien Co. and NC are a colation. It's my oppinion that both sides of that argument are right. They're obviously in cahoots and willing to pull together for mutual defence/offence (see supercap ops against IT bloc) but at the same time seem more than happy to ignore please from help when it's politically suitable (see the valentines day supercap massacre and note the failure of goons to show up).

• AAA are Russian, so they must be RMT botters.
• IT alliance/BOB were in cahoots with CCP for unfair advantage even after the scandal.
• NC are a vast empire of bears who don't know how to PVP.
• Goons are all scum and can do no good for the game.
• Test are all newbs and can only win by swarming.
• CVA are assholes who only care about themselves and screwed everyone else.

There've been some back and forth on the forums and in the blogs regarding IT. Rather than take the spiel at face value my understanding of the situation was generally a direct result of conversation with my mates in MVN.

• A month ago 'everything was fine' and the masses were gearing up to break some face.
• Two weeks ago they 'didn't need finfleet or x13'
• Last week the core of IT was going to stay and fight it out to the bitter end.
• This week, the apathy has set in on my old corp mates; they've told me that they started moving stuff outta delve. 

The 'slugfests' to take fountain and period basis were more heated than the move on delve; and even those fights didn't last particularly long. I'm inclined to think that it may have taken longer to make all those "were back" videos IT released when they formed than it did to plant sov in an entirely shattered delve.

In this armchair generals oppinion THAT lack of a drawn out fight cost IT more than anything else. In the realm of bloc politics, either a bloc develops a tight structure of leadership, or they lose against someone who does. Being the defender or attacker is irrelevant; the tighter side dominates.  Barring outside influences, the political and military interactions of nullsec alliances are self correcting for weakness.

• An attacker that lacks the will to fight lacks the ability to win.
• A defender that never tempered it's command structure in a drawn out sov war lacks he command structure to win a drawn out defence.

Had IT alliance been forced to fight Goons for delve rather than claim it in a police auction; they'd have seen the problems that are currently being excused away and resolved them. Failing to resolve them; they would have never claimed delve. As it stands, they got to grab hold of a giant swath of space, and dealt with none of the self correcting mechanism that grabbing (or losing in my case vis-a-vis AAA) space comes with.
Shoddy leadership, close minded fleet doctrine architects, noncommittal supercapital wings, poor treatment of buffer pets; whatever excuse people make now can be brought back to the initial conditions of the territorial claim. The same goes for other alliances too.

Being handed space isn't the sort of way a power bloc ought to stand up for counting; that's the way an established bloc hands the new kid a chance to proove their meetle; if that new kid sits on the sofa rather than go find some space of their own then theres little hope.

Look at Test for an example of how its done right; and OWN/IT for the textbook "youre doing it wrong".

I worked an opening shift at the restaurant today and then had to rush in order to make the economics class I had in the afternoon. Everything was sorted in time, and afterwards my girlfriend even sent me a text asking if I wanted to come over to eat the leftover bourguignon (I taught her how to make it on her birthday). A short negotiation later and we'd decided that it'd be an evening of beer, and steak subs swimming in bourguignon sauce and jalapeño cheese. I left around 8 with my belly full and a mind to get some EVE played.

When I got home, gave my dog a hello and got the computer running; I had about 40 minutes to go before the next CTA went out. I should have gotten my Maelstrom sorted out (the hull's been sitting without a fitting for a few days now) but I couldn't get someone to light the cyno chain and guarantee that they could light it on the return trip too. So rather than sort that out, I spun my ship and headed out forty minutes later.

We fought a Sys-k fleet that was trying to incapacitate. a Stain Empire POS in Tpar (aren't they supposed to be deployed north helping out with fountain?)

http://killboard.sys-chaos.net/?a=kill_related&adjacent&kll_id=93858

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=8750632

http://a-kills.com/?a=kill_related&adjacent&kll_id=437649

Pro work on the part of the blue dictors. We managed to pin them down for long enough that our main fleet landed and we got a nice even spread of points. Sys-k people who buggered when we landed either got called back in, or else grew a pair and decided not to let their friends die (alone). Several pilots even came back in small ships once they got popped (those I beleaguered by deploying a light set of amarr drones on; I've started carrying them to work against the shield heavy fleets you see allot in blob engagements now). Kudos to all the red pilots who came back for more and to try and help their drowning mates. Got me on almost thirty kills for a half hours work; plus we killed the Ihub. Taking the system proper ought to happen sometime tomorrow.


On the other side of the spectrum, are the people who came to 'help' with fits that only end up insulting everybody involved. Here's a variation of the IT alliance Shield tank apoc; I think I will call it the Sys-k Dual Tank Apoc.


http://killboard.sys-chaos.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=93951


And theres this dude who runs a Neut Buffer Mega with medium guns;


 http://www.a-kills.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=437608 


You've gotta assume that this is a recurring problem when one of the figureheads in your alliance has to spare a mid slot for a ship scanner.

http://www.a-kills.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=437655

On a related but random note; did anyone else get a chance to listen to the leaked sys-k meeting? I almost threw up in my mouth when their 'leaders' muted everyone on comms, called them fagots and then told them that it 'only takes about 36 bombs to kill a carrier'. (For those not familiar with bombs, any more than seven or so, and they blow each other up rendering all the subsequent ones useless and dead to the blast of the first volley).

Now, I've no problem with someone whose got a low level of experience stepping up and trying to get things done (this is eve after all, not a medical practice). But for the love of fucking god;

1. Show some respect for the people you're supposed to be leading
2. Don't make an ass of yourself by trying to talk about shit you don't get

 Ideally, apply a generous combination of choices 1 and 2.

The fact that Sys-k leadership suggested that -A- get 'bored in a week' only exacerbated my resolve. Did they not pay attention to who helped them get rid of the goons when they invaded Esoteria? Where they drunk when -A- purged providence? Have they not been paying attention to our four month long campaign against Initiative?  Makes me wanna go invade Period Basis or something. ;)

I just wrote almost five thousand words summarizing a very wordy explanation of England, the United States, France, Belgium and Germany in the early and late 1800's, their economic situations and the means by which they drove themselves into the industrial revolution... For some reason, rather than shoot myself, I feel like writing something that's completely unproductive and a huge waste of my time. Hellooooo blog



If someone had asked me what my first MMO was, then I'd probably have said EVE. I'd have been wrong though.

http://www.soe.com/casualProduct.vm?Id=038

At one point cosmic rift was free to play, and it has inside it an 'arena' that runs in a persistent world where you start in a small ship,  have to go out into the asteroid fields to collect minerals for sale on the market, can buy modules to upgrade you ship with, can upgrade you ship to bigger slower tank'ier ships and you can even equip yourself with weapons at a certain point (so that rather than have to mine, you can prey on those people that are mining and make your money via salvage and loot).

Sound familiar to anyone? Yeah, exactly. It was eve, only top down, isometric 2D with a physics aspect to the game (allot of the tactics involved building speed and trying to hit a wall so that you would 'bounce' off and be able to catch the other person in an inopportune bounce.) It was fucking sweet, and it died within two months of my starting to play. Its still around, but they went from having 50-70 ppl on the persistent world at any given time when they were free to play, down to having one or two when it was pay to play. A competitive economy driven PVP game does not work when there aren't lots of players.

Well actually, that's not true. Planet mule is 2-4 player game designed in 1983 by ozark, and published by EA. In it you are a settler on a planet, and have to compete with the other settlers for possession of land. Players take turns bidding on land, and then have a fixed amount of time each turn to decide whether or not to build some sort of economic outlet there. Each turn players consume a certain amount of food and energy and are not allowed to go into the negative. Players win the game by exploiting shortages on the part of the other players and selling them goods at a severe markup while importing goods at a short price.

I hadn't thought of it before, but Cosmic Rift is the first experience I have with PVP in an MMO game. Apart from that, I'd played a bit of Diablo online, but always shy'ed away from PVP.

Back to EVE then; Things going great for -A- now, Everyone is coming off high as kites from our victory over INIT. Probably because we had assumed this would be a fight against INIT + IT + whatever mercs they decided to hire. In the end, looks like there are troubles everywhere in new Eden except our backyard. I suppose everyone gets a turn at being in the front seat... Today is ours :)

So, been a while since I made that first post, and I've kinda ignored this blog since so I suppose its just about time.

I'm no longer a 17m sp toon, rather I'm just about to break 30 on my main, and 25 with my alt. Ive crossed the main into caldari, and the alt flies a carrier as of the SP refund to get things down to my main character in nullsec. Just about the perfect setup, with a neutral alt in an orca for getting things done when wardecs abound.  (generously donated by my friend Sacha for 0.01'isk; Not bad for a 2004 toon with 20m sp)

I'm still with SS.E and they in turn are still with -A-. Despite a few close calls, our corp was pretty consistent about not wanting to be a group that dropped an alliance just cause the alliance took a hit at the end of last year. We joined up to fight with -A-, and getting to fight for our space back is the best way we could have gotten to show our mates that.

-A-, by the way did take a bit of a hit in october. The TLDR version is; we lost our space and Initiative moved in. The long version starts back when IT alliance decided it would be a good idea to invade the north. So good in fact that they were able to convince Atlas and -A- to take part in it as well. Atlas was up there sooner than -A- (because AAA was in the process of evicting CVA at the time). The campaign didnt go so well, with systems lagging out to unplayability, and all the psrticipants bored to death. It wasn't long before -A- and Atlas decided to pull out of thr invasion. -A- decided it would be a good time to get some small scale pvp, so they reset nearly everyone, including IT. In the end AAA is about PVP, and keeping the Standings we had before the reset would have meant going 40+ jumps before we got to some gankable space.

While we were busy dreaming of good times, Atlas was struck hard by the russians that live above them in the drone regions (there was some bad blood there, but thats not my story to tell). Withdrawl from the northern campaign must have been the sign of weakness that those russians needed to justify an attack.

As per the norm, Atlas had set up its space so that they were surrounded entirely by renters, pets and allies. When the Russians arrived in force, Atlas presented a weak show of support for their pets. The Drone Russians (with the support of mercenaries that they'd hired) quickly dispatched the buffer alliances and set to work agaisnt Atlas. It didnt take very long for atlas to bite the bullet in turn; and rather than fight months of drawn out sov warfare; they cut a deal with the russians from the drone regions to evac thier motherships safely (the ones that were under construction at that time that is). Part of that deal was to hand over some of the supers to the invaders and another part was an obligation to immediately reset -A-. Suffice to say -A- was at that point upset they'd bothered to deploy in defence of Atlas space and we went to work on them now that they were neutral.

Together Atlas and AAA where a major bloc in the eve polical spectra. They'd been much bigger than us, but -A- has just about always punched well above its weight class. Now -A-'s only remaining allies were the stainwagon coalition.

[backstory]
The Stainwagon coalition a short time ago consisted of Systematic Chaos, Coven, Ligiua Roamana, Stain Empire and when the times called for it AAA. SE and c0ven had not long ago evicted Sys-k for not being able to fight hostile neighbours of any size without calling heavy support. ( http://www.eve-search.com/thread/1418363/page/1 See this page for some trolling of sys-k by burn eden; They deployed to Sys-k home space and decimated any defence fleets using unprobeable Snipe fit macharials just for fun). IIRC, the only victory sys-k can put THEIR (read not their master alliances) name on in almost two years was when gonswarm made a pass at esoteria; and sys-k called in Stain Empire, Coven, Liguia Romana (sp?) and -A- to help with it. I was there for that campaign, and listening to speaches on TS about how 'we pride ourselfs on friendship and duty' was a poor cover for only wearing the pvp alliance hat, and not having the game to back it up. Its a wonder the stain Coalition didnt boot sys-k sooner than it did.
[/backstory]

It didnt take long for wolves to start hovering around -A-, and not long after that for everyone else to show up to knock sand into our faces either. Understand, thats not a rant about being blobbed. Being blobbed and gang raped is what Null sec large scale politics is all about! Not a rant or a complaimt, but them's the breaks. More people showed up to pick a fight with -A- than we were ready/able to fight. Initiative arrived to take space (fat with allot of the same people who jumped the burning ship from atlas), they rented PL, brought a sister alliance, coordinated with LegionXX, and IT showed up for good measure to look for 'GFs' amongst the gang rape.

Despite how fat AAA'd gotten with bears, the core was still hard and seedy with pvp; so rather than surrender when Init came we fought for long enough to make some choices, long enough to shed some of the people who weren't neccisarrily in it for the long haul and long enough to lose those bears that were easier to scare off than others. SS.E had a bit of a hub-bub internally about whether to fracture from alliance or not, but in the end we decided that it'd be best not to show up just in time for a bit of a setback and leave the people we'd come to be with to whatever cascades may or may not have come. Thankfully, the cascade didnt come and without too much setback we consolidated in NPC stain (and a brief stint in Esoteria). We didn't look to build numbers as much as we wanted to get a feel for the numbers that stuck it out. SS.E was in it to make mates, and AAA was in it to settle grudges. If my corp or alliance was guilty of anything before, it wasnt lack of PVP drive, It was a lack of vendetta. Thanks for that guys :)

From then on, the only real fight was the one to weather the smack from Init and the rest of the IT pets. We deployed when we could, footworked around some of the bigger punches that came at us and played eve the way you have to when you wanna win.

Logged in and formed up another roam today; the thought was to goto PB and piss off some sys-k but the head fc for corp told me it would be better to move slowly somewhere nearby cause there was an important CTA happening.

We settled on small fast things (Im starting to like speedy fleets) so I got in my malediction with the idea that I'd skirmish and scout. Init had a CTA called for later, and the hope was to setup between GE- and the rest of catch and grab people who were coming from bearing for the sov defence. Fleet was 2x canes, sabre, vagabond, falcon, bomber, malediction and a dramiel.

When we passed into ge- my forward suggested that we go to the station and see what we could catch. Unfortunately when we landed we had nothing on grid with us. Rather than leave though, we had my bomber pilot go sit on the init bridge and the dictor place himself in line for stop bubbles. Then we sat there a while; probably too long since they were able to forumup a counter fleet and even fit out a station hugging snipe Apoc to force me off grid. With two carriers on the undock, vagas, dictors turning up in directional, ceptors undocking and probes showing up on the overview I probably should have bailed much sooner. I think even two jumps up the pipe and we would have not stirred up such a response. People who otherwise wouldn't x up for home defence are much more likely too when there's a station to hide in, lots of logistics and a blue blob around.

I ordered fleet to v-3 gate and to burn off towards the sun. I ran out ahead of them so that they could warp to distance then moved back to the gate. At this point they were toying an eris around us and jumped in a bait drake. For some reason I took the bait and started the fight there. I don't remember exactly what they sent after us, but I ordered a bail and we lost a drake to the dictor bubbles they dropped.

I got the gang safed, asked em into v-3 and then tossed the cane pilot 30m for the loss. From then I spent a few minutes consolidating us back together and got us past ge- safely to hand the fleet over to fc's for CTA action later or to go on another quickie roam if they wanted too.

Today I lost, was a learning experience.

One more early wake up and one more cheetah fast cta! If getting to be a few hours early and waking up just a little bit later means im going to get on carrier kills 5+ times a week then I may have to start making a habit of it.

I logged in and saw the cta  announcement is alliance. Jumped on TS just in time to hear that the titan bridge would be in one minute, so rather than waste time thinking about what to bring (I just fitted out a Curse and a Scorpion) I made a leap of faith and got inside one of my drakes.

Landed on the titan just in time to watch a Machariel bump into it hard and earn me an extension. Time enough to reload guns, put myself into the empty squad lead position for boosts and pop a booster.

On jump in we got to watch one carrier gobble a doomsday, two carrier wrecks get pirhannad and one start to melt under Titan guns and a swarm of -A-fricanized Drakes. 

One the initiative gang tucked themselves back into the pos (I'm going to assume that they've changed their passwords since last time) we all went to the TCU to reinforce it for good measure. 

With supers titans and the support fleet present, this all happened in under ten minutes. Null sec has become a game of chess where the idea is to swap as many of your pawns for queens as you can, and today's fifteen minute gank'n'reinforce CTA is exactly why.

Maybe when I get a bit more comfortable with blogging eve I will introduce GO analogies to you all. Till then; take a look at the wikipedia page on 'go game'.

Logged in to jump some spare ships between corps NPC null HQ and -A- staging system today and decided to hang around rather than logski fast. (Generally, if I have to goto work, I rather log off than sit in corp chat and log when a CTA is due. My timezone sucks that way, and I don't wanna give the appearance of not pulling my weight just cause I gotta goto work). Today was different, CTA was due in about four hours (getting up early ftw) and I felt that I could hang out and shoot the shit for two then log without looking like I was ducking CTA's.

15 minutes in, Emergency CTA...

Now, if I sound better please reconsider! I don't want to avoid CTA's, I just dont wanna get dragged out to hostile systems for 4 hours when I have to get to work in two. Emergency CTA, with plenty of time to just sit in front of my computer and take part is a welcome change for me! I was glad to be able to pull some weight before heading off to work.

Call was for scimies, drakes, supers and titans. Then fc mentioned that he needed 5 more dictors. AWESOME. I just trained dictors, and I'd even got one laying around insured (it was very cheap, and I intended to fly it extra stupid).

Form up on the titan, bridge to location, and over comms I hear some Russian followed by "Password is *****, dictors bubble on bridge in". Land on grid with a pos, three Initiative carriers inside, and several -A- titans/supers sitting outside tanking the pos guns. Next fifteen minutes spent bumping the carriers out of the POS, taking one or two pot shots and bubbling once they're out (gotta whore in a small fast ship), and going back in to get the next one out. IN the end, we killed all three; though it took a bit of time. Some friendly drake pilots were orbiting the carriers and deflecting smaller faster ships bumps away from the carriers right as we got within range.

Got myself on two carrier kills, then once caps were charging cap to jump out I warped to a pounce on the GE- gate (figured I'd cloak up and give eyes). Two seconds from dropping out of warp FC tells fleet that someone has a pilgrim tackle on the gate. SCORE! Pounced down, killed it, and managed to get the best of the loot too. The heretic has already paid for itself, and its reimbursable on CTA's. I love this new ship :)

http://killboard.eve-sse.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=28006
http://killboard.eve-sse.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=28009
http://killboard.eve-sse.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=28010

I always tended to be on the other side of the war with them, and I wouldn't have had it any other way... But the goons definitely made some very interesting and useful contributions to the game... Goon training video's on you tube were how I spent my first few trial days.

They're still at it too; take a look at this gem

A pamplet handout for newbies to the game. Very directed at neophytes to the swarm, but absolutely a good model for any group in game that isn't exclusive of beginners. New players tend to need allot of hand holding. Barring places like eve university and the goons where there are programs in place to do that hand holding their only other 'easy' options are small fail corps that can recruit people who don't know any better.

Anyone know what sort of introductory materials the eve-university offers? I'd very much like to get a look at it.

Decided to finally take the plunge and start one of my own. Hopefully I can adhere to at least a quality control standard (because I know that I'm going to be anything BUT regular when it comes to posting schedules).

• Try to post things that qualify as interesting to people outside of my inner circle.
• Don't repeat posts that appear on blogs I've already read.
• Clearly separate fictional posts from news/mechanic articles.
• Have an appropriate image to go with each posting.
• Reinforce 'news' articles with links WHENEVER possible.
• Judiciously use lists and text formatting to make it easier to read.

I'd like to have political news, guides and some game play mechanics/discussions as the forefront feature of the blog.

Myself


It alliance released/leaked/had spied a vent speech that laid the foundation over the speculative holes people have been digging. Plans to invade the north are underway or else IT decided it was going to inject a confusing and mean april fools joke into the 0.0 political scene

Fitting of the day


[Prowler, Low-sec Runner]

Warp Core Stabilizer I
Local Hull Conversion Inertial Stabilizers I

10MN MicroWarpdrive I
[empty med slot]
1Z-3 Subversive ECM Eruption

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[empty high slot]

Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Polycarbon Engine Housing I