Message to CVA

I recently posted on COAD (which is something I do not do often), in the -A- CVA thread. Its a real shame that a few foolish leaders can destroy a dynasty (full of targets).

"CVA, you should have listened to old friends (whom you cast out and would not let into your fold), when they told you not to anger -A-. I can say with assurity that we are laughing now. At this point, you reap what you sow.

Delve has fallen, your masters have dwindled into nothing. The gamble in siding with Goons was unwise. The stupidity in refusing an offer of peace will prove to be catastrophic. The sad part is that you have so many inexperienced pilots that are going to pay for your snobbish attitude and ignorant belief in Amarr destiny bullsh**. You have proven to be inadequate in fleet warfare. -A- would grind you down without help. But who says they will stand alone? When you sided with Goons you sided against other powers. Do not expect mercy for your stupidity.

-MVN- once worked for you as guns for hire. You snubbed what could have been. In Atlas we poached on your lands. Now we will come take them from you.

To those who live under the "protection" of CVA, leave now. Your masters have let madness overtake reason. Don't let yourselves be consumed in the firestorm that is surging towards you."

The history of Maverick Navy and CVA is not one that is widely known, but the outline is this.

Mavericks used to be the best anti-pirates in the game. We would help CVA hunt down and destroy in Provibloc. When political shifts were mad, Mavericks requested to join CVA and were refused and belittled. Our CEO Avicenna, who still maintains friends within CVA, never forgot what happened. We pirated in Yong and Mamet relentlessly. Recently we have not been in the area due to warfare in Fountain and Delve. What will happen now that our war is ending I cannot say, but we do have extensive experience in the area and great specialization in guerilla tactics (excellent for countering the Proviblob).

For more reading on this conflict I encourage you to read the following:

Kirith Kodachi, who is with Paxton

Brutus Septimius with Ushra'Khan

Wensley with -A- "Rifter Drifter"

EVE Monkey with -A-

Hallan Turrek a Providence Dweller

Those are just a few, I'm sure there are many more out there.

The Importance of Scouts

In consolidating my assets to Y-2, I had to move ratting ships and other large assets over long distances. So I logged on my scout in a cloaky ship and my main in a pod and began the process of transporting my ships to Y-2.

Generally the way out was fairly easy, as a cloaky ship and pod are nothing to get excited about. Bringing back ratting Ravens and fleet battleships, however, can be a hairy journey. I avoided two gate camps, through a combination of changing routes and being patient, waiting out camps or slipping by as they moved to engage something else.

Scouting is the only way to move these assets around, even in "safe" territory. There is no safety. In your backyard you could run into a 3 man gank squad that will ruin your day. I love nothing more than an un escorted fleet bs. Expensive, no tank, and with guns that can't track. Even if you are having your corpmate escort you around I believe its not quite as effective as dual boxing, because it takes too long to relay valuable intel. Obviously any scout is better than no scout, but you are just better able to move fluidly around with your own scout. I find that jumping scout in, warping to outbound gate, then holding while the soft ship jumps in is most effective. You then jump the scout next system, check the all clear, and warp the soft ship to the outbound while the scout cloaks, aligned to the next gate. When the soft ship jumps through the scout then warps outbound gate and continues the cycle. Overextending the scout can be disastrous (unless you're in a pipe), as circumstances can change rapidly and if your scout is too far ahead you may not see the threat until its too late.

On a side note I got my Tengu scouted from NOL to our staging system. The thing had most of the subystems I wanted (except one) and it was not very expensive. The fitting however, was fail. Really fail. It looked more like a Drake than a Tengu. T1 Rigs. Buffer tank. Tech 1 afterburner. A deadspace thermal hardener... for what? No EM hardener. A T2 point. So for the moment its parked in station until I get my faction fittings and and components, and the subsystem module I wanted that wasn't on the ship when I purchased it (20 mill for it in Jita). I don't understand how someone could spend that much money on hull and subsystems and then skip on the fittings. Its ridiculous. It is a beautiful ship, however, and I very much look forward to flying it in our small gangs.

On the note of Goonswarm. Many of them have decided to join the BoB Alliance. Since its the last card they can play at this point, oh well. They can laugh about it in local, but who lives in Delve? Whether or not Kartoon actually was truthful in his statement concerning letting Goons slide into dust, who cares. They have no space, no real structure. Check out Cal at Wild at Heart for more info on the downfall of Goons. Sure they stole the name, but its not the name that makes an alliance. Its the corporations and soldiers that fight that make an alliance what it is. Although the Goons may be in Band of Brothers Alliance, they are just a shadow and a whisper of what once was.

Note: I am getting a lot of people saying my background is hard to read. So I am going to put up a vote as to whether I should change my background to something more legible, or leave the awesome picture of a Tengu. If you do read through RSS I encourage you to log on (just for a min.) and take the survey.

Mopping up is a bore.

Not much exciting to write about at the moment. The past couple days have been spent hitting offline/abandoned towers in our corner of Delve. We've also been hitting the occasional TCU and iHub. Goons sudden departure has left a lot of work to do, taking down infrastructure and putting our own up. SoT is being a nuisance, organizing small gangs in Fountain (while most of our combat forces are deployed in Delve). I have consolidated most of my forces into the -MVN- staging area, out of Fountain, which took most of yesterday. With luck we will have more time for fighting as we lockdown our constellation. I encourage you all to take a look at the sov map, located at the bottom of my blog. Delve looks very blue :)

For those of you who have started reading my blog, I hope its been interesting reading. Feel free to leave comments, feedback, or your own view on life. If you are enjoying what you have been reading, please share your experiences with others. It would be greatly appreciated.

PK

Goonswarm. The End

All corporations except holding corps were let go from Goonswarm approximately 15 min ago.

[06:45:27] *** > karttoon went f**k goons
[06:45:28] *** > our ceo
[06:45:42] ***> all goons with roles been told to drop roles
[06:45:50] ***> we'll be someone new tomorrow night :)
[06:45:58] *** > without a canadian gimmic
[06:46:00] *** > as a ceo

So it ends... for now...

When the Hunter becomes the Hunted

Last night was fairly uneventful up until close to downtime. Running a little short on ISK, I decided to dedicate a night to carebearing. Ratting it up in Y-2, I was making 10 mill a tick (not too shabby). This was also getting my security status up (I am now -1.9) so I could go back and gank people in high sec. So here I was, running logistics with my alt and ratting on my main, when Casebolt asked me to scout his new toy to NOL and then to Y-2.

Last week I bought a Sleipnir for Case on firesale for 160 mill. He paid me back and it was now time to get it up and running. I grabbed my Manticore and Case hopped in a shuttle and we flew down to a station 20j out of Y-2. Passing a few reds on the way down, we encountered no problems. Case grabbed the Sleipnir and we started back. Passing through 319- was a little bit of a pucker moment, as Goons have taken up residence in there. We made it through succesfully, however, and he docked up in NOL to fit his new toy. A Goon Buzzard cloaked up off the station, presumably to scout the exit for the two Goons docked up inside. Unfortunately, the bubble anchored at the undock along with the Brutix sitting outside with drones out pretty much screwed our chances of catching a Goon trying to escape. So we started rolling back to Y-2.

Two jumps out I jumped into a system with none other than Kirtan Loor. Kirtan was the Domi toon that worked in tandem with the Legion pilot that we lost 2 Drakes and a Harbinger to a week or so ago. We ended up popping his Domi but the Legion got away during that last pyrrhic victory of sorts. Kirtan was once again in a Domi, which was guaranteed to be nuet fitted with 3 plates in the lows. I yelled at Case to get off the gate, assuming the Legion would arrive shortly. The Dominix was just sitting there, so I smacked him in local a bit with no response. "The Legion pilot is local with me now" Case said. "I'm gonna lob an eff you bomb at this guy" I replied "Maybe he will jump through and you can get through and burn. Align to the gate". All of a sudden I hear Casebolt cursing, and the Dominix jumped through. Turns out he was sitting on the gate, and he didn't have T3 ships on his overview. The Legion was shooting at him before he realized something was wrong. Fail. He was able to burn to the gate and jump through, however, and we rolled to Y-2. I was pissed. He was pissed. These two (which I still think is one guy dual boxing) have been rolling around Fountain, and now Delve, without any hindrance. This was due largely to the fact that most of our combat assets are deployed for the Delve campaign.

So we formed up in Y-2. I grabbed a Scorp and tanked it up. I left 2 Gallente and 2 Amarr T2 jammers on with LSEs in the rest of the mids, and dropped 3 plates in the lows with a DC2. I also dropped the cruise launchers and fitted torp launchers with a couple neuts. Case grabbed a Geddon, Carson grabbed a Blackbird and Altair grabbed an uber tanked Drake with NOS and Neuts in the highs (weird but he wanted to try it). We also had a Blast guy in local who brought his own Dominix to the party.

Casebolt had his alt in a Buzzard looking for the guy and was almost ready to give up when they showed up, presumably on their way back. I had been arguing they would come back through because they had been staging out of Fountain. Sure enough they came into ZXB, which is a pipe that comes to Y-2. We stuck Altair in his uber tanked Drake on the gate and everyone aligned. The Dominix jumped through first and just sat there. Then the Legion jumped through and cloaked up. After a min or so the Dominix aggressed and we warped in. The moment we started landing on grid the Dominix started reapproaching gate, as Altair had him pointed. Despite webs he got back to 0 on the gate but stayed aggressed. Then the Legion decloaked and joined the party. I started getting jams off on the Dominix, finally, and the Legion was permajammed. We started neuting the crap out of the Legion, and Casebolt was assigning fighters from his alt at this point. The Dominix was going down when the Legion started burning away. Casebolt was just a little late on the web, and he got away in half armor. We lost our Blackbird pilot, but in exchange for the Dominix it was well worth it. The Legion pilot dissapeared, but not before I dropped a "Yall come back now ya hear" in local. He promptly responded with "I will". We're gonna get that Legion one of these days.

Why Do I Love EVE Online?

CrazyKinux has asked everyone to write an article on why they love EVE Online. Of course there is a contest involved, but I would love to share the many reasons I love playing this game.

I started playing EVE 9 months ago. Prior to that I was playing RTSs like Company of Heroes and my all time favorite, Homeworld 2. The group I played with was XENO, a clan formed during the original Homeworld. Homeworld was a space based RTS that depended heavily on strategy and microing your ships. Being very much an action based individual, I frowned at what I now know as "carebearing". XENO Corp did lots of mining, manufacturing, etc. I made fun of their EVE adventures constantly. I joined up when the two guys left in XENO that played CoH dropped off the face of the planet. The two week trial was no charge to try, so I gave it a shot. Within a couple days I was hooked.

I started off in Caldari space running missions. I got a feel for the game and the controls, but it wasn't exciting. A week after playing I moved out to 0.0 with my corp. At that point we were in the Fade/Pure Blind region living as a "pet" to Mostly Harmless. A few days after the move I was loaned some isk and bought a Drake, lost it the same day, and bought another. Ratting was huge money for me back then, and I ratted my heart out to make the money to buy more ships and more mods. I was still missing something, however, and kept searching. I started doing as many roams as possible with alliance members, due to the lax PVP nature of my own corporation. I got my first taste of blood and that was that.

Being a PVP based player, I loved the thrill and adrenaline of an engagement. The multi tasking was joyous. I have very bad attention spans. Playing a first person shooter like MW2 keeps only a part of my brain occupied. A game like EVE means watching local, watching intel, doing whatever it is you're doing, talking in corp, talking in chat, talking over vent, talking over teamspeak. You are absorbed into the game on all different levels. You have microing (fleet movements, system to system, moving your ship into optimals, out of optimals of enemy, orbits around targets, as well as managing reppers, cap, etc.). You also have Macro, which includes wars, market fluctuations, corporate espionage, spys, supply lines, funding for conflicts, etc. Its a brutal world that sees very little influence by CCP. When BoB was disbanded, CCP watched. When Goons bounced their sov check, CCP watched. Those had cataclysmic affects on the EVE universe, and are now written into the history of EVE.

Immersion in the EVE verse is fully realized in the storyline. Sure the game has developer storylines built in, but YOU are the storyline. You create the news. Being in IT Alliance but not having been in BoB, I could only read about what happened with the first Delve War. I learned what was expected and what we wanted, and I took on that vendetta and made it personal to take Fountain and Delve. There may be people living under rocks in the EVE verse here and there, but for most people, the war is their daily read in EVE. The giant war in the south, the NC fighting in the north, those are the big events. Those huge battles, I am a part of them. Some of the smaller engagements, I am FC ing. Unlike other games where you follow a choose your adventure book of sorts, there is no limit to what you can do in EVE. Who thought Goons would drop sov in all those systems in Delve? An author could not have created such an ironic twist of fate as what happened last week. Yet who made all this possible? Thousands and thousands of players in the EVE universe involved with IT Alliance, Goonswarm, PL, SoT, -A-, CVA, Triumvirate, Morsus Mihi, Mostly Harmless, Atlas, XXdeathXX, and all the other Nullsec Alliances that make the politics. Don't forget all the industrialists in Empire that make all the ships I blow up and get blown up in, create all the modules and rigs I need to fit the ships, and buy my moon goo. Since Apocrypha you now have the added dimension of wormhole space, which is always a rabbit hole that many can't resist.

Of course you have the RPG portion that all MMORPGs share. By this I mean the knowledge that in a few days or a week you will be able to fly that new ship, or do that task better, or use that new module. It never gets old. I remember how excited I was to fly a Drake. Now I am excited to take my new Tengu out for a spin. Someday I may even vest in a cap ship, although cap warfare isn't quite my thing (right now). There is always something bigger and better you can fly if you just train long enough. You choose your career, whether it be high sec war dec combat, low sec pirating, carebearing, or all of the above joining a null sec alliance. You can fight smart, fight crazy, or not fight at all. You can run missions all day long, or kill people running missions. I love that there is no PVP server. The moment you log in you are in combat, whether or not you know it. Undock in a hauler with 200 mill worth of mods in Jita 4-4 and you will know what I mean. CONCORD will come to your rescue, but they will always be too late to save your loot from my hauler alt.  Think you're safe in deadspace? My probes will sniff you out. Trying to make that quick run through null sec? My drag bubble will bring you to me. Think those warp stabs will keep you safe in low sec? The script in my HIC will still point you with a full rack of warp stabs. There is no safety in EVE, except you keeping an eye on local and knowing that people like me will kill you for fun if you don't plan for the worst.

Comparing EVE to other MMORPGs (although I have never tried anything else) the one thing that comes up time and time again is that EVE is one giant server. This sometimes causes issues with lag, but you can always run into someone in game, no matter what their trade or faction or alliance may be. That is crazy. Last night I noticed a guy in intel channel posting. I recognized the name of a player that popped my first battleship 3 hours after I bought it (kill rights lesson learned hard). He was dilly dallying around low sec Gallente space last time I saw him months and months ago. Now he is part of Black Star Alliance, who a smaller ally of IT that holds space in Fountain with us. Who would have thought?

The other large difference is that there is a free market in EVE. Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is in full swing. With the exception of a few items including skill books and sov mods, all items in EVE are player created. Players mine the minerals, refine the minerals and gases, and manufacture the ships, mods, and everything else. Then players like me blow them up. There is very little intervention by the "governement" or CCP (which is more than I can say about the US Government these days). Sure there are fluctuations when new game mechanics are introduced, but the system always irons itself out and stabilizes. There is even a professional economist in charge of the game, Eyjo Gudmundsson, who keeps an eye on the economy in EVE. He is EVE's Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and does an outstanding job. Some people whine about the changs in prices, but just like in the real world, things change. Its part of the game. You won't find that with other games out there. Those are rigidly run state controlled economies.

Who would have thought that 9 months after playing one of the most complicated MMORPGs I would be an LT in the biggest (coolest) alliance in the game leading out roams with numbers in fleet ranging from 10-150? With an analytical mind and good leadership skills anything in the EVE verse is possible. I look back on my days early on in EVE and smile now; I have come so far. You can pick up the game and take whatever path you want in EVE. No one will stop you except yourself.

The Snowball Effect

Today I logged on early afternoon hoping to get some ratting in for an hour and make some security status. Didn't happen. Roaming fleet was forming up in NOL, and I couldn't resist. So I grabbed my Falcon and headed down to NOL from Y-2. I caught up with fleet in time for them to hit the ratting pocket, see there were no targets, and turn around. The 4 man ceptor gang had now grown to a mixed fleet about 15 in size.

At this point intel came in of a 25 man RR bs gang coming in from Sakht. They headed up a dead end pipe into ZA9. We formed up in NOL for our own RR bs with logistics and Ewar support. I burned up the pipe to get us intel on the enemy fleet, which had POSed up at this point. We got reports of pods coming out of the pipe, apparently there was some fighting going on in there, but with who? At this point I took over fleet with one of my corpmates, as it was clear we needed to get things rolling. I kept asking for intel but was getting nowhere. Our fleet swelled in size as people jumped onboard for the chance to smash the hostile gang.

Then a conversation window popped open from one of our allies in Quarantine Zone. He proceeded to tell me that ten of his bs and two of his carriers had been hitting an offline Pandemic Legion tower in the system when the PL battleship gang came in. They had fought, and now both parties were safed up. He also told me the gang was NOT rr and didn't seem too coordinated.

This changed things quite a bit. I got my eyes in system and sat 10k off the enemy POS. Watching their fleet, I calculated what would go down in what order. They had 5 dominix, a Scorpion, 4 Raven's, 2 Geddons, a few Apocs, a few Megas, and 2 Tempests. They were just sitting in the POS, waiting for their Rapier scout to work his way up to1-Smeb and tell them it was clear to run back to low sec. We got everyone into Q-H on the 1-Smeb gate. This was important for two reasons:
1. The Q-H gate in 1-Smeb was very short warp to the M5 gate (which is a pipe to the dead end ZA9).
2. PL had scouts in 1-Smeb that would scream the moment local spiked.
3. We were still waiting for stragglers to catch up from NOL.

The fleet was still forming up when the PL fleet started aligning to the gate in ZA9. We had a cloaky dictor in M5 on the 1-Smeb gate, as well as a dictor in 1-Smeb cloaked up off the M5 gate. I watched as the fleet reached full speed... and then they warped. "Alright fleet be at 0 on the 1-Smeb gate, enemy fleet is moving". Local dropped, and I warped to the M5 gate and jumped. Sure enough, their fleet was all around me, and took off right as I loaded grid. I warped to the 1-Smeb gate, on the way there local dropped. "Fleet is entering 1-Smeb" Vampiress announced. "Fleet jump 1-Smeb warp to M5 gate gogogo!' I barked into comms. Vampiress dropped bubbles and ran for his life, while my fleet made the short warp from Q-H gate to M5 gate. I started calling primaries, going for the Scorpion first. Unfortunately, our bubbling wasn't quite what we would have wanted and we only got 6 of their bs. Geddon, Raven, Geddon, Tempest, Raven, and Domi. On a happier note, we took no losses. My Falcon only took 1 volley from one of the Raven's before I jammed him up.

The enemy fleet fled to low sec, so we hit their POS. The POS only had 3 warp disruption batteries on it, with 4 large, 4 med, and 4 small auto cannon batteries. We took out the warp disruptors, then the guns. We left the POS for this week, as it had hardeners on it. Those would have made taking it down an eternity with the 50bs we had. Dreads in siege, maybe ten minutes. Tops.

Took the fleet back to NOL, re shipped and proceeded to camp Pr- for an hour. Got a Rapier, nailed a Rifter and a Cerb, but other than those it was slim pickings. So we went for a roam over to Querious. After 30 min of roaming and no targets (Goons just didn't want to play today), we got word of a Brick Squad gang in the area. We moved to intercept. Holding on the Pr- gate in IDH, with the Brick Squad gang next door on the FW gate, we jumped in to engage. Intelligence had told of a Brick Squad gang 25 strong mainly frigates. Our fleet had 30 in it scattered in Pr-. What happened was not what I had intended when I made the decision to engage.

Landing on the FW gate in Pr- I failed to load grid for 15 seconds. During this time I had to ask someone else to call targets as I could not. Upon loading grid I had damage to my ship (which was a Crow) and immediately died, the only thing I got off a shot on what was an Ares which had me locked. The Ares ended up dying but so did several of our fleet, including my Crow. The order to pull back was given and the fleet re formed. At this point I had to leave (duty called :) I handed over the reigns to another FC and didn't get on till later tonight.  As I reflected on why our fleet failed, I narrowed it down to two big reasons. The first was fail intel. "90% frigs" was reported in intel. That was complete bs. As you can see looking at my killmail there was certainly other ships involved, including T3, T2, and larger T1 ships. The second huge reason was my  fleet was not 100% active. Many pilots had been joining gang because of the Brick Squad gang in system, but were not ready to fight, not on comms or just afk. We should have re formed before engaging, as our fleet size was not an accurate representation of our active pilots. Those two factors led to a fail engagement. Overall, still a succesful day.

Now I find myself lighting cynos all over Fountain for our logistics guys, to pick up moon goo and fuel towers. Joy. As the title goes, don't ever understimate how rapidly things will grow. Small gangs can become multi alliance fleets in a heartbeat.