Cap Stable Episode 74: The Quaternion of Q
We were delighted to be part of their show and they asked us interesting questions.
Friday, 31 July 2015
[Podcast] Cap Stable 74 with Callduron and Oaa Rhaawii
The Brave Alliance Tournament team featured on another podcast this week:
Sunday, 19 July 2015
One day in the life of the Brave Collective.
A lot of people seem to be wondering how Brave is getting on. Have we collapsed completely after leaving sov? Are rumours of a resurgence arising from a return to the alliance's low sec origins true?
I'll tell you about yesterday's activities and let you decide.
18th July 2015
2015-07-18 00:36:16 A junior FC pings a Talwar roam.
2015-07-18 01:46:23 A FC calls for a Caracal fleet for a fight in Aunsou, our staging system.
2015-07-18 02:33:41 A FC calls for torp bombers for black ops hot drops.
2015-07-18 04:19:46 A FC randomly decides he'd like to visit the Eve Gate and pings for destroyers to go on a roam to there.
2015-07-18 12:25:16 A ping goes out for torp bombers. A corp has tackled a carrier and needs more dps.
2015-07-18 16:40:35 A cruiser fleet is called in Aunsou, led by a guest FC from NC., one of the top pvp alliances in the game.
2015-07-18 18:00:52 (Tournament squad only) Our Alliance Tournament practice starts, a 2 hour training session where we play a number of other alliances on the test server. Squad members only (although the squad is currently recruiting a select few more pilots).
2015-07-18 20:31:09 POCO bash.
2015-07-18 21:04:15 A Dojo class teaching manual piloting with our AT squad, open to everyone. We got a number of people very new to the game. 5 members of the squad are there to help teach and I ran the class. 4 people won prizes, one person got horribly murdered by the MOA guys who decided to hunt us. Of the people who won prizes one won for making a pun that made me laugh, 3 won by managing a trial that had them hold scram on my Moa, while orbiting manually, while dodging my smartbombing as I tried to slingshot them while we were being probed down and hunted by hostiles!
2015-07-18 21:11:36 One of our senior FCs, Extrems pings for Talwars to fight in Aunsou.
2015-07-18 21:35:58 Time to ship up in Aunsou, Extrems pings for cruisers.
2015-07-18 22:25:17 Carrier tackled ping goes out, the cruiser fleet has found ludicrous amounts of content as half of low sec piles into our system for a massive punch-up.
2015-07-18 23:16:43 Things have quietened down in Aunsou. However an interesting glitch has occurred, giving FC Extrems the chance to mess up someone's night. Inties and fast attack frigates are called for a long range roam.
Here's a video of the fights that Extrems FCed in Aunsou:
In addition to all that we had corp stuff going on (my corp was involved in a Syndicate v the rest of the universe punch up over a Black Omega moon), I taught a newbro the basics of Jita station trading and we have our usual permanent defence fleet running with no FC and a fly whatever you want approach running in our home system (except when the big fights in Aunsou happened then everyone jumped across to get in the properly run fleet).
So.
What did your alliance do yesterday?
(If it was boring join Brave Newbies if you want to talk to our recruiters or just fly down here to Aunsou and shoot someone).
I'll tell you about yesterday's activities and let you decide.
18th July 2015
2015-07-18 00:36:16 A junior FC pings a Talwar roam.
2015-07-18 01:46:23 A FC calls for a Caracal fleet for a fight in Aunsou, our staging system.
2015-07-18 02:33:41 A FC calls for torp bombers for black ops hot drops.
2015-07-18 04:19:46 A FC randomly decides he'd like to visit the Eve Gate and pings for destroyers to go on a roam to there.
2015-07-18 12:25:16 A ping goes out for torp bombers. A corp has tackled a carrier and needs more dps.
2015-07-18 16:40:35 A cruiser fleet is called in Aunsou, led by a guest FC from NC., one of the top pvp alliances in the game.
2015-07-18 18:00:52 (Tournament squad only) Our Alliance Tournament practice starts, a 2 hour training session where we play a number of other alliances on the test server. Squad members only (although the squad is currently recruiting a select few more pilots).
2015-07-18 20:31:09 POCO bash.
2015-07-18 21:04:15 A Dojo class teaching manual piloting with our AT squad, open to everyone. We got a number of people very new to the game. 5 members of the squad are there to help teach and I ran the class. 4 people won prizes, one person got horribly murdered by the MOA guys who decided to hunt us. Of the people who won prizes one won for making a pun that made me laugh, 3 won by managing a trial that had them hold scram on my Moa, while orbiting manually, while dodging my smartbombing as I tried to slingshot them while we were being probed down and hunted by hostiles!
2015-07-18 21:11:36 One of our senior FCs, Extrems pings for Talwars to fight in Aunsou.
2015-07-18 21:35:58 Time to ship up in Aunsou, Extrems pings for cruisers.
2015-07-18 22:25:17 Carrier tackled ping goes out, the cruiser fleet has found ludicrous amounts of content as half of low sec piles into our system for a massive punch-up.
2015-07-18 23:16:43 Things have quietened down in Aunsou. However an interesting glitch has occurred, giving FC Extrems the chance to mess up someone's night. Inties and fast attack frigates are called for a long range roam.
Here's a video of the fights that Extrems FCed in Aunsou:
In addition to all that we had corp stuff going on (my corp was involved in a Syndicate v the rest of the universe punch up over a Black Omega moon), I taught a newbro the basics of Jita station trading and we have our usual permanent defence fleet running with no FC and a fly whatever you want approach running in our home system (except when the big fights in Aunsou happened then everyone jumped across to get in the properly run fleet).
So.
What did your alliance do yesterday?
(If it was boring join Brave Newbies if you want to talk to our recruiters or just fly down here to Aunsou and shoot someone).
Saturday, 18 July 2015
[Podcast] High Drag ep 54, featuring Callduron and Avaren Dias.
High Drag is always excellent and should be on your list without me needing to recommend it.
Still the last episode is of special note because I'm on it.
First time I've been on a podcast, was really good fun.
Still the last episode is of special note because I'm on it.
First time I've been on a podcast, was really good fun.
Wednesday, 1 July 2015
Brave: The WOKA-4 plan
In Brave we have a problem. On the one hand many of the high skill point pilots want sov null with the ratting and mining opportunities and the epic large scale battles. On the other hand we are an alliance that recruits large numbers of very new players and we want to give them opportunities to develop in an environment that isn't as brutally hard as a backs-to-the-wall, last-days-of-Rome all-out sov defence.
One solution that has been suggested is to split the alliance into a newbie friendly lowsec campus and a separate sov section.
Here's a look at how we could do that using systems right next door to each other: Okagaiken, a system in Caldari faction war space and W-4NUU, a system in Cloud Ring. Effectively HERO would have 2 capitals, 2 adjacent market hubs, a conurbation collectively known as WOKA-4.
Now Cloud Ring has its own inhabitants but my suggestion is that instead of fighting them all we ally with as many of them as we can, building the kind of relationships needed to hold sov space. Waffles won't blue us; on the other hand we might be the last best hope for J4LP now that they're no longer protected by The Imperium.
This would position us very near to PH, Karmafleet and Waffles and not all that far from RvB, Stay Frosty and E Uni's low sec and null sec campuses so there would be plenty of fun content for our newbros.
Sov in Cloud Ring is for the most part pretty awful but there's a silver lining to that in that we are more likely to be able to compete for it. Plus things may change in phase 3 of the Sov Revamp where CCP will be looking at nullsec rewards. If we can get Fweddit (J4LP) on board there's the possibility to peacefully gain access to Cloud Ring's only good constellation.
This plan combines the advantages of my previous Nennamaila plan with a genuinely attainable sov project.
Diplomatic content: developing links and alliances with major players in the region - Caldari and Gallente militias, The Imperium, Snuff Box, PH/Waffles/PL. Dealing with Cloud Ring sov owners: Waffles, Lethal Intent, J4LP, SMA, Iron Armada.
Sov: in Fozziesov the only way to protect space is to live in it which means that although some null superpower could throw us out of Cloud Ring if they want (and from time to time this surely will happen), we can just shrug, focus on lowsec stuff and then reconquer W-4 after they move on. This means we can to a certain extent keep assets in sov space as they can't, in the long term, be trapped so long as we remain interested and based in WOKA-4.
This means we can at last perhaps have a relatively peaceful period for those who want to build up isk while retaining the availability of content for people who want it.
Moons: Dotlan lists 12 R64s in Cloud Ring (no dyspro) and just 1 in Black Rise (but Black Rise data lacks 0.4 systems).
Jump bridge/caps: from W-4 most of Cloud Ring is conveniently inside jump range.
High sec access is fairly easy - the nearest system is 5 jumps away but watch out for Waffles gate camps in Kinakka. Jump freighter access from Jita is very easy.
Cloud Ring is like Catch - a crossroads region - with exits to 5 other null sec regions and 2 low sec regions.
I think this is a strong option for Brave and HERO offering all types of content and isk-making opportunities. Pvp would be fantastic with a much broader range of challenges including fights against people much weaker than us.
One solution that has been suggested is to split the alliance into a newbie friendly lowsec campus and a separate sov section.
Here's a look at how we could do that using systems right next door to each other: Okagaiken, a system in Caldari faction war space and W-4NUU, a system in Cloud Ring. Effectively HERO would have 2 capitals, 2 adjacent market hubs, a conurbation collectively known as WOKA-4.
 |
| Cloud Ring: one of Eve's prettiest regions |
Now Cloud Ring has its own inhabitants but my suggestion is that instead of fighting them all we ally with as many of them as we can, building the kind of relationships needed to hold sov space. Waffles won't blue us; on the other hand we might be the last best hope for J4LP now that they're no longer protected by The Imperium.
This would position us very near to PH, Karmafleet and Waffles and not all that far from RvB, Stay Frosty and E Uni's low sec and null sec campuses so there would be plenty of fun content for our newbros.
Sov in Cloud Ring is for the most part pretty awful but there's a silver lining to that in that we are more likely to be able to compete for it. Plus things may change in phase 3 of the Sov Revamp where CCP will be looking at nullsec rewards. If we can get Fweddit (J4LP) on board there's the possibility to peacefully gain access to Cloud Ring's only good constellation.
This plan combines the advantages of my previous Nennamaila plan with a genuinely attainable sov project.
Diplomatic content: developing links and alliances with major players in the region - Caldari and Gallente militias, The Imperium, Snuff Box, PH/Waffles/PL. Dealing with Cloud Ring sov owners: Waffles, Lethal Intent, J4LP, SMA, Iron Armada.
 |
| Here be chickuns! |
Sov: in Fozziesov the only way to protect space is to live in it which means that although some null superpower could throw us out of Cloud Ring if they want (and from time to time this surely will happen), we can just shrug, focus on lowsec stuff and then reconquer W-4 after they move on. This means we can to a certain extent keep assets in sov space as they can't, in the long term, be trapped so long as we remain interested and based in WOKA-4.
This means we can at last perhaps have a relatively peaceful period for those who want to build up isk while retaining the availability of content for people who want it.
Moons: Dotlan lists 12 R64s in Cloud Ring (no dyspro) and just 1 in Black Rise (but Black Rise data lacks 0.4 systems).
Jump bridge/caps: from W-4 most of Cloud Ring is conveniently inside jump range.
High sec access is fairly easy - the nearest system is 5 jumps away but watch out for Waffles gate camps in Kinakka. Jump freighter access from Jita is very easy.
Cloud Ring is like Catch - a crossroads region - with exits to 5 other null sec regions and 2 low sec regions.
I think this is a strong option for Brave and HERO offering all types of content and isk-making opportunities. Pvp would be fantastic with a much broader range of challenges including fights against people much weaker than us.
Alliance Tournament: Captain's report stardate 2015.06.30
Well it's been a funny old week in Brave's AT squad.
Tuesday practice - cancelled due to lack of people.
Thursday practice cancelled due to lack of people.
OK, screw this time to do some management.
Now I am the grandson and great grandson of farmers and there's an old farmer's trick that works wonders with stubborn mules.
First the carrot:
We will give out prizes based on contribution.
Everyone in the alliance: CCP will be giving out medals to every character that was a member of the participating alliances on the first day of the tournament. CCP Logibro confirmed to me all 15000 of us will be getting a medal from CCP. The better the team does the shinier the medals so think of the newbros when we warp to the arena on August 15th.
All other prizes are for squad members. If they decide to cash out please give first refusal to fellow squad members, second refusal to members of the alliance otherwise I don't care who you sell it to.
1st-3rd place: 12 ingame Alliance Tournament Medal inventory items are given to teams that come
1st-3rd. These will be allocated to the 12 people who contributed the most and don't count against other rewards.
If we win: Alliance Tournament Cup becomes property of the Brave Collective for 1 year.
Plex, ludicrously OP prize ships and ship skins. - all this stuff goes in a pool. We will list the squad by contribution. Top person gets an item, then the next then the next.
Plex:
Teams that place between 17th and 32nd will receive 5 PLEX
Teams that place in the top 16 will receive 15 PLEX
Ship skins
10 Nightmare skins per win that are pretty rare and look like the Fiend/Imp.
Ships Feast your eyes! (linked above)
Example. If we come 4th we get 3 Fiends, 3 Imps, about 60 Nightmare skins and 15 plex. So handing them out to a 30 man squad we'd give:
top contributor - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
2nd - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
3rd - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
4th - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
5th - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
6th - last ship, 2 skins
7th-21st - 2 skins, 1 plex
22nd - 30th 2 skins.
More realistically we may get something like this:
10 skins, 5 plex so
1st-10th one skin
11th - 15th one plex
16th-30th nothing
We may even (loss - loss) get this:
1st-30th nothing apart from drama cynos on the subreddit.
Oh and I'm neither guaranteeing myself in nor ruling myself out. If I boundary violate like a dumbass and knock us out I probably won't count my contribution that high but if I do well you better believe I want one of them sweet sweet Fiends! Same for Tosan and anyone else who gets roped in to do management stuff.
Then the stick:
Guys I love you.
You know I love you.
But....
We had to cancel 2 practices this week because of low turnout. So we're on a cusp - are we going to take this seriously or is it just a casual thing where people rock up on the day and get owned, shooting off fireworks as we go down?
You know me well enough to know where I stand on this.
Now I have a queue of people knocking on the door who would love a chance to take part in what I think is going to be an amazing experience for us. Not to mention people who wouldn't mind a shiny Nightmare skin.
So from here on out if you're really apathetic I'm going to replace you. (Still love you tho).
The rule is: if you don't show up to practice over a 14 day period you're out.
Now that's not megaharsh, it's just 2 hours a fortnight. Holidays illness are fine. Please notify me if you can but if I kick you then you rock back up and say "I've just been in hospital for 3 weeks" I'll reinstate you asap.
Now it's possible some people think "I'm a kick-ass player, I don't need to practice."
If you're a kickass player we're not practicing so you can get good, we're practising so our weaker
squad members can get shored up by you. Suppose you're a fantastic tackle frigate pilot. Well we might want you to guard our logi. The logi however might be a bit raw and sits in the wrong place or comes too close or doesn't know what to do when damped. Well you're his partner - you talk to each other and practice how to deal with those situations. Maybe he needs to come in - so you anticipate what he's vulnerable to and tackle it right, telling him to go left. Once the damps are off he wants to pull range but he's tackled. So you peel.
The team within a team which is you and the logi you're protecting can't do all this unless you've learned to play together and when to key up and talk to each other.
When you intervene like this as a manager you never know quite what's going to happen. Will it work? Will it blow up in your face? So it was a nervous team captain that turned up to the Saturday practice, the most important practice of the week, the one where usually we play another team.
Pandemic Horde had turned up and we agreed to practice a few matches against them. Like us a newbie organisation, unlike us, advised and trained by tournament experts and past winners, PL. So no pressure then.
And we rocked them 3-0.
Now don't read too much into this we were both a bit short-handed and our comp was rock to their scissors. Still it felt damn good.
The PH squad are now friends and will be future practice partners and I'll be cheering loudly for them in their matches. Their captain is ex-Brave player Broodalpha.
Sunday saw another good practice and tonight another. Activity is up, skill is up, we're still making a lot of mistake but we're now all actively helping each other fix mistakes with people comfortable enough with each other to point things out and to accept criticism gracefully.
I'm sure there will be more hiccups and dramas to come before we nervously step out in front of the watching eyes of the whole of New Eden but if you're wondering if things are going well with the AT Squad?
Why yes, I do believe they are.
Tuesday practice - cancelled due to lack of people.
Thursday practice cancelled due to lack of people.
OK, screw this time to do some management.
Now I am the grandson and great grandson of farmers and there's an old farmer's trick that works wonders with stubborn mules.
First the carrot:
We will give out prizes based on contribution.
Everyone in the alliance: CCP will be giving out medals to every character that was a member of the participating alliances on the first day of the tournament. CCP Logibro confirmed to me all 15000 of us will be getting a medal from CCP. The better the team does the shinier the medals so think of the newbros when we warp to the arena on August 15th.
All other prizes are for squad members. If they decide to cash out please give first refusal to fellow squad members, second refusal to members of the alliance otherwise I don't care who you sell it to.
1st-3rd place: 12 ingame Alliance Tournament Medal inventory items are given to teams that come
1st-3rd. These will be allocated to the 12 people who contributed the most and don't count against other rewards.
If we win: Alliance Tournament Cup becomes property of the Brave Collective for 1 year.
Plex, ludicrously OP prize ships and ship skins. - all this stuff goes in a pool. We will list the squad by contribution. Top person gets an item, then the next then the next.
Plex:
Teams that place between 17th and 32nd will receive 5 PLEX
Teams that place in the top 16 will receive 15 PLEX
Ship skins
10 Nightmare skins per win that are pretty rare and look like the Fiend/Imp.
Ships Feast your eyes! (linked above)
Example. If we come 4th we get 3 Fiends, 3 Imps, about 60 Nightmare skins and 15 plex. So handing them out to a 30 man squad we'd give:
top contributor - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
2nd - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
3rd - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
4th - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
5th - choice of Fiend or Imp, 2 skins
6th - last ship, 2 skins
7th-21st - 2 skins, 1 plex
22nd - 30th 2 skins.
More realistically we may get something like this:
10 skins, 5 plex so
1st-10th one skin
11th - 15th one plex
16th-30th nothing
We may even (loss - loss) get this:
1st-30th nothing apart from drama cynos on the subreddit.
Oh and I'm neither guaranteeing myself in nor ruling myself out. If I boundary violate like a dumbass and knock us out I probably won't count my contribution that high but if I do well you better believe I want one of them sweet sweet Fiends! Same for Tosan and anyone else who gets roped in to do management stuff.
Then the stick:
Guys I love you.
You know I love you.
But....
We had to cancel 2 practices this week because of low turnout. So we're on a cusp - are we going to take this seriously or is it just a casual thing where people rock up on the day and get owned, shooting off fireworks as we go down?
You know me well enough to know where I stand on this.
Now I have a queue of people knocking on the door who would love a chance to take part in what I think is going to be an amazing experience for us. Not to mention people who wouldn't mind a shiny Nightmare skin.
So from here on out if you're really apathetic I'm going to replace you. (Still love you tho).
The rule is: if you don't show up to practice over a 14 day period you're out.
Now that's not megaharsh, it's just 2 hours a fortnight. Holidays illness are fine. Please notify me if you can but if I kick you then you rock back up and say "I've just been in hospital for 3 weeks" I'll reinstate you asap.
Now it's possible some people think "I'm a kick-ass player, I don't need to practice."
If you're a kickass player we're not practicing so you can get good, we're practising so our weaker
squad members can get shored up by you. Suppose you're a fantastic tackle frigate pilot. Well we might want you to guard our logi. The logi however might be a bit raw and sits in the wrong place or comes too close or doesn't know what to do when damped. Well you're his partner - you talk to each other and practice how to deal with those situations. Maybe he needs to come in - so you anticipate what he's vulnerable to and tackle it right, telling him to go left. Once the damps are off he wants to pull range but he's tackled. So you peel.
The team within a team which is you and the logi you're protecting can't do all this unless you've learned to play together and when to key up and talk to each other.
When you intervene like this as a manager you never know quite what's going to happen. Will it work? Will it blow up in your face? So it was a nervous team captain that turned up to the Saturday practice, the most important practice of the week, the one where usually we play another team.
Pandemic Horde had turned up and we agreed to practice a few matches against them. Like us a newbie organisation, unlike us, advised and trained by tournament experts and past winners, PL. So no pressure then.
And we rocked them 3-0.
Now don't read too much into this we were both a bit short-handed and our comp was rock to their scissors. Still it felt damn good.
The PH squad are now friends and will be future practice partners and I'll be cheering loudly for them in their matches. Their captain is ex-Brave player Broodalpha.
Sunday saw another good practice and tonight another. Activity is up, skill is up, we're still making a lot of mistake but we're now all actively helping each other fix mistakes with people comfortable enough with each other to point things out and to accept criticism gracefully.
I'm sure there will be more hiccups and dramas to come before we nervously step out in front of the watching eyes of the whole of New Eden but if you're wondering if things are going well with the AT Squad?
Why yes, I do believe they are.
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