With the CFC's stunning finish to the hard-fought Fountain war denizens of sov null are waiting with keen interest to see what they will do next. The ball is firmly in their court.
In the Test camp there's some speculation on what we might do if kicked out of Delve but overall most of us are still up for a fight. Considerable reserves of ships are available and we're using the lull to recover our isk balances for Round Two.
Most analysts expect the CFC to move in for the kill but I think there's good reason to think they may not do this.
Let's consider things from their perspective.
1) First priority is never to take on a war they might lose. The Fountain invasion was launched at a time when Test was in full war with NC. and when PL was increasingly distracted by the upcoming Alliance Tournament. At one point things looked shakey for them with Test/N3/PL rolling back the gains made from Sort Dragon's selling out of his PL friends but a shrewd if expensive deal with BL allowed them to bring Razor alliance down to add weight and skill to their campaign. Razor's expert nado camp of the Karan undock was a significant contributor to CFC ascendancy in the late stages of the war.
The Delve campaign would see PL out of tournament mode and in the market for a fight. Meanwhile look at NC.'s position. They moved away from Fountain to prosecute a war with ROGUE alliance. As you see from the map of Cobalt Edge once NC. finishes conquering ROGUE that puts them right up to the CFC's eastern border, adjacent to Razor space. SOLAR has also been beaten back into submission again.
So the lineup for round 2, instead of a desultory and halfhearted effort in Fountain by the people allying with Test could see them launching their own campaign on the CFC's flank. The CFC management can't want to commit as deeply to Delve as they did in Fountain knowing how open it would leave them in the East.
2) Isk considerations.
While the biggest financial hardship of the campaign was almost certainly suffered by Test several of the CFC pets became seriously poor. Alliances like Li3 forbade pilots to go home to make isk, everyone had to be deployed for pvp or get kicked. Many of these newer alliances had not had the time or the financial skill to build up the kind of isk that Goons had. They may not be ready to redeploy so soon.
3) The supercap disadvantage.
PL + N3 + Test massively outweigh the CFC super fleet, and would do so even with BL support. Therefore all CFC strategy has to be based around the notion that they can't deploy supers where there's a real risk of escalation. That means they can't deploy supers where there's a risk of subcap parity. Now they were able to deploy supers in the end stages of the Fountain campaign after NC. and PL withdrew. However with those two entities potentially willing to take a super fight they have to look at the logistics of moving supers into an already begun fight.
If a fight has max tidi local time moves at 10% speed. That means that if PL and NC. log on and move their ships several cynos across the universe to join in a fight in Delve taking 30 minutes the FCs on the field have just 3 subjective minutes to manoeuvre their forces to safety. The dynamics of marshalling reinforcements into a tidi-ed fight are like a turn-based game where one player takes 10 turns every time his opponent takes one turn.
And we saw in Fountain that sides don't get through a contested sov campaign very fast without supers. The front barely moved until the CFC felt able to use them.
4) "We've got them where we want them"
TEST in Delve is a known quantity for the CFC. Highly raidable, a source of continuous pvp entertainment without being a genuine threat. A TEST liberated from the shackles of sovereignty could go anywhere, likely moving somewhere as annoying as possible from a CFC perspective (like NPC Venal or Fountain).
Or Test could frustrate the CFC by moving miles away to Curse or Great Wildlands, or to faction war, where the CFC would lose the chance to fight us. And be left with the consequences of having blued everyone for 12 regions.
In my opinion (which is very much a minority one in Test) I wouldn't mind seeing an end to the Goon/Test "forever war" which is pretty ludicrous considering that they are 30k people and we're 12k people (sometimes helped by allies). I'd much prefer a Goon/N3 forever war that we could poke our noses into when it suited us.
Elsewhere in nullsec the Legion of XDeath has driven SOLAR underground (almost certainly temporarily), the Russians of DnD/-A- are slowly rolling over The Dinner Squadron and may be pushing Tribe space soon and everything else is ruled by either the CFC or the N3/PL pact. We're not quite at the blue doughnut stage but we are getting close to there only being two sides in nullsec.
Friday, 2 August 2013
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Test v Goons: the battle of 6VDT
Am currently sitting on a Titan, one of a small fleet of bridging titans Test is using to move our massive fleet to the capital system of Fountain - 6VDT.
While the CFC has effectively won the attritional war TEST has gathered in huge numbers for a massive fight over this system. We have 1700 in our staging system at the moment and are under orders to continually reship and come back if blown up. The CFC is estimated at 2000 with 760 Megathron battleships. We're in ahacs and prophecies.
While the CFC has effectively won the attritional war TEST has gathered in huge numbers for a massive fight over this system. We have 1700 in our staging system at the moment and are under orders to continually reship and come back if blown up. The CFC is estimated at 2000 with 760 Megathron battleships. We're in ahacs and prophecies.
Friday, 26 July 2013
Is Fountain falling?
The spirited defence of Fountain by Test alliance may be finally coming to an end. In the last few days the CFC has broken out of the north-east corner and made very rapid sov gains. Here's the current sov map:
35 conquerable systems are held by Goons with 2 more currently sovless (and about to fall to the Goons). There are 109 conquerable systems in Fountain.
Perhaps even more ominous is the very rapid progress the CFC has made in the last few days. Since the 21st July they've gained 24 Fountain systems.
What changed?
The key thing that changed is the distraction of our allies. In addition to PL's distraction with the Alliance Tournament PL and N3 have been drawn into conflict in the East against ROGUE and SOLAR. For Test the conflict is unsustainable if isolated - Test + Tribe is about 13000 accounts, the CFC is about 32000 accounts and both wealthier and older.
Another key element, a result of this, is that the CFC is confident about using supercaps. Nullsec game mechanics are an interesting balance of multiple opposing vectors. It's risky to use supercaps if the enemy has subcap superiority, it's painful to grind sov in subcaps, deployed supercaps can get into trouble very quickly because once a fight escalates to the point of tidi your supercaps are trapped in slow motion while reinforcements, new sides and tourists can race to join the fight in normal time.
So is Fountain falling?
As a line member the short answer is I don't know. We are at the point where it will fall quickly unless we get help but at the grunt level we have no idea whether our friends can fit us into their busy priority list.
However losing about 5-6 systems a day would suggest Fountain won't last longer than the Alliance Tournament so hopes that PL will finish there and come save us just aren't realistic.
Can we turn it around? At this stage the best Test can do is slow it down and make it as painful and drawn out as possible while our leaders explore diplomatic options. Maybe SOLAR could be turned if promised Cobalt Edge.
One problem is the lack of players in nullsec sov. With most of the big alliances/coalitions already involved there simply aren't many non-committed players who could change the political landscape.
35 conquerable systems are held by Goons with 2 more currently sovless (and about to fall to the Goons). There are 109 conquerable systems in Fountain.
Perhaps even more ominous is the very rapid progress the CFC has made in the last few days. Since the 21st July they've gained 24 Fountain systems.
What changed?
The key thing that changed is the distraction of our allies. In addition to PL's distraction with the Alliance Tournament PL and N3 have been drawn into conflict in the East against ROGUE and SOLAR. For Test the conflict is unsustainable if isolated - Test + Tribe is about 13000 accounts, the CFC is about 32000 accounts and both wealthier and older.
Another key element, a result of this, is that the CFC is confident about using supercaps. Nullsec game mechanics are an interesting balance of multiple opposing vectors. It's risky to use supercaps if the enemy has subcap superiority, it's painful to grind sov in subcaps, deployed supercaps can get into trouble very quickly because once a fight escalates to the point of tidi your supercaps are trapped in slow motion while reinforcements, new sides and tourists can race to join the fight in normal time.
So is Fountain falling?
As a line member the short answer is I don't know. We are at the point where it will fall quickly unless we get help but at the grunt level we have no idea whether our friends can fit us into their busy priority list.
However losing about 5-6 systems a day would suggest Fountain won't last longer than the Alliance Tournament so hopes that PL will finish there and come save us just aren't realistic.
Can we turn it around? At this stage the best Test can do is slow it down and make it as painful and drawn out as possible while our leaders explore diplomatic options. Maybe SOLAR could be turned if promised Cobalt Edge.
One problem is the lack of players in nullsec sov. With most of the big alliances/coalitions already involved there simply aren't many non-committed players who could change the political landscape.
Thursday, 11 July 2013
But he knows you know he knows you know.....
I'd like to talk nullsec politics again because I think there's a sophistication and a depth that people either deliberately gloss over or simply fail to see.
The invasion of Fountain has ground to stalemate. Which could, arguably, be seen as a failure for the invader.
Was it just a mistake?
There's a lot going on under the surface.
On June 6th following heavy pressure on Test Alliance from the rest of nullsec The Mittani announced the CFC would be invading Fountain because it wanted the moon mineral wealth of the region. Test had not long before split from the HBC and appeared diplomatically isolated. NC. was invading Test space at 1-SMEB and allied strategically critical space in Querious, cutting Fortress Delve off from high sec. For the 30000 man Clusterfuck Coalition Fountain must have seemed like easy pickings, with Test seeming more concerned about holding Delve against NC. than worrying about its less important region.
Test resisted the CFC for about 10 days with help only from Tribe alliance, a small wormhole corp and a handful of refugees from the disintegrating Raiden. alliance then NC. moved to our support having very clearly done a deal with Test to get Querious unopposed. The rest of N3 moved to support us and PL took a mild interest between Alliance Tournament sessions.
Was the Mittani suckered into an invasion that would turn into an ambush?
Hell no.
(Or at least, lacking inside information I'd be flabbergasted if he hadn't considered it possible).
He knew that a reversal of diplomatic alignment was possible. He may even have suspected that the 1-SMEB thing was a charade staged to draw the CFC out into a conflict it would be hard for them to win.
But knowing that it was still a very good move for the CFC to push Fountain. When a mouse gets hungry enough the cheese on the trap is worth the risk
The curse of the north is that people get fat lazy and unmotivated. A leader's job in Eve is to engineer exciting content. Branch/Fade Pure Blind Deklein is one of the most difficult areas of nullsec to manage because once it's secure no one pushes it. The old Northern Coalition bloated there and died, space rich and self serving.
See, that's what Mittens has to fear most - not that Goons may lose all their allies and all their space but the worse thing of all - that Eve becomes boring for them. As long as the game remains exciting Goons and Test are impossible to completely defeat - look how well Nulli bounced back from losing their space last year.
Now if 1-SMEB was a charade (and I don't know that it was but I suspect) then The Mittani knew that it might be a charade; Boodabooda Vince and Shadoo knew that he knew, he knew that they knew that he knew and so on. It's a very deep game that has seen Shadoo and Mittens circling around each other for several years now, conquerors in a game of space conquest lining up the sides to decide the fate of the galaxy.
It's a deep game that is now heading towards denouement and very interesting to see the subtleties of how it plays out.
The invasion of Fountain has ground to stalemate. Which could, arguably, be seen as a failure for the invader.
Was it just a mistake?
There's a lot going on under the surface.
 |
| Ever noticed how everyone promises Germany they won't attack them? |
On June 6th following heavy pressure on Test Alliance from the rest of nullsec The Mittani announced the CFC would be invading Fountain because it wanted the moon mineral wealth of the region. Test had not long before split from the HBC and appeared diplomatically isolated. NC. was invading Test space at 1-SMEB and allied strategically critical space in Querious, cutting Fortress Delve off from high sec. For the 30000 man Clusterfuck Coalition Fountain must have seemed like easy pickings, with Test seeming more concerned about holding Delve against NC. than worrying about its less important region.
Test resisted the CFC for about 10 days with help only from Tribe alliance, a small wormhole corp and a handful of refugees from the disintegrating Raiden. alliance then NC. moved to our support having very clearly done a deal with Test to get Querious unopposed. The rest of N3 moved to support us and PL took a mild interest between Alliance Tournament sessions.
Was the Mittani suckered into an invasion that would turn into an ambush?
Hell no.
(Or at least, lacking inside information I'd be flabbergasted if he hadn't considered it possible).
He knew that a reversal of diplomatic alignment was possible. He may even have suspected that the 1-SMEB thing was a charade staged to draw the CFC out into a conflict it would be hard for them to win.
But knowing that it was still a very good move for the CFC to push Fountain. When a mouse gets hungry enough the cheese on the trap is worth the risk
The curse of the north is that people get fat lazy and unmotivated. A leader's job in Eve is to engineer exciting content. Branch/Fade Pure Blind Deklein is one of the most difficult areas of nullsec to manage because once it's secure no one pushes it. The old Northern Coalition bloated there and died, space rich and self serving.
See, that's what Mittens has to fear most - not that Goons may lose all their allies and all their space but the worse thing of all - that Eve becomes boring for them. As long as the game remains exciting Goons and Test are impossible to completely defeat - look how well Nulli bounced back from losing their space last year.
Now if 1-SMEB was a charade (and I don't know that it was but I suspect) then The Mittani knew that it might be a charade; Boodabooda Vince and Shadoo knew that he knew, he knew that they knew that he knew and so on. It's a very deep game that has seen Shadoo and Mittens circling around each other for several years now, conquerors in a game of space conquest lining up the sides to decide the fate of the galaxy.
It's a deep game that is now heading towards denouement and very interesting to see the subtleties of how it plays out.
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Fountain ratting setup
Although we're still intensely fighting it's starting to look as though there's a better than 50% chance of TEST keeping Fountain so I've been thinking about how I want to rat.
Here's the armada of ships I intend to use, all of them cheap and non-faction. The relative lack of bling is a big safety factor as blinged out ships, particularly carriers, attract gankers.
2 Dominix:
The basic idea is just to drop sentries and run a remote armour repper. The new NPC rat AI is such that they particularly hate "healers" so this should keep all the aggro focused on the Domis. The offline cloak is for when I want to go plexing rather than run anomalies.
The Garde IIs have an optimal of 68.4 km and tracking of 0.082 both of which are really good for a battleship ratter. By keeping them 20km apart it should mean one can easily pick off frigates attacking the other one.
If one ship is getting hit hard then the other Domi(s) can rep it.
I'm considering dropping one of the reppers for a heavy nos. One of these Domi pilots is also my main pvp character so he won't always be there as I'm prioritising pvp.
My third ship is going to be a Typhoon:
This demands a much more active playstyle than the Domis but is very high dps and can merrily chase down the battleships, letting the Domis wipe out the smaller stuff. Its painter helps the whole fleet do more damage.
This guy is also my explorer so instead of ratting with him I can have him in a cov ops scanning for sites while the Domis rat.
Damnation:
This guy's only job is to sit afk in a POS running gang links. It's armour tanked just in case it somehow finds itself in pvp. It adds armour resists, reduces sig radius, reduces armour repper cap cost and duration for the whole gang.
No ratting gang would be complete without one of these:
It's based around the new salvage drones. They can be a bit finnicky - you have to launch them with no targets selected and tell them to salvage to get them to work properly. Still it's pretty awesome to drop your noctis in a sea of wrecks, set the drones off, alt tab for half an hour and come back to see just cans.
This pilot also flies a pretty mean Heron for those minigame sites.
Here's the armada of ships I intend to use, all of them cheap and non-faction. The relative lack of bling is a big safety factor as blinged out ships, particularly carriers, attract gankers.
2 Dominix:
The basic idea is just to drop sentries and run a remote armour repper. The new NPC rat AI is such that they particularly hate "healers" so this should keep all the aggro focused on the Domis. The offline cloak is for when I want to go plexing rather than run anomalies.
The Garde IIs have an optimal of 68.4 km and tracking of 0.082 both of which are really good for a battleship ratter. By keeping them 20km apart it should mean one can easily pick off frigates attacking the other one.
If one ship is getting hit hard then the other Domi(s) can rep it.
I'm considering dropping one of the reppers for a heavy nos. One of these Domi pilots is also my main pvp character so he won't always be there as I'm prioritising pvp.
My third ship is going to be a Typhoon:
This demands a much more active playstyle than the Domis but is very high dps and can merrily chase down the battleships, letting the Domis wipe out the smaller stuff. Its painter helps the whole fleet do more damage.
This guy is also my explorer so instead of ratting with him I can have him in a cov ops scanning for sites while the Domis rat.
Damnation:
This guy's only job is to sit afk in a POS running gang links. It's armour tanked just in case it somehow finds itself in pvp. It adds armour resists, reduces sig radius, reduces armour repper cap cost and duration for the whole gang.
No ratting gang would be complete without one of these:
It's based around the new salvage drones. They can be a bit finnicky - you have to launch them with no targets selected and tell them to salvage to get them to work properly. Still it's pretty awesome to drop your noctis in a sea of wrecks, set the drones off, alt tab for half an hour and come back to see just cans.
This pilot also flies a pretty mean Heron for those minigame sites.
Saturday, 22 June 2013
Our well-drilled war machine in action
Nullsec is famous for large fleets of skilled veteran pvp pilots coordinating together in machine-like precision.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Actually flying with us is more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo-pRnDMH2E
Amazingly we're actually beating the goons despite managing later in the op to let them kill undefended haulers when we had 500 in system and noone to shoot.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Actually flying with us is more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo-pRnDMH2E
Amazingly we're actually beating the goons despite managing later in the op to let them kill undefended haulers when we had 500 in system and noone to shoot.
Tuesday, 11 June 2013
The Great War: the plan emerges
How much is planning manipulation and forethought and how much is happenstance luck or impulse we'll never know but the war for Fountain has mushroomed into a well balanced war which will last for months rather than the rofflestomp that it seemed at first.
Pandemic Legion, NC., Nulli, SCRAP have all weighed in on Test's side creating a conflict that is actually more heavily weighted against the CFC than Montolio's plan for a HBC-CFC was 5 months ago.
The conflict also rather elegantly matches the personalities of the principle characters involved - DaBigRedBoat, who famously loves to grind structures, gets to grind structures which will generate the reinforcement timers for the good fights that the rest of Eve's leading FCs prefer.
The conflict is poised on a knife edge where small and unpredictable events in real life could prove cataclysmic. Imagine if DBRB were to get married and stop playing...
The initiative is firmly with the CFC who are winning most of the fights and grinding many structures unopposed. However the forces against them are slowly wielding themselves into an effective fighting force although with considerable problems along the way.
For TEST it's taken us some time to react and get deployed. The alliance that regularly put 1000+ in fleets to defend its Delve heartlands is struggling to get half into ops on the far edge of its empire.
Coordination has been a problem. Pandemic Legion got bombed by TEST bombers, a mistake by the FC (and incidentally just about the first time he's landed a perfect bombing run).
Pandemic Legion, NC., Nulli, SCRAP have all weighed in on Test's side creating a conflict that is actually more heavily weighted against the CFC than Montolio's plan for a HBC-CFC was 5 months ago.
The conflict also rather elegantly matches the personalities of the principle characters involved - DaBigRedBoat, who famously loves to grind structures, gets to grind structures which will generate the reinforcement timers for the good fights that the rest of Eve's leading FCs prefer.
The conflict is poised on a knife edge where small and unpredictable events in real life could prove cataclysmic. Imagine if DBRB were to get married and stop playing...
The initiative is firmly with the CFC who are winning most of the fights and grinding many structures unopposed. However the forces against them are slowly wielding themselves into an effective fighting force although with considerable problems along the way.
For TEST it's taken us some time to react and get deployed. The alliance that regularly put 1000+ in fleets to defend its Delve heartlands is struggling to get half into ops on the far edge of its empire.
Coordination has been a problem. Pandemic Legion got bombed by TEST bombers, a mistake by the FC (and incidentally just about the first time he's landed a perfect bombing run).
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