Life in Eve: Faction Warfare Tools

Following a conversation with a fellow Eve player after one of my readings last week, I realized I've dug up a fair amount of information about how Faction Warfare works, and that it might be useful for any players looking to check it out. Here we go:

Basic Guides

• First off, if you're looking to join Faction Warfare, Susan Black's written up a brief guide on the process, with notes on some gotchas a potential recruit should consider.


• Following up on that, Susan also has a pretty good guide about how to go about capturing complexes, while My Loot Your Tears details how to make money off the effort.


• However, if you've done Faction Warfare before, you might find this breakdown of the recent updates more useful, though even if you're new, it's still quite useful.

Maps

• You'll want to keep an eye on what's happening in the warzone, and who controls what systems. The easiest way to do that is via dotlan, which keeps API-updated maps on the Amarr vs. Minmatar warzone, as well as the Caldari vs. Gallente.


• One thing the dotlan maps don't show particularly well, though, are the systems where the Faction Warfare corporations have offices (and, thus, where you can trade in Loyalty Points and pick up missions). Luckily, there are static maps for that, one for Minmatar-Amarr, and one for Caldari-Gallente.

Knowing Who to Shoot At
As with any other PvP activity, one of the most important things you need to do is make sure your Overview isn't completely useless. I found very little on this initially, and simply muddled around with the PvP overviews I was already using, with a few changes in the priority of displayed information. Although fairly basic, this image (which I was shown quite a bit later) is a decent starting point for new pilots adjusting their overview settings -- every little bit helps.

... and that's about it. There are a few guides from sites like Eve University that I haven't mentioned, but they're easy enough to dig up, and honestly don't add much in my opinion. If you want to check them out, I'm sure you can find them.

Good hunting!

Funcertainty

This is sort of a general gaming post, though it'll end up talking about EvE very specifically at the end, which is only fair since EvE is where this whole line of thought began.

A few days ago I was doing an interview with Anton Strout for the Once and Future Podcast and (because the 'cast is equal parts about writing and the rabid nerdity of the guests) Anton asked me when I first got my start with gaming.

For the sake of my own dignity, I won't get into hard numbers, but my answer involved the novelization of the movie E.T., and me begging my mom to buy me the pink DnD boxed set from the Sears catalog. It was a while back, is what I'm saying.

On the long march between then and now, I ran a lot of bad games, for which I will make few apologies, because at the time I don't think any of us realized they were bad games. Me and my high school gaming buddies (who dodged typical mid-eighties nerd hazing by also being most of the starting offensive line for the varsity football team) might have gotten the rules wrong as we stomped through Castle Ravenloft, but that didn't stop it from being a good time. Monsters were vanquished, horrors were driven from their places of power, and the village graveyard acquired more than a few fresh headstones in the process, each marble slab engraved with the name of a beloved player character (levels 3-5) who'd failed a save against poison, fear, or (most often) death.

Thing is, getting a rule wrong was never (directly) what made the game bad. After all, when you're talking about a game (any game) the only real qualifier for "bad" is "not fun." Misruling could lead to that, sure, but most of the time, a lack of fun came from two places:

• Something social, outside the game itself.


• The absence of uncertainty.

I'm not going to talk about the Social thing right now -- that's well-traveled ground. I do want to talk about that second thing.

Ask any gamer about the best moments they've had in their gaming, and you will usually hear a story about some nail-biting conflict.

My crazy barbarian decides to try to trip the dragon he and his allies are fighting, despite horrible odds -- and it worked.

My buddy's knight takes on an evil paladin wielding a sword that can kill him with a single unlucky hit, and the fight comes down to a mutually fatal roll of the dice.

Our team has to hold the western flank against the the advancing Imperial forces on Hoth to give the transports time to escape, then get away themselves... by stealing Vadar's shuttle.

Good times.

You know what no one's likely to mention?

"This one time, I walked into a room full of 50 goblins with crossbows, but my Armor Class was so good they couldn't hit me and I just used Great Cleave and killed all of them in like... two turns."

"I walked into this hook-and-chain trap that was supposed to do a bunch of damage to a group of people, but it was just me, so the damage for a whole group hit just me and basically turned me into a pile of giblets, instantly."

"We tried to talk the King into letting us do something, but we couldn't convince him, because the GM had something different planned." ¹

I think you can see the core difference between those examples, but I point it out anyway.

Certainty.

In my opinion, certainty is the death of fun in most any game, and it may be one of the things that separate "games" from "sport" (where certainty of victory comes via skill and ability and lots of hard work, and is justifiably celebrated).

If you're on the winning side of things, certainty is boring. The classic example of that is the old "Monty Haul" campaign, where the GM is basically there to make sure you find all the treasure he put in the dungeon, and never have to feel the sting of defeat. Fun as a powertrip, maybe, for awhile, but ultimately coma-inducing.

If you're on the losing side of things, certainty is -- at best -- frustrating. When there's no chance at all of success, even the 'live to fight another day' kind, then you might as well check out of the whole thing now and save the time you'd otherwise waste on caring about the outcome.

Over many (many) years of gaming, I've managed to figure out (one situation at a time) when something I was doing was killing fun by making the results (good or bad) a foregone conclusion. (Sometimes this was a question of mechanics; sometimes it was a question of "the inviolate plot.") It also helped me identify what was going wrong when I wasn't having fun as a player, both at a table or online.

Slamming my head against the same raid boss over and over, when it's clear we don't have the right group or the proper gear to succeed? Not fun.

Fighting that same raid boss when we're this close to pulling off a win, and every attempt might go for us or the bad guys? Exhilarating.

Farming that boss once we have all the best gear, know the fight backwards and forwards, and all the surprises are gone? Boring.

Wandering around the newbie starter zone with my max-level character, picking flowers to level my Herbalism? Boring.

Sneaking through a zone 10 or 20 levels too high for me, running for my life in an effort to get a specific location or find a special macguffin? Fun!

Getting insta-killed out of nowhere when you unknowingly walk your new character into a high-level PvP zone? Frustrating.

I think we get the point. It's something to keep in mind when you're running or playing a game in which you have any kind of input (usually tabletop, but not always). Are you bored? Add challenge to what you're doing by changing the choices you make. Are you hopelessly frustrated by never-ending failures? Change things up, or take a break, right?

So let's talk about EvE
First, EvE PvE content -- from missions to mining to exploration -- is pretty terrible.

Now, maybe (probably) it doesn't seem terrible when you first start playing the game, because you don't know enough to realize how very (very) certain the outcome of any PvE mission content in the game really is; you don't know how much DPS you need to be able to tank to survive a mission, and even if you do, you may not know how (or simply be unable) to fit your ship in a way that will achieve that threshold. Your lack of knowledge provides the uncertainty that is not otherwise present. ²

Once you know much at all about the game, though, you start to see the reality of the situation. The groups are always exactly the same size. They always do pretty much exactly the same amount of damage. They always aggress the first person they see, they never switch their aggression to another person (unless the first one leaves). Once you have the situation worked out -- once you know how to approach it, it's about as challenging as your fiftieth game of Minesweeper.³ The 'best' PvE in the game (Sleepers and Incursions) injects a bare amount of uncertainty with randomly switching aggro, which is still pretty hopeless. Almost any other MMO you care to name (even those that predate EvE) have long since worked on more advanced combat AIs.

"But the PvP in EvE is so much better than everyone else: completely emergent, completely unpredictable, completely uncertain!"

Maybe.

Yes, a big part of the draw in EvE is the PvP (whether it's PvP with bullets, tactics, or the infamous metagaming). Even if you don't personally seek out PvP, it's still a factor in your play, because once you undock, someone else can shoot you. They might choose not too because of the potential consequences, but they always have that option. Always. There isn't a one hundred percent safe, PvP-free zone anywhere in space. (Hell, for that matter, you're not entirely safe from PvP even if you never undock and just work the market all day -- Market PvP is a very real thing in EvE, but I digress.)

For as long as there has been PvP in EvE, there have been people bitching about the PvP. A lot of that kvetching and moaning (on both sides of every subject) has do with mechanics like ECM or the ever-present accusations that this or that tactic or practice is "dishonorable", "ruins the game", or removes any chance of a "good fight."

Dishonorable. What a word! Simultaneously loaded with drama and completely meaningless in any debate involving more than one person. :P

You can kind of sort out what most of the people using the term intend when they say it, though.

"Your actions have removed all questions of skill, choice, and your opponent's actions from the equation, ensuring your victory."

Put another way.

"You have removed all uncertainty."

Put another way.

"You've taken everything that makes a game fun out of this situation."

Now, that's a comment that's likely going to earn you a lock of mockery in EvE (which is why no one says it that way). The leader of one of the biggest groups the game is famously quoted as saying "We're not trying to ruin the game, we're trying to ruin your game." Tell those guys that they're taking away the elements of the game that make it fun for other people, and they'd probably exchange high-fives and another round of Jagerbombs.

But let's ignore the walking embodiment of the John Gabriel's Greater Internet Dickwad Theory for a moment, and just look at the basics here.

EvE is a game.

A game's primary purpose is to provide fun.

Fun in a game (unlike fun in sport) arises from a sense of uncertainty.

Removing uncertainty removes fun.

What's the kind of stuff that removes that uncertainty?

1. Overwhelming force.

Actually? I can stop there. There are lots of ways in which "overwhelming force" is expressed in the game (attacking a group of 5 with a group of 20 (if only: 1 vs 100 is just as common), shipping up, a impenetrable wall of ECM, logistics support for a 'casual roam', et cetera, et cetera), and pretty much all of it takes place in the game with the specific goal of ensuring victory.

Is that a bad thing? No, not if the goal is winning, which is a goal I completely understand. EvE is a costly game in terms of time and resources -- when you lose, you really lose stuff, so people often forget (or forego) "what would be fun" in favor of whatever the best way is to mitigate risk.



I'm not going to say that this is bad for the game. In a lot of ways, it's what makes EvE what it is, and I like what it is.

However.

If you find yourself frustrated by the game, may I suggest taking a step back and looking at your current style of play.

Is it possible that the reason that you're not having much fun is simply because you've methodically removed the elements that make a game fun?

Uncertainty is fun.

Uncertainty comes from risk.

As an experiment:

• Distance yourself in some way from groups that treat ship losses an inherently bad thing.


• Release your death grip on "Killboard Efficiency."


• If fights are always boring, maybe bring fewer people. Or leave the ECM or the off-grid boosting alts (or both) at home.


• Take a fight when the outcome isn't clear.

It's hard to do.

It's hard to do even when it's just you -- it's even harder when you're making decisions for a whole group of people.

Going back to my tabletop roots, it's damned hard as the GM to take the plunge and start rolling all the dice out in the open and letting things go on without that safety net of secretly fudging a potentially fatal roll. I mean, OMG: what if your dice get hot and you kill the dude one of your guys has been playing for two years?

Similarly, what if your decision costs your fleetmate his 2 billion isk strategic cruiser?

Most people don't know what would happen, because they don't have the guts to risk it.

But what a story they'd have if they did.

---

¹ - This is, incidentally, why I prefer to roll dice to determine the outcome of social conflicts, rather than let "pure role-playing" determine the outcome. No matter how mature or unbiased we claim to be, that sort of 'system' is one highly susceptible to out-of-game social maneuvering of various kinds, the least harmful of which is the simple fact that if you know the GM well enough, you know exactly what argument will convince them to let you win. It's the same reason I don't like playing Apples to Apples with my best friends anymore -- there's absolutely no challenge to it; we know each other too well. Roll the dice, and enjoy the fact that the outcome may not be what you expected.

² - This is what I call the Chutes and Ladders syndrome: Chutes and Ladders is a terrible, boring game... unless you're too young too realize it's terrible, at which point you probably think it's the Best Game Ever.

³ - Mining is even worse. Barring the possibility of being jumped by a random player (which isn't part of the mining system itself), there is no variation at all: ask any serious miner how much he can mine in an hour, and he will be able to give you an answer down to the second decimal point for every type of ore available. I don't know what 'injecting uncertainty' into the baseline mining experience looks like, but it's what needs to happen to make it suck less.

Life in EvE: Shirt Off My Back #eveonline

"You bought a shirt?" CB's voice on comms is muddled, as if he can't decide between a mocking tone and something that conveys more disgust.

"Two shirts," I correct him as I check the map of the local constellation. "Let's head for Floseswin via Gallente space -- there's usually some Amarr hitting complexes back there."

"On it." His ship, a mirror to my own Thrasher-class destroyer, comes about and aligns to the next gate. "So what are you going to do with two hundred-million isk shirts?"

"They didn't cost that much, with the discount the TLF had at the time," I reply. "More like 25 million."

CB fills our channel with a string of profanity that last most of the way through the 63 AU warp across the system. "Who the fuck pays 25 million isk for a shirt?"

"Well..." I drawl. "Someone who intends to sell them for... more than that."

He pauses. "How much more?"

"The thing is, these things are really rare outside the Militia. Hell, they're rare inside the militia."

"That's not exactly hard to understand."

"Right. Anyway, hardly anyone picks them out and then puts them back out on the public market, so I figure they won't move very fast, but if someone's looking for some fancy outfit that no one else will have --"

"-- for those incredibly common times when we're out of our ships and socializing?"

"I don't know -- people with too much money spend it on stupid shit just to say they have it. Jump gate on contact and swing over to Isbrabata."

"Copy that." His ship warps off, and I continue through the Aset system. "So how much did you put them on the market for?"

"That was tricky," I say. "No one had ever sold them on the market before, so I kind of had to guess how much some rich idiot would be willing to pay."

"Fascinating," CB deadpans. "How much did you list them for?"

"I tried to check the Jita market, but with the Caldari shooting me on site whenever I swing into their system, it was kind of hard to do --"

"How much," he growls, "did you list them for?"

"Two hundred fifty million," I answer. "A piece."

He makes sputtering sounds into his comms. "You think anyone --"

"Break break," I cut in. "Got an Ishtar on scan." I hit the directional scan again, but the ship is gone. "Crap, he's going the other way. Jump back to Avenod."

"I'm two jumps out."

"That's fine, it's just to get in front of him. I have to get turned around first." I land on my destination gate, cancel the gate jump, spin the ship around and warp back the other direction.

"Which one's the Ishtar?"

"Ishkur," I correct him.

"You said Ishtar."

"Did I?" I frowned. "Well, I meant Ishkur. It's that Incursus variant with all the drones. Tough little assault frigate. He might be willing to take us on, or I can get him engaged and tackled before you get there. Something."

"Can we take him?"

"Probably, though he'll likely blow up whichever of us snags him first." Our destroyers were fit for short, brutal engagements ending in explosions -- either ours or someone else's -- the Ishkur was tough enough to drag the fight out and get through one of our ships. Probably not both, though.

Probably. I grin. As always, it was the uncertainty of a fight that made the whole thing worth it.

"Jumping into Avenod." There's a flash on my overview, gone almost as soon as I see it. "He was right here. I think he just opened a major complex in here. Ballsy. Warping up there."

"Landing on my gate. Want me to jump in?"

My ship enters warp. "Yeah. I'll land and --" I frown as I drop out of warp at short range, eyeing our target ship's silhouette. "That's weird, it looks like Vexoooooh... oh. Shit." I laugh into the mic as the Ishtar heavy assault cruiser -- the Ishkur's bigger, badder brother -- disgorges a flight of drones in my direction; one of the probably half-dozen or so flights he can field before the ship runs low. "Cancel that. Don't warp. Target's not an Ishkur. It's an Ishtar."

"I told you that's what you said."

I laugh again, shaking my head and readying my warp commands to get my escape pod out as my fragile destroyer melts in the face of the far heavier ship's firepower. As the explosion rocks me free of the wreckage, I switch to the star system's public comms for a moment.

Ty > Good fight! Thought you were a little ol' Ishkur... Whoops!
Maren > Ahh... yeah, I just thought you were just being really aggressive.

"I'm laughing my ass off at you right now," CB says as I warp out and set course to pick up a new ship. "I thought you should know."

"I am too," I grin. "Ahh well. Good start to the night's roam. What shall I blow up now?"

"Whatever you like, I guess," CB replied. "You can pay for it with those shirts, if they ever sell."

"Oh," I replied. "See, that's the punchline."

Silence. Then: "They already sold?"

"Yup. Not right away, but pretty fast." I shrug. "I priced them too low, I guess. Still, half a billion off a couple shirts isn't bad."

"Who --" CB cuts himself off. "Okay, hurry up and get back here. I really need to shoot somebody."

---

So yeah:

• I was so used to seeing frigates and other small ships that my brain convinced me an Ishtar was an Ishkur. Whoops. Still, it was pretty funny.


• People will pay stupid amounts of money for rare things.


• You can actually put those special clothing items on, wear them awhile and then, if you get bored with the look, remove them and they drop right back into your items hangar in whatever station you're in. Which means you can then sell them. So... if you recently spent 250 million on a black and red uniform shirt that smelled a little... used? Sorry about that.

Life in Eve: Two Months in the War #eveonline

Ty's currently at 2 months and 2 days with the small corp he and CB formed solely to take into Faction Warfare and, if memory serves, that means it's been exactly 2 months since we joined up. I'm inclined to take a look back and see how things have gone.

PvP Experience and Enjoyment
This is, ostensibly, what I wanted to get into the whole thing for, so how's that been going?

June was definitely a learning month; all told, I was on two kills for the month and lost seven ships (six of which had something to do with Faction Warfare (the seventh was just me running around nullsec in a Talos until I blew the thing up).

With that said, I learned a lot from those losses, and June also marked my first small gang roam with a FW group (netting a fine battlecruiser kill), and my first solo kill, ever. Pretty hard to complain about that.

Killboard efficiency is vastly overrated, in my opinion, but it's hard not to be pretty happy with both July and August. I turned around the numbers from June and have managed to maintain a 3:1 kill ratio and a stupidly lopsided ISK destroyed to ISK lost ratio (thanks to flying frigates and other cheap ships), in addition to getting a couple more solo kills and FCing a fleet for hilarious results. Again, I don't really care about the numbers, but it's nice to look at the big picture as well as review fights and review my many mistakes. :) (In all seriousness: I don't lose less ISK if I destroy someone else's ship, so who cares what my "ISK efficiency" is? Meaningless number.)

Income
The Faction Warfare screens are accessed in-game by drilling down into the "Business" menu, and that's no accident -- a lot of folks are there solely to make ISK, and though it's a secondary concern for me (I make more than enough from Planetary Interaction Colonies), you're going to make a fair amount of money even if you don't pay it much attention and just "try everything", as I like to do. In the last two months I've netted (not grossed) several billion isk from Faction Warfare as a result of truly, TRULY desultory money making effort on my part (easily less than ten percent of the time I've spent on FW, total), including cashing out my loyalty points at the "wrong" tier almost every time.¹ On a minute-to-minute basis, there is simply nothing else I've done in the game that makes as much ISK in such short, discrete, instant-on chunks of time.

People will argue about whether the small gang and solo pvp is a bonus feature of Faction Warfare money making activities, or if it's the other way around, but it hardly matters -- if you want both, and plan for both, you're going to be pretty happy with the results.

Social
This is slower going, due to the necessary and justified paranoia that runs through Faction Warfare, but I've gotten fairly familiar with a couple groups, and can jump on (or ignore) their nightly shenanigans with zero drama. That 'social curve' is steeper than what a typical MMO player might expect (unless you're joining up with friends), but the rewards are worth it for me.

Overall
You know, the fact of the matter is, I didn't blog about EvE all last week because I was too busy playing EvE. I suppose that says a lot right there, and mercuryapp.com (which I use to take down the notes that eventually become blog posts) reflects my satisfaction with the last sixty days.

After a year or more in Wormholes (which, while fun, almost always require extensive scanning preceding any kind of organized activity, and ongoing scanning throughout said activity), the fact that I can log in, hop in a ship, undock, do something, fight someone, and make twenty to sixty million isk -- all within 15 to 30 minutes -- is a huge draw for me, especially right now.

In my opinion, Faction Warfare may be the best "mixed-discipline" activity in the game for a new player coming into EvE Online for the first time, though RvB and EvE Uni have a better infrastructure built in for training new pilots the ins and outs of the game. I'd highly recommend it for that new player, or any more experienced player looking for something different to try out.

---

¹ - Can you make more money doing other things in EvE? Sure. Can you do it in ten-minute chunks of time, solo, in a tech 1 frigate or a cheap bomber? No.

Life in Eve: Something Else #eveonline

I drop onto the couch and stare at the massive screen mounted on the wall of my quarters.

Too much information, and none of it useful. Where's the off switch?

Hell, where's the remote?

"Aura?"

"Yes, pilot?"

"Channel broadcast please. Echo to Milcomms. TLF. BSB. Message follows:"

Ty > Anyone up to any shenanigans? I'll take anything but another infrastructure Hub bash.

I lean back and closed my eyes to block out the massive but blessedly mute screen. On the one hand, I was tired, but it was more the sort of tired you got from doing the same thing over and over, which described the last 24 hours pretty well. Four (or was it five) infrastructure hubs had died, replaced with our own, and while the Oracle battlecruiser I'd brought to the last few had made the process a bit less annoying than the dozens of bomber runs from yesterday, it was still a mental drain. I was more restless than worn out, but wanted to do something -- anything -- else.

"Transmaritanus requesting private channel connection, pilot."

"Let him in." I smirk. This should be good; Trans was a pretty good poster child for 'something else.'

"Yo." Trans's voice was, as usual, distant and tinny, his words rushed. "I've got a fleet I can maybe get you in, but you need to shut up about it. It does not exist. If you talk about it out in public, I will burn your fields and villages, okay?"

"Who is this? How did you get this number?" I replied. "I don't know what a 'fleet' is, and I certainly don't know anything about one forming up." I cut comms and crossed my fingers.

Working my way up out of the 'entry level' chafe in the TLF war effort was an ongoing chore -- one I'd been engaged in for almost a month. Tedious, albeit fairly simple: be active on comms, don't be a moron, don't be a dick, answer what questions you can, no matter how repetitively they're asked by the constant influx of new pilots (nevermind that I'd actually taken the time to go and find the answers myself), and just try to use your head.

Being able to mute pilots who are either too stupid to learn or too bitter and nasty to add anything to the conversation had helped immensely.

Eventually, one of the few well-respected veterans who still had the intestinal fortitude to spend time in general Milchat had decided I might be worth spending a little more effort on, and gave me access to a private channel he used for pulling 'potentials' into fleets that, while not 'open', per se, weren't entirely closed to all strangers. I'd gone from being one of the unwashed hippies camping in a cheap tent out on the lawn to being a semi-respectable stranger standing in the entryway, trying not to track mud on the tile.

Through Trans's channel I'd organized or been invited on a few very small operations, but this fleet sounded like a bigger deal.

Assuming he could get me in.

Several minutes passed, and I was about to write the whole thing off as a false positive, when Aura chimed.

"Fleet invitation incoming, pilot. Would you like --"

"Accept!" I cut in. "Accept." A new channel ID opened on the giant screen, with fleet information. Tech2 frigates and destroyers... twenty pilots in fleet...

Heading to... null-sec?

"Ty, are you familiar with the Curse region?"

I wonder if living there for six months counts. "More than a little. What do you need me to bring?"

"Got anything fast?"

I can't help but smirk.

---

Lessons learned:

Sometimes it can be fun to go back to old stomping grounds. A great night. Killed fifteen or sixteen ships and took on some really impressive groups (one with a pair of Basilisks for logistic support) with a pilot of assault frigates and destroyers. Only lost two ships the whole night.

Best of all: invited to a couple new comms channels to ensure I'd be in the loop for future activities. Awesome.

Life in Eve: A Quick Thought on the Mate War #eveonline

My Internet is out, so I'm writing this on my phone and don't have the time, patience, or keyboard to write out a long explanation of "the Mate War" going on in Eve right now. This post explains it sufficiently and briefly.

The tl;Dr version is that one guy, already on the defensive for screwing up, chose to change the subject during his dressing down by claiming that being called 'mate' was a comment on his sexuality, and declared war on a well-liked Alliance in game. This has backfired on him a bit.

Don't get me wrong: parts of the situation are very funny.

Here's what I don't think is funny.

He's (of course) being roundly mocked for misinterpreting 'mate' and declaring war over it.

But no one questions the idea that he's doing it because someone implied he was gay. People snicker and say 'no one called you gay, dude.' No one's saying 'so what if they did?'

How is it that being called gay is worth wardeccing over in the the first place? What kind of sorry, 1980s high school locker room are we in, that none of us even question that?

Life in Eve: How it Goes #eveonline

"Any pilots available to help us knock down a couple infrastructure hubs? We've got a few ready to fall, and a good defensive fleet, but we need more damage on the structures."

I hesitated, but the guys putting this call out sounded as though they knew what they were doing, and wouldn't randomly give enemy pilots access to voice comms.

"This is Ty, I'm in a bomber and I'm available."

"Perfect, I'll send you an invite to fleet."

"Sounds good. Where am I headed?"

"First target is Haras."

Life in Eve: Tripped and Fell into the Captain's Chair #eveonline

"So I accidentally ended up in charge of a fleet last night, and --"

"Stop," CB holds up a hand. "I don't have have a drink yet."

"You need a drink for this?"

"You got put in charge of a fleet 'by accident'?" He makes a face. "Yeah. I do. Where's your port?"

"Port?" I raise my eyebrows. "What makes you think I have port?"

"You might put the rum out where everyone can see and fly Ruptures til your pod goo turns orange," CB mutters, peering into a low cupboard, "but Gallente goes bone deep." He buries his arm up to the shoulder in the compartment, searching by touch.

"That is a crude stereotype, and I'm offended by the --"

CB pulls a small, dark, dusty bottle out and thunks it down on the table in front of me. "What was that? I couldn't hear you through all the being right."

I give him a sour look. "Corkscrew and shot glasses are up on the third shelf."

"Classy."

---

CB smacks his lips. "Fruity, with a spice finish."

"What does that even mean?"

He slides the empty glass across the table. "Means reload me."

---

"So this guy, I don't even know his name --"

"-- doesn't matter --"

"-- doesn't matter. He's screaming on milcomms that he's gotten the infrastructure in Haras down this close to vulnerable, but he's got to stop and get some rack time, and if he comes back and the system hasn't been broken down, the Hub taken out, and the whole system put back in Minmatar hands, we're all terrible and should self-destruct into the sun."

"And you listen to him because..."

I shrug. "It was something to do?" CB just looks at me, so I keep going. "Anyway, I wrap up the thing I was doing and when someone else asks what's going on, I say 'Well, I guess I'm going to go over to Haras and finish making it vulnerable for an attack on the Hub.' I don't make a big deal of it, but then some other guy opens comms and says "YES WE HAVE TO DO THIS IT IS TIME LET'S GO LET'S GET MOTIVATED LET'S FLEET UP SIGNAL ME FOR FLEET INVITATIONS I WILL ESTABLISH VOICE COMMS."

"So of course you signed up right away."

"No, I pretty much ignored him," I reply. "He was annoying." I take another drink. "But... when I got to Haras --"

"Where's Haras?" CB interrupts. "I feel like I know that one."

"We've hit plexes there before," I answer. "It's a dead-end system, kind of out of the way. Only one gate in or out, which..." I make a face. "Well, that's relevant later."

"So you get there."

"So I get there," I continue. "And there's probably a dozen of us in system, and they're all in the loud guy's fleet, and it sounds like more are on the way from all over. He's been organizing it on the public milcomms, so a lot of new guys who want to do something -- anything -- are heading over with all the key requirements for a classic kitchen sink fleet." I roll my head on shoulders. "I figure the only thing worse than being in that fleet is being the only guy in the system who isn't in the fleet, so I signal and get an invite."

"And they put you in charge?"

"Well, no." I pour another half-glass. "But it's a mess. The guy hasn't set up any squad commanders. Or wing commanders. Or, well, anything. There are guys in the group who have that level of training, and he's not using them." I shrug. "I mean, it's not his fault. I if I hadn't spent all that time in OUCH, I wouldn't know anything about how to set up the hierarchy for a fleet, but I did, so I do, and I start giving him suggestions on who needs to go where."

"And..."

"And he just says 'Here I made you fleet boss so you can move people.'"

"And that's when you got put in charge."

I shake my head. "He was still Fleet Commander at that point."

CB makes a rude noise. "When the shit hits the fan, people don't listen to the new OFC; they listen to the sergeant who actually knows how to get shit done."

"Whatever." I roll my eyes, though in hindsight I can see he's right. "Anyway, I get everyone sorted out, and all the squads and wings are rolling, and we're up to about twenty, twenty-five ships, with more on the way, and someone says 'Now what?'"

"And they all turn and look at you." He smirks. "It's a burden being right all the time."

"I'm sure."

He tosses back his glass in one shot. "This is why I don't help people, as a rule. It leads to... things."

I raise an eyebrow. "Things?"

He waves his hand around. "Things. Shut up."

"Anyway." I shake my head at him. "Yeah. They say 'So what are we doing, Ty?', and I tell a couple of the guys in frigates to hit the complexes and bring the infrastructure the rest of the way down." I take a drink. "That actually works, and we start working on the Hub itself, trying to get at the guts of the thing the old fashioned way, but we have the wrong ships -- too many small fast things, and not enough big guns -- we probably can't even break through the Hub's shields, and even if we can it's going to take hours, not minutes, and some of these guys have never even been out to shoot a tower or POCO before, so they're already bitching it's taking too long and it's only been five minutes."

"You need different ships."

"Yeah, and it's ten or fifteen jumps to get anywhere were we can swap, and..." I tap the edge of my glass "... a bunch of them can't fly anything but the frigates they're in."

"Where are the vets?"

I shrug. "Except for one guy I can name, and two others who spend their free time shitting up the channel with hate and stupidity, they don't listen to milchat. Half the time I can't blame them, because it's bad; the other half, I think that it's bad because they never interact with anyone in there. Anyway, the guys that are going to answer an all-hands call for a fleet are going to mostly be new pilots." I lean my head back against the wall. "And by this point, there's the problem with the gate camp."

"The --" CB stops himself. "What happened?"

"One of the stragglers coming to join us tells us that there's about thirty ships on the other side of the gate -- our only way out, by the way -- and they're a pretty good composition for keeping us trapped in here for hours."

"That's a problem."

"That's actually half the problem."

CB rubs at his temples. "Keep going."

"Well, we had a hurricane on the out-gate, but far enough away from the gate itself that we think maybe we can drop on it and kill it before his buddies jump in and back him up, so I call for a fleet warp to the tackling frig that's right on top of him." I tap my glass again, and he refills my glass, then his own. "Just as we get into warp, the lead guy calls out multiple contacts."

"How many's 'multiple'?"

"I ask him that," I reply, "and he says 'sixty or so'."

"Sixty." CB tastes the port, then sets it down. "That is more than thirty."

"It is." I toss the drink back, and unlike CB I don't bother tasting it. "Turns out there was a cloaked up Arazu right off the gate, and the other thirty ships are a black-ops bomber fleet that just got cyno-jumped into the system, right on top of us."

CB hisses through his teeth. "You jumped into that?"

"And jumped right the hell back out," I reply. "Not everyone made it, but most of us did, and after that it was just cat and mouse for a couple hours. The one thing --" I held up a finger "-- the one thing that made it almost worth while is that they had about fifty pilots tied up with keeping us in the system or hunting after us, so we wasted wasted more of their time than ours."

CB looks at me, his face expressionless.

I look back, mirroring him.

"Did they buy that crap when you said it to th--"

"I have no idea," I smirk. "No one called me on it, though."

"So you play hide-and-seek for awhile."

"Yeah, and deal with spies."

"How do you know there were --" He cuts himself off. "Nevermind. Always spies."

"Yeah." I nod. "In this case, there were a few clues, like a couple of the enemy ships always knowing exactly where to warp to on our safe spots." I pause, savoring the next part. "And of course when war target pilots log into our voice comms."

"What --" CB catches himself. "Please be joking."

"Nope." I smile. "It was actually kind of funny. The voice comms were being run by that same guy who didn't know how to organize the fleet, and one of my squad commanders has just said something like 'You know, you REALLY need to put some kind of security on these servers, or anyone with the info could just jump on here and raise hell.' No sooner had he said it than we get fifteen simultaneous new connections to the voice comms server, all named some kind of variation of either Susan Black or Hans Jagerblitzen. Before we know what's going on, they all jump into our channel and start clucking."

CB shoots up from his chair. "You're shitting me." His voice is a mixture of laughter and disbelief. "You are shitting me right now."

"Some of them had echo effects on their voices." I'm struggling to keep my voice level, because it's funnier that way. "Some of them were autotuned, so it sounded like some kind of song, but yeah... clucking."

"That's..." he shakes his head, still chuckling has he sits. "That's actually pretty fucking funny."

I grin. "It took the guy in charge of comms about thirty seconds to get everyone blocked and lock down the channel, but after that?" I nod. "We all cracked up pretty hard."

"So'd you all die?"

"Nah." I pick up the port bottle, find it empty, and raise an eyebrow before tossing it in the bin. "We got a scout set up on the other side of the gate, and when another milita fleet roamed through and got their attention, we slipped out -- didn't even lose any of the shinier ships."

"So..." CB ticks points off on his fingers. "Didn't capture the system, got camped in, got black ops dropped, infiltrated by spies, comm security broken by chickens..." he presents his hand to me, five digits extended in all directions, then picks up his half-empty glass and raises it. "Successful fleet command?"

"Could have been worse." I pick up my empty glass and tik it against his. "Could have been boring."

Life in EvE: Poking Around in the Corners #eveonline

Before I forget, I found an old map of the Caldari-Gallente warzone, and modified it to show all the locations of faction warfare mission agents. Click to embiggen.

Don't complain to me about the red/green color choices -- I didn't make the map, I just colored in some of the dots.


95% of the time, I use dotlan's faction warfare maps, but they don't show mission agents in any useful way, so when I'm planning a route around a warzone to pick up a bunch of missions to run all at once, this (and the Minmatar/Amarr version of same thing) is what I use. Maybe you will use it. Maybe you won't. Either way, it's a thing that exists that didn't before. La.

Now then...

---

Emboldened by my unprecedented two-solo-wins-in-a-row kill streak, I've returned to the Bleak Lands region in a Rupture-class cruiser, fit in a way that lets me pretend I'm flying a much more expensive Vagabond heavy assault cruiser. My plan (such as it is) involves roaming around the area, looking for war targets up to and including small (very small) gangs of frigates, destroyers, or maybe a cruiser or two of a favorable type.

It's a fine plan, and I locate a number of likely targets, but they are (wisely) capturing "minor" complexes, which restrict ship access in such a way as to prevent me harassing their frigates with my cruiser. This is the warzone functioning entirely as intended -- I'm simply on the 'prevented' side of an equation that far more frequently works in my favor, so it's hard to get very frustrated.

While I roam, I hang out, quiet and idle, in general militia voice comms. In the 'lobby' channel with me is one of the senior members of the militia, also quiet, and I'm inclined to leave things that way -- it's hard enough to find one of the vets to talk to without driving them out of the public channels every time they show up. I've no burning conversation topics to cover, anyway; it's not as though we're actually in the same system or any--

Actually? It seems we are. Now that's a weird enough coincidence that I feel like mentioning it, and strike up a casual chat with the other pilot as we both go about our business in the system.

The 'Lobby' doesn't usually see a lot of actual voice traffic -- it's really just a stopping point as you connect to comms and figure out what channel you actually want to use -- but our conversation encourages others to linger, and before long several experienced militia pilots are discussing their plans for the night, and I'm presented with something better to do than poke ineffectually at frigate-sized complexes I can't enter. Several veteran members of the militia are getting 'shot up' in the Huola and are asking for everyone in the voice comms to grab a ship and join them. The system's fairly far from my current location, but I hardly have anything better to do, and head that way.

It's another false hope, however. First, as the fleet forms, it's clear that it will consist entirely of battlecruisers and battleships -- my cruiser, while a great deal of fun to fly, has left me first over- and now under-dressed for the evening's festivities.

Second, the potential fight develops before I actually reach the system, and by the time I arrive it's all over but the clean-up, with ships exploding on both sides of the brawl. I'd finished the trip anyway, in hopes that some follow-up 'thing' might develop, but everyone seems content to drift about in their big ships, largely stationary.

I'm very bad at waiting.


I check the local channel, and notice that there's still a single war target in system. With nothing else to do, I proceed to investigate the various Minmatar complexes currently active in the system, to see if any are being vandalized by the enemy pilot. Pretty unlikely, given how many pilots we have nearby, but at least it gives me something to --

Well hello.

I land on a Complex gate and double take as directional scan shows me a Caldari Navy Hookbill frigate within. That's pretty ballsy by itself, but more surprising is the fact that this particular complex isn't a 'minor' -- it's actually large enough for cruiser-class ships to enter.

(Actually, now that I think about it, the pilot is probably still pretty safe, since all the other militia pilots in system are in big ships that couldn't get into this complex either. My Rupture is actually the only allied ship in system that can get inside. That's convenient.)

I activate the acceleration gate, but I don't get my hopes too far up -- the Hookbill is a quick, nimble ship, and I'll land inside the complex at least 60 kilometers from his location -- once he sees me come in, he'll have plenty of time to warp away before I can get anywhere near him. I'll chase off a war target and prevent some damage to the system's infrastructure, but it's highly unlikely that I'll get a fight.

Unless he charges me as soon as I land.

Which is exactly what he does.

The pilot's enthusiasm is... surprising.


The fact that he's charging straight into the fight actually gives me pause, and I check to make sure I haven't confused the Hookbill with some other ship -- certainly, a well-skilled pilot could use the frigate to take out a cruiser, but that's a bit unlikely (at least in the case of this particular Rupture, which is specifically fit to do well against smaller targets). Maybe the other pilot is one who's confused? Did he see a minmatar-made ship with an "R" class name and assume it was a Rifter frigate?

I don't have time to ask him, because he's dropped into an orbit and opened fire, at which point I put two cruiser-class energy neutralizers on him, drain his capacitor dry, shut off all his active modules, and blow up his ship -- all in approximately ten seconds. GF?

I'm not going to look a gift fight in the mouth, and it's a fine way to end what would otherwise have been a fairly frustrating night, but I can't help but be a bit confused by the whole thing.

Life in Eve: Continuing Streak #eveonline

After a week spent visiting Bre and Berke in the wormhole, I'm a little glad to stow Zecora back in my main hangar and pull out Radagast for another turn through some enemy complex assaults. This time, I decide to follow a new route that I'd spotted reviewing New Eden maps while up in the wormhole -- a series of jumps that will bring me into what feels like the back door into the Caldari/Gallente warzone; closer to the the system of Tama than Old Man's Star, where I usually start things off.

My impression that I'm sneaking in through a less-used entrance is borne out by the level of activity I see in the systems I pass through -- it's definitely quieter, especially as I move into the clusters of systems equidistant from any safe harbor.

Since there's no one around, let along anyone interested in a fight, I kill some time (and Caldari grunts) capturing minor complexes as I move from system to system. I finish off three in three different systems, then jump and start work on a fourth before I finally spot a war target entering the system.

This is one of those times when I'm glad for the way the complexes are restricted based on the size of the ships trying to enter. Thanks to that, any ship (well most ships) that ridiculously overmatch me will be unable to get in through the door, so to speak. Also, if I pay attention to the scanner, I should have ample time to see what an opponent might be bringing to the fight, and decide how I want to handle it.

Meanwhile, I continue to perform the complicated maneuver that allows me to capture the complex.


The new pilot shows up pretty quickly, and it seems he's flying a Kestrel. Like the Merlin, the Kestrel is a Caldari design, one that strongly adheres to the traditional Caldari "our missiles will blot out the sun" philosophy, unlike the turret-based Merlin. Fit with light missile launchers (as it usually is), the Kestrel can zip around out at ranges where most frigates can't hope to return fire, doing moderate to weak damage that nevertheless can get to you damn near anywhere on the field. Their downside is they are basically made from balsa wood and extra thick grocer's paper.

I think over my options and reload my guns with tech2 "Spike" ammo. Although the damage on the high velocity, long range ammo is far less than the heavier short-range options, it's the best option I have for the beginning of this fight, as it will let me hit the Kestrel from almost as far away as it can hit me -- something I'm hoping the other pilot doesn't expect.

Now I just have to see if he's going to come in and play.

I'm very bad at waiting.


Finally, he decides to take the plunge, and drops into the complex about 65 kilometers away. I turn and start to fly away from him like a good little scared rabbit, hoping he'll pursue, and he does. Thanks to the way I have the ship configured, I can lock his ship almost out to 60 kilometers, but I let him get closer, only pulsing my afterburner to make sure I don't pull away from him. Once he's inside 45 kilometers, I lock and start shooting, even though I'm outside the effective range of my guns -- I want him to see him hitting him for very little damage at the outset, to increase the odds that he'll discount my damage as a credible threat at this range. For him to reliably get missiles on me, he'll be inside 35 to 30 kilometers, and at that point, the Spike ammo should shine.

Everything pretty much falls into place, the only serious mistake I make being to leave my ancillary shield booster running instead of pulsing it intermittently. Regardless, my opponent doesn't seem to mind that my shield isn't moving, and continues to work on me. I burn straight away from him, watching his shields, and when they drop to just above 30% -- the point where a Kestrel pilot might seriously consider leaving -- I stop firing.

Like the pirate Merlin pilot from a few fights ago, the Kestrel pilot is trying to orbit me, and has thrown himself into a long elliptical, since I'm basically as fast or a bit faster than he is. As I shut down my guns, I reverse my path 180 degrees, overheat my afterburner to close range, ready my warp scrambler and web, and reload short range ammo in my guns -- a process that takes about 5 seconds.

That's almost exactly how long it takes me to get into range, since his ship has been thrown into a slingshot straight at me, thanks to that elliptical.

The Kestrel's autopilot - no doubt still trying to hold an orbit of 30+ kilometers, has thrown the ship around and is trying to pull away from me as I close in, but when the web lands, all chance of that goes out the window. I slide into an orbit of my own, resume firing, and convert the missile ship to a fiery explosion in four volleys.

This time, I manage to keep my ship from coming to a dead stop afterwards, too, so I can be taught!

The pilot tosses me a quick if somewhat half-hearted salute over the local comms as he warps his pod away to the nearest gate, and I have my second 1v1 victory behind me.

Life in EvE: Achievement Unlocked #eveonline

"How would you like the Merlin fit, Pilot?"

I shrug to myself. I hardly ever fly Caldari ships, unless the Gila counts  (it doesn't), so I pull up some fitting schematics Bre had sent me and started reading off the module list.

"Three 125mm rail guns. Damage Control Unit, Magnetic Stabilizer, and Overdrive. All tech 2. Ditto for the afterburner, but we don't need tech2 for the warp scrambler or the web so just see what we've got in the closet."

"Affirmative."

I scan Bre's notes, which called for a shield extender, but there'd been some new tech released on the market that I wanted to try out. "Drop one of those new Medium Ancillary Shield Boosters on there too, and re-rig the shields for stronger resists to any damage type where it looks like I've got holes."

"Affirmative."

I watch the assembly drones do their work in my hangar, and like what I see. The Merlin isn't the fastest frigate out there, but the afterburner would push me close to nine hundred sixty meters per second if I treated it nice, and well over a klick per sec if I used the spurs a bit. The rails didn't hit that hard, but if I followed Bre's "instructions for not going boom as much", I'd be sitting pretty far outside any comparable enemy ship's ability to return fire, while still keeping it pinned and whittling it down.

"Ship assembled, Pilot."

"Register it with flight control as Radagast, and let's go."

"Destination?"

I wave my hands. "Somewhere in the Bleak Lands. I don't much care." I'm tired of trying to fight pilots while Caldari troops throw missiles at me. If I could stay moving, Amarr troops assigned to complex defense would miss. A lot.

Thanks to the placement of our home base of operations, I'm in the warzone quickly (we're roughly equidistant from either), and start poking around a bit, until I find system with no complexes open and an Amarr war target in the local channel. No stations, only one star gate. I scan for and warp to the minor Amarr complex, which should restrict complex access to tech1 frigates like my Merlin, destroyers, and faction frigates -- just the thing to filter a fight.

I still haven't entered the complex, because I can see the other pilot on a 'short' d-scan (limited to a three hundred sixty degree scan with a range of 21 million km), but he's not dropping on the acceleration gate, and he's not already inside the complex. In short, I can't get him to engage, which probably means he wants me to enter the complex and get a bunch of Amarr goons shooting at me first. I understand: this is New Eden, where 'fair' means 'I have an advantage.'

"Whatever," I mutter under my breath and activate the gate that will send me into the complex. I'll take on the Amarr defenses if it gets me a decent fight.

Time passes, during which I largely ignore the Amarr ships who can't hit me and destroy the few that can. Sure enough, the enemy builds up to about twenty-five ships and here comes the other pilot, flying an Incursus, which is the main ship I've been flying in the Faction War, until today -- I feel like I have a very good idea what it's going to be able to do. It's scary, but it's usually short range, and I like this fight for me.

The other pilot likes it too, I guess, probably because my Merlin looks like a disco ball right now with all the Amarr lasers flying around me.

I let him get in to about 15 and try to keep him at about 8km, but I'm a bit faster than he is, so I'm getting away and out of  range of my warp scrambler. I've been manually piloting up to this point, but right now it's just making things harder for no benefit, so I simplify.

"Aura, hold the ship at a range of 6.5 kilometers."

"Confirmed, 6.5 kilometers."

The merlin swings around, I drop the web and scram onto the other ship once I slide back into range, and go to work. The railguns aren't hitting too hard, but he really can't do much to me at this range, except for his drone, which I ignore -- it's doing a little damage, and the Amarr are hitting me a little because I'm matching his speed instead of maintaining my best transversals, but the Ancillary Shield Booster is easily keeping my shields up -- I just hope the fight's over before the thing runs out of charges.

"Guns are ready for overheat," Aura reminds me.

"Leave em for a bit," I murmur, watching readouts and keeping an eye on the Local channel to see if my opponent will get more back up. I've flown the Incursus a lot, so I know pretty much how it works. His shields are gone in no time, but the Incursus is usually an armor-tanked ship, often relying on energy-hungry repair modules. I dent his ship a bit, watch him rep, and keep the pressure on so he's got to use his capacitor booster to keep the lights on. Eventually -- sooner rather than later, he'll need to reload that booster, his repair cycles will lag a bit and --

"There! Overheat!" The rate of fire on the railguns increases dramatically as their barrels start to glow. Diagnotics tell me I've punched through the armor into the hull structure in a couple places by the time his reps get back online.

One more cap charger reload like that, and he's done.

Our speed is all over the place now; he's starting to think that maybe he wants to get out, but with the web on him and my greater speed even at the best of times, all he's doing is flailing. The only problem is, keeping range during his flailing means I'm taking more laser fire and my shield booster is working harder -- he's not the only one getting low on charges.

I don't see the signs of his charge reload yet, but I can feel it coming, so I keep the guns overloaded, push him as hard as I can...

And it's over. First solo kill. Ever.

"Yes!"

"Bringing ship to full stop."

I blink. "What?"

"Target ship no longer on scan. No target from which to maintain requested range. Stopping engines."

"Wha- NO!" I flip the ship back into motion, hauling it into alignment with a celestial in the system -- I don't even care which one, so long as it isn't anywhere near the place where Aura has basically parked my ship in front of (now thirty) angry Amarr ships. "Align to warp!" The klaxon warning of imminent shield failure whoops behind me.  "And overheat that damned shield booster!"

"That module is out of chargers. Reload?"

"HELL no!" The ASB's an outstanding defensive module, but the one-minute reload time for the charges would be the end of the ship. "Run it off our primary capacitors." The drain would be unsustainable, but it should last long enough to get us out of trouble.

It did. Barely.

By the time the Merlin gets into warp, the Capacitor is dry as a bone, and the ship had taken severe armor and structure damage -- embarrassing, since the pilot in the 'real' fight hadn't even managed to get through my shields.

Still... alive is good.

Alive is really, really good.

---

Lessons Learned

Boring fight for anyone else, I'm sure, but I was really really happy with it -- the ship did exactly what I was hoping, I didn't screw anything up too badly, didn't forget too many things in the middle of the fight (could have overheated the guns sooner, and forgot to overheat the ASB at all until the end), and got my first 1v1 kill. Achievement unlocked, and all that. Fine way to start the day.

Rainbow Dash is pleased.

Life in EvE: All According to Plan #eveonline

Ty sat in his quarters, scratching notes on a digital pad.

If the crappy little Griffin wants to tackle you, solo, he has a plan.

As a matter of fact, the crappy little Griffin CAN jam your Wolf (and then kill it) 95.5% of the time.

If you rebuild an Incursus to counteract Griffin jams and head back for a rematch, the Griffin will avoid you.

If you take the time to buy a set of anti-ECM implants to increase your chances even more, you will not only fail to find the Griffin, you will get jumped by a Thrasher, shredded, and get your escape pod caught on the acceleration gate and destroyed.

You wanted this. You wanted to lose ships. You wanted to learn.

Ty sighed and let the pen drop to his desk. It had been a rough night -- lots of solo roaming looking for fights that consistently went poorly, followed by poor sleep and a lot of second guessing. He'd barely caught four hours of rack time, but there was no point in trying to get any more rest, because he wasn't resting -- his mind wouldn't let him.

"Aura."

"Yes, Ty?"

"Assemble one of the Merlin flatpacks," he said, checking the clock. He had obligations today, but there should be just enough time if he got moving right now. "We're going to try something... different."

---

Yeah, that all happened. I let a Griffin tackle me because I figured "Eh, he's a Griffin, he's not going to perma-jam me, right?"

Wrong.


Not a great night. Let's see if it turns around...

Life in EvE: Habits #eveonline

"So how boned are we?" asks CB.

"Boned?" I think about the question for a second. "Oh, the Goon-scam thing?"

"Yup."

I shrug. "I don't know if it's really going to make that much difference."

"Really." He doesn't sound convinced. I know he'd hoped to make a bit of ISK off of the rewards available via the TLF, so his doubt is understandable.

"Well, look at it like this," I explain. "Basically we get better payouts from the TLF if we control more of the warzone. A lot of that has to do with how much each of our systems are upgraded, and the Goon scam definitely affected that -- they pumped resources into our systems to push our net warzone control high, based on system upgrades." I pulled up the current-as-of-twenty-minutes-ago situation map of the warzone and spun my monitor around to face him. "But any upgrade scheme works a lot better and is a lot easier when we control more systems. Diminishing returns kick on those upgrades in a huge way -- it's a lot easier and less resource intensive to do minor upgrades to five backwater systems than it is to upgrade one system from nothing up to Gold Plated Faucets and Hot and Cold Running Escorts."

The screen reflected in CB's glasses. "All I heard out of that is that it's good that we control a lot of systems."

"It is." I turned the monitor back around and pulled up a few other displays. "I mean, we've got control of over fifty systems. The Amarr have 11.¹ A lot of the system upgrade stuff was because of the Goons cooking the system, but that was five pilots screwing with the Jita market -- they didn't have anything to do with actually capturing systems in the warzone. Hell, as near as I can tell the Minmatar have controlled a majority of the systems for..."

I scrolled through the history of what some some called the Forever War, watching the dips and minor fluctuations in territorial control until it all started to blur together, then shook my head. "... a really long time."

"So this isn't going to affect anything."

"I didn't say that," I replied. "Overall warzone control is dropping right now, and if I had to guess, I'd say it's going to continue to drop for a couple more weeks. Maybe three. Here's why --" I flipped on the Militia Chat, which poured forth a never-ending stream of requests for fitting advice, queries about available fleets and -- a recent addition -- dejected moaning about the drop in warzone control.

"Because everyone's a whining bitch?" CB threw the barest hint of a scowl in the direction of at the wall-mounted speaker. "Turn that shit off."

I did. "Because people are used to the warzone control just..." I waved my hands like a conjurer "magically upgrading itself every weekend or so, at no cost to themselves. They've formed habits. Those habits will take about three weeks to break."

"Then they'll stop whining?" I looked at him, and he made a face. "Of course not."

"Everyone whines. All the time --"

"-- and they never stop." CB pushed himself out of the chair. "Sounds like normal. Let's go blow some shit up."

---

¹ -- This conversation took place several weeks ago. The day after I got back from ComicCon this week, the Amarr were actually down to four systems. Like most people who pay attention to such things, my assumption is that the Amarr forces have turned their attention to the more lucrative Caldari side of the Caldari-Gallente war, rather than claw out of the fiscal hole they're currently in. Until some (more) changes to faction war go in, that's probably the best plan.

Life in EvE: Kiting Only Works if Someone's Trying to Pull Your String #eveonline

It's the day after the CB and I lost a couple ships and, perhaps predictably, I'm back in an Incursus, capturing a complex in the same system as yesterday.

Clearly, I was cowed by their 'no plexing allowed' rule.


Fortunately or unfortunately, there are no war targets in-system, though I'm not entirely alone; there are couple neutral pilots around -- unaffiliated with the war, and (in my experience so far) fairly likely to simply ignore pilots out in complexes and carry on with whatever --

A ship warps into the complex, and Aura's recognition software immediately paints it a bright and flashy red in my overview display, indicating a pirate with a security rating so low they would be attacked immediately in high-security space.

So much for my experience so far.

The pilot is in a Merlin -- a frigate that, like my Incursus, has seen a recent overhaul and some very significant improvements in combat functionality -- and it's closing with some very good speed.

Normally, I'd be so damn happy to have a one on one fight on my hands that I'd probably fling my ship straight at the Merlin and forget to lock my guns, but it's one of those situations where I'm feeling a serious urge to leave a raincheck. I'm in the middle of a Caldari complex, and for whatever reason, the defenders of this particular plex are really stressing my ship's defenses; sometimes, I wouldn't care at all about adding another attacker, but the current flights of Caldari missiles are no joke, and I realize I need to disengage.

The pirate doesn't seem inclined to let that happen.

As I said, she's moving quite fast -- faster than my Incursus, at any rate, even with my afterburner overheating, and on top of that she's got a "long-point" warp disruptor fitted and can keep me from escaping from as far as twenty-four kilometers away. The good news is I'm able to keep her far enough away that she needs that long-range disruptor -- the bad news is she's firing railguns, and can still hit me from that far away. Rocinante II sports neutron blasters; far more damage, but something like a tenth the effective range of comparable railguns.

Not that the range of my guns really matters, as I'm looking to get out of the fight, not get further in.

Still, as I tear ass away from the center of the complex and out into open space, everything that's happened so far is actually giving me some good information and a few ideas. Once upon a time, I used to fly with OUCH - The Open University of Celestial Hardship -- a training organization focused on new pilots coming into nullsec for the first time. While with them, I flew a lot of Merlins, and while the ship's gotten an overhaul, a lot of its utility functions remain the same. Railgun-fit Merlins have always been more common than Gallente ships using those guns, and part of the reason is the fact that the Merlin can fit something like an afterburner, a webifier, a warp disruptor or scrambler, and a reasonably decent shield tank, and basically hold enemy ships at arm's length and plink away at them at a longer range where the enemy ship can't do nearly as much damage. It's called kiting.

Sometimes, especially in small ships, you'll see people using "orbit" and "keep at range" commands to stay in their sweet spot for maximum effectiveness, rather than trying to manually pilot in the small fast ships that often react too quickly to be handled by a pilot in the middle of combat. Usually, this is fine -- the ships will sometimes blow their orbit and readjust, but in general they come about so quickly that the readjustment isn't a serious problem.

Unless they're flying against another small, fast ship. Then you can try something called a slingshot.

I've been practicing slingshots for awhile, because they're very useful with a short range ship like the Incursus; the basic idea is to haul ass in a straight line (I was already doing that) and force an orbiting pilot into an elliptical rather than circular orbit -- once that happens, the autopilot in the other ship will try to readjust when the orbit sweeps too far out, and will turn and fly straight at you to reacquire the correct range.

That's when you turn around and fly right at them. If the other pilot doesn't react in time, you're right on top of them in a few seconds.

Again, that wasn't exactly what I was looking for right now, but it was close.

My guess was that the other pilot was fairly happy with the current situation, but that in an ideal world, she'd be bit closer, and I'd be futilely trying to chase her down, because that's how kiting works best. Given that, she's probably set the ship to orbit at what she'd decided was her ideal range, and the ship's autopilot was doing everything it could to obey.

I watched, waited for the ship to lag out an extra kilometer, watched its relative velocity to mine drop as the ship came around on me...

...and launched my single combat drone.

This wasn't such a huge offensive move on my part, but my hope was that it would distract the other pilot for a few seconds as they dealt with the change in our relationship. I was delighted to see that the pilot actually switched targets to the drone -- probably knowing it was the only one the Incursus could field and that my long-range offensive capability would be entirely gone if it was taken out -- if she was watching the drone, she wasn't watching me.

I flipped my ship a hundred and thirty five degrees, overheated my afterburner (again), and burned back the other direction with the Merlin forty-five degrees to port. If I'd been trying to close with her, I'd have burned straight at her, but I didn't want that.

I wanted to get just close enough that her autopilot thought I was too close.

Sure enough, just as I was about to pass by the Merlin, I saw the other ship react to our dwindling range by actually turning away from me and burning out.

I turned another forty-five degrees to starboard, putting the Incursus ass-end to the enemy, and watched as our range streeeeeeeeeeeeetched past 15km, 20, 22, 23, 24...

25, 26, 27, and then 3006, 1,015 and gone, as I warped away.

"Whoa," the pilot said in local. "Nice flying."

"Thanks!" I replied. "I would have stuck around, but those complex defenders were beating me up. Another time?"

"Sure," she replied. "I'm honestly kind of surprised you got away. I need to work on this kiting thing."

I thought back to my encounters the day before. "Let me give you the names of some pilots you can practice on..."

Life in Eve: Winning #eveonline

[Last week, I was on a trip out of town, and on my flight back, I managed to leave my EvE Notebook (an actual notebook in which I take notes for these posts) on the plane. I contacted their lost and found, got an automated "Don't call us, we'll call you" message, and have pretty much given up hope of seeing that particular notebook again. Which SUCKS both because I have to write the next couple weeks of posts using nothing more than my own shoddy memory, and because I was less than THREE PAGES from completely filling up and actually finishing a notebook for the second time in my life. Anyway, I've a new notebook, so off we go.]

Rocinante's engine detonates a split second after my pod ejects and I fling it toward the nearest sun. "Okay, did you get out?"

"Yeah," CB's voice is flat.

"Your ship, or just your pod?"

"The pod. What happened back there?"

"Umm... you jumped the acceleration gate and landed on top of a Rupture, who was waiting for you."

"I thought you'd already gone."

I shake my head. We had a number of Overview options available, and sometimes I think the one that hides nearby fleet members causes more harm than good. "I hadn't. I didn't jump until I realized you had, and by the time I landed, you were --

"Dead."

"You're not dead. Your ship blew up. It's a cheap frigate -- we spend more on week of ammo than I did building that ship."

"I don't like losing ships."

"Then we should stop trying to find fights, because we're going to lose a HELL of a lot more fights than we win. Let's head back to the base, I have an idea."

The comms are silent for awhile. "Why'd you say you wanted to go looking for a fight if you thought are odds were so shitty?"

"Our odds are always going to be shitty, unless we start learning." I reroute my path through Old Man Star to get back to the home system faster, dodging a gate camp in the process. "Only way to learn is fight, and fighting means losing ships. Hell, just getting a fight that isn't a stupid blob of ships that make the whole thing meaningless is a win, as far as I'm concerned. Getting a fight is the point."

"Winning is the point," CB counters. "For pretty much everyone."

"Yes. Fine. True. Good point." I enter the home system and aim for the station docking ring. "Lots of guys will fly around with another guy somewhere in the system providing fleet boosts. Or they've got a Falcon buddy ready to drop cloak and jam out anyone stupid enough to engage. Sure. Lots of guys, the only reason they'll take a fight is because they believe they can win, and they won't take the fight if the odds aren't totally in their favor. Yes."

"And?"

"And that's not me. All I want is a fight -- if I get one, I win. Period. Full-stop. Even if my ship blows up, because for me the hard part is just getting the fight." I look over my ship hangar. "You still have that Rupture you named Huntard?"

"Yeah."

I swing the hangar arms over to unberth a Vexor. "Hop in -- we're going to go find that guy again."

---

"You're never going to find a fair fight," CB points out. "Not in New Eden."

"I don't --" I cut myself off. "I'm going after a guy in a Rupture with a Rupture AND a Vexor cruiser. I'm obviously not looking for a fair fight -- I'm looking for fights that aren't pointless and stupid, where I can learn something useful."

"Did we learn something useful in the last fight?" CB asks. "I blew up too fast to notice."

"We learned we need to communicate better and not make assumptions about what the other guy's doing."

"And to not attack Ruptures in frigates?"

"Well..." I shrug. "Not to attack them in a pair of frigates who are trickling in one at a time, yeah. Kind of figure we already know that."

The last gate looms ahead of us, and we jump.

"He's still in Local."

"Yup. Let's jump up to that acceleration gate again." We do, but directional scan is clear. I extend the range and swing the beam around. "Ah. He's down by the station. Stay here, let's see if I can bait him out away from dock range. I warp down to the station and wave to the Rupture with a couple of my guns, but the pilot ignores the invitation to a fight and simply redocks when his shields start to get low. "No joy."

"I've got another wartarget in system," CBs voice is already tense. "We should get out."

"It's just two," I reply. "That's still a good fight for us."

I get only a grunt in reply, then: "The new guy's in a Rupture, too."

"Perfect. 2v2 cruiser brawl. Sounds fun."

"Sounds like a good way to blow up."

"Same thing."

Another grunt.



The two of us warp from celestials to complexes to jump gates in a continual cycle until it seems as though we've managed to lure the two other pilots into some kind of action. It's right about then that a third war target enters the system.

"That's three," comments CB. "We should leave."

I let out a sigh that's half growl. "He might be travelling through. He might be in a frigate. He might be an idiot. People fight outnumbered all the time. 3v2 isn't a bad fight. We just --"

"Ruptures on scan," CB cuts in. "Both of them."

"Get ready." We're on the acceleration gate into a complex both our ships can enter, but I hold. In the few seconds I take to consider our options, I see no reason not to fight the Ruptures right where we are, rather than leading them into the complex.

As the rupture cruisers land, a Falcon force recon uncloaks and shows me why we should have jumped.

"Ruptures are locking me up. Targeting the first -- Fuck, I'm jammed." CB barks. "And scrambled. And gone. Fuck."

"Fucking falcon." I've managed to get a flight of drones out, and when the Falcon jams me, they take off after the ship in defense of their master, but since I can't lock him, I have no idea how much (if any) damage they're doing to the other ship. "Did you get your pod out?"

There's a second's delay. "Yeah."

I barely hear him. On the off chance the Falcon misses a jam or the drones drive him away, I'm trying to stay moving, my armor repair units working into overheat to keep my ship intact in case I get a real chance to fight back.

But I never do, and eventually my second ship of the night explodes.

"I'm out. Let's head back."

The local channel lights up.

No plex running in our systems, boys, comments one of the pilots.

"Oh, that'll work," I mutter. "Now say 'please'." I can't help but key the local comms. "We weren't looking for a plex. We were looking for a fight," I reply. "Pity you brought the Falcon."

We land on the star gate and jump, so any counter is lost on us.

"We should have just left," CB grumbles.

"We should," I reply, "have jumped into the complex. The accel gate wouldn't have let that fucking Falcon in, and we'd have had a chance." I grind my teeth, angry at no one but myself. "It was my stupid oversight. My mistake. Sorry."

There's no reply. We make the trip home in silence.

---

Lessons Learned

1. Communicate. CB and I have known each other for 20 years, and sometimes that means we don't talk when we should be, and don't give each other heads up.


2. Jump the accel gate. It helps filter down the opponents and control the fight, and if there's a Falcon, it takes them out of the equation.


3. There's always a fucking Falcon.


4. Fuck falcons.


5. Ships are just ammo. Like ammunition, using a ship means losing the ship, either immediately or eventually. The only ship you'll never lose is the one you never fly, and what's the point of that?

Lastly: What you think of as winning is not going to be some other guy's version of winning. Do the thing you like, enjoy yourself, and that's winning, for you. It is a game, after all - fun is the point.

I don't mind losing ships -- if I lost an Incursus and Vexor every evening I logged in and never made a single isk the whole time, I could still fly every night for many, many months.

I do mind making stupid mistakes, like not assuming the third guy is flying a Falcon. In hindsight, of course he was in a Falcon.

Still, stupid mistakes are good, because making them means I'm extra motivated not to make the same one again.