Being Knee Anderthal: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

EVE Blog Banter #25: Subtracting Sovereignty

Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic comes to us from @Tetraetc - "Tetra's EVE Blog" - who asks: "Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?"

I believe there is a large hurdle for alliances to leap over in order to get into capturing sovereignty. Namely, playing the reinforcement game. Getting a fleet together is simple. Getting a fleet together that has the firepower and patience to reinforce a tower? Quite a significant commitment. Getting that fleet together three times in a row at different times on different days? A heroic effort.

For those who are ignorant of the current mechanics, here's a quick explanation. Unclaimed space is claimed with a Territorial Claim Unit (TCU). When that goes online, the system is yours and you can start placing buildings - Infrastructure Hubs (IHUBs) and Stations. All three of these building types are invulnerable as long as you hold uncontested sovereignty.

To take someone else's sovereignty, you have to plant Sovereignty Blockade Units (SBUs) at over 50% of the system's gates. At that point the IHUB and Station become vulnerable. Taking them down requires shooting them and waiting out the reinforcement timers. When those buildings are down, the enemy TCU is vulnerable. Destroy it and the system returns to a neutral state, ready to be claimed by its conquerors.

So what happens when you start tearing that system apart, piece by piece? First of all, the reinforcement timers. If reinforcement did not exist, an enemy fleet could storm a system and capture it within half a day. SBU's take 3 hours to come online, and TCU's take 8. In the middle of that is the timeframe for the IHUB to be destroyed and the Station to be conquered. A blob of supercaps would make it easy. This change alone can make a huge upset in sovereignty holdings, as a large alliance that is slow to react can lose systems literally overnight. For working types like myself, I'm away from EVE for 16 hours in a row every day when considering work and sleep. A successful alliance defense would require round-the-clock guard shifts across all timezones.

If taking down the IHUB and Station was not required, then the attack can be reduced to a single player in an Industrial carrying the necessary SBU's and TCU, plus a small gang to destroy the enemy TCU.

These changes would force such delicate instability that maintaining any amount of territorial claim would require eyes everywhere at all times and a reactionary force of minutemen available to repel any attack within a matter of hours. The week-long round-the-clock siege of 6VDT-H performed by my own alliance just a few weeks ago would be reduced to a lazy Saturday's activity. That hard work could be undermined the very next day. Establishing a flourishing market and profitable IHUBs would be next to impossible.

Breaking down sovereignty from alliance level to corp level would surely make things more granular, but it could also splinter the effectiveness of an alliance. Each corp would have its own staging systems and the coordination between corps could easily fall apart.

So the way I see it, removing some of the sovereignty barriers would definitely cause more PvP simply by making it easier for one group to force another group's hand. But make it too easy and the ability to change sovereignty becomes trivial with a blob force, and impossible to maintain when the opposing blob force shows up, all the while draining all the fun away from building a productive home.

So what happens when sovereignty disappears or it becomes utterly pointless? Then nullsec simply becomes lowsec without the GCC. Anarchy. A pirate's dream. All PVP all the time. Alliances degenerate into nomadic blobs or bubbly gatecamps. Lowsec becomes the carebears risking a shot at making more money versus the solo PvPers hellbent on stopping them. Meanwhile supercapital ships have nowhere to hide, and the prices of any kind of nullsec equipment skyrocket. Well, at least it wouldn't be safer than highsec.

Other responses to EVE Blog Banter #25:

Saturday, February 26, 2011

One Week Till Remap

EWar is finished. I saw the power of ECM during Alliance Tournament VIII and I had to buy in to it. Should I choose to fly a Caldari ECM ship, I will be evil in it. The alliance loves EWar people too.

So what's left?

Nanite Operation IV and Nanite Interfacing IV for heat repairs.
Anchoring IV for drag bubbles.
Salvaging IV for looting.

That's it. Less than a week away. I'm excited!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The First Anniversary

Today marks my first anniversary of playing EVE - Knee's birthday.

Coincidentally enough, it also marks a nice skill-training milestone. Cynosural Field Theory IV finished today, putting me at just over 20 million skillpoints. An average of 2280 sp/hour.

So, the year in review?

After going through the tutorials, I pack up my free ships (Thrashers and Slashers and Wreathes, oh my!) and haul them 22 jumps from Matari space to my coworkers' home just outside Jita. From there I go up the missioning chain - Level 1's in a Thrasher, Level 2's in a Rupture, Level 3's in a Hurricane, and Level 4's in a Dominix. I get over 8.0 standings with the Caldari Navy, allowing me to keep some jumpclones in highsec for times when I need to go skillbook shopping.

That's where the blog begins. The general malaise of solo missioning causes me to head to nullsec for some fun. Meanwhile I'm training exclusively Int/Mem skills in anticipation of a Per/Will remap which should last me for a good year or two. Having looked at some character skill profiles who have skillpoint totals over twice what I have, I'm pretty confident in my support backbone, and when I add Tech II ships and guns to that, I should be pretty solid.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Life in Fountain, Day One

   Rigging training is complete. Onward to the final set of Electronics skills - 11½ days. Removed a couple of unnecessary skills from the plan, saving three days. It's now a total of 18½ days until the remap.

   My courier contract is already completed. All of my equipment is now here. Awesome service!

   Researched the market for buying a Maelstrom in the future. The station is well-stocked with the hulls, guns, and faction ammo necessary for the job. Very impressive.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Moving South

   Knee noticed the level of activity around the station was higher than normal. Things were usually quiet around Deklein these days, as the military operations were focused in the South. Knee took it as an opportunity to continue his recovery and soak up some training on the fine arts of Jury Rigging.

   Today, however, was impossible to ignore. Nearly every capsuleer was either on the hangar floor or in motion to and from it. Knee asked a hangar attendant what the story was.

   "We're moving."

   "What? Where to?" Knee inquired.

   "Fountain."

   "Everybody?"

   "Everybody. TEST is packing up and giving Deklein back to the Goons."

   Emotional reaction would normally be the first thought to such sudden and life-changing news. Instead, Knee's mind was already worrying about logistics. He had a lot of ships and cargo stashed here. He was already familiar with liquidating assets from leaving Lonetrek to come here. He just wasn't used to having to plan things so quickly.

   First to go were the ships. He went through his ship inventory and stripped the lot, repackaged all but one, and priced them aggressively: 30% below market. Only fools would pass up such prices. He was not among fools; the ships sold within a matter of hours.

   Next was his stash of ammo. Ammo was disposable, fungible, cheap, and took up too much volume in his bay. It had to go. 30% off.

   Then there was the mass of equipment. A load of modules he couldn't possibly go though in a short timeframe to sell individually. Luckily the alliance was hosting a courier service for just a couple of days to deliver things like this to Fountain via Jump Freighter. Only problem was the launching point for the freighter was several jumps away. He quickly bought a Wreathe and loaded it with the whole lot. Nearly 4600 m³ of goods. Before leaving, he bought one final piece of equipment - a cloaking device. That one piece was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was simply too large to fit in cargo, but it was necessary for the final step. Knee grumbled and pondered.

   "Wait. This ship's got a high slot, doesn't it?" He quickly consulted the fitting. It had one. Perfect. "Plug it in!"

   The lowly industrial creaked its way out of the docking bay. Knee swore at its sluggish operation due to the heavy load it was barely carrying, and at his own ability barely being adequate to fly the thing. An industrialist he was not.

   At the rendezvous point, Knee set up the courier contract, stripped the Wreathe and put it up for sale, and headed back for the last piece of equipment - his most precious one: The Darkblade.

   The last time Knee made a suicidal solo run through nullsec was in a Reaper with nothing to lose. This time he had something to lose. His implants. Clone jumping would not transport them, it would simply transport his consciousness into another body. The only way to move the implants was the old fashioned way. In person.

   The ship of choice for the mission was his beloved Dramiel, named after Kirith Darkblade, a Matari pirate famous for using frigates as his ships of choice. It amused Knee that the smallest ships had potential to be the most devastating when used correctly. He purchased the Dramiel after learning that Kirith's had achieved over 70 kills before finally meeting its demise.

   Knee fit for absolute worst case scenario. Inertia and Warp Core stabilization, Microwarp, Medium Shield Extender, and the Improved Cloaking Device he hauled in the high slot of the Wreathe. He couldn't force anything else into the hull without starving its CPU. The ship would only do so much and Knee would have to do the rest.

   Satisfied that the rest of his logistics were taken care of, he set out for the 30 jump journey. The jumps out of Deklein were quick and uneventful. It wasn't until he entered Pure Blind that he encountered a threat. Three hostiles in Local among the friendlies. No vision on any of them. He quickly warped to a planet near the gate, cloaked up, and waited. No change in activity. They were either hiding or waiting. Knee consulted the solar system map and looked for a route to lead him to the next gate. A series of planets was in between the gate and his current position. He warped there and cloaked again. He was now about 16AU from the gate. He activated the directional scanner. Drake, Daredevil, Guardian. No way to tell if they were friend or foe, better to assume the worst. The cruisers posed no threat, but the Daredevil made him uneasy - another pirate frigate potentially deadlier than his own when up close with blasters. Knee couldn't fit dual-prop to escape such a situation - there simply wasn't enough CPU. One warp scramble and he was dead.

   Wait. 16AU from the gate. That's too far for Directional to reach. He narrowed his angle of scanning and pointed at the gate. The ships disappeared. They were behind him, but were there more at the gate? Knee warped to 100km from the gate and triggered the scanner for all it was worth. Still no ships. He was safe. He burned for the gate like a madman, screaming into the jump at 5000 m/s.

   Cloud Ring was empty save for his allies from Wildly Inappropriate. Fountain was equally quiet, despite gatecamps reported on intel. He had made it. He docked into station, chatted with his corpmates for a while and made arrangements with Medical to transfer his emergency clone to this new station. He found the market to be sparse, but that would improve once the logistics team finishes their fine work.

   He sat back in his new suite and wondered how difficult it would be to procure a Daredevil for his hangar. He would have to restock his ship collection, after all. Might as well make it interesting...

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Happy Birthday Dreddit

One year ago, a small corporation with its meager frigates sought out a small portion of 0.0 space.

Today, that corporation has succeeded in toppling one of the largest power centers in the EVE universe. IT Alliance has officially disbanded. Fountain is ours. Quite a nice birthday present, don't you agree?

Saturday, February 5, 2011

One Month Till Remap

The agonizingly-long Int/Mem skill plan is nearing completion. Today marks the end of training all Astrometrics skills to IV. Next on the agenda is about 9 days' worth of Rigging.

I mixed up the plan a bit - added some things and took some other things out. I decided to put off all the Subsystems skills until later when I finish training Cruiser V. It may be less efficient but I'm getting impatient. In place of Subsystems I substituted Anchoring IV so I can use Large Warp Bubbles. Should be a handy skill to have in 0.0.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Incursion = Raiding 101

   EVE is beginning to catch up to World of Warcraft.

   What? Heresy you say! How dare I suggest EVE is inferior to World of Warcraft!

   Well, in terms of PvE content, it is.

   Before Incursion, the toughest PvE content in the game was Class 6 Wormholes, requiring 9 to 12 pilots faction fit for spider tanking. Incursion raises the bar up to 50 ships for the largest encounters. Capsuleers are finding it hard to handle these larger encounters. Welcome to World of Warcraft about 6 years ago. I was there.

   Molten Core was the first Raid instance in World of Warcraft back in 2005 - the first of several 40-man dungeons. The encounter immediately preceding it was Upper Blackrock Spire, a 10-man dungeon. Noticing a trend here?

   Such a transition was a huge wakeup call. The first encounter of Molten Core was two humongous lava giants. It took literally months to figure out how to defeat them. They weren't even a boss. They were the first of many groups of normal enemies in the Core!

   Learning how to raid took a huge amount of coordination, planning, and threat management, and this is a discipline that the EVE community is just beginning to learn on a large scale. The wormholers may have had a head start on it, but now it's something at the forefront of every Capsuleer's mind, and much more easily within their grasp.

   The days of soloing the toughest PvE content are over. People are going to have to get used to cooperating with each other instead of looking for the easy gank. Making progress within these encounters may seem slow and fruitless and first, but as soon as a group starts making headway, the morale boost causes them to steamroll over everything they meet. It happened to me. It can happen to you.