Cool battle reports, keep em coming.
Cool battle reports, keep em coming.
Damn, now I'm almost missing eve/w-space. Brilliant work and write up.
I think that CCRES wanted to collapse it, hoping that Norcorp would choose to jump back instead of fighting. Obv, ccres probably ended up with a carrier in a bubble, and no retreat -.-Originally Posted by Durzel
Thanks for the feedback guys
Yeah, I think w-space is just about the best part of the game in terms of mechanics right now. I spent my first two years in game pretty much in w-space, then felt the urge to try and be a part of sov-warfare. I spent nov-april in Br1cksquad. I had a blast don't get me wrong, and some of the 50 vs 50 scraps vs solar were awesome, but the adrenalin pumping aspects of the game came along far too infrequently. The feeling of being steam-rolled by a much superior force without any backup is a pretty crushing one, and very hard to get back into owning space without being handed it to you by a bigger blue entity.
In w-space though however, a small crew of a dozen or so people can take 'ownership' of a solar system, simply by finding an empty one (and there are plenty out there still), anchoring a POS and away you go. Yes you can be outblobbed still by a bigger, richer gang, but the blob is never so big that there isn't *something* you can do to have some fun with it.
The challenging nature of w-space means that having an extensive blue list is not very likely to save you if your POS if it gets RF, meaning there is almost always something to hunt next door. The fights between aahram/R&K etc are pretty cool in that the numbers of ships involved are pretty even, and its the skill, tactics and ISK fielded that make the difference, and isnt that what ~pee vee pee~ should be about?
The existence of space means the existence of pirates.
N1 Artjay well said.
There are people that 'get' wormholes and think they're one of the best things in the game, and there are other people that can't be arsed. For me W-space embodies the sandbox independent spirit that attracts me to the game - crazy fun shit can and does happen as illustrated by the battle reports on this thread. All you have to do is resist the temptation of the filthy lucre and avoid going all carebeary
I can't understand why people would enjoy 0.0 sov life to be honest.
No matter how big or bad you are (case in point - NC, BoB/IT, Atlas, etc) eventually you'll be killed off by attrition and the natural order where everyone wants to take the current top dog down a peg or two. Alliances end up dying not because they've literally all been killed off but because people & corp leave in droves as soon as the writing is on the wall.
It seems like such a futile way to play to me, and if you're reasonably high up the pecking order it must feel like a job in its own right, one you're not even being paid to do. How depressing must it be to be in a position where you know ultimately you're going to be toppled by "the next blue blob of players"?
Contrast that with WH space where there's no supers, tactics reign supreme and blobbing is relatively speaking unheard of (I imagine it's only the C6 boys that experience vast numbers of ships being dropped on them). Sure there are login traps, baiting, etc but it's much less prevalent.
There's seriously nothing else in the game that compares to WH space imo. It is exactly how I imagine a nomadic spare-faring experience to work. No stargates, no stations, no beacons.
I think Durzel it comes down to effort. For the average guy theres a lot more which goes into living and fighting in WH space which they can't be bothered with. Not to mention you have the guys who are like "yeah I just got 100 kms in one fight" (which means fuck all, your still probably shit).
The reason is pretty simple, I'd say. People in giant alliances can just log in, join a 30 man gang and gank whatever they find. I remember it from back in GC, all you need is a big fleet and a good FC (as in a real good FC, not some scrub that doesn't know what to do in a 5v10), who knows how to bait well. With a blob you'll always get ganks, if you're lucky you'll even get yourself into a nice 30vs30 - which is rarely the case. But why would Joe have to care, he got some kills for no effort, and he didn't lose his ship.
This plus (which is probably the biggest part of the reason to be in a sov blob) not having ever seen something else. They just don't know what real fun PVP is. I always found winning with a smaller fleet a lot more amusing. It really puzzles me how people in "sov PVP" alliances for instance can get fucked over 5v50 everyday, and fucking none of them ever have the desire to try something like that themselves?
I'd love to do wormholes myself, but I just don't have the people to do it. As a "normal" corp/alliance, I doubt me and my frands would have a lot of fun doing holes. But if you had a corp/alliance of 100 players (as in show info, including alts and stuff), I think you could just invade other people's wormholes all day, to get constant PVP. BUT that would require halfway decent PVPers (WH plunderers is full of people who don't even know how to fit a Drake (I still love it tho)), who also have some ISK for stuff like T2 ships and caps.
Black Viper Nomads started with like 6 guys and knowledge (both of where (classwise) the best targets were, how to check at a rate of hundreds of them a day and what has reliable enough routes to empire-both for what static to have but also what's worth scanning, don't look down C4s to get k-space). Now that knowledge has mostly been put out there for well over a year, anyone can do similar. The biggest challenge is having a static just a few people can safely close that also connects to regular targets. C5->C3 was great as that's 2x2BSs or just 2xOrcas to usually close it, that's <5mins per hole and can be done during combat+stops blobs. So you only need a buddy, both dualbox, train sub-BS hulls and you've got your skill-based pvp playground.
Sadly it seemed far less people were flying in c3s with any balls once the mechanics were more widely understood, even just to pimp their T3s/fav ships when carebearing. Far too many targets would POS up rather than escalate, and killing T3s lost any novelty though isk from pvp was a good income system. So the guys moved to a static C5 but that takes a cap ship to cycle quickly, and that requires more SP to be regularly online and a little more risk of getting caught doing it (the isk is utterly not a concern in w-space, especially such an insurable ship, it's just the effort of getting one in + pods).
If you want to 'do wormholes', try living with a static that's easy to cycle that leads to the lower classes. People are able to solo such anoms so you won't usually run into RR BS/T3 or even dedicated logistics PvE fleets. Which means you won't need to bring ECM which makes me happy. Plus you'll only be 1 jump from empire and can cycle it if it's something with a static null/crappy low and no good random dynamics/K162s. And a few people can blitz so many anoms should you find a quiet system with a nice effect and have a few t3s to hand. Drawing people off of their static highsec holes can be much fun, you just need some good bait like a proteus or 100mn ab loki/legion, and to hide your backup when they look into your home so you seem alone after you ganked their pve/PI ship solo and seem to be too cocky. Actually 100mn ab active tanked tengu in an anom can be hilarious bait too.
Thats what WOLFY did too. 10 of us (plus alts) living in a C3 with U210 static to low sec.
We could pirate, roam, and get logistics easy.
Now we are in a C6 it is MUCH more difficult to get logistics but being part of an alliance also means you don't scan as much as you used too, so don't mind doing it.
Really WH's are where its at!
You may be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you will dance with the reaper!
Ah so that's what happened. There were about 10 guys from Hole Plunderers (including 2 basilisks) sitting on that hisec wormhole on the Saturday waiting for orders to jump in. Orders never came, communication in fleet chat was pretty much non-existant so we leftSounded like it had a lot of potential with their slightly larger fleet (with 3 basilisks) vs a smaller 4-basilisk fleet.
---
We got ourselves a nice little scrap the following day, escalating from jumping four RR Tengus in a C4 site. Two of the Tengus escaped from our 2 cloaky tackle T3s, and the others melted rapidly under neuting and a ton of DPS:
http://kb.txsi.co.uk/?a=kill_related&kll_id=1290
Our cloaky Proteus followed them back into their own adjoining C2 wormhole, and they responded by warping a pair of Chimeras to it. Once we had tackle, we jumped in and started neuting one Chimera and applying DPS to the other. They sent in ships sporadically to try and assist the Chimeras, but they weren't organised enough for any of them to last long. We had some difficulty breaking the tanks of the carriers due to them having local and remote reps, and the ad-hoc nature of our fleet meant we weren't really set up for it. Eventually, under heavy neuting, and with Falcon support to jam out the 2nd chimera, the first chimera died.
We moved on to the 2nd one, and made a lot better progress, pausing as it got into structure to try and negotiate a ransom. We discovered that the pilot had actually logged off and no-one had noticed the notification at the time. We resumed firing to finish it off before it had a chance to despawn.
http://kb.txsi.co.uk/?a=kill_related&kll_id=1282
Kinda feel for the guy that lost a Tengu AND a Chimera to us, but he didn't drop us any faction goodies so vOv.
Just be grateful they didn't SD. Nice work.
Parsec can probably get together 7 people on an awesome day with a CTA. We invaded and stole someone's wormhole, and we've got another target lined up as soon as I get off my lazy ass and get the logistics setup.
Thanks. Yeah I had a frantic trawl through the logs a couple of times to check for that. Being in a Curse fighting 2 smartbombing carriers, I wasn't exactly filling up my log with damage notifications!
Ah, good old wormhole fail carriers, nice BR. I am reminded of a story from a while back. I apologize for the wall of text, but I guarantee you can read it faster than we can kill a solo carrier.
Hopping into a freshly rolled version of our static C4, I see the following on scan: POS, thanatos, rorqual, orca, hulk, covetor x2, tengu, scorpion, a few haulers. In a 2nd pos, just a buzzard. I warped around a bit, and then noticed 10 mining drones on scan. Ooh, I thought, miner ganking time.
I adjusted my dscan range to catch the mining drones while excluding the POS. I saw those 10 mining drones, a hulk, a covetor, and the thanatos. INTERESTING. I put the call out and a fleet of ~12 started assembling in our home WH, mostly in BCs. The 2bil mass limit on our hole meant we could only bring a few battleships if we all wanted to head home the way we got in.
There was, fortunately, an outer planet off d-scan range from everything else where I could drop probes unseen. I easily got a 100% hit on the thanny in 1 scan, and destroyed my probes for the first time ever. Warping to it at 100, I thoroughly expected it to be gone, or at least aligned out, by the time I landed. To be shock, they were all still there, happily mining away. Bane came in with a cloaky neuting legion to tackle the beast, and I reshipped for DPS. We didn't dare bringing in any more cloakies and risk them getting spotted recloaking, so we just didn't bother tackling the mining ships. We jumped our fleet in and held cloak. Bane made point and we warped to him. The other mining vessels fled.
With just a solo basi (I think he bounced with our nightmare) for reps and mixed tanks in the fleet, we made a priority of focusing down his fighters, and I had to teach a few newer corpmates how to target them from my broadcasts. After a few recall/redeploy cycles, he gave up trying to defend himself.
With the fighters recalled and our DPS all applied to the carrier, he was forced into triage. In triage, his tank held, and we called out for reinforcements from our sister corps, which trickled in from ~15 jumps of highsec away. Our battle raged for almost an hour, his tank on the verge of collapse. A couple purifiers and a scorp decided it was a smart idea to warp into our bubble, and died. Eventually Shainai logs on, bringing us a 2nd curse and we topple him. The thanny pilot shared a "well played" in local, and we thanked him for an excellent fight and not SDing.
http://thelost.mindflood.org/?a=kill...kll_id=8939047
Yup, those are mining drones. And pyroxeres. During hulkageddon, in fact.
Skill training online: Daesis Wrack
Everything else: Cosmic Osmo
Not one of you had a ship scanner and/or some neuts to go refit with to deal with his cap first instead of waiting an hour for backup?! :P
Also, someone should introduce you to stealth bombers, equal or better dps than your BCs/HACs/T3s against such a target for no mass, plus cov ops cloak and a probe launcher. I see skiprat was in a bomber but just whored on the mail with a useless painter/didn't notice they weren't in bonused torp range.
Now your 2 recent NorCorp carrier kills could be an interesting tale...
http://thelost.mindflood.org/?a=kill_re ... id=9707563
We were having a pretty good time, why cut it short?
This was actually the 2nd carrier I'd ever killed, the first being PvE fit, and I just didn't know better. He tottered on the edge of dying so many times that I figured if we just kept up the pressure he would eventually break. Once someone taught me that we needed to neut it harder, I called for curse pilots rather than use up more WH mass bringing in neut BSes (lazy, I know). All of the experienced FCs in our alliance fall into the "backup from 15 jumps away" category, but that kill was a great learning experience for us, a barometer of what a carrier can do, and the first capital kill for a majority on the KM. skiprat is an alt that was watching one of the holes for us and just came at the end to mailwhore.
As for the invasion by Norcorp, I wasn't online for the big fight, only for finishing off their staging POS afterwards, so this report is probably pretty incomplete. There's actually some really nice fraps of that fight, including comms, but I'll have to get permission to post it here. There are many sides to this story, depending on which corp and timezone the storyteller is in, but here's the cliffs notes of the whole thing:
On Syttende mai, Norcorp decided to spend their national holiday invading the home of Stargazer Exploration Company, who called for alliance backup. All of our lower-class-WH members spent basically a day waiting in battleships in highsec for the SEXCO guys to find us a way in after the first "C2 route" turned out to be a C1. Before SEXCO could get a route to bring in the troops, they lost an engagement on their static (idk if it was bait that escalated, or they were rolling it, or what).
http://thelost.mindflood.org/?a=kill...kll_id=9722795
(not shown: a 2nd SEXCO carrier, which SD'd)
Eventually, Norcorp went to bed and SEXCO did finally get routes in for all those dead pods and the backup battleships. The staging tower was RF'd without event, and then the fight you linked took place, again on the static WH, during RF of their tower. Another wave of reinforcements actually arrived from the far side of the WH with perfect timing to catch some of their T3s that tried to escape that way and chase them back in system with the capital battle. Cue many more first-cap-kills in our alliance. That's pretty much it.
Skill training online: Daesis Wrack
Everything else: Cosmic Osmo
I agree that these massive null alliances in a lot of cases perpetuate the practice of lazy pvp which mainly involves locking up the primary and pressing F1. IMO the amount of actual skill required is about on par with running lvl4 missions. So many potential l33t pvpers miss out on all the excitement and true experience gain inherent in small gang roams where everyone has an important role to play, instead of just being another Draek in the blob.
Lipton man if you really want to give wormholes a go there are plenty of amazing corps and alliances out there who do exactly what you just described above. Honestly though invading wormholes usually just degenerates into a lot of soul crushing pos bashes while the residents blueball you and frantically self destruct all of their fancy ships. For me the most incredible thing about w-space is the ability to potentially pop out of any system in EVE, harass the local bearing community and face down the defense fleet they muster, then ninja vanish without a trace and do the exact same thing in another system 10 regions away.
<3 GC btw
Took a break from WH life a while back to join them and give nullsec a go. Really miss their core group of FCs like Mukk and especially Revo, along with the wtfbbq shenanigans that Faffy used to pull. They were just a super fun bunch of guys to fly with until Mya emo and the MAXDAMAGE campaign.
Well, I don't really fault people in alliances joining the big fleet ops - it's a guaranteed fight, which roaming and harassment just can't get you as regularly. Yes, sometimes you tackle a carrier with 10 BCs and a couple of logi and get to fend off the backup that warps in individually while also netting a carrier kill - but most of the time you don't.
Most roaming involves jumping gates, having your scout warp to Sanctums and just barely miss a Tengu; repeat ad infinitum for 2-3 hours. If you're roaming sov space, you MIGHT eventually run into a fleet two-three times the size of yours and have to run. And yes, playing with blobs is possible and good fun when you succeed, but sometimes even that's not possible.
My point is that reinforcing a tech moon gives you an almost guaranteed fight - it may not be your preferred type of fight, but at least it's PvP that you can do on a schedule. Log in, join CTA fleet, bridge, pew pew pew. WH PvP by all accounts is exciting, but also intermittent. I'm not a casual by any means, but if I'm looking for a fight, it'd be nice to actually get one more often than not. These days I just can't be bothered to go roaming 50 jumps in a shield BC/nano fleet, but I'll gladly get in a frigate and solo around until I die or join a defense gang to counter a fleet coming in our direction.
I guess my point is that the downtime between fights is when I least enjoy EVE, no matter how many ratting ships I gank in that time. Some people get a thrill from ganks, but I've lost the taste for it and rarely roam as a result.
Also, POS living sucks balls.
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