The Blob

Much of my time time last weekend was taken up by watching the Eve Alliance Tournament VIII. It's the first Alliance Tournament I've been able to watch live and I found it hugely enjoyable. The video quality was great, the majority of the commentating was informative and the matches themselves showcased some spectacular ships and piloting. If you missed any of it the matches should be appearing on Youtube.

I feel like I've learnt quite a lot from both the matches themselves and the commentary to help me when I PvP also. But there is one thing about the whole Tournament that is quintessentially not what Eve is about:

The Alliance Tournament is fair...

... Eve isn't fair.

In fact the first rule of Eve PvP should be that it is not fair. You won't get the same number of ships as you have to fight against. You won't get a pre-arranged battleground. You won't have a list of rules to comply with. There are no rules against bringing as many people as you can, piloting whatever ship you like and podding people wherever you can.

Of course anybody that has played Eve even a short amount should have already realised this unfairness. But despite this, Eve players still moan and whinge about it. All over the forums fly the constant accusations of Eve players that the fights they engage in weren't fair. And, blurted out incessantly is the warcry of the ship-less forum poster, 'We were blobbed'.

'Blobbing' somebody in Eve is simply destroying someone's ship with what appears to them to be an overwhelming and over-reactionary force. For example, bringing ten pilots to take down one enemy ship, or bringing a Carrier to destroy one Battlecruiser.

Personally, I find it a bit annoying when people are accused of 'blobbing' as if it is a bad thing; as if, somehow, a fight in Eve is only legitimate if the odds are balanced. People should realise that any fighter, including themselves, will take whatever steps they can to ensure the odds are in their favour.

What about, you might ask, those amazing pilots that go into fights one against four? Surely the odds aren't in their favour? Well, here's the secret, they are. Amazing PvP pilots calculate odds based on their own skill. They are amazing because they know how to twist our idea of a heavily one-sided fight into an amazing victory. Maybe it is true that the skillful pilot is more than equal to you and your three friends. The truth of it is, everybody that loses a ship got 'blobbed' in some fashion, even if it doesn't appear so initially.

Whether it is by numbers, ships, or skill - everybody gets blobbed and blobs in return. The only exception to this being, of course, the Eve Alliance Tournament.

So, my conclusions from this rant:

1. Stop moaning, Eve isn't fair.
2. Rejoice! Because the Eve Alliance Tournament is!

Where Are My Wormholes CCP?

Just yesterday I lost a Minmatar Blockade Runner ship, a Prowler, to a Nullsec gatecamp. In total I lost around 400 million isk, which is a fairly large sum. In order to deflect accountability for this mistake from myself and attempt to stem the guilt for producing such a horrible dent in our killboard stats, I've decided to blame CCP for this tragedy.

To explain, I live in a patch off Nullsec where there isn't a very well-stocked market. So I rely on Highsec market hubs to re-supply all my needs. To reach these hubs I try and always use wormholes which are, arguably, a lot safer than attempting to traverse the perils of Nullsec and Lowsec. I will scan down a wormhole in my Nullsec home and continue scanning to try and find a route through to Highsec. I can then use this path to bring back to Nullsec anything I particularly require.

So how did I manage to get caught in a Transport ship in a Nullsec gatecamp? Well, for around four days the pocket of seven Nullsec systems that I call home hasn't contained one single wormhole. This, despite the fact that at least one of the systems has been upgraded with the Quantum Flux Generator, a sovereignty upgrade that is meant to increase the chances of a wormhole apprearing in the system. This lack of wormholes caught me at a bad time and forced me to attempt the more dangerous route to Highsec, and I got unlucky.

Maybe the lack of wormhole spawns in the systems is also just a result of being unlucky, but I'm inclined to feel that the Quantum Flux Generator is not doing its job properly and is not attracting as many wormholes as it should be doing. For this reason I feel justified in blaming CCP for my loss.

In addition to my inability to plunder the Highsec market, our corporation as a whole has been starved of wormhole PvE. Although we live in Nullsec, it is a key desire of the corp to exploit high level wormholes from our Nullsec base. Many days we have had plenty of people online and plenty of shiny ships ready to go, but no wormholes to raid!

This method of wormhole raiding from Nullsec is a legitimate interaction with wormholes that I think CCP should support. So I'm intending on gathering some evidence on the wormhole spawns in our pocket of Nullsec and examining the effect that the Quantum Flux Generator is having on spawns. I would be really interested if anybody else has any information to give on this as well. If I feel the effect granted is too small I might ask the CSM to present it to CCP as an issue that needs looking at.

But, moaning aside, wormholes can be exploited in a large variety of different ways and it would be really nice to have Nullsec wormhole raiding as one of these ways. It should be able to provide a viable source of activity and income for a small Nullsec corp, and I could definately use a little bit of that income right now.

How to Fit a Stealth Bomber

Lately I've been flying my Stealth Bomber quite a lot. Stealth Bombers can be very powerful ships, but they can also be frustrating ships to fly. You have the potential to unload a large amount of damage on a target, but in return you are paper-thin.

I thought today I might explain a few ways of fitting Stealth Bombers and explain how these fittings can be used. So here is a short guide to Stealth Bomber fitting.

1. Firstly fit a Covert Ops Cloaking Device II. This cloak is built specifically for your ship and you wouldn't be 'stealth' without it. Be warned that the Stealth Bomber has a larger recloaking timer than its Covert Ops cousin, so you may need to be a bit more careful about uncloaking.

2. Fit a Bomb Launcher I. Bombs are like untargeted missiles that, when fired, shoot the direction your ship is facing for 10 seconds, covering 30km before exploding. The explosion has a radius of 15km and anything in that radius will take damage depending on how large the signature radius of the ship is. Bombs are very unlikely to blow up any type of ship in one hit, but they can put a severe dent in a ships defences, or multiple bombers can be used to devastating affect. Bombs are a key part of being a Stealth Bomber but bear in mind they can only be used in Nullsec and wormhole space.

To launch a bomb at a target, find a position around 33km from them. Begin to approach them cloaked. When they are 30km away, de-cloak and launch the bomb. Then, either warp away or attempt to finish off the target with Torpedo missiles. Be careful not to stray into the explosion radius of your own bomb. The safest way to launch a bomb is for the target to be exactly between yourself and a warpable celestial object. This way you can launch a bomb and immediately enter into warp to avoid being tackled.

3. Fit 3 Siege Missile Launchers. Be warned that since Stealth Bombers have no tank to speak of, you must be very careful about choosing when to engage. Siege Missile Launchers can fire Torpedos, which do large amounts of damage to big, slow ships but may have difficulty hitting smaller, faster targets.

4. Fit a propulsion module. This can be either a MicroWarpdrive or an Afterburner. Generally a MicroWarpdrive will be a better choice, although there are some occasions when an Afterburner may come in handy. To give just one example, a Stealth Bomber can speed tank Medium POS Guns by perma-running an Afterburner. Whichever module you choose, it will be very handy to escape gate-camps or close distance with a target.

5. Fit utility Mid slots. The remaining mid slots on your Stealth Bomber can be fit with a range of modules. Most common is the Target Painter. The Target Painter boosts the Signature Radius of your target, making it a larger target for your torpedos, which, as a result, will hit for more damage.

Another option is to fit a Warp Disruptor. The Warp Disruptor will allow you to pin down the target, while you finish it off with your Torpedos. The range of the Warp Disruptor allows you to orbit from at least 20km away from the target, keeping you out of range of most Stasis Webifiers and Warp Scramblers.

The last general option for mid slots is to fit Capacitor modules. This could be a Capacitor Recharger to increase your cap stability or perhaps a Capacitor Booster to be able to run a MicroWarpdrive and Warp Disruptor for a little bit longer.

It is theoretically possible to fit some form of shield tank in the mid slots but in my opinion it is inadvisable. Any fight where a Stealth Bomber is taking enough damage to require a tank is definitely the wrong fight for a Stealth Bomber to be involved in. A Stealth Bombers job is either to pick off weak targets, or to get the job done so quickly that no retaliation is possible.

6. One option with the low slots is to fit for speed and agility. The best contender for this is the Nanofiber Internal Structure which gives a healthy mix of both. This will enable you to get yourself in good positions quicker and, if needed, escape faster.

You can also boost your damage output by using a Ballistic Control System. Note that this will only increase Torpedo damage, it will have no effect on Bomb damage.

It may also be necessary to use a Co-Processor in the lows to boost the CPU available, especially if you are using Tech II Siege Missile Launchers.

Lastly, it is also possible to fit a tank in the low slots, but again, I feel that this is just as inadvisible as it is for shield tanking.

7. Rigging is not especially important on Stealth Bombers. Feel free to cut the cost by avoiding them entirely. If you do want to use them, speed and agility rigs such as the Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I will be the most useful. If you wish to boost damage further you can also use missile rigs.

8. Grab some ammo. Each race has a bonus to a specific damage type, so make sure you take advantage of this. For example, my Minmatar Hound has a bonus to explosive damage, so I often use Bane Torpedos and Shrapnel Bombs. Be aware that bombs will explode other bombs if they are not the same type. So if you are flying with other Stealth Bombers, be sure to coordinate Bomb types before you fly.

Those are my key tips for fitting. Feel free to play around with them and see what you can come up with. The best test, of course is to fly them. If you have any different ideas on how to fit then please comment, I would really appreciate any good advice!

Go Forth And Conquer!

Today marks the start of the Eve planets coming to life and being used and abused as resource rich celestial objects begging to be exploited for isk gain. I'm talking about Planetary Interaction, a key part of the Tyrannis expansion, which is being launched today.

Planetary Interaction allows players to harvest the many planets of Eve and create vast industrial networks to produce some of the key items used by players ingame. It is a further step along the way to create a fully autonomous, player generated market.

Personally I really like Planetary Interaction as an addition to Eve and I'm really excited to see how it will be developed further. One small thing I should mention though.

I will not be taking part.

You won't find me rushing out to buy command centers or scanning planets to find a fantastic vein of precious minerals. That might sound a strange thing to say, given my support for Planetary Interaction, but it mirrors my viewpoint on a lot of the more industrial features of Eve as a whole.

Here's my take on it. I love the industrial side of the Eve universe. I love the fact that it has an almost entirely player-driven market. I love it that market hubs like Jita, Amarr and Rens are creations of the players rather than the choices of the developers. I love the concept of ships I fly having been created by someone, somewhere and having a history that I know nothing about. I love seeing Freighters moving vast quantities of goods around the universe. I love the sight of market orders continually under-cutting each other. I love the idea of huge spreadsheets tracking profit and squeezing every last isk possible out of consumers like me. And that's the key thing! Maybe you missed it, so I'll say it again in bold:

I am a consumer.

I'm the person that uses. I fly the ships that you took days to make. I shoot that ammo that you transported all across the galaxy. I accept your market-order that undercut your competition. I give you the isk that justifies the effort that you industrialists put in. Because of this, I'm afraid I will never be one of you.

I just prefer to fly space-ships. So while I am very proud of Eve market, while I love the concept, the idea, the vision behind it, I won't be the one doing it. It is the same for Planetary Interaction. I applaud the idea of tapping into those celestial isk-mines, but I won't be doing the dirty work myself. I suspect I'm not alone in my attitude to all things industrial in Eve.

So, industrialists of Eve, go forth and conquer! Spreadsheet like you've never spreadsheeted before! I don't wish that the development time had been spent elsewhere, neither do I envy you for your new feature that I will never use. Just be warned, that if I do happen to have a Planetary Command Center in my cargohold, it will most likely be the one I just looted from your wreck.

Just Call me the Drone Commander

Just a short one.

Yesterday I experienced my first armour tanked wormhole PvE fleet. Previous to this point I've always flown in shield tanked fleets, which are a slightly rarer breed. I really enjoyed the experience, especially since the fleet was huge, so we raced through a good number of sites.

I was piloting a Loki which is great for taking out the Sleeper frigates. Fit it with two webs and some autocannons and those frigates just go pop! Although I have to admit, maybe that was because I had about 40 drones assigned to me! The number of drones we had on the field was crazy, and controlling them was great fun - all the Sleepers just melted against them. When I have a bit more experience of armour tanked fleets I will be writing a comparison between shield and armour tanking. I'll be able to discuss the different setups and give you a good idea of fleet composition for each.

In other news, the new patch Tyrannis has arrived. I'm enjoying it so far, but that's not really because of any new content, I'm just enjoying the game at the moment. In fact my favourite thing so far is that I don't have to listen to that horrible Dominion load screen music ever again! Hopefully I'll be able to play with some of the new features in a little more depth soon.

But I'm afraid that next week I'm off on holiday. So I've taken the opportunity to put some nice long skills on train. I'll be back and posting again on June 5th.

One last thing. If you have anything you'd like me to blog about when I return, just pop it in a comment, or send me an evemail to Banear. It could be a question about wormholes or ship fitting or anything really, I'm just curious about what you would enjoy reading.

This is a Live Event Right?

Recently CCP have reintroduced Live Events to Eve. A Live Event is an in-game story scripted and coordinated by CCP Devs, in which capsuleers can participate. The Live Event currently being played out in Eve revolves around the entity Sansha's Nation who have been manipulating wormholes in order to launch attacks on systems all over the universe and kidnapping citizens of various planets.

I'm afraid I'm not going to give a potted summary of the story so far. Firstly because I don't know most of it myself, but also because I have to talk about what happened yesterday.

Although I personally haven't been able to get involved in any of the actual events, one member of our corporation, Darkcoro has been heavily involved in many of them. He was recently mentioned by name in a news article when a Sansha's Nation wormhole was collapsed by a fleet he was helping to lead. So he has been a really useful and interesting to source to have around while the events have been ocurring.

Yesterday, the 25th of May, a rumour was circulating that a Sansha's Nation invasion event was going to occur one hour before the Tyrannis patch downtime. Since I hadn't been able to witness any of the previous engagements, I felt it was time I should make the effort and see what it was all about. Darkcoro gave both myself and other members of our corporation an invite to the Operation Bad Moon fleet. Operation Bad Moon are a group of roleplayers who have been at the forefront of player interaction with the Live Events.

Once in the fleet, we were told that information had been leaked regarding this invasion event. Apparently it was to occur in a lowsec system called Maut, which is one jump from Gallente Highsec. Other rumours suggested that the CCP Dev players were going to bring a whole cap fleet, incuding a Leviathan Titan to the engagement! The fleet started to gather in Auvergne, Gallente Highsec, and the lure of getting on a Titan killmail eventually pushed the number of pilots in the fleet above 200.

This number of pilots was something that the Operation Bad Moon leaders weren't prepared for. Fleet discipline was becoming difficult to maintain and many of the wing commanders seemed rather clueless as to what the big plan was. Attempting to use Eve Voice was not a success as it seemed to be a bit tempremental so I ended up just joining the corp Vent channel.

Our corporation had our own squad in the fleet. I decided to go all-in and bring a PvP fitted, armour buffer Typhoon Battleship. In our squad we had a couple more Battleships, some Stealth Bombers and a Cruiser. We ended up at the highsec gate to Maut waiting for the action to begin.

At around 01:00 Eve time a report came through that a cyno had been lit in Maut. Through this cyno came a Nyx Supercarrier and Carrier support. In the Operation Bad Moon fleet it was assumed that these ships belonged to players who had aligned themselves with the cause of the Sansha's Nation invasion and that the actual Sansha fleet would follow. Further reports started to come in about more cynos being lit in system. Eventually our fleet was ordered to jump into Maut.

Local in Maut numbered around 600. So once grids had loaded the fleet was warped to the cynos that were close to planet six. Upon arrival our 200 strong fleet was greeted by the sight of a staggering number of Carrier, Dreadnought and Supercarrier capitals belonging to the Nullsec alliances Morsus Mihi, RAZOR Alliance, Wildly Inappropriate and Pandemic Legion, just to name a few.

It is safe to say that at this point nobody in our fleet had a clue what was going on. There didn't seem to be any Sansha around to shoot. A primary was called but a 200 man mixed sub-capital fleet couldn't make a dent on anything. After a while battleships began to be picked off including my Typhoon. At this point lag was making the game unplayable and there was a small node crash. I ended up being thoroughly confused, logging off in my pod just before the patch day downtime hit.

So this morning I endeavoured to find out what had actually happened. Where were the Sanchas? Why were so many Nullsec alliances involved? If CCP was involved why wasn't the node reinforced?

The brilliant and hilarious truth of the matter?

This was not a CCP run Live Event.

From what I have been able to make out a rumour was started by a number of Sansha sympathising players about the Live Event which the RolePlayers fell for totally. The players spread all sorts of rumours about there being an invasion in Maut just before patch downtime and there being a possibility of a Titan kill. The initial cyno in Maut was lit by these sympathisers who jumped in the Nyx piloted by ECHAeries with two triage carriers in support. Cry Havoc opportunistically lit the second cyno in Maut and jumped in a sub-capital fleet. They were then jumped by both the Morsus Mihi and Pandemic Legion capital fleets. Another cyno was also lit by United Star Federation who also brought in a few carriers. These were all joined by our large sub-capital fleet and possibly other fleets as well. I know for sure there was an Eve University fleet in the area.

It seems that ECHAeries' Nyx was primaried but due to an interdiction mistake it was able to warp out when deep into armour. The capital fleets then picked off random capitals before turning their attention to any of the sub-capital ships that remained. As downtime approached the fleets moved out of Maut and the fight ended quickly.

So far I have managed to find killmails for 1 Chimera, 3 Thanatos, 1 Moros and an Archon, along with plenty of sub-capital losses, mine included. None of the Nullsec alliance fleets seemed to suffer any losses.

All in all it was an incredibly entertaining evening, and even more so now that I know the truth of it. Is there a game like Eve where a single rumour can trigger an engagement on this scale? Tyrannis is currently patching and there will be some nice new features to play with, but it's worth remembering that sometimes it's the players that create the best content.

Interesting Links

Pandemic Legion Battle Report
Morsus Mihi Killboard
Eve Forum Thread
Scrapheap Challenge Forum Thread

Sorry, I've Been Enjoying Eve Way Too Much to Post!

My title for this post is really the only legitimate reason I could come up with for not posting properly for so long; and the best thing about it? It's totally true!

The benefit of this little break from posting is that I have tons of stuff to talk about. But let me first tell you what's going on.

With an alt character I have joined SI Radio, an ex-wormhole dwelling corporation who are known for the show Planet Risk produced by two senior members Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm. Planet Risk is a great show that revolves around wormhole exploration and exploitation. SI Radio were recently forcibly evicted from their class six wormhole by the Lowsec pirate alliance Rooks and Kings. They now reside in Providence as renters living in a small pocket of nullsec systems owned by Noir Mercenary Group.

But despite living in Nullsec SI Radio have not lost their love for wormholes, otherwise I would not have joined! Nullsec systems can now be fitted with sovereignty upgrades that increase the amount of wormholes that spawn. So the big plan is to continue battling Sleepers in wormholes from the base in Nullsec, while also getting involved in the PvE and, more excitingly, PvP of the region.

The region Providence is very active and exciting at the moment. It was overrun by the big alliance Against ALL Authorities or AAA earlier this year. Rather than owning the systems themselves, they have installed other smaller alliances in the systems under strict orders not to engage in sovreignty warfare. The smaller alliances are often called 'pets', they are used by bigger alliances to live in space that the bigger alliance doesn't have the members or inclination to use properly.

As a result, Providence is a busy place, filled with small alliances. The region is currently partially united in its efforts to expel the remnants of the old sovreignty holders from the region. In particular two alliances, Curatores Veritatis Alliance or CVA and Paxton Federation who are making things as difficult as they can for the new alliances settling in. But once they have gone it is to be hoped that alliances begin to reset their standings towards each other, and the region is likely to become a haven for small gang PvP. The new space-holding alliances are very diverse in nature and play-style, from the professional mercenaries for hire, Noir Mercenary Group, to the Minmatar roleplaying alliance Ushra'Khan and many more that I currently know nothing of.

SI Radio is a tiny part of this. We rent systems from Noir Mercenary Group. So maybe that makes us AAA's pet's pet. But, whatever we are, I'm completely new to Nullsec so it feels like a whole new game for me!

So, there's your update of what's going on. I now have one character living in a class five wormhole and another in Nullsec. My focus for the blog is still going to be wormholes. But don't be surprised if some of my Nullsec exploits also begin to creep in!