Ratting Carriers Are Bad, m'kay?

A discussion started up last night in which a member questioned why the alliance and our corp has prohibition on ratting/plexing in a carrier. After all, the reasoning goes, carriers will cost roughly the same order of magnitude as a Golem or Tengu, work just as well or better, and if lost give a better insurance payout.

Win-win, right?

Well, not quite. There are several reasons why we do not like people ratting in carriers.

First off, survivability: a sub capital ship has better agility and warp speed and thus has a better chance to roaming hostiles. Secondly, the gain in ratting performance is minimal over a tech 1 battleship.

Thirdly, capital kills look worse to your allies and better to your enemies, giving a morale boost to the roamers who were just hoping to catch anything. This is more likely to bring them around again and again, making ratting harder for everyone. Plus, they can hold it up in public and point to why your corp/alliance is bad and deserves to die. No one cares if a Raven goes down, and not much is said about a caught Tengu (unless its ridiculously fitted with super expensive mods).

Lastly, and most importantly, carriers are strategic assets. Their size and jump capability makes them far more useful to your corp and alliance and coalition than any ratting ship. They are used for logistics, repair ops, capital fights, structure reinforcements, hot drops... you get the point. No fleet is ever going to call for your Golem or Tengu, but they will ask for carriers and if you lost yours last night due to stupidity in a belt, you let your corp and alliance down.

* * * * *

As part of the discussion, my live event BMTHOKK last January where I piloted a Chimera to its doom on purpose was referenced as an example as to why a pilot should be allowed to rat in a carrier. I responded that it was "the difference between streaking and getting caught with your pants down" but I want to elaborate a bit more here.

It was a carrier purchased for the purpose of destruction in the event (the Ninveah was secured in Placid already), and no hostile force can claim a morale boost for killing it. It was, in fact, great publicity for myself and my corp and generated a lot of goodwill with the larger community, well worth the billion ISK plus I invested in it.


I'm going to do it again this summer, and I'm hoping its going to be bigger and crazier than last time. If my corp or alliance told me I could not do it, I would be very surprised but would ask for a short leave of absence in order to complete it anyways. My death will not be stopped.

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi II

As I mentioned in this week's podcast episode, BMTHOKK II is officially going to happen. Here is a link in case you need to refresh your memory or want to look at the video again (gah, I so want to redo that video based on what I have learned since then).

Essentially, the next event will be in the summer, most likely August, and on a weekend afternoon so more people can attend. Location to be determined, probably in Placid low sec as that is closer to home now, but Teshkat is still in the running. I'll probably be flying a new Chimera carrier again as it has the defenses to last long enough against moderate firepower.

I'm accepting donations to go towards buying and outfitting the carrier as well as the prizes. Send ISK or contracts to Kirith Kodachi with a description of BMTHOKK II and you'll get a shout out in the official release when it all goes down.

I'm hoping Mike Azariah and the Gallente Hero Channel folks can be pulled away from Sansha incursions long enough to come help defend me again, and I'll be extending an invite to Noir to make a return visit as well.

If any super rich bitter vet wants step up and donate a Wyvern Supercarrier (or the ISK to buy one), I swear I will use that in place of the Chimera.

(Image created by CoolText - please feel free to use the image in your own posts about the event. Thanks!)

BMTHOKK Video

Uploaded to Eve Files: http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1101/BMTHOKK.wmv (140megs)

It was my first attempt at using Fraps and editing video so the quality is not great, but it gets across the feel of the event I think.

No podcast this week as I used up all my free time in the event and editing the video. Consider the vid to be this week's episode.

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi - Report

Announced by ISD

 I logged in my alt Kla'strit a little after 8pm and started to organize the two channels I setup for the attackers and defenders, BMTHOKK Attackers versus BMTHOKK Defenders. I arrived in Teshkat and saw local already approaching 80 with Noir Mercenary Group already present.

I spent the next half and hour fielding questions, getting some of the attackers organized into a fleet which I referred to as the Kitchen Sink Attack Fleet, and watched local climb over one hundred, then one hundred and fifty. Looks like we got ourselves a rumble.

Finally at 8:59 I logged in the Chimera, already in space to avoid an undocking incident, and warped to the chosen location: Planet IX Customs Office. I picked it because it was situated close to a Terran planet on the sunny side, making a great backdrop for the videos I was going to take. As I entered warp I announced the location in local, Ninveah channel, and both attackers and defenders channel. I landed and soon after a few frigates showed up and began targeting me. The fight was on.

Click to Embiggen!

Unfortunately for the attackers, Noir was in a tight fleet with Drakes and Basilisks and well led. They started picking off targets and would have been a tough fight for the attackers by themselves, but a second sizable defending fleet warped in from the Gallente Hero Channel. While several groups of attackers tried valiantly to dispose of my ship I was never in any danger and only repped myself once during the next 40 minutes. There was some confusion when I got Global Criminal Countdown and a repping logi ship in the Gallente Hero Channel fleet was targeted by Noir because he was flashing red, but quick communications between the FCs smoothed things over.

At 9:40 it was obvious no big attacking hot dropping force was waiting in the wings. I congratulated the defenders on a stellar job (including bringing in a triaged Archon carrier for repair support!) and then asked them to kill me. I came to die, and to the victors go the capital killmail. The defenders turned their weapons on me as requested and I activated Shield Booster, Smart Bombs, and watched as the firepower poured in. In minutes it was all over.

I was podded quickly and realized I had forgotten to change my clone location. Instead of still being in Teshkat I was in S9X in Providence with nothing but an Ibis! WTF? At least I could still upgrade my clone quality.

The winners of the prizes:
- Felix Dcat for most damage: Gila cruiser.

- Lynn Seed for final blow: Navy Armageddon

- Frozen Fallout for pod killmail final blow: Navy Slicer

I'm still collating killboards and killmails but trying to determine who got the most in the event is insane. If you think you are a candidate, please email or post a comment with a link to your killboard stats!

I got a good amount of video which I'm going to try and put into a couple minute video for posting over this week or so.

So was it a success? Overall definitely. I do wish it was a little more even in terms of attackers versus defenders, but it was hard to predict if someone was going to go "all in" and hot drop a few hundred man fleet on the event. Had that happened, it was possible that the defenders could have been wiped out to great cost. Still, I think people had a good time and judging by the reported carnage, and there was no shortage of kills to get in on.

Take that Amamake!

Finally props to CCP. I asked for a reinforced node and during the whole event with brackets on, full effects on, I had no noticeable lag. I was activating mods easily, deploying and recalling drones constantly, and never once had issues.

Here are some reports from around the interwebs.

From Diary of a Space Jockey by Cozmik R5, who I personally targeted and attacked near the end when I saw his Thorax on the overview:

All in all this was an awesome event to be a part of. Many congratulations are in order: To Kirith Kodachi for his 6 years of blogging, his hosting and organizing of the event and for being an awesome sport. To Alekseyev Kaarde and Noir Mercenary Group for 3 years of operation and living up to the name of "honor guard". To my corpmate Felix Dcat for putting AMC and MAPU right on top of the damage board. To all the other winners which I don't remember right now and can't check because my work's firewall is too stupid (no worries, I will edit the post as soon as I get home). To Goonswarm for not disappointing for being your crazy selves. And finally to everyone who showed up, sometimes leaving far-away Null-sec homes just to get a crack at Kirith. Both fleets had people who are usually enemies flying together and generally having an awesome time. I would also like to personally thank the guy who stepped up as FC on the attacker side; I may not like huge fleets and 0.0 blobs but when stuff needed to get done he got it done faster than I've seen in some 10-man fleets.

Read the whole battle report on his blog.

dangman4ever said in the comments of last post...

Good times. May have lost a bomber but got on 8 great killmails, one of them a certain carrier :)

Apex on Lost In Eve forums:

Just finished with the event. Guess I will give a breakdown on how it went for me.

-Initial fleet went up and those of us in the attacker channel started joining. In our fleet we maxed at about 50 ppl if I remember correctly. Local hit 212 just before event started.

-Event started and one of our guys got a warp in on Kirith's carrier. We warped in at range. I had bombers warp in on me at greater range.

-S*** hit the fan. We started losing people left and right as we were extremely outnumbered. Lag was there but very manageable for those with higher end PCs. Although even then it claimed some victims, my friend lagged out and was promptly podded.

-We said "screw the carrier" and began warping out. I warped to a planet (I was in a Manticore) and found a neutral raven sitting along side me. I called the raven over comms and fleet began warping to me. Raven went down.

-We then had more neutrals warping in who were fleeing the fight or just warping around. We quickly decided to spread out to planets and have people call out when they had a tackle on someone. We basically did this the majority of the 30 minute event timer as it was pretty fun. A couple guys got hero tackles and made it out in structure. I think one guy actually made it with only 14% structure left by the time we killed the ship he was pointing. Here is a short list of ships that died from our planet roaming. (These are just the ones I got on that have been reported up to this point. There are many more.
Arbitrator
Brutix
Eagle
Blackbird

-We eventually got reports that the carrier was taking serious damage and if you wanted to whore onto the kill mail now was the time. (Note: at this point the 30 min timer was up) I warped to a fleet mate who had point on the carrier. I got a single volley off before going pop. A Manticore for a Chimera km, I think that is a fair trade.

-Carrier went down.

Overall it was a really fun time. It was my first ever large fleet op. And I was glad I thought ahead of time and set my overview to only show those not in my fleet as the majority of my fleet mates were red. Also, there was a lot more coordination than I thought there would be. Voice comms were generally clear with not too many people talking over each other. We also responded well to calls for support when someone got a point on a neutral.

Nateryl on Lost In Eve forums:

I was in the attacker fleet but unfortunately apex, my little incursus went down in the first 5 min. It was a blast to listen to the voice comms for the next hour as you guys kept getting random tackles. This was a great event and glad I showed up but I wish I got to see more of it My first fleet fight of that size so it was fun and exciting to see.

Nice job Kirith, and an awesome turnout and cool way to bring the Eve community together for explosions and kill mails

From Scrapheap Challenge...

GreenYoshi:

Cool event. No capital opposition to the carrier, though one friendly Archon was dropped on the field. The attackers weren't coordinated enough, and the defenders had a ton of reps. There was some infighting between the defenders when logistics went flashy to rep Kirith's Chimera, but nothing overwhelming. At 2:33, defenders held the field, and Kirith requested that we (the defending fleet) destroy the Chimera. I think the count in system was around 250 with almost no lag at the apex.

Thanks for doing this, Kirith. Bit of a blob fest, but still fun (for me) in the end. Congrats on your 2000th post.

And Marko Box:

Fun event, some1 should organize this more ofthen
We came there in suicide thrashers/blackbirds warped in to main fleet to km whore, then we lost half of fleet, reshiped and then spent the evening warping from planet to planet poping random stuff. Much lolz where had
Congratz kirith on the 6 years of bloging, i hope you will repeat this with mothership once u hit the 10 year mark

 AkJon Ferguson on Eve Online forums:

Great event. A little one-sided, but everyone was expecting a hot-drop so it's hard to blame Noir. for bringing so much logistics. Nice job, Kirith.

Serenity One :

Thanks Kirith, That was awesome fun!

 * * * * *
If anyone else has reports, please link them in the comments! Thanks to everyone, the video hopefully will be coming soon (TM).

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi Live Event TONIGHT

Tonight is the big night. One way or another, my Chimera must die. The prizes must be awarded. My pod must be cracked.

A lot of pilots have stepped up to offer support so I have some concern that the attackers will be woefully outnumbered, but I have plans in place to ensure that the prizes will be awarded. Some of the groups offering support:

- Noir Mercenary Group is celebrating their anniversary and will be giving me a honour fleet for defence.

- Franklen of Tactical Support Solutions will be there with some friends.

- Acinom of Not A Lot Of News Newshour podcast will be there to make sure no rogue asteroids threaten me.

- Members of the Gallente Hero Channel have vowed some serious support (with rumours of capital support?!)

- A few m3 Pilots left behind clones and ships after the evac to the North.

- Slootha of Saiph Industries is coming and is offering to donate a prize for " the corp/individual adding up it's total damage off of the Killmail and having that number be higher than any other corp or individual." The prize was impressive so hopefully some hostiles show up to claim it!

In order to help coordinate the myriad forces arrayed for my defence and for the destruction of the Chimera, I've created two new public channels: "BMTHOKK Defenders" and "BMTHOKK Attackers". Ideally we would have everyone in two fleets but the logistics of that may be problematic to setup, so these channels will allow some coordination, especially for smaller groups and individuals to team up.

I will be setting up a fleet myself and any defenders are welcome to join it. Used the BMTHOKK Defenders channel to 'x' up. We will make use of Eve Voice in the BMTHOKK Defenders channel if you wish.


I will be announcing the exact location once I am in place in all the channels including local. You will NOT need to be in a fleet to warp to me, nor will you need to probe me out.

Finally, I kindly ask that any defenders operate under a NRDS policy in the hour before and during the event. A lot of observers and non-combatants may be coming to the event and I'd like to avoid a free-for-all on them until their intentions are known.

See you in space!

I Miss My Nomad

Back in the day I had a lot of fun jumping around low sec and null sec with the Minmatar Nomad jump freighter. It was the ultimate in 0.0 personal logistics and very useful for corp operations as well. I sold it to fund the Wyvern and have missed it many times since then.

I've decided to start saving up for a new jump freighter, the Caldari Rhea this time, since my fleet is nicely filled out and I have no strong need for any new expensive ships at the moment.

Well, that's not entirely true: Korannon will be able to fly an Orca in a month and I'll need to purchase one for him, but that's about it. And a fully fit T2 Abaddon might be expensive, we'll have to see once Kirith gets the Tech II laser skills done.

Small BMTHOKK Update:

Franklen of Tactical Support Solutions, another mercenary outfit, is also coming to the event with a handful of buddies, and like Noir Mercenary Group, will be defending me. At this point I hope some serious bad guys show up to give everyone a good time.

Also, Acinom (aka Jason) of Not A Lot Of News Newshour podcast fame has stated he will be present. This is a perfect opportunity to carry out Jayne's bounty on his head!

BMTHOKK Update

Two things:

1) I've purchased a Blood Raider Ashimmu for the fourth prize to the person who gets on the most killmails during the event.

2) We Got Company! I found this in my evemail inbox this morning:

well Mr. Kodachi..
From: Alekseyev KarrdeSent: 2011.01.11 03:25
To: Kirith Kodachi,

I've read your blog post about the Ninveah. Conviniently, it will be the third anniversary of Noir.'s founding that day as well, and we're on holiday to celebrate.

Noir. will act as your elite body guard for this event. The Ninveah sounds like a fine ship, if this should be her last sortee we'll ensure there's an appropriatly sized cloud of wrecks around her if she should fall.

-Alekseyev Karrde

This is turning into a battle. Let's hope my friends from Noir. are not left with nothing to shoot!

BMTHOKK Location Annouced!

The location of Bring Me The Head of Kirith Kodachi Live Event one week from today will be in.... Teshkat, Tash Murkon region.

I know its not part of the contiguous low sec systems so hard core pirates will have some difficulties getting to the event, but you have a week and I'm sure you have "associates" to help in that regard for the goal of getting in on a capital ship killmail. If you need some help, let me know and I will see what I can do.

To recap:

When: Jan 17th, 9pm EST (0200 eve time on Jan 18th)

What: Chimera on a planet or belt in a low sec system (to be announced on Jan 10th) for at least 30 minutes or until dead.

Why: Celebrating 6 years of blogging and upcoming 2000 posts

Who: You and anyone else that shows up.

How: I'll warp to a celestial (no station or gate) in a system to be announced next week and tell everyone in local and the Ninveah channel where I am. Then they can come to shoot or support me. I will fight back but will not warp away for 30 minutes.

There will be prizes:
- Grand Prize for Final Blow on carrier killmail: Navy Armageddon Battleship

- Prize for Most Damage on killmail: Guristas faction Gila Cruiser

- Prize for Final Blow on pod killmail: Imperial Navy Slicer frigate.

So mark the date on the calendar, tell your friends and corpmates, post in forums, blog about it. The more the merrier!

In addition, there will be a pirate faction cruiser prize for getting on the most killmails during the event. This is to help encourage pilots to defend me if the system gets really busy. A few corp mates have indicated that they will be there so more than one m3 Corp killmail is to be had here folk, so let's make this an event to remember!

Welcome To 2011

It wasn't the best Christmas I've had the pleasure of partaking in, with far too much activity and a slew of colds striking the kids over the past week when I was off. So I'm back at work, not rested, not recharged, and ready to go back to bed. Wonderful.

Needless to say I did not do anything of great note in Eve as I could not string together more than 20 minutes of uninterrupted Eve time until last night when the wife went to bed early and the kids were finally asleep. I couldn't do any serious PvP with the baby monitor on so I chatted and recorded a podcast to get ahead for once.

What I did manage to accomplish was some minor logistic carrier jumps and keep the planetary interaction colonies going as well as investigate the new character creator and new master extractor for PI on SISI (more on that later in the week). I also purchased and fitted the Chimera for the live event in two weeks. Here are some more details:

When: Jan 17th, 9pm EST (0200 eve time on Jan 18th)

What: Chimera on a planet or belt in a low sec system (to be announced on Jan 10th) for at least 30 minutes or until dead.

Why: Celebrating 6 years of blogging and upcoming 2000 posts

Who: You and anyone else that shows up.

How: I'll warp to a celestial (no station or gate) in a system to be announced next week and tell everyone in local and the Ninveah channel where I am. Then they can come to shoot or support me. I will fight back but will not warp away for 30 minutes.

There will be prizes:
- Grand Prize for Final Blow on carrier killmail: Navy Issue Armageddon Battleship

- Prize for Most Damage on killmail: Guristas faction Gila Cruiser

- Prize for Final Blow on pod killmail: Imperial Navy Slicer frigate.

So mark the date on the calendar, tell your friends and corpmates, post in forums, blog about it. The more the merrier!

Happy Holidays!

Today at noon I'm off for the holidays which means I will be working even more so at home with the Carebear Brigade. As such the blog and podcast will be silent until January.

I've tentatively picked the evening of January 17th as the date for the "Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi!" live event. Its a Monday since that's when I get free time and it will be starting around 8-9pm EST which is 0100-0200 Eve Time. I haven't decided on a location yet, but I'm thinking far from my usual stomping grounds to keep NCDOT from super-piling on.

I already wrote the next Fiction Friday post for tomorrow and it is scheduled to be published at 9AM tomorrow EST.

And finally, its been a while since we checked in on the Carebear Brigade so let's take a peek.

Annoucement: "Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi!" Live Event

Next year is going to be a big one for the blog. I'm approaching 2000 posts and will be celebrating six years of (mostly) regular posting in February. When I hit 1000 posts at the beginning of January 2009 I had a little contest with around 100 mil in prizes so this time I need to do something bigger.

For the past couple months I've been planning and now its time to let the readers know what's coming. I'm going to hold a little live event called "Bring Me The Head of Kirith Kodachi!". Here's how its going to work.

In late January or early February I'm going to go online in a low sec system, warp to a planet, and stay there for 30 minutes or until I'm dead and podded. I'll advertise the time and location at least a week in advance so anyone is free to come kill me (or save me if they are so inclined). There will be prizes for Final Blow and Most Damage on the kill mail of the ship, and everyone on the pod killmail will split a third prize. Finally, there will be a small reward for turning in my frozen corpse.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the ship I will be using will be a fully fitted Caldari Chimera carrier? That's right bitches: capital killmail time. I of course will be fighting back with all the drones at my disposal so don't think this is setup as a turkey shoot.

I fully realize there is a possibility I'll get dropped on by some large alliance with supercarriers that gets wind of the event and can be arsed to come get me, but I'm hoping the threat of another alliance doing the same thing will make them hesitate at least. There is also the possibility I might survive the 30 minutes and make good an escape! If so, I'm keeping the prizes. :P

So start planning your attack readers. I look forward to seeing what you can do.