The Boredom Doctrine

At the start of 2010 I was in Paxton Federation alliance, part of the original Providence Bloc headed up by the Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA). 

At that time there was a powerful alliance to the south of us called Against ALL Authorities (aka AAA or Triple-A) which we constantly fought against in non-sovereignty warfare. It was a nice situation as both sides provided some PvP content for the other. I fondly remember many visits to HED-GP just a few jumps out from Paxton's capital in D-GTMI.

However, some military geniuses in Provi-bloc's high command thought it was a good idea to start an aggressive war for territory in Catch region where Triple-A resided. Now, at this time Triple-A was in continual sov warfare with neighbours on the other side of them, an entity living in Delve and Querious by the name of Goonswarm, and in a few battles in the opening of the war it appeared that Provi-bloc fleets colluded with Goon fleets although CVA denied that accusation, saying that it merely appeared that way from how the battles evolved and various parties third-partied into the fighting.

Whatever the truth of the matter was, the fact was that Triple-A perceived themselves to be in a two front war with a common enemy and took to the offensive against Provi-bloc in order to eliminate the weaker of the two threats. Any gains made by Provi-bloc were quickly wiped out and Triple-A followed up with in attack on the closest border system which happened to be D-GTMI.

The Battle of D-GTMI

On January 28th CVA and the holder alliances gathered their capital might of over a hundred carriers and dreadnoughts (at the time a considerable force for a coalition) and Against ALL Authorities brought theirs of a similar fleet size for the timer for the system and the resulting battle saw the Provi-bloc capital fleet wiped out without any significant losses on the Triple-A size. It was a true military debacle. 

With the doors to Providence busted wide open and CVA and friends obviously outmatched by Triple-A, the victors of the pivotal battle made an offer to Provi-bloc's leadership: bend a knee and apologize and swear to never invade their sov again, and Triple-A would give back D-GTMI and relations could return to as they were before.

Providence is a region with perhaps the most player made outposts in the game, even to this say. Certainly in 2010 it had the most. And every system was upgraded with Territorial Claim Units (TCUs) and Infrastructure Hubs (IHUBs). So there was a belief that no one in their right mind would want to invade Providence with its lack-lustre resources to claim with having to grind through the massive number of hitpoints facing them in every system.

Whether it was this common knowledge of the tediousness of taking the region or proclaimed roleplay reasons, CVA leadership refused Triple-A's offer, telling their line members and allies that Triple-A would get bored of grinding structure after structure long before they took the entire region. In other words, since they could not match Triple-A's fleets in space they would employ the Boredom Doctrine.

"God forgives, AAA does not."

What the CVA leaders did not take into account was that the Boredom Doctrine only works in a stalemate scenario where the attacking force is making little or no measurable progress. But underestimating a group of EVE players determination to punish someone else is a bad idea, which CVA and the Holders found out personally that winter. Every single TCU, IHUB, and Stations' hitpoints were ground out and CVA and their allies were tossed out of Providence wholesale to wander in the wilderness of low sec for a long time.

Just some history to keep in mind.

The More Things Change

One of the surreal things about playing a single game for seven years is being suddenly reminded of something from the past and how things used to be, and how much things have changed since then... while a lot is still the same.

Last night I was patrolling Heydieles when I ran into a small gang of pirates fishing by a plex gate in a couple destroyers and frigates. I immediately recognized one name from the past, the infamous Andrea Skye. After gamely losing a Vexor partially because I forgot to check I had Warrior IIs in the drone bay, (but salvaging my honour a bit with a Slasher kill later), I noticed they were joined by another EVE celebrity, the even more infamous Spectre3353 of EVE Newb blog fame.

Which leads the the surreal part: his blogging almost completely dried up in the middle of 2010 so any player that is around 3 years old into Eve would probably not recognize him. He is an EVE celebrity from a different age, one that has passed into the history books while I wasn't looking.

Times change. But at least I find some comfort in knowing there is a chance to get blown up by Spectre3353 and Andrea Skye still.

A Look Back : Remote Sensor Dampeners

There is a cycle of life to the power of ships in Eve.

When I started, Gallente was the top of the PvP heap, specificially the blaster Megathron. Changes happened and after a while Gallente was the worst and Amarr was the best. Then lately Minmatar up until the buffs to hybrids and Gallente ships. The cycle continues.

Once upon a time, Remote Sensor Dampeners were the top dogs of the electronic warfare theatre. Even considered better in many cases than the usual ewar whipping boy, ECM. Why? Well, several reasons.

For one, a tech II damp on an unbonused ship gave a target 42% penalty to targeting range and a 42% penalty to scan resolution (i.e. affecting lock times). For smaller ships with already short ranges they could find themselves having to get suicidally close to the enemy in order to engage, and large ships found their lock times almost twice as long.

On top of that power, you could combine multiple damps for even more pain. Suddenly your 50 km lock range is dropped to around 17 km with two damps on you, and a similar scale in jump of lock times. ECM, on the other hand, has no benefit to apply multiple jams on a target besides perhaps extending jam if it works.

To make matters worse, there was no chance based mechanic to sensor dampeners as compared to ECM. You target, you activate the module, and the enemy is affected. The typical use case was to break the opponent's lock and laugh as he moved in closer to his new lock range and then have a 30-60 lock time against you, during which your taking him apart.

And this was on unbonused ships; the Gallente recons were far more deadly with dampeners and could cripple multiple ships without a second thought.

Yes, there was Sensor Boosters to try and counter the effects of the dampeners, but much like ECCM modules its hard to justify taking up a mid slot or two on the chance the enemy has the ewar you are protecting against (although at least sensor boosters gave you a bonus even if you were not impacted by enemy damps, unlike ECCM which does not help much at all).

Eventually as the module became more and more a must have item on all ships, the nerf hammer was applied and scripts were introduced. The modules base effectiveness to lock range and scan resolution was halved, and you could use a script to increase one back to pre-nerf strength while negating the other. On paper it seems like a reasonable change but sensor dampeners disappeared overnight for all intents and purposes, only seen in very specific setups and scenarios.

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CCP should be aware of the threat a ubitquious and powerful ewar system can be, and that is why I'm not worried about Tracking Disruptors becoming too power with the advent of the new mechanics where they can affect missiles.