The War On Logi - Boosting Update

Last December I wrote a post on how CCP has been making a lot of changes to the game mechanics that increase player participation while at the same time decrease the effectiveness of Logistics ships, i.e. Space Healers. I noted how the changes to remote rep modules to have optimal ranges and reduced effectiveness in fall off range was part of a plan to reduce logi's ability to easily repair ships in the fleet and then I ended that post with the following:

The War on Logi is part of a broader campaign the CCP has been launching that could be titled The War on the Blob (TM). There have been many initiatives over the past year to make players more active in piloting their ship and fighting with thought and intent rather than just locking primary and hitting F1, broadcast for reps.
Consider:
- changes to fleet warp mechanics
- killing multi-input aides like ISBoxer
- Phoebe jump mechanics nerfing capital jumping tactical and strategic utility
- Fozzie Sov's distributed capture warfare mechanics across constellations
- Force Recons getting Dscan immunity
In the future:
- area of effect doomsdays (Scythe, Hand of God) and more area of effect electronic warfare
- Remote Rep capital blobs will be a thing of the past as Force Aux cannot repair each other under triage
- Dreadnoughts / titans getting weapons for fighting subcaps
- carriers with long distance fighter operations
- much larger grids
All of these things have, to one degree or another, negative impacts on mindless blob warfare, forcing fleets to spread out at a minimum and think and act more independent at a maximum. Expect to see more features and changes that encourage smaller groups of capable individuals and discourage n+1 blob warfare.

Now we have coming in November a massive change to the underpinnings of modern EVE fleet warfare, warfare links moving from off grid fleet effect to on grid area of affect as described in detail in this dev blog. I think this is the latest salvo in the War On Logi.

Back in 2011 I wrote a soon-to-obsolete EVE Masterclass article on fleet boosting called The Mechanics of Command, and in that article I layout all the skills, modules, ships, and implants that deal with boosting. I use a theoretical pilot named Joe to give examples of how the math adds up:

 Pilot Joe has Armored Warfare V, Armored Warfare Specialist V, and an Armored Warfare Mindlink implant. Using the Armored Warfare Link - Passive Defence on a normal battlecruiser he gives 22.5% bonus to all armour resistances to the ships he is boosting in fleet. However, the same pilot and module in a Damnation Fleet command ship with Command Ship skill at level IV gives a 25.2% bonus to armour resistances, and he could fit and activate two more warfare link modules as well.
[...]
If pilot Joe trained up for a Legion strategic cruiser and fit his Armored Warfare Link - Passive Defence module on it with the Warfare Processor subsystem and Amarr Defensive Subsystem skill at level V, he would give a 28.12% bonus to armour resistances.

That is one warfare link, the "Armoured Warfare Link - Passive Defence" module, and a properly fit Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser can fit three of the modules. As you can see, the end result of a trained up pilot with implants and command ship is a dramatic improvement to the ships in the fleet. There aree three armour warfare links:

Armored Warfare Link - Damage Control: Reduces the capacitor need of remote and local armour repairers by 2%.
Armored Warfare Link - Passive Defence: Increases armour resistances by 2%.
Armored Warfare Link - Rapid Repair: Reduces the duration of remote and local armour repairers by 2%. 

So imagine a Legion or Loki with those three warfare links running for the fleet, with perfect skills and fancy implant, and the fleet having a wing of Guardians with faster ~28% Remote armour repairers aiding ships with ~28% better armour resistances... the impact is dramatic, and all from a ship relatively safe in deep space far from the fight, unaffected by enemy tackle, Ewar, or weapons. Shield warfare links have similar effects.

Come November that is all changed. Now a boosting pilot will be on grid and have to watch out for enemy attacks. They may have to decide between being in range of the Logi wing to boost their reppers or being in range of the DPS ships to boost their resistances. Fleets may need multiple boosting pilots to cover both circumstances, or to step up and replace lost boosters when they get alpha'd off the field. With all the coordination required and danger involved, it seems nearly impossible to achieve the same end result of having your fleet get boosted resistances and faster and more efficient logi reps all at the same time for the duration of the whole fight.

Another successful broadside from CCP in the War on Logi.

Hey, as an upside to this change, fleets that that practice and perfect getting as many boosts consistently applied to the fleet as possible will have a serious advantage over fleets that don't master that art form, unlike the current situation where it is trivial for both sides to get perfect boosts for the whole fight. This is a chance for elite alliances to shine.

The War On Logi - Overview

Bad Graphics are free here at ninveah.com

Yesterday while talking about Command Destroyers and how they are part of the War On Logi that CCP seems to be waging, I decided to go deeper into the topic today and give an overview for what the war looks like and why its being waged.

Evidence

As I said, I noted how the most effective use for kidnapping via the Command Destroyer was to disrupt logistic wings of fleets since losing even a single member could be disastrous for a fleet. While it can be argued that in this particular instance it simply a spin off effect of the desire to introduce a new cool tool to the box of pilots, I think it is telling that there is a lot similar things coming in the near and far future that also have a negative impact on the ability of logistic ships to repair friendly vessels.

Most damning is the remote repair module tiericide changes coming this month (emphasis mine):

Remote armor, shield and hull reps all now have falloff (this falloff reduces effectiveness as you get further from your target, just like the neut falloff)
Armor reps are more focused on optimal, Shield reps are more focused on falloff.
Frigate logistics skews further towards falloff, while cruiser and larger bonuses tend to apply equally to both optimal and falloff.
Rep cycle times are getting slower (~20% slower for armor reps and ~60% slower for shield reps). This will make target switching more powerful against overwhelming logi numbers, and increase danger of overhealing. Overall providing more room for very good logi pilots to shine.
Overall rep/s is remaining fairly constant since rep amount per cycle is increasing.
Capacitor use on shield and armor reps has increased a bit. Logistics ships are getting larger cap pools (but not better cap/s recharge) to compensate. Overall this makes it harder to be fully cap stable but easier to fly with a logi that isn't quite cap stable if you're not repping constantly.
Base ranges on the reps have increased, and ship range bonuses are smaller to compensate. This makes the skill curve less steep and buffs non-range bonused RR ships such as RRBS and T3 Cruiser logi.

 And here is one of the graphs for T1 Logi cruisers remote rep ranges before and after changes:

No matter how you cut it, their maximum effectiveness range is reduced1 so they need to be closer to the action to maintain best reps, their cap stability is lessened, and their ability to rapidly respond to target switching of the enemy fleet is hampered.

Throw on top of all of that you have the news from the capital changes in the future such as:
- titan doomsday that can displace a portion of your fleet across the system (goodbye logi wing!)
- remote area of effect supercarrier ewar besides the remote ECM burst; imagine what a remote sensor dampener field could do to a logistics wing
- only triage-capable Force Auxilliaries can use remote reps so you can't have massive remote repping blobs any more since triaged ships can't receive remote reps
- can't refit with a weapons timer

Overall there is a definite theme to break down the ability of fleets to act like a brick and resist damage. But why?

Behind The Nerfs

Right now I'm willing to bet if you asked people what the major problems are in PvP that logi would not figure high in the responses. This is because logistics as it stands right now is balanced in that it is readily available, fairly straight forward to use with practice, and has known counters such as electronic warfare, cap warfare, and positioning tactics (i.e. attempting to warp in on the hostile logi ships).

But I believe the issue is that we've become so used to it and how it affects the meta we don't see the fundamental flaw, and perhaps CCP has. Let's walk through an example to illustrate the point.

Say you have two small fleets moving to engage each other, Fleet A with 15 DPS ships and Fleet B with 20 DPS ships (i.e. no logi). Assuming everything else is equal and they fight it out to the end, no retreat. Its obvious Fleet B will win because the aggregate damage will remove the enemy fleet from the field before the incoming damage will destroy their own fleet, but still they take some attrition so that the end result is 15 ships destroyed but they still lost say, 8 or 9 friendlies. The winning side is happy because they won the battle and can loot wrecks or take the objective, and the losing side goes off to reship but has some satisfaction because they damage the enemy fleet and if they get back fast enough will have an advantage in the next fight.

Now let's do the same fight, but this time Fleet A is comprised of 10 DPS ships and 5 Logi while Fleet B has 14 DPS ships and 6 Logi. The first fleet does not have enough DPS for long enough to break the logi wing of fleet B (when you include resists and the like) but the 14 DPS ships were enough to overwhelm the logi wing of Fleet A so if it remains it gets wiped off the field without inflicting any damage on the enemy.

What I'm trying to say is that most battles between fleets involving logi come down to a tipping point where one side can break the enemy logi and win the battle and the other side just plain dies. There is no or little attrition inflicted by the losing side and the winners win big. This is why fleet commanders scream for more logi pilots all the time and as fleets get bigger and more expensive the logi wing becomes a larger portion of the fleet (like seeing ten Cerberus HACs with ten Basilisk logi).

We who have been playing in this environment have internalized this logic and for the most part have come to accept it, its part of our culture. But its easy to see from the outside why this dynamic is offputting if you take a few steps back. Consider describing the second battle to someone not familiar with the game and their reaction would be "Fleet A lost everything and didn't take any ships in Fleet B down?! Sounds stupid..." Attrition in warfare is a basic concept everyone understands but the current logistics-fueled meta currently negates that concept.

I agree I highly simplified the scenario to make a point and there are a lot of factors that come into battles that impact the outcome beyond simple logistic count, but the tipping point of a battle exists and can be experienced often if you PvP in a regular fashion. The downside of this tipping point is that it encourages smart fleet commanders to calculate DPS versus rep amount and decide not to engage altogether because "there is no point, we can't break their logi". If logi were less of a factor, then attrition warfare comes into play more often in pitched battles and the logic can become "we may not win but we came to fight and we'll take some of them with us". This is a more familiar attitude to people outside of EVE's meta and one that can be more easily understood by the larger audience.

The Crystal Ball

The War on Logi is part of a broader campaign the CCP has been launching that could be titled The War on the Blob (TM). There have been many initiatives over the past year to make players more active in piloting their ship and fighting with thought and intent rather than just locking primary and hitting F1, broadcast for reps.

Consider:
- changes to fleet warp mechanics
- killing multi-input aides like ISBoxer
- Phoebe jump mechanics nerfing capital jumping tactical and strategic utility
- Fozzie Sov's distributed capture warfare mechanics across constellations
- Force Recons getting Dscan immunity
In the future:
- area of effect doomsdays (Scythe, Hand of God) and more area of effect electronic warfare
- Remote Rep capital blobs will be a thing of the past as Force Aux cannot repair each other under triage
- Dreadnoughts / titans getting weapons for fighting subcaps
- carriers with long distance fighter operations
- much larger grids

All of these things have, to one degree or another, negative impacts on mindless blob warfare, forcing fleets to spread out at a minimum and think and act more independent at a maximum. Expect to see more features and changes that encourage smaller groups of capable individuals and discourage n+1 blob warfare.

1 - Not 100% sure on this point due to changes to ship bonuses, still want to see the end result in game before being certain.

Command Destroyers - Ransom Price

Pay up or the logi gets it!

I talked a little bit last Friday about how Tech II Command Destroyers are going to change a lot of the meta in the upcoming patch:

These things are going to upset all corners of null, low, and wormhole space but low sec especially will see extensive use of these things. We can`t even comprehend all the uses yet! Chaining multiple command dessie jumps in a row to fling a fleet multiple hundred km jumps away, pulling enemy fleets apart to take on smaller numbers at a time, getting the jump on kiters, surprising station campers, the list goes on and on. Fleets that are precisely composed and constructed and need to have the logi wing exactly X km from the DPS wing are going to need to be watchful that enemy ships don't infiltrate one or two of these and rip those fleets apart. You've got 9 seconds to react, good luck.

 A lot of talk recently has been about how these things are going to be used and how people are going to try to counter them. While the thought of grabbing ships and shifting them 100 km away from their friends is intoxicating the reality is that the range is small enough that most of the time it will not be devastating to enemy fleets. Losing one or two DPS ships to a successful MJF dessie will be annoying but not break fleets.

HOWEVER, there is a part of the fleet that is far more vulnerable to these kidnapping vessels: logistic wings. Losing even one logi ship from a wing can be the difference between winning and losing a fight, often a swing in the hundreds of millions of ISK. These ships will be the main targets of command destroyers looking to kidnap someone in big fights.

So the discussion now turns to how to best counter these thieves.

Some suggestions are obvious, such as have logi spread out so that there is no juicy target to aim for (but you will still lose at least one), or have the fleet primary them or scram them as soon as one appears (which will be hard in the middle of the fight or if there are multiple), but all of these require various degrees of constant attention and vigilance.

A more passive approach has been the suggestion of self-scramming fleets. That is to say, since you cannot be carried by the MJF of the command dessie if you are scrammed (reference), one defence for things like logi wings would be to have them dedicate a module to a warp scrambler and create scram chains to protect them from unwanted jumps. It would be just like a cap chain that Guardians and Basilisks already do to create infinite energy, only it would suck energy to protect them from being kidnapped, sort of a pre-ransom price. Even though scrams would shut off friendly micro warp drives this is not an issue since logi are typically afterburner fit already.

Regardless of the solution a fleet uses, this represents yet another nerf on logistics. Coupled with the Remote Repair changes coming that will cut their ranges and lower their cap stability, not to mention the new doomsday and supercarrier area of effect weapons, its sage to say that this winter is the the official War on Logi for CCP, part of the overall strategy to make players more independent and self sufficient on the battlefield.

Interesting times.

Close Call

I had a very close call the other day that only veteran players who've been around a long time and gotten arrogant can have.

Aideron Robotics is moving to a new staging area away from the main Gallente Hub of Nennamaila in Black Rise. I had a lot of stuff in Nenna, so threw a lot of it in my alt's Rhea jump freighter, Montezuma's Revenge, and a load of expensive ships in my namesake Chimera carrier, the Ninveah.

I logged my cyno alt into the destination system and had a conversation that went like this.

"Hmmm, its the middle of the day so not a lot of traffic. And I remember moving my Wyvern and Chimera together before... but was that on two machines or triple boxing on one? Oh, who cares, this machine can dual box fine, and its just an easy undock twice, jump twice, and redock... I'll be fine!"

Now, a normal player would say to themselves "Are you sure putting 10 billion ISK worth of capitals and cargo all at once on the stability of your PC is smart here?" but longtime veterans who have not been burned lately can forget that smart voice.

So I undocked the Carrier, lit the cyno, switched back to carrier, hit the jump button, and switched over to my jump freighter and hit undock.

And my computer froze.

And not just dead frozen, but coma frozen. Like I could hear the sound effects of the jump completing and the jump frieghter entering space, but the screen did not change and I could not move my mouse. I was paralyzed with two ships valuable ships in space... in low sec.

Oh crap.

I tried alt+tab, ctrl+alt+del, shaking mouse, screaming at the computer. Best I got was a few seconds of slide show of clients flashing up and down, teasing me with thoughts of control before wresting it away. I tried clicking on dock buttons that were there and then gone, I tried shutting down clients using the windows red X, ctrl+q, ... everything. But the horror slide show continued. At one point I saw a war target, A FUCKING WAR TARGET!, arrive on grid with my paralyzed carrier.

I did the only thing I could do. I pulled the plug. I hard shut downed the computer with prejudice. Screw safe shutdown, OFF NOW!

A few minutes later after I rebooted my PC I logged my characters on one at a time. The Carrier managed to get a docking command during my fevered clicking and alt tabbing and was safe. The jump frieghter was in space, but alive. It warped back to station and I docked it up.

The rest of the asset movement was a lot more careful and very uneventful.

Fighting Tech 1 Logisitics - Ideas

Back on January 14th in a post titled Nerf Calls for Nerfing T1 Logistics I took Poetic Stanziel to task for complaining about T1 Logistics:

Over at Poetic Discourse blog Poetic Stanziel has issued a call to reduce the power of the new T1 Logistics:

The composition of fleet fights in faction warfare lowsec have changed radically since Retribution was released. I'm not so sure for the better.
Before December 4th, flying with logistics was a rarity. Something done occasionally to mix things up, to try something new. Fweddit experimented with a Circlejerk doctrine involving Drakes. We had some success with it, but it was a specialty doctrine, useful only in particular situations.
I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in logistic fleets since I joined faction warfare until the release of Retribution. Nearly every fleet I've flown in since Retribution has had a contingent of logistic ships.
I'm not asking that T1 logi be removed. I'm simply suggesting that they may be a tad overpowered, and that maybe their "healing" skills could be blunted somewhat.

 I don't think its fair, merely one month after Retribution, to look at "fleet doctrines" in faction warfare and throw up your hands and beg for mercy. The situation requires more time to develop and allow corps and FC to adapt to the new realities. As some commenters on the post pointed out, remote sensor dampeners and ECM are great at disrupting these fragile tech 1 ships.

This post is to discuss ways to deal with Tech 1 Logistics as are encountered in low sec, particularly in faction warfare, with resorting to increasing number of logistics.

1) Damage - No, its not elegant nor always easy to pull off, but sometimes the best way to deal with enemy logi is to simply shoot them. After all, the logistic ship you target can't heal itself so its less overall reps on the targeted ship. Of course, the hard part is that logi pilots try to stay out of the fray by a good 50 km and in low sec that often means safe from any serious damage the enemy can put out. 

To mitigate this, a smart FC will try various tactics to get the enemy logi in a place where it can be engaged and destroyed. Having an enemy jump through a gate into your setup fleet, or have a fight in a FW plex where they all have to use an acceleration gate to land on the same spot, for example, is a common tactic. Another is to try and setup warp ins on top of the enemy logi to force the fight where the enemy is weak.

2) ECM - Two blackbirds in the hand is worth 4 logi in the field. Here's the thing: if you know the enemy is in an armour fleet or a shield fleet, you know their logistics is going to be in Augorors or Scythes respectively. That means your Blackbird pilots can load up on the corresponding ECM modules and sport 10-12 bonused modules that have about the same effective range as the enemy logi. They can defend against this with ECCM but that puts more pressure on their Tech 1 cruiser sized capacitors (more on this topic in a later post this week) and when jams do occur then it causes disruption to any logi chains they setup leaving the possibility of error and panic.

That doesn't mean all is perfect in this scenario: Blackbirds and other ECM ships are usually primary targets of the enemy fleet and can have a very short life expectancy due to its abilities. 

3) Remote Sensor Dampeners - While not as powerful as ECM at locking a hostile logi pilot out of the battle for twenty long seconds, Remote Sensor Dampeners (aka RSDs) have the advantage of being a tool available to the common pilot. Using a mid slot for an ECM module is practically pointless (due to mechanics changes back in the day so that only bonused ships can make decent use of them) but RSDs are still effective on non-bonused ships. If an FC has his fleet use their 4th mid slots for one dampener with targeting range script then the fleet can put that dampener on the enemy logi and prevent them from repairing the combat ships without getting closer, thus becoming targets themselves.

It may force the combat pilots to sacrifice some of their own ships to fit the module, but its harder to counter than primarying a Blackbird.

* * * * * 

So there is three common methods for dealing with enemy logistics without resorting to trying to out-logi them yourself.

While writing this post I was struck at how much Faction Warfare has evolved to be more like null sec warfare on a smaller scale due to the addition of tech 1 logistics. Since the new dimension forces FW fleets and their FCs to get smarter and think more dynamically, I predict this can only improve the quality of pilots and FCs in these arenas. Could low sec become the new proving ground for new alliances bent on moving into null sec sov wars someday?

Consolidating

When I moved into Kadavr Black Guard, I took one carrier load of ships and went to work. I didn't want to waste a lot of time making a lot of trips when I could be PvPing.

Well, over the past weeks I used down time to move a bunch more ships into the area. First I got some Minmatar ships from my alt Kla'strit since he was not using them and put them into a couple freighter packages from Placid to metropolis. Included in it was a Hurricane, Sleipnir, Vagabond, a couple Claw interceptors, a Wolf assault frigate, and a Cheetah covert ops.

Next, I jump cloned to my spare Chimera carrier chilling in Teshkat after m3 corp's last pull out of Providence and found a slew of ships from that venture including an Ishtar, Dramiel, Crow, and a Manticore.

This helps to bring my stable of available ships up nicely and only one more load of ships from Pelille which I will get this week, including doomed Hurricane #5 of the Hurricane project.

Let's review what happened to the other 4:

#1 - Died to NPC police after I mistakenly jumped into high sec.
#2 - Died to enemy gang after I engaged bait Hurricane at a gate.
#3 - Killed Hookbill one week, but next week died to enemy fleet after engaging a Firetail that attacked first.
#4 - Lost in arranged 1v1 versus Drake.

Hopefully #5 has better luck! And I have a bonus Hurricane to go too.

Moving Light

Heh heh heh...

Image courtesy of Eve-Outtakes.

I packed up the Chimera for the trip to Minmatar space. My selection of ships is small as I can always purchase more once out there. A couple Hurricanes, an Astarte, a Raptor for running around, a Harpy, and something else, I just can't remember what it is.

Two jumps from now I should be ready to go for Sunday night. Someone tell the Amarr to travel solo that night, I need to practice my one on one.

Technology Rocks

As the Carebear Brigade has gotten older, I find myself with a lot less free time than I used to have. Whereas last year I could fit in 15 minutes in the morning to take care of industrial tasks while eating my breakfast, or I could spend a weekend afternoon doing a mission as everyone napped, this year those opportunities have been squeezed out of the schedule. On top of that, the kids are more exhausting than ever leaving me with very little energy or patience to log on before bed after I have spent time reconnecting with Mrs Kodachi and ensuring the marriage contract is not terminated. Thus projects like trading and PI in the wormhole have been shelved.

But now, there is hope on the horizon thanks to technology.


The Android tablet I purchased, the ASUS Transformer, is a powerful little beast. And by installing some software on it and on my PC to allow remote access, last night I found I could run Eve on the computer while controlling the mouse and seeing the screen on the tablet. I was able to set a destination, undock, and activate autopilot. And then connect later to dock at a station (haven't figured out how to drag and drop yet though).

Then I typed into the Ninveah channel, "playing eve from the couch through the tablet. eat your heart out". :-)

While the graphics are cut down in number of colours and the responsiveness is not superb, it is workable for some simple tasks and might allow me to get some secondary projects running again. Time will tell.

Test Alliance, You've Made An Enemy

Last night I was on baby duty so I was logged in just chatting and getting ready for the move back up to Tribute when a corp mate taking a month off due to family illness was starting to move ships back to low sec for security. I offered to help and loaded up a lot of Vagabonds and assorted other Minnie ships in my Chimera.

I got my alt Korannon to pop a cyno and me and another corpie jumped our Chimeras to low sec, docked, unloaded, delivered ships to hangers... all very routine.

Then my cyno ship got popped.

This is not a big deal because you have to assume in low sec someone is going to see that 10 minute cyno and decide that a Tech 1 frig is worth the ammo and sec status penalty, so I lost a Kestrel and cyno generator. Whatever.

But Kirith Kodachi does not forgive and forget such trespasses on my property. SeaCaptain of TEST alliance, your name is going into the Book of Grudges!

Not that anyone in the Book has actually ever suffered any ill effects from me...

Cynojammers Everywhere!

Last night I was on kid duty as my wife had her free night so I logged in to take care of some simple logistics. The goal was simple, move the Wyvern and Chimera from one secure system to another. Easy right?

Well turns out not so much. The first attempt failed because I didn't check ranges of the two systems (I assumed they were close) and discovered to my horror that even with Jump Drive Calibration V the Wyvern can't make it 11.34 light years, only 11.25. Sigh.

So I needed to find a midpoint jump with numerous floating reds around. I tried three systems with only blues in them and every time there was a cyno jammer. GAH! Is there an easy way to tell if a system is jammed without failing to light a cyno or searching for an online jammer module?

Finally I found an empty system that was not jammed and I jumped to it safely. Since the Wyvern was travel fit it regenerated cap very quickly and I made the second jump to my destination without issue.

* * * * *

On a related topic, in Eve Commune podcast #25 Garheade and Chainer seem to be under the impression that the Jump Bridge nerf will someone negatively affect the threat of cap and supercap hotdrops as they will no longer be able to use jump bridges due to having a jump drive.

I would like to counter that in my years of being in null sec I have never heard or seen a major cap operation make use of a jump bridge network in any degree. The amount of Liquid Ozone fuel required and the logistical effort required make the process very complicated, especially in light of a cyno ship being so much easier, tactically flexible, and cheap to use.

The only case where a number of caps use jump bridges is in ones and twos to deploy into a cyno jammed system ahead of a defensive battle, or for logistic purposes.

Rest and Relaxation

The Forever War in Geminate had some serious mood swings over the last week with the NC making some gains, but they were all wiped out with a string Drone Russion Forces showing for the last O2O timer. Thus all the timers are reset and we're back to square one.

FCON is taking a one week break from the action to recuperate and replenish so when I logged in last night I found some corp mates ISK making back in Pure Blind and I decided to join them. One quick swap with the Wyvern alt and I docked, jump cloned, and grabbed the Tengu for some haven busting. Got the sec status up to an even -7.0, booya.

In other news, I purchased a Chimera BPO a couple weeks back to help out with an m3 Corp initiative to generate a new stream of income, and then last week purchased a researched Capital Construction Parts BPO for the same thing at a steal price. Put them in for copying last night as the initiative is still spinning up.

Finally, I took the break in action as a chance to move some PvP ships for Kla'strit to the capital logistics office. A second Maelstrom, a Hurricane, a Slepnier, and a Vagabond were all put in the corp hanger for transport, giving me more options for PvP when Kirith is tied up in the supercarrier.

All in all, a good night even if it lacked any PvP action.

Whaaaaaaat!!!!!?!?!?!?!

Shit suddenly got hot in Geminate. Rebellion Alliance was disbanded by a high level malcontent/spy putting the region into turmoil as our current arch enemies, the Drone Russian Forces, launched an all out invasion. The behemoth that is the Northern Coalition started from relative peaceful slumber and orders were given: deploy to support the fight.

So last night I logged the parking alt in and Kirith used the Ninveah to load up Wyvern Shaitann's cargo hold with spare isotopes and liquid ozone, as well as a number of utility ships in the maintenance bay. Then I loaded up the Chimera's hold as well because this was no longer a one man operation; the parking alt (alias Ian) had been training up skills and could now use capital shield transfers and energy transfers. They swapped ships and now my Wyvern had a wingmate with extra energy to top me up after a jump, as well as provide me a spot to swap modules on the fly. Not to mention a scout to jump into a system first to see what's the situation.

NOTE: It still strikes me as funny that I view the Chimera as a cheap and disposable ship.

I reconfigured the supercapital into a travel configuration (8 cap rechargers and 4 cap flux coils) and made my way to the rear deployment area, with an eye towards moving to the forward deployment area tonight, ready for combat.

Thanks to corpie Inferno for providing two cynos in my route. It saved me from having to boot up Kla'strit and get him up there right that moment. He can now follow later when I have time.

Resurgence

I talked about how the corp suffered from a malaise of the soul while in Providence which hurt motivation and attendance. The move to FCON was in part to give us a larger structure to lean on while redistributing load of responsibility in the corp to give some key members some much needed breathing room.

Its been a week and so far the move seems to be paying off. With Pandemic Legion dropping by for a visit (how nice of them to come say hello!) and constant fleet activity, the corp and its restructured and re-motivated leadership have gotten off on the right foot and have been stepping up with record numbers in fleets, be it roams, structure repping, or logistics. I'm proud of my corp right now.

I, of course, have been nowhere to be seen.

It is not intentional, but the first night we were in alliance I had the long planned BMTHOKK live event to run which kept me from any alliance / corp activity, and then the rest of the week I've used my time to get another clone up to where my ships had been moved, as well as get Kla'strit up there to be my extra set of eyes and cyno buddy.

On top of all that, I've used 15-20 minutes here and there to do my avatars (and in a couple cases, redo them after the patch) as well as try to get my colonies in Wormhole Hades back online. Couple all of that with my prime morning time of right after downtime being screwed due to 3 out of 4 mornings having extended downtimes, well, I was hard-pressed to get it all done before tonight.

But I persevered and all I have left to do is to get bookmarks made or updated from our time in RAGE and get the Wyvern into a comfortable staging system. I'm hoping during tonight's session to quickly take care of that and then get into a fleet for some fun so I can help keep the momentum the corp has going.

I Don't Even

I haven't been in game longer than seconds since BMTHOKK on Monday night. This is due primarily to not downloading the patch until I got home from work and then being busy all night with the video editing of the Fraps clips I got from the event. I figured I should take care of that before I lost the night to character avatar creation.

In game, I did the big move of all my stuff to our staging area using the original Ninveah carrier and the Shaitann Wyvern. Since my alt has her jump drive skills up to snuff I was able to jump them together with Kirith being the bodyguard in the Ninveah since the alt's skills in energy and shield transfer, not to mention no drone skills at all, are not up to par.

It was four ninja jumps through quiet low sec systems, and only once did the cyno get investigated by a local. When I jump in both the carrier and supercarrier peel off in a random direction from the cyno and cloak up. In this one case an Absolution command ship warps in at 100 to the cyno and started closing. I figured the cyno ship was dead but didn't care, I was more concerned about him decloaking the capitals. I tried to throw him off by logging the chimera out so he could see it e-warp off and think that was all, but he stayed around and at one point came within 15 km of the cloaked super capital ship. Another ship arrived at range, a Hurricane, and they looked like they were not friendly to each other. Eventually both left and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Now I need to get my clones up to the North and get deployed in null sec again before my directors come around with the metal hockey stick wondering why I'm lazing about in Tehskat still.

The Art of the Ninja Jump + Now CVA

So last week the corp was making the move from our base in The Forge region to our new base across the cluster. Since I'm gimped in being able to help I was forced to sit on the sidelines in the supercarrier watching as my corp mates proved their worth once again.

Feeling like a burden since they were talking about having a carrier escort op to accompany the supercarrier on its journey on the only night I can string together a few hours (i.e. Monday night), I decided to at least scout the route out with my cyno alt Korannon and if the opportunity presented itself, make the jump so that the others has one less jump to make to come to me.

So Friday morning, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning right around downtime, I got my alt in position in a target system and made the jump alone with the supercarrier. You might think this is a very risky thing to do but if you take the right precautions and pick the right times and systems, you are as safe as traveling in a pack. The chances of a perfect storm of being spotted, tackled by heavy interdictor (since the Wyvern is immune to regular electronic warfare), and someone having enough DPS to kill my ship in a minute (or 15 minutes if I'm careless on the ctrl+q) is low enough to be ignorable. As long as I'm careful.

And I was. For three jumps through empire no one as much as flew in to check out the cyno ship, much less threaten to uncloak the Wyvern. I was almost a little disappointed. For the last jump I had corp mates in local (shout out to Traver who guarded my cyno ship) and soon I was secure in my not-deep-anymore safe spot back in Sukanan constellation.

Sukanan you say? Isn't that back in Tash Murkon? Why yes, yes it is. More on that in a moment.

With the supercarrier secured, I put the parking alt back in it (she's training for Jump Drive Calibration skills to avoid this kind of hassle in the future) and jump cloned up to The Forge region to pick up my Chimera, the venerable Ninveah itself. A few more solo jumps, not as dangerous due to being able to dock, and it was back in the Suk as well.

What's that? OK, fine, I'll tell you.

Once we decided to pull out of RAGE alliance, we explored contacts and compiled options, debating the various merits of each, and focused on what we as a corp wanted and wanted to accomplish. This is never a trivial task as the dissolution of Paxton Federation last spring demonstrated; different people want different things.

One thing we all agreed on was that our time in Providence with Paxton was some of the best of our null sec careers, even when we were essentially on our own and surrounded by hostiles. Compared to having to go far to find fights as part of the NC, it was nice to have reds right next door. And with Providence in as much chaos as it is now, it seems like the perfect size and types of fights that m3 Corp excels and revels in.

So who's recruiting? Well, there were a few options but m3 Corp has a long memory and is very loyal to old friends. So we chatted some people up and made overtures to join an old ally which were welcomed with open arms.

We're joining CVA.

That's OK, I'll wait while you clean up the mess from you spitting your drink all over the monitor.

Alright, done? Allow me to explain.

I realize I might have in the past said something along the lines of that I hope CVA rots in low sec. You have to understand how much myself and others in m3 loved our time in Paxton and how bitter some of us were when it came to an end, apparently at the hands of CVA's bungling from this outside perspective. The reasons and faults of CVA's Providence last spring are in the past and we can't keep looking backwards but rather must look at current conditions.

1) Providence is still an exciting hotbed of mass confusion and lots of targets for a CVA friendly entity to enjoy.

2) The major power blocks opposing CVA, namely -A- and Ushra'Khan have moved on to their own time in the wilderness.

3) CVA has gone through a purge of sorts while living in low sec and may be smaller than it once was but is now more focused with clear goals and dedicated members. It may have many of the same leaders as last spring but they are hopefully wiser and more grounded.

So CVA has been rebuilding and we feel we want to try and be a part of that. Our long history with this old alliance demands that we give it a chance.

"Does this mean m3 Corp is now a bunch of role players?"

No. It means we can't go around breaking immersion for those that do partake in the periodic "Amarr Victor" and our CEO is required to make a statement that all members have sworn oaths to the Empire and Empresses. Secretly I think our CEO is a closet role player though. Make no mistake, m3 Corp is here for the pew pew.

"You're crazy for reason X and reason Y!"

This decision was not taken lightly and I admit I was initially opposed to the idea but was swung around on several convincing arguments to give it a try. I'm looking forward to what Providence is like now and getting in on some wild and crazy action. If some big alliance is coming to crush CVA tomorrow, well, no one is safe in Eve null sec politics. Intrepid Crossing/Tactical Narcotics Team/Paxton Federation showed us the folly of thinking differently.

So for now... Amarr Victor!

* * * * *

More details at Orakkus' blog, 2nd Anomaly from the Left. 

After I announced in twitter that I was joing CVA, I got a lot of responses, mostly negative. The Minmatar roleplayers were welcome in their despising and anger, but the comments from regular players were amusing too.

Perhaps the most indicative of the responses can be captured in this comment from Mord Fiddler of Fiddler's Edge:

Gone to CVA, hmmm?

When I saw the announcement that you were leaving RAGE and it was going to be a long haul, I wondered if M3 was crawling back to CVA.

But there's no way, I thought. Couldn't be. After what CVA done to Paxton? These guys have got way more pride than that.

Well. Seems the taste of shame and humiliation washes out of the mouth faster up North.

Must be the water

Ouch! For the record, I never felt shamed or humiliated by CVA, nor do I think anyone in my corp felt that way either. We questioned some of CVA's tactical decisions and willingness to fight, sure, but then I've questioned a lot of alliances thinking processes over time.

Regardless of his opinions on this matter, I give a high endorsement to people to subscribe and read his blog, its one of my favourites in my blog roll.

Stuff It In

So the corp is busy in the throes of another asset move to a new home. For me, I have to wait until I get enough time online to move my assets but at least it won't take very many trips.

The Wyvern has a Ship Maintenance Array like regular carriers but its 2.5 times as large (i.e. 2.5 million meters cubed) and its Corporate Hanger array is 5 times as large (at 50,000 m3). What this means is that the supercarrier can hold 5 assembled battleships, or fewer and a host of other ships. I got a battleship, two battlecruisers, and over 7 cruisers and a few frigates in my Wyvern and still have a regular carrier's worth of space left. The corp hanger is already full of mods and fuel for the ship itself (spare utility cap mods are huge) so my spare stuff is jammed into the Chimera's corp hanger. That still leaves me with 16 spare fighter bombers and a load of ship fuel, but it can wait until I have my freighter up and running again (less than a week now).

Now that everything is packed up, the hard part is next: actually making the journey.

For a supercarrier, low sec is safer and more dangerous. Safer because there are no dictor bubbles and only the Heavy Interdictor Infini-point is capable of keeping the ship in place (as supercaps are immune to electronic warfare); but more dangerous because you don't have your alliance telling you where the bad guys are in intel channels and you never know who is nearby and if that alt is a prober or just a passer by.

Its debatable if its safer to travel alone doing ninja jumps into empty systems near downtime, or to travel in a pack of capitals. The former takes a long time and if something goes wrong you are on your own, but in the latter the coordination is harder and you make a far more noticeable target. I look forward to when the corp has more supercarriers because, after all, a fleet of supercarriers is an offensive threat but a single supercarrier is a target.

This And That

1) No Fiction Friday this week or next. I'm watching the twins as the youngest carebear is at a pre-op appoint for surgery next week to fix a prematurely fused skull suture, and while I will be at work this afternoon I will be far too busy at lunch to write something. Next week is the surgery on Wednesday with a three day hospital stay so blogging will be non-existent altogether.

2) Got another load of ships up to null sec this morning before downtime. A Megathron, Rook, and PvE Tengu for me (sold some extra assets last night that gave a nice boost in ISK so went with the Strategic Cruiser), and I brought up a couple Falcons for a corp mate. I have one more ship on my "need" list, specifically a sniper HAC (thinking Eagle) but it will wait until I find a need to go back to Empire.

I'm really enjoying being back in the character and ships I'm used to. I enjoyed trying out the Minmatar ships in Kla'strit, and the Maelstrom is a PvE beast, but my heart will always be Caldari and railguns, with a sprinkling of Gallente for flavour.

3) I've been all over the skill training since completing the Tech II sentry drones. The alliance has a list of minimum reqs for cap pilots and I'm lacking in Remote Capital Hull repair and Triage mode for carriers which needs Logistics V; but I want to get a couple advanced implants installing in my carrier/supercarrier jump clone including a Talisman Omega (Cybernetics V) and a Siege Warfare Mindlink (Cybernetics V and Siege Warfare Specialist V). So I'm biting off for the implants first, then the alliance cap requirements, then Gallente Cruiser V. I keep putting those Tech II Gallente cruisers off but I will get them! Someday...

Meanwhile the alt is training for Covert Ops frigs for extra good probing, then more Planetary Interaction skills.

4) Labour Day weekend here in Canada coming up. We're not going anywhere but still will be busy hanging out at home and doing housework and playing with the kids. Quality time is important, eh? So podcast recording might be delayed or put off until Sept 13.

5) Count the freighters!

Taken at a gate near Jita. My alt is the Fenrir at the bottom.

Curses! Market Foils Me Again

Last night I was buying a Megathron and Rook and the related modules in high sec. It wasn't until about half way through I realized I was simply buying the cheapest stuff and not the cheapest stuff in Jita.

Doh! I now had stuff in 6 other stations in The Forge region besides Jita. Sigh. I contracted the stuff over to Korneilia for transport and set up the route, checking every 30 minutes or so over the evening to see if the freighter had arrived at the next system and docked up if it had to pick up one or two items.

One system was in low sec and I brought a Blockade Runner to pick up the items. Undocking there was a Hurricane ready and locked me up as soon as I started to align. Damn, lost my shields and most my armour but the two stabs in the lows ensured I escaped with my life. Thank goodness for tech II hitpoints and resists.

By the end of the evening I had everything in hold but was still five freighter jumps from base so I logged and picked it up in the morning before going to work.

I still need a few more ships but funds are running low. A donation of ISK to the corp for an infrastructure project along with these new ships have left the wallet running low, and the next paycheque from EON magazine is a while off. Might have to actually work for my ISK again! I can sell a couple of Kla'strit's ships that he doesn't need now that he's not in m3 anymore, and I am sitting on a pile of Graviton research points that Kirith has been building up for a long time that I can cash in for datacores.

Regardless, I have enough ships for null sec to participate in any PvP on this Sunday night. If we end up to be plexing, I can break out the mission running Rokh for now.

Meh, Its Only Worth a Billion

Last night while watching the kids I organized the carrier jumps from Teshkat in Task Murkon region to The Forge in the north, a total of three jumps. My alt would autopilot-trundle through high sec and then we would do the minute jump routine and then trundle to the next point while I was tackled by the carebears.

I've become very cavalier with my Chimera. Leaving Teshkat there was three reds in system and in the old days I would have never undocked, preferring to wait until the local environment was more placid. But last night I was like "its only a billion ISK" and undocked without even scouting the station grid. I suppose flying the 20 billion ISK Wyvern has made everything else look replaceable.

Well, there was a big nasty red Domi waiting outside the station for me but I didn't even register a pulse increase. Ctrl+space to stop without voiding the undock timer, pop the cyno in the destination system, and jump as soon as timer was clear. The Dominix tried to bump me but I was nothing but an outline of a shadow by the time he got close.

The rest of the jumps were uneventful. This morning before downtime I delivered the first load of my PvP ships to null sec and later today / tonight I'll go back to low sec to get the next load while delivering Kla'strit's mini-fleet back to empire. Once back in empire I'll do my shopping for another battleship and a few tech 2 cruisers and I should be set to go for the weekend.

It's good to be in the Ninveah again, but it feels so small and vulnerable.

Unmolested

Kla'strit finally got his security status up to -4.50 which means I can now travel in 0.5 high sec systems without faction police getting brutal on my ass. Makes getting ships into low sec a heck of a lot easier.

Cap Logistics guys are going to hate me when they see the Tempest, Maelstrom, Hurricane, Rapier, and Vagabond in the queue to go to null sec. When the Wyvern parking alt is done, I'll get the Chimera out of storage to help out again.