EVE's Premise Failure: Its Easier to Build Than Destroy

The side with the most soldiers wins. Until the other side brings a tank or two. Then the side with the most tanks wins... until the other side shows up with some aircraft. Then air superiority is the winning condition... until you start flinging nukes.

 * * * * *

EVE has been built from almost day one on bad assumptions or unintended consequences, and EVE's playerbase has been tenacious in their ferreting out every advantage and optimal solution to every game mechanic the developers can envision.

The most basic premise of EVE is that players create and players destroy. It is the flow of raw materials through the hands of the producers to create weapons for the hands of the warriors so that the warriors may destroy each other's weapons in their wars of conquest that ultimately drives the game. Where goods flow one direction, wealth flows the other; as long as there is balance, the game can progress forever.

But there is a failure in this premise, a fundamental flaw in the architecture that not even the Architect of the Matrix could have foreseen: human nature.

For all the talk that EVE is a world filled with psychopaths and trolls and thieves and criminals, we are very good at cooperation, especially in regards to accumulating wealth and building empires. While alliances and coalitions come and go, for the most part the players part of these organizations build wealth comprised of assets and capital. An alliance may lose everything as the pilots flee to low sec or a couch in a neighbouring region, but generally speaking players don't. Their wealth grows over time and the next alliance is stronger for it.

And this has created a problem.

The coalitions of today would absolutely crush the coalitions of a few years ago. Not because of pilot quality or tactics or anything else, but simply because of the sheer aggregate wealth of these organizations and their ability to put battle winning ships on the field.

For example, let's take a look at some things from a recent coalition level battle: BATTLE REPORT: SECOND 9-4RP2 TIMER PRELUDES THE START OF THE NEXT GREAT WAR.

The sub-capital composition was of the same theme for both the GSF led attackers and the NCDOT/PL/HORDE defenders; armor Machariels with logistic support. For the capital and super capital side of things NCDOT and co. use only armor based capital, and supercapital, doctrines; the attackers fielded a mix of shield, and armor, based capitals. From what I heard, GSF forces’ titans outnumbered NCDOT/HORDE ones for about a 30/40+ advantage.

 [...]
Supercarrier 0 / 154 [Lost / Fielded]

The Goons had about 30-40 more titans than their enemies. Back when I was in the Northern Coalition which was one of the largest coalitions at the time, our largest supercarrier fleets were that size. Fielding 154 supercarriers was not even conceivable, and that was just the Goons Super Carrier fleet. As a whole, EVE players are better at building than destroying wealth.

This creates a problem because as the top of the organization tree in EVE gets so overwhelmingly powerful and wealthy, new alliances or coalitions have to bend the knee to the existing powers that be or try to scurry like mice around hoping to avoid the notice of these elephants.

And still the power accumulates.

EVE cannot exists forever on this paradigm. Its remarkable, really, how long has survived with this flow of power to the top. Only the Bittervet disease reducing the ranks of the obscenely rich have slowed the top heavy accumulation of power enough to give EVE hope for over a decade, but as the battle at 9-4RP2 demonstrates, the imbalance is reaching critical levels.

What will CCP do?

The Capital Battlefield

"Siege is green, siege is green."

In space the mighty Moros and Revelation Dreadnoughts activated their weapon systems to maximum damage mode and targeted the quiet infrastructure hub just kilometers away.

"Carriers, maintain perimeter patrol," the fleet commander instructed. The four Thanatos pilots launched their light fighter squadrons and sent them to opposite direction of the grid. The fighters were loaded out for killing any surprise sub cap ships that warped in at range to scout the fleet.

"Local spike!" someone on comms announced.

"Cyno ship get ready."

"Roger," the Dominix pilot replied.

"Enemy fleet on short scan, looks like Cerbs and Basis!"

The Heavy Assault Cruisers arrived on the grid with a smattering of pops, only twenty of them supported by 5 Basilisk logistics and a Rook Recon cruiser. The supporting friendly sub-cap fleet, a kitchen sink assortment of a few battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, and frigates, about 30 all told started to move in the direction of the hostile fleet but they were almost 100 km off. Flares of heavy missiles started to streak from the Cerberus cruisers towards the ships.

"Carriers, get your fighters on those logi!"

The carriers' fighter squadrons converged on the distant Basilisk wing, trying to break the reps and weaken the enemy fleet's ability to absorb damage.

Suddenly the call went out, "Red cyno up!" and the hulking form of ten Moros Dreadnoughts appeared in support of the Cerberus fleet. The fleet commander watched in anticipation for any sign the mighty war engines were entering siege mode. Then he saw it and smiled.

"Light the cyno!" the fleet commander ordered. The Dominix pilot, sitting on pins and needles waiting for this command, hands shaking from adrenaline, moved his mouse over the icon and pressed it. "Cyno is lit!" he cried.

The enemy Moros began firing on one of the Thanatos carriers and its hitpoints dropped dramatically as its shields were metled away. "I need reps now!" Booms reverberated over the grid as friendly capitals arrived, 7 Dreadnoughts consisting of various Revelations, Moros, Phoenixes, and Nidhoggurs, an Avatar Titan, a Wyvern Super Carrier, and 4 Caliban1 Force Auxilliaries.

The newly arrived Calibans dropped into triage mode without needing a command and sent the streams of hit point restoring beams onto the beleaguered Thanatos just as she was entering structure. The Wyvern pilot fired his remote neutralizer weapon into the middle of the Basilisk wing to disrupt their cap chains and sent his light fighters in support of the carriers' fighters. The Titan fired its Pike dooomsday and sliced two enemy dreadnoughts in half, and then targeted the next enemy Dreadnought with its capital lasers.

"They're doomed," the fleet commander mused.


1 - Made up place holder name

Thought Experiment: Allowing Capitals to Go To High Sec

Some capital ships can enter high sec, and some cannot. Freighters and Jump Freighters can, Rorquals cannot. Orcas, barely a capital really, can. Carriers and Dreadnoughts and Super Carriers and Titans cannot. Its not a technical reason for disallowing certain capitals, after all they are capable of transversing stargates in null sec and and low sec. Heck, some capitals are gransfathered in from back when capitals were allowed to be manufactured in high sec, the most famous being Chribba's Revelation in Amarr system (Note: these grandfathered caps may NOT be used in any offensive capacity be decree of CCP). Its purely a game design decision at this point.

The Veldnaught in Amarr

However, its worth asking the question if the game has changed enough to remove the restrictions.

Pros

Here's why I think it could be a good reason to allow combat capitals and Rorquals to have access to high sec once more.

1) New Content for High Sec - All those high sec players who refuse to go to low sec or null sec can now explore what having these super large ships is like. It will also give high sec wars another level to escalate to, and new targets for suicide gankers to stalk.

2) More opportunities for new missions / exploration content - With high sec capitals available, the developers can explore new high level missions and exploration sites that are designed around capital gameplay.

3) Interesting logistic questions for low sec / null sec organizations - Allowing capitals to jump into high sec and travel through it could pose some interesting choices for groups. Do they spend the fuel and jump or travel through relatively safe high sec? Then it opens up the question if war declarations to prevent your opponents from using high sec in this manner is useful.

4) Stabilize capital markets - With capitals able to go into high sec, the market would flourish there in relatively safety and prices would stabilize and standardize. 

Cons

1) What do you do about capital manufacturing? - If you allow manufacture of all capitals in high sec, it will destroy the low sec manufacturing industry (including myself) and probably hurt null sec manufacturers. If you don't allow it, why not? It seems just as arbitrary as not allowing capitals into high sec and excludes content from high sec, etc.

2) Escalation of high sec war declarations to capital blobs - I mean, you already have the problem of high skill point and rich players dominating combat in high sec, but allowing capitals would only exacerbate the issue ten fold.

3) Destroys logistical hard choices - Just like allowing jump freighters into high sec massively simplifies a lot of logistical issues, allowing all capitals into high sec could simplify fleet movement for groups.

4) Diminishes regional markets for capitals - Less of a concern but still worth thinking about, maybe we want volatile isolated markets with wildly different prices. Stabilization might be bad for the small time producers (like myself).

* * * * *

Outstanding Questions

1) What do you do about cynos? I mean, if you allow all capitals to jump into high sec, do we still want the cyno prohibition? Or is it outdated?

2) Would the Rorqual make the Orca obsolete for serious mining operations? Do we care?

3) What would 50 titans doomsdaying the momument in Jita look like?

Your thoughts?

Capitalizing the Changes - Part 2

Yesterday I laid out the current situation facing combat capitals in the proposed FozzieSov sovereignty system. It can be summarized thus: the new system takes away the niche of structure grinding from capitals leaving them adrift in the changed meta.

So today I'm going to lay out my ideas for changing the four combat capital classes of ships to adapt to the new sovereignty mechanics as well as the new meta in low sec, wormhole space, and perhaps beyond.

WARNING: This post is not for the timid.

BRACE FOR IMPACT!

Rationalization

One of the most striking features of Tiericide for the sub-capital ship classes has been how the amorphous blob of ships of various power levels was transformed into ships with defined roles.

This has two benefits: first it prevents ships from being obsoleted by better ships with the same role but superior stats (i.e. the old tier method), and secondly it makes the ships easier to balance when they have a specific main role they are supposed to accomplish as opposed to jack-of-all-trades multi-role. There are downsides too, such as pigeon-holing ships to specific roles and limiting player inventiveness and counter-expectation fitting, but overall I think these concerns have proven to be insignificant and the health of the overall sub-capital meta is extremely good right now.

Capitals, on the other hand, with the notable exception of the Dreadnought, are multi-roled ship classes with many of them overlapping roles with other classes, especially in the direct damage department. For example, all four have considerable direct damage applications, every one except dreadnoughts can do warfare linking, and both carriers and super carriers have bonuses to logistical modules. Yes, there are marked differences between the classes and the exact best application for each varies, but the fact remains that its a muddled mess that is hard to balance and find appropriate roles for in light of a structure-grinding-less future.

With all that being said, onward to my ideas.

Proposal

Let's start with the easiest and work our way to the hardest. Or another way to think of it, the least radical proposals to the most.

Dreadnought - this ship class needs no changes in my mind because it hits the sweet spot in several dimensions. It has a specific singular role and it does it exceptionally well, its not an insurmountable barrier to entry to any area of space, it has applications in null, low, and wormhole space. Even a blob of dreadnoughts does not guarantee success against all comers as the slow tracking weapons and lack of mobility limit their effectiveness on smaller targets. This ship class should be the starting point of any refactor and rebalance as an exemplar of capital ships done correctly.

Carrier - This one is a hard one because despite having many roles, the carrier class overall is in a decent place especially since drone assist has been identified as a problem and is being addressed. That being said, a class that is good at so many roles squeezes out other class from being in some of those roles. So in the end I think its time to break up the carrier's abilities to make the class more focused and leave room for another class to take over some of the roles.

Currently, a carrier can do a lot of things: Combat via fighters and drones; space healing via logistic modules and ship bonuses and Triage mode; moving ships and modules in the Ship and Fleet hangers; allowing in-space fitting changes via the Ship Maintenance Array; and most rarely providing warfare link boosting. In my experience, players first set out to get a carrier for its hangers to allow them to move their assets from base to base, and later on as the player becomes more of a  veteran than move to using carriers for combat roles, most usually in the uber-logistics triage mode supporting a fleet. Alternatively, experienced null players use fleets of carriers in remote repping mobs with hordes of drones as a powerful but slow moving combat fleet.

I'm proposing that carriers are rebalanced only for space combat and space healing roles and the other roles are removed. *Waits for uproar to die down* Yes, I realize that is a huge change but the jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-a-few is crowding out other ship class possibilities from flourishing or even existing. This means removing the role bonus for Warfare link modules (its mostly useless anyways) and removing the ship maintenance hanger/array and either removing the fleet hanger (with a boost to cargo bay size and/or fuel bay) or shrinking it.

Concurrent with this proposal, I think the cost of the carriers should drop by about 25%, a new capital class ship that has a Ship Hanger and jump drive should be introduced (kind of like a Jump Bowhead) for players to maintain the ability to move their stuff, and my super carrier changes coming up next are also implemented.

(I considered going even further and removing combat capability from carriers and making them pure capital sized logistics but I'm not sure that is completely necessary.)

Super Carrier - Ever since CCP turned these monsters from Motherships into Super Carriers they have suffered a series of nerfs: no more non-fighter drones, reduction in number of drones in space at once (with boost in Fighter Bomber damage to compensate), jump range reduction, jump fatigue... and now, one of the things they are still the best at, structure grinding, is going away under the Fozzie Sov system. Poor supers!

I think its time to acknowledge that we don't need another pure damage dealer on the capital scale between Dreadnoughts and Titans. Instead I think its time to take this beast back to its Mothership roots. I envision a ship that a fleet uses as a rally point in extended battles, a mobile defensive base where pilots can reship and regroup without having to put a POS in system.

To this end, I say that the class keeps the large ship hanger, maintenance array, and fleet hanger. It should keep its Fighters and Fighter Bombers, but lose the warfare links (there are better ships for that role) and the bonuses to remote repping modules. Instead give the ship a unique module (or cool Tactical Destroyer like mode shifting) where it can enter "Depot" mode which allows it to project a POS-like force field (20 km radius?) with boosted resists and lots of hitpoints. However, when in Depot mode the ship is immobile and cannot jump, and the cycle for the mode is 30 minutes long (i.e. short enough to not be a major time commitment and long enough to pose a serious risk). Also, while in Depot mode it can still use its fighter bombers and Remote ECM burst. I would think that there would be restrictions much like Deployable mobile structures about where it can be deployed to prevent exploits like activating it right next to a gate to make the gate effectively blockaded or on a station undock, etc, and I think the ship should not be able to receive remote reps or cap while in this mode.

I can see this class becoming a focal point for fights as fleets attempt to use it to resupply in a pitched battle and the opposing force moves to try and destroy them while they are locked in place.

"What happens if someone plops a fleet of these on grid together?" As long as the restrictions on where Depot mode can be activated includes "Not Within 30 km of another Depot Super Carrier" I don't see any issue. Its no worse, IMHO, then the current situation when someone jumps in a Super Carrier fleet except that their utility is currently lower under FozzieSov with fewer targets to grind.

Titan - Much like the Super Carriers, the Titan class has received a number of nerfs over the years as CCP realized that massed fleets of these ships were capable of widespread devastation with very little in the way of reasonable risk, the occasional Asakai or BR- battle notwithstanding. Today the class stands at a relatively decent position in comparison to carriers and super carriers, even under FozzieSov as its dual roles of  Line Breaker (with its Doomsday and large racks of capital weapons and damage bonus) and Jump Portal still have useful applications.

However, the Titan class presents a problem in that its roles are mutually exclusive (i.e. you can't be both a jump portal pig on the back line launching fleet of battleships or whatnot to battle AND a front line flagship breaking apart carriers and dreadnoughts) and the second role, that of jump portal platform, presents a significant advantage to forces that have that at their disposal compared to forces that do not have one at their disposal. This disparity is evident in null sec and low sec; in null sec alliances with Titans have more tactical flexibility to maneuvure their sub-cap fleets (prior to Phoebe they had a lot of tactical flexibility as well but that's been reduced), and in low sec the divide is even more marked as a corporation or alliance with even a single Titan can dominate a region of low sec against alliances without that asset. Black Ops Battleships with the Covert Jump Portal Generator does address some of this divide as its much easier to obtain a 1 billion Tech II battleship than it is a Titan, but since the power versus cost investment ratio of the ships you can send through the Covert Cyno is significantly lower, e.g. a fleet of battleships with tech 2 logistics versus a handful of Stealth Bombers and Recons.

To that end, I think its time to break the Titan class in two: the primary main class keeps the doomsday and capital weapons and bonuses but loses the jump portal, clone vat bay, warfare linking and bonus to fleet members. As a result, I think the cost of the Titan in this version as a Super Dreadnought should be dramatically lower. In conjunction, a new capital (not super cap) ship class is introduced which we'll call the Mothership class which will fit the clone vat bay and the jump portal generator. This will be more expensive than a dreadnought but less expensive than a Super Carrier, will be able to dock, and have virtually no offensive or defensive capabilities.

This smaller ship class would bridge (HAHA Pun intended!) the gap between the small-medium corporations that do not have anyone with access to a Titan and those that do, lowering the barrier of entry to hot-drop/counter-hot-drop gameplay and the interesting emerging outcomes that spawn from that facet of the game.

* * * * *

There you have it, my vision for capital ships in the post FozzieSov universe. Instead of four classes of ships with multiple overlapping roles you have six ships with specific and interesting roles:
- Carrier : Logistics Platform
- *New* Jump Bowhead : Space Trucking
- Dreadnought : Capital DPS
- Super Carrier : Mobile Assault Base
- Titan : Anti-Capital DPS
- Mothership : Jump Portal Generator

These more focused classes will be easier to balance and provide a more gradual progression of power and expensive from the sub capital classes.

Capitalizing The Changes - Part 1

What is to become of capital ships?

Dominion sovereignty is a beast that requires millions of hit points per structure be ground out in order to take control or systems and stations from your enemies. This put upwards pressure on fleet size and ship size in order to maximize time efficiency that, when combined with a maturing demographic with more skill points and ISK to utilize as well as the realization that a super cap blob is in effective immune to being defeated by anything else except another super cab blob, pushed null sec alliances to create large standing fleets of capital and super capital assets in order to be competitive in null sec warfare. In contrast to the downward pressures we've seen in many changes to ship balance over the past couple years, this upward pressure had not been addressed up until the Phoebe changes came into effect last fall which severely limited the tactical and strategic power of capital ship fleet movements.

And now the Fozzie Sov changes proposed for this summer will remove a major motivation for having these fleets as sovereignty warfare will no longer require grinding millions of hitpoints, thus the only remaining upward pressure will be their opponents capital fleets, and like a table with two legs removed (strategic/tactical flexibility and maximization of firepower required) the upward pressure will wobble and eventually topple. If your opponent never needs a capital fleet to attack your sov, why would you expend resources to maintain your own capital fleet?

So back to the opening question, what is to become of capital ships?

CCP Fozzie and others have stated many times that capital ships severely need a turn through the rebalancing machine to turn the classes into something that is more properly integrated into the overall EVE ship meta. But what exactly does that mean? What role should capital ships have?

Note: I'm only talking about the four combat capital ships: Carrier, Dreadnought, Super Carrier, and Titan. The industrial capital ships (Rorqual, Orca, Freighters, Jump Frieghters, and Bowhead) are outside the purview of this discussion and have little effect on it regardless.

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

In any game your ultimate goal is to have a circular balance between choices: choice A is superior to choice B, and choice B is superior than choice C, but choice C has some advantages over choice A. We see this in classic games such as chess and Stratego where there is a distinct hierarchy in power of the pieces but the weakest piece has power to rival the most powerful in certain scenarios (e.g. pawn promotes to Queen, Spy kills Marshal).

We also see this balance in modern computer games like World of Tanks where the five classes of tanks all have advantages and disadvantages when compared to each other:
- Light tanks are most mobile but weakest guns and armour
- Heavy tanks have big armour and guns but slow
- Medium tanks blend mobility with guns and armour but have less mobility than light tanks and less firepower/armour than heavy tanks
- Artillery has big guns with long range but super slow and no armour
- Tank Destroyers have big guns but lower armour and mobility

In order to be successful in World of Tanks all five classes need to work together in a coordination fashion, leveraging the strengths of the other classes and covering their weaknesses.

The current 'balance' such as it is in EVE for capitals seems more to be the latter with carriers at the bottom and Titans at the top (but no spy to bring down the marshal). Of course, its not as simple as that so let's take a closer look at the classes before we propose any radical changes.

Fleet Inspection

Carriers - Eventually almost every long term player owns a carrier. At one time it was the most efficient and practical solution to moving your stuff and other people's crap from point A to point B. It probably still is even with the Phoebe changes to jump range and the addition of jump fatigue because nothing compares to 1 million meters cube of assembled ship carrying capability, 40,000 meters cubed hanger for stuff, ability to jump, AND can dock at stations.

But not only are carriers great at moving stuff logistics, they also have considerable combat capability. They are one of only two ship classes that can use Fighters which can chew up battleships, and they are the pinnacle of space healing Logistics as they can use capital sized versions of the repair and cap transfer modules AND have the ability to go into triage mode which makes them even better at the role with super lock speed and longer ranged and more powerful reps.

Carriers are simply the Swiss Army knife of capitals.

Dreadnoughts - On the other hand, you have the counterpart to carriers which has two modes: damage dealer extraordinaire, or it can go into siege mode and be the "MORE DEEPS" damage dealer extraordinaire but with the risk of being immobile for five minutes.

Dreadnoughts are the hit-man of EVE when you have a target with lots of hitpoints. When battleships are not doing the job fast enough, you call in some dreads and they go siege green for a cycle or two and usually that's enough to take out almost any target not receiving active reps. It has to be a very specific type of target too, i.e. on that is not moving hardly at all because those capital guns do not have tracking or explosion speeds worth talking about.

Unlike carriers, Dreadnoughts do not do anything else.

Super Carriers - They are just like carriers except bigger, right? WRONG! They share some similar characteristics such as the bonus to logistics modules range, a large ship hanger for moving assembled ships, a large fleet hanger for moving other stuff, ability to use fighters, and all on a larger scale than the ubiquitous carrier, but it comes with a few other traits that turns it into another class entirely.

For one thing, no triage module so the effectiveness of its space healing is a fraction of what the carrier can accomplish. Secondly, it cannot dock so the ease of use of its carrying capacity is severely downgraded compared to the smaller carriers. Third, instead of fighters the super carrier class usually has Fighter Bombers which are better suited to striking large immobile or super slow moving targets for tonnes of damage whereas fighters are more capable against smaller targets. Finally, super carriers represent a massive investment of capital, more than 15 times that of a single carrier, so their use has to be carefully managed or one slip up and its gone as every hostile in thirty systems will come shoot you if you get caught to get on the killmail.

What this means is that super carriers tend to be used for the specific role similar to dreadnoughts where they jump in, use their fighter bombers to assassinate a large slow or immobile target, and then jump out.

Titans - This ship class suffers from a dual personality. On one hand, it has a capital-ship-only doomsday weapon and a fierce array of capital sized weaponry (for example, the Ragnarok can fit 6 turrets and has a 125% bonus to Capital Projectile Turret Damage per level of Minmatar Titan skill). But on the other hand, its more often used for its ability to fit a Jump Portal and sling fleets to destinations light years away on unsuspected (or suspecting as the case may be) targets, not to mention its warfare linking bonus which is less often used but still is a support role mechanic as long as off grid boosting is a thing.

To add a little to the confusion is that Titan's sport huge ship maintenance arrays (5 million m3), large fleet hangers (100,000 m3), and clone vat bays which seems to imply that its to be used in a logistical manner for moving war materiel from deployment to deployment.

So is the Titan a front line combat vessel, or a support vessel?

* * * * *

So that is the current state of capitals and the reduced role they face in light of sovereignty requiring no structure grinding on any scale. Next post I'll discuss my ideas for revamping combat capitals into a more holistic design that will fit into the new realities going forward.

CCP: Its Almost Too Late

I read this excellent article by The Mittani on TheMittani.com about super capitals:

You ever wonder why you don't hear stories about scrappy groups from NPC 0.0 trying to take sov space and getting smacked down by the blocs who attempt to defend their territory? In theory this should happen all the time. In practice, it almost never does.

There's a 'You must be this high to ride' bar in front of sov null. Unless you are a bloc or are backed explicitly or implicitly by a bloc you're not going to get to get a slice of sov - and supercapitals are entirely to blame.

Whoever has the biggest supercapital group near a quadrant can ensure that an organization trying to gain entrance into sov null or build up any real capital fleet in NPC 0.0 gets utterly splattered. You want to try to build up a capital group in lowsec? Good luck deploying against a tower without someone in a bloc finding out and dropping a pile of bored supercarrier pilots on you. You want to build up or buy enough supers that you can take down sov structures without seriously questioning your life choices? You need to have more than a bloc can destroy to prevent them dropping on you - which means you essentially must be a bloc already.

I agree with everything written in there because I've been saying the same things here for nearly four fucking years (post Capitals Online, Oct 2010):

4) There is no effective counter-measure to supercaps other than other supercaps. While it is possible to destroy a Titan or supercarrier with only sub-cap ships, you need effectively a perfect storm of conditions to do so: a tackled ship, a few hundred of your allies, hope your opponent does have a hundred or so of their sub-cap ships, and enough DPS to kill the ship in 15 minutes if he logs off. On the other hand, a small handful of supercaps can hotdrop a tackled titan and kill it in a few minutes.
But beyond that, a fleet of enemy supercaps can't be stopped by anything outside of a fleet of your own supercaps. Or a hell of a lot of regular capitals or metric shitton of well coordinated sub-caps, neither option which is very feasible for your average every day operation. Thus "supercap blobs" are well nigh un-counterable, and POS defenses are inadequate to deter these fleets.
Fundamentally, you need supercaps to deal with enemy supercaps.

The stagnation in null sec is killing the game CCP, and its really starting to show. You're running out of time.

Its a Start EDIT Not So Much

Loving this post from CCP Fozzie:

Hello everyone!
In the upcoming Summer release we are making a lot of changes that we expect will impact player behavior surrounding manufacturing, mining and starbase use. We see an opportunity here to make some adjustments to the way that Jump Drives consume their isotope fuel that will hit a few birds with one stone.
The goals of this change are:
Stimulate the isotope (and therefore ice) market to help cushion any drop in demand from players using smaller starbases after the science and industry slot changes.
Help encourage cost competitiveness for local resource gathering in nullsec.
Although we don't expect this change to significantly impact behavior around jump drive power projection, it should at least provide a small incentive change through higher costs for moving huge capital fleets often.

The plan for this release is to start with a 50% increase in the fuel cost of all jump drives and jump portals, and adjust further if necessary once we see the results. This change applies both the the base consumption of ship based jump drives, as well as the isotope consumption per kg of mass on all jump bridges and portals.
We will also be increasing the fuel bays on all jump capable ships (and the fuel storage on starbase jump bridge arrays) by 50% (60% for Black Ops Battleships) so that they do not need to refuel more often.
For reference, this will increase the cost of running a max skilled Rhea from Jita to RIT-A7 (jump drive transit the whole way) from ~50m isk to ~75m isk.

The tears from capital and supercapital pilots have already started and the reasons are not hard to see why: Carriers and Supercaps carry large reserves of fuel in fleet hangers which are not getting a size boost. Therefore this is a huge nerf to their independent range. In order to have the same power projection they enjoyed so easily before, they will have to coordinate refueling more often. Not to mention the cost of running these ships is a lot more expensive (but still trivial to these vastly wealthy players TBH).

Its not much of a huge change overall but its a start to nerfing capital power projection.

EDIT: After I posted this, CCP Fozzie responded to feedback and changed the post from upping the fuel bays on ships to reducing the isotope size:

Hello everyone!
In the upcoming Summer release we are making a lot of changes that we expect will impact player behavior surrounding manufacturing, mining and starbase use. We see an opportunity here to make some adjustments to the way that Jump Drives consume their isotope fuel that will hit a few birds with one stone.
The goals of this change are:
Stimulate the isotope (and therefore ice) market to help cushion any drop in demand from players using smaller starbases after the science and industry slot changes.
Help encourage cost competitiveness for local resource gathering in nullsec.
Although we don't expect this change to significantly impact behavior around jump drive power projection, it should at least provide a small incentive change through higher costs for moving huge capital fleets often.

The plan for this release is to start with a 50% increase in the fuel cost of all jump drives and jump portals, and adjust further if necessary once we see the results. This change applies both the the base consumption of ship based jump drives, as well as the isotope consumption per kg of mass on all jump bridges and portals.
To compensate for the extra isotopes that ships will need to carry, the volume of all four isotopes will be reduced by 1/3, to 0.1m3. Thanks to Resgo for some excellent feedback.
The storage volume of jump bridge starbase structures will be increased by 50% since Ozone volume won't be changing.
For reference, this will increase the cost of running a max skilled Rhea from Jita to RIT-A7 (jump drive transit the whole way) from ~50m isk to ~75m isk.

So the price of jumping will still be higher, but not limited by space in the ships. :(

B-R5RB Report from an Nulli Secunda Pilot

I was contacted by a Nulli Secunda supercarrier pilot named Grim Determination who offered to give a first hand report of the carnage in B-R5RB on Monday.

Grim Determination (GD): As a bit of a primer:

I had just awoken and turned on my computer at around 8:30 CST when my jabber pings started going off for supers/slowcats. I hesitated, as I was working from home and had a list of things I needed to get done, but the pings kept coming and I hurried to log my super in and prepare to jump in. At this point, the information passed to us was somewhat fragmentary. We knew that B-R’s sov had fallen, and that the Russians had taken up position on the station. In a bit of a bizarre twist, Pandemic Legion had started an expedition to the drone regions with the majority of the AUTZ super fleet. They had 6 jumps to take to return to B-R which they managed in less than 30 minutes. When they were one jump out of B-R, the remainder of the early EUTZ super fleet was told to prepare to jump, combat fit, into B-R. The time was approximately 10 AM CST.

Kirith Kodachi (KK): About how many pilots in fleet(s) did you have at this time? Was there any subcap fleets on your side as well?

GD:  We had approximately 200 in the slowcat/super fleet and another 150 or so dreads on standby. Subcap wise we had an interceptor/interdictor fleet or two.

The jump in was uneventful, with the super fleet sorting its capchains and getting ready for the wrecking ball. At this point, only the Supers and slowcats had jumped. The titans and Dreads were holding put. We warped in on the station, and found an enemy dread fleet, domi fleet, and other supporting ships. We deployed bubbles around our own fleet for protection, something that would later come to haunt us to a small degree.

Primaries were called for the slowcats, and early on, the supers were primarily there for rep support. Domi’s were dying under volley fire from the slowcat sentry drones, and reps were holding on rep targets. At the time there were approximately 800 in local, TIDI and module lag were reasonable.

KK: What's reasonable? I haven't fought in null sec under tidi so I was wondering if 50% was reasonable, or 75%, etc?

GD: TIDI was between 10 and 25%. It maxxed at 10% when 1300 players were in system. The highest I saw local was 2,600 or so. TIDI was bearable because the lag was minimal and we could follow the orders given.

Things began to escalate, and CFC titans jumped in, prompting the immediate call for all friendly titans to jump to a cyno lit in the middle of the slowcat/super fleet. Dreads were called for as well, and the tidi maxed out at 10%. The module lag was still bearable, and CFC primaried the first N3/PL Titan. Around the same time, the first primaries were called for the super fleet, and we chewed through 15-20 dreadnaughts. During that period, it was a bit of a shock to us that CFC had primaried a PL titan and were chewing through it. Reps on all non-titan targets were abandoned, and several archons died to the subcap fleets. All rep power was focused on the friendly titan, and its death was slowed. But even the approximate 400-500 friend Capital armor reps could not stop the titan dying. The first titan died, then another, and the supers stopped trying to kill dreads. Titan primaries were called, and friendly doomsdays were slamming into them. Bynoon, the module lag was close to unbearable. Every action triggered the “Soul Crushing Lag” popup box, and the average server call time was 9 minutes for me.

What does that mean in practical terms? Here’s an example. A friendly titan was called as a rep target. 3-5 minutes would pass before it showed in the broadcast window. 7-9 minutes would pass before I could successfully lock the target. It only took “4 seconds” (40 seconds with tidi) for the graphical circle to go around in the screen, but another 8 minutes would pass as it flash “locked” before it showed as a target in the target window. At this point the friendly titan was at 60% armor. I activated my capital armor repairers. ANOTHER 9 minutes before they activate on the target. His armor is now at 5%. This was repeated throughout the day, and it was almost impossible to save anything. The early ratio was 2 N3/PL titans dead for every CFC titan dead, a ratio that continued throughout the day and into the night.

KK: With so much time between command-action-reaction, how do you keep engaged over such a prolonged fight?

GD: We literally had no choice, by this time we were not only surrounded by our own anchorable bubbles, but we had hundreds of dictor and hictor bubbles around us. It was taking about an hour for CFC titans to die, and less than that for ours to. Another thing I forgot to mention, the CFC/RUS forces bubbled and blockaded our staging systems, which prevented much in the way of N3/PL reinforcement outside capital ships. This turned out to be a significant factor.

By 3PM CST, my local d-scan looked like this: http://eve-dingo.com/formRecive.php?id=GFObpJY (edit: see images below) a terrifying spectacle of the biggest capital/supercapital fight in EVE’s history. Dreads and carriers were irrelevant. Supers were ignored as unworthy of doomsdays, all that mattered was the soul crushing lag as titans died, one by one. Around this time, the CFC started to clear the bubbles around it, and their titans under fire would attempt to jump or warp. Several managed this, but the rapecage bubble around the N3/PL titans prevented the same tactic there.

One of the unmentioned elements from the fight, was the effectiveness of the CFC/RUS domi fleet. 300 domis would neut whichever titan the CFC primaried, drastically reducing the uptime for their active hardeners, and in my opinion, the biggest reason for the 2:1 titan death ratio. I don’t know who their FC was, but he did an amazing job.

KK: Was there a counter-part subcap fleet for N3/PL side?

GD: Other than the interceptor fleet, no.

Another unmentioned thing, was that drones were very finicky. Early on in the fight, drone assist triggers would use sentries to great effect, but by the time the 3rd or 4th titan died, drone assist no longer worked, and the majority of the sentries and fighter bombers would not fire. The fight was largely Titans and dreads vs. Titans and dreads. Even when fighter bombers worked, the TIDI, soul crushing lag, and distances they needed to travel rendered them next to useless.

At 4PM CST, the node appeared to stagger, and many of us thought it had crashed, but 5 minutes later, it sputtered back to life and the fight resumed. Also around this time, many people had connection issues. I DC’d and came back and the targets I had locked showed as still locked, but I could not activate modules on them. I DC’d again at 4:45 CST and was unable to log back on. Real life intervened and I couldn’t return to my computer until after 10PM. Reports from participants told me my nyx had never disappeared, so I managed to log back in, after 20 minutes of attempts and lag. By this time it was clear things were bleak for the N3/PL forces. We were bubbled beyond belief and the rate we could kill titans had slowed. Oaths were sworn that we would rebuild and overcome, and the orders were given to save what you could. I managed, with some help from a corp dread on the field, to kill the anchored bubbles near me and MWD slowly out of the HIC bubble I was in. I jumped, and my foray into B-R was over.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&view=kills&plt_id=451305&m=1&y=2014


KK: Did a lot of pilots on your side report similar connection issues?

GD: Yes, a significant number would DC and take 15 minutes to come back. But never more than a small fraction were gone at any given time.

KK: In terms of impact, does the N3/PL feel the battle was a major or minor blow to their war efforts, or somewhere in between?

GD: It will have an effect on N3/PL’s ability to make war, without a doubt. Several of the titans we used as bridge titans were destroyed, so formups will be harder until they’re replaced. But the coalition command has been adamant we’ll keep fighting.

KK: If a similar fight was about to happen in the future, would you and others jump in again or is there some trepidation now?

GD: Honestly, around about 4 PM I stopped worrying about my Nyx, if it died, it died. I was glad and relieved to get it out when I was able to, but yes I would jump in again if I was ordered to. There was no screaming or scapegoating or blame for the B-R fight, we had no choice but to go “All-in” and in EVE, as in poker, going “All-in” is no guarantee of victory. I think that in some ways B-R demystified supercapitals in EVE, they’re no longer invulnerable giants when they travel in packs, held as a club over the other side. They’re just as killable as any other EVE ship.

KK: Awesome, thanks for the interview!

It Was Only A Matter Of Time

For those living under a rock, this summary of yesterday's events are very concise and, as far as I can tell, accurate.

B-R is in a region currently involved in the ongoing war, and had been used by PL/N3 as a forward staging ground in this conflict for their fleet. Allies of N3/PL Nuilla Secunda (S2N) were found to have failed to maintain their sovereignty over the system, and once discovered by the Russian alliances affiliated with CFC, the attack began. RUS forces first established a foothold, sending a fleet in and capturing the system station preventing access to anyone from N3/PL. They then began contesting control of the system with their own TCU (Territorial Control Unit) while attempting to eradicate the S2N’s own TCU.

As things tend to do in Eve, it quickly escalated. N3/PL brought forth their full force against the RUS, trying to end the battle before it begun by removing the RUS forces and restoring control of the system. Before they could do this, CFC forces arrived and a full on battle begun. 

Trading blows hour after hour, Not only the reported Titans were being destroyed on both sides, but super-carriers, dreadnaughts and carriers all descended upon this system to reinforce both sides fleets. 

After numerous hours of fighting, the gap between the losses became insurmountable for N3/PL and while for a time it had been a one for one loss on titans, the scales tipped in the favour of CFC who continued to take down these colossal ships while minimising their own losses. 

The TCU finally online, N3/PL ordered a retreat and while this is being typed now, CFC and its allies are still chasing down and destroying the remnants of the N3/PL forces. 

As previously shown, the real world cost of these galactic exploits can be assessed, and thus far several trillion ISK of damage has been done, approximately equating to $300,000, with an unconfirmed 60+ Titans lost from the N3/PL fleet and 30+ from the CFC side along with numerous other smaller ships. The previous largest battle, (Uemon), saw 12 Titans destroyed and 1 Trillion ISK of damage in comparison, so at this time this has been the largest Battle both for Damage value and Titan loss in EVE history. 

CFC appear to have won the battle of BR-5RB, but for the time being the war rages on.

It took a perfect storm of events for this battle to occur.

First off, you needed a "surprise" battle. Its not coincidence that most of the biggest battles in EVE happen via a sudden unexpected (a least by one side) turn of events. Battles like Asakai, but not such much like 6VDT-H. Preparation and second thoughts tends to make one cautious and allow the weaker side time to realize they are weaker and going to lose, but spontaneous battles are much more up for grabs by the bold and leads to escalation very quickly, especially in the age of Time Dilation where it is easy to reinforce and much harder to extract.

Secondly, you need two large coalitions with roughly equal forces not only in terms of pilot numbers but also in terms of super capital assets with which to throw at each other. No one is going to throw their super capital forces at an enemy they know can escalate beyond retaliation.

Thirdly, you need massively rich core organizations. Not only a lot of pilots, but a lot of pilots who can afford super capitals and not be afraid to lose them. It doesn't matter how your core organization/pilots got rich, either through space capitalism or space communism, you just need the ISK.

Fourthly, the servers need to handle the load and not crash before the bulk of the causalities start rolling in. Out of all the factors involved in allowing yesterday's fight, this was the biggest surprise and I'd love to hear how it came about. Were the number of pilots more manageable? If so, why? Did drone fleets not get deployed? Did the combatants tell small sub cap fleet pilots to stay home? Did CCP do something different? I'd be willing to bet the same battle would not have happened on a weekend.

Regardless, a battle like BR-5RB was inevitable as the massive coalitions in null sec continue to stockpile ever increasing amounts of super capital assets, and thus a willingness to deploy them to a pitched fight. The first factor is a bit of a random draw and BR-5RB had the added bonus of not only being a surprise fight but one with stakes for both sides on the line: for Pandemic Legion and friends, a massive capital fleet was in that station that they could not evacuate before getting locked out; for CFC and their Russian allies, a chance to lock said assets down and knock a serious blow to the enemy in the long war.

In the end, this battle will be remembered as one of the most exciting things of 2014 and while I'm glad I didn't have to suffer through the tidi I am sad I was not a part of it. Now we have the rest of the week to see the analysis and the outcome of this huge fight.

Eraser

In a post called "Nullsec Is Worth Saving" the prominent blogger Mord Fiddle put out an idea for saving nullsec:

Happily,nullsec can be saved. And the solutions is a fairly simple one that does not require major surgery.

1) Eliminate supercapitals - Remove them entirely. This class of ship, more than any other, is responsible for nullsec's current state. Without supercapital drops and bridges the area over which a nullsec alliance or coalition can project force will be significantly reduced as will the the speed with which they can react to threats. This will shrink the amount of space a nullsec entity can reasonably control.

2) Significantly reduce Sov infrastructure hit points so that a large subcapital fleet of barbarians with modest capital ship support can reduce it in a reasonable about of time. This will eliminate the need to have Titan-class firepower behind any play for a piece of nullsec.

Needless to say, this raised some eyebrows and comments including my own. With many people posing other possibilities to addressing super capitals without removing them entirely, Mord stood his ground and insisted that the most elegant and simple solution was removing them, leading to this exchange:

Mord Fiddle March 23, 2013 at 5:39 AM
@Chanina -

Elegance is not a function of complexity or nuance. An elegant solution is one that displays the qualities of unusual effectiveness and simplicity.
I believe the solution I've put forward meets that standard.


Kirith Kodachi March 23, 2013 at 8:33 AM
But CCP will never ever remove Supercaps. *shrugs*


Mord Fiddle March 23, 2013 at 8:42 AM
@Kirith -

If voices like yours advocate rolling over, and refuse to step up and advocate for what's good for the game, you're absolutely right.

 I was taken aback by that as I have *never* suggested we do not address the situation. I responded as such:

Kirith Kodachi March 23, 2013 at 9:06 AM
Now you're putting words in my mouth.
I never advocated for rolling over and refusing to advocate for what's good in the game. I've advocated for many unpopular positions over the years. However, I've tried to approach things with a realistic opinion of what CCP will and will not do. And from my opinion, and probably theirs, removing supercaps runs the potential of not only bad press but bad feelings with the players they consider "enablers"; the core of large null sec alliances whose influence extends far past their one/two/three/more accounts to all the people they fly with. We saw what happens with the Summer of Incarnage when the core of dedicated players stops logging in.
Also, fundamentally CCP does not remove things that are problematic in the game. Rightly or wrongly, they (and many players) would see that as a sign of surrender and weakness. Thus things get changed or new things get added to counter the problems. It is the pattern and I see no reason why they would deviate from it.
Thus, watching you tilt at windmills insisting that only removing supercaps will fix null sec and no other option is feasible is very frustrating; its a discussion that is pointless in having and I'm hoping to convince you to entertain other possibilities.

There ARE other ways to combat the problem without *completely* alienating the people with supercaps. I will continue to advocate for those ways and listen to other proposals and point out what I think will and will not work.
And my opinion is that simply removing the supercaps will not happen, and therefore will not work.

And Mord responded:

Mord FiddleMarch 23, 2013 at 3:34 PM
@Kirith -

"And from my opinion, and probably theirs, removing supercaps runs the potential of not only bad press but bad feelings with the players they consider 'enablers'".
Ah yes, the enablers. I recall them. That's the same lot that turned nullsec into a theme park after years of railing against the evils of EVE being turned into a theme park.
I notice those same "enablers" are pressing hard for Farms & Fields and Risk/Rewards (For the uninformed see last week's Farms and Fields: Metagame). But that's just them tilting at windmills, right? Crazy talk. I mean, it's not like CCP would ever break highsec just to make a bunch of "enablers" happy.
And yet there they are, heads down and battling to affect the change they want, regardless of how radical it is. It must be very frustrating to watch.
I'm open to less radical procedures. However, I haven't seen anything yet that will get the job done. It seems any nerf of supercapitals sufficient to drive meaningful change would offend the "enablers" as much as eliminating the class altogether.
A satisfactory alternative that leaves supercaps in the game is possible. However, any solution is going to require that someone besides the "enablers" stand up, raise their voices and demand change. Shrugs aren't going to make it happen.


Think of this as an opening position. My solution is quick, easy and effective. If CCP doesn't want to go that route they should find a solution to the supercap problem and and the resources to implement it.

So I decided to take my next part back to my blog. Mord has stated his "opening position": remove supercaps and balance the game around the new reality.

Even given the possibility that CCP would go that route (and rest assured, they never will) this merely move the problem from supercaps to plain old capitals. The ONLY thing that prevents large null sec alliances from fielding nothing but fleets of dreadnoughts supported by carriers is the threat of being hotdropped by supercaps! With the threat removed, Slowcats and their ilk will run wild with abandon with greater jump range than supercaps, lower cost to entry, easier to replace, and still virtually invulnerable to fleets of subcaps the same size.

In essence, Mord's solution is none at all!

But at least he has the grit to face the problem head on and be active about fixing null sec rather than being one of the people sitting around in supercapitals and complaining about the "stagnation" that they themselves have created and perpetuated. But that's a post for another day.

So in response to Mord's "opening position", I will propose my own radical solution to the supercap deadlock in null sec.

1) Reduce Jump Range Drastically

Something of a pet horse, I think that Titans and supercarriers should powerful... AND slow. Give them jump ranges such as that they can threaten the local constellation and maybe a bit next door, but not entire regions. This will cut down their tactical flexibility and allow smaller more mobile fleets to maneuver around them.

2) Take Jump Bridges from Titans

Make a new capital/supercapital class with virtually no combat ability but does (short ranged) jump bridges and has clone vat bays. Call it mothership, whatever, but divorce jump bridging from Titans. This will discourage the proliferation of Titans as they will not be dual-role.

3) Cut the Hitpoints - Drastically

Make it so that Supercarriers can take as well as twice to three times as much as a well tanked carrier, but no more. Make Titans only slightly above that. This will make them far more vulnerable to capitals allowing smaller alliances to have a weapon to use against them.

4) Deathstrike Class Subcaps!

Sadly, as I posted two years ago:

A super capital fleet in any normal reasonable situation cannot be countered by anything except another super capital fleet. This is mainly the cause of supercarriers and is due to huge effective hitpoint tanks, tactical flexibility due to jump drive, powerful DPS at all scales of combat due to drone capability, and special immunity to normal electronic warfare.

I went on to suggest a subcap ship with a weapon effective only against super caps and to a less extent capitals, but with devestating results. This would give a counter to super cap fleets in the hands of sub cap pilots.

5) Super Void Bombs

Currently Void bombs take away 1800 GJ of capacitor. Considering a Wyvern starts with 63750 GJ this weapon is nothing more than a light show. Change them to a percentage of cap neutralized, say... 75%? This would be crippling to cap fleets and subcap fleets and would be a viable weapon to countering them without taking much effort.

* * * * *

On a side note, I completely agree with Mord's point two which calls for drastically reducing hit points of structures in null sec. I understand the desire to give holders of territory a chance to respond to enemy incursions on their space in their own timezone but I think the pendulum has swung too far in favour of defenders.

Straight Lines Versus Spheres

I've been thinking about an article in TheMittani.Com that CSM 8 hopeful Mynnna wrote regarding the discussion around lowering the ranges of jump drives of capital ships. In it he describes the scenarios of living in null sec that require jump drives and the end results:

At this point, I'm sure many readers would like to point out that I'm OBVIOUSLY cherry-picking regions to make a point. They'd be half right - I am trying to make a point. The point is that even today, with the supposedly "excessively long" jump ranges there are many areas of space which can be cut off logistically from Empire by their neighbors. As a result, anyone living in those areas has a couple of choices. They can suck it up and try anyway, hoping they don't get ganked, or that they're able to defend their midpoints against the hostiles surrounding them. Or, they can blue up to guarantee safe passage, which rather defeats their reason to be there in the first place.

[...]

I could continue clockwise through regions such as Cache, Detorid, Omist, and Feythabolis, but I think the point is made. Logistical concerns alone already encourage groups to either control far reaching chunks of space to guarantee supply lines, or make nice with those who are closer to Empire, and nerfs to Jump Drive range would only exacerbate this problem. Small groups may well thrive, as they do now, but they won't be alone. After all, what is a power bloc but a grouping of smaller entities?

And on the other side of logistical concerns, warships:

How about those warships I said we'd come back to? People argue that big nullsec groups can effortlessly move across their own space in just a single jump or two, trivializing its defense, and have no problems with making trips across Eve, for they know that they can make it back before an attacker can do serious damage. Admittedly, they're correct about that - with proper preparation, moving capital forces around is relatively straightforward. Their natural conclusion is the same as before - if only the jump range were shorter, holding space would be harder and smaller groups could compete! 

It should be obvious that I disagree with this idea as well. Forcing our capital forces to make another jump or two to move around our space won't dissuade us from holding more space. We'll simply spend the extra resources and move on with our lives. Likewise, a jump drive range nerf won't dissuade someone like Pandemic Legion, famed for their ability to rapidly move capital forces across Eve. Their recent move to Uemon would have required at least six jumps from Fountain. A similar move to X-7OMU in Pure Blind for a notional CFC vs HBC war scenario is at least five jumps, while a trip to Curse to wage war on the nearby residents would take eight or more. Nerfing JDC to 15% per level would increase those numbers to nine, six and ten, respectively, and change little. A few extra accounts for more cyno alts, more prepositioned fuel stocks, all things that PL can afford. But a smaller group? They're hard pressed to do it already, and those extra accounts are a deal breaker. Making it harder to defend their own space or strike against neighbors does them no favors, either.

And to his conclusion.

Even now, the geography of Eve can make logistics difficult to those attempting to go it alone. The threat of "nyncing" alone means hostile neighbors can cut you off, nevermind the challenges of defending a midpoint POS inside enemy territory. A reduced jump range as proposed by many only makes this more difficult. Meanwhile, the increased costs (whether by requiring more jumps, or increased cost per jump or both) do little to cramp the style of already large and organized groups while simultaneously placing a larger burden on the small groups the suggested changes are meant to help. While proponents of these changes are well meaning, they're also short sighted.
Perhaps, in light of these facts, they should advocate for increased jump range instead.

Sorry for quoting so much, but its important to my point to make sure you, the reader, sees that its a well crafted and thought out response. Its hard to refute. Yet, its wrong.

I had to think a long time as to why or how it is wrong as his logic flows very nicely. Disregarding the logistical issue as I think people like me advocating lower jump ranges are not concerned about jump freighter range, I want to address two things.

He concludes that small jump ranges will encourage people to "blue up" their neighbours even more. I respond that when I look at the massive coalitions controlling space right now, can they blue up even more? Are there entities that live in deep non-NPC null sec and don't fall under the umbrella of a larger coalition? I'd like some examples please as I have my doubts.

Secondly, Mynnna spends a lot of time in the warships section of the article pointing out that shorter jump ranges won't impact the speed at which organized alliances can move their fleets, and this point I agree on. But that is not the point I think needs addressing. In December of 20101 I wrote a post titled Tactical Flexibility of Supercarriers which included this image:

Wyvern jump range with JDC IV

That image shows how many systems a Wyvern supercarrier with a pilot having Jump Drive Calibration IV can reach in a single jump from the system of Yong in Amarr space. The problem with jump capable ships is that the range they have is not in a straight line, its in a sphere from their point of origin. This tactical flexibility means than they can project power equally over all those system with only need of a small scout with cynosaural beacon as the requirement.

And I suspect this is why large alliances are so hesitant to use those super capital fleets: because they know their opponents have the same tactical flexibility.

If jump ranges of supercapitals were reduced dramatically, the power projection of capital fleets would be reduced and their tactical flexibility would be lowered while still maintaining most of their strategic influence. Yes, they would be able to cross space quickly with planning and organization, but their ability to stand on overwatch of a region or two would be hindered and might give small entities more opportunities to make use of dreadnoughts and carriers without immediate fear of super capital hotdrop.

And even reducing their jump ranges still does not address their main problem: the only counter to a supercapital fleet is another supercapital fleet. Asakai only continues to confirm this.

EDIT: I'm not saying that nerfing jump ranges is the surefire answer, but I think it should be on the table along with other ideas.

1 - Its sad that this issue has not been addressed in two years. No wonder we have a big blue donut.