The Art of Cheesecake

This one’s going to be a little different than usual. I’ll go into that a little more in a minute, but first off, let me introduce you to ‘Cheesecake’. No, not the culinary variety. Cheesecake in this instance was something that a particularly drunk Ryane Omega suggested for the Blackstar corp warcry. I’m not quite sure how it stuck, but it did and it became synonymous with PvP. For example: “Get in fleet, we’ve got cheesecake in the static” or “You just missed some epic cheesecake”.  

So, I got this idea after I’d led a null raid that had gone bad. I used to get a good return from these. Quick and easy, get some kills and be gone before anyone realises what happened. I can appreciate that it’s not always going to work out quite like that and bad runs will happen, but surely that’s part of the buzz? Surely it’s more fun taking the risk and seeing what cards you get dealt rather than waiting till you get an unbeatable hand? But losing isn’t a lot of fun and this latest one made want to stay away from taking charge for a little while.

I’d lost my mojo. This all got me thinking. How big a deal is it for an FC to be confident? As I thought about the answer, more questions started to manifest and the analysis of it all reminded me of way Sun Tzu’s Art of War analyses its own focus. Now, I don’t want to place too much weight on the book in relevance to this subject, mainly because I believe it is the most misquoted and abused text in terms of the bio’s of Eve pilots who think it’s cool to have a quote from Master Sun in some way associated with their awesome PvP prowess. And I’ll bet 9/10 of those pilots haven’t even read the book.

That’s not to say that I don’t rate the book or think it has any relevance to PvP in Eve. Having read it, I think the simple terms it uses are perhaps too broad to translate effectively into your average spaceship battle which can last from anything from a few seconds to several minutes and are often affected by the minutiae of the fight. It’s easy to see how the rendition of the book’s attacking philosophy in modern business management is an easy transition, but using those principles in Eve would already be second nature to a good FC. Especially the parts of the book that give specific advice to not shit where you eat!

The Book of the Five Rings is something I consider to have more weight behind it in terms of being able to apply fighting philosophy to serious spaceship games. Now, I’ll bet 9/10 of those pilots who misguidedly quote Sun Tzu in their pilots bio’s have never even heard of Miyamoto Mushashi. So, let’s do a quick comparison. Mushashi was a real person while historians are unsure who Sun Tzu actually was. Battles that have been attributed to Master Sun, record no mention of the man himself (at least not by that name). Battles as well as the duels that Mushashi fought in have all been chronicled. And let’s just put that into perspective – he fought duels to the death. To fight that many with confidence that you will come out the other side the victor requires balls of steel.

That word again: Confidence. How important is it? I had my own theories, but I wanted to know what other FC’s thought. I talked to a few, but ones I and had flown both with and against. (there was meant to be three, but one was unavailable at time of writing – this might get updated later).

First off is Zane Voidstalker. I’ve mentioned him before as we both had the same, humble PvP beginnings in highsec and he is a recurring fixture in Concentrated Evil, to which he recently recruited me back to before he left after becoming disillusioned with the Marmite Collective’s way of doing things. We’ve flown with each other a fair bit, from the Drake Directorate, Blackstar and in Concentrated Evil where he FC’d a 5 man fleet against 22 war targets and won (21 kills, no losses and guess who was flying as bait?). I flew against him while he was spending some time in null. Once I found out where he and Kreszch had moved out to, I couldn’t resist paying them a little visit. I made sure to take some kills off their blues while out there and both Zane and Kreszch tried to intercept me in their webbing Loki’s while their blues set up a trap to get a bit of revenge. Once I decided that they’d had enough time to set their trap, I stopped toying with my old CEVL buddies and went home – straight through the20 man fleet waiting there with HIC’s, ECM, tackle and various other fun stuff. Zane tells me those guys were raging about me getting away afterwards which made me uncharacteristically smug.

Second is Noir head honcho, AlekseyevKarrde. I did have a brief stint in Noir and have always admired that they are one of the few groups who have the skill to fight anywhere in eve. As Enigma Project, we found this out the hard way during a C3 eviction. Our objective was to set up one of the new corporations with a WH system. With all the good ones seemingly taken, I thought it was time to put the alliance through its paces and see what we could do when we pooled our resources. Looking at it objectively, there were a few mistakes. Firstly, the timing of the operation. Getting Zexxi to set up his POS for the first time while he was steaming drunk was not a good start. I already had the fleet neutralising the enemy POS, so Anselm had to talk Zexxi through it in another channel. The next derp was letting an enemy scanner get out. Ludis decided to solo the Zephyr, which was scanning from a safe without calling for interdictor support, allowing the pod to get away along with the bookmark for the WH. We did however have a small force waiting on the WH for such instances which is where derp number three comes in; The HIC pilot went AFK without telling me. The next mistake was mine in not rolling the hole instantly. We had additional ships coming to reinforce us, so we decided to mass it so it would be ready to roll when they arrived. Next mistake was from one of the reinforcements as he flew his loki blind into lowsec and started screaming for help over comms. During the confusion, Noir made their grand entrance, making short work of our WH guards, including our now at-keyboard HIC pilot. With our main fleet outnumbered and the alliance POS inadequately set up to mount any kind of defence, we were asked to leave. Well, it would have been rude to decline and true to his word, Alek let our alliance wander out with tails between our legs. Top bloke.

And then of course is me. Despite my best efforts to avoid the responsibility, I’ve FC’d almost everywhere I’ve been but when all is said and done, I probably ought to thank Psychotic Monk and his Skunkworks cohorts for wardeccing Blackstar several times and being terrible - all while we were still finding our feet in highsec. If they weren’t so bad, this might never have happened (just check out those Drakes!), and I’d never have had the confidence to take charge.

So here it is! And in the style of Sun Tzu's art of war in that several Generals add to the point Master Sun makes:

How important to you is bringing home the whole fleet?

Jay: Bringing people home is often more important than the win itself. Losses not only affect a pilots ability to PvP, but their perception of the FC. If pilots believe their FC does not care about fleet losses, the less willing a pilot is to commit in a fight. 

Alek: When I take a fleet out, I always aim for a flawless victory. When ganking that's usually not a problem, but for fleet vs fleet combat it's more of a utopian ideal instead of a reality. Still, my view is if you're not aiming to dumpster someone while bringing your fleet back intact you aren't trying hard enough. Losses are inevitable though, so while you can try to keep everyone alive it's important to not let losses rattle you so you can make a rational decision on when to tough it out and fight or start to disengage.

Zane: Well, unless its a suicide run, I like all my guys to come home.

Does it matter if the whole fleet gets whelped?

Jay: Whelps matter, dependent on the circumstances. You are never going to have a 100% win record, but a full whelp can be acceptable if both rare and for a purpose. It’s about recognising the situations where there is no escape but you can take down more than you’ll lose.

Alek: I try to avoid full fleet welps when possible since it really gets my pilots down.

Zane: If I'm only going to lose 1-or 2 guys out of a 15-20 man fleet I'm ok with that but I don't like losing a whole fleet. 

How important is confidence for an FC?

Jay: I believe it is one of the most important factors in any engagement. A lack of confidence can lead to hesitancy or indecisiveness. The fleet will see that and react negatively.

 I’ve often engaged larger fleets after recognising certain signs that might show that the opposing FC is not confident. Committing with confidence is sometimes enough to break the resolve of the opposition.

Alek: Super important. If you don't have confidence your fleet hears it and it shows in your slow decision making. If you play 100% cautiously it really lowers the targets and fights you can get so you take a fleet out for 1-2h and have nothing to show for it; not good for morale.

Zane: Very. If your not confident your fleet will feel it and they wont be [confident] either. That causes delays and that loses fights.

How do you stay positive after a loss?

Jay: It is important to stay positive and not dwell on losses. Deconstructing the engagement and recognising what could have been done differently can help, as long as it isn’t done too critically. So long as losses are learnt from, it can be taken as a positive. This applies to all pilots in the fleet. The more practised the fleet is in similar situations, the easier it is for the FC

Alek: Staying positive after a loss can be really hard, especially if A. You made an embarrassingly bad call or B. You made great calls but your pilots didn't follow them. Often times making the decision to take a break is hard because if you're this critical and passionate you're probably one of the better FCs in your organization, and your pilots need you in order to bounce back from said loss. But it's important to remember the concept of being "on tilt" which is when your emotional state is causing you to make bad decisions and have negative reactions. If you can learn to recognize this and step away from the game for a few days it will help you get back on track.

What factors can affect your confidence?

Jay: Familiarity accounts for a lot of it. Familiarity with the fleet, the pilots, the capabilities of both, the territory and the mechanics. Some people can be affected by reputation, both of FC’s and organisations. Form is also a factor. Once you are on a winning streak, the easier it is to keep on winning as can being stuck in a rut be also be hard to get out of.

Alek: Probably too many things to name but level of comfort/experience in the doctrine you're using, balanced fleet comp, trust in the pilots in your fleet, good scouting/intel, and your recent FC outcomes. Those stand out to me.

How important is it that a fleet has confidence in their FC?

Jay: Hugely. Without confidence in the FC, pilots are less willing to commit without second-guessing the FC and judging the situation for themselves. Hesitancy like this works against a fleet. Pilots without confidence in the FC are less likely to commit fully

Alek: Pretty clutch, but it's one of those things you don't really appreciate until you fight a fleet who doesn't have confidence in their commander. I've FC'd against some 0.0 fleets (wont name blocs) where key pilots would warp off in ones or twos in the middle of a pitched fight. Obviously that fleet lost, and maybe they would have anyway but they will never know because they didn't trust their FCs call to keep fighting when the battle could have gone either way.

Also those scardy ships died to cepters. That's what ya get!

Zane: Very. If they don't, they don't follow the commands as fast as they should and that lag can lose kills or cost lives. Without that confidence you will get a lot people questioning the FC to and adding there thought in as well. and that causes a mess on comms.

What are the most important elements of FCing?

Jay: Being able to understand the situation and how to deal with it, which comprises of fleet capabilities, those of the opposing fleet and local mechanics.

Alek: Confidence, good scouts, clear communication, knowledge of ships and meta, ability to read maps, and a solid understanding of how to build and run the fleet you have. Could be a great FC but if you run a kitchen sink vs an average FC who has a thought out, coordinated fleet concept which he knows very well that guy will kick the crap out of you.

Zane: You have to know your fleet and theirs from the intel right off the top of your head; their dps, their tank, and yours as well to be able to say bring this or that ship to ensure a win. If you cant and you call for the wrong stuff and engage - bye-bye fleet. The next would be confidence and that comes from just plain old getting out there and doing it. Yeah, you have to make the calls fast and be right or *pop* fleet goes down. I think being able to "size up the enemy fleet" is a good phrase for it.

How important are the actions of individual pilots in terms or brilliance/mistakes?

Jay: Sadly, mistakes are often the ones that stand out more. If one person drops the ball, the consequences are felt by the fleet. Being switched on enough to notice something that no one else has can also have a big effect. Having the wherewithal to force ECM off the field, or spend a weapon cycle or two popping light tackle are harder to notice, but can trigger a butterfly effect

Alek: At lower levels they are incredibly important but as the size of the fleet scales up it's harder for individual decisions to impact a fight. Not impossible mind you, especially for intys, interdictors, and anti support ships where independent action can have major impact on the fight.

At the fleet size my alliance usually fights at, individual piloting can make or break entire engagements. As much as possible we encourage people to constantly evaluate the fight, their role in it, and what their FC is trying to do so they can make strong plays without being micro managed. FC word is law but each pilot is responsible for their own ship, so it's a matter of communication and trust that's pretty brilliant when it works out.

The harsh reality is if you do something independently and it works you're a god. If it doesn't, you're shit and should have followed FCs orders. General rule of thumb for your readers? Dont do anything not worth getting yelled at if you're wrong :)

Zane: Very. A good pilot will know when its better to shoot something else like the blackbird de-cloaked in scram range - grab it fast. Most pilots will orbit at optimal so sometimes a call for primary may be out of his range so he knows when to ignore the FC and grab something else. Neuting targets right with staggered neuts and transversal and blah blah are all signs of good pilots that wins fights. Bad mechanics from the fleet loses fights.

We're all going on a summer Pewliday

I’m pretty sure Ludis made that word up the other day when he said “Oh, you’re on pewliday” to me upon noticing that I’d left Serene Vendetta with Jay to re-join Concentrated Evil. This may be obvious, but pewliday is a portmanteau of pew-pew and holiday and the only reason I’m mentioning this is so that I can have an excuse to use the word ‘portmanteau’.

So, yeah, Ludis had seen this before. I’d call it a PvP sabbatical, myself, but Pewliday works also. So, the idea is that if I wasn’t getting enough PvP in a particular place, I’d put a toon into a different corp so I could chill out and shoot stuff when not much else was going on back at the ranch. I’d flown with Concentrated Evil before as part of learning more about PvP and brought 13. Into F.E.R.A.L. to learn more about nullsec. This time, there wasn’t much learning involved, except for how highsec PvP worked after crimewatch.

The other motivations were completely different this time around. CEVL were now part of the Marmite Collective, who seem to polarize opinions as readily as their namesake would imply. My initial thoughts on them was that they are just a carbon copy of the 0rphanage. The irony there is that the 0rphanage’s dominance of highsec trade routes was ended by the Privateers who were assisted by Concentrated Evil and Count With Teddy Mercs (whose notable members were Cannibal Kane and Tora Bushido). Given how easy it was to break these guys up, it’s no surprise to see these high sec groups come and go like flash in the pan. This time last year, Marmite were playing second fiddle to Whores in Space, but MYM8 was still there, so the way I saw it, Tora Bushido had to be doing something right.

While I was intrigued at how Tora had managed to keep things going for as long as he had, what I was really looking for was a place where I could log on, get some easy kills to pad out the killboard while being safe enough to sit in a +5 set. For this, it was fine. But it was very different from before. Gone were the days where we'd add all the war targets to watchlist and then go hunt those foolish enough to log in and prepare traps for them once they developed a false sense of security. It seemed like Tora managed things by deccing half of Eve, and maintained this by taking huge ransoms from people to end the wars early. It made hunting pretty difficult and most of the guys tended to camp trade routes or hubs. This is not PvP. It's scarcely even actually playing the game but I can see why they do it. Without going out and working for the kills the old fashioned way, they can still kill faction battleships and freighters.

In between effortless ganks, I still had toons in Serene Vendetta. I'd not intended the pewliday to be a permanent thing, but it seemed I'd lost diplomat and recruiter privileges. Fair enough if people want full commitment, but only having 2 people turning up to PvP ops had left my appetite un-sated - plus, I can take a hint. So, time to find a new corp! I'd seen United System's Commonwealth had a recruitment post up and knew that the active members of Delete Inc had joined them and Calgura had said they were a good group. Despite threats from certain BLK members about if I ever joined up with Cal, they'd hunt me down (for which I can sort of understand - Cal can take some getting used to, but is just about the most loyal and dependable guy I've ever flown with), I got in contact and made the switch.

Straight away I was getting the type of fights that I knew I was missing. Proper small gang fights that weren't a foregone conclusion from the outset. First kill was some ex-test/ex-goon that BLK had recruited and in their home system. Apparently, he and a couple of guardians had remained on the hole after their fleet (which outnumbered ours) had run away. Just an interceptor, but an auspicious start nonetheless. The week continued with small, but frequent kills and culminating with a very enjoyable fight with Team Pizza.

Then we received a notification from CONCORD that tickled my fancy; a declaration of war from the Marmite Collective. Now, I'd made sure that I'd asked very specific question about these kind of situations to Kypp Durron before I joined and his answer was: "We don't care where your alts are..." I'm not quite sure why he put the ellipsis in there. I'm fairly convinced he wasn't sure either so I will assume it's merely a misguided way of trying to look both dismissive and clever while ending a sentence.

Also, he might not have meant it that way, but I took it as carte blanche to bring fights to these wardecs. Knowing that the guys would have been very complacent just gatecamping, (which I had seen before with Privateers after they took down 0rphanage - and in the same spot too) I was going to exploit that complacency.

We hadn't found anything to shoot at in the hole, but had found a highsec connection 3 jumps from Madirmilire. I suggested a quick expedition to not only retrieve my Orca (1 jump from the highsec) but to get some easy kills in the process. I was very quickly accused of being a spy - to which I couldn't deny, being on USYSC and MYM8 comms simultaneously. I'd never intended to be a long term fixture in Marmite anyway. Concentrated Evil was a shadow of its former self and it was sorely missing pilots like Cuckoo and Black Wrath. It wasn't just their skill that was missing, but their positively was  needed as a foil to the perpetually grumpy magic preacher. So the plan was to break up the Madi gate camp, which had dwindled in number to four very bored pilots, one of which was me. While I was making up the mainstay of MYM8's dps on the Madirmilire camp, I was also going to be bait for UYSYC. Obviously I'm not going to be applying that dps to myself, especially not in expensive tech 3's. No, Jay was there to give them a false sense of security and while they were engaging the Proteus, then hopefully they wouldn't notice the fleet moving through the next system to assist.

Sounds like a bit of a double-cross, right? Burning bridges and breaking hearts? Quite likely. But they declared war on me first and rather than have a conflict of interests, I picked a side. Plus, I didn't tell them to engage me and if any of the old CEVL guys had been around, they'd have known. As things stood, the Stiletto and the Jaguar both tackled the Proteus as soon as I decloaked. 3ulldog's Loki wasn't far behind them, leaving my Loki orbiting idly... since I was busy on the other screen, popping the Stiletto who had got a little too close to the Proteus. At this point, I called in the fleet to join in the fun. MYM8 did spot the trap before it was sprung, but it was too late. They were red-boxed and when 3ulldog called for fleet to get out, it was too late for him (although I loyally followed his orders with Jay). I had him scrammed and my fleet and I were rubbing our hands together with glee at the impending Loki killmail. Highsec Loki's were surely blinged up to the nines with deadspace and faction modules, so imagine our disappointment when this horrible, scrubbyfit appeared to disgrace the killboard. [EDIT: Hi to my MYM8 fanbois - just remember this is not supposed to be a big secret - it's a blog] 

Subsequently, I moved Jay to where my Orca was parked (already packed full of my WH gear) and dropped out of MYM8  to switch to other team. It wasn't long before we moved a fleet into highsec again and Marmite fell for a similar trap. Once again, they lost some tackle and a horribly fit HIC. One of their Vindicators got out by the skin of his teeth as he took advantage of USYSC's lack of highsec practice to execute a tactical withdrawal through a gate after de-aggressing. I was a second or two too late with tackle, but late nonetheless. The better fight was on the way home when we found a Loki, and Astarte and a Harbinger camping the highsec. The Harbinger managed to escape through the WH but the others made quite satisfying explosions. More, let's call them 'progressive' fits though, but at least they put up more of a fight than highsec's finest.

I'd elaborate on than one a bit more, but I had intended to make this post short and sweet since I haven't put anything on here for a while and I have been intended to put a post on here, but something a little different and a little special. It's actually nearly finished, and hopefully it should be a good one, but I'm not going to end this one here. I will mention a really good fight we had with Trapped. We noticed them in chain since midday, but they didn't start logging on until the evening, by which time we were itching for a fight. The only problem was our guardian pilots had logged off by then, so if we wanted a fight, the only option was to commit an Archon. Thankfully, Trapped got this one on fraps. I would have also, but I have a habit of turning off fraps if it looks like we're going to lose or I don't want people to see me de-aggressing to save ammo if enemy logi is holding. Anyway, hats off to Trapped and here is their vid: 

Baby Steps/Always Bet on Stupid

Do you remember your first Capital Escalation? Some people consider PvE a bit of a dirty word; a means to an end in an environment that breeds what some regard as the most challenging PvP in the game. It’s a taboo that teeters closely to the cardinal sin of ‘farming’ and people should only generate enough ISK to allow them to bring fights in T3’s, faction battleships and capitals. Sure, I’ve been there, so I know the fights are more fun, but to get to that point is an evolutionary step in a corporations growth. Everyone starts out making the money. When they don’t need it so much, they look for ways to throw it away.

-S.V- has just been making those first baby steps in C5 space. Without initially running the sites in RR Tengus or Archon supported Battleships to begin with, we piled straight into the escalations. I actually didn’t mind running the fleets again. With this kind of content being new to the crew, there was still that enthusiasm for it rather than the energy draining ‘do we have to shoot red dots’ faggotry I endured with BLK. Might be because these guys don’t rely on credit-carding PLEX or farming FW for ISK, but it’s more than that also. I remember a mail from one of the old-school BLKPC members just after we first moved into C5 space entitled “Our first escalations - f*cking awesome”.

So, ISK has generally been good but with the luck we’ve been getting, we’ve been needing it! Aside from teaching the guys the PvE side, they’ve been raring to test out their new toys and create some content with them. Fortunately, they share my opinion that small gang is the most fun as individual skill play more of a part in the engagements. Mistakes are easily hidden in large fleets in the same way moments of brilliance are. While both are dependent on the skills of the FC, the pilots themselves can affect the outcome far more in small gangs. I still prefer a bit of solo hunting, but I don’t mind losing ships and if more people had the same attitude, new eden would be a much more interesting place. People get hung up on just ‘winning’, hence the 300 man alliances in WH’s.

I’ve always worked on the premise you can categorise PvP in Jay-Space in two ways. The first you can attribute to the phrase “Always bet on Stupid”. I adopted this from Concentrated Evil given how wonderfully is applies in WH space (and anywhere in eve really!). This is where a pilot’s ineptitude or foolishness are the major contributory factors keeping killboards ticking over. And I’m sure most people can recall plenty of instances of this, whether personal stupidity or someone else’s.

The second type is a trap. The trouble is discerning between the two. How many times have you been watching a target and thought ‘He’s either really stupid or it’s a trap’? Personally, I don’t mind walking straight into the occasional trap, so long as I think I can make off with the cheese on the other side. The skill here is figuring out exactly how big a trap it is.

So, C4 PvP. What’s that? I don’t remember there being much of it when I used to live in one, but people have said recently that there’s more of it now. After a few weeks, I’m still not convinced but it means I have to get creative when baiting for a fight. Generally, the locals don’t want a fight, they want a gank. On this occasion, we rolled into a C4/C5. Generally, the C5 would have greater odds for finding something to shoot, but there were Russian occupants in the C4 and they were active, with a few battleships on scan. I sent a scout in and decided to go baiting in my Vargur while the fleet assembled on our side of the static.  

The occupants took their sweet time to notice me, then started messing about in scanners to see what was going on. Just when I thought things might get interesting, they all reshipped to bombers just as I heard an activation on the C5 as a Sleeper Social Club Anathema jumped in. I reported this back to the rest of the fleet and the response went:

Nat >You’re still in the site?

Jay >Yes

Nat >You’ve just reported Sleeper Social Club in the hole

Jay >Yes!

Nat >And you’re still there?

Jay >An Anathema isn’t going to kill me.

Nat >You’ve either got balls of steel or a deathwish

Dying wasn’t on my agenda for the day, however it did spring to mind that about a year ago I got a mail from a certain Chitsa Jason, who is now in SSC, regarding his CSM campaign. In particular, the line that read:

"I am sending this message to you because you are in my contacts list and I want to be on CSM. 

It usually means that I wanted to kill you at some point, we are good friends or we have talked in eve about something."

Now, I’m fairly sure I’ve never spoken to him on any of my toons, which narrowed it down somewhat. And here I was sat in a multi-billion ISK ship intentionally baiting. While the kitchen sink fleet I had waiting on the E175 could handle a small group of Russians, SSC were another matter entirely [edit: Jay wasn’t the toon that got that mail –sad panda-].

It took longer than I expected, but the scout had obviously found where I was and I heard multiple activations from my own scout watching the SSC connection. They didn’t disappoint. T3’s, logi faction cruisers including a Phantasm (props for the Phantasm). I’ll guarantee I was in warp before they were! When they realised what was going on, they collapsed the hole and I went back to baiting. The locals reshipped to stealth bombers and the hound pilot convoed me.

I was waiting for the bombers to decloak for a bombing run any time now. What actually happened was the hound de-cloaked, but well outside of bombing range. Infact, he was 101km away. Unable to decline such a beautiful invitation, I Aligned to him and hit the micro-jump drive. I doubted what I had in mind would work at all, but I’ve always thought that to get lucky, you need to get yourself into the position to receive that good luck. The Vargur landed right on top of the hound and I immediately hit the smartbomb. The remaining sleeper must have pointed him and a moment later, instead of warping away, he popped.

While I was still laughing about the hound, the guys on the static were still baying for blood. Not wanting the ISK to go to waste, I went about salvaging the site while Nat lead the fleet over to the POS to try and provoke some reaction by shooting at the tower in their Domi fleet.

Instead of reacting how we would have liked, the Russians logged off. Some minutes later I was packing my loot into my POS and reflecting over how well the Vargur performed. Although more expensive than dual Rattlesnakes and more skill intensive, I don’t doubt it’s more interesting to fly. Then the thought occurred to me…

Jay > Guys, are you still bashing that tower?

Nat > It would feel like a failure if we didn’t get it past 90% shields

Jay > Is there any point? I’d scoop your drones and get home

Tsuki > I’m already on my way out. Time for me to go to sleep.

Razz > Ooh, I’ve got a Sleipnir on scan. And a Loki. And a Tengu…

Apparently, Anomalous Existence had chained into the C4 while we weren’t looking. Well, I say ‘we’ but I didn’t fancy a half arsed POS bash and just went home and I won’t name-drop the fleet scout. However, there is a phrase that the scout has coined that I’ve taken a liking to “Even my smoking hull is content creation.” To that end, the S.V Dominix wrecks were testament that content had indeed been created.

Always bet onstupid? Yes. But on this occasion, it was us. And the Hound pilot.

One Good Blast From the Past Deserves Another

Blogged by Jay Joringer

At the end of the last article it looked like things were all set for me to join up with Void Legion. The only problem was Max had offered them a spot in Disavowed which they took under the new moniker, Zero Frequency. Nothing wrong with that - just wasn't new ground for me. It wasn't getting back to building something up. Something that would add to wormholes. If anything, it had taken something away, with one promising alliance dissolving into a larger, well established one. 

So, options were running out, at least for what I was specifically looking for. There were a few lower class, independent corporations that looked promising though. Everyone has to start somewhere and for sure I needed a change of pace. There were a few corporations on my radar, but the guys who seemed the most likely option was Serene Vendetta. They'd apparently moved out of null and into a C3 and later a C4 but had ambitions to get a C5. Experienced players, but the change of environment is always a challenge.

That was when I noticed a name that rang a bell; Doris Deadlock AKA Sampson Dakota/Oxford Blue was the founder of the corporation. Apparently he was inactive, but having flown with him before, I knew the rest of the guys would be a good crew.

To me, it seemed quite ironic that I was hooking up with Ox’s corporation as they were just discovering WH space. Back when Blackstar Privateer Consortium was just starting up and we were all missioning in highsec, the corporation was part of the Drake Directorate alliance, which Ox ran. The irony was that we left after deciding to venture into WH’s instead of joining the rest of the alliance when they moved to nullsec.

The invitation to go to null came as a result of a wardec from Bloodphage Syndicate back in 2011. Apparently they were “impressed” with how we conducted ourselves during the war. Overall, it has to be said that we lost out quite badly, but discussions with Bloodphage had never degenerated into smack and collectively, we did take some ships off them. This was only our second real war, but we got a taste for it during the first – which is something I wanted the first blog article to be about since it put quite a lot of things into motion and gave me my first lessons in PvP but didn't quite get around to it until now.

BLKPC hadn’t been part of the Drake Directorate long when the first wardec came through. Imperial Blackhole Council were the aggressors and their declaration was joined by EVE Pilot Help Center. HALPZ were obviously a merc outfit and it looked like Blackhole wanted to use us to pad out their killboard with HALPZ assisting them.

Just before going on holiday, one of my directors, Moore McRay, had appointed one of the recent recruits as head of PvP. Teers Artasti had apparently played before, but the current incarnation was a new toon. When the war went live, he was definitely up for it and assembled a group of Blackstar pilots in our HQ system to travel to the where the rest of the alliance were based, on the other side of Caldari space. While the fleet was gathering in Niarja, NoLimitSoldier, Mobadder Thworst, Quaaid, Jerika Bodet and Aevenon from HALPZ turned up in local. Teers gave the order to scatter and warped off from the assembly spot at one of the planets, towards the Madimilire gate. That was where they caught him. As he reported that he was engaged, I decided to head the other way down the pipe towards Amarr where Jerika tackled me on the gate. It wasn’t long before the rest of his fleet arrived after dealing with Teers’ Harbinger and soon dispatched my Drake.

Teers didn’t take it too well – he quit the corp and logged off as I got my pod back to HQ to fit up another Drake (at this point I have to say we did our research before the wars went live and from what battleclinic was telling us, Drakes were awesome. Plus I couldn’t fly anything else). It was starting to look like we’d be cut off from the rest of the alliance, and with no PvP director, it seemed like it would be a long week. Morale was still high in The Drake Project and Imperial Combat Logistics Regiment and they continued to form up. Surely I’d just got unlucky with the loss of my Drake earlier (they were awesome, right?) and if I could hook up with the rest of the alliance, we might be able to turn the tables. Avoiding the shortest route, I decided to risk the journey myself and it was looking good until 2 jumps out at Airkio. Mobadder, Nolimitsolider and Quaaid were once again waiting for me and I soon found myself escaping back to HQ in a pod to check if my wallet would stretch to building another Drake.

We didn’t see much of the EVE Pilot Help Center guys over the next couple of days, but Imperial Blackhole Council had turned up in our HQ system to station camp us. We had a couple of minor skirmishes with the rest of the alliance sending pilots over to assist, but without and significant wins, people were starting to get fed up.

That’s when things started to change. One of The Drake Project’s pilots, Sleepy The Dwarf, had contacted Mobadder to see what the war was all about. Our initial assessment had been correct. It seemed that HALPZ didn’t think too highly of Blackhole (who were apparently being dicks about the war), but were paid to help them out. What Sleepy did next appealed to both HALPZ apparent dislike of Blackhole and their wallets – he outbid Blackhole to have Mobadder and his crew teach us to PvP.

The fleet assembled once more but this time our FC was flashy-red and technically still a war target for another 23 hours but thankfully no one was stupid enough to shoot him. Over Eve voice, Mobadder gave started showing people where we’d gone wrong in the past couple of days and went through the fleets fittings, suggesting adjustments and improvements (so the Drakes were made even more awesome!). The next lesson was about locator agents. Now the hunters were now about to become the hunted. There were only a few members from Blackhole online and neutral scouts were sent over to where the locator agents said they were and soon we confirmed that one them was taking a little time out from the war by running some missions out of Funtanainen. The target had jumped to a mission in Kappas, which was a dead-end next door to Funtanainen and perfect for staging an ambush.

As we made our way over to the Kappas gate in Funtanainen, Mobadder talked us through aggression mechanics, making us realise we’d needlessly lost ships in against them earlier in the week. We mulled that over while waiting for our first practical lesson in tackling. After about 10 minutes on the gate, Grem Eto appeared in local. His Drake (!) decloaked and aligned for warp, but we had him, and then shortly afterwards, his pod! It wasn’t much of a fight but even a small victory is a win and that is good enough to lift people’s spirits.

In truth, we hadn’t seen Grem Eto being involved in the war until that point and afterwards we were looking to hunt down the bigger fish in the Imperial Blackhole Council pond. Soon they started logging in and now the cat was out of the bag; The Drake Directorate were here to fight.

Mobadder directed the fleet around as we looked for more targets while bestowing more of his knowledge on us, but it seemed that Blackhole were using the time to group up. One of them, JudgeKronn was on his own. We headed over to where he was, but held 1 jump out to get eyes on him. His Abaddon was waiting on a station undock so Mobadder asked for a volunteer to try and bait him to which I volunteered. I was starting to feel the adrenaline buzz as I jumped the gate and warped to range off the station and locked his ship but even after several volleys of heavy missiles, there was still no reaction from JudgeKronn. Worst of all, he was easily repairing the damage as he sat there motionless. I reported this back to the fleet and got the call to rejoin them. The other HALPZ guys had informed the fleet that Blackhole had fleeted up and were heading over to JudgeKronn and us.

The enemy fleet broke cloak and the missiles started to fly. They had 3 Drakes, a Myrmidon and Kron’s Abaddon, but we were about to play our ace; Mobadder has refit his Oneiros so it now had shield reppers while Fish Evans was calling the targets. For many of us, it was our first fleet battle and from my point of view, it looked spectacular. It may have not been the prettiest of ships, but that Drake looked awesome flying through the laser fire and explosions while spitting missiles at the enemy.

Blackhole went straight after Fish’s Raven and he called out for reps with his typical calm. Mobadder kept him up while we took out the enemy fleet, but nearly burnt out his modules doing so. To their credit, the Blackhole guys went down fighting; Sirranthelunatic, SaVee Fireorb, Captain Dogofwar, the ironically named lolugotpwned and lastly JudgeKronn and his Abaddon.

When the dust settled, the guys from Imperial Blackhole council seemed to have lost their taste for war. Quite a few of the Drake Directorate guys were the exact opposite and were happy to learn more from Mobadder and his crew, who did give out a few more lessons and even though I don't think he plays much these days (if at all), I have to say that he was/is one of the coolest guys in eve. It didn't stop at the lessons either. Sleepy's alter ego, ZANE VOIDSTALKER, joined up with some blues of HALPZ in Concentrated Evil and would later convince me to join also (which turned out to be one of a few PvP 'sabbaticals' away from the WH). 

Coming up to three years later and I think it's pretty funny how by complete accident, I'm rolling with the same crew, or at least a development of it that was set into motion by those events. It looks like a big universe, but it's probably smaller than you think. 

The Centre of the Universe

Blogged by Jay Joringer

Being honest, I started the week pondering whether I should re-subscribe to Eve. Game time was running out and I took a look over my toons and started to wonder if I was getting the most out of them – an industry focused toon in a PvP alliance frequently topping the corp killboards and a PvP toon rotting in highsec, killing me with incursion boredom. If I looked at this arrangement sensibly, you might say there was a simple, obvious fix. 

“And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation.’" – Frank Herbert. 

So, almost on a whim, I left Blackstar. To say that left a few people bemused may be quite an incredible understatement. In the meantime, I’d been talking to several groups through an alt to try and keep a low profile. One group in particular caught my attention: Void-Legion. There were a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, what they were trying to was very similar to what I was trying to achieve with Enigma Project before Blackstar formed the splinter corporation and left. From what I gathered, the way they were organized was impressive and the leadership was dedicated with ambitious plans to make a name for themselves. And if WH space needs anything right now (aside from new content, CCP!) it was another big name . 

The second reason was that they were being invaded. Reading between the lines, a couple of their ex-members left disgruntled and joined Daktaklakpak and that turned into a full on grudge when they failed to break up Void-Legion by stealing their members. The previous invasion failed, but now Daktak were under the banner of the Red Coat Conspiracy. With Obstergo also in their alliance, they had someone to do their heavy lifting and hit Void Legion on Friday night when their EU contingent had logged off. 3 Dreadnaughts, 1 Carrier and a 40 man subcap fleet had reinforced the Void-Legion towers without much reply from the residents. 

I had to get involved. Void-Legion looked to me like having a lot of potential. And any chance to get at Obstergo was a bonus. The only problem was one of Void-Legion’s Directors, Viscis Breeze was pretty sharp, so I had to come clean about my identity and motivations, which meant dropping out of Blackstar, leaving Dizzy in charge while I hooked up with ‘13.’ to keep my involvement neutral. 

Saturday, Void-Legion sounded pretty demoralized. They knew they couldn’t deal with a subcap fleet of that size and were looking at the possibility of losing everything. Lurking on their comms, the whole thing sounded like a total clusterfuck. The Directors couldn’t get anything organized from people going AFK or simply logging out. I gave a little advice on reinforcement mechanics, but there wasn’t much they could do. They knew what they needed to do, which was re-establish hole control. From there, they could decide whether they wanted to evac or bolster their defences, but as that looked like an impossibility, I was beginning to wonder whether putting myself in limbo was worth it. To make things worse, one of the Void-Legion pilots, Relic124, had made a deal with the Red Coats. He had traded them his Naglfar for safe passage out. Absolutely unbelievable. Sure, people pay to play, so you should play it how you want, but how did this moron make it past the learning curve? Quit the game, Relic124 – no one sane will take you on after a stunt like that. 

Sunday was indeed a different day. I logged in to just move some ships around on my laptop while I chilled out with some Mount & Blade on the main PC. Just as I had a few things organized and was about to hit autopilot when I noticed the invite to convo. That was when Void-Legion gave me the news. Apparently, before I logged in, they had fleeted up and regained hole control, destroying 2 Red Coat Dreads and their Carrier in the process. Suddenly things looked very, very different and Mount & Blade would have to wait. There was also a direct null with mass left for 1 capital jump. I hadn’t realized it until this point, but the Red Coats had also wardecced Void-Legion, so it was difficult for them to exploit hole control and move things about through empire. I could move unimpeded and began mobilizing Orcas and Carriers to assist. The VL guys rage-rolled for a highsec through their C3 static, finding a connection close to Amarr, which was unfortunately EOL. Seagray brought the bookmarks to Amarr and a few minutes later 13 cyno’d in an Archon through the direct null. 

While this was going on, Viscis got a unsolicited convo from No Holes Barred. It was obvious how they knew about the situation. Red Coat Conspiracy were now on the back foot and were bat-phoning every known PvP entity in WH space, telling them they needed some help evicting some farmers. Given the stigma of a group simply farming WH space and not adding to the environment and ‘generating content’, there were bound to be a few people to answer the call – even if was, in this instance, untrue. Especially with the Rubicon changes to looting SMA’s. I warned him “Your wormhole is about to become the centre of the universe.” Lame doesn’t even begin to describe Daktaklakpak and Red Coat Conspiracy’s tactics here. 

VL had decided they didn’t want to moved things in and out through the EOL highsec. The C3 residents (whose name I won’t mention – only partially because I’ve forgotten) offered their help to roll it- which was very cool, by the way. I sent an Orca to help out while readying a humble Loki for when it did finally kick off. And one way or another, it was going to kick off. 

With a new highsec connection and a Loki and Archon from 13 deployed in system, Red Coat Conspiracy seemed reluctant to get involved in another engagement without support. Normally, I’m not one to engage in smacktalk or chatting in WH local in general, but here I made an exception. 10 minutes of belittling the would be PvPers while they sat in their own reinforced staging tower while I was sat on the WH in my Loki with Viscis dual-boxing an Archon and a Proteus as well as 2 VL HIC’s and another Loki seemed to do the trick though (which was good because I was running out of annoying ‘come at me bro’ gifs and witty retorts). How do I know it did the trick? The fact that the Red Coats 15 man T3 fleet primaried me was a bit of a giveaway. 

Tentatively, I edged around the WH, staying well within jump range, but Viscis was on the ball with reps. Then on comms, someone asked for a primary. Then the request was repeated. Letting out a deep sigh and wondering for the briefest of moments how I got myself into this, I started calling targets. There was a request to primary someone, which I denied. There was no time for personal vendettas while they have ECM and Logi on the field. VL support started logging in and warping in to support the bait fleet. Our reps were holding and so were theirs on their solitary Tengu. It was time to see how ‘switched on’ their logi were and I called a switch to one of their guardians, while any available neuts and ECM drones hit the others. It was working. The targets armour started bleeding precariously towards hull. Before we could finish the job, he jumped through the WH. It was time to force the other guardians off field. 

By now, scouts were reporting a dire situation through the highsec side of the C3 connection. Surely You’re Joking and Anomalous Existence were massing in system and preparing to jump in and join the fight- explaining Red Coat Conspiracy’s new found confidence. The defence fleet persisted, however, and forced another Guardian off field. I called for a HIC to follow them through, but before any of the pilots could act, the familiar sound of multiple WH activations went off before it collapsed entirely. Disavowed had joined the fight and the size of their fleet indicated they were going to have the last say in the evenings proceedings. 

Did things look bleak? Well, yes. At this point, it might be worth mentioning Disavowed were on the Red Coats’ bat-phone list. They were sold the same bullshit story about being needed to assist in evicting some farmers. There were reinforcement timers to meet, loots to be had yadda, yadda, yadda. I know the guys are always down for pew and Red Coats trying to get them involved might have been a good idea… had I not beat them to the punch. Obviously, there’s a somewhat tenuous link there anyway, which made me laugh when at one point during the pre-fight smacktalk, one of the smarter daktak pilots asked the question: “Who the hell are you?”. I’m quite glad the depth of his research ended there, however. Long before I had fired any shots, Disavowed were formed up and rage-rolling for a K-space connection. When Void-Legion get a new highsec, they also scanned out a C4 connecting to the static C3 where the Disavowed fleet hid until the action started. For sure, things looked bleak. But not for us. 

Their joining the fight shut out Red Coat Conspiracy’s would-be reinforcements and all that was left was a massacre. I ceded fleet command back to Void-Legion while we along with Disavowed mopped up the field. The fight  

Following the battle, contingency plans were discussed. The grim reality was that the Red Coats, despite failing on their latest invasion attempt to the tune of 30 billion ISK, weren’t going to give up. And given who they tried to bring along on this occasion, it was probably an indicator that next time they would not be alone. All for some for some irrelevant grudge. Void-Legion then burned down their own WH. That might sound like an odd thing to do, but it took a lot of resolve. They weren’t going to let Red Coat do it for them, and lets’ face it, they won here so they can do whatever they like. I’ve got a lot of respect for Void-Legion and I’m sure they’ll come back stronger for this. 

For me, the night ended shortly after with me returning ISK people had sent me for helping them out. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated, but I believe getting involved was the right thing to do. I’ll do good things for free all day long and I knew it was a good thing when I got this feeling somewhere inside. I couldn’t place it at first, but then I remembered what someone had told me only a few days earlier: “Fuck you, Jay Joringer, you smug bastard!” and then I remembered. Smugness (Thank you for that little reminder, Dizzy Uzzy). I said ‘goodnights’ to both parties on TS which was reciprocated by most. The voice of the aforementioned Mr Uzzy rang out apart from the crowd, “See you back in corp, Jay”. 

Yeah, we’ll see ;)

Notably Un-notable

Blogged by Jay Joringer

It’s been a while since anything was put on here. There’s been a whole lot of not much going on. Certainly nothing much of note. For various reasons, activity in Blackstar dropped off and we brought in several pilots who were ex-Black Rain Cartel to plug the gaps. I’d always liked what that corporation were trying to do, but I wasn't too interested in bringing in that many people from one group until I saw that Boris Johnsons Love Children wanted to absorb them all into their corporation. After we turned down a merger offer from Boriz (to which Demorest left us with thinly veiled threats), I was delighted to learn that they had also tried to recruit Complex Potential before he decided we were the better option, so I couldn’t turn resist this little coup either. While these guys were settling in, we went through a period where we losing a lot of engagements and a few expensive ships in them. We needed to get our PvP swagger back. I was sure just one good win would do this. Sure, we were still keeping the killboards ticking over, despite a couple of big hits, but hit and run ganks don’t give that satisfaction. 

An opportunity arose in the form of a previous resident of our C5, Blackstar Zion, resubbing his account and logging back in, in his Revelation. Finding himself stranded, he logged out before anyone could land points. His alt was also in system without probes, but had a cloak and was keen on negotiating a sale with us in local and desperately asking any passers-by for “books to empire”. While we were plotting what to do with this guy, a new signature appeared and eventually scouts reported back a chain that had been opened to us by Polarized. We’d been in the C5 a while, but so far we hadn’t had any serious encounters with the so-called “notable” Wormhole corporations or alliances. According to local chat, they were keen to provoke such an encounter: 

JamesWyh> I’m here to declare my intentions 

I was intent on doing my best AFK impression in my Crane, so I left this one to Diz. 

Caius Beriat> Declare away good sir 

Very eloquent. Missing some vital punctuation, but eloquent nonetheless. 

JamesWyh> I’m here to violence your boat. 

JamesWyh> It’s only me and a cloaky proteus 

Riiiiiight. Although there wasn’t anything sat on WH to Zion. Not anything that wasn’t cloaked in any case but Sean was reporting a lot of movement one system down the chain. He was punctuating each report with varying degrees of “we don’t want to mess with these guys” and that kind of thing. It seems Cadava’s ‘Brave-Sir-Robin-Syndrome’ was contagious. 

I was sure the others guys were up for a scrap, even if we lost so I gave the order; “I don’t want Polarized to roll out of here screaming about how Blackstar don’t want to fight. Get in something cheap and let’s get to it.” 

Now, I’ve always attributed WH PvP to one of two things: 

1.) A trap or 

2.) Something to which you can apply the phrase “Always bet on stupid”. 

I wasn’t prepared to associate Polarized with the second of those principles, which meant, well yeah, it was obvious. However, we did have a couple of things on our side. We had eyes down the chain so we could give intel on their inevitable reinforcements and maybe try to disengage if it wasn’t looking pretty. The other thing was that D-scan in our hole was looking like carebear central with Orcas, ventures, retrievers and me sat in my Crane doing my best AFK impression. The only one they’d had contact with was Caius and he’d shown them a Tornado and a Proteus. People started to reship into Battlecruisers and Dar was batphoned via steam and logged in two guardians. Sat next to the SMA, I was ready to get into my Armageddon as soon as the Proteus showed up and test it out for the first time. Also breaking out a ship for the first time, Kais was about to attempt his first fight as a Falcon pilot. Two Hurricanes, a Harbinger, Rapier, Armageddon, Falcon and two Guardians might seem overkill for an Omen and a Proteus, but I refer you back to my first principle of WH PvP: Trap. 

But I’m actually quite fond of cheese. Even the proverbial form that sits in metaphorical traps. And especially if it’s in cake form –which may be a good time to mention that ‘Cheesecake’ is the corporation warcry and has also become a pseudonym for PvP. 

So the boys warped over to the WH and started to engage the Omen. Right on cue, the Proteus decloaked and started to assist his buddy. Caius called him being point blank and I jumped into the geddon and warped in at range. The plan was to land at 30km away, but it was 30 in the wrong direction, so I had to burn to close range and get into the fight. As this was going on, Sean was calling out their inevitable reinforcements as they moved down the chain. I was still closing range when they landed on the connection to Zion; Proteus, Legion, Absolution and two Guardians. 

They jumped through just as I got into neut range. Kais decloaked and jammed out one of the guardians and I dropped neuts onto the other and one of the Proteus’. The Legion started to burn towards me so I started moving away and applied a couple of neuts on him. Briefly, I was pointed. It’s hard to say whether it was the neut cycle or Kais’ ECM that broke it, but the Legion pilot suddenly thought better of being off the WH when the first Proteus went down. One of the guardians was in structure before their fleet decided it had had enough and jumped back through the WH. Cleverly, their Legion pilot stayed engaged while the rest of their fleet made their exit before jumping out himself. Somewhere in the fight we lost a stealthbomber, but I’ll take that for a Proteus kill any day of the week. Especially if it means the end result is that Blackstar Zion was successfully defended against the mighty Polarized. We might have even got more, but bringing that fleet low with some T1 BC’s was a good enough job for the night and a decent fight for the guys.