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Monday, February 23, 2009

Planning

Sorry if the last few entries have been kind of lacking. Been busy with planning the un-mothballing of AMC. This involves such wonders as shopping around for web hosting and things like that. Yep this time round I'm going to get a proper web site/forum/wiki/killboard setup for the alliance. Also planning out the corporate structure of the alliance and various policies. Gah the nitty gritty of alliance leadership, what fun.

At this stage I'm not going to go for a vent server for the alliance. Untill we grow beyond a certain size, with a working in game voice system, I can't justify the added expense of a Ventrillo server. Ventrillo does have a better voice quality than the EVE voice system, but with 2 accounts and a web hosting service I'm hitting the limit of what I'm willing to pay for a game.

I will note that it still beats the pants off of most other forms of entertainment cost per hour entertained wise.

It will be interesting to see what effects the upcoming expansion will have on the EVE universe. One of the problems EVE has always had is that there's a "critical mass" point for alliances wanting to move into 0.0. So you ended up with a chicken and egg type of problem for budding alliance leaders like myself:

- Untill you are in 0.0 it is hard to attract and retain combat pilots.
- Untill you have enough combat pilots it is hard to get into 0.0.

These two related problems are why alliances tend to be fairly static in their existance untill a failure cascade happens.

The upcoming expansing should upset a whole bunch of applecarts. First of all there is the lure of T3. Second of all there is the random nature of the connections between known space and wormhole space. Third of course is the fact that wormhole space will contain plenty of moons regardless of what else it contains.

I'm crystal balling here but I suspect we'll see mixed results with regards to wormhole space usage. The wormhole space connected to 0.0 will after the dust settles probably become "raiding mostly" space. What I mean is that alliances will organize expeditions to 0.0 space but due to the odds of ending up connected to enemy systems probably not be serious about colonizing said space. Empire on the other hand will see quite a lot of colonizing attempts. If as implied most W-space systems that connect to high sec will re-connect to high sec most of the time, this means that logistics too and from individual systems is simplified in that once you're in one you can scan down an exit wormhole and end up somewhere else in high sec. With the mass limitations of wormholes, the odds of a colonized system being wiped out by a blob are much reduced. And once you colonize a system being able to build up forces in said system although tricky should at least be do-able.

This of course is going to suck some of the pilots out of 0.0 as larger alliances realize this and send expeditionary forces to high sec to establish w-space colonies connected to high sec to ease their own logistical nightmares. On the other hand the alliances can't spend too much of their forces doing this as they then risk becoming too diluted to defend their 0.0 presence. This leaves the doors open for smaller alliances to create and hold wormhole space enclaves. I think we'll see some rather interesting mini-wars breakout in the high sec connected W-space systems and the 0.0 connected systems being rather under-used except as raiding targets (either the system is empty in which case you send in a resource exploitation expedition or it's got your enemy's POS's in which case you send in a POS bashing fleet). The mass limitations of course affecting the ability to POS bash.

Regardless, there's an oportunity to hire and keep Combat Pilots interested while still being largely bassed in high sec. It's lucky my original scheduled un-mothballing of AMC intercects with the upcoming expansion so nicely. This does however mean that I need to get a lot of details nailed down and worked out.

Back to the evils of planning...

8 comments:

Benoit CozmikR5 Gauthier said...

You. Me. Beer. Friday. It's kinda important...

Tony "EVE's Weekend Warrior" said...

It's the mind of an ebil genius at work here!

Anonymous said...

Hmmmmm..here is my thought about w-space...how the hell are you going to colonize something when you do not have a guaranteed path to it? Entrance, (check) Exit ( check) always being able to travel through said space...forget about it. I do not see any way to colonize, mine monns or anything else if you do not have a set path to get to said system. Am I missing something?

Letrange said...

Actually it's not a question of set path so much as accessible path. Which is why I suspect high sec will be a hotbed of such activity. If a w-space system regularly connects to high sec you can at least get to the new entry point when you find it. The trick is once you get get in your chosen system (and you do this as a group not just an individual) you can always scan down an exit portal. Don't forget that all portals are time limited, so long as the window is long enough to get from your main base to the the entrance in high sec it'll be doable. Also with time limited wormholes, if a particular wormhole doesn't work out you simply wait for it to close and/or go scan down another exit. Since we are told that there will always be an exit wormhole in a system to scan down that should be fine. The only worry is if the wormhole lifespans are shorter than an hour or two. But you can get anywhere in high sec in about 45min in most ships.

Tony "EVE's Weekend Warrior" said...

I have been reading a lot on the forums and people have suggested colonizing but others have raised some very very good points.

I think it is not the best way to go right now because once you have a base setup, you need to constantly scan for holes that would lead back there (way to hard, 2300 systems), and haul in fuel at about 1 week chunks with haulers (way to much of a logistical nightmare), and haul your other minerals/blueprints in to manufacture ) way too big of a risk and complication), and haul your finished products out (just complicated).

The point I am trying to state is look at how much haulin you have to do! And they can't all occur at the sametime so no dependence on time wormholes, and too much mass is moved so mass wormholes may be a huge problem as well.

Letrange said...

@tony - Well I never claimed it would be easy. Bear in mind that I'm not proposing to do this solo. Also you need to take into account the fact that haulers are actually quite light. At around 15Gg as i recall they should be quite easy to get in and out.

Also bear in mind I'm not going to have the alliance try colonizing immediately. Quite a bit of scouting and simple in and out raids will be the order of the day till things quiet down and we get a feel for the true mechanics.

There will be enough industrial pilots in the alliance to have plenty of "lift" capacity without having to call on the combat side to abandon combat ships. The logistics is actually more of a worry for smaller corps and corps without enough industrial pilots. That I'll have plenty of.

As far as getting back to the system you colonize - you're doing it backwards - once you colonize you make sure there's always enough scanning capacity IN THE W-SYSTEM to find a way back. You scan for a wormhole from the W-system side and see where it ends up. If the system's true sec is closer to the high sec scale it should end up somewhere in empire more often than not. Scout jump back to known space - finds out where he popped up and then you make a decision: is it good or not. If good - send the haulers - if not have the scanning pilot just jump back thru the newly opened wormhole, and scan down another one.

Tony "EVE's Weekend Warrior" said...

I was on SiSi and it seems that when you put things onto your ship, the mass display changes along with how much you have put in. *I think*

Will check later on again.

I truely hope you guys can do it, but just stating some more things I see :D

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the sleepers will also be around moons! omnomnomnom

My corp is going really slow... I'd think about joining you if my standings were not the opposite you seek.