Alts and Metagaming

This month’s topic comes to us from Mynxee of Life in Low Sec. She asks "Alts and Metagaming: Is playing two accounts who are logged in at the same time and work together (hauler/miner, explorer/combat associate, trade alts in trade hubs) a form of metagaming that is 'ruining the game'?"

Good question Mynxee. One has to take into account the differing mechanics in EVE vs. the rest of MMOdom. Alts in EVE work differently than in other mmos. In most MMOs all characters progress solely thru the efforts of the player. So if you work on one toon you can't work on another.

In EVE you can have up to 3 characters but on a single account but only one is training at any one time. Training goes on 24/7 and it would take what? 14 years to max out a character in eve. One can see why putting some time on the alts when your main has not yet reached the place you want him to be at would be frowned on. One of the features of serious alts in other games is you don't work on them till your main char(s) are at max level. You may have a few lowbie alts hanging around but most people don't try to level them in sync. With EVE's specilization and deep progression for the advanced skill trees, it can take a few years until your main is "at max" so the freedom to create alts is much more limited on a single account.

Then there is the metagaming aspect of EVE. EVE is a game that is supposed to be dark and dangerous. The game rules promote this, as well as promoting espionage and intelligence work. As a friend of mine commented last night: "I don't know of any other game that will hand you your ass quite so hardcore". Spy alts are a credible profession in EVE. Heck spy mains are also credible. The point here is that real intelligence operations are part and parcel of EVE. Not many people get into them but at the alliance level they are indispensable. If your main character is in 0.0 you may want to have an alt in empire running the market for him and another hauling stuff to trans shipment points.

So in other games people make alts to try out different jobs, but the progression is mostly the same. In EVE people make alts to do entirely different aspects of the game. Usually that compliment the main character's abilities in some way.

In the end I think it makes EVE a richer game. I should note that in a lot of cases the reason for the 2nd account is usually greed. Or in the cases of alliance leaders and CEOs necessity.

In the end most people tend to get a 2nd account because they can't reliably find a 2nd person to do what they want when they want to do it. From a purist point of view, yes it breaks the game. But then again with it's politics and economic shenanigans, EVE has a well developed metagame. Since one of the tenets of EVE seems to be "grab every advantage you can", multi-boxing is here to stay as part of EVE. It certainly doesn't hurt CCP's bottom line, and that means the game can continue to grow. It realistically has to be considered part and parcel of the sand box. You can do it or not. Just like EVE doesn't force you to mine.

Ahhhhhh!!!!!!

The killboard code monkeys are out to get me!!!!

Well, ok, not that bad. But still getting a killboard working on your own hosted site is an "interesting exercise". So far I've gotten the site up and running. New e-mail addresses for one of the CEOs and myself. A quick placeholder index page. The embryo of a forum is up and minimalist configured. That will take a while to configure and knock into shape but should be straightforward.

But the pain of killboard setup? ouch. I'm currently missing a heck of a lot of module icons... I was able to plug in my old kill and loss mails from the periods I was in AMC in the past. So it's mostly working. Still lots of things to wrestle with before that will be in shape.

After all that, I needed some pew pew. So I went out with the corp on a roam... Man were things quiet. No action whatsoever. Even after zig-zaging thru Catch. Zip Zero Nada. 95% of Solar Empire (I think it was Solar Empire space) musta been asleep.

Ah well...

I still need to get a wiki installed. Once that's done and all 3 items are configured, most of the mechanical stuff for the AMC web site will be done. The problem will be to bash together some consisten look to the site. Modifying the KB, Forum and Wiki to have a common look.

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...

Fleet types in EVE

In a lot of cases, fleets in EVE are thrown together with little thought as to their composition - bring what you can from amongst ships you have available. Most pilots will have a few variants of ships they fly regularly, and the hope is that the FC will be able to mash this random array of ships into some semblance of utility. Some times it works, sometimes it does not.

Obviously there are some fairly standard fleet setups:

The T1 roaming gang. These are usually harassment fleets sent out to enemy space with the intention of getting some lucky kills without risking too much in the way of expensive fleet assets. Some times these are intentional suicide fleets and you go into them not expecting to come back in your ship. These will usually be Cruiser or Frigate fleets, occasionally battlecruiser fleets, rarely BS fleets. The idea here is to move fast hit quickly and fade.

The T2 roaming gang. Again usually harassment fleets. This time not so suicidal. Making full use of the best EWAR and hardest hitting Heavy Assault Ships that the fleet commander can lay his hands on. These are probably some of the most survivable gangs when well lead. Again the emphasis is on rapid movement and keeping the enemy off balance.

The Battleship with tackle support. These tend to be defense fleets put together to counter roaming gangs. Although most roaming gangs have no problem melting smaller forces or picking off stragglers. They have problems when running into proper battleship fleets. The problem with battleship fleets of course is that they tend to have problems catching and killing faster roaming fleets. So the idea is to fly with a mix of cruiser sized vessels and battleships. The smaller ships provide the tackle and the bigger ships provide the punch. Due to the rapid movement of the smaller ships this fleet tends to go up against, the best bet is probably a mix of long and short ranged RR BS, with snipers taking care of the ships at range and the close range BS defending the snipers with the faster cruisers and frigates pinning down the enemy.

The main line battleship fleet. These tend to be used as part of maneuvers in and around POS warfare situations. Depending on the intended target of the fleet, it will either be sniper heavy or close combat heavy. Except for the specialist EWAR vessels, tackle is much less of a priority since usualy in situations where these fleets are employed there are fixed objectives that will either be defended or abandoned before the fleet gets there. These tend to operate in support of capital operations.

Now it is obvious that just as there are different ships in EVE that serve different purposes, the same can be said of fleets. This means that the various pilots of a corp/alliance will necessarely need to maintain a stable of different ships in order to be ready to support what ever operation is called for. It would be a good idea for corp/alliance leadership to have regular get togethers to discuss what ships different pilots should have available to themselves in order to be able to support various fleet operations that are liable to be called. Not to mention making sure that there are diverse capabilities available when fleets need to be formed.

The thing is that these types of things need to be worked out ahead of time. Preferably coordinated with industry so that replacement ships are available in short order when called for. As evidenced by the alliance tournament, planned out stuff tends to work better than ad-hoc fleets. So all corp and alliance leadership realy should take an interest in the number and tyeps of ships available to their members and try to ensure that pilot availability for operations is kept at a high level.

T2 BPO vs BPC

Someone a few comments ago was asking about T2 BPO vs T2 BPC and Invention and what not. A few explanations of the various pros and cons of T2 Invention and Manufacture are in order I think to clear things up for the new to this stuff.

1) T2 BPOs unlimited run blue prints and were originally seeded in EVE by way of a research agent lottery. These are research-able BPOs just like their T1 Counterparts.
2) T2 BPCs are limited run blueprints and are made either by copying a T2 BPO or by doing an invention job on a T1 BPC.

So the quesiton came up "I always hear that t2 bpos aren't that important because an inventor can out-produce a t2. But, what prevents a t2 bpo owner from doing copies of his bpo and building as many items as the inventors do?"

The answer is "nothing". But (yes there's always a but) Although he can arange it so that his "simultaneous manufacture" capability is the same as an inventor, the end result is that he will be making less quantity of T2 goods over time. Why? because the of the massive copy times vs invention times. It takes longer to make a copy than to invent a BPC or manufacture from the BPO. And every time the bpo is in the copy slot it's not in the manufacturing slot. So the bottle neck is the copy times, not the manufacturing times.

This isn't to say the inventor has it all his way. The owner has an advantage in manufacturing times. This means that if both are making only 10 the owner will get the 10 faster and they will cost less to make.

The bigest advantage an owner has compared to an inventor is the owner will always be able to manufacture the T2 items for less. Not necessarely a lot less, but less on a per run basis - leading to a higher profit ratio for the same sales price and for the same raw materials costs.

Another advantage is that the owner can still be in the invention game - since he's not using his research slots as part of his BPO manufacture, that frees up his science slots to make either some extra BPC using invention or to make some stuff he doesn't have the BPO for. On a per skill slot basis the BPO owner has a serious advantage over the inventor. Course he pays a price for this - BPOs are prety much a rich pilots only game.

Remember The BPO owner still has the advantage since he can invent just as much as the inventor AND he still has his BPO - which incidentaly build faster on a per run basis.

Bit o ratting, bit o killing

This weekend was once again an on again and off again sort of a weekend. Saw a bit of action. The best part of which was a sweet kill on a Deimos using my sniper BS. The rest of fleet got some really good tackle on that one since it was a safe spot bust. I was rather happy with my BS on that one as I managed to get top damage dealer.

A less interesting one was the loss of one of my heavy tackle Ruptures. Totally my own fault for loitering where I shouldn't have been and getting picked off. Ah EVE, so unforgiving of mistakes...

During some down time I also did some ratting/picket duty. Made back a bit of the isk I lost with the Rupture I lost. I also have to get two of the Ruptures still in high sec down here. At least they are at the jump off point.

Made it!

As my cold finally breaks (gah! right on schedule - stupid 7 day colds), I finally find myself back in 0.0 space. Thursday night proved to be a nice tranquil time to move my new 4 PvP ships down. I've also got 2 more ships in transit using the hauler (turn on alt's client, grab courier contract, set destination to high sec jump off point and autopilot while playing on main).

As I moved my final ship into dock (my beloved Prowler bringging lots of explosive goodness in the form of a Paradise Cruise Missile supply). The call went out that a scout had found an unanchoring enemy tower in relative issolation and without an enemy fleet to escort the operation... Vissions of my own two stolen towers tell me imediately that someone needs to learn about offlining towers... The hard way.

A scratch strike force, including a brave (read suicidal) hauler pilot was quickly mounted and were individualy burning to the target system in short order. I jump in one of my Ruptures, making sure the insurance is paid up. This type of operation depends heavily on speed and surprise to pull off. Sure enough as soon as I hit the system in question, our hauler had just picked up the tower and some members of the corp to whom the tower belonged two were in system. As my sensors clear At the gate I came in thru I find a lone rifter.

Since I find myself on the exit gate we'll be using to egress the area, I immediately request permission to engage and kill the Rifter. Props to the Rifter pilot for trying even when out gunned, but 5 Warrior II's and my cruiser's Dual 180mm's make sort work of him. His pod manages to escape me, but I chawk up another solo kill in my combat career. After quickly assaying the rest of the ship types in our rag tag little fleet, I determine that I've got the cheapest ship in all probablility. Possibly not by much since it's mostly T2 fit, but the odds are I'm the cheapest. Not having a real scout, I imediately start scouting on the route back as we get a haul on.

The rest of this little op happens without any incident and we get a shiny new large tower which one of the pilots had been contemplating purchasing anyways. With the knowledge that our defenses will soon increase in alliance space, a fresh kill on the KB, and the satisfaction that our quick little squadron performed with excelent speed and coordination, we part ways to finish off a lazy Thursday night.

Doh! Make use of the alt!

As my refit issues have come to light, and my main high sec base being located so far from my jump off point to 0.0, I have come to realize that I need to be just a wee bit more organized than I've been. Yep getting the two battleships to the jump of point will be tedious (scouting alts ahoy), but I was also looking at kitting out some T2 equipped cruisers for more mundane PvP ops (mainly in the hopes the BS's will be more available if I don't kill them both off in the first op down there).

And as I was looking at the 29 jumps from my base to the jump off point, and cringing, I suddenly clued in: Doh! I have a hauling alt! They are not only for mining operations you know... So the plan is to use my main (with the alt's scouting help) to get the two BS to the jump off point and then use the alt to haul cruiser packs from my base to the jump off point.

What is a cruiser pack you may ask? It's the number of cruisers, mods and ammo included that fit into a single hauler run. Being a miner means that both my main and my alt are capable of hauling jet cans. 27.5k m^3. A packaged cruiser is 10.0k m^3. This means that each trip my alt could haul 2 cruisers and their fittings to the jump off spot. This also means that as I build up my isk reserve, I can buy replacement hulls and fittings using my alt and ship them along to the jump off point and leave them up on contract for my main. This should allow me to maintian a better time on station down in 0.0.

Ah logistics. I can see one of the things I'm going to want to develop in the revamped AMC will be some good logistics planning. Especially with wormholes looking so promising. Here is the thinking: Regardless of how quickly we get combat pilots, without serious dread capability moving into territorial 0.0 is prety stupid (if we don't want to be someone's pet). On the other hand we'll have access to wormhole space from high sec. It looks like T3 exploitation and manufacture will be complex enough to require some serious long term development in order to get into T3 manufacturing. I suspect that after an initial flurry of activity, the true scope of the effort necessary will scare away the lazy who will go back to their level 4 missions. Expect T3 ships to be rarer than faction cruisers.

This should have some nice (from an industrialists point of view) side effects:
- Reduce the overall number of competitors in the long run. This means that worm hole space presense will be spotty after the first few months.
- Which in turn should cause the pirates to go back to low sec in short order as the number of potential victims goes down.

On the flip side for a mainly industrial alliance in high sec this should prove to be very very good. The style of pilot needed to exploit these new resrouces looks to be heavily tilted to the combat pilots with the new rats fights more closely resembling PvP style combat, and this being un-secure space, combat pilots will be needed to exploit it. Which should prove to be a draw for those not wanting to deal with 0.0 politics but also not want to be stuck mining or mission running. It should allow for a gradual build up of combat capable pilots within a high sec alliance without the usual problem of "how to keep them entertained".

Ok, nasty cold

I didn't get on a lot over the last few days. I'm fighting a nasty cold. Bleh...

On the flip side I am reading with high interest the things that will be coming in the March 10th expansion (yes I will be getting the box, if only to have a souvenir). The new exploration mechanics look to be interesting. We'll have to see how they balance the skilling up everyone has done to reduce scan times vs those who haven't done that yet. The level of exploitation we can see in wormhole space (W-space) should prove interesting. Tech 3 looks to be highly interesting but the level of skill necessary to exploit it runs right along the lines of tech 2 invention and manufacture.

It looks like from the "I want to fly T3" set it's going to take similar skills to T2 cruisers as a base. But you'll need 6 extra skills per faction who's T3 ships you want to fly. 5 of these are pre-requirements to the sixth. And after my current skill finished I shoved in Minmatar Cruiser 5 for the next 31 days.... I'll be able to start learning the T3 flight skills about 3 days after the expansion hits.

The manufacturing side looks like T2 in that it will be two stage: Stage one involves "reverse engineering" a T3 BPC. This looks like it will be similar to invention in that it will involve something we will find in W-space as well as some datacore like items, probably also coming from W-space. Stage 2 involves manufacturing the T3 BPC and requisite materials. It looks like we'll need to have some gasses that will need to be processed at a reactor along with normal minerals. I hope the new reactor does not have the 0.4 sec restriction. These materials will then go into making the T3 components and/or ships. Looks like Cruiser Construciton 4 will be necessary. Looks like a pile of science skills - there are obvious similarities with T2.

Looks like most of the resources we'll need to exploit (and the NPC's we'll need to fight) will be found by exploration in wormhole space. So explorer's paradise. But there will be a combat scanning nerf in that scanning down ships will probably take longer unless the scanner can make seriously good estimated guesses as to where the safespots they want to bust are located. On top of that we can't trust the scan times on Sisi. CCP apparently has a habit of putting in quick scan times on Sisi for testing purposes.

Battleship buying spree

Well, the tower sold some time during the tourney so I can now buy some PvP battleships and get them down to where they need to go. While waiting for things to sell, my Prowler got a good workout.

At this point I think I'll start with one Tempest and one Typhoon. And also with some cruisers. Getting them all down to 0.0 will prove to be the most annoying part of the operation. I will admit to taking notes about things I would run differently and do differently. Theoretically I'm trying to PvP as much as possible while being self sustaining isk wise. The self sustaining part is working out. More through luck than anything else. The availability for PvP is not. Most of the reason is that with the exception of making use of jump bridges, I'm responsible for getting all my combat ships and supplies down to the 0.0 combat area myself. Which is fine. Between my Prowler and the fact that it's mostly combat ships with relatively little supplies necessary (ships rarely last long enough at this stage to necessitate re-ammoing) It's not too bad. But it does cut down enormously on my availability as a PvP pilot, regardless of any budgetary constraints.

Some serious thought needs to go into aranging proper logistics not only for the infrastructure needs but also the combat supply to any PvP element. No 0.0 entity will ever be completely self sufficient with the current arangement. If only because of the POS fuel needs of any infrastructure set up. But having combat pilots out of the loop for extended periods of time due to the need to go back up to high sec and refit is probably highly counterproductive.

One thing AMC will need to address if one day we're ever to look seriously at heading to 0.0 will be a proper logistical plan that is conceptualy clear to all pilots even if operational details are kept close to the vest. It needs to be usable by all corporations in the alliance not just those that are lucky enough to have jump freighters and what not. Also thought will need to be given to making sure that even if a pilot is low on combat ships that he's available to help out with combat ops and that standardised hulls and fittings are available for distribution to pilots who can fly specific ships but don't happen to have them available in their personal hangars.

Roller coaster

Well the roller coaster ride in 0.0 continues. Thursday I log on and get immediately dragged into a fight with some Russians - bye bye Rupture. Then comes Friday morning. Again I get dragged into a fight against some Russians. This time not only do I loose my Typhoon but when we check the kill mail we find out that one of the RR battleships on my own side was trying to use his 425mm rails to heal me... He got top damage dealer. Thanks dude. My very first PvP battleship loss and the top damage dealer is from my own side...

A little later I managed to get my Bellicose erased from existence to a Zealot. Mind you that one was not too much of a problem, but this leaves me without PvP ships in 0.0 in short order. Course with all insured I then proceed to go ratting, get a Dread Guristas spawn. It has a Dread Guristas Control Tower Medium (DGCTM) blueprint (1 run)... I look at my liquid isk total. And proceed to go rat for the rest of the day.

by the end of the day I have enough isk to go to high sec with my BPC with the intention of manufacturing a DGCTM. I make it up without too much in the way of incident. Interestingly along the way I manage to skirt a gate camp with sling bubbles on the gate into low sec. Admittedly it wasn't much of a gate camp. But the incident at least confirmed what I had been told. Namely that if you place an off plane warp in point on grid but 150km+ from the gate, you'll be able to get to the gate's grid without getting sucked into the bubbles. You can then analyze the situation at your leisure and decide whether to take the gate or not.

I believe I have mentioned that I love my prowler?.. I love my prowler. See? Occasionally CCP does boost a ship. Covert ops cloak are the best things since sliced bread on that ship.

Long story short: got too high sec without incident. Found a station, bought a Caldari Control Tower Medium, bought the necessary mins, hauled what was needed to the station I was going to build in. Got the DGCTM cooking and tomorrow I'll put it up on contract. Now with only 2.6mil isk left in liquid, I'll be a little short to start replacing my ships, but since these towers go for 430-500mil I should be able to afford some nice PvP ships once it sells. I'm thinking a pair of ruptures for tackle, and a Typhoon and a Tempest and getting that cov-ops replaced.

Some reflexions on the inevitable hue and cry

Reactions to the destruction of the BoB alliance are coming in fast and furious. Various views are being expressed regarding these events. Whether these views are in reaction to the facts or whether they are in reaction to the FUD is kind of irrelevant. The fact his people are reacting.

What we know of the event: BoB the alliance is no more.

What seems likely: A high level BoB executive (director access to the executor corp) went rogue and betrayed his alliance (the fact that it was the Goons that reaped the most benefit is irrelevant per see).

As these events sink in we are seeing various responses from various sides of the issue both inside and outside New Eden.

But first lets establish some facts:
- The mechanics that allowed this to happen were well known to all parties involved. Both Goons and BoB are past masters of metagaming and scamming and are chuck full brimming with players of dubious moral character. For the Goons I believe it's even an entry requirement.
- The mechanics that permited this are in the game INTENTIONALLY. This is not the case of some developer not knowing about a bug and someone exploiting it. Everything that was done by the defector is something that others have, one way or the other, done in the past.
- The world lore in this case is that EVE is a dark and dangerous place, in 0.0 space you are operating way way way beyond the protection of any structured entity. Each pilot is law unto himself and the universe is filled with scoundrels.

All of the above was made clear time and time again both in game and thru media reports about EVE. The fact that a lot of players keep trying to pull EVE towards a more "devs please protect the players" ignores the fact that one of the design intentions was that the players be free to play spoiled little godlings. This game has very little forgiveness for those to can't take what they can give out.

So the game permits this to happen. The fact is that BoB could have accomplished it's goals without leaving themselves open to this type of incident. They got lazy - paid the price.

As far as CCP's subscriptions figures being affected by this? Probably not at all. A few will rage quit over this. The rest - being adults and admitting there were problems the needed to address they ignored till it was too late (we're talking in BoB here, NOT with EVE), will learn and go on. The press will draw people to the game. Some will stick some won't. EVE is an intentionaly harsh game. We keep repeating it to you often enough. Pay attention.

EVE is very much like a very very hot sauce. It's an acquired taste. There's a reason McDonnalds doesn't server food with Blair's hot sauses as an optional condiment. When one goes and plays EVE if one has the expectations that one will have one's hand held along the way like in 95% of all other MMOs on the market, one will rudely discover that this is not the case. It's a bit like reaching for a dab of Tabasco and finding instead that one has grabbed Blair's Sudden Death sauce instead. For those knowing what to expect however there's nothing quite like it. EVE is the exreme sports version of an MMO.

On the flip side, one of my reflections last night as I stood and toasted "BoB is dead, long live BoB" (with some Bells Scotch) to mark the occasion, that never in my life have I ever stood and toasted some random event in a television program. When EVE delivers entertainment it does so in spades.

I think what we'll find is that BoB will reform under some different flag and that after a firm house cleaning will come back with some serious axe to grind. Expect some crazy markets for the next few days. I look forward to the chaos. Should keep life interesting.

Where were you when?

EVE beats television hands down for drama bombs. The first thing is that rumors and innuendo are running rampant across the forums and in chat/voice channels. Regardless of how this finally turns out, either one of the most epic backstabings in EVE or one of the most epic fails. Only one thing is for certain at some time between 0:00 and 2:30 EVE time, the Alliance Band of Brothers was disbanded and closed down.

For proof I point to anyone to just take a look at the info on Reikoku corporation as in the following pic:

Bye Bye BoB

And in a move designed to rub salt in the now fresh wounds, Goonswarm has had one of it's innumerable alts create a Band of Brothers corporation. This effectively blocks Band of Brothers from re-creating their alliance under the same name. On top of that in 6h 30min there is downtime and all of Delve goes free-fof-all. Expect chaos over the next few days. If this was a "legitimate" spy and smash and grab operation by Goons or treachery by a dis-affected BoB member is undetermined at this time. We'll find out over the next 24-48 hours as the tinfoil beany set mutters darkly about hacked accounts and FUD settles in.

Blocking the alliance name

An event of such magnitude - regardless of whether CCP reverses it or lets it stand is such that my current CEO decided to record the event for posterity by creating a medal and awarding it to all in the corp who were present online at the time.

My first medal

Most definitly a "where were you when JFK was shot kind of moment".

Settling in to 0.0

After an active weekend of both being in 0.0 fleets and acting as a picket while ratting I decided to go rat some more. Building these battleships had left my wallet kind of thin. The lost of one of my two cov-ops to some aggressive scouting also hurt.

This time round, being more relaxed, I remembered to get some pics. Here we have some drones returning to my ratting Typhoon after killing some Guerista rats. What's nice is 3 of the 5 drones were close enough to get their engine trails showing.

Going back to the drone bay

The next one was just a nice picture of my Typhoon aligning to it's next destination. I found it was just a nice shot.

Heading out of the belt.

Also got some hauler spawns this time so needed to pick up oodles of minerals. Ended up buying a hauler at inflated 0.0 prices but what the heck - beats running it down.

One Late Blog Banter

Last month’s EVE Blog Banter comes to us from Manasi from A Mule In EVE.

Manasi asks: “How do we, EVE bloggers, adapt to changes as they are thrust upon us (speed changes, no more ghost training, all the dev blogs, etc), or as our lives make playing the game different (more time, less time)?”

Each pod pilot will have to determine how they adapt to change for themselves. Personally I go with the flow. Just remember: If you're not finding EVE fun, change what you are doing in EVE. EVE is the way it is, not necessarily what you would wish it to be. The thing to remember is to play the game you're in, not try and make it the game you would like it to be.

Besides change is coming. Again. The March update promises to be quite epic. New AI for new rats. So far the only confirmed ones are the Sleepers but since they usually dealt with Minmatar related things I can't help but wonder if we'll see all the other ancient races (one for each flavor of tech 3 ship component sets) or whether CCP will reserve that for future tech expansions. Well we'll be able to see soon.

Tech 3 ships. These will be modular. In other words each of the new ships is made up of 5 components. there are five variations of each of the five components and there are 4 factions. Although it is unlikely that you'll be able to mix say a caldari sensor component on the same ship as a Minmatar engine component. This still leaves us with 3125 potential combinations. 12500 new ships in one fell swoop. As various people have commented: "I can't wait till the fail fits show up on kill mails".

The exploration mechanics are changing. The existing system is getting simplified to a certain extent (i.e. one radar probe instead of 4 different ranged radar probes, but the new one has an adjustable range setting). Probably some new wormhole probes, for the new wormhole space we'll be seeing. Who knows what else they've changed in the system. We'll see.

There will be ~2500 more new systems to explore in wormhole space. It will be interesting to see where this goes. I suspect we'll see crowded systems the first few days and the pirates will go berzerk, then things will calm down and the more planned out exploitation of the new systems will take place. We will have to see how that evolves.

As for what we bloggers do? Just report on what's going on. If something changes, comment on it. Look at it's pros and cons. And if it should be something like your life taking a turn away from EVE, have the decency to admit it and let people know instead of just falling of the face of the earth.