Some Analysis

Seriouslycasual asks:

Given the amount of Isk/hour one can make in a wormhole system with a small organized group, they cut their losses on the POS costs and went looking for another hole. Seems odd that you guys sat and watched them evacuate the valuables though… perhaps there is more to the story.

A good question and some more situational details and analysis would be appropriate. So here goes.

1) AMC is a multi-wormhole entity. The J160739 system (aka Paw's Grotto) is one of the systems that the alliance has settled in. It should be noted that this was the first system we settled in and although we've found better systems to operate out of as an alliance, one of our corps is full of Caldari ship pilots and finds the pulsar in this system rather comforting and since most of the alliance is in a different wormhole, the resource return rate is not over farmed by having too many pilots basing out of there.

2) We've now been operating in wormhole space for over 4 months. As such having intruders in our wormholes are no longer quite the nail biting afair it used to be and a more calm and considered response to situations can be considered.

3) At no time was there any attempt by the No Fear Buccaneers to enter into diplomatic contact with any member of my alliance. This is wormhole space and we're NBSI so it effectively means they are actively hostile.

4) Following their battle clinic history looks like they come from a faction warfare recent past and want to try wormhole PvP. Their tower setup backs this up. Their ships flown back this up. Look, The Grotto is a class 3. This means you need VERY well tanked BC or BS (or HAC/SC) to go after combat resources here and we didnt' see any harvester (mineral or gas) ships. Apart from a few combat sites they were not setup to go after the resources that are to be found in a class 3 wormhole (not to mention that we kept the grotto pretty sparsely populated in sites). They were flying mainly recons and looking to PvP anything that came in the Grotto.

Looking at all that, and having a conversation with the guys operating out of the Grotto, we kind of went: "humm looks like a typical new to wormhole operations corp. Let's let em stew for a few days while we figure out a good plan to go after that tower if they don't take it down by the time we decide to go for it". This decision also gave us plenty of time to analyze their operational habits and times. It really had minimal impact on most of the alliance operations and even those who were in the Grotto could simply come to one of our other wormholes for a few days if they needed to do some mining or run some sites if necessary.

The scouting proved itself out since we were able to determine that they were mostly euro time zone and were logging off when most of our strength was logging on. This feeds into the POS reinforcement timing. We also determined that there were not all that many of them. At one point another set of intruders jumped on them and got an Arazu and a Pilgrim. Reportedly that was amusing to watch from the sidelines.

Look due to their numbers and online times they were never a serious threat per see. They were not going to attack a well defended large POS with the forces at their disposal and they were off-schedule for us. I'm also not sure they realized how much we had them under observation while they were operating. Also The Grotto is a pulsar system (friendly to shield tankers), why did they pop a tower down in a systems where they had a PvP disadvantage flying Amarr and Gallente ships???

There's also the psychological issues to look at. They probably thought that wormhole space would be the milk and honey of easy kills and constant PvP. My blog has already gone over how this is not really the case. First of all any inhabited system tends to weed out the easy kills on the part of the occupants (heck most of my alliance losses lately have been pilots wanting to go to low sec and chase pirates - they are doing this under their own initiative not as any alliance level operation). On the constant PvP side, nope, sorry you're deluded there. I think Mynxee's bunch has the right idea for making use of wormhole space for PvP purposes - use it as a roaming base and operate in Low sec. But except for weeding out the idiots (in which case you're doing us a favor in the long run) most PvP in wormhole space is pretty sparse or inconsequential in the case of the toe dippers.

So we purposefully decided to let them stew for a few days. PvP'ers have decidedly short attention spans. If you can bore them then bring the hammer down they tend to break. Sure enough this is what happened.

As for watching their evactuation - well we had a single scout but not enough personnel online to do anything active about that when it went down. Remember they were mostly euro time zones and our euro time zone players were operating in different wormholes. All in all from their point of view wormhole space must have been very disappointing. Which was the idea we want them to get of course. Very little to do and practically no active PvP until someone comes along with enough force to squish the POS (and a small POS with only 4 small guns is eminently squish-able).

The problem is that if your corporation/alliance is not prepared to fully exploit all that wormhole space can offer, then you'll find it rather lacking. The best thing from my point of view is that for once I was not lead on this operation. Some real life issues (man what's with all my friends and family moving in august?) kept my online time to a minimum. Which meant that others in the alliance had to step up and work together.