Monday, May 30, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Holding patern released
Looks like we're headed for Cascade Imminent.
Also looks like we have a release date for the summer expansion - Incarna. June 21st.
Apart from that - not much happening...
Also looks like we have a release date for the summer expansion - Incarna. June 21st.
Apart from that - not much happening...
Friday, May 20, 2011
Holding patern
So... Back up in empire space (hopefully not for too long). I find myself in a bit of a holding pattern. Log in. There anything happening? If no log off and go do something more productive. Apparently PvP'ers find this exciting. But I digress.
I think CCP is in a bit of a holding pattern update-wise as well. On one hand we are getting a bunch of quality of life updates finally. I can only applaud. Some streamlining and balancing changes (here I think we've got some issues). I sat back and thought about the latest changes and the latest implementations of features coming out of CCP. I think the problem is that there's a lack of a long term development plan. We get a lot of "I can't go into the details because the meeting to even consider the development direction for that won't happen until 2013" sort of responses recently.
I think CCP is sloooooooowwwwwwllllllyyyyyyy realizing this since it looks like there is a fairly straightforward development plan for Incarna after Incarna drops. And we DID see a 2nd iteration on a feature (bye bye click fest - althought we didn't get the ability to nuke things from orbit yet). However with it's emphasis on supporting a ganker/griefer style of play, CCP regularly misses development opportunities. Admittedly this allows the better organized corporations/alliances to get around various problems or using self discipline to compensate for the lack of scalability of the constructs established by CCP.
Major issues still need to be resolved of course. The current "Supercap-I-Win Button" needs to be addressed. As much as the supercap pilots like CCP Abathur (sp?) I think we can all agree that the current issues are directly the result of his design. Not to mention 0.0 sov warfare. The current system SERIOUSLY advantages the supercap fleet owners. Which is fine, but not in any way helpful if you want 0.0 populated by anything other than bitter vets and their serfs. We'll see how this all works out as far as those changes go. I think CCP is going to fail on the design front there. I also think the current CSM has a very good chance of making things MUCH worse in 0.0.
I think CCP is in a bit of a holding pattern update-wise as well. On one hand we are getting a bunch of quality of life updates finally. I can only applaud. Some streamlining and balancing changes (here I think we've got some issues). I sat back and thought about the latest changes and the latest implementations of features coming out of CCP. I think the problem is that there's a lack of a long term development plan. We get a lot of "I can't go into the details because the meeting to even consider the development direction for that won't happen until 2013" sort of responses recently.
I think CCP is sloooooooowwwwwwllllllyyyyyyy realizing this since it looks like there is a fairly straightforward development plan for Incarna after Incarna drops. And we DID see a 2nd iteration on a feature (bye bye click fest - althought we didn't get the ability to nuke things from orbit yet). However with it's emphasis on supporting a ganker/griefer style of play, CCP regularly misses development opportunities. Admittedly this allows the better organized corporations/alliances to get around various problems or using self discipline to compensate for the lack of scalability of the constructs established by CCP.
Major issues still need to be resolved of course. The current "Supercap-I-Win Button" needs to be addressed. As much as the supercap pilots like CCP Abathur (sp?) I think we can all agree that the current issues are directly the result of his design. Not to mention 0.0 sov warfare. The current system SERIOUSLY advantages the supercap fleet owners. Which is fine, but not in any way helpful if you want 0.0 populated by anything other than bitter vets and their serfs. We'll see how this all works out as far as those changes go. I think CCP is going to fail on the design front there. I also think the current CSM has a very good chance of making things MUCH worse in 0.0.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
*cough* *cough* - scuse me while I dust
Been a while. Sorry for the lack of posting. There's a lot of ground to cover. Since I last posted there have been a lot of changes in my EVE playing. Things I need to cover:
On the personal front:
- PL being hired by the DRF to attack NC space
- Having an idiot FC "welp" a fleet
- R.A.G.E getting curb-stomped
- The view from the front lines of the NC situation
- RHI leaving R.A.G.E
On the generic EVE front:
- Various patches and communication issues and 0.0 nerfs.
So...
It's no secret that PL joined in the fight turning the Geminate war into something much more serious for the north. PL basically totally ignored the Geminate battleground and just jumped straight into Vale of the Silent and specifically concentrated on eliminating Rage from the equation first. From the point of view of the foot soldier in Rage we definitely suffered a failure in leadership. From the minute PL entered the fight, it no longer felt like a proper campaign but like a chicken with it's head cut off. Although I only have hearsay regarding what was really going on, I suspect that there was some political friction at the leadership level resulting in the rest of the NC basically throwing PL under the bus.
The issue was straight forward. Once PL started operating with their SC fleet and the NC fleets being unable to keep the PL sub-cap fleet from downing cyno-jammers, the writing was basically on the wall. If the NC super cap fleet did not show, we were going to get steamrollered. This is effectively what happened. At no time did the NC supercap fleet take to the field while vale was burning. I do not know the political reasons for this, but the effect is clearly visible to anyone who can check dotlan.
Basically while PL was curb-stomping RAGE I was doing mostly logistics moves of ships from staging are to staging area. I literally spent more time moving my ships from station to station than in fleets during this period. This has taught me some hard lessons about 0.0 life.
1) Keep the ship count small unless you're a carrier pilot.
2) Do not stock ships in a "rally/staging" system. The convenience is outweighed by the fact that they rapidly become the next target for PL's next attack.
3) Ye gods, does leadership need to pay attention to logistics for campaigns like this. If the logistics underpinning of the alliance is not in place prior to a start of a campaign (defensive or offensive) things will go pear shaped rather quickly once things start and a percentage of the fleet runs out of ships and can not quickly re-ship. The longer this drags on the harder it gets.
4) BAD FCs KILL PARTICIPATION IN FLEETS. I'm not talking about FCs who loose fights but actual BAD FCs. Military lead should kick these fuckers out fast. They are a much worse threat than FC burnout in all honesty.
I had a birds eye view for the debacle in F-D when PL started their invasion. After serving notice of their intention to attack the system. Anchoring a POS and putting the station into first reinforced, we (rage and the rest of the NC that showed up) were in a tactically strong position. We managed to get a strong fleet in system with bridges up to bring in caps/super caps to deal with the supercaps that PL had logged off in system (there were not that many initially). Everything was going well UNTIL the shield fleet FC warped his entire fleet using a fleet warp into a bomber trap at the gate. I still have my suspicions about that FC and that particular trap - we'd never flown with him before and that trap was way to precise - especially since bombers had been reported. At that point the fight as a whole was still salvageable. But psychologically shocked by the loss of a significant part of the shield fleet and some good multi-system attacks by PL that battle was lost at that point.
It was very clear to the rank and file though that there was a lack of commitment by the NC as a whole to the defense of Vale by the lack of the supercap fleet's presence since day 1 of the campaign. Using 10-30 supercaps during the entire campaign, PL managed to keep the entire north's supercap fleet at bay while they leisurely went about capturing station system after station system. In this day and age if you don't defend station systems you loose period. During this period the alliance leadership made itself scarce as far as the rank and file could see.
Subsequent events shed some light on what was happening. R.A.G.E lost its leader and from rumors he had been planing to leave the alliance and take certain corps with him as he left from day 1 of the PL spearhead. This goes a long way to explaining the lack of plan for both defending and retreating from vale in good order. Not to mention coordination with the rest of the NC.
For all intents and purposes Vale was lost from day 1 of the campaign, it just had to play itself out. In retrospect I must salute PL for demonstrating how a proper regional conquest should be handled. I pulled some good lessons from the experience. Watching the invasion of F-D and ZLZ showed much of how PL operated tactically. I can't fault their strategic decisions to hit one alliance at a time. Especially if they know the reasons why he north's supercap fleet wasn't being committed (which I suspect they do).
But I'll have to watch the rest from the sidelines. RHI has now been out of R.A.G.E since the end of last week. I've contracted off most of what remaining assets were trapped in Vale. I'll be sticking with RHI for the time being and see where we end up.
The fallout from this personally is that although I lost a bit of value in all the retreats and what not, the real opener was how dependent ship logistical moves were on carriers. This has changed my plans for personal development. I'm now going to slowly skill up for at least a suitcase carrier before going into command ships. I've now got jump freighters covered anyways. Piece of advice: if the 0.0 corp/alliance does not have a solid logistical backbone and you yourself do not have access to at least a suitcase carrier and a cyno alt, you may be better off waiting before going to 0.0. The preponderance of older characters means they don't always worry about the logistical issues of other players who do not yet have carriers. Jump bridge networks can alleviate some of the issues of not having a carrier of your own, and they're getting a nerf.
On the personal front:
- PL being hired by the DRF to attack NC space
- Having an idiot FC "welp" a fleet
- R.A.G.E getting curb-stomped
- The view from the front lines of the NC situation
- RHI leaving R.A.G.E
On the generic EVE front:
- Various patches and communication issues and 0.0 nerfs.
So...
It's no secret that PL joined in the fight turning the Geminate war into something much more serious for the north. PL basically totally ignored the Geminate battleground and just jumped straight into Vale of the Silent and specifically concentrated on eliminating Rage from the equation first. From the point of view of the foot soldier in Rage we definitely suffered a failure in leadership. From the minute PL entered the fight, it no longer felt like a proper campaign but like a chicken with it's head cut off. Although I only have hearsay regarding what was really going on, I suspect that there was some political friction at the leadership level resulting in the rest of the NC basically throwing PL under the bus.
The issue was straight forward. Once PL started operating with their SC fleet and the NC fleets being unable to keep the PL sub-cap fleet from downing cyno-jammers, the writing was basically on the wall. If the NC super cap fleet did not show, we were going to get steamrollered. This is effectively what happened. At no time did the NC supercap fleet take to the field while vale was burning. I do not know the political reasons for this, but the effect is clearly visible to anyone who can check dotlan.
Basically while PL was curb-stomping RAGE I was doing mostly logistics moves of ships from staging are to staging area. I literally spent more time moving my ships from station to station than in fleets during this period. This has taught me some hard lessons about 0.0 life.
1) Keep the ship count small unless you're a carrier pilot.
2) Do not stock ships in a "rally/staging" system. The convenience is outweighed by the fact that they rapidly become the next target for PL's next attack.
3) Ye gods, does leadership need to pay attention to logistics for campaigns like this. If the logistics underpinning of the alliance is not in place prior to a start of a campaign (defensive or offensive) things will go pear shaped rather quickly once things start and a percentage of the fleet runs out of ships and can not quickly re-ship. The longer this drags on the harder it gets.
4) BAD FCs KILL PARTICIPATION IN FLEETS. I'm not talking about FCs who loose fights but actual BAD FCs. Military lead should kick these fuckers out fast. They are a much worse threat than FC burnout in all honesty.
I had a birds eye view for the debacle in F-D when PL started their invasion. After serving notice of their intention to attack the system. Anchoring a POS and putting the station into first reinforced, we (rage and the rest of the NC that showed up) were in a tactically strong position. We managed to get a strong fleet in system with bridges up to bring in caps/super caps to deal with the supercaps that PL had logged off in system (there were not that many initially). Everything was going well UNTIL the shield fleet FC warped his entire fleet using a fleet warp into a bomber trap at the gate. I still have my suspicions about that FC and that particular trap - we'd never flown with him before and that trap was way to precise - especially since bombers had been reported. At that point the fight as a whole was still salvageable. But psychologically shocked by the loss of a significant part of the shield fleet and some good multi-system attacks by PL that battle was lost at that point.
It was very clear to the rank and file though that there was a lack of commitment by the NC as a whole to the defense of Vale by the lack of the supercap fleet's presence since day 1 of the campaign. Using 10-30 supercaps during the entire campaign, PL managed to keep the entire north's supercap fleet at bay while they leisurely went about capturing station system after station system. In this day and age if you don't defend station systems you loose period. During this period the alliance leadership made itself scarce as far as the rank and file could see.
Subsequent events shed some light on what was happening. R.A.G.E lost its leader and from rumors he had been planing to leave the alliance and take certain corps with him as he left from day 1 of the PL spearhead. This goes a long way to explaining the lack of plan for both defending and retreating from vale in good order. Not to mention coordination with the rest of the NC.
For all intents and purposes Vale was lost from day 1 of the campaign, it just had to play itself out. In retrospect I must salute PL for demonstrating how a proper regional conquest should be handled. I pulled some good lessons from the experience. Watching the invasion of F-D and ZLZ showed much of how PL operated tactically. I can't fault their strategic decisions to hit one alliance at a time. Especially if they know the reasons why he north's supercap fleet wasn't being committed (which I suspect they do).
But I'll have to watch the rest from the sidelines. RHI has now been out of R.A.G.E since the end of last week. I've contracted off most of what remaining assets were trapped in Vale. I'll be sticking with RHI for the time being and see where we end up.
The fallout from this personally is that although I lost a bit of value in all the retreats and what not, the real opener was how dependent ship logistical moves were on carriers. This has changed my plans for personal development. I'm now going to slowly skill up for at least a suitcase carrier before going into command ships. I've now got jump freighters covered anyways. Piece of advice: if the 0.0 corp/alliance does not have a solid logistical backbone and you yourself do not have access to at least a suitcase carrier and a cyno alt, you may be better off waiting before going to 0.0. The preponderance of older characters means they don't always worry about the logistical issues of other players who do not yet have carriers. Jump bridge networks can alleviate some of the issues of not having a carrier of your own, and they're getting a nerf.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Humm
Last night was just some high sec logistics while my jump clone timer was running. Nothing interesting there at all. However, the relaxing piloting in high sec allowed my mind to wander. This is probably dangerous.
Crap. Started working on an evil idea for making life hard for passive moon holders and realized that even though I don't personally own a moon-goo moon, my alliance might not like me giving CCP ideas along those lines (Honest guys, it would have ended up being worse for the Russians than for us).
Crap. Started working on an evil idea for making life hard for passive moon holders and realized that even though I don't personally own a moon-goo moon, my alliance might not like me giving CCP ideas along those lines (Honest guys, it would have ended up being worse for the Russians than for us).
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
/me dusts off the blog
*cough* *cough*
Sorry about that, a combination of things made it so that getting into the game recently has been a bit of a chore. RL can be like that some times. Combine that with Having to move ships from station to station constantly recently (note to self: from now on in when leadership says: move to station x - move somewhere else since PL will be hitting that station next), and it all adds up to "not in game a lot recently".
Also at the rate things are going I'm probably going to be bounced up to empire soon since a good portion of my ships got trapped in one of the stations that is no longer available to us. We'll see how it all goes in the weeks and months to follow, but I definitely need to work on having a personal logistics train (read carrier and jump freighter).
Note to self for future endeavors: Should I ever become alliance leader of a null sec alliance: Making sure that the sub-cap pilots have an available logistics backbone at reasonable prices IS important to pilot participation in ops. The lack of it has resulted in my non-presence in a lot of ops recently even outside of the lack of logging in. Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics. I've just had a serious lesson in that truism.
Sorry about that, a combination of things made it so that getting into the game recently has been a bit of a chore. RL can be like that some times. Combine that with Having to move ships from station to station constantly recently (note to self: from now on in when leadership says: move to station x - move somewhere else since PL will be hitting that station next), and it all adds up to "not in game a lot recently".
Also at the rate things are going I'm probably going to be bounced up to empire soon since a good portion of my ships got trapped in one of the stations that is no longer available to us. We'll see how it all goes in the weeks and months to follow, but I definitely need to work on having a personal logistics train (read carrier and jump freighter).
Note to self for future endeavors: Should I ever become alliance leader of a null sec alliance: Making sure that the sub-cap pilots have an available logistics backbone at reasonable prices IS important to pilot participation in ops. The lack of it has resulted in my non-presence in a lot of ops recently even outside of the lack of logging in. Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics. I've just had a serious lesson in that truism.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Charge of the sub-caps
One hundred kilometers, one hundred kilometers,
One hundred kilometers onward,
All at the grid of death
Warped the six hundred:
Forward the sub-cap fleets!
Bubbles on the titans he said!
Into the grid of death
Warped the six hundred.
Forward the NC fleets!
Was there a pilot dismay'd?
Not tho' the crewmen knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not the voice reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the grid of death
Warped the six hundred.
Abbaddons to the right of them
Bombers to the left of them
Titans to the front of them
Primary'd and Secondary'd
Storm'd at with Tremor and Scorch
Boldly they warped and pointed,
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell
Warped the six hundred.
Flash'd all their lazors bare
Flash'd as they cycled fair
Bubbling the capitals there
Charging the DRF while
All of EVE wonder'd:
Plunged into the drone cloud
Right thro' the support they broke
Intrepid Crossing and Raiden.
Reel'd from the saber-stroke
Shatter'd and Sunder'd
Then they warped back
But not the six hundred
Bombers to the right of them
Abbaddons to the left of them
Titans to the rear of them
Primary'd and Secondary'd
Storm'd at with Tremor and Scorch
While Maelstrom and Guardian fell
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the sub-cap fleets,
Noble six hundred!
(Paraphrased from the poem Charge of the light brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in honor of my 600th' post)
One hundred kilometers onward,
All at the grid of death
Warped the six hundred:
Forward the sub-cap fleets!
Bubbles on the titans he said!
Into the grid of death
Warped the six hundred.
Forward the NC fleets!
Was there a pilot dismay'd?
Not tho' the crewmen knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not the voice reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the grid of death
Warped the six hundred.
Abbaddons to the right of them
Bombers to the left of them
Titans to the front of them
Primary'd and Secondary'd
Storm'd at with Tremor and Scorch
Boldly they warped and pointed,
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell
Warped the six hundred.
Flash'd all their lazors bare
Flash'd as they cycled fair
Bubbling the capitals there
Charging the DRF while
All of EVE wonder'd:
Plunged into the drone cloud
Right thro' the support they broke
Intrepid Crossing and Raiden.
Reel'd from the saber-stroke
Shatter'd and Sunder'd
Then they warped back
But not the six hundred
Bombers to the right of them
Abbaddons to the left of them
Titans to the rear of them
Primary'd and Secondary'd
Storm'd at with Tremor and Scorch
While Maelstrom and Guardian fell
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the sub-cap fleets,
Noble six hundred!
(Paraphrased from the poem Charge of the light brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in honor of my 600th' post)
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