Fallout: Revenant

Click for Revenant Details

  The Revenant is quite a ship even if it doesn't flat out best current super carrier class vessels as noted by Kirith: Revenant versus Wyvern rematch

  With one finally coming up for sale (in BPC form) it looks like we may soon see the first player flown Revenant on the field (as far as I know there are none yet, please correct me if I am wrong).  To me this raises an interesting question.  What is to become of this ship when the "Incursions" are over?

  I may be wrong but I assume that CCP doesn't plan to have these incursions by Sansha forces run for the rest of the life of EvE.  With this being the only source of the Revenant BPC they are already an extremely rare and lucky find.  By the time the incursions run their course I assume there will be less than 20 BPC's dropped and at least some of these will be lost to treachery within the fleet or just bad luck.  With this first BPC offered at a 50 billion isk starting bid these things will certainly not be cheap.  That price will rise to an astronomical level if the ability to gain new copies of this ship is gone, likely making this ship a completely un-usable resource that it's pilot would be stuck in.

  It's just an interesting thought to me, I'm sure CCP has some plans for alternate means to earn this ship (and hopefully other sexy faction capitals *cough* *cough* *wink*) but the thought of these behemoths being such a rare find is also a neat idea.  Of course, if they are truly going to be that rare I would like to see them get a bit of a boost, even if I never see one.


~Meatay

Hot Drop!

Last night, I had the opportunity to do something Meatay and I have been BADLY itching to do...
A hot drop. Of any kind. All we knew was we had to do one.

Well last night while I was supposed to be doing a research paper, I saw a friendly SB gang zipping around station with a few pilots I have flown with in the past. Since I was sitting in station spinning my Sin around and procrastinating, I decided to hop into their comms and ask if they wanted to do a blackops drop. Much to my delight, I got a resounding "OF COURSE!"

Even though it was a very slow day and we were only able to scrounge up 5 pilots, we decided to go for it. We do have the advantage of picking our targets afterall. Our makeshift cyno pilot bumped a hurricane belonging to an alliance that has been harassing our space quite a bit. Cyno was lit immediately upon decloak, but the hurricane quickly reacted and destroyed the makeshift ship mid-bridging.

Did I mention we were unprepared for hot dropping, but wanted to do it so badly that we didn't care? Because that was the case, and that means we basically only had one bomber and one blackops with tackle...

Well, somehow that bomber with tackle ended up bridging into the center of the sun, probably via some bug with destroyed cynos and bridging. He was flung out in a random direction faster than a capital ship in warp, while our Hurricane "friend" made his escape. That's okay though, I already helped kill one of his buddies earlier in the week.

Now that the Sin's cherry is (sort of) popped, I think I'll be doing this quite often :)


-noldevin

I ain't machinery I'm a man

  This weekend I managed to get into a mildly heated argument with several people in a public channel about various aspects of larger alliances, most notably the idea of blobbing.  I'm sick and tired of having this argument, and I'm fully unapologetic for my point of view.  Giving something a negative connotation by associating it with a name like "blobbing" is funny for pirates and those who don't enjoy larger scale warfare but it is wholly unrealistic.  The idea that a small force can expect to enter the domain of a larger force and disrupt operations without being handled by overwhelming force is completely, utterly, stupendously fucking stupid... excuse the language.

  I am 100% fine with the choice to seek out small gang warfare.  I am a huge supporter of all play styles in EvE because this is what makes EvE great.  What I cannot support is the derision that is leveled at those who use force to protect assets they invested time, energy, and isk into.  I especially hate when that talk comes from a person or group who claim to just want "goodfights" but really just want easy kills with less threat of retaliation.  If you are dumb enough to think you can interfere with the work of a group who has superior numbers just for fun then please, take a bottle rocket to the White House and see how that works for you.  When someone threatens something you have worked for the only answer is to bring the full weight of your might down on them.

  Of course if that threat is just a pest, such as a small roaming gang, the best answer is to let it pass because the work you are doing will continue after that gang has gone by and had whatever "goodfights" they are looking for.  Expecting the occupants of any given system -at any given time- to be ready and willing to engage your passing fancy for even fights is -well I don't even have the words for how self centered this is-.  If I am in a system (say mining for example) and an enemy comes in who I can out-wait in a safe place, why would I give that enemy the pleasure of a fight in which I would likely die when I can simply cause him to be bored and leave.

  In the course of our argument I brought up these thoughts and many more and of course I was greeted with the idea that the small pest of a group should have some ability to affect null sec politics, specifically that a small gang should be able to reinforce a station/tower/IHUB/whatever.  To this I ask; in what world would a small band of anything be able to pose any real and lasting threat to the inhabitants of a space?  That is without said merry band being able to bring a force of arms that was equal to the task in the first place?

  The most amazing thing about EvE is that it allows us to expand our own universe within its sandbox.  This universe has taken on a mannerism very similar to human history which is not surprising.  But asking CCP to change the game so that the "little guy" (who hopes to expend almost no resources in comparison to the bigger groups) has a chance to simply login, grab a ship, and cause trouble for those who have been logged in all day working on something... is stupid.  Really it's far more than stupid but I'm not sure if I could express the extent of it.



-Meatay


edit:  some of the intelligent conversation from the other side:

 [06:40:03] -censored-  You are literally the dumbest person I've ever had to talk to in EVE, Meatay

Bupkis

  We took off last night for a frigate roam, hoping to snatch some kills or die in a fire.  After 3 hours of roaming we had only run across a Manticore who was passing by.  He got away because we were heading the other direction and basically ready to give up by that time.  Having roamed our entire home region as well as a bit of the neighboring region we took off for Delve just looking for anything; still nothing, not a soul to be seen.  It was a bit creepy!  As we started bleeding fleet members to RL aggro we called it quits and headed home, still unsatisfied in our blood lust.  Maybe next time we should go "blob" the pirates in lo-sec.  At least if we don't get any fights we can still get some verbal abuse from them.

The Best Kind of Kill

  Last night was another CTA to reinforce another enemy tower, somewhere (I didn't ask for directions, I just followed the guy in front of me).  While this isn't the most glorious job in EvE, I actually enjoy these actions and they can have their own kind of fun.  Not the least of which is getting drunk and blathering in fleet chat;  especially when you are a capital pilot and you don't have to pay as much attention to fleet movement orders (compared to conventials who are often bouncing around or moving the old fashioned way to the theatre of operations).

  This one turned out to be quite fun for me as I got to drag out the Moros for the first time.  Thanks to a pretty respectable turnout from both capital and conventional pilots we were able to pop in and out while the enemy was still mustering their response fleet.  We didn't expect any real resistance to the first stage of POS warfare (reinforcement) but there isn't any reason to stick around longer than necessary.  To some degree I was hoping for a bit of a fight because the nice turnout allowed our conventional fleet to focus on securing the system/PvP instead of the POS.

  I also got to do something I've been wanting for since I first saw a Dreadnought take the field:  pop a shuttle.  It's (almost) the biggest possible gunboat vs the smallest possible enemy ship.  As we were staging for the attack a neutral warped to our cyno.  He was obviously a scout which we weren't concerned about but the fun came when he didn't escape immediately.  Acting quickly I started my lock as soon as I saw him on grid which most of the other pilots didn't do.  This allowed me to at least fire a volley at his shuttle from my dread (dreads having a horrendous lock time on small ships).  Of course he was dead before my charges even landed but I am a big fan of overkill! Killmail:  http://meatay.mindflood.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9150029

-Meatay

EvE Ideas: Service History

  There are many idea posts out there.  Among the best are Rixx's continuing "Gooder EvE" articles.  I remember this idea being discussed before but I couldn't find it in the 20 seconds of attention span I could spare to try.

  The idea: ship service history.  Basically from the moment a ship first pops off the assembly line it starts accruing data in a simple text based database field.  Whenever any major even happens in the life of the ship it gets a note appended to this field.  I wouldn't want an idea like this to be a drag on the system so it would only need to make these appends when an event was already causing a database action, or even at downtime.

  The nice thing about this is that we would actually be able to know how old a ship is, how many times it's been repackaged, how many times it was involved in a killmail (obviously on the winning side...duh), and more.  I for one would love to know about my ships, especially those I buy blindly off of the market.  I don't think you should be able to view the service history of a ship being sold on the market because that would just be a drag on the market and my time.  But it would be nice to buy a ship and open it's service history to see some cool fact like: it fought at the CVA fall in DGTMI, has been repacked 10,000 times, or has scored 2,000 kills (of course the specific battle would only be know by time/location codes and good ol' fashioned assumption but you get the point).


-Meatay

Change of plans: shoot stuff

  Last night I logged in strictly for a set of skill changes aimed at getting me in a range of fancy new ships by the weekend.  Before I had finished my login warp Alliance, Corp, and even my "hang-out" channels were pinging with chatter about a big fleet op that I was already late for.  I am not normally one to be comfortable just hopping into something I unprepared for but I felt lucky so I scrambled to log in my carrier so I could re-ship Meatay and Meatay Speeday into a hurricane and hound respectively.

  The fleet was calling for high DPS or Alpha BS (which kind of gave away the goal) which unfortunately I didn't have any of, at least not in the time available since I was already about 10 minutes late.  I decided that my hurricane fit well enough as it is basically a miniature version of that BS anyway.  I also didn't care if I lost it so I jumped on into the fleet.  Sadly I just didn't have enough time to get my capital pilot ready as the carrier was not properly PvP fitted AND it was sitting at the POS; not in the station with my Moros.  That would mean lining up a jump to the station and then catching up with the fleet which was already waiting for me and a few other pilots.  So, I left the carrier behind due to my own unpreparedness :(

  The fleet wasn't too exciting, we received orders (POS bash, duh), bridged, and started in-capping POS mods.  The hurricane did better than expected but didn't measure up to Large projectile turrets while the hound stealth bomber hits POS mods pretty hard.  No counter fleet arrived (which was expected for an in-cap only op)  and dreads made short work of the task.  With that done we headed home where we had a bit of a laugh Titan bridging our 100 conventionals fleet on a group of campers that have been annoying us all for two weeks now.  Even though they escaped I love sharing that "oh shit" feeling of thinking you have something dead and 100 of his buddies suddenly appearing all around you.  I don't care if that is the epitome of blobbing; it's fun!  It's also happened to me plenty of times.

  With the capital fleet safe and standing down we made our rounds dropping people off and re-shipping for some roaming action.  We ended up attempting to engage a group of pilots I used to fly with just last month (Dashavatara pilots) who are crafty PvP'ers.  We weren't able to grab them but the fleet did manage to get an EOS belonging to Prometheus Exenthal, which I missed out on by lagging behind :(

  There was some talk of me being a spy for the Dashavatara pilots because they are experienced PvP'ers who managed to elude out fleet.  Luckily the FC was a long time friend who I flew with all the way back in Providence when I first flew under the AOV flag, then in FA during their efforts to gain sov out in the Curse area.

  Needless to say I will be getting my capital assets within easier reach for these types of operations as well as grabbing a Maelstrom, Megathron, Tempest, or Rokh to stash nearby.

-Meatay

CSM: Supporting

  I have decided to share who I will be voting for: Trebor Daehdoow (Robert Woodhead IRL)


  Mainly Trebor did a nice job in CSM 5 and the fact that he will be hitting the ground running is something I find comforting.  Also he is from North Carolina, USA which makes him a home-town boy for me (in EvE terms I consider the same state close enough).  Add in the fact that he's offering a good ol' fashioned bribe to spread the word about his campaign and he's just my type of guy.  Plus I agree with most of his stances to at least some degree and I do believe he will be a transparent CSM member to the extent allowed by the NDA...

Visit his site here



  I do have another candidate who may get some of my votes.  I am still thinking over how I feel about Saleene (Mark Heard IRL) being a former CCP'er.  On the one hand that gives him a very good start and a better knowledge of how the CSM will actually work but on the other hand it seems a bit... I don't know... untoward.  Either way I really like most of what's he is saying so perhaps I will split my votes.

Click here for Saleene's site

CSM Candidates

  Before it's too late and you have to either not vote or just pick someone please head on over to the Candidate Profiles and read up on the candidates.  I won't say who I am voting for just yet (if I decide to say at all) but I do encourage you not to just vote for someone with a list of things they would do if they were in charge of EvE because that's not going to work in the CSM.  The CSM is a forum for ideas and bouncing things off of current players for CCP, not a platform to yell at CCP about things they aren't doing for you personally.  It should be about shared growth towards an improved game.  Also, please don't vote for someone who obviously just wants a trip to CCP headquarters or wants to learn some shiny bit of inside information.

http://www.eveonline.com/council/voting/candidatesview.asp?sid=807719446

-Meatay

Intense Debate

I have added Intense Debate vs. the standard Blogger comments.  We'll see if it doesn't blow anything up.

Mobile Version

Finally figured out the mobile version for the blog...  Took me long enough eh?

http://aufescapevelocity.blogspot.com/?m=1


-Meatay

BB#25: The Condition of Mere Nature

Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic comes to us from @Tetraetc – “Tetra’s EVE Blog” – who asks: “Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modification of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?”

     The primary question here (in my mind) is “does the alliance mechanic affect PvP and is there anything we can do about it?”  The answer to this is probably complex enough to write a dissertation but can be boiled down to:
1) Yes, of course it does

2) Hell No!

As Thomas Hobbes argues, people are not very fond of death and are actually very fond of protecting their lives and livelihood.  While EvE is clearly just a game that only goes so far in changing human nature.  Alliances were formed long before there was a mechanic for them and coalitions now exist outside of a structured mechanic.  These alliances represent humans attempting to bring law to a state of nature because without this there would be 

“no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Again; Hobbes)

     In a sense these alliances act like states in the real world and conflict is all but assured in this case.  So the belief that alliances remove PvP is flawed; they merely alter it because they aggregate a group of humans into a more unified structure.  So removing this would theoretically thrust us all back to some form of the state of nature, but would that help PvP?  Let’s look at lo-sec for a very brief example. 

     Lo-sec is the most representative of EvE without alliances and as such it is wild and almost completely useless.  There is no commerce, no infrastructure (other than that we have been provided by the almighty CCP), and most importantly very little traffic that isn’t only passing through.  This is sure to draw much criticism but lo-sec proves that the removal of alliances from the game would cause the portions of space now dominated by them to become useless.  Of course individual PvP would go up without the protection of numbers but why would anyone want to go to this environment except for PvP?  So the players who would seek this out already have a place: lo-sec.  That is even going so far as to imagine that we can “force” people to behave as we want them to.

     Any reasonable person should know that without overwhelming force acting upon them people will act according to their own moral imperative and only follow the stipulations of another if it benefits them.  This means that out of the ashes of the crushed alliances new ones would be rebuilt and people would once again group together for mutual defense and the projection of power.  This has already been expressed in the original creation of alliances as well as in the current coalition structure.  Beyond that, this whole argument revolves around the supposition that one on one PvP is even a probable outcome.

     Ignoring the idea of honor or the seeking of glory there is never any reason for a person to fight another person in a fair fight.  Even those who espouse the idea of “1v1” or "small gang" battles follow this notion.  How many times do you see a Rifter attack a Dramiel or a Drake jump on a Widow?  How often do you see someone let a Hulk pilot go free because they are no match for a Hurricane?  If you remove the outliers (who exist in standard human nature as well) it is clear that in most cases the proponents of “1v1” or "small gang warfare" are themselves seeking out weaker targets to prey upon in order to improve their own livelihood.  If the champions of this ideal don’t feel a need to “fight fair” why should they expect anyone else to.  Human nature does not work this way; if their enemy has backup they will use it to remove the threat.  These pilots would do the same given the opportunity or an equal feeling of threat.    The point of conflict is to win and if a person or group has superior resources available they will use them towards the goal of winning the conflict.

   Anyway, that is enough of that.  Fly Safe

Participants

1. CrazyKinux's Musing: EVE Blog Banter #25: And by Alliance you mean.....?
2. BB25 What sov changes will come? | A Mule In EvE
3. Confessions of a Closet Carebear: Alliances and Sovereignty
4. Blog Banter 25: Nerfing Nulsec « OMG! You're a Chick?!
5. Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? | Nitpickin's
6. Blog Banter #25: Alliance and Sovereignty Limiting PvP in 0.0? | Sarnel Binora's Blog
7. Blog Banter #25 - Mad Haberdashers
8. Alliances and sovereignty | Eve Online Focus
9. ...Shall we not Revenge?: BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?
10. Blog Banter: Alliances and Sov
11. EVEOGANDA: BB25: Sov 'n Go!
12. » TBG:EBB#25 – Alliances and Sovereignty To Boldly Go
13. Freebooted: BB25: Leviathans of the Deep
14. Wrong Game Tetra ~ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
15. EVE Blog Banter #25 – Human nature what art thou? | Way of the Gun
16. Who cares about Sov? - Hands Off, My Loots! ~ well sorta like an entry! :p
17. The 25th EVE Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty - The Phoenix Diaries
18. Achernar: The space commute
19. Wandering the Void…my EvE musings. – Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty
20. (OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #25: How To Break EvE. « Prano's Journey
21. Captain Serenity: Blog Banter #25 - Crappy mechanics
22. Helicity Boson » Blog Banter #25 Nullsec and sov.
23. BB #25 – “With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?”
24. Boom! Hull-Shot?: It's the End of the Eve as We Know It
25. sered's lives: EVE Blog Banter #25 - Size does matter
26. 25th EVE BB – Medieval Solutions to Spaceship Problems | Inventions of a New Eden Industrialist
27. Eve Blog Banter #25: “Have Alliances and Sov Limited PvP and RP in 0.0?” « Align Outbound
28. Banter 25: Sovereignty, Alliances and Power Blocs | TheElitist
29. Blog Banter 25 – But I just left all that! « A Scientist's Life in Eve
30. Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
31. >>>Vigil Ant: Alliances and SOV by Munny's eyes.
32. Latro's Bunker: Blog Banter 25 -Nullsec and Sov
33. A "CareBears" Journey » Blog Banner #25: Alliances and Sovereignty, and their affect on PVP and RP
34. Blog Banter #25 – Unstoppable « Roc's Ramblings
35. Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
36. EVE Blog Banter on PVP in Null Sec « Evehermit's Blog
37. More to come...