Pictures from EVE

Atmospheric update

Bringing you something different this time. Grabbed a few pictures I found around on my computer that I wanted to share with you. 

At my POS the sun is always setting. And the new POS graphics make it a stunning experience

 Two captures from a brief visit in Thera some weeks back.

And then some old old pictures I found

POS bashing when CHIMP took over Detorid

Taking down the station in DG-8JV where CHIMP based out of in 2005

Yes, this is a mining op. Jetcan mining with megathron :D

And finally. My old potrait. You can tell I'm smiling :P

The death of wormholespace

For a few weeks now I have been reading through the dev posts about new structures and the changes to sov. Big changes are coming, and we are right now seeing the precursor to those changes. CFC is abandoning Fountain and Cloud Ring. Northern Coalition is abandoning Querios. Renter space almost everywhere is left to themselves mostly. Capitals are rendered useless in the capture of structures and space causing huge shift in how groups and alliances approach the aspect of conquering and holding space. From a lot of the threads it seems that a lot of people from wormholespace dont understand how these changes will affect them so this is my humble attempt at pulling some of the strings and trying to anticipate how some of it will play out. The death of wormholespace? Maybe a bit dramatic. But it will change. Change a lot.

I will divide this section into a few of the core game-play aspects we currently have in wormholespace. Let me start with the big ones first.

Eviction

The act of kicking someone out of their home. Has been one of the major contributors to the way wormholespace function. Even a scout from Bite Me Inc back in the day could be enough to send an entire alliance into depression and panic. You know what? This will be gone. Completely gone. Evictions as we know them will die with the new structures. And here is why:

• No loss of assets. (i) To accommodate the nullsec groups CCP has decided that loosing all your assets is no longer an option. The new structures will have built in security measures in them that keep your assets safe even if the structure explodes. We don't know in what shape that will be yet and maybe it will be possible to hellcamp a system 23/7 for a few weeks and manage to kill people retrieving their assets. But seriously. No one will have the will to do that.
• Structures not bound to moons anymore. (i) So there is no way to prevent your target from putting up a new structure and prolonging the siege.

So what does this really mean? CCP is shifting the focus from destruction to conquering. If you want to make a name and take over your neighbors assets you need to move in and conquer their system and live there. Not only blap the pos and be gone.

Is this a good change? In my opinion: YES. Very much so. It will definitely encourage more groups to try wormholespace and there will be more focus on fights instead of structures.

Nullsec relation

I think several of the groups like Hard Knocks Inc and Lazerhawks (and others who enjoy roaming null) already have severely wet themselves when the news about the Entosis link (i) and the new mechanic for capturing sov was released (i).

• Station Capture
  Hard Knocks have a couple of times made a mockery out of different nullsec groups by capturing their stations. Having a wormholegroup take your station show how little you are actually able to defend it. In june this will be a lot more frequent occurrence. Because why not? Capture a station, freeport it and setup a low tax. Some free isk for a little while by trolling the nullseccers.
• Bluelists
  Watching the current nullsec megablocks dropping sov and consolidating over a smaller area the relationship between nullsec groups and wormhole groups will alter a lot. We have already seen the Russian community change this and expect a lot more to be seen in the English community in the months to come. We already see a huge influx of nullsec alliances deploying to wormholespace and with wormholegroups affecting the sov war itself I suspect several attempts at diplomatic "arrangements" may be growing forth.

There are probably a few more aspect of the nullsec - wormholespace relationship that will be affected, but the strict divide that has existed between the two spaces earlier will be a lot more blurred after the summer.

Docking and mooring

Probably the hottest subject with the most feels thrown around, docking in wormholespace has always been a hot subject whenever brought up. But we also have very little confirmed information about what will apply to wormholespace and what will not. Lets assume at least that the no-local will stay as is (more on this subject later). Will docking hurt wormholespace? Many will say yes, but lets delve a bit deeper into it. What is the difference between a docked or cloaked player in a no-local enviroment? The docked player can change ship without notice. But everyone will see him undock and can react accordingly. Will you engage at the undock? No ofc not. There will be no docking games with the new structures. Why not? Because every docking structure will have defence. You know what this means? Yes docking games will be gone from 0.0 as well. You will no longer be able to sit on a station without taking the risk of being targeted, scrammed, webbed and shot by the structure! Now go back and read that again.

So if you want to be able to camp a station/structure you need a fleet able to tank the structure defense doing full aggro by manually manned guns. Same as with POS currently. So will docking make a big difference in wormholespace? Actually I think not. Will it alter wormholespace? Yes a lot. But players will adapt and new tactics will evolve. But I don't see docking games being a part of it.

Market hubs (i)

Now CCP has given us absolutely NOTHING to indicate this will be in wormholes or not. Personally I would LOVE it. Different concerns have been voiced in regards to market hubs but I think it would both allow different style of gameplay to evolve and also make it easier to actually live in a wormhole.

Drilling platforms (i)

Again. Little from CCP about this in relation to wormholes but I would love to see it as possible. Especially if it would scale with the classes. To give it short. I want this structure to spawn gas and ore sites that need to be scanned down. Scannable ore sites have been a request since they were moved and this is a perfect opportunity to bring them back. At the same time go ahead and nerf all the ore anoms and belts. That will make this structure very useful in both null and wspace.

GATES AND OBSERVATORY ARRAYS (i)

And here is the elephant in the room. The really big change that will literally change a LOT. Gates in wormholespace? Yes it looks like it :o
I'll start this with a few quotes from the thread:

We are planning on some of the structure to be placed in W-space yes, the exact type and numbers are up to discussion based on the gameplay consequences they are going to have there. It all depends if we feel they're going to negatively impact this area of space or spice up gameplay. (i)

 But the most interesting is this:

Interesting points, thanks - however, if possible, we would like to open up as many structures as possible for people not participating in Sovereignty warfare.

Why should we penalize players in high-security space by preventing them to anchor their own gates? If they're willing to pay, face the risk of having them attacked and maintenance of having them, I don't see why it should be for Sovereignty space only.

A large group of players willing to bypass Niarja by building a network of gates around it should be able to do so. Smugglers in low-sec, or FW pilots should be able to use their own gates to get a tactical edge over their opponents.

We may find out later that it may not be wise to do so for whatever design / technical reason, but we'd really like to keep the system as open-ended as possible for now until proven otherwise . (i) in reply to (i)

Now this deserves some thoughts. Basically what they are saying is that they are changing EVE. Completely. They are changing the way all travel mechanics work. Who can go where etc. We have no clue what this will actually result in especially for wormholespace. But holding a constellation of c4's i.e. may actually become a thing. That alters a lot. A lot. And I'm not sure its a good thing. But it does mean that farming several c5's or c6's in a night will be possible. How you can disrupt the gates will also be a very vital element in their affect. An example could be you are looking at hurting a c5 group that hold 4 wormholes in the same constellation. You start seeding all the wormholes and as they are all gathered farming in one wormhole you attack the gates with entosis link. Now they cant engage you everywhere and using bubbles you can hinder them enough to disconnect two of the systems from the others. Now you can proceed to clear out the disconnected systems and they have to use alts scanners to get a way back in. But with structure loot gone whats really the point of destroying for the sake of destruction? Unless the structure itself gives a 60b killmail? Yeah I can see that being a good enough incentive for a lot of groups. So possible interesting gameplay, but most interesting is the possible validation of the atlas project. 

Observatories on the other hand has some interesting uses. Most don't apply to us as it affect showing of statistics on the system map. But the decloaking effect that was teased can be interesting in itself. But we have no clue how that will work. However I don't see any good gameplay contribution coming from it to wormholespace. The cloaky meta is the signature of wormholespace and I don't want to see it gone. So please Fozzie! No decloaking in wormholespace.

This thread is however one I will keep an constant eye on as it evolves.

Closing observations

As the work progress with the new structures it will be interesting to see what comes out of it. I doubt we will have much confirmed before after the June sov patch goes out. But your welcome to surprise me CCP :D

One thing is certain however. The entire game looks like it will be changing. Will it kill wormholespace? No not at all, but it may be the death of wormholespace as we know it today. Ages come and ages go. What was once present pass into history and then into myth.

Choose a wormhole, Part 2

Part 2: Home system

(check out part 1 here about what static to choose)

This should always be your second choice but its still an important choice.Wormholespace is kinda divided in two. The systems who have a kspace static (c1-3) and those who don't (c4-5). You can also divide between the systems where capitals can transverse (c5-6. Also known as high class) and those where capitals can not enter or leave (c1-4. Also known as low class). Capitals change both pvp and pve a lot. In high class, warping capitals to the anomalies trigger extra sleepers who are worth a lot. In low class this doesn't happen. Also in pvp the tactic known as "dread blapping"(where you use webbing ships to slow down and target paint ships cruiser class and up so the dreads can one-shot them) is common practice in high class. Invasions and evictions is also far more frequent where capitals can leave and enter than where they cant. This will be an interesting change with the new structures that leaves the dreads useless except for additional fighting power. We will have to see how that turns out when the time comes.

This time I have listed the most obvious benefits of each class as I see them, connections (including how much traffic you can expect through your system) and vital considerations for homedefence.

Do you have a different experience with one of these classes? Let me know in the comments below.

Class	Benefit	Connections	Homedefence
C1	The pve in these doesn't give much but good potential as industry base and PI farm. Keep an eye out for nullsec data or relic sites tho. Possible to be a good base for solo or small group doing industry. If you want a null/ls static for pvp-roams I rather recommend a c3 due to the tiny entrance and difficult of rolling c1 wormholes.	Outgoing: Static known space Incoming: Roaming mostly lower classes Traffic: little	Always having a static kspace these system are very easy to bring mercs into and very hard to roll due to the small size. Keep 5-10 bill spare in your wallet and you will most likely never be bothered. Set up large or medium towers with loads of online ecm and neuts and offline guns. Do not build caps in system!
C2	I would argue this is the perfect class for a new corp to wormholespace. If your aim is to experience the best from wormholespace then this is a good entry. Depending on the statics you can either have steady access to good small group pve or occasional small gang pvp. You will from time to time have big groups connecting to you as well. Don't be afraid, try to gank their haulers. Camp the Kspace static. Skirmish with kiting ships. Bomb with bombers. And always scan out your wormholechain as far as possible. You never know what you find. Most often your own system will be devoid of pve sites so make sure to make a decent choice of static!	Outgoing: Dual static: Known space, Wormholespace Incoming: Roaming and static from all classes Traffic: loads	This is the most sought after wormhole class currently. Its the starting spot for a lot of corporations. If you only have a single tower and no obvious friends you may find yourself an easy prey. Having a heavy defended large POS may deter attackers bashing your POS directly but I have personally heard about several people seeing unknown groups still move into the same wormhole. Keeping some spare isk for mercs can be handy if you need. Having a spare dread if you plan to settle for several years may be useful but never heard of anyone who actually had any use of it. Rather try to give fights or ambush connecting groups and make some friends instead. May serve you a lot better than throwing isk at unused capitals.
C3	Can provide decent solo pve content for a few hours but the real strength of these wormholes are the direct kspace that have a 300k mass allowance. Depending on the static this class really shine as either industrial base or staging ground for pvp roams in null or lowsec. Of course also keep in mind how easy it is to make a powerful PI farm ;)	Outgoing: Static known space Incoming: Roaming mostly lower classes Traffic: little	With a single kspace exit this is again very easy to bring mercs into. Have some spare isk for that. But unlike the c1 the static is easier to roll making wormholecontrol for any invading force a lot easier. However as these systems don't give a lot for smaller++ groups and is primarily good for soloplayers, having a decent POS setup will most often prevent you from being evicted but if someone else decide to move in its hard to stop. Again. Having spare isk for mercs may help.
C4	Home sites really cant supply more than 2-3 active people but the major benefit is from the dual statics these systems now have. Please check my blogpost on why I personally love our c4 here. But c4's are all about the statics and can support everything from 3-4 active players up to unlimited number of people depending on statics.	Outgoing: Dual static to wormholespace Incoming: Mostly k162 from C4 but also other classes Traffic: sometimes a lot, other times nothing at all	If you have an attractive system with good PI and good statics then "maybe" someone want to take it from you. But right now there are enough empty ones to fill. You should have more than a bare few people people so fielding a fleet for homedefence should be viable. Use large towers with a proper varied defense to demotivate attackers. Hardeners and ecm to make initial bash a pain and then loads of offline guns as well to online if needed.The more towers the safer but you need to stay cost efficient.
C5	Not very solo friendly but possible for small groups depending on static. Very good isk-making potential with capital escalation but also somewhat risky. Most of the c5's are inhabited by corporations primarily focused on the pve (of which several are alt corps of the few big pvp-wormholecorps/alliances still around). Recommended for corporations with 5-10++ active members but there are also several common ways of doing it solo as well for the high skilled players with several alts.	Outgoing: Single Static wormholespace Incoming: Mostly someone else's c5 static. Occasional direct roaming low, null or very rare hs. Traffic: very little. Usually just scouts and then occasionally huge fleets.	Large POS only for defense. Medium can work few pilots but will be easy to RF with dreads no matter what defense you put on it. Large ones with neuts, ecm and guns can cause problem for a small fleet even with dreads. Large fleets there is no defense against with the current structure system. Just keep anchoring and onlining neuts while they bash to drag out the time and bore them to death. Make it as boring as possible for the attackers. Neuts to neut out dreads, hardeners to make the bash as long as possible. Batphone whatever friends you have and keep everyone online even if afk just to make sure hostiles have to be ready for defending hole control at all times. If possible batphone whoever you can and take hole control at opportune moment to get them inside. There are several lesser pvp groups that make a living out of invading and evicting small corps in c5 space so be sure to either have friends or fat wallets to hire mercs if needed.
C6	Not at all solo friendly. Right now most c6 is occupied by a russian renter alliance called w-Space citizen. If you look like a small squishy target and someone have a russian corp willing to pay for your wormhole expect to be evicted. If you have a decent group it is however a easy place to grab a system. As in c5 you have the potential for isk from capital escalations. For pvp its very much up to the static you choose. Don't expect many to roll into you as there is at most 2-3 pvp groups who do any decent kind of rolling.	Outgoing: Single Static wormholespace Incoming: Mostly a c6 static from an empty system that someone else deeper in chain scanned. Occasional direct roaming low, null or very rare hs. Traffic: very little. Usually just scouts and then occasionally huge fleets.	Same as c5 but anyone invading have a lot easier time seeding your system with capitals due to how easy it is to roll for a specific c6 (only 100 in total opposed to the approx 500 c5 systems) Also be prepared to be seeded for siteganking. Read up on relevant tactics on how to deal with that.

Why I love our C4

So I havent really told much about how it is like living in a c4 with static c4 and c2. So today I'll reveal a little bit of what its like. To the left you see our chain from 31. march. No its not uncommon. This is in fact somewhat regular to get these chains. We dont always go deep, but when we do it spreads all over.

So this is a good example of our regular chain. Now basicly the only hinderance here is the 2 bill mass on our statics and the lack of ability to bring capitals through. But other than that we basicly got all of eve at our doorstep. Nothing in the wormholes? Check some of the lowsecs. Or null. Or go gas mining in a c5.

In this particular chain we actually had Sleeper Social Club scout in our c4 static. So our scouts went hunting for their home, but couldnt find it. At the same time someone found a ishtar ratting in the c3c so we went out and killed that. Then another went off into lowsec from LSA and found some guys. We tried to get a fight but when a few of us showed up the locals just ran away.

Shattered wormholes? Daily. (here its the one with a orange border around it). If we got bored we could ofc go and scan that. They usually open up another 3-7 wormholes.

Do I miss the c5 farming with capitals? No not really. Sure its good isk but right now I consider our lovely wh the best place we have lived in wormholespace. We never close our home and 23.5/7 all of these wormholes are avaiable to our pilots to do whatever they want in.

Yes, we are recruiting. 

Join "Unsettled" channel in game.

Choose a wormhole home; Part 1

On a regular basis I do a tiny overall look on wormholespace and try to make up a somewhat subjective opinion on what kind of home would give us the optimal fun in game. And I felt with the recent changes that have happened (and also seeing how it has played out) it was time to do it again. But this time I will make it avaiable to all of you aswell. So here we go:

Part 1: Choosing a static

When choosing a wormhole your first desicion should always be what kind of static you want. The static is what will be your main source of interaction and activity unless you are determined to exclude yourself from other players. This has become increasingly harder to do after Hyperion expansion and if exclusion is a goal in itself you may also consider renting a system in 0.0.

Furthermore I have not considered roaming wormholes in this overview as that is not something that is dependable and consistent contribution to your daily activity.

I have divided this overview in three groups. How you pew your pew, how you make your isk and how you fuel your towers. Fuel will be a continual needed ingrediant even with the new structures coming up so its a vital element to evaluate.

Do you have a different experience with one of these static? Let me know in the comments below. 

(part 2 is now avaiable here)

Static	PVP	PVE	Logistic
HS	Yeah not entirely sure what kind of PVP ability you get from a HS static. Wardecs I guess?	Safety is the first that comes to mind with a HS static. Usually these wormholes make a good base for industry as you get easy access to hauling and altering market exits. Anoms in HS is usually not wort talking to much about as its usually the low end sites in all shapes and forms.	Easy
LS	This would be the primary exit type for lowsec roams. Ability to roll it also makes for diversity. Lowsec roams	Lowsec has racial gas sites for making booster gas. Also you may come across some decent DED sites. In addition you got the occasional ghost sites	There are enough lowsec exits one jump from a HS to not make this a issue
NS	Nullsec roams. Very powerfull for nullsec guerilla warfare. Especially with sov 5.0 coming the summer 2015 this will be an attractive static to have for those who love the nullsec skirmishes. Important to notice however a nullsec static doesn't allow for Capital ships to transverse so some fights might escalate above what you will be able to handle. Small ship nullsec roam	A nullsec static gives somewhat limited PVE abilities. Mostly you will be able to do nullsec exploration sites and DED sites but be limited to subcapital ships to run them.	Can be more challenging as you have to depend on other chains for a HS exit. Worst case you black ops jump a cloaky hauler through the gatecamps to a exit close to lowsec.
C1	Unless you are lucky and find a offline POS this is not a good static for PVE. C1 usually leads to HS aswell so see my points on a HS exit further up. Usual HS chain	Possible solo sites but a c2 or c3 static give better soloable content.	Usually easy due to high amount of HS
C2	This is where you first start to talk about the option of  wormhole-pvp. All C2 systems have dual static. One to known space (most often HS) and one to another wormholeclass. For small gang wormhole hunting this is by many considered as a premium static due to possible long stretching chains with a diversity of content. Currently a lot of C2's have become increasingly active with smaller groups as seen by this graph. Chains to known space and wormholespace	Easy HS Decent soloable anoms Nullsec data sites Possible group content in the wormholechain.	Usually easy due to high amount of HS
C3	C3's themself does seldom offer a lot of pvp as they are primarily used for solofarming, industry or staging. Depending on the static it has itself. 50% of C3 lead to lowsec so having a c3 static usually means you get easy lowsec roam ability. I have also heard from people living in them or having them as static that roaming wormholes has been an increasing occurance in c3's. This open options but not on a dependable level. Usually leads to lowsec (see up)	Easy soloable content Also see lowsec static further up	Usually easy due to high amount of LS/HS
C4	Ahh. Yes. The c4 static. I may be a bit partial on this as we currently have this in our home, but what connections this bring. Since Hyperion brought the second static a c4 static opens up a world of opportunity. Considering about 50% (finger in the air number) of the c4's you connect to have another c4 static you usually end up with a huge chain leading to all sorts of classes. Yes every night we have everything from c1-c6 in our c4 chain. Depending on how deep our scouts go. Considering several other groups have moved to c4's with different statics you usually find someone to fight several times a week. Sometimes you get to gank someone. Other times you get ganked yourself. And sometimes theres a proper fight. Right now a static c4 is the optimal static for diversity and activity.	Again. You get almost every aspect of wormholespace except the capital escalation option for c5 and c6.So everything from solo to big groups get iskmaking opportunities.	Usually easy due to high amount of HS further down in the chain.
C5	There used to be a joke about the endless c5-c5 highway. After living in a c5-c5 ourself for a bit it wasnt such a funny joke anymore. Occasionally you get a big group in your chain but mostly you have to go into null for fights. Looking at the killboard from the big groups living in c5's it seem like this is still the case. Long down the chain or out to null to find fights.	This is where you start seeing the big isk. For a group of 4+ these sites can be easily run and generate a very good income. If your homesystem is a c5/6 in addition you can bring in 1+ capital to escalate. And then you have the c320. Thats just raw isk in itself that you can pick up for free. The four battleships that spawn is easy to solo and adds another 100 mill to the value of the site.	This is probably the most challenging in regards to the logistic aspect. Your chains never has the promise of a kspace like the c1-4 statics have. You mostly depend on finding a roaming direct HS or you find a 5-1,2,4 down the chain. From experience you really never struggle with logistic but are more dependant on making use of good opportunities that come along.
C6	The Nostalgia. Havent we all watched Clarion Call and dreamt about the glorious battles of fame and fortune? The sacking of TLC, the invasion of Noho. But right now the land of C6 is a barren wasteland. What was once the pinnacle of wormholespace has now turned to a series of empty wormholes. Only sign of life is the single towers belonging to the russian farmers called "w-space citizen". Occasionally you will connect to former great block who still struggle through survival with fat wallets and inactive members. No, right now a C6 static offers little but another connection. Another dot on the line towards the next wormhole. Maybe you are lucky and get a connection to null or lowsec, but the glory of days yonder has past to legends.	Yes right now a c6 static is a good place to farm. Noone is rolling for c6's so little chance of ganks unless someone is coming through a chain.	Actually logistic with a static c6 is easier than in with a static c5. This is mostly due to the low number of c6 wormholes and how easy it is to roll to a 6-2 or 6-1 if you really need a HS.

The Siege of Hub

It all started on a day like just like any other day. Not this week. Nor last. But several months back. When we had just moved into SingSing (Yes thats the name of our C4 wormhole). Through our connection we had two other groups who were already fighting eachother. We made an agreement with one of the groups and togeather we took down some carriers. The name of this group we decided to fight together with was Revenant Tactical [-R3V-]. We had a blast and started talking about them joining Unsettled. However our policy of all alliance members living inside our C4 put them off as they still enjoyed the C5 they lived in.

HeWhoShallNotBe Named
contacted us on the proposal
of joining forces.

And so time passed on as she always does. Days became weeks and weeks became months. Along the way some of our members in Dracos Dozen went over to fly with them aswell and tho we rarely saw them again in our chians, a bond was formed. Along the path R3V chose to move on from their 5-4 to a new 5-3. And it is here we reconnect to recent history. As content dried up for them in the 5-3 they reapproached us to further discuss a joining of f

orces and invited us to move into their 5-3. As before we were very positive to flying with the pilots in R3V. But again the idea of moving into a 5-3 was very little tempting. But we started a discussion to see if we could find some way of making it work. Having previous experience from living in a 5-3, both ICOL and .ORLY knew it was mostly a one way street to Lowsec depending on roaming wormholes and incoming connections to actually do content in wormholespace. This was less desirable then

Two days later, on february 27, we got a urgent call. Russians had seeded R3V's wormhole and reinforced two towers. A series of communications started to go forth and back to assemble what we could of intel. It appeared to be a few minor groups. They seemed like no real threat really. But we digged a little deaper. And on one killmail a very familiar name showed up. DURA LEXX. This was not the first time we had encountered this name. No in fact we had come across them on several occasions.

A desicion was made and we assembled the finest fleet UNSET had ever flown before. We strolled over and took wormholecontrol. We set up a staging pos (since they had already seen our fleet) and logged of inside system. Then as many as possible helped keeping wormhole control through the night. Since this was not our alliance home we did not call a CTA or schedule a wormhole control group that could hold 24/7. And during US and AU tz we very much relied on R3V to keep control. But as russian prime began on the saturday too few were online to keep total control. Now the sadest part of this endevour was that timers on towers had not been manually set and expired in russian prime and our weakest timezone. (Yes we had a chat after timers began about how to adjust strontium in towers to alter the outcome). But we decided to make the best of it and assembled as many people possible on the login screen as the tower timerz approached.

Now I will take a moment and explain a little bit. The history of DURA LEXX and their friends is not easy to interpret. They are not pro on the level of Blood Union and Quantum Explosion. They do silly mistakes from time to time and after what appeared to be a falling out between DURA LEXX and QEX/BU a year or so back they have never flown togeather again. In this operation they were flying with Duckling Union, GALAXY ALLIANCE and Total Absolution. Since they impressivly managed to lose an archon to a tower we did not think too highly of them and maybe took a bit light on their ability to call others to do their work.

As the timers passed R3V pulled out a Thanatos to rep the tower. Painfully slow but sitting on the edge of shields it started repping. We kept our pilots on login screen expecting the hostiles to pull a somewhat stupid move. We did not expect them to be able to get in reinforcement so as their dreads and an archon landed on grid with tower we logged in and went straight for the capitals. Little did we know that this would be our fatal flaw in the defense (and much to my own blame for calling the tactical move). Neuts were put in place on the Archon. Guardians got up chain and the grind began to break the archon. Since it was in the middle of the day most our EU forces were not avaiable leaving us with the now somewhat tired homedefence of R3V and less than optimal UNSET fleet. Luckily for us a frigate wormhole appeared earlier before the fight. Connected directly to No Vacancies home system. Striking up a conversation with some old friends there, they brought a few bombers through to try to assist us.

The stumped feeling when you get overrun by ishtar fleet

Not many minutes into the fight scouts reported a massive fleet coming in through the static C3. Ishtars. Many of them. It was the nullsec StainRUS fleet who had come. They by far outnumbered us and as ship after ship got alpha'd off field the resignation set into our fleet. People scrambled to get out of bubbles or into POS. The havock of the ishtars annihilated our fleet completely. There was no way we could even land reps as ship after ship fell. The final numbers was daunting and as FC got blasted away noone stepped up to replace him even. A sad day indeed.

It all ended horribly wrong. From the optimistic tone when our fleet arrived the evening before, to the loosing of wormhole control and eventually utter defeat to the nullsec fleet. As the day went on R3V made the desicion to accept our offer to them to join us in SingSing with entire corp. As EU primetime approached we easily took back wormholecontrol again after the nullsec fleet left. And then we started shipping out assets. R3V agreed to a "cease-fire" with the russian corps (who could finally get some decent sleep) and the haul began. Most assets was moved out but some long gone members assets and leftover ships got left behind. Along with several POS's that it seem Total Absolution got the honor of cleaning up. By themself. As a final offering several of the capitals from R3V was lined up and self destructed.

It was a great honor coming to your aid R3V and we welcome you to our alliance. 

Great fun have already been had so look forward to even more :D 

The final lineup of R3V capitals as they all self-destruct

CSM X (that means 10 in roman numbers) elections

So its that time of the year again.CSM elections. Bring out the children, grandparents and forefathers and line up for the voting booth.Then go out shave and vote again :D

I havent been the most enthustiastic promoter of CSM elections in all the media but my Twitter feed is flowing over with endorsements and recommandations and podcasts and opinions and oneliners. In good tradition there has been both podcasts and summits that will let you spend days of your life getting into the mindset, family history and psych evaluations of the different candidates.

Or you can do like me and read the tl:dr of people who enjoy spending time doing just that. So wihtout further fuzz I recommend you go read up the voting slate suggested by Rhavas. You find it here. His arguments for all the candidates are pretty good. But since CCP has taken upon themself the burden of reworking structures in Eve soon™ I thought it might be a bit more important to vote this time. I even got Corbexx to come on our ts the coming saturday (28 feb) to talk a bit about the work that CSM does aswell. (If you want to come along aswell just send me a mail ingame).

Storytime 10: The birth of Unsettled. [UNSET]

Battered and bruiced. Beaten to the floor several times. When reality hits, all illusions fade. In the end we are what we make of ourself. In the end we make our own choices. 

<< Last chapter

My stratios (rip) in Retreat

The departure from SYJ was a violent one. Forced upon us and shoved down our throats. The distaste for the entire event still lingered on our tounges. The bitterness on the tip. Just there, right on the edge. It set a mark, a consequence.  And meeting up with our new friends in ICOL we brought that with us to the table. ORLY had a violent birth and even more so; a brutal life as a corp. But in ICOL we found likeminded people who shared our way of playing the game. Their story was a very different but still we found common ground to build upon. Counting manpower we made a desicion to settle for finding a C5 wormhole with a C5 static. Preferably Red Giant effect. While ICOL was moving out of their 5-3 several of the pilots in ORLY set up in a staging 5-5 and started to roll to look for a suitable system. After a few days we found it and started to move all assets. At the same time ICOL started to set up tower and the alliance was officially born. The naming process was a discussion without end but eventually we did make a desicion. And so alliance was named Unsettled. and the new home was named Retreat. And so it came to be. A brand new alliance in c5 space. And for the first month it was glorious. Fights were had and ships got slaughtered. Both our own and other people's. (Turn a few rocks and you may even find some of those battlereports on this very blog). But as april turned to may and summer hit the northern hemisphere something happened. Our active numbers started to fall. For most it had a very natural reason. Grimch and Manira got hit by RL reducing the leaders in corp drasticly. And in alliance the active numbers just kept on falling. By the end of may and beginning of june we could no longer field a fleet to have a fight against any c5 entity. And the long chains without anything to do burned out several of our active scouts. It was a bad turn for alliance. Efforts were made to turn the tide. ORLY merged with ICOL to consolidate forces and free up manpower but in the end there just was nothing that helped to turn the tide. If we did not manage to do something drastic the alliance would die. Talks were had. Threads on forum were posted. Something had to change.

I think it was one of the talks with MD on telegram (message app) we started talking about the ease of hs access we had in the 5-2 that made it just easier to live in. We even talked to Nimon, who was back in there and harassing the new locals (Un.bound), about joining in on the harassing. But didnt come to pass. Instead something else happened. Something we did not expect. Something that had not happened in years. In fact it had not happened since the birth of wormholes. I suddenly felt like Lucy in Narnia, when Father Christmas arrived after years of absence. Giving her a gift that seemed small and unimportant. But for UNSET this was a gift that, like Lucy's magic potion, would breathe life back in the alliance. The great hand of CCP themself were bringing their mighty hand of change to wormholespace. The change they brought was not a big one in itself, but done right it was monumental. And while most wormholers

Escalation fleet in one of our former C5 wormholes

were moaning about how difficult it would be to roll their c5 solo we set our eyes on the crown jewel of the changes. Dual static c4 space. 

It has been a long time mantra in wormholespace that the static determines what kind of content you have. But for c5 and c6 space there have been many entities who have not moved their fleet out of home system unless there has been someone to gank or brawl just right next door. The new dual static c4's was the polar opposit. Home system would never support more then 2 people. But the chains? Oh the lovely chains. The chains could sustain more people than even a c6 home system could in terms of making isk. And more chains ment more chance of meeting other occupied systems.Which ment more opportunities for pvp. That is the biggest difference between c1-4 and c5/6 right now. The need to utilize your chain. So a huge effort was laid down to locate a new home. Both the moving out of the old but also scanning through and mapping the new statics. That way we could locate a new home with the desired statics before the change went live. We made a desicion to go for a C4 with a C4 and C2 static. That would give us a significant easier logistic but still be very connected to wormholespace. And again we went and set up in a staging system and rolled the static until we found a suitible system that had the desired statics and decent PI (lazy mans isk faucet, yes thats me).

One might say that the rest is history, but as everything with eve one never knows what the future brings. It certainly made the alliance more active. Especially since solo content was so easily avaiable we no longer needed big numbers to do anything. Onwards and forward they say, and I guess that is where we are going. Some might say with varied success but as long as we have fun all is good on the road ahead.

And with this my Storytime session is ending for now as we have reached the current day. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far as it was great fun living it in this virtual world. But fear not: this is not the end of my blog. I have several pieces in working and I hope to get them out more frequent aswell. Until next time ;)

Storytime 9: Surely, Hannibal is at the door

tl:dr : when the wrath of wormholespace decend upon you

<< Last chapter

AMA. Thats what they call it. Ask me anything. Pell. The selfproclaimed king of wormholespace had for a long time been mocking every other leader in wormholespace through the Overlords channel. With a thousand men at your back it is not a difficult thing to do either. Taking on wh merc contracts, it was often enough to just send a scout in to scatter the enemies to the wind. Ofc the would be invaders would often be small on numbers themself. But when it happens enough times you get tired of it. And you start complaining about it. This did not sit well with those who considered themself the big forces of wormholespace. And when the AMA hit reddit it was for many the last drop that flooded the cup. 

For us, the writing was on the wall. It had been there for some time. Increasing in strength. We knew something could happen. But not when or if. Nevertheless the desicion had been made. We were moving the corp out of Bastion at least. And we intended to do so on a friendly term and stay a part of SYJ for now.  Alliance leadership had been informed and the move was scheduled. Deathly moved his stuff out before the weekend even. As I remember it the weekend itself was rather quiet. Calm even. Come Monday a last anom farming op was set up. A nice finish to this chapter I thought to myself. The blood red sky of Bastion had always been there with its warmth to greet us the last months. A different road laid ahead of us now. As my Archon launched from the bay it reflected the sun. I can not recall the sparkle of the blood red reflections in the golden hull anymore. And little did I know that this would be the last time it would ever fly again. The crewmembers signed up for this. They knew they would never return to empire. But they did not know that this would be their final end.

Running anomalies in wormholespace is a very routine thing when you first master it. Some of you might remember our first attempt in an earlier chapter and how wrong it went. But togeather with TWSL we had it mastered down to seconds for efficiency and lazyness. And with that mentality we set out to start the grind. The routine. I was third archon that monday evening. Mostly because I didnt have a loki at hand. A third archon doesnt really fulfill any role. Its just there. Pointless. But gets a share. During the last weeks the life in a 6-6 had been pretty dry and several members complained. Ragerolling brought little to nothing and we were looking at finding a different wormhole to live in for a while. But we had planned to stay in alliance. So we struck up a convo with some new friends in this corp called Imperial Collective and had a chat with them about the future, while running sites. As we progressed through sites one of the others had to drop out so we were down to two archons. But we had the routine.

A bit into it a sabre was spotted on scan. At that moment, as time struck 22:24on the 10th of february, we all knew what was coming. It had the Blood Union tag. What followed however left us breathless. As the bubbles went up the rest of the hostile fleet started showing up on dscan. One after another both capitals and smaller ships showed up on scan. Different tags. Several different tags. As they landed on grid I think we all realised what was happening. Accepting it was harder. Having this happen just days before our planned pulling down of towers was slightly bitter. As they landed they were listed up on mumble. Hard Knocks inc. Verge of Collapse. Sleeper Social Club. Blood Union. These corps and alliances do not gather for just ganking a Capital fleet. This force had but one purpose. And before our first ship died we all knew: The horde had come to Bastion. Everything would burn. 

As our site fleet quickly died to overwhelming forces we knew that, after looting, the towers were next in line. First thing to do is always pull valuable assets out of assambly array and hangars. Once the towers hit reinforced that stuff is gone forever. Only ships are avaiable in reinfored mode. Luckily for my corp they started with the towers of Lycosa. Not so lucky for Lycosa. After we saved what we could it had become late evening. Spare pilots in ORLY were sent to TWSL to aid stuff up their archon aswell. Then as the US tz leaders logged on the question was raised. What happen now? The answer from Pell was not very uplifting. They had towertimers in khanid coming out next evening so they couldn't come. There are few words to describe the feeling most of our corp members were left with after that reply. At that moment most of us in ORLY agreed silently that this alliance was not something we wanted to stay with. To set the mood the alliance meeting ended in a big troll.

During the night more corps/alliances trickled in to put their name on killmails. Whale Girth, Sky Fighters, Ragnarok among them.

The next day went pretty much into logging caps at safespots and then the mandatory diplomatic talks. Now I will do something very out of the ordinary. I will give you the copy of the entire diplomatic talk (cut slightly at end and beginning). Its not much really and it is with the deepest respect I do this towards the participants of this chat. Most were marked by the moment aswell as being a political debate it does not reflect how people are as persons. I will throw in some commentaries aswell to let you know our standing point. So set the stage, pull down your curtains and light that cigar. Gloves off and eyes straight forward.

[ 2014.02.11 17:30:58 ] Axloth Okiah > ill invite some other peeps from our side, is that ok?
[ 2014.02.11 17:31:52 ] calaretu > ofcourse
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:22 ] James Arget > hello space friends!
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:29 ] calaretu > hello :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:40 ] Cheung Fu > evening :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:44 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > o/
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:53 ] Axloth Okiah > we have CSM here, just to type it all down, notary of sorts
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:57 ] James Arget > hathrul was talking with me but i guess he's got some connection issues
[ 2014.02.11 17:33:17 ] calaretu > yeah he pulled me on ts and then dropped
[ 2014.02.11 17:33:32 ] Axloth Okiah > he did the same
[ 2014.02.11 17:35:02 ] James Arget > So, hathrul was telling me that you guys would like to drop SYJ
[ 2014.02.11 17:35:31 ] James Arget > what kind of assets do you have in  J133906 right now?
[ 2014.02.11 17:35:56 ] Cheung Fu > ive no idea what im doing, and wasnt gonna think about it for a couple of weeks really

[ 2014.02.11 17:36:04 ] Cheung Fu > but dont really have much left so pretty irrelevant :)

[ 2014.02.11 17:36:45 ] James Arget > are any of the towers yours?
[ 2014.02.11 17:36:52 ] Cheung Fu > well ye the 3 TWSL ones
[ 2014.02.11 17:36:55 ] calaretu > 6 towers belong to my corp
[ 2014.02.11 17:36:59 ] calaretu > rest are lycosa
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:46 ] calaretu > o/ Hathrul
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:47 ] Hathrul > :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:49 ] Hathrul > moar chats
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:57 ] Cheung Fu > lol hey hathrul
[ 2014.02.11 17:38:17 ] Axloth Okiah > i have half my screen covered in chats
[ 2014.02.11 17:38:41 ] Axloth Okiah > any luck with lycosa?
[ 2014.02.11 17:38:53 ] calaretu > no answer on ping yet sadly. will try som others
[ 2014.02.11 17:39:02 ] Axloth Okiah > thank you
[ 2014.02.11 17:41:27 ] Axloth Okiah > the baseline is, our quarrel is with Pell and his "ways", so we see not much sense in hurting WH corps beyong making our point clear

Getting right down to business and making us feel somewhat welcome.

[ 2014.02.11 17:42:07 ] Axloth Okiah > esp. since he kinda sacrificed these corporations for his ego

Strategy of the night: divide and conquor

[ 2014.02.11 17:44:09 ] StarConquer212 > o/
[ 2014.02.11 17:44:12 ] StarConquer212 > Good morning
[ 2014.02.11 17:44:16 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > at least we're complete now it seems
[ 2014.02.11 17:44:25 ] Axloth Okiah > except someone from lycosa
[ 2014.02.11 17:45:12 ] calaretu > its the middle of the night in australia so might be difficult to get them on atm
[ 2014.02.11 17:45:46 ] StarConquer212 > playing a bit of catch up
[ 2014.02.11 17:48:29 ] Axloth Okiah > so, how would you two  Cheung Fu  calaretu see this ending?
[ 2014.02.11 17:48:53 ] calaretu > preferably with as much assets intact as possible I'd say :P

As we already had made our decission about course of action we wanted to explore what options we were given.  Many of these corps were people we would run into from time to time in wormholespace

[ 2014.02.11 17:49:54 ] Axloth Okiah > you already have carriers logged off right?
[ 2014.02.11 17:50:01 ] Axloth Okiah > in deepsafes
[ 2014.02.11 17:50:16 ] calaretu > we got most logged off.
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:19 ] Axloth Okiah > Cheung Fu ?
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:29 ] Cheung Fu > i mostly have towers at this point tbh
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:39 ] Cheung Fu > most of my caps died yesterday :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:43 ] Axloth Okiah > lol
[ 2014.02.11 17:53:03 ] Axloth Okiah > ok, heres a suggestion, you leave SYJ, do your own thing and we let you leave with your pods and a ship around each pod, and we keep whatever it is you cant fly out
[ 2014.02.11 17:55:12 ] Axloth Okiah > because you can do better than being punching bags for whenever he pisses off everyone in wspace again
[ 2014.02.11 17:58:06 ] calaretu > when you say ship, does that include every kind of ship? If we lets say want to bring out capitals?

Please? Pretty please?

[ 2014.02.11 18:00:11 ] Axloth Okiah > you can use one C6 mass
[ 2014.02.11 18:02:50 ] Axloth Okiah > and of course we keep every single T2 BPO you have here :)
[ 2014.02.11 18:03:01 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > lol
[ 2014.02.11 18:03:09 ] StarConquer212 > lolo
[ 2014.02.11 18:03:11 ] calaretu > hehe. oh yes those..
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:09 ] Cheung Fu > they definitely exist
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:24 ] calaretu > I really appreciate the offer, but wouldnt we be better off just staying logged for some weeks and bring ships out at a later time?

Moving in with the classic stance for argument. They offer us to keep no capitals. We offer to give no capitals

[ 2014.02.11 18:04:40 ] StarConquer212 > lol no
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:43 ] StarConquer212 > we are seling this wormhole
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:47 ] StarConquer212 > to another pvp group
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:58 ] StarConquer212 > this is coming to come a very active hole for what will be quiet awile
[ 2014.02.11 18:05:04 ] StarConquer212 > *this is going
[ 2014.02.11 18:08:20 ] Axloth Okiah > at any rate, you'd probably be better off using these toons right away, instead of waiting here to maybe get out some weeks from now and sacrificing everyone else's stuff in the process
[ 2014.02.11 18:09:30 ] StarConquer212 > Pell didn't make any of the big boy wormhole groups happy by saying things such as "we could invade every C6 in the game and no one could stop us" or "we are the most fear and powerful group in w space"
[ 2014.02.11 18:09:50 ] StarConquer212 > our issue is with him not you, this place will be burned and salted because of his public statements
[ 2014.02.11 18:10:06 ] StarConquer212 > and new fields shall be tended for growth
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:16 ] Hathrul > if you salt the fields nothing will grow for about a century
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:22 ] Hathrul > depending on the rainfall

Farming 101 from Hathrul right there :P But them having a humor between themself is a good sign. Means they have a good mood in their fleet and enjoying themself. For now. That reduces the risk for long time grudges to be born

[ 2014.02.11 18:11:34 ] Axloth Okiah > its GM salt-resistant crops
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:43 ] StarConquer212 > this is space i can't hear your opinion
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:45 ] StarConquer212 > here
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:49 ] StarConquer212 > =)
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:59 ] calaretu > I believe you. As far as SYJ goes my corp is leaving anyway. The question for us now is what we got avaiable to rebuild with when moving back out as a new entity

Beside from being true this gives them the upper hand as the tactic they approached with for divide and conquor is partly confirmed to be working

[ 2014.02.11 18:12:31 ] StarConquer212 > well we are reasonible people, we can come a accord that works for both partys my good sir
[ 2014.02.11 18:12:50 ] calaretu > I like the sound of that
[ 2014.02.11 18:13:41 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > so tell us, what do you have in this hole (mostly ship wise) and maybe we can start working together to figure out exit strategies
[ 2014.02.11 18:15:22 ] Axloth Okiah > ok, let me sweeten the pot: you can take one T2 BPO out
[ 2014.02.11 18:26:04 ] StarConquer212 > alright so lets do this
[ 2014.02.11 18:26:10 ] StarConquer212 > what would you like to remove
[ 2014.02.11 18:27:55 ] calaretu > as you surely understand we dont want to give exact numbers of our ships. in regards to mass needed would you be willing to go up to 10 c6 masses?

I am trying to strech the goal here. Well to be honest we did in fact have those numbers in capitals and orcas.   Lycosa had 14 capitals and ORLY had 7. TWSL had 2-3 left or something close to that.

[ 2014.02.11 18:29:04 ] StarConquer212 > 30 caps worth?
[ 2014.02.11 18:29:14 ] StarConquer212 > No
[ 2014.02.11 18:31:27 ] calaretu > hm. thats a bit high maybe. As I dont have lycosa's overview either. What would you be willing to go up to?
[ 2014.02.11 18:33:55 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > ok, next idea, we'll split the caps 1:1 and everybody who doesn't fly a cap can bring out a subcap on their own
[ 2014.02.11 18:34:20 ] StarConquer212 > so give us 1 cap take 1 cap out
[ 2014.02.11 18:34:37 ] StarConquer212 > orca's and freighters fall into cap department
[ 2014.02.11 18:34:51 ] StarConquer212 > think that is fair

We had the patience to wait out the invasion so this was not really an option for us

[ 2014.02.11 18:35:07 ] Axloth Okiah > and we get half of T2 BPOs
[ 2014.02.11 18:36:33 ] calaretu > hmmm.. must admit I still favour being logged off if so
[ 2014.02.11 18:36:58 ] StarConquer212 > your decision, but do you really want to play for eve to be logged off for weeks or months at a time
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:11 ] StarConquer212 > its only a game, we will meet you half way and let you go on your way
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:16 ] StarConquer212 > Fight us
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:18 ] calaretu > oh we got enough accounts on each person
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:21 ] StarConquer212 > and we will follow you
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:49 ] StarConquer212 > SSC, Kill, VoC, BU. Can pretty effectively find people when we need to
[ 2014.02.11 18:38:05 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > you heard our deal, come with a counter offer which might get us a bit closer
[ 2014.02.11 18:42:12 ] calaretu > we dont wish to start any future bad relationship between us as you came to hurt Pell. which I fully understand. For our sake we made our peace with all the loss of assets yesterday and just wish to let our pilots who are logged of stay that way as long
[ 2014.02.11 18:42:14 ] calaretu > as needed
[ 2014.02.11 18:42:34 ] calaretu > and then move out and start over

Trying to either round off or see if they are willing to budge above the 50:50. A 75:25 in our favour would be something at least my corp could possibly agree to

[ 2014.02.11 18:42:58 ] James Arget > 1:1, move out now, what's not to like?
[ 2014.02.11 18:44:50 ] calaretu > brb. kid woke up

Typical. Happens in fleets aswell. I guess its just the age

[ 2014.02.11 18:44:57 ] Axloth Okiah > so you'd rather stay logged off than not stay logged off? that makes no sense at all
[ 2014.02.11 18:45:32 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > so, would you suggest that you will be unable to start over if we only let half of your caps out (through the 1:1 deal)?
[ 2014.02.11 18:45:34 ] Axloth Okiah > let us hear your suggestion then
[ 2014.02.11 18:50:29 ] calaretu > oh everyone logged off are 2nd and third accounts. Our main accounts was promptly podded out yesterday mostly :P
[ 2014.02.11 18:51:22 ] StarConquer212 > i think you have a large amount of assets to move out, meet us half way
[ 2014.02.11 18:51:46 ] StarConquer212 > if we seeded caps in Russia tz we will set up towers and put a active group in here
[ 2014.02.11 18:51:57 ] StarConquer212 > you won't be getting caps out in that senerio
[ 2014.02.11 18:52:04 ] StarConquer212 > be more messy
[ 2014.02.11 18:52:10 ] StarConquer212 > we have to provide content to our guys

This is the core of why they would agree to this talk. To increase their own gain from this endavour. Which tbh is very natural.

[ 2014.02.11 18:52:35 ] StarConquer212 > rob us of a fair deal and content for our pilots you risk souring our new relationship after you leave SYJ
[ 2014.02.11 18:53:03 ] calaretu > would you be willing to let our pilots back in for said content?
[ 2014.02.11 18:53:44 ] StarConquer212 > to log off more things? you have more caps then pilots
[ 2014.02.11 18:53:57 ] StarConquer212 > i think you will have to give us some caps
[ 2014.02.11 18:54:03 ] StarConquer212 > first to show your intentions
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:09 ] StarConquer212 > TLC already wants to move in here
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:14 ] StarConquer212 > a little burning of there system
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:22 ] StarConquer212 > makes for be relations
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:31 ] StarConquer212 > and a willingness to hunt every one left in here when we leave
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:44 ] StarConquer212 > *makes for a bad relation
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:09 ] Axloth Okiah > we already made several offers to you, if youre trying to stall we have no trouble just keep on bashing and then help TLC to set up here
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:13 ] calaretu > TLC moving in? That may actually make Pell convert to wspace again :D
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:26 ] Axloth Okiah > that would be swell
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:32 ] calaretu > that would be content
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:38 ] StarConquer212 > good then we can come aswell
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:39 ] Axloth Okiah > we are all for content
[ 2014.02.11 18:57:35 ] StarConquer212 > i think Pell has left your w space groups high and dry
[ 2014.02.11 18:57:51 ] StarConquer212 > i hightly dought he wants to fight our blob
[ 2014.02.11 18:57:57 ] Axloth Okiah > if you dont want to make deal just tell us now so we are not wasting everyone's time
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:10 ] StarConquer212 > ya we are like two seconds away from leaving comvo and you get nothing

Alright so we strained them for too long. Better to just close of now. We came into this conversation expecting to save 90% of our stuff by just logging it off. We didnt get a better option so are leaving with what we came with

[ 2014.02.11 18:58:15 ] StarConquer212 > and a bad realtion shiop
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:16 ] StarConquer212 > for the future
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:26 ] StarConquer212 > good luck every living in w space again
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:26 ] calaretu > yeah I think we might aswell call it. I wont get my people to agree to a 1:1
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:38 ] Axloth Okiah > same for  Cheung Fu ?
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:40 ] StarConquer212 > good by enjoy loving everything
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:49 ] James Arget > that's regretable. :/
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:50 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > you haven't suggested anything else, so that doesn't help either
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:56 ] Cheung Fu > i have nothing of value to move anymore, i was being serious lol
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:04 ] Cheung Fu > my corp was very cap light
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:05 ] Axloth Okiah > i meant your whole corp
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:22 ] Axloth Okiah > well ok then, convo some of us if you happen to change your mind
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:36 ] calaretu > thank you for offer tho
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:37 ] Cheung Fu > ya in my public anyways :)

Important. Always be polite as much as you can :P Especially when having a knife to your throat. What we want now is for them to just finish of towers. Get complacent and not bother guarding the wh for another week and we will have loads of opportunity to move out ships

[ 2014.02.11 18:59:53 ] Axloth Okiah > perhaps Pell letting you hang over US tz will help with that
[ 2014.02.11 19:01:20 ] calaretu > as said. we're leaving SYJ anyway so what Pell decide to do really doesnt matter much at this stage. He already brought this on us
[ 2014.02.11 19:03:28 ] calaretu > so apparently we're going off with a great start already trying to recover from what SYJ has cost us.
[ 2014.02.11 19:04:05 ] calaretu > but giving away capitals for free would demolish my members. I cant go down that road sadly

This is a true point. As a ceo your responsibility towards the morale of your members is a vital area to pay attention to. I noticed a big difference myself in our members in regards to how we dealt with the two prior invasions. 

[ 2014.02.11 19:05:55 ] Axloth Okiah > we let you leave with all your stuff either
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:05 ] Axloth Okiah > *cannot
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:23 ] calaretu > Ofc not. That would make your members furious
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:44 ] Axloth Okiah > yeah, we had people lined up to see SYJ's "blood"
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:55 ] Cheung Fu > tbh i think you guys were lied to about whats in here
[ 2014.02.11 19:07:12 ] Axloth Okiah > you mean those "trilions"?
[ 2014.02.11 19:07:26 ] calaretu > So imo its better you get to burn our towers and sma's. Let your members have the rage over Pell they wanted. then we just fade away as insignificant again

At the end of the day we just logged off everything we wanted to save. What did we loose in the end? One dread. That was all. And a few smaller ships left in sma's. (My Sin being the most notable of them.) Everything else we could scoop into carriers and orcas we managed to get out. "How can that be?" you may ask. Well patience is a virtue stronger than any invading force. Patience and endurance are such a strong force they can break a camel's back. Even while moving in TLC had no consistent control on the wormhole and even the day after the eviction we moved out several caps and orcas. Through the static. A single pilot from Whale Girth was all that was there to try and stop us. He managed to tackle a moros and batphone NOHO who was down the chain (Whale Girth pilot was not allowed to be on killmail as he himself became a target for NOHO's fleet). More followed the following days. Everything was moved out. TLC did not even make a serious attempt at stopping the evacuation. And so it came to pass our days with SYJ was numbered. And we left in peace, or well not really. But this affected corp deeply. Every one of our pilots who had now been in lowsec for months and not been in leadership had a very different experience than the bunch of guys in wormholespace. So the guys from lowsec split out and reformed under Axial Tilt. A few members went over to TWSL to stay with SYJ. And a few were just completely burnt out at this stage. And so a mere shadow of the corp remained. Battered and beaten. Scrambling togeather what stuff we had, supporting our weight on the broken spear as we staggered our feet back under ourself. Lifitng the visir, and as the blood trickled down our cheek from the crushing defeat we had been dragged through we once again grasped for what strength was left and dared to open our eyes and look at the sun. The sun in all its glory and splendour. Every day it rises up from darkness. A beacon of hope, of a better tomorrow. It light up your path and turns the slippery shades into firm fields of grass. Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow would be better. Maybe.

Hyperion and the hidden agenda

Some of you might have spotten this subject on floating in the ether or whispered in secret rooms, but it is a matter of grave consequence. We have all been used. Without our knowledge. The empire has for years now "bought" the blue sleeper loot without telling us its secret. Now they expect us to give it to them for free even, with the reward for fame and glory. This sets an alarming presedence. The publishing of the recent research paper from Sisters of Eve has set in motion the research the empires are doing on what we, the capsuleers, call the blue loot. This can only mean one thing. They have had a break through in the meaning of the data stored within. The race towards new tech has begun. It has yet to be revealed what this new tech is but efforts by the capsuleers calling themselves wormholers to halt this effort by the empires must remember that whatever data we manage to hold back or confiscate just simply pale in comparison to the researchdata gained through years of blue loot handed over to the empire. Resistance is futile one may say. But even more so when you consider the leverage the empires holds against the capsuleer community. The only source of income that most of us rely on is from this blue loot, and if the empires are met with hostilities over this matter they may very well respond in kind and remove all buy orders from empirespace.

Wait, removal of blue loot buy orders? Yes, that may be a reality.

But all is not lost. It is not only the empires that have interest in this technology. Sisters of Eve and the less known Intaki Syndicate apparently show a deeper interest into the hidden data of sleeper salvage and loot. And many capsuleers have seen these trends. A sudden rise in the trade of the lesser used salvage from sleepers predict that someone has had an opportunity to view this fabled research report from SoE and word have spread of its possible outcome.

Word has also reached certain ears of Talocan elite guards returning to sleeper space to dispatch the forces of capsuleers trying to harvest the sleeper data. The source of this rumor was not possible to backtrace but one can only speculate what this implicate.

One thing is for certain. Something is changing. And the recent behavour of mass affecting wormholes, increase in connections appearing and the very nebula's themself altering their colours bode a ill omen.

From the beginning of these changes labeled "Hyperion" our small group of pilots have however found itself at a much better state than before. Chains are absolutely lovely to scan out (scan 3 systems and have access to 15 kinda thing) and we have seen more active capsuleers in the lower classes of chains than we ever did in the higher classes. Rolling our connections have also been a breeze with battleships. To us this change has been a resounding success and we applaud its outcome. Even the bitter old big groups has seen a change with the eviction of Adhocracy by SSC and Lazerhawks invasion of Quebec. As winter come we look forward to more fun with our fellow capsuleers

*written in character in honor of Ya Huei ! :D

Storytime 8: Forward, unto Bastion!

... or (tl:dr) Not quite what we expected.

... or The SYJ adventures. Part 1 of 2

<< Last chapter

Being invited to join one of the big names in wormholespace and come live in their c6 was a big thing for a small corp like ours. Going from a tiny group up to a huge one is a big change. Moving to a c6-c6 is an even bigger change.

Bastion, also known as J133906,  was the new promised land. A land of milk and honey. Of isk ever flowing and capital ganking as far as the eye could see. This was the land that smaller entities fear to ever connect to. Where the mere whisper of an invasion sends the most seasoned alliance leaders into a spiral of fear, paranoia and depression. And now it was ours. We would have a part in this. In our static we would fight names like NOHO, Ragnarok, Disavowed and TLC. We could just reach out our hand and grab at ... no wait. What are all these empty towers? Where is the hoard of bloodthirsty privateers?

It is revealed that the entire US timezone just moved to stain. They no longer found fights in the static and it seemed they all got bored of it. Instead we are welcomed by a single EU corp (Twilight Soul) and an Australian one (Lycosa Syndicate). This is not what we expected. But we settle in, get a tower up and get to know the current residents. We start chainrolling, recruiting and getting fleetnumbers up. Sites are done, pew is had (and more aswell). And we generally have a good time in our prime timezone. But complaints are coming in from some of our members. Everyone who are online outside our primetime finds the c6-c6 a horrible place to live. Chains are long with little to no solo content and the kspace exits we do have are mostly nullsec. At the same time the majority of alliance decide to move away from Stain unto Sieh. A popular staging system for roams and drops to providence and catch. A more lively area than Stain. As a corp we have found our place in the wormhole with Twilight Souls, but several of our members start hunting in lowsec with alliance instead. As a corp we found ourself split.  This is not a situation any corp ever want to find themself in.  However our members are having fun so we let it be.  The coming weeks we see recruits joining both in lowsec and in the c6. Even most of the people from Axial Tilt joins in on the new content in lowsec.  For a moment we have this strange thing going that actually works pretty well. And what seemed to at first be a disappointment turns into something full of potential.

After Sieh didnt turn out to be what the people in us tz hoped for they set their eyes on Khanid.  What brings about this change is the ill considered use of supers from the local residents (JIHADSQUAD). With the taste of blood on the tip of his tongue Pell Helix,  the joker himself, picks up arms. And right behind him stands a thirsty crowd. And so it came to pass,  SYJ and EE taking over the moons of Khanid.  Supported by some powerful allies the battle is won.  The details of this campaign may be recorded elsewhere but is not my story to tell.  Even after several attempts at pushing for a common coordination across timezones there was just simply no effort made by the us tz players at including the eu leaders in the planning (With the huge exception of Bradford Clear. This man deserves much respect!).  Occasionally we would be asked to aid on timers already engaged,  but the short notice and lack of coordination made this a hot point for irritation among me,  md,  grimch and manira.  We did not like this way of leadership. We had seen better. We could do better. We shared some of our frustration with the leaders in TWSL and LYCS but having different experiences prior and also; them having been in SYJ longer (and had tighter relationship to a lot of the people in alliance), did not feel the same way. But that was not all.

Living in a c6-c6 and rolling the static as your only source of pvp make the game boring very fast.  Attempts at getting out to null or do blops out of wh never took off. People stopped caring and fleet sizes did not reach as high as they used to. We decided it might be time for. ORLY to move on. Then i get a comment in one of the norwegian channels from a long standing NOHO member:

(roughly translated)  What the f*** is your alliance leader thinking?

Next chapter >>

Storytime 5: invasion of many failures

<<Last chapter

So it had come.  The showdown.  Nimon+friends vs Shadow Politics.  The lone wolf and his lost pack against a newborn alliance trying to make a home of its own. This had been brewing for months now.  Ever since we came in and took the system in march this had been a long time coming.  Its like the dust on horizon that has come closer and closer suddenly revealing the riders kicking it up,  coming into your town and you just know trouble hit.  You muzzle your small army of citizens,  arm up and make ready to make a stand.  To fight for your land against and older enemy who claim it is his land.  In the history of wormholespace this might have been one of the most insignificant events, but for us this was the climax of a long building crescendo.

Now when you're invading someone in a wormhole you put a lot of dedication to it. Not only ISK for the offensive fleet but also planned time to keep control of the wormhole. There are several scenarios you want to prevent. You need to make sure the target dont call reinforcement (like we did last time) and also make sure any reinforcement you bring yourself can get into the target wormhole. This is usually obtained by keeping a fleet on the exit wormhole and make sure the target dont find the exit of the chain or at least you can close the wormhole if they do scan it out. Another important aspect is to make sure that the initial engagement is done with your full force. You want to have the needed force both in ships and pilots avaiable that can actually finish up the work you start on. All of these points seemed to escape the invading force.

Call it idiocy, impatience or bad luck. At the start of the siege Nimon+friends put up a large faction tower as staging point and then put a fleet on the static to c2. We stayed in POS and watched. Observed. Plotted a respons. Then out of the blue something very odd happen. I dont know what to liken this to, but it completely stunned me. At least for a few seconds. Then people started screaming on coms. Action. We needed to act. NOW.

The invading force had pulled back to POS, stored their ships and taken pods out to HS. All of them. There was no fleet left in our home. Nothing. After gathering my wits a brief moment the call went out. All combat ships to static. NOW!. In less then a minute the wormhole was collapsed stranding all their combat pilots outside. There was still a few alts inside but suddenly they lost every momentum they had. To say it mildly. Our spirits was on the rise. After whelping some bombers on them anchoring stuff earlier we now brought out our dreads. Siege. Shoot. Reinforced. Now we would do what they failed to do. Keep control of wormhole. We scheduled among ourself and our token aussie member, Deathly hope Cesaille, took charge on keeping the night safe along with some of our members who had the opportunity. They really had no force left inside to regain the entrance and we kept it tight. And so the tower came out of reinforced. Some friends from Eve ryuken came over for the campfire. And as the shields went down nimon self destructed all the ships still left inside. And so their invasion ended. A feeble small tower was also put out of its misery.

The final victory was affirmed a few days later. Nimon moved his carrier, that he staged out of, out through a connecting c5. We had won our land. Claimed it. And now noone disputed the claim. It was an hour of triumph. An hour of joy. And of peace.

We did however realise that only having people in one timezone left us vulnerable. So we decided to step up and expand. Get some eastern us tz as they would be able to join in on what to us was late night bearing. And so recruitment opened up. Little did we know that this desicion for more security would hasten on our utter destruction...

Continue to Part 6>>

They said it was all quiet!

Logged on sunday morning thinking it was a good day to haul in some stuff. The static c4 had a c2 leading to 3 jumps from Jita. Good stuff. I have tried to stay away from the eve forums after patch. My optimism is not in line with the common mood of hate towards the Hyperion patch. And especially towards the mass effect on jump. It seems like a lot of people are moving out. Or so they say. There is no real numbers. No statistic yet. Nothing to confirm a change in either direction. 

I notice a few guys coming back from Jita so decide to take my alt with Deep Space Transporter out to Jita. Scout the chain and dscan look clear. Exit from chian without issues.

But still I cant help myself. The doom and woe criers are so loud I just have to post something sometimes. Mostly I get ignored. Thats ok. Been playing Eve on and off since 05. I've seen my share of bad desicions made in Eve. Had my breaks aswell. This is in my opinion, and experience, far from the worst. Now we already had decided to move down to a lower class and static and to us this patch opened a lot of opportunities. In my opinion you cant really pvp in a 5-5 with fleets below 8 people. You can gank stuff but you can't take a fight from majority of entities. So living in a 4-4/2 made a lot more sense. And yes we recently moved in. Haven't even gotten everything in even yet. However. Living in C4 the few days we have had now is a huge difference to c4 1,5 years ago. Before we moved out.

Buying pve drake -check

Prospect's and ventures for ninjamining c5's - check

Some random modules and PI stuff I was lacking - check
Load up my DST and undock from Jita

Now when I say content it doesn't always translate to kills on killboard. My idea of content is having fun when logging on. Be that scanning and stalking but not engaging, showing new guys the ropes or actually having a fight. We build our corp around playing the way we feel like. With a main focus on pvp. 

Arrive at entrance wormhole. Bah. Forgot the ships in jita. Turn around to go back and pick up

But I must admit seeing the response to a lot of corps towards Hyperion has me worried. If its true as people say that so many are moving out and wormholes become deserted it will automatically affect our gameplay. Could I have been wrong about the effect? Is this patch truly ruining so many lower class corps or is it just a overreaction of a few?  

Finally back at wormhole again with all the cargo. Systems was clear few min ago. Jump into c2. Dscan. Clear. Warp towards c4s. Dscan clear. Jump. Dscan clear. Warp towards home. Dscan clear. Jump.

What the.. 

That was a Heretic jumping with me!

Where did he come from? Oh **** 

Jump over on Calaretu while holding cloak on Thyrn to swap to the Gnosis with rapid lights. Bubble is up on wormhole. Warp Calaretu to it. OH. Proteus and Pilgrim. Break cloak and get back to wh with Thyrn. Have to try and jump back. The Heretic jumps back with thyrn. Pilgrim and Proteus stay and engage Calaretu. Try to hold cloak with Thyrn while managing Cal. Rapid lights is so wrong right now. I try the Pilgrim. Shields down but armortanked. No use breaking that buffer. Proteus is hopeless to kill. But they got tackle on me so I'm not getting out. Oh well. Tabbing over to Thyrn while ASB boosting on Cal. Try to head out of new bubble. Fire ECM burst. They loose lock. Heretic gets in another bubble up and relock with webs. ECM burst again. Breaks lock but the bubble is too far out and I cant tank the Heretic and Sabre now shooting me for long. I try to return to wormhole instead. Polarized. Jumping back on Cal. Low armor now. And it doesnt last long. The dps of the proteus is just shredding the Gnosis apart. As it pop I warp out the pod. Back to Thyrn. Going low armor there too. Throw out a mobile depot. Maybe I can manage to save some assets in it? It starts anchoring. Armor breaks. Hull. Pop. killmail. The depot didnt anchor in time :( And still being inside a bubble I am fast and surely provided a way back to empire. 

That was a perfect ambush. And I thought the chain was dead. Oh well. Maybe its time to sell that orca after all. Shoutout to BayneNothos, Tianve Lave, fetox74 and poepstreep66 for keeping wormholespace a fun place to live in Eve!

I take a break. Family deserve some time and I have some work to do. Later that day I get a ping. MD74 and Finarfin wants to roll the new C4S. I log on and get into my battleship. Finarfin breaks out his Orca. Power rolling right there. Or baiting. Yeah baiting is the new term for rolling. As I get on coms I suddenly understand theres activity in the C4S. Oh nice. We jump the orca. It lands in proper distance from wormhole :D Slowboats back. We jump two domi's with 100MN mwd in and back. Thats a total of 1200/2000(+-10%) on the wormhole.

Ferox and devoter land on other side. We swap out our ship to something more fitting the occasion. Warp to C4S and jump in. Tackle go on ferox and Devoter who bubbles us aswell. We burn for the ferox first. Blackbird arrive at 100. He jams my proteus :( Waiting for the dice to roll my way I burn towards the ferox (should have refit to rails for this) and manage to sneak on the killmail with 0% damage :P The Devoter try to burn away as the Blackbird warps of. We quickly burn after him and as his bubble goes down we have managed to get points up. He dies. Somewhere in there we also killed a Manticore but I have to be honest and say I honestly didnt notice him on grid. Big thank you to Rolling Static/Gone Critical for bringing a fight. Or at least bringing ships :)

As the sun fades away outside and the evening properly decends we decide to get working on some of the grinding left to us in the wormhole. Still some residues from previous owners. Including some Custom Offices. Out comes the Oracles. We stick scouts on the statics and the frig wh we have connecting to us and starts shooting. A few stray scanners come through but nothing serious enough to stop the bashing. And so goes the evening. At one point a purifier comes through the frig wh. We watch him instantly drop Core Probes. If you ever want to make people believe you dont know what your doing you go scanning with t1 probes in a purifier. It has so many facets of wrong to it that you leave your target confused and inable to act. After scanning our system for over an hour!! he went back the way he came. In the end we had enough of structures and went to bed. 

A good sunday indeed.

And the state of wormholespace? I might have been wrong, or people are overreacting. I will wait a bit and see.