EVE General Discussion

The following battle report was reprinted with permission from Manfred Sideous of Pandemic Legion.

HOW EVE NERDS MAKE FIREWORKS
BATTLE REPORT Z9PP-H
The Setup

TEST had been onlining a new IHUB in Z9PP-H to augment their sovereignty claim over the system. CFC came in to assault and kill the IHUB before it came online, making sovereignty much easier to break in the system. CFC had a siege bomber fleet and Mega fleet in system with numbers at around 300 total for CFC. TEST requested some help to save the IHUB from dying before it went online. I agreed to quickly form PL Slowcats to come in and stabilize the situation whilst TEST formed another Slowcat fleet and N3 formed a subcap fleet to help with our eventual extraction of Slowcats.
ACT I The Best Laid Plan

PL made our entrance cleanly into system and started killing Megas and putting reps on the IHUB preventing its demise. Within 10 minutes, TEST Slowcats arrived and added to the rep power. CFC starts pinging wildly for reinforcements as they now see 2 Slowcat fleets on grid with little to no support. Finally, after some delay N3 are able to get in system with Drone Domis and Triage. The fight rages on for 2+ hours with small breaks as CFC repositions and awaits DPS. Furthermore, whilst this is all happening, bomber fleets from both sides are making runs with mixed success. However both CFC and TEST land a good run with CFC obliterating N3 Domis and TEST nuking a Fuckyou Fleet to completion.

All the while, both sides are pinging for more bodies to poop sock into system to turn the tides for their side. At about the 3 hour mark the talk of extraction got serious as CFC were able to reinforce with greater ease than N3 & TEST. Now mind you, Slowcats were designed by me to walk into hell and scream 'come at me'. However, a fleet with Niddhoggers , Chimeras and Thanatos (Thanatai, Thanatoses) makes not a Slowcat fleet. The decreased cap range of Nids and Thannys plus the hugely inferior EHP makes them a one legged Slowcat fleet at best. It was clear after barely saving Nids in sub 10% structure that extraction for TEST was priority.

However, there were major issues with the extraction plan. N3 support fleet was creamed and highly ineffective. Also there were 0 friendly POSes in system and with it being a major holiday and getting late in EU, most TEST-friendly groups were short on logi dudes to erect extraction towers. However, PL were able to ninja up a small tower with just enough fuel and stront to help extract. So alignments were called with exit cynos at the ready and then the long wait started; the painful wait a FC has to go through with Slowcats for the perfect time to fleet warp out. Because 1 mis-aligned ships means a 2 billion ISK scar on your killboard and a 2 billion ISK smile on the bad guy's face.

Sometime in this haze of 4 hours, a TEST Rokh fleet arrived. CFC sensing our extraction were emboldened to engage and keep us pinned. So for the next hour it was a series of Slowcats aligning, stopping and trying to kill things, regrouping the fleet and then repeating the whole process. At one point the TEST and PL Slowcat fleet became wadded up in a giant carrier orgy. Let me tell you friends, repositioning 2 Slowcat fleets in 10% TIDI is a 15 minute process. This further delayed the extraction as Test and PL carriers were bouncing off each other making fleetwarps impossible without leaving a portion of the fleet to die a silent miserable and defenseless death. So after we discombobulated the fleet from each other, alignments were called again. In command channels, calls were made that extraction was happening at first opportunity and that all fleets should be ready to fleetwarp. Confirmations from everyone were given and a few minutes later TEST came in with a massive bomb wave, pushing 2 of 3 fleets off grid. This was the chance. I checked grid and saw TEST Slowcats unbubbled as well as most of the subcaps. I fleetwarped PL off and in sudden horror watched as 2 'dictors landed close to TEST Slowcats. I had told my fleet to jump on land as we were fleetwarping to a small control tower and bounces were inevitable. All PL made it out clean and were able to jump back home.

However Test Slowcats were not so lucky


The Intermission

As PL arrived back in Syndicate, it became very clear in a short period of time that TEST Slowcats would all die a slow painful death if more intervention didn't happen. So TEST threw more subcaps into system trying to free the Slowcats. However, CFC was having none of it and not chancing anything, sensing blood in the water. CFC must have pinged for 'dictors and reinforcements every 2-3 minutes because as 1 'dictor or BS would die, 2 more would take its place. Lazarus Telraven and I are very good friends and often talk about fights as we are in the midst of them. Laz however wasn't talking much; it was quite clear he was a busy man, a man getting ready to serve a good ole prison **** scene on lil' ol' TEST. PL reshipped to bombers with the plan to Doomportal on TEST Slows to kill bubbles and tackle. Furthermore, CFC had 2 Mega fleets right on top of TEST Slows. However, we were delayed due to a cunning Black Legion 'dictor doing the continual cycle of undock -> bubble -> redock. This delayed PL and as this was happening TEST Slowcats started falling to the 300+ BS hulls raining hell upon them.
ACT II Salvage Duty

Great information, thanks for taking the time to post.

It sounds like the battles in the upcoming months will be epic to say the least.

Soldiers on both sides should feel very proud to join the fray.

Yep. Our ~ehonor~.

Ever consider making some macros for reinforcing nodes?

Filling in the nodes to be reinforced could be step #1
(and script would verify that those were indeed the busiest nodes in constellation -- if busier nodes exist ask to confirm)

then select various options and constellations/systems to be modified as method of reinforcement


last part of macro would check the lists of operations to make sure the systems being reinforced were not in any list which could casue disconnect. Only then would execution of change occur.

Criticism of CCP as a company is fine. And I will be the first to say that CCP procedures are lacking and that this would likely not have happened had proper safeguards been in place to prevent these server accidents.

Saying an employee ought to be fired over a mistake that had no real measurable harm (CCP has a little egg on its face. It is not another boot.ini incident) out of a game of space pixels and spreadsheets is absolutely wrong and I beg people who truly believes as such. Believe that a family has to endure hardship because someone didn't get their in game capital kills. I beg of those people to biomass all their characters across all their accounts and leave.

Please learn economics. Please.

You do realize that every PLEX, every EVE Time Code, all of it is ultimately purchased from CCP, right? So the guys buying PLEXes in Jita? They're contributing to the demand for PLEXes. If there was no demand, prices would drop. As it is, you can be fairly sure that pretty much every PLEX purchased for real money and put to market eventually sells.

What does that mean? That means that by creating the demand and giving PLEXes the value they have, the people who are PLEXing their accounts (and I, among others, am not) are contributing to CCP's bottom line, albeit indirectly - they're creating the demand that other people are then motivated to fill in order to convert real-world cash over to ISK.

Ever looked at a sov map before? Yeah. FA is literally only warm bodies in fleets and a nice big buffer for Deklein. That's literally the only reason any human being tolerates Zagdul for more than about five seconds.

And again, I ask: how is this at all relevant to the point that CCP has asked us to post questions in this thread so they can be addressed, and has failed to provide even a token acknowledgment that questions have been posted?

I mean, I assume you have something in mind relevant to the topic, and aren't simply spouting off attempts to provoke some kind of indignant response. So, please, proceed, Prelate. Share with me the wisdom that I clearly lack, that I cannot see how your comment addresses the point actually being replied to, please.

My main fights on the non-CFC side of this war, lately TIDI has been working more for than against him.
Didn't the last patch affect Goon income?

I just can't find enough :tinfoil: