Warfare & Tactics

There has been a lot of conversation about taking advantage of the new Siphon units. Most of the conversation has been focused on "hitting the null sec alliances". I am sure that the null blocks will find a way to take advantage of the Siphon units but where they will shine most is in low-sec.

Normally I am not very big on sharing tactics in eve, however I feel that the Siphon units if used correctly will help to change the landscape of eve for the better. I will cover some basic information in this post (so players of all experience levels will understand).


Background:

1) In Eve one of the largest incomes in game can be generated from mining rare moons using player owned stations (POSs).

2) The majority of rare (R32 & R64) moons in eve are owned and operated by very large alliances that most entities in Eve could not win in a battle to capture the moon directly (RFing the POS).

3) Many of the R32 and R64 moons in low-security space are owned by alliances that live very far from the POS locations.

4) Each individual moon can produce billions of ISK per month in income.


How to use the Siphon units:

1) Find the R32 & R64 moons in your low-sec region (and any POSs doing reactions without defenses).

2) Have your organization do single seige or battleship incap operations (using either dreads or battleships to disable all the defensive modules on the POS).

3) Deploy Siphon units and begin making ISK.

4) If the corporation returns to destroy your siphon units, simply let them. Then repeat.


The corporations that own those stations will quickly tire of having to organize large operations to destroy siphon units and repair POS modules all around eve. Eventually they will lose interest in defending assets outside of the region they live in.

The Siphon units provide every corporation a strong incentive to make the move to low security space (or start making some of the R32 & R64 ISK from the low-sec regions they currently occupy).

I will be putting them near friendly poses as a form of taxation.


Am assuming that other militia corps will not be able to attack it without a standing hit.
This new structure is going to be a lot of fun.

The cyno jammers will help with this goal but like all combat operations your best defense is speed and stealth. Stage in another system. Move in as a fleet. Don't stay longer than 10 minutes. Don't become predictable.

A word of advice on hitting large towers (most R32/R64s will have a large defended tower): Do not use BCs of any class to attack them unless you have massive numbers (25+). They do not have enough EHP if multiple batteries cycle onto them at once. Logi has touble landing reps in time.

Why people always underestimate the power of numbers ?

Large alliances in EVE only leave things unattended because they dont feel the need to attend to them. The moment they start needing to, they will.

There will be no shortage of people wanting to receive couple bi ISK to protect a source of hundred bi ISK for a huge alliance.

If they let you, it is because they have more ISK to earn somewhere else.

There is nothing you can do against organized numbers. If something benefits one individual, it benefits ten individuals ten fold. If something benefits a small group, it benefits a well organized ten times bigger group ten fold aswell.

If a 10 man corp can do that to one place, a 100 man division of a 1000 man corp can do the same to 10 places, includding the one the 10 man corp is trying to. The difference is that those from the big corp can call 10 more just kill the 10 man corp that is trying currently.

This talk about enhancing the little man power is the same it is in Real Life, it is just PR attempt to make the smaller unfranchised groups feel looked after.

Even if CCP put mechanics in place with penalties for huge corps and alliances, good leadership will simply break down the huge into groups of small.

P.S.: Reading more I see that all of the disadvantages is summed with the fact that you can actually make changes in your POS scheme to avoid the stealing altogether just by avoiding having material to steal in the specific points of the infra-structure that can be stolen from. This means, the guy in the other thread is right: "You should scrubb the whole idea and use the model for some other project, because this one is just waste of dev time."

This post sums up every wrong way of thinking in Eve. POS rep operations are time consuming and manpower intensive operations. To make matters even more frustrating the players with POS roles are limited to the senior members of corps and alliances.

High value moons bring roughly 1bil-2bil isk per month. Not enough to be worth the headache (but a large sum of money to a small group).

You would also be suprised at how "few" people there are in "large" alliances. It is common to have ~30 dreads on field RFing a tower and 10 guys on coms (and that also explains why all of my accounts have a dread...)

Honestly, if you harass the local towers enough while stealing a portion of their income (the owner still has to pay fuel expenses from what isn't stolen), give it a month and someone from the owning corp will send you a convo asking if you would be willing to just "purchase" the moon for a reasonable price (because their members are sick of having to rep the stupid thing).

Small organizations have as much power as they are willing to take! 10 solid guys can easily mess up the day of that 100 man alliance blob and steal all the ISK that is keeping them in ships ;).