Wormholes

As wormholers, many of our ilk had the opportunity to be trailblazers in a game that was already six years old. We found ways to take an area of gameplay and form it beyond the intended purpose. I would argue that although most groups in wormholes may share some similarities, we each have defined our own way of doing some activities, whether corporate management, wormhole mapping, POS management, fleet compositions, training, recruitment, or whatever, we all have our own little touch to how we live on the fringes of New Eden.

That being said, in my time since creating Obstergo, I've seen and helped to usher in policies that have helped to keep our little pack of trolls alive for the past couple years. Some of what I've seen and worked into our group, along with the help, support, and leadership of the glorious Obstergo directorate, is what I want to talk about in this thread, the styles "fortress" and "nomad".

While with Tragedy, TEMNAVA, and Exhale/Polarized, we practiced a lifestyle known to some as "fortress" style of living. When a group decides on making their wormhole a fortress, a number of variables and risks are taken into account. From our experience, fortress wormholes are ideal for larger groups with wide timezone coverage with ample support to defend a home system in times of invasion or aggression.

The factors we would assess before committing to building a fortress with your friends would be:

• Is your group large enough to build a fortress? Consider the risks associated with committing faction towers, an excess of ships and assets, as well as the effect on your membership's personal security and assets.


• Does your group have global timezone coverage? Consider the windows of opportunity that an opponent could take against your group during “soft timezones”. How strong would you consider a fortress with no guards?


• Do you have a strong central leadership? This question applies to every group, however I make a point to address this for both fortress and nomad. Consider role management of your corporation, POS sharing, asset management with our broken POS system, and logistics of maintaining a fortress.


• What is the average SP of your membership and how well can you field correct Dreads, Carriers, T3's, Logistics, and POS Gunners? Consider the amount of support your group will need to maintain a strong, sustainable home system. Do you have redundancy in place to protect your fortress system? Do you have enough appropriately skilled pilots to ensure that your force multipliers can be fielded at any timezone for defense of your home?


• Is your membership consistent and active enough to support a fortress? How useful is any member to overall protection if they aren’t available to defend, or can’t be arsed to log on because OMG DayZ Standalone is out!!?! Remember, you are investing a ton into the system, make sure you can defend it.

Now, if this sounds like you, you may ask “what is a fortress”? In a sentence, a fortress is a wormhole system that the inhabitants maximize defenses to ensure the greatest possibility for security of corporate/alliance assets allowing membership the leisure of maintaining a high limit of assets in their home. Why? Some residents of the wormhole community like the concept of fortress style living to be able “unpack” and have options while living in “their” home, whether for immersion, ratpackness, personal reasons, whatever… Obstergo and friends did it for a time because frankly that is how many of our membership at the time wanted to live, and also because the “nomad” option is slightly more demanding, as you’ll see. So what could you expect to see in a fortress home system:

• Well defended Faction POS’s.
• POS’s on every moon in the system.
• Usually only large groups with decent EU/US coverage. (This is not always the case)
• Quick response time to visiting entities from fresh K162’s.
• Lots of SMA/CHA/CSMA’s in the POS’s.
• Probably a TCU, cause :smug:

There is most definitely more to the fortress, as I’m sure I missed some, however I’ll leave the rest on fortresses to the thread discussion.

While with Bitten and our fledgling existence with RCC, we’ve practiced a lifestyle known to some as "nomad" style of living. When a group decides on residing in their wormhole nomadically, a number of variables are taken into account, however if practiced correctly, many risks inherent to wormholes is reduced greatly. From our experience, nomad wormholing is ideal for smaller groups with less timezone coverage with reduced support to defend a home system in times of invasion or aggression.

The factors we would assess before committing to living nomadically would be:

• Is your group capable of living nomadically? Consider whether your membership can live out of a backpack? That is essentially what you’ll be doing as a nomad. Nomads are the carneys of the wormhole community and should be able to move near-fluidly.


• Does your average member have alternate accounts and are they willing to train for particular ships/fittings? When living nomadically, I use three characters consistently. I have Proc, my main PVP character, who can fly near everything well enough, Jon who is my industrial alt, who POS guns and flies an Orca (my backpack), and Chalmecatecuctlz “Chiclets” who is my Moros pilot. With that setup, I can field a Cap at any time immediately, I don’t need an SMA/CHA, and I can be moved out personally in a short time. That mobility is the key to living as a nomad. NOTE: Some people use Carriers for their backpacks, some use Orcas, it’s a personal preference.


• Is your membership supportive of a “no roots” ideology? It’s very important that your group is on the same page with living actively, freely, and with limited combat options.

Did Bert and QT put you up to this?

I would argue that using a POS while remaining fairly mobile does not classify as nomadic. I have been traveling through wormholes for over a year without a POS, jumping from system to system, taking advantage of PvP, or rather... ganks and the occasional PvE content. I only jump into Empire to restock my Drones and Ammo and sometimes rat in Null and Lowsec.

I can change ships duo to the small size of a T3, an Orca can hold 5 total, so with a good setup you can switch ships and carry backups incase you run into a gank you cant handle. I can close Wormholes behind me, so I can collapse Wormholes that have too much activity for me to handle.

I would consider myself a Scavenger that lives a nomadic lifestyle, so I would argue the term nomad used for people who are flexable but still use A POS... that for me, is not being nomadic but just very flexable.

For a while I would team up with a friend and we would call each other to get online so we would both be in the same hole and make the same moves. So yeah, it's a solo lifestyle because when you jump holes and your team mate isn't online, you are seperated again.

I adobted this lifestyle because I was bored. The guys I was playing with all had to take breaks from the game because of real life responsibilities and I didnt want to be all alone with a POS, maintaining everything by myself, so I packed up and took what I needed and now I move from place to place.

It's not for everyone because there are days where nothing happens, I can go for weeks without so much as a scout coming through or PvE content won't spawn.

I do enjoy it a lot because when you do run into things and other people, you come across the craziest things.

you forgot the SYJ/WSPACE/DE-NY 'base out of lowsec but still call yourselves wormholers' model.

I have to keep reminding myself people like this exist in the game - I've nearly made some flawed judgements in the past due to pigeon holing WH residents as either residents of a system or day trippers from k-space - its a bit of a curve ball in those rare encounters with someone who is truly nomadic and doesn't operate in the way you expect.

Mobile Depots... you mean those things that started existing this month?

If the operational style of your group means you move around, whether invasions or experiencing different types of wormholes, then it indicates you are mobile and need to pack light. The term "nomad" seems to get you guys stuck on the definition of what you think a nomad should be in wormholes. This is just the term for a more mobile lifestyle for groups. If you wish to attempt to actualize your opinion, that's your prerogative, but I'll continue to peddle my concepts.

tl;Dr - nomad is a term for the group level management system we use. I see a simple POS as a tent, and I build my sandcastles my way, and shiptoast about it. XOXO

Edit: Based on what you guys do/did, living directly out of a backpack, I'd probably call that "drifting". The drifters of Eve :)

The guys you "fought" were our Daktak bros, and they haven't transitioned to our nomad style yet... sooo?

Edit: But, you're right, Mr. Joe Random Wormholer Guy. We're bad. Everyone knows how terrible we are...

tl;dr - Get on our level.

I spend 2 weeks in highsec duo to real life responsibilities, and yes, I spend time mining because I was recording a Podcast... and I don't like to do heavy things when I do that... but I still have to be online during the recording.

It's getting old dude, go awox something with a 70 man fleet... make sure it can't fight back, otherwise you might not have enough firepower.

WTF are you talking about scrub? I NOMAD like errday, and you can honestly fit everything you need in an orca, or if you're a BOSS like me an archon.

What we see here is some jagoff putting on airs. Go back to incursion space where maybe you'll be as relevant as us. Do yourself a favor and just don't reply, you'll only make your corp look more foolish than some of your members already have.