Intergalactic Summit

To all interested freedom loving capsuleers:

We are planning a roam and attack event for the 27th of this month.

Fully fit ships and ordnance will be provided at no cost to you.

We strongly urge that your implants be of little cost because they are likely to be lost.

Our activities will result in you losing some security standings so be forewarned.

Sign up and positioning yourself in the designated staging system in advance of 09/27 is mandatory for participation.

Location and time will be announced to respondents.

For security purposes specific details shall not be posted here on IGS.

For more information or to ask questions please contact Matar Ronin via mail.

Pilots, we're planning something, something big, but it totally doesn't have anything to do with the big event going on that day at all, nope, not one bit. It's all hush hush, but please do come along and join in, it'll be big! (But really, it's got nothing to do with the other big thing going on that day, promise.)

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Maybe that's what they want you to think !

Is this a ratings thing? I had planned on avoiding all news coverage of the event, but now I don't think I could stay away! This is a ratings thing, isn't it?

Think we know who the spy in the fleet is...

I think he's assuming you'll show up in person to get them.

Geeze, man, be a little more subtle, won't you?

First, you don't have a clear goal in mind. You think you do, but you don't. Disruption of attending forces won't achieve anything. If you want to go do 'something' to further your agenda (yours, specifically, not mine, not pretty much every other Matari's I know) that day, you need to hit the one single target that will matter - and you don't even know if that target's actually going to be in space.

Besides, you don't have enough ships. At most, you'll pick off a few bystanders. Congratulations, you've attacked nobody whose death will achieve any of your goals unless your only goal is to get CONCORDed.

How do I know you won't have enough ships? Because knowing how many ships you'll need is my job. Remember when you said I, of course, had no knowledge of strategic planning and decision making?

Hello, my name is Arrendis Culome, a Director of Goonswarm Federation. My primary responsibility is doctrinal design as a member of our Fitting Team, with secondary responsibilities including the training and coordination of fleet logistics and logistics leads for all combat operations. Oh, and strategic planning is in there somewhere, too.

So, yeah. It's my job to run the numbers on the scenarios everyone thinks 'heh, we should totally go do...' but have no idea how far they're actually short of being at all capable of achieving.

Here are the numbers (we'll stay nice and vague because we don't want to be shouting OH MY GOD MATAR RONIN WANTS TO TRY TO POP THE EMPRESS AND MAKE HER A BLOODY MARTYR or anything):

With the minor assumption of standard Command Ship boosts, and a pilot with implants equivalent to those used by the late Empress, the only target on the field that will matter - IF THERE EVEN IS ONE - will be running at a minimum structural value of between 51 and 85 million.

Minimum.

You will get one shot. Before you can even hope to cycle for a second, CONCORD will be on-site and every ship you have will begin the process of becoming a fine particulate mist.

You will need to use turrets, not missiles, because flight time will allow the target's support fleet to begin rendering remote assistance, and munitions application will take place over the standard 3-8 second window that occurs with distributed firing control (ie: multiple people in a fleet).

Computer modelling and field artillery tests both place the maximum structural degradation available in a single volley from a subcapital vessel at just under 12,000 rating. The most cost-effective platform for this is the Tornado-class battlecruiser, but the Maelstrom, Tempest, and Vargur all come in at roughly the same rating.

Those numbers mean that you would need approximately 4,250 Tornados, assuming every pilot is a perfect shot, and there's no window for remote assistance. For actual observed pilot performance in New Eden, you'd need roughly twice that. That's a price tag, by the way, of just shy of 1.1T ISK.

That also assumes nobody locks the target early, prompting a response from the support fleet. It also assumes the target is not, in fact, fitted with a Capital Emergency Hull Energizer, because I promise you, as soon as the first idiot fires, that's getting activated, and the rest of your idiots are just going to be pissing into a windstorm.

And yes, these numbers were all worked out well in advance. It's always good to know what kind of moves someone else might make, and it can't be denied that if one of the nullsec groups were to do what you're certainly not trying to hint at, that would send a clear message as to that group's capabilities. As there's been no mass movement of Tornado hulls, we're reasonably sure no serious efforts are going to be made by any of the other null blocs to 'make a statement'.

If the system were accessible to capital travel, it might be more of a concern, but realistically, barring another intervention by the monsters in Anoikis, the most anyone can really offer is a little bit of a fireworks display as CONCORD blows you to little pieces.

I cried at the beauty of this. Just real pro-level stuff. It'll probably fall on deaf ears as to it's intended target, but from the bottom of my heart as someone who's dealing with logistics on a much smaller scale, this is gorgeous.

How did you in the past retake your freedom
How do you exist as a state

Now I begin to understand his brother. That's why he did not accept part in the war against you.