Crime & Punishment

I recently contacted Goblin with an offer for a contract for his "Grr Goon" campaign. Although I heard the horror stories, I had to read it myself to believe it. Goblin was completely condescending and arrogant expecting that mercs would do his bidding for the fee of the wardec. When I tried explaining that at that rate it would be more profitable to actually defend Goons, he ran to his blog claiming I was threatening him. You can go ahead and find his tirade on his blog. I have nothing to hide.

There are few causes in Eve I put much interest in but seeing the greater merc community as a whole succeed is one of them. Goblin will expect you to do his work for zero profit and talk down to you the entire time. You've been warned.


Update: I match your ****** tin foil ass hattery and raise you an article.

I simply asked him "what if they avoid HS." But nothing stated in the discussion suggested that he ever intended to pay anything more than the cost of the wardec fees.

wow, its great to hear that seraph. I'd read his blog, but I don't want to give him the hits.

Grr... someone

I just don't wanna read his blog. :puke:

A billion a week to dec Goons? Often I disagree with Gevlon but I read the blog and think his judgement is correct in this instance. Personally, I don't think any high sec merc corp is worth paying a single isk over the cost of the war dec fee to "fight" Goons in high sec.

If you were really that good you'd be able to profit from the loot drops of your targets. As for calling him arrogant well perhaps a little, but you are guilty of the same thing, expecting him to pay over the odds to give you a bunch of easy targets to shoot at!

I think you would have "profited" more if you weren't so greedy. I am really struggling to understand how any high sec merc group would think that a "free" war versus Goons is something to complain about!

Gevlon Goblin... He has wiggled his way into my conscience awareness...

I love him! hahaha...

There are several issues with this post.

First, high-sec contracts against most null sec groups are largely a waste. The vast majority of kills are against downies in stupid, random, crap getting killed in pipes or hubs. These losses rarely have any meaningful impact on the parent entity and are nothing but stat-padding used to claim some form of victory. The only losses that may impact null-sec entities are those inflicted by groups such as Freight Club who regularly destroy very expensive jump freighters. Most null alliances worth their salt use alts for alliance level assets, but killing these JFs can still negatively impact the local economies in the parent entity's home region(s).

If you actually wish to put pressure on a sov group, contact Freight Club or The Phoenix Rising. They are in Marmite and Forsaken Asylum, respectively. Frankly, they could operate completely independently (or form their own alliance) and probably do rather well, but I'm under the impression they both like having tons of free decs against null-entities. Without those, I'd put money on them giving their alliances the finger and moving on.

Second, the only loot from groups like goons that you'll actually make any ISK on is the jump freighters. This is still a complete crapshoot if you're looking for any regular and meaningful amount of ISK. The thousands of little ships that mermaids, forsaken, or deadly fingertips have killed in hubs/pipes belonging to these entities are generally T2 fit, at best. A merc group will make very little off these kills. So little, that it's really not worth the effort of the war if it's a contract. The people paying you for the contracts are clearly incapable of having any impact whatsoever on the target group, or they'd just pay the war fee themselves and have at it. It's just bad business for a merc to do anything for cost of dec.

Finally, wars with large null sec entities aren't that fun. You have to park your ass in a hub or a pipe to get kills and it's boring as all hell. These groups rarely bring fights to high-sec, because the kills in pipes/hubs largely don't matter. They have no reason to defend their downies, other than the occasional giggle to be had from stomping a terribad gate camp.

If you want someone to deal with the crap of shooting null sec folks in hs, especially if you want them to do the rather large amount of work involved in killing JFs, you should expect to pay them well for it.

My point was that goons (and really any null entity) aren't worth hiring high-sec mercs against to begin with. There is only one avenue that has any chance of real impact on them, and only a few people even bother with all of the effort involved.

Also, "if you're good at something, don't do it for free." Mercs aren't in it for charity, and there are other costs involved beyond the dec fee (ie SRP). If you're not willing to pay more than the dec fee to have something done, then you clearly don't need it done in the first place.

If you really wanted to put the hurt on a null entity you could try identifying their NPC corp logistics alts and suicide ganking them in hisec. Of course, this takes things to a whole new level of effort and expense and you're probably going to have to offer a hefty premium on top of that to convince people who live and operate in hisec to rack up piles of killrights on themselves, assuming anyone would take the job in the first place.