Warfare & Tactics

Can somebody explain whether CCP have actually introduced small gang objectives with Fozzie Sov?

Am I correct in my understanding that fleets need to be divided to go after some spawning sites in the constellation after the initial use of the entosis link?

But...

That there is still no way for small gangs that aren't interested in sov or coming back days later to provoke fights? ie by not having a target that defenders will want to immediately defend?

Thanks for the reply, I'm well aware of the existing viability for small gangs it's fozzie sov I'm interested in. Perhaps I should have elaborated further.

What I meant was before the changes when roamed in null sec in a small gang targets would panic rush to the station - which is fine. But, you are unable to do anything that will make them want to come out and defend it. Instead they hid behind the fact you needed an obscene amount of hp grinding to risk damaging anything and even then they knew they could form a huge fleet 1.5/2 days later to repair it. So there was no incentive to defend anything against small gangs. Many alliances actually wanting members to bore roaming parties to the point they don't return.

My question is whether that has been addressed? Tactical boredom has no place in any game in my opinion and like large gangs, small gangs should have a way to provoke fights too, which under the old system, they didn't. I've done both sides of it, if you're in a large group and want to provoke a fight you can threaten the income of your target by reinforcing their moons and have a nice fight later.

Unfortunately that doesn't work for small gangs, one, most have no intention of returning 2 days later and two you don't have the firepower to reinforce anything, even if you wanted to. It's not right that you can go into hostile territory, everybody hides from you and that you then are no threat to anything of any concern in system. Small gangs should have an objective that can draw fights, obviously it wouldnt be as severe as losing a moon or system but give the people hiding in station a decision as to whether what they're losing is worth the risk of defending or not.

I'm wondering if that there is something to motivate people to defend against small gangs now in sov space.

Cool thanks, I hope that's actually the case and we don't land up with a similar situation as before where defenders don't care because it's benefitial to defend later instead of immediately.

The short answer is no.

The long answer - sov null can't even comprehend the concept of defending their space in the short term. The ONLY FAIR WAY (note 1) to engage in sov warfare it to have a multiple timer system that allows for the assemblage of all forces. It would be unfair for a small force to be able to harm their vast empire in any way over the short term. (an unfortunate but understandable side effect is that no small group will ever be able to take and hold sov w/out the blessings of large sov holders - sorry for any inconvenience this may impose upon smaller groups, but maintaining the status quo is (note 2) imperative)

1 - Please don't ask who FAIR applies to as the answer may create a mess.
2 - The imperative need to maintain the status quo is quite obvious and will not be discussed.

The long explanation short. If you're coming in here asking if there is any possible way that a small gang roaming about in null can coaxe those 30 dudes in station to come out and fight - GO FISH. If this were possible then it would also be possible to rip around null and do bad things willy nilly to deserted systems the SOV holders own - this would not be fair (see notes 1 & 2)

There is no station size can opener in Fozzie SOV (note 1)

I'm totally with you.

I'm hoping there are 2 parts to holding SOV.

1. Elite end game garbage where 100's of folks can do that sort of thing.

Two or more timers and plenty of time to gather up whatever is needed for that end game style stuff.

2. Small gang SOV maintenance activities.

This is where a small gang can come into the space you allegedly own and breaks some dishes and windows so it kind of sucks to live there if you don't undock. This gives the alleged owners some incentive to come out prove they own the space on a minute to minut / hour to hour basis. This would be things like taking down station services and system bonus stuff.

Example: Entosis off their observatory array. The owners can either come out and defend or lose its abilities. The abilites don't come back until you entosis it back into service. Taking away system bonuses would be ideal. Kind of makes sense to defend your system or lose your system bonuses.

Example: Superstation and contol of sov thingies have timers, so the defenders can force a big fight to tip big things. That way if it's something that really really matters to the alliance as a whole, then the whole alliance has some time to mobilize.

Not arguing for or against, but I wanted to point out that I think the moon goo stealing deployable is already supposed to do this kind of. I'm not sure I like how it functions currently though.

Well now small gangs can easily stop all station services by sitting outside station for a bit (assuming not a max'ed indexed system) and make their "safespot" more like a death trap. If small gangs really want to make an impact, they should just follow the universal CREST clock (the website that list all timers) and then make their way to the systems during the timers and hit station services. This would be how small gangs will pull a fight.

For example, party A's hub has been reinforced and is waiting the 2 days for the timer to come out. They're gearing up for a fight and stocking the station. 3rd party small gang can come in and reinforce all of the station services, which means not refitting ships, repairing modules, etc. If party A doesn't undock to defend the station services; i.e. take the small gang fights, then they will be sitting ducks come the day of the big fight. I imagine that's how small gangs will become of use in nullsec and still have an impact on the nullsec scene. Also, I would imagine (hopefully) that after a while, most groups will realize it's better to stop the reinforcement timers before they can progress to the final timers. Then again I could be wrong and we'll just see even more of nullsec blue ball itself by blue'ing up even more.

The flight of a thousand handful of Griffins can really ruin your efforts at sov trolling.

Pretty simple. Certain people feel it's unfair that those playing the game should be able to affect their in game assets while they're not playing the game. They also feel they shouldn't have to recruit players from around the world so they have a 24 hour defense because it's annoying to have non English or non Russian speakers in alliances.

A flaw with the proposed system is that one of the reasons behind changes was to present at least hypothetical possibility that smaller groups can take sov. If all such group can do is sabotage services while actually taking sov still requires you to be able to compete with various wreaking balls, then the goal is not fulfilled.