For Huw - another EVE mega battle that brings tears to your eyes

[undercovergeek]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/07/30/so-the-biggest-battle-in-eve-history-just-happened/#more-162357

[undercovergeek]

and heres why:-

Moons in EVE contain resources which can be mined by controlling a Player-Owned Starbase (POS) at that moon. These resources (commonly referred to as "moon goo") are rated by rarity in powers of two (R4,R8,R16,R32,R64) with the intent of rarer materials being more expensive.

However, prior to the recent Odyssey expansion, Technetium ("Tech"), a R32 product, was the bottleneck for the production of a number of Tech 2 ships. Bottlenecks like these can exist as the amount of moon goo produced is effectively limited by the number of moons containing that type of goo in EVE.

Recognizing this imbalance, a number of alliances spearheaded by Goonswarm Federation (GSF) formed OTEC (the Organization of Technetium Exporting Corporations), a cartel aiming to artificially limit the supply of Technetium further, thus increasing prices, as well as preventing any non-OTEC member from owning Technetium moons while also agreeing not to attack any Technetium moons owned by other member alliances.

OTEC led to a large amount of stagnation all over null-sec. Member alliances did not want to start wars fearing the retribution of others for disrupting their ridiculous amount of ISK. For example, Montolio, the at-the-time leader of TEST, formed the HoneyBadger Coalition (HBC) and called for war on the GSF-led CFC. However, his backers in Pandemic Legion (PL), controlling one of the largest supercapital fleets in EVE, abandoned him as they did not want to risk war.

Then, Odyssey happened. Moon goo was rebalanced, with Technetium no longer being a T2 bottleneck, and R64s once again being the most valuable goo. Large swathes of Technetium-rich CFC space in the north became near worthless in the blink of an eye. On the other hand, regions containing lots of R64 moons, such as Fountain, were suddenly made very attractive targets.

This, combined with the fact that the HBC had quite publicly splintered a few weeks prior to Odyssey after some Mistakes Were Made™ by its head at the time, Sort Dragon, led to GSF CEO The Mittani, de facto leader of the CFC, declaring a full-on invasion of the Fountain region in a now-infamous State of the Goonion speech.

This is where war, and thus the realm of propaganda, begins. What can be discerned is that, after initial quick gains - assisted by metagame hijinks for example, Sort Dragon's Here Be Dragons corporation passed sovereignty of a few station systems in Fountain to GSF without a fight - the CFC struggled to maintain its early bridgehead as Pandemic Legion and the N3 coalition (Nulli Secunda, NC. and Nexus Fleet) joined the fray on the side of TEST, thus providing an enormously overwhelming supercapital advantage to the defenders. During the following counterattack, the CFC had to cede all but one of the systems received from There Be Dragons, but importantly managed to hold on to 4-EP12.

From there, the CFC, noticing the war would not be a quick one, switched up its strategy and relied on what is commonly referred to as "blueballing" - they would knock stations into reinforced mode stealthily, thus setting the stage for a fight, and then refuse to show up if TEST formed up. This deprived TEST pilots, who were promised a fight by leadership, of said fight, causing TEST numbers to slowly wane over a period of about one month.

Then, Z9PP happened (CFC view, PL view). In a monumental blunder, TEST seemed primed to lose an enormous amount of capital ships in one decisive battle - until the server came crashing down due to what we now know was a mistype by a CCP admin trying to improve performance. TEST ordered all capital pilots to not log back in, thus saving their ships. However, while ISK was saved, morale was not. The CFC smelled blood and organized a "hellcamp" - covering a large area in warp disruption bubbles - with the intent of catching and destroying any TEST capitals logging back into the game.

From here on we further delve into recent events where the happenings are still hazy. Apparently, TEST military directorate began timing their station timers into Australian TZ in an attempt to allow their ally NC.'s superior numbers in said TZ to discourage any CFC assaults. However, TEST's own participation numbers waned while PL lost interest. Combined with the russians of SOLAR attacking the N3 holdings in the east, drawing a large amount of supercapitals away, the TEST supercapital advantage was gone and the CFC, now staging from 4EP, which had ticked to sov3 (allowing placement of a Jump Bridge upgrade linking it directly to their previous staging system, as well as a Cynosural Jammer preventing capital ships from entering the system).

The CFC slowly started gaining systems, TEST numbers faltered, and their allies seemed disinterested in continuing to prop them up. In what seems like a last-ditch effort, TEST MilDir called for a all-hands-on-deck CTA for the shield timer of the 6VDT-H station.

You know the rest. CFC got into system first, having previously obtained full moon coverage, thus depriving TEST forces of a safe point to form up in system. TEST, while outnumbered, bridged in multiple fleets and was forced to warp to station by a well-timed CFC bombing run. TEST command was headshotted off the field by the enormous amount of CFC forces, leaving TEST leaderless. After multiple hours of brawling, the CFC brought in a large fleet of Dreadnoughts in a show of force, upon which TEST fleets fled the field. With all moons in the system occupied by CFC starbases and all gates covered in warp disruption bubbles, the TEST fleets had nowhere to go. In a final attack, they charged into the CFC capital field, managing to down one CFC Naglfar-class dreadnought before dying.

[Huw the Poo]

Stop, you monster!  Tempt me no further!  Any time Eve Online is mentioned it takes a conscious effort of will to stop myself resubscribing!

[Kushan]

Reading stuff like this really makes me want to try EVE. But at this point I imagine that starting as a noob with absolutely nothing is probably a really brutal experience.

[Windigo]

Reading stuff like this really makes me want to try EVE. But at this point I imagine that starting as a noob with absolutely nothing is probably a really brutal experience.

like taking a rock to a tank range

[GDS_Starfury]

^^^  and you are the rock expert.

[Windigo]

^^^  and you are the rock expert.

saw them being made I did

[Sparhawk]

These big battles are impressive but only underscore CCP's strategy of periodically "changing up" important game mechanics in the name of new content or balancing. Maybe some longtime players are energized by these changes but I grew weary of the yearly cycle and let my sub's expire.

[jomni]

Is there a free to play mode? What are the limitations?

[Sparhawk]

No free to play. Limitations are the time involved to train relevant skills and the time involved to earn money for ships and fittings. In light of the time involved you can see how changes can be frustrating when all you have worked for becomes irrelevant or worthless.

[Nefaro]

No free to play. Limitations are the time involved to train relevant skills and the time involved to earn money for ships and fittings. In light of the time involved you can see how changes can be frustrating when all you have worked for becomes irrelevant or worthless.

One thing certain about any MMO is the constant rebalancing and tweaks to game mechanics.  In something like Eve, where you spend much of your time creating virtual wealth for yourself, any small change can screw up your whole system and be very frustrating.  There also seems to be a tendency for devs to "nerf" anything seen as being more powerful than it should be, rather than buffing up some of those that could use more so bit patch days are usually rife with people complaining about their stuff being nerfed (or even "stealth nerfed" - aka not mentioned in the patch notes).  You can't blame them.

**
These big Eve battles sound amazing but I can never bring myself to play the game for terribly long before getting bored.   While I like the concept of Sandbox MMOs (I was an avid UO player way back when), I still think they could use some direction in small bits.  They should pick up some small pieces of what has made the 'theme park' MMOs a success and integrate them.  I'm not talking about a whole span of experience taking you from noob to boob but enough varied quality solo content to break the repetitive monotony of many sandbox endeavors. 

[republic]

I wish I had time for Eve.  It is a game for the retired or the unburdened.  I joined up in 2004 and loved it, but these days I get an hour a day to play.  Had I stayed with it...I'd be ok but since I left an hour a day is just not enough time.  It takes too long to grow mutual trust in Eve, and at an hour a day it will take 6 months just to get sorted in a good corp.

Hopefully it'll still be around once my kids are grown and on their own.  :)

[Huw the Poo]

Same here mate, lack of time is the only reason I don't play either.  Eve requires a time investment like no other game I've ever played.