At first, the amount of people shown their interest in my supercap corp idea is astonishing and above all of my expectations. About half of them are new to EVE. Not so surprisingly 90%+ of those who wrote powerblock preference wrote CFC-HB. The "e-honor", "killboard is important" and "20M+" is strong with most alliances outside of them. About 80% of them suggested (or already in) one specific alliance. This may have something to do with the fact that the No1 traffic source of my blog (after google.com and direct traffic) is reddit.com (the second is blessingofkings.blogspot.com, the third is somethingawful.com).
Before I actually start the negotiations I'd like to clarify what we can offer and what we need. "Clarify" doesn't mean "I break it down to you" but "we discuss until I'm capable to understand the needs of a nullsec alliance". I have blurry visions that are limited by my limited knowledge of null.
First, what can we offer that makes us valuable assets:
ISK. A lot. While most of our members will be EVE-newbies, being on this blog assumes that they like the money-making aspect. While EVE-players tend to look down on other MMOs (just because other EVE players who are not them made awesome things), the economy of MMOs isn't different at all. Selling EMP S isn't different from selling Saronite Arrowhead.
I'd like to mention a common nonsense argument flooding my comment moderation section "your income is nothing compared to an alliance budget". This is stupid beyond measure. The income of an alliance is moon mining material income + income from members. So multiply the money you donated to your alliance with the number of alliance members. I'd guess for 99% of these commenters the result would be zero + moongoo. While moon income is significant, especially for Goons, it's not a game-breaking thing. Even if the Goons make 2T/month from Tech, counting with 10K members, that's only 200M/member/month. Sure, it's not nothing, but a bit off from my 50B/member/month. In other words: the alliance cannot provide significant funds to an average member. Sure they can replace a lost drakefleet and pay their sov bills, but they can't give out free supercaps to every Tom, Dick and Harriett. Otherwise they would. Of course we hear of market wizzards in alliances, but they fill their own wallet, not of the alliance. Please note that in the FW-exploit issue, 5 players were negwalleted and not their alliance.
Another, more very recent info about alliance wealth: Nulli Secunda moves to faction warfare to get T5 to be able to get lot of Armageddon Navy ships which will be their new doctrine. If I'm correct, you have to provide a normal Armageddon to buy a Navy for LP. A normal Armageddon is 85M, a Navy is 300M. So by capturing the whole FW zone, they save 215M/ship. So the average nulli pilot works about a month to get his ships with replacements. Want to know how many Navy upgrades (Navy-normal) could I get? 100 from my wallet right now, another 400 after liquidating my stocks. So either Nulli orbits over empty FW-plexes for hours because it's fun or the average (not GSF) alliance isn't at all rich compared to a good trader.
The real selling point however the source of this ISK: mostly highsec trading. This activity doesn't compete with existing moneymaking schemes of the alliance. We becoming rich doesn't mean making other alliance members poor like they were if we'd just mine the whole region dry. Rather we pay them ISK to mine the region dry for our supers.
The second thing we can offer is genuine newbies. I can't emphasize its importance. Poaching players from other alliances has a serious problem: they left because they were unhappy where they are. However the rats and rocks are the same in every region, and the drakefleets are surprisingly similar too. Those who had problems probably hold the problems in themselves and won't be happy in their new place either. The guy with the 3 pages long corp history is a common sight among wannabe recruits. Of course there are people who leave because of valid reasons and will be satisfied in their new place, but most of the corp-hoppers keep hopping. A genuine newbie who joins the game has much larger chance to make home in the place that nurtures him.
Now the things we need. I'd like to emphasize "need". They aren't fluffs we want but things that we can't operate without. It's not sure that it's the job of the alliance to provide them, feel free to tell that X need to be found by ourselves.
An integrative alliance (or corp). We'll be total newbies to null and many of us to the game. Left on our own devices we won't be achieving anything besides making ISK in highsec. An alliance where corps are more or less independent and just flock together for sov war fleets would be a terrible place for us. We need a place where the interaction between members is strong, there are active forums and chat where questions can be answered. I'm not sure that it's the best idea to have a corp of my own, maybe joining an existing industrial corp of the alliance would be better idea. If we have our own corp, the alliance must be the kind where players of different corps mesh and do things together. Currently we can't do anything alone besides hoarding highsec ISK.
The sector we need the most tutoring is fleet PvP. The alliance we join must have joint fleets which are large enough to survive the unavoidable messups of newbies. We can of course make up for our fails with ISK to replace whatever we lose (and whatever others lose because of our fails). The joint fleets are also necessary to keep those pilots who won't make it to the supercap. I'm not naive with the success rate of "great" plans. Out of 10 newbies who go for a titan, 1 will get it, 2 will settle at a supercarrier and 7 will quit before 5B. If we are alone, these 7 players will be lost. If we are in an integrated fleet, these pilots can stay in other corps and the alliance gained 7 new Drake pilots.
I'd like to emphasize that I see the corp only as a tool and consider the alliance (powerblock) to be the group level. Corps won't make difference on the large-scale, alliances will. I'd also point out that managing a corp is just a necessary administration to me and not at all something I desire. If the alliance have a trusted wannabe leader, I gladly let him be the CEO and I do what I'm good at: making ISK and teaching it.
Availability of intelligent theorycrafters: we'll have lot of questions. But we are not apes who settle with answers like "we do it this way", "everyone does it like that" or the generic "lol, fail". Few things wastes my time more than the "experience" trolls, the ones who don't give any useful info just parrot what they heard during the time they spent in null. They are often right, but only because someone who actually has brain told them the right answer and they have no clue how and why. I want understanding of things since only that can seed new ideas.
To see what I mean, let me present a real problem. No matter how much time I spend with EFT, titans seems to be best use with gang links (not all of them, just 1 for fleet booster and 1-1 for each capital/supercapital wing). For the example I grabbed a random ship with 13225 shield HP. I set as fleet booster a Tengu with siege warfare gang links and mindlink implant. The shield HP jumped to 15209 (15% increase). Then I set a Leviathan titan with siege warfare gang links and mindlink implant as fleet booster, receiving 18184HP (37.5% increase). The difference between the Tengu booster and the Leviathan booster is 20%. Assuming a supercap fleet has 100x the EHP and 100x the DPS of one normal titan, adding this titan increases both by 1%. Adding my fleet booster titan increases them by 0.3% (doom) and 20%. Could anyone rationally explain why 1+1 is better than 0.3+20?
Note: Leviathan is an example, Erebus does the same for armor, Avatar for cap recharge, Ragnarok for signature radius decrease.
The point isn't that I'm right. I can be wrong. But do you know why? Or do you just parrot what you've heard from some guy?
The will to field supercaps: there is nothing more demoralizing than flying the most powerful ship and not seeing battles. Supercaps are tools and not valued prizes. If you afraid of a supercap lossmail, I'm not interested in you. I don't mind losing a titan. I happily use my titan as bait. Hell, my Ragnarok design is made precisely to fleet boost a subcap fleet, (-50% signature resolution at your service). I'm happy to field it for the purpose of making the enemy doing stupid things in their "OMG supercap killmail! Go for it lololol" lust. If you mind losing my titan more than I do, then something is seriously wrong with you. If I had to point out one reason why SoCo was roflstomped without any resistance is their care for killboards. Don't be like that!
Of course we won't do stupid things like going on a supercap roam. We only field them when the alliance FC want them to be fielded. We understand that sometimes escalation is not a good idea (for example out of the alliance prime time when most of the supercap pilots are unavailable). We understand that it's often structure shooting/repping is the supercap job and we will do it happily as this is what makes the change on the sov map. We understand that there are times when the enemy has to be baited out, let them go bold and stupid. We understand lot of things. But not fielding supercaps ever is not something we understand. If you just want to gather supers because they are cute, we aren't for you, and I can guarantee that the disgruntled pilots will disappear, either jumping to other alliance or simply stopping playing.
Understanding the necessity of trading profit: We will most probably haul things from highsec to the alliance null. We can haul things for other people. We will definitely manufacture things so we can do it for others too. But expecting to do it without "profit" is nonsense. Every action has risks and opportunity costs. If you demand to give something for free, people will not give it at all. What is better? Having ammo for sale at +20% Jita price or having no ammo for sale? Please note that most alliance members do exactly nothing on the trading front, otherwise there wouldn't be profit at the first place. Why should we do something that others don't? We will probably build a "trade hub" just for our own needs. This hub will be at the benefit for everyone in the alliance. But to make it work and serve everyone, you must be able to explain the murmuring economically challenged ones that they are free to learn to drive jump freighters, use their own 8B to buy one, risk it with cargo at every jump and then they can undercut us, otherwise STFU.
A clear declaration of goals. "What we fighting for" is what keeps intelligent people loyal. We share a common goal and leaving the team would mean leaving the goal. The alliance must have some declaration of ideas, what they believe in, what they fight for. A generic "for fun lol" or "for the team" doesn't fly, simply because these are available everywhere. Let me put a good example: "We trash the game of everyone else" is a declaration of the Goons. Clear, definitely separates those who believe it's a good goal from those who don't. The alliance must have something like that to survive in the long term. No point joining a band of bored guys who are fighting because ... they don't have anything better to do on Saturday evening. I also ask commenters to link such declarations or summarize it for their own alliance even if they don't want me anywhere near themselves. Just the list of ideas people fight for is interesting on its own for the readers and myself.
Wednesday morning report: 108.7B (2B spent on main accounts, 1.3 spent on Logi/Carrier, 1.0 on Ragnarok, 1.0 on Rorqual, 0.9 on Nyx, 1.3 on Avatar, 2.6B received as gift).
Before I actually start the negotiations I'd like to clarify what we can offer and what we need. "Clarify" doesn't mean "I break it down to you" but "we discuss until I'm capable to understand the needs of a nullsec alliance". I have blurry visions that are limited by my limited knowledge of null.
First, what can we offer that makes us valuable assets:
ISK. A lot. While most of our members will be EVE-newbies, being on this blog assumes that they like the money-making aspect. While EVE-players tend to look down on other MMOs (just because other EVE players who are not them made awesome things), the economy of MMOs isn't different at all. Selling EMP S isn't different from selling Saronite Arrowhead.
I'd like to mention a common nonsense argument flooding my comment moderation section "your income is nothing compared to an alliance budget". This is stupid beyond measure. The income of an alliance is moon mining material income + income from members. So multiply the money you donated to your alliance with the number of alliance members. I'd guess for 99% of these commenters the result would be zero + moongoo. While moon income is significant, especially for Goons, it's not a game-breaking thing. Even if the Goons make 2T/month from Tech, counting with 10K members, that's only 200M/member/month. Sure, it's not nothing, but a bit off from my 50B/member/month. In other words: the alliance cannot provide significant funds to an average member. Sure they can replace a lost drakefleet and pay their sov bills, but they can't give out free supercaps to every Tom, Dick and Harriett. Otherwise they would. Of course we hear of market wizzards in alliances, but they fill their own wallet, not of the alliance. Please note that in the FW-exploit issue, 5 players were negwalleted and not their alliance.
Another, more very recent info about alliance wealth: Nulli Secunda moves to faction warfare to get T5 to be able to get lot of Armageddon Navy ships which will be their new doctrine. If I'm correct, you have to provide a normal Armageddon to buy a Navy for LP. A normal Armageddon is 85M, a Navy is 300M. So by capturing the whole FW zone, they save 215M/ship. So the average nulli pilot works about a month to get his ships with replacements. Want to know how many Navy upgrades (Navy-normal) could I get? 100 from my wallet right now, another 400 after liquidating my stocks. So either Nulli orbits over empty FW-plexes for hours because it's fun or the average (not GSF) alliance isn't at all rich compared to a good trader.
The real selling point however the source of this ISK: mostly highsec trading. This activity doesn't compete with existing moneymaking schemes of the alliance. We becoming rich doesn't mean making other alliance members poor like they were if we'd just mine the whole region dry. Rather we pay them ISK to mine the region dry for our supers.
The second thing we can offer is genuine newbies. I can't emphasize its importance. Poaching players from other alliances has a serious problem: they left because they were unhappy where they are. However the rats and rocks are the same in every region, and the drakefleets are surprisingly similar too. Those who had problems probably hold the problems in themselves and won't be happy in their new place either. The guy with the 3 pages long corp history is a common sight among wannabe recruits. Of course there are people who leave because of valid reasons and will be satisfied in their new place, but most of the corp-hoppers keep hopping. A genuine newbie who joins the game has much larger chance to make home in the place that nurtures him.
Now the things we need. I'd like to emphasize "need". They aren't fluffs we want but things that we can't operate without. It's not sure that it's the job of the alliance to provide them, feel free to tell that X need to be found by ourselves.
An integrative alliance (or corp). We'll be total newbies to null and many of us to the game. Left on our own devices we won't be achieving anything besides making ISK in highsec. An alliance where corps are more or less independent and just flock together for sov war fleets would be a terrible place for us. We need a place where the interaction between members is strong, there are active forums and chat where questions can be answered. I'm not sure that it's the best idea to have a corp of my own, maybe joining an existing industrial corp of the alliance would be better idea. If we have our own corp, the alliance must be the kind where players of different corps mesh and do things together. Currently we can't do anything alone besides hoarding highsec ISK.
The sector we need the most tutoring is fleet PvP. The alliance we join must have joint fleets which are large enough to survive the unavoidable messups of newbies. We can of course make up for our fails with ISK to replace whatever we lose (and whatever others lose because of our fails). The joint fleets are also necessary to keep those pilots who won't make it to the supercap. I'm not naive with the success rate of "great" plans. Out of 10 newbies who go for a titan, 1 will get it, 2 will settle at a supercarrier and 7 will quit before 5B. If we are alone, these 7 players will be lost. If we are in an integrated fleet, these pilots can stay in other corps and the alliance gained 7 new Drake pilots.
I'd like to emphasize that I see the corp only as a tool and consider the alliance (powerblock) to be the group level. Corps won't make difference on the large-scale, alliances will. I'd also point out that managing a corp is just a necessary administration to me and not at all something I desire. If the alliance have a trusted wannabe leader, I gladly let him be the CEO and I do what I'm good at: making ISK and teaching it.
Availability of intelligent theorycrafters: we'll have lot of questions. But we are not apes who settle with answers like "we do it this way", "everyone does it like that" or the generic "lol, fail". Few things wastes my time more than the "experience" trolls, the ones who don't give any useful info just parrot what they heard during the time they spent in null. They are often right, but only because someone who actually has brain told them the right answer and they have no clue how and why. I want understanding of things since only that can seed new ideas.
To see what I mean, let me present a real problem. No matter how much time I spend with EFT, titans seems to be best use with gang links (not all of them, just 1 for fleet booster and 1-1 for each capital/supercapital wing). For the example I grabbed a random ship with 13225 shield HP. I set as fleet booster a Tengu with siege warfare gang links and mindlink implant. The shield HP jumped to 15209 (15% increase). Then I set a Leviathan titan with siege warfare gang links and mindlink implant as fleet booster, receiving 18184HP (37.5% increase). The difference between the Tengu booster and the Leviathan booster is 20%. Assuming a supercap fleet has 100x the EHP and 100x the DPS of one normal titan, adding this titan increases both by 1%. Adding my fleet booster titan increases them by 0.3% (doom) and 20%. Could anyone rationally explain why 1+1 is better than 0.3+20?
Note: Leviathan is an example, Erebus does the same for armor, Avatar for cap recharge, Ragnarok for signature radius decrease.
The point isn't that I'm right. I can be wrong. But do you know why? Or do you just parrot what you've heard from some guy?
The will to field supercaps: there is nothing more demoralizing than flying the most powerful ship and not seeing battles. Supercaps are tools and not valued prizes. If you afraid of a supercap lossmail, I'm not interested in you. I don't mind losing a titan. I happily use my titan as bait. Hell, my Ragnarok design is made precisely to fleet boost a subcap fleet, (-50% signature resolution at your service). I'm happy to field it for the purpose of making the enemy doing stupid things in their "OMG supercap killmail! Go for it lololol" lust. If you mind losing my titan more than I do, then something is seriously wrong with you. If I had to point out one reason why SoCo was roflstomped without any resistance is their care for killboards. Don't be like that!
Of course we won't do stupid things like going on a supercap roam. We only field them when the alliance FC want them to be fielded. We understand that sometimes escalation is not a good idea (for example out of the alliance prime time when most of the supercap pilots are unavailable). We understand that it's often structure shooting/repping is the supercap job and we will do it happily as this is what makes the change on the sov map. We understand that there are times when the enemy has to be baited out, let them go bold and stupid. We understand lot of things. But not fielding supercaps ever is not something we understand. If you just want to gather supers because they are cute, we aren't for you, and I can guarantee that the disgruntled pilots will disappear, either jumping to other alliance or simply stopping playing.
Understanding the necessity of trading profit: We will most probably haul things from highsec to the alliance null. We can haul things for other people. We will definitely manufacture things so we can do it for others too. But expecting to do it without "profit" is nonsense. Every action has risks and opportunity costs. If you demand to give something for free, people will not give it at all. What is better? Having ammo for sale at +20% Jita price or having no ammo for sale? Please note that most alliance members do exactly nothing on the trading front, otherwise there wouldn't be profit at the first place. Why should we do something that others don't? We will probably build a "trade hub" just for our own needs. This hub will be at the benefit for everyone in the alliance. But to make it work and serve everyone, you must be able to explain the murmuring economically challenged ones that they are free to learn to drive jump freighters, use their own 8B to buy one, risk it with cargo at every jump and then they can undercut us, otherwise STFU.
A clear declaration of goals. "What we fighting for" is what keeps intelligent people loyal. We share a common goal and leaving the team would mean leaving the goal. The alliance must have some declaration of ideas, what they believe in, what they fight for. A generic "for fun lol" or "for the team" doesn't fly, simply because these are available everywhere. Let me put a good example: "We trash the game of everyone else" is a declaration of the Goons. Clear, definitely separates those who believe it's a good goal from those who don't. The alliance must have something like that to survive in the long term. No point joining a band of bored guys who are fighting because ... they don't have anything better to do on Saturday evening. I also ask commenters to link such declarations or summarize it for their own alliance even if they don't want me anywhere near themselves. Just the list of ideas people fight for is interesting on its own for the readers and myself.
Wednesday morning report: 108.7B (2B spent on main accounts, 1.3 spent on Logi/Carrier, 1.0 on Ragnarok, 1.0 on Rorqual, 0.9 on Nyx, 1.3 on Avatar, 2.6B received as gift).
29 comments:
Only a bare handful of titans are required to fill the fleet/wing/squad booster roles (assuming the lower roles aren't already filled with command-link strategic cruisers)
Past that, Titans are best fit with guns.
Your idea seems to be building up. The only thing I am not sure about is how you say you will not care aabout losing a those huge ship. I understand you can buy them but at some point won't either teh ISK run dry or production becomea bottleneck to field more if you lose too many?
I am abrely getting into the game so I might be missign something important...
Frostys: I'm not trying to waste them. I just want to use them, which has the risk of losing them. Sometimes risk worth the reward, sometimes not.
@Serpentine: no doubt. However no one told on my previous titan designs that they were a niche that already filled. They called it shitfit with no explanation.
You keep saying "we" like everyone who's signing up already shares your exact vision of how to play, but how much consensus and deication do you really have among your potential hopefuls?
Titans have a single nice ship bonus but don't get the 3%/level (command ships) or 5%/level (t3s) bonus to the effectiveness of warfare links.
Your Ragnarok may provide
Signature radius: (1 - (-2.5%*5 * 1.5 * 1.5)) * (1 - 37.5%) = 0.449
(^ according to EFT, no idea at all if it works in practice that way)
Web/Point range = 1 + (3.75%*5 * 1.5 * 1.5) = 1.422
AB/MWD speed increase = 1 + (2.5%*5 * 1.5 * 1.5) = 1.281
whereas a Loki booster would give you
Signature Radius reduction: 1 - (-2.5%*5 * 1.5 * 1.25 * 1.5) = 0.648
Web/Point range = 1 + (3.75%*5 * 1.5 * 1.25 * 1.5) = 1.527
AB/MWD speed increase = 1 + (2.5%*5 * 1.5 * 1.25 * 1.5) = 1.352
(T2 modules bonus * skirmish warfare link specialist V * warfare link specialist V * ship bonus * mindlink bonus)
So as you see you get a rather one-sided package and you can't really compensate for it - realistically you only have two booster positions in your fleet (putting squad boosters into command ships/t3s would be unfeasible and silly), typical one siege/armor booster and one skirmish booster.
So e.g. by replacing a Vulture or a boosting (off-grid) Tengu with a Leviathan you gain a lot of shield hp for each fleet member but you lose shield resistances and you prolong the cycle time of your shield reps.
A more important fact to keep in mind: supercaps are usually not in the same fleet as subcaps - their movements are kept classified from the grunts in the subcap fleet, they jump in and out of fights on their own schedule (do their own risk assessment), have their own FC, ...
Imagine any random fleet member (aka low-effort spy) could pretend to be the emergency/exit cyno for the supers when one is called for! or squad-warp a bunch of titans around!
Your awesome signature radius reduction (or information warfare links!) have basically no effect on other supers at all.
Now, fitting a "Passive Defense" warfare link on one of your titans may not be a bad idea but whole titans dedicated to fleet boosting sound awful.
No matter how much time you spend with EFT, it won’t tell you about tactics, strategy, metagame, politics, psychology, the way a ship is used in real life, what works, what doesn’t. EFT warriors are called EFT warriors for a reason, they will spend all that time in EFT, creating weird and wonderful fits that look good on paper, but crumble at the first touch of space. One mark to recognize a junior EFT warrior is the use of the “all level V” dude, because of course, every scrub and newb recruit has all level Vs. As a side note the professional theorycrafters for goons use a special character, with most skills at IV, which betters reproduces the performance of a doctrine in the hands of your average pilots.
So, titans, as boosters for subcaps:
- a subcap fleet needs to be mobile. It may need to burn 30 jumps into hostile territory. It will maneuver around gates, jumping, re-approaching, cross jumping several times. It may split up into multiple groups which take different routes. It will fleet warp all over the system. It may need to take long regional gates that a supercap may not be able to jump across. It may need to pass through cyno-jammed systems. It may welp and be outblobbed… A titan pilots differently. It needs to jump, which needs cynos, a ton of fuel, and also eats all your cap. You need to fully recharge your cap before jumping again, which is slow when your titan is combat fit. You need a travel fit, with all cap rechargers and assistance from carriers to quickly recharge. Your titan takes much longer to enter warp than any subcap. And so on.
- a single titan, even surrounded by a large support fleet of subcaps, is an extremely juicy target. An enemy fleet may drop on you at any time, your titan will be instantly primaried. A broadcast on the network of batphones will draw blobs of people to it. No force is more powerful in mobilizing people that the prospect of a supercap killmail – this one I have seen and felt myself. For this reasons, titans are only used in large blobs of titans, to create security in numbers, and subcaps, if used, are the support for titans (mostly to kill dictors), not the other way around.
(continued)
(continued part 2)
- spies. Your fleet WILL have enemy spies in it. Especially if it’s the kind of fleet running around with titans from place to place. They will be in dictors with bubbles and cynos. Your enemies will burn spies for the change of a titan killmail. Your titan will die. So all fleet tactics and strategies are shaped by this mechanic, to accept the presence of spies, and minimize their impact. This mainly translates into “don’t do shit that can be easily compromised, because it will”
- there are few scenarios where you would use boosting titans. One would be if your system is attacked, something is out of reinforced, so you know when you fight, and you fight on your territory. Then your titan can sit in a pos, giving bonuses, because you know the fight will take place in that system. Though you may not want to do it even then. Your pos security may be compromised by spies (and your logistics people that handle POSs are spies, because no one else will do that work). Dumbass dreads may warp to the pos and bump your titan out. Your titan pilot may click the jump button or double-click in space by mistake while fapping to porn on the other screen. Your spies may be in your fleet, in command positions and fleet warp the titan out of the pos. Your titan pilot himself may be a spy. Or, you may lose the battle and the system; then your POS will be bubbled, reinforced, and hellcamped. And so on.
- psychology. A supercapital loss represents a major morale loss for ALL your alliance, and major boost for the enemy. All titan kills end up on EVE24 and kugu, and the eve-kill post will have 100 trolls on it. Propaganda and morale are important in 0.0, if you can’t understand that you don’t belong there. Supercapital noobness and stupidity draws enemies like flies to rotten meat. Spies, infiltrators, cloacky campers, hotdropping gankers, and so forth will be all over your space and your alliance. (http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/spymaster/62)
(continued)
(continued part 3)
- your alliance WILL care more about your titan loss than you. First, a not-destroyed titan is better that a titan on a killmail. Even a non existing titan is better than a titan on the enemy killboard (logic: in both cases you end up with no titan, but the former lacks the negative publicity, propaganda, bad reputation, mockery on EVE24 and kugu). Kill stats matter, don’t let CFC propaganda fool you, and especially when it comes to titans. The Mittani still mentions the 3 NCDot titans lost in 92D in every speech. The reputation of your alliance matters. Creating an overall culture of competence and efficiency may matter too. In my alliance, and any alliance that is/wants to be successful, even a ratting drake lossmail to cloacky gankers will be commented on the board. You’ll have to explain what you did, where you screwed up, why are you fit so badly, and what lessons have you learned. Losing shinnies or capitals or JFs and such will start angry forums threads, with lots of ugly words and obscene image macros. And if you rat in a supercarrier with neuts in local, you will be kicked from the alliance even before you loose it (I’ve seen it).
So the current doctrine for titans is to use them in large blobs, with supercarrier support. This supercap blob moves as one, has synergy, and has safety in numbers. And it will only be deployed if you know for certain that you will not be counter dropped by a bigger blob, because a massive supercap welp will be an enormous propaganda hit for your enemies, and will massively demoralize your own forces. This doctrine must also be metagame robust, resistant to spies, and resistant to own-stupidity. This means minimizing the risks you take, keeping tight security, and not putting supers out there where screwups, traps and God knows what else can compromise them.
tl;dr: supers are only in fleet with other supers, anything else is a huge risk that your supercap FC won't accept.
there is exactly one warfare link module that is useful for other supers - the Passive Defense armor warfare link (no active tanks, no shield tanks, don't get any tangible benefit from skirmish and information warfare links).
Serpentine probably doesn't know what he is talking about. Titans with eleventeen warfare links in their high-slots are shitfits.
Gevlon,
You are missing one vital bit in your understanding of null-sec.
You don't win wars with ISK, though it helps.
You don't win wars with better ships, though they help.
You win wars by making the other guy too demoralised to log in.
Your titan is a lossmail waiting to happen, and when it happens it will invigorate the enemy, making them log in to sniff around for another comedy killmail. That is why titans aren't fielded the way you propose, they just prolong a war.
@Anonymous: So you're saying that a titan with 3 links is a good idea, more links is not. As a titan +T3 (or titan + titan) gives more.
@Steel: if that's true, why do they exist on the first place? Why does anyone build supers if he is so scared of losing them. Isn't the trit used better in subcaps?
"@Anonymous: So you're saying that a titan with 3 links is a good idea, more links is not. As a titan +T3 (or titan + titan) gives more."
that's an extremely selective reading of my posts.
I would summarize my points as:
(1) titans have no place in subcap fleets for security reasons and warfare links are mostly useless for other supers
(2) titans give you one massive bonus at the cost of the other bonuses.
A Vulture gives you higher resistances, better cycle times and less cap usage than a Leviathan (which gives you in return more shield hp) - it depends on the situation and fleet composition which one would be more useful.
@Gevlon
"Why does anyone build supers if he is so scared of losing them. Isn't the trit used better in subcaps?"
I guess, I can answer this one. Because if you use them properly, they do the job way more efficient, then a subcap fleet, because there are one resource in EVE, that they utilise better, then anything else - that being pilots. One dred pilot does more damage to enemy POS then a dozen of battleships - and it needs only one man to pilot. Supercaps do it even better - find a ship, that can pop dred with one shot or to carry entire blob of fully fit drake replacements in it. They save manpower - and manpower is everything there is to war in EVE. As you many times mentioned yourself, everything else one can replace pretty easily.
@Gevlon
One Region where Titans are REALLY powerfull are Wormholes .. you cant bring them in but you have to build them there .. so a Trader/ Industrial Corp can take over a system (building Poses on every moon) build Titans and you need a very strong sub capital fleet to capture your wormhole .. while using the titans for sleeper ratting ... All in All it is a very profitable Move .. because you create a factory system with much good oportunities (massiv poses good pi planets etc)
To be honest i would go for the "Be the Force in a Wormhole" method .. because nowbody care about your "so small" corp but in rality you have x Titans etc and are producing stuff for billions a day ...
@Anonymous: I guess you need sov for building supers. What you wrote work with normal capital ships.
Anyway, I changed my skill learning plans to add guns to my titans. I fully accept that 6-link titans are bad idea. I'll have 3-link titans. Supercap fleets need armor/siege 3-link booster fleet titan and linkless Avatar titan as wing booster for the cap recharge.
Subcap fleet (not a roaming one, but the one supporting a supercap fleet) needs a Ragnarok titan with Skirmish link and T3 wing boosters providing Siege/Armor and information warfare
One more question: do you need fleet/wing command skill to be fleet/wing booster? Or is it needed for being commander?
@Gevlon
"I guess you need sov for building supers."
That is correct, and it is, indeed, the source of many tears of WH-dwellers.
"One more question: do you need fleet/wing command skill to be fleet/wing booster?"
No, but the maximum size of your fleet or wing depends on the corresponding skill.
"if that's true, why do they exist on the first place? Why does anyone build supers if he is so scared of losing them. Isn't the trit used better in subcaps?"
You have to think of supers as strategic weapons like nuclear weapons or even better, like battleship fleets during WW1. More often then not, it's the threat of them deploying that turns out to be a stronger weapon then the actual ships deploying. They are extremely strong weapons, when your enemies don't have their own supercapitals. However, they become a sort of 'mutual assured destruction' type of deterrent when your enemy has them. As Steel H. pointed out, the psychological effect of a supercapital loss, let alone multiple ones, cannot be underestimated. It is potentially the most damaging effect that it can have. It gives an incredible morale boost to your enemy. And morale is what keeps the war machine going, because a motivated player will log in and find a way to get isk and ships, but unmotivated players will not log in even when they have the ISK and ships for fleets. That's why supercapitals are usually deployed in strictly controlled conditions, where subacp superiority has already been achieved or it is reasonable to assume that the enemy will not be able or willing to deploy a big enough supercapital fleet to counter yours. Hence why supers usually end up being glorified structure bashing machines.
Now, there have been in the past alliances that deployed supers aggressively, even in the face of possible destruction of their supers fleet, like for example DRF or PL. However that was when a supers fleet could munch trough high amounts of subacpital ships and thus be able to at least hold on on their own with minimal support until more help arived and losses could be replaced easily and fast (not the ISK, but the ship hulls themselves). Those days are now in the past, since the last supercap nerfs. These days supercapital fleets will not deploy unless they can achieve subcap supremacy first, or have on call enough pilots to achieve subcap superiority on call. The recent delve conflict shows this very well. The PL supers blob did not start to be deployed until the Goons arrived, because it was not assured that TEST/PL could hold subcap supremacy during such a fight. And after the recent supercap nerfs it has become increasingly difficult for a supercap fleet to extricate itself when it has lost subcap supremacy.
For all of these reasons, alliance leaders are very weary of deploying supercaps. And when I think about it, it's the psychological moment that has the highest impact. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you have to be in a nullsec alliance to experience how strong this impact is. I don't know if someone that has only lived in highsec and has not experienced this situation can really grasp it. But such a situation can spark a self-catalyzed reaction that brings to pilots logging less, which in turn brings more defeats, which in turn bring to less people logging in and so on.
What I'm trying to convey here is that yes, supercapitals are extremely strong strategic weapons that decide the fate of wars. However for the same reasons their deployment is extremely controlled because a supercap welp can turn the tides of war decisivly against you in a very short span of time.
As such, I do support your idea of getting a super, however you should be aware that you will not be using it often, and when you do it will not the in the way you've envision it.
@Alkarasu: you mean if I want to boost a full (255 I guess) fleet, I must have Fleet Command 5 to do so, right?
http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Fleet - more on that.
I'm just going to repost some of my questions from Monday's post as they apparently came too late for replies then. I'd still like to see replies to the rest of them, but these are the only relevant ones here:
> Defence; you've mentioned stationing caps in cynojammed systems, and jamming everywhere within 5 jumps (which incidentally has a pretty high pricetag - you've got to be looking at about 15 systems or more to cover that, which at 20mil/system/day is 300mil/day, for about 45 days to build a Titan = 13.5bn, >10% of the Titan's hull cost). You haven't mentioned how those caps are going to get manned, or whether you're expecting the alliance to provide subcap support or similar (as others have pointed out, HACs, Tech 3 ships and the like can largely ignore capital opponents). If you're not expecting the alliance to field subcaps, who will fly them? How will the traders - presumably on trade characters in hisec and not in this corp/alliance - know when they're needed in null? And where are they going to be keeping these caps in all those cyno jammed systems? They won't all have stations.
> Logistics; how will you turn hundreds of billions of ISK into supercapital ships? You'd need to cash your ISK into raw materials or capital components and get those to your production POS(es). Are you going to have people in your corp to do the periodic bursts of mineral compression, component construction and hauling needed to turn cash into hulls? Are you going to outsource it to the alliance? Hire characters into the corp for those purposes when you need them?
> Timescale; It took you about 6 months to bring your net worth equal to a titan, it also takes about that long or longer to train a new character for one. Given that you're envisioning a supercap building corp that specifically looks for people who have both the ISK and the desire to have their own personal supercap, how will you get enough demand to make it worth doing? Do you expect a lot of players to appear out of nowhere who are already at the same position you are and want in on this? If so, what evidence do you have for this? If not, where are you hoping to get the corp to and where are you hoping to get the members to? Found it now, 6 months later when members have the capital and the skills, move to null? Found it and join an alliance now, recruit members from them and do nothing involving supercap production for the next 6 months?
> Makeup; Are you making a corp full of supercap pilot alts of traders, who will be elsewhere trading in the meantime? Are you making a corp for traders so you can directly interact with the people you're teaching, which will also have a wing of cap/supercap alts belonging to those traders? Are there going to be dedicated hauler/industrialist characters there to handle the actual building of supercaps, or will those also be traders/traders' alts?
@Hivemind: too many technical questions that I can't answer at the point in detail. Some of them belong to the alliance level (they have the authority to operate cynojams), I just pay for it.
Logistics: fully market based. I simply pay for the tritanium to be on the crafting factility and anyone who accept my payment can haul it. A mini-hub near the crafting facilities if you prefer.
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/w/images/c/cb/E-UNI_Capital_Ships_in_High_Class_Wormholes.mp3
OK no Titans i was wrong .. but there was a talk about how to secure a wormhole system ... was a nice corp idea
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/w/images/5/5c/E-UNI_Wormhole_Industry_and_Production.mp3
With a single corp; how do you address issues of Player owned stations or customs houses?
I dislike working on purely 'trust that profits will be fairly distributed'.
I have spent no time in null; but some in losec; When I built my customs office; I wanted control and profits from it; not to simply donate it to the alliance or parent corp.
Not everyone will care; but there are some advantages to an alliance over a single (or only a few) corporation.
On that note; there is value in working through player owned structures; requiring (someone with) some time in low or null.
@ Gevlon: I was hoping for replies about the make up of the corp and its timescale in particular. Looking at both this post and Monday's one, it seems like you're talking about your corp as being hisec market traders, nullsec fleet pilots (at least initially) and nullsec capital and supercapital pilots as well.
I assume you're going to suggest recruits do the same thing you've been doing and make seperate hisec trade and future supercap piloting accounts for consecutive training, and that both accounts are going to be fairly useless for nullsec for some time as they build up capital and train skills, so I'm curious when and how you envision them participating in the null alliance you're looking for.
As for the rest, yes they are technical questions, but you're asking for a major null power to take you on now based purely on potential results in the future. I'm surprised I need to say this to you, but that's going to go over a lot better if you have a solid and detailed business plan rather than the rather... patchwork series of ideas you've presented thus far. Even if you want to be taken in by another corp, they're still going to want to see that you're more than just a rich hisec dweller with some big ideas and no idea how to implement them.
@Hivemind: I'm not trying to pretend to be expert where I'm not. Yes, I'll suggest the members to have highsec trader alts/accounts separated to make the money.
There is much to clear out before I can say "this is what I want" and go to a diplomat to discuss what do they want.
To (not) answer your question, the story of Supercapitals Online is a looong and complicated one, one that I don't fully know myself. It changed through numerous patches, nerfs, political upheavals, metagame, and forum threads filled with whining and tears. Someone should write a long recap. A short version would be that once they were the most powerful assets you could have, they could own everything, they dictated dominance of 0.0, now, their glory has somewhat faded, after the Crucible and Inferno nerfs, and the current political situation in 0.0. Here are some threads that you may find interesting:
http://couldhavetakenitsolo.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/the-super-cap-gap/ (old, written at the height of the Supercaps Online days)
http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/spymaster/70 (at Crucible launch, the first round of nerfs)
http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/spymaster/76 (the second round of nerfs to XL guns)
The threadnoaghts following the second round of nerfs:
http://www.kugutsumen.com/showthread.php?13062-Titan-Rebalance-2012-quot-Move-the-goalposts-closer-I-can-t-score-quot
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=80374 (135 pages)
I am not a marketing genius, but from what I read so far, I see one issue with your plan to praise yourself as a big ISK source.
You need your capital, to generate capital. If you would liquidate your capital to buy stuff, you would lose parts of your income, as far as I understood the mechanisms. And this would set you back a lot.
Or did I miss something here.
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