I barely ever talk about my feelings about stuff, simply because they add nothing to the discussion. You can learn the most from data analysis: "MoA is #1 Imperium killer with ever-increasing kill numbers" is a fact. You can learn less from opinions formed about facts and impressions like "Goons can't do anything to stop MoA destroying their assets". But you learn nothing from statements like "I love MoA", because it's not about MoA, it's about me and you can't care less about me.
Still, in this post I vent my feelings about the three hours I spent in an interceptor flying around in Pure Blind, Fade, Deklein and Branch with a MoA gang, after Massadeath invited me to a "ride with the police" experience. First thing first, I needed a pilot. I had Botslayer Goblin, who was busy ganking miners years ago. He never did any industry or trading and had 21M SP, so he must be ready... except Large Blaster Specialization 5 doesn't help you fitting an MWD or actually sitting into an interceptor. Anyway, after a few days of training I could fit some armor tank and an MWD to an Ares and made my way down to 5Z. I dug up old computer stuff and found a microphone I used some 5 years ago and attached it to the computer and set up TS3. Saturday evening I joined the MoA TS and jumped on the fleet which was a horrible mix of bombers, frigates and a few interceptors. It was Christmas after all, no real fleets were planned.
Anyway, we moved out after some waiting for a goon Thanatos which was sighted by an AFK cloaker, but he didn't fancy visiting the anoms with reds in local. The plan was simple: the group warped to the gate, the inities jumped and warped to Havens and Ice belts to catch the minions of Evil. When tackle was called, the whole fleet jumped and finished it. While I could just fly with the fleet and get on kills, I preferred to try to be useful and jumped with the other inites to tackle. It lead to not being on any kills, since I was always mid-warp to somewhere when the other inty called tackle and the target was dead before I could get there, like this Ishtar that picked the worst possible moment to jump a gate and materialized front of 20 MoA:
What surprised me is how easy it was to hunt anoms. I mean it was the first time I did it, yet I checked distances on dscan and identified anoms with minions of Evil like I was doing it for months. Contrary to the propaganda about Goons being so rich from ratting while AFK, they ran very fast when we evered local, so I didn't catch anything but abandoned drones, but I constantly had a deja vu, like I already did this many times before:
Also, I didn't for a second feared for my ship. Despite the minions of Evil were in local in large numbers, I felt completely safe:
Then it hit me: I did this many times before, just not with anoms but highsec belts. Flying in the heart of Deklein, the fortress of the "unbeatable" coalition felt exactly like being back in Carirgnottin, hunting highsec miners, with the only difference of them being AFK instead of warping out at when I entered local. It was bizarre and hilarious: here I am with a badly skilled pilot, first time in my career in a failfit interceptor and the members of the largest coalition that "already won EVE" who outnumber me 50:1 are running like cockroaches when the light is turned on. Hell, some highsec miners offered more resistence! The funniest was the direct opposite what Goon propagandist preach: MoA was flying around in impunity and all Goons could do is hiding in stations and picking stragglers.
The data was always pointing towards the defeat of the Emporium, I mean if group A has 3:1 damage:loss against group A, with always increasing activity, any gamer can tell you that group A will eventually win. But I always had doubts, mostly because everyone said the opposite. I couldn't help the feeling that they are seeing something I don't. After the roam with MoA yesterday, I have no doubts left. I already known from data that they are helpless morons and slackers who were collected only to be monetized, but now I saw them with my own eyes. Sure, there is awful lot of them, much more than highsec miners and it will be awful lot of time to grind them down. I gave up grinding miners after two months because there was no point to continue. Everyone agreed that they are hopeless and pose no threat to anyone and ganking them is a no-risk grind. I didn't give up "fighting" Goons, because everyone agrees that they are powerful and undefeatable and they must be proven wrong.
They will be. I only regret not bringing entosis module and reinforcing some of their Sov myself. Also, I couldn't escape the opportunity cost of this roam. It needed my full attention and I could earn about 2B with active trading during that time. I doubt if I'll roam too often with MoA, it's just too damn expensive. It's better for me to finance them slaying these pathetic variants of highsec miners. But I recommend everyone who like doing PvP to join for the easy kills and the glory of bringing the "unstoppable coalition already won EVE" down.
Update: I was somewhat surprised that I didn't see a single medium shield booster carrier on dscan. This is the reason!
Still, in this post I vent my feelings about the three hours I spent in an interceptor flying around in Pure Blind, Fade, Deklein and Branch with a MoA gang, after Massadeath invited me to a "ride with the police" experience. First thing first, I needed a pilot. I had Botslayer Goblin, who was busy ganking miners years ago. He never did any industry or trading and had 21M SP, so he must be ready... except Large Blaster Specialization 5 doesn't help you fitting an MWD or actually sitting into an interceptor. Anyway, after a few days of training I could fit some armor tank and an MWD to an Ares and made my way down to 5Z. I dug up old computer stuff and found a microphone I used some 5 years ago and attached it to the computer and set up TS3. Saturday evening I joined the MoA TS and jumped on the fleet which was a horrible mix of bombers, frigates and a few interceptors. It was Christmas after all, no real fleets were planned.
Anyway, we moved out after some waiting for a goon Thanatos which was sighted by an AFK cloaker, but he didn't fancy visiting the anoms with reds in local. The plan was simple: the group warped to the gate, the inities jumped and warped to Havens and Ice belts to catch the minions of Evil. When tackle was called, the whole fleet jumped and finished it. While I could just fly with the fleet and get on kills, I preferred to try to be useful and jumped with the other inites to tackle. It lead to not being on any kills, since I was always mid-warp to somewhere when the other inty called tackle and the target was dead before I could get there, like this Ishtar that picked the worst possible moment to jump a gate and materialized front of 20 MoA:
What surprised me is how easy it was to hunt anoms. I mean it was the first time I did it, yet I checked distances on dscan and identified anoms with minions of Evil like I was doing it for months. Contrary to the propaganda about Goons being so rich from ratting while AFK, they ran very fast when we evered local, so I didn't catch anything but abandoned drones, but I constantly had a deja vu, like I already did this many times before:
Also, I didn't for a second feared for my ship. Despite the minions of Evil were in local in large numbers, I felt completely safe:
Then it hit me: I did this many times before, just not with anoms but highsec belts. Flying in the heart of Deklein, the fortress of the "unbeatable" coalition felt exactly like being back in Carirgnottin, hunting highsec miners, with the only difference of them being AFK instead of warping out at when I entered local. It was bizarre and hilarious: here I am with a badly skilled pilot, first time in my career in a failfit interceptor and the members of the largest coalition that "already won EVE" who outnumber me 50:1 are running like cockroaches when the light is turned on. Hell, some highsec miners offered more resistence! The funniest was the direct opposite what Goon propagandist preach: MoA was flying around in impunity and all Goons could do is hiding in stations and picking stragglers.
The data was always pointing towards the defeat of the Emporium, I mean if group A has 3:1 damage:loss against group A, with always increasing activity, any gamer can tell you that group A will eventually win. But I always had doubts, mostly because everyone said the opposite. I couldn't help the feeling that they are seeing something I don't. After the roam with MoA yesterday, I have no doubts left. I already known from data that they are helpless morons and slackers who were collected only to be monetized, but now I saw them with my own eyes. Sure, there is awful lot of them, much more than highsec miners and it will be awful lot of time to grind them down. I gave up grinding miners after two months because there was no point to continue. Everyone agreed that they are hopeless and pose no threat to anyone and ganking them is a no-risk grind. I didn't give up "fighting" Goons, because everyone agrees that they are powerful and undefeatable and they must be proven wrong.
They will be. I only regret not bringing entosis module and reinforcing some of their Sov myself. Also, I couldn't escape the opportunity cost of this roam. It needed my full attention and I could earn about 2B with active trading during that time. I doubt if I'll roam too often with MoA, it's just too damn expensive. It's better for me to finance them slaying these pathetic variants of highsec miners. But I recommend everyone who like doing PvP to join for the easy kills and the glory of bringing the "unstoppable coalition already won EVE" down.
Update: I was somewhat surprised that I didn't see a single medium shield booster carrier on dscan. This is the reason!
21 comments:
Despite what you may think.
Gevlon <3s MoA is more important than a spreadsheet on how efficient MoA is.
Data is important yes but there is a reason you don't see a best selling statistical analysis, but you do see novels.
Fiction, made up stories. Why ? They are enjoyable to read.
This is a good read.
Screw the opportunity cost.
Did you have fun on this roam ?
At the end of the day that's all that matters.
You proved the point I made a couple weeks ago. MOA isn't engaged in PvP. They are ganking just like in hi-sec. You were arguing differently. Ratters run when approached just like MOA members run when they are not prepared for combat against a fleet.
This is hard to put into numbers, but I do believe your lost 2B in opportunity cost for this post is greatly offset by the credibility it gives to your project. I'm a numbers guy myself, but reading a post like this did more for me than one of your monthly overviews. So my take on it would be: definitely don't overdo it, but reading about you getting in on the action occasionally helps your project more than it hurts if you write about it like you did in this post.
you pretty much nailed one of the drags of going to goon land to find fights. One of the reasons why we don't do it much is its normally about 2-3 hours of gate jumping station bubbling and anom runs but very very rarely catching anything. Welcome to the world of hunting goons its not very much fun for us provi types, much easier for us to wait for the content to come to us, because as everyone knows Provi doesn't fight so we get an endless stream of bad people to shoot.
How much would the goon ratters have lost in opportunity cost, because you were preventing them from ratting?
@ Jim L 03:49 Wow, Jim, did you really not read the post? Gevlon clearly states the MOA fleet was heavily outnumbered by goonies in each system the fleet hunted in and yet the only response to the incursion was to POS/dock up. Assuming the reverse happened in 5Z, then let's just say it wouldn't go too well for the goonies ;-D
@Anon: Goon ratters lost nothing because of me, since the rest of the fleet could do the same, adding me to the fleet was not needed to scare them off.
@ Kinis Deren
How many of those Goons were in a fleet on a PvP toon? How long did MoA stay in the system before they left to find another AFK ratter? All I see from this post is Gevlon praising MoA for being just like higsec gankers, catching the stupid and AFK Goons who can just rat up another PvE ship in a day.
Gevlon, those roaming fleets can be very intensive and time consuming. You should try moas stealth bomber drops. You will often just be sitting in your bomber waiting for the hunters to find something. I often use this time to browse the internet and do other things. Then go back to my character once i hear "get ready" over coms. You could trade easily during that time. Then drop goons for a few minutes, regroup and back to trading.
I will give MoA their due they kill goon soft targets. That is about it though, and till they have broken their sov/blue ring that is about all MoA will accomplish looking at it.
perhaps you should reread my comment. Nothing you say has anything to do with what I said.
Good luck with that.
16:02 Anon waiting for the hunters to find something
"hunt"! That was the role Gevlon had to fill with his interceptor. It isn't very multitasking friendly. Sure, bomber alt could do what you suggest.
To each his own. GG wants to trade, MOA wants to hunt and kill and others are fine doing some l4 security missions.
good article.
just a side note, most of nullsec is like this. its not just goons, all the big nullsec empires are more or less the same.
glad you had fun out there though.
Nice story, from your perspective they look more like Lemmings :)
source: http://i.imgur.com/UocHg1d.jpg
Regards, a Freelancer
" all the big nullsec empires are more or less the same"
Exactly, pretending only goons have PvE'rs dwelling in null is naive. Go through any null system, and PvErs ratting, mining, whatever, will dock up.
@Zax: but Shadow of xXDeath or RUCA Emperor don't fancy themselves to be the rulers of the univers, don't go to Burn Jita, don't try to install Viceroys, don't recruitment scam, don't try to get highsec POCOs just to grief highseccers and so on.
The problem isn't that Goons are simple carebears. Me too. The problem is that they beat their chest and annoy everyone "just because they can" when they obviously cannot.
"but Shadow of xXDeath or RUCA Emperor don't fancy themselves to be the rulers of the univers, don't go to Burn Jita, don't try to install Viceroys, don't recruitment scam, don't try to get highsec POCOs just to grief highseccers and so on."
The most certainly do join burn jita and recruit scam, and one of the big poco corps is run by rusblock. Goons only play the role they are granted by the public, and thanks to the amount of publicity they get from people who hate goons, they are able to convince everyone they are huge. Given half a chance xdeath wouldn't hesitate to run the viceroy program. All it is is the evolution of renting which they very much were leading.
"The problem is that they beat their chest and annoy everyone "just because they can" when they obviously cannot."
They definitely can do that. they have no real power, all they've done is beat their chest and here you are over a trillion is and (is it 2 now?) years in because of how much they've annoyed you. The worse thing for goons would be anonymity and stagnation, but they will never get that because they make sure they wind up enough people to keep the drama running.
PVE fit ships run from PVP fit ships, yes.
While I'm usually the most angry opponent of ganking, the nullsec gank is nothing like hisec gank.
Hisec ganking is retarded, no doubts about that. Due to bad game design, it has been made too easy and too profitable, so it assembled a lot of baddies who failed at everything else behind it.
Null gank is different. Null ganker, especially in gewn space, is usually against the odds. There are a shitload of reds in the system. Any half-competent sov holder would've flash-formed in brick ships in 30 seconds and driven away something which can't break the brick (home defense priority is driving away, not getting kills - don't crap where you live). You don't have to wait for concord and criminal flags to shoot null gankers, just warp in to your optimal and burn away. You have intel on that gang for no less than 5 minute warning, this is enough to set up a gate camp with smartbombing to give rolling ceptors a nasty surprise. There are so many fucking ways to deal with cormorant gangs I don't even wanna start.
PvE fits indeed stand no chance. With all the warnings gewnies get, there is no reason to be in them when gank comes. For pete's sake, if I had a 5 minute warning on intel that a gank is coming towards my mining party in hisec, they'd get rekt so hard they'll not be able to board a catalyst for at least 3 days.
tl;dr hisec ganks are stupid, blobs are stupid, nullsec hunt deep in the enemy territory is skill.
The problem isn't the null sec pve buff, its that it wasn't accompanied by a highsec pve nerf.
The easiest most profitable pve should be in null, the hardest least profitable pve should be in high.
For example. High sec incursions should take the "purplederpled" ships to clear, but pay less than the nullsec incursions which should be clearable in t1 pvp fit ships. Just switch the rats around but keep the bounties the same.
Same for Missions. Highsec L4s should pay like nullsec L2s should pay like lowsec L3s. Highsec L5s should pay like nullsec l3s should pay like lowsec l4s. (I realize H5 and N* don't exist, but assume so for sake of argument).
Same for exploration. remove ship restrictions. Highsec sites should drop c-loot (already do), but should take a very good ship to clear. Null should drop a-loot and be clearable in a t1 cruiser.
Same for transport missions. cap highsec to l2 transports, low to l3 etc...
Same for mining ore. Although mining is a slightly different beast, mining veldspar from highsec should not gain the same amount of minerals as nullsec veldspar (assuming constant refining % etc...).
highsec anoms are already pretty bad isk and suitable for noobs, so are certain non ded sites. leave those as is.
I also realize that the current meta makes low more dangerous than null in a lot of cases. Replace the null/low rewards/difficulty where appropriate. Pve content needs to be doable in pvp fits in areas where pvp is possible. The purplederpled professional carebear corp WOW RAID issue ships aren't going to be flown by anyone out there, no matter what the reward structure is.
Thanks for coming in the roam, Gevlon. Was my first time taking out a 15+ man fleet so I'm glad it wasn't a complete disaster. At least while you were in it :).
We did have an "interesting" encounter with a certain ESS in a gas site... but the details probably shouldn't be aired out in public :)
Thanks again for the support. Feel free to ride along anytime.
-Zarek
Post a Comment