Greedy Goblin

Thursday, October 18, 2012

"Lossmail" and how I learned to respect frigate roams

On the forum of my alliance, a guy started a thread where he talked about his successful frigate roam. I considered that bragging about taking some trivial sum with the involvement of 10+ people isn't great. I reminded him that he could get more ISK by bringing the same amount of people on a veldspar mining fleet.

Considering that TEST is the very opposite of "we r so l33t" alliances, you can imagine the flamewar. I didn't understand them for long. They kept telling that "its great fun" but couldn't tell what is so fun in that. "Being with friends" doesn't fly here as one could be with the same friends on a mining op. "Winning in PvP" also a bad answer as the probable kills and losses are all trivial. I doubt that SoCo will crumble over the loss of some AAA Citizens frigs (you can't kill -A- frigs, they don't undock). A stupid waste of time. If you want PvP/kills, TEST don't just fly Foxcats (Navy Apocalypse based fleet) but Drakes too and it's pretty easy to get into one. If you want ISK, go rat/mine!

The flamewar went on, exactly because lack of arguments. "Its fun", "No, its stupid". Isn't a constructive discussion. However the question was in my mind all day and stumbled on the answer when I was discussing other topic.

This is the fitting of "Lossmail", my future Ragnarok Titan. You've seen it evolving from April when she first shown up as concept. The links are of course variable, I'll have all link specialist to 5, the rest are set. No MWD for fast align, no smartbomb or neut to clear tacklers, no cloak to hide in a safe. Lossmail got her name for a reason. She isn't intended to jump out of a fight. Her job is to carry around a fleet and serve as fleet booster. Either sitting under a POS shield or if offgrid boosting is removed, on the grid, taunting enemies to drop dreads/supers on her. The cyno is obviously there to jump in HBC supers if someone actually dares to do that. One day they will be pissed enough to do so (not -A-, but someone who actually fights for his space). While HBC has a very good response time if "titan tackled" is called and I have no doubt that we'll win the ISK war, one day poor Lossmail will fullfill her destiny and have to give her place to "Lossmail2".

OK, it's silly enough, but clearly a waste. No one will reimburse my loss, even if we take down several enemy supers. Why do I stick to it? Not boredom or "can't do anything with that money", I could donate that to TEST too, for more reimbursement money. Also, why a Ragnarok? An Erebus or Avatar would clearly fit better to the current Foxcat doctrine. One gives armor, other gives capacitor and as armor tanked titans, they could receive reps from the fleet logis. Why can't I just let a stupid newbie random idea go?

Let's be rational: most likely Lossmail will spend her life bridging subcaps, sitting under a POS shield or trashing local. Oh, and grinding structures with the rest of the supers. Considering how risk-aversive people are when it comes to supers, she will probably won't be shot at for a several months, until someone finally plans a suicide-dread op. Most likely she'll be nothing more than convenience for fleet commanders for faster transportation, easier link assignment and easier fleet recruitment (people will come in hope that Lossmail bait dreads/supers they can kill). What is so interesting in building a space taxi?

When I realized the reason, I also understood that I was an ass with those frig roamers. The reason they went on roaming instead of mining is the same why I stick to having Lossmail. The hope to create something much bigger than destined for. While Lossmail will probably be nothing but space taxi, but there is a chance to do something huge. It's a small chance, but I noticed it in the moment I've checked the bonuses of the titans. By halving the signature of the boosted ships, Lossmail has the potential of spawning a new doctrine. Thousands of people fly doctrine ships, ships that were told them to fly. They aren't commanded to do so by authority but by rationality. If Foxcats are the best against Tengus, we fly Foxcats, it would be stupid to fly Rokhs or Nagas. There is a tiny chance that with Lossmail a new doctrine can be designed: small, sig-tanking ships. AB T3s? HACS? AB-battecruisers? Upcoming T2 Destroyers? I have no idea. Maybe it doesn't exists. But if does, when Lossmail will leave the CSAA, some HBC theorycraft wizard will find it. Then the life of all nullsec pilots will change. They will fly the "RagCats", they will fly with the "RagCats" or they will have to fly against them.

The frig roam don't go out to kill frigs. They go out for the tiny chance of zerging down on a lost Machariel or 5B Tengu. To tackle a carrier or dread. To spot travelling supers. The pilots are new or poor or both and their situation destine them to mine and train for Drakes. But they want to do something bigger. Most of them will not kill anything worthy and will return with nothing but frig kills. But the hope of doing something above their league provides enough fun to keep them training and mining/ratting, to grow to the point when they regularly blap Tengus in their Navy Apocalypses.

If you aim for nothing but paying the bills tomorrow, you'll succeed in paying bills forever. If you aim for the stars, you'll probably fail and only reach the sky.


PS: just don't spend all your money on the stars, always have enough for the bills!



Speaking of frigate fleets. GE-8JV IHUB was coming out of final reinforce and there was clearly no one coming to defend it. So someone came up with the "brilliant" idea to bring out frigates instead of Foxcats. Of course I could just skip that fleet, but the day before, when the supercap battle of LGK took place, I logged out my Guardian in GE, expecting to simply join there the Foxcats. So here I was with a bunch of frigates:

The frigates started to kill the IHUB as soon as it left reinforce. Of course where is a kill report, there are killmail whores who just want to get on it without actually contributing:
The purpose was to taunt -A- for not undocking, even against frigates. Well, that worked, only bombers came after the frigs. Now, if this post would be a film from Hollywood, it would end with finally finding fun and love in frigs and roaming with them ever after. But I was so bored hunting bombers and various random lost noobs who kept trying to travel in the "blobbed" system that I rather logged off again. The final station timer is coming, there will either be Foxcats to join with or I simply wait until the station is taken by frigs+supers and dock there. Everyone must pursue a different star, frigswarm is clearly not mine.

Thursday morning report: 168.5B 0.4B spent on the +5 set of my main. (5.5 spent on main accounts, 6.5 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.8 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 37.4 sent as gift)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could you please switch to using thumbnails (smaller pictures within your text that link to the original picture)?

Those big pictures make your articles hard to read imho. And since you started doing null-sec pvp, the number of the pictures dramatically increased.

Anonymous said...

"If you aim for the stars, you'll probably fail and only reach the sky."

Am I still reading the blog of Greedy Goblin, or is this the Precious Moments/Successories blog of heartfelt kindness?

Anonymous said...

Drop the stupid active hardeners on that titan.

You should be able to understand that it is NOT a BC or BS, where the chance of a NEUTER is slim to none.

It is a titan that WILL BE neuted.I also understand that you don't give a shit about losing it...but why not keeping it alive LONGER?

Also, all skills lvl V? Are you a moron?
You might have SOME at lvl V and MOST at lvl IV.

Damn, all those EFT warriors...

Anonymous said...

I mentioned a MWD a few times already. It may seem a bit counter-intuitive to use this module at all, considering how much of a lumbering beast a titan is. Its real use, besides getting out of bubbles or within pos shields 20m/s faster than without, is that you can actually cut down the time to align and warp by almost half. By pressing the align button then activating the MWD for two cycles, you can initiate warp as the second cycle ends. That means it takes only twenty seconds instead of the otherwise ridiculous forty-something. And you don't even need a cloak!

http://themittani.com/features/everything-you-wanted-know-about-titans