Tusker FFA results in explosions and hilarity.

Saturday night played host to the Tusker Frigate FFA. Over 120 pilots gathered for a massive brawl, resulting in over 2000 ships being destroyed over the course of a few hours – nearly all of them actually frigates!

The action kicked off at 2000 EVE time, with nearly all of us on the Tusker’s mumble server to chat away. Once the “go” was given, most people warped to the top belt to begin the brawl.

The Battle begins

I had chosen a Rail Atron as my ship of choice, and had about 5 tucked a couple of jumps away in High Security space. Having never flown this fit before, I was unsure what it could do. Not a lot, as it turns out. The poor DPS was, however, mitigated by the fact it was fast as hell.

Belt 1 was quick turning into a graveyard – pilot after pilot went GCC and exploded against each other. The sound of autocannons and blasters filled the liquidy space of EVE.

Half an hour into the fight!

Many e-famous EVE players graced us with their presence. Miura Bull of  Brutor Bullfighter, Mangala Solaris of RvB, Rixx Javix of EVEOGANDA and Cheradenine Harper of Diaries of a Space Noob all showed up to prove that they were the best out there. We even had EVE’s famous singer, Sindel Pellion appear!

The Tuskers were providing free tech1 fitted frigates from the station,  so even the poorest among us were able to reship time and time again. My first Atron died to a Firetail, but I avenged it by scoring a bunch of kills across the board with the second Atron. I even saw Sindel sitting, at 0, in a Velator.

I did the only thing I could do.

I’M SORRY SINDEL

The night raged on, with the battles spilling into every belt and onto every custom’s office in the whole system. Each warpin was a battleground and wrecks clogged the overview.

I engaged Cheradenine briefly here, but he warped in Structure.

The Tusker’s did their part in spicing up the  night – they dropped cans with various loot (PLEX, Faction items) at planets and Faction Warfare complexes, followed by an announcement in local. That chosen spot soon become a new battlefield.

I may have dropped on and killed a Mangala.

I soon swapped my Atrons for a Merlin and Incursus, loving the massively increased DPS.

One of the Tusker organisers even warped a Megathron out for us to try to kill, which we obviously did.

My personal favourite kill was a Daredevil who decided to GCC against me in a belt – whilst at 0. Scram, web, dead. K.

At 2200 EVE, the field opened up to allow Tech 2 and Faction frigates to take part – normally ending in the T1 pilots ganging up on their more powerful brethren!

WOOP WOOP THIS IS THE SOUND OF THE POLICE

One of the asteroid belts during the brawl – quite a lot of wrecks!

I, uh, enjoy killing Mangala

Finally, as they said they would, Fweddit showed up 15 minutes before the end in Blackbirds, Thrashers and Hurricanes – by this point there was only about 50 of us remaining. Good going, guys.

The Tuskers ended the night by launching a Faction Fit Smartbomb Navy Typhoon at the star, which we had a bit of trouble killing!

Smartbombs, how do they work?

We had to bail the field as the Typhoon entered structure since Fweddit finally showed their faces, alpha’d a few frigs (and the Phoon!) and warped off again. Oh well!

We’ve posted all the kills we can on the RvB Ganked Killboard HERE.

Easily one of the best nights I’ve had in EVE so far – the combat was fun, the setup was excellent and the comms were hilarious. Many thanks to the pilots involved in setting it all up.

If the Tuskers do another FFA, you should all attend. It’s worth every ship.

Retribution Changelist

The latest expansion – EVE Online: Retribution – is due to land on our computers on December 4th, bringing new ships, revised bounty mechanics and new UI elements. Below is a list of all the known changes with links to the full details.

The Official PATCH NOTES are out – find them HERE.

Last updated 14/10/2012 – added “Cannot eject or change ships” to the notes on the Weapons flag.

Everything in this post is subject to change.

Tiericide

New ships & existing ship rebalances

• New Mining Frigate - Name unannounced
• Tech 1 Frigates:
  • Electronic Warfare Frigate buffs (Crucifier, Griffin, Maulus, Vigil)
  • Support Frigates (Inquisitor, Bantam, Navitas, Burst)
  • Exploration Frigates (Magnate, Heron, Imicus, Probe)
  • Remaining Combat Frigates (Kestrel, Tristan, Breacher)
• Tech 1 Destroyers:
  • Existing Destroyers (Coercer, Cormorant, Catalyst, Thrasher)
  • NEW Destroyers (Names unannounced)
• Cruiser Weapons
  • -Drop the powergrid usage of Focused Medium Pulse lasers by 5%
    -Drop the powergrid usage of Heavy Pulse lasers by 10%
    -Drop the powergrid usage of all cruiser sized beam lasers by 10%
    -Drop the powergrid usage of all cruiser sized artillery by 10%
  • Heavy Missile Changes – Must read for all HML & HAM users
• Tech 1 Cruisers
  • Attack Cruisers (Omen, Caracal, Thorax, Stabber)
  • Combat Cruisers (Maller, Moa, Vexor, Rupture)
  • Electronic Warfare Cruisers (Arbitrator, Blackbird, Celestis, Bellicose)
  • Support Cruisers (Augoror, Osprey, Exequror, Scythe)
• Tech 1 BattleCruisers:
  • Hurricane gets -225 powergrid 
  • Main rebalance comes after Winter

Crimewatch 2.0

A much needed overhaul of the overly complicated Crimewatch system is coming this Winter. The gist of it is as follows: There are 3 “flags” – Weapons, Suspect and Criminal.

A Weapons flag is activated whenever you use an offensive module and lasts 1 minute from last activation. This prevents docking and jumping. You also cannot eject or swap ships with this in effect.

A Suspect flag is created either by Killrights (more below), stealing from a wreck or can and engaging a ship in Lowsec. This allows ANY player to attack you, but there is no CONCORD intervention.

A Criminal flag is created by unlawful aggression in Highsec or killing a Capsule in Lowsec. This generates a Killright (more below) and allows CONCORD to engage you in highsec, as well as other players like the Suspect flag.

Assisting anyone with a flag (like using Remote Repair) also causes you to share the “target’s” flags – meaning if I repair a Hurricane with 30 seconds left to dock, I also cannot dock for 30 seconds. If I assist a suspect, I also get the suspect flag. If I assist a Criminal, I explode in Highsec.

In addition, being aggressed by an NPC gives you an “NPC” flag which causes your ship to stay in space for 15 minutes after log-off – much like today’s normal aggression flag.

The full dev blog is here.

Bounty Hunting changes

Retribution will introduce a new bounty system, allowing players to place bounties on Characters, Corporations and Alliances. A percentage of the total bounty is then awarded for any ship or pod kill of the target, with the payout proportional to the amount of ISK destroyed. The Dev Blog is here. This ties in with…

Killright changes

In the Bounty change devblog, Killrights are having an overhaul. Killrights are now awarded for any criminal action; Suicide gank in highsec (failed or not), and podding in lowsec. Killrights can be “activated” to give the target a 15 minute “Suspect” flag during which time anyone can shoot at them.

These killrights can also be sold to other players – a player flying near a player with a killright for sale has the option to buy and activate the killright, allowing anyone to attack that player for 15 minutes. This is included in the dev blog for the bounty changes here.

New User Interface

CCP are working (this is very much still design phase) on a new User Interface – namely based around the targeting panes. Dev blog here.

Faction Warfare rebalancing

Faction Warfare right now is kind of very broken. As a result, CCP are pushing out changes to Tier levels and introducing some new features, such as the ability to place Cyno Jammers in Tier 5 systems. Dev post here.

This also includes a change to the FW NPC  and Complex mechanics – see here.

NPC Rebalance

NPCs in all areas of space will now switch targets. This is affected by both ship size (NPC frigates are more likely to shoot player frigates) and threat levels (ECM and RR give higher threat). Dev blog here.

Market changes

CCP are adding new items to market – allowing the listing of items such as faction Drones, Outpost construction eggs and more. See here for the full list.

Rumored upcoming changes

We’re still a way out from the expansion, so expect this list to get a lot longer. There’s rumors floating round of some of the other changes, currently including:

• EWAR rebalancing
• Contract Changes

As always, check back here for updates and let me know if you see anything I missed.

This is shaping up to be a great expansion.

A large constellation results in a missed opportunity

Aha, I’m on first again! TG wins the race! I best start scanning the constellation, though I am sincerely hoping it’s smaller than the previous day, which I refuse to blog about because Wrathhammer keeps asking me to blog about it. Said constellation was about 6 wormholes with 4 k-space, and it took a fair while to scan down.

My hopes of a small constellation to scan today are dashed when our C4 static turns out to have a C6 static as well as an inbound C4. Best get to work.

I work my way through many systems, encountering a lone Buzzard in a C6 at a POS and then 2 Bombers at a POS in a C2. I say hi by accidentally warping straight into the forcefield while locating the POS, decloaking my Tengu and causing many bricks to be dropped. I pulse my MWD as I burn away and recloak, but one of the bombers heads over to where I was to try and reveal me again. Obviously, I’m long gone by that point.

I scan a few more systems before logging off, with no decent ships about to shoot. I haven’t even scanned the whole constellation. There’s too many systems!

Logging on later has Mick online as well, and he’s spotted a new inbound to our static C4a. However, the new arrivals decide they do not want this C4, and roll it as we watch. None of them get trapped, much to our dissapointment.

We resolve most of the rest of the constellation before noticing there’s now a Drake out and about in the C6.

There’s a lot of systems, and my bookmark folder is giving me evil looks, but this drake is the first viable target we’ve seen.

He can’t be running anomalies alone in the C6, especially thanks to the Cataclysmic Variable wormhole effect which reduces local tank capabilities while massively augmenting remote repair, so he’s probably in a Ladar or Grav site. Sadly, the whole system is on scan from him, so Mick and I puzzle over the best course to take. An Exequorororororor is at their tower, and warps towards the Drake’s location once 5 small wrecks are on scan. The Exequrororor has a cargo bay bonus, so he could be utilizing it as a cheap miner, though to do so in a C6 is a bit foolish – this holds especially true when a glance at recent system activity indicates both AHARM and Transmission Lost have been here within the last 48 hours.

Oh well, we have no choice but to risk probes if we want any hope of catching the two ships, both now sat in space. I deploy combat probes as fast as my Tengu will allow and recloak, whilst Mick gives me a location to set them up. The Drake should be an easy probe hit, requiring less accuracy. Our amazing foolproof plan is, sadly, hampered by the Drake warping back to the tower and then sitting in a pod there.

The Exequrorororororororororor is still in the site though, and the disappearance of 3 of the wrecks indicate he’s salvaging. I hit the scan button and get a 92% hit. I reposition and try again, recalling my probes as soon as I get it to 100%. Fleetwarping myself and Mick at 100 reveals the Exequrorororororor harvesting gas whilst moving to the remaining 2 wrecks. We bookmark the wreck, warp out and back at a longer range, allowing us to make a 250km bounce spot if we need a good spot to warp in from.

The Cruiser salvages one of the last two wrecks, and then sits still at the cloud, mining away. AFK, perhaps? Sheer idiocy in a wormhole, but gives us a good chance to strike.

We warp in, mindful of the gas cloud possibly decloaking us early. We slowboat at the cruiser, planning to hit our MWDs to bump him as soon as the cloud decloaks us, in order to stop him warping as our sensors re-calibrate from the cloaking devices. Mick decloaks first and burns his Proteus the remaining 5km at the gas miner, with my own Tengu following. The cruiser is shredded, and my sensor boosted Tengu snags the pod easily. Expensive pod for such dangerous and low profit work.

The tower pilot hasn’t shifted, but one of our own has logged on! Wrathhammer appears on Vent, and soon appears in game. He scouts the earlier systems as myself and Mick head to the far end of the constellation to scout further. No sooner are we there when Wrath reports targets in the C4b. CURSES. A Noctis is seen on scan with a scant few wrecks, followed by 2 Orcas. The system was unoccupied, and Wrath confirms a new inbound on scan. By the time we reach it, it’s collapsed – the newcomers running anoms, salvaging and collapsing the wormhole. Damn damn damn. A smaller WH constellation and we’d have scouted them earlier, but with so many wormholes we can hardly keep tabs on all of them.

Oh well. We got a kill at least, but the constellation is getting stupidly huge and any further scanning is moot, since it’d take half an hour just to cross it at this rate.

We have another fly through, revealing no ships. The now-slain Exequror pilot logs off then back on, perhaps hoping relogging will fix the “bug” that his afk gas miner is now docked in k-space? Who knows?

We roll the C4, letting several hours of scanning disappear in seconds. On to the new constellation!

Blog Banter 32 – EVE is all about risk

This month’s Blog Banter comes from Drackarn of Sand, Cider and Spaceships. He has foolishly chosen to poke the hornet’s nest that is the non-consensual PvP debate. Whilst you read his question, I’ll be finding a safe place to hide.

“A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons’ Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships, there were calls for an “opt out of PvP” option. 

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online. Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?”

Oh boy, this is a fun one!

I hold that there are two major types of player in EVE – those that learn from their mistakes and those who refuse to accept said mistakes. The former suit the game well – adapting and adjusting their playstyles to whatever region of space they live in. The latter whine and bitch when their 8bil-cargo Iteron gets suicide ganked outside Jita 4-4.

It’s the latter who seem to advocate a “removal” of PvP in high-security space. Why? What possible good could come from removing PvP?

Let’s back up a bit. What constitutes PvP? Combat? Markets? Even mining depletes a resource another pilot could claim, so that could be considered PvP too. Removal of all those results in… nothing. I wouldn’t call EVE a “game” at that point. There’d be no spice.

So let’s change the definition of “PvP” into ship combat only, which seems to be the area where people get all mad.

EVE fields a risk/reward scheme throughout the game (with the possible exception of Incursions, trolo). If you take want those big rewards – taking space, getting expensive mods, making billions from trading, defeating whole fleets etc. – then you have to take big risks – Organising alliances, running dangerous sites, investing billions to start trading etc. Non-Consensual combat in Highsec is the risk to the reward of being able to run missions/mine/build/haul without being attacked at every gate. If you want to carry all your loot round cheaply, you are damn well going to take a risk in doing so.

Remove this risk counter. Remove the ninja looting, the can flipping, the suicide ganks. What are we left with? War dec mechanics? Those are laughably easy to exploit.

So you now have a Highsec without ship combat. What happens now? You’ve essentially just turned Highsec into a single player game, where your actions do not have consequences. What’s to stop everyone flooding into Highsec where they are now completely safe? EVE would go haywire. All because some idiot decided that because he didn’t want to take a risk for his reward. Some dumbass doesn’t like people “interfering with his playstyle” yet is perfectly happy to effect everyone else’s playstyle by wanting a removal of PvP.

Then, of course, there’s CONCORD. CONCORD is, as we all know, punishment – not protection. Those wanting a removal of PvP often ask for CONCORD to protect instead.  However, CONCORD is currently the risk factor for the “reward” of criminal activity in Highsec (along with loot drop rates, I guess). Change CONCORD and you’ve removed the risk part of that activity too. You’ve now fundamentally altered another aspect of gameplay. Of course, if you remove PvP then this gameplay is already dead, making this irrelevant, but it’s important to consider.

EVE is nothing without risk. Removal of non-consensual combat removes that risk, and then EVE isn’t EVE. One of its unique selling points is gone. Part of what makes EVE unique is out the window, just like that.

All because someone refused to accept the risk.

If you cannot accept the risk for your rewards, in a game that revolves around risk, I have but one image to link.

To be honest, I was just looking for a reason to link this

Choosing a target

Today sees me logging in first, again. As I start probing, however, a friendly face logs on. Aii is stuck out in highsec, so I need to find a route in!

There’s no inbounds in our home system today, a C5 inbound that appeared during last night’s capital escalations dead by now. Our previous C4 static is also dead, so I wipe corp bookmarks and start anew. It doesn’t take me long to find it, but C4a today is empty with a C4 static itself. Fortunately, C4 statics are pretty easy to scan down, having a unique signature size. I sweep for inbounds, finding none, before scanning and jumping into C4b.

Ah, now we’re getting interesting. A lone Scorpion and POS light my D-Scan up, but warping to the tower reveals the Scorpion empty. Curses. C4b also has a C4 static, so I scan it and jump in, revealing an empty C4c. This one has a C3 static, which usually lead to k-space, so I keep scanning. No inbounds are found, so into C3a I go!

C3a greets me with a Gallente Battleship wreck on scan, along with 4 Ogre IIs and a couple of towers that appear to be offline. The system boasts a Lowsec static and a Black Hole wormhole effect in place.

Warping to one of the towers quickly reveals its reason for being offline. A host of Cruise Missile Batteries and Torpedo Missile Batteries surround the abandoned tower – the defences effectively useless in a Black Hole system, which boosts ship velocities and reduces missile velocities in kind. I start scanning for the seemingly abandoned Ogre IIs, hoping they lead me to the BS wreck. Since the Ogre IIs are unclaimed, I assume that the killers of the Gallente Battleship had to leave in a hurry. Resolving the signature hit, I warp to the drones to see an unspoilt wreck waiting for me!

A check on the owner of the wreck reveals no PvP losses in this system, leading me to believe he lost the Battleship to Sleepers. How embarrassing. The wreck contains a fairly cheap Faction armour repair as well as a Shadow Serpentis energized adaptive nano module, but the rest is standard T2 loot. Not worth a lot, all told, but ISK is ISK!

I scan the low, finding myself in Old Man Star and drop bookmarks for Aii, who promptly comes home. A C3 is scanned in OMS, but it holds nothing of interest. With nothing going on, I log out till the evening.

Constellation as I logged out

Logging back on some hours later has Mick also online. I decide to sit at C4b’s tower, but an online Dominix there simply logs off. Mick goes scouting into C4c, where he notes probes on scan. He scouts further into the system, revealing an Anathema, Nighthawk, 3 Drakes and a lot of wrecks.

Hmm.

The Drakes and Nighthawk are at an anomaly, and the Anathema has cloaked. I swap my Scangu for a Manticore bomber, preferring the “insta-lock-on-decloak” of this ship and head over to join Mick, who is now sitting cloaked 160km off the ratting ships.

Shhh... be very very quiet...

Another alliance member, Rihanna, moves to join us but lacks a suitable cloaky vessel – opting for a PvP fit Loki and sitting in C4b, ready to jump in and help if we engage something.

There’s no chance we can hit the 4 ratting ships, so we decide to wait for their Noctis. Mick deploys probes and resolves a new inbound – presumably the source of these ships. However, a Retriever and Covetor are now on scan, and it isn’t long before Mining Drones are on scan too. Intriguing.

The ratters finish their site, warping towards another. One Drake  warps elsewhere and soon disappears from scan – presumably gone back to their Wormhole. It isn’t long before a Noctis shows up on scan, along with an Imicus frigate.

The Noctis appears to be in an anom we haven’t located, and the Imicus is replaced by  a second Covetor which appears in the same direction as the other 2 mining barges. An Iteron V appears, and locates itself with the miners.

At this point, we have to pick a target.

• 2 Drakes + Nighthawk at an Anomaly
• Retriever, 2x Covetors + Iteron Mk V at  a Grav site
• Noctis at the Anomaly we have bookmarked.
• Try and snag one of their scouts on a wormhole.

Whichever we pick loses the others, and we have no idea what reinforcements they could have. We have to make it quick. So we obviously pick the Noctis.

After 10 minutes of waiting, the Noctis appears in the Anomaly we’re sitting at cloaked. He’s 160km away, and appears to be unmoving – allowing his Tractor Beams to do the work for him.

There's always someone watching

We let him salvage some wrecks, but he still doesn’t move. This works to our advantage – a moving Noctis is harder to hit than a stationary one.

We bookmark a wreck he tractors to him, and both warp in and engage.

The Noctis is in armour by the time we even notify Rihanna on comms, but it’s dying too fast for her to warp and engage too, so she holds out of system.

A good thing too. The Noctis pops easily, but the pod escapes even my sensor boosted Manticore. I hit the “Loot All” button on the wreck, but my Manticore’s cargo is already bomb laden and I only grab a handful. Mick grabs some more, but he shoots the wreck to deny the rest. As Mick does so, the Nighthawk and Drakes land, but we both easily cloak and warp back off to the tactical. Gone as soon as we appeared.

The Drakes and their mining barges warp back to their Wormhole, which I scout as a C2, whilst the Nighthawk remains in the site. It’s a tempting target, but if it’s running C4s it’ll likely be brick tanked and we simply don’t have the DPS to kill one before its’ allies arrive.

The Drakes return, and one of them starts salvaging, albeit slowly. They’ve probably refit for PvP, but are desperate for some ISK return since we kind of blew it all up.

There’s not a lot else myself and Mick can do at this point, so we head home for the night.