Uninvited But Not Unloved

I pride myself on my ability to run away. Enemies have complimented me in local on particularly flagrant escapes. Now, I still have not worked out how to gank someone and run away, but presumably after another three years I will get that sorted.

Last night Nestor took out a inty gang and we headed up into X-M looking for trouble. I brought a light tackle Stiletto, which is probably inappropriate for this kind of op in retrospect. It's the first inty fit I ever flew, updated with scram instead of web since QR.

We found trouble in the form of Outbreak idling in system. The few in space warped around long enough for the rest to reship to fight us. After a few warps to give chase, I found myself at a gate 80km away from Fraxy in a Caracal. It was quite clearly bait, but it was good bait because I really wanted to shoot him.

I burned straight toward him and he made little effort to move. We locked each other at the same time. I dropped into a 24km orbit while his light missiles slammed into me. I called the point on vent but made a critical error in not telling folks to warp to me. I think a couple warped to the gate which delayed their damage on the target.

I had to warp very quickly, not having accomplished much apart from pulling us off the gate and getting a few folks a warpin on the target. I headed to station to repair since my armor and shield were gone.

The rest of Outbreak soon converged on Fraxy. They brought a bunch of light missiles and scrams. We did get the Caracal, but not before Outbreak killed our Taranis and Rupture and forced us off the field.

By the time I got out of station we were headed back to the gate. Fraxy reshipped into a Crusader and sat on the gate, which again proved to be perfect bait. We engaged again. I jumped back into the system only to find our pilots fled because of the hostile cruisers on the field. I decloaked, overloaded my MWD, and got clear of the scrams before anyone could get a lock. I'm sure Fraxy chased but I was in warp before anyone could point me. Scanner indicated the hostiles were without a bubble, so I doubled back and went home.

I need to rethink my Stiletto fit.

Sometimes, things don't work out and you die in a fire right outside your home station. Sometimes, you can't seem to catch a break and targets just slip out of your grasp. Sometimes, though, nobody is home. Last night, I was in space for several hours. The only decent kill was a single Rapier who jumped into our gang and failed to cloak. We did see some Hulks and Rorquals dock up as we entered system. I spent a few minutes annoying a stealth bomber who's been lurking in our home system. What we didn't see was any other gangs in space, looking for a fight.

I think that's one problem with NPC 0.0. There are a few ways to provoke a fight in sov 0.0, and it seems Dominion is planning on expanding that, but if everyone wants to stay docked in Syndicate there's really very little we can do about it.

To celebrate Rote Kapelle's arrival in Syndicate, we've been taking roaming gangs through northern Syndicate, reacquainting ourselves with the locals. I fitted out a 720mm artillery Hurricane to bring along for the ride. If I'm going to fly a dps ship, I want my damage to arrive in a timely fashion. Thus, ranged guns.

Our first leg of the trip ran from X-M2LR nearly into Cloud Ring. Our scout spotted an Outbreak gang in local, but we failed to engage any of them. We spent some minutes positioning our gang attempting to get anyone at all to engage us, but all we managed to do in 49A-BZ constellation was destroy a Rupture on a gate. I did not appear on the killmail due to being still in warp when he died.

We then headed south through Poitot. The locals here stayed docked, so we kept moving through to MHC-R3. In ZVN5-H the guys caught a lone Vexor on a gate, again destroying it before I arrived. In fact, half our gang wasn't even in system when the guy popped, I think.

Somehow, I got a bit confused after I caught up and jumped into 8-JYPM where the Vexor's friends were waiting on the gate. I saw two Falcons and about ten other ships. I think the Greater Goon gang made an error and warped off a few ships, whereas our FC made the order to jump into 8-J and bubble the gate. As a result, the Greater Goon gang was split at the key moment. We fairly easily took apart seven of their ships and held the field without a loss.

Our Vagabond pilot Josey Whales did a particularly nice job with this Falcon who was out of my range. I had EMP loaded, not expecting to get into a pitched battle, so I was deep into falloff as some enemy pilots attempted to get out of disruptor range. Additionally, with just ten rounds I ran out of ammo before the field was clear. Glancing through the combat logs, I could clearly see I was getting great achieved dps on larger targets, overkilling others with a single broadside (wasting a lot of damage), and not hitting some very well at all.

The remnant of their gang passed deeper south into Syndicate without any chase from us. We held on the gate briefly to see if more would spawn, but they did not so we headed back through Poitot. On the way, our scout caught a Drake ratting in a belt who thankfully had enough EHP that I got onto the mail. Finally, our pilots filtered back into our home station.

I hung back to do some killboard analysis, and while I was in space an Incursus stumbled across my Hurricane. He MWDed towards me. I had lost my drones on the way to Cloud Ring, and so if he had a scrambler or even a webifier he would have ruined my day. Thankfully, all he had was a warp disruptor. I easily overloaded my MWD, kited him out to my optimal with minimal transversal, and took him down with two shots.

I was very fortunate to have this engagement because the two dozen T1 frigates who came pouring through the gate would have been able to easily take me apart had I been at 0km. The Incursus had been on point for the rest of this frigate gang. At 30 or 40 km, where I was, I could kite a few frigates to death before they got me properly tackled. With the rest of STUGH ready to jump in, their FC decided I was not juicy enough and pressed on into 8V-. I joined our gang as we chased them to the 8V- gate, but given our fleet composition our FC elected not to pursue and we broke off.

In station, I decided I needed to increase my agility and tracking. Artillery is about equal parts alpha, scan res, agility, and tracking. I had plenty of scan res and alpha, but not nearly enough agility and tracking. I decided I needed a projectile metastasis rig for additional tracking, and a target painter to reduce the stacking penalty on the rig. Fortunately, one of our kills graciously dropped a PWNAGE, so my Hurricane is looking sexier already.

Nothing like a T1 cruiser gang to get back on the wagon after six months without a kill. I knew my reflexes were dulled and my space awareness poor, so getting into a Rupture for a roam sounds good. Maraner sent out the call for a T1 cruiser op---only semi suicide. We fell on a few mid-size hulls on our roam, and tore them apart. I had a bit of trouble getting my guns on the target in time.

Our scout found a Curse on gate in system as we jumped in, so the order was given to warp to the scout. We trickled through the gate and ran into a full hostile U'K gang with Scimitar. The Curse took forever to down. We made the Scimitar pilot run away, but not without sustaining heavy casualties. I lost my Rupture and forgot to move my pod at first. When I did move, I wandered towards the bubble edge before realizing I was closer to the gate. Hostile drones nailed me before I could meander out of danger.

Back in a pod, sitting in the wrong station, I decided then and there I needed more range than unbonused ACs could provide. I also decided I needed to get Logistics V, though that's looking like it'll have to wait until next year.

My submission for Crazy Kinux's planetary conquest contest was conceived and written prior to the announcement of Dust 514. Given that Dust 514 exists and will influence sovereignty and planetary control, I've decided to make a separate post for planetary control incorporating these facts. Obviously, this second proposal of mine is not meant for entry into Crazy Kinux's contest.

Let's review the different aspects of the current POS and sovereignty system.

Tied to POS ownership

• Setup Moon mining income
• Claim sov
  
• Setup/Defend mobile lab or refining array
  
• Defend moon mining income
• Defend CSAA
• Defend Jump bridges
• Defend Cynojammers
• Defend cynofield generator arrays
  
• leave ships around
  

Tied to sov level

• Setup CSAA
• Defend outpost
  
• Setup Jump bridges
• Setup Cynojammers
• Reduce POS Fuel costs
• Deploy outpost
• Upgrade outpost
• Deploy cyno field generator arrays
• Invulnerable POS & sov
• Faster sov
  

After the launch of Dust 514, I think there should be three things to spread this functionality over:

1. planets
2. winsauceables - in my view, a winsauceable has sub-capital HP, size, velocity, and tracking, with optional gate size restriction, suitable for engaging squads of battleships and below, but usually robust against capital attacks.
3. POS

In addition, sov will work differently. Here's the proposal.

Sov is claimed by an outpost or conquerable station. One outpost or conquerable station is designated as the control bunker for that system. One control bunker is deployed in each system claimed by an alliance. If a control bunker is deployed, no more control bunkers can be deployed until that sov claiming control bunker is flipped. Sov is lost after the next downtime when a control bunker is flipped. The owner of sovereignty in a system that loses its control bunker cannot designate another control bunker until 24 hours after the next downtime. The attacking alliance can designate a control bunker at any time in a system that has no control bunker. Sov is gained after the first downtime when a control bunker is deployed.

• Setup CSAA
• Defend outpost
• Setup Jump bridges
• Setup Cynojammers
• Reduce POS Fuel costs
• Deploy outpost
• Deploy cyno field generator arrays

This proposal of sovereignty is far more restricted, as pilots cannot claim sovereignty in a system with no outpost or conquerable station. The overall number of sov systems will be reduced.

Dust 514 provides a new kind of contract which Eve pod pilots can issue and Dust 514 infantry can accept. The contract may involve both an upfront payout and a payout determined by mission outcome. The contracts can be public or private to a particular alliance, corporation, or player of Dust 514.

Planets

• Setup planet mining income
• Defend planet mining income with planetary defense for Dust 514 battles
• Undefended NPC convoys can automatically fuel in-system POS from a orbital hangar
  
• Dust 514 battles produce victory points
  

winsauceables - There are many different kinds. They can be move in space (and require exploration scanning, even by the owner) or they can be static (and easily bookmarked by hostiles and friendlies alike). Some winsauceables will generate a beacon when deployed. All winsauceables generate a beacon when hostile forces are present.

• leave modules, cargo, ships in deep space - no sov needed
  
• Setup/Defend mobile lab or refining array - no sov needed
  
• Defend Jump bridges - need sov
  
• Defend Cynojammers - need sov
• Capturing enemy winsauceables earns victory points when sov is claimed
• Upgrade outpost - need sov
  
• Turn POS invulnerable - need sov
  
• Turn sov unflippable - need sov
• Capital system - need sov
  

POS

• Setup Moon mining income
• Defend moon mining income
• Setup/Defend mobile lab or refining array
  
• Defend CSAA
• Defend cynofield generator arrays
  
• leave modules, cargo, ships in deep space
• Capturing enemy POS earns victory points when sov is claimed
  

POS lose the ability to deploy cynofield jammers and jump bridges. They also no longer factor into the sovereignty of a system, though they are a factor in the occupancy of a system. Other than that, POS are unchanged. With sufficient lead time, all 0.0 POS-owning alliances will be able to make the changes for the incoming sov system with minimal waste.

Total number of victory points needed to change sov is determined by planetary control, POS, and winsauceable count of the defending alliance. No amount of POS, Dust 514, or winsauceable spam by the attacking alliance will change the requirements for rendering a control bunker vulnerable. 

The point of this is to remove the weird dependency on the number of moons present in a system from so many of the benefits of POS. The income possible from POS is still possible, but the ability to generate some of that income from planets or winsauceables would also be possible. Additionally, sovereignty claims are a function of system occupancy. POS warfare is still a largely game of capitals, but 0.0 occupancy is no longer solely a question of cap superiority. A specialist frigate alliance may design their sov defenses around winsauceables with gate restrictions, while a traditional cap-heavy 0.0 alliance may retain all their existing POS as sov defenses.

The items which depended upon sov level, such as cyno jammers, will instead have an equivalently long egg timer. Deployment of a winsauceable containing a cyno jammer will take 28 days to fully activate once it is deployed. I think some winsauceables (dependent on sov or not) could be created to increase the defense of a constellation. Such winsauceables may be practically required to deploy a jump bridge or cynojammer succesfully.

PART 1

Me? Marv. I wish I was dead.

Her name was Elisa.

My whole life, I never fit in anywhere. Never, except here on 8YC-AN I. With her.

Now, I dont even have that.

I come from Hek. Had to get out when I was twelve before the cops could dokken my ass. Got kicked around low sec for a while. Started fightin in a Amamake station for Frentix, hatin the lousy sumbitches for gamblin on my blood and hatin myself more for not walkin out. Couldnt ever settle down. Didn’t get enough Frentix no matter how much I hurt the other guy. Wrong sumbitch got in my face one night after a messy fight. A connected sumbitch. I had to leave Amamake before his syndicate iced me. I kept spiraling outward, looking for someplace where I didn’t stick out, someplace where I could score, someplace I didnt have to worry about losing my head. Eventually I wound up with COW. The cow was looking for miners to head out Great Wildlands way. They take a guy, any guy. And nobodys stupid enough to cross a podder alliance, no matter how big the operation. That’s where I met her.

Elisa was working the joint near the docks here. The cow took the ore off this rock and leave us with scrip most weeks. Most guys got too loaded at that joint to get a girl, but I saved mine. To be with her. Got to where Elisa gave me a discount. If I spent careful I was there every night before the cow came back. Better than Frentix. For three months.

Then those commie anarchists come. Stinkin pirates. They stripped this rock and took everything that wasn’t worthless. But the cow came. Not in time to keep the stuff planetside. But in time to blow up the rusted out pirate freighter. That damned pirate orchestra took out the wrecks before they ran, though. To stick it to the cow.

Why would a pod pilot take a exotic dancer, anyway?

Gooey bastards.

There aint enough Frentix.

PART 2

Planetary control should not be tied to sovereignty, regardless of whether sovereignty is overhauled or not. Planetary control should be tied to system occupancy. Planets should not favor cap heavy coalitions causing a snowballing “the rich get richer” effect. Planets should reduce the income large alliances get from R64 moons and ease the limited supply of key T2 ingredients.

Null sec and low sec planets should be available for development. Developing a planet starts out at small POS cost levels but can sink hundreds of billions of isk for larger alliances. A corporation develops a planet by installing planetary structures. Planetary structures produce planetary ores and consume NPC trade goods as fuel, similar to POS structures. Planetary structures cannot be taken offline and removed like POS structures. Every planet can produce all ores, though the viability of specific ore production varies from planet to planet. Ores can be refined in stations to produce moon minerals, which can be fed to POS reactor arrays in the normal way. Ores have a very poor value density, taking many cubic meters of volume to transport compared to moon minerals. However, planets can be developed to produce income comparable to R64 moons, albeit at a much higher startup cost than a large mining POS. Rare valuable planets may be worth more than an R64 moon in income with an investment approaching one trillion isk, depending upon market conditions which can change as producers adjust their mining operations to reflect current prices. Ore production occurs in random spurts, though it is predictable over sufficiently long time periods, like one month. A single spurt of production has a significant value and volume. A single spurt produces a large number of units. A single unit of ore could be transported by a battleship, but not two units.

Planetary developments are owned by the originating corporation, like a POS. They cannot be flipped like an outpost. Planets and planetary structures have no concept of reinforced mode. Individual planetary structures can be targeted and destroyed or offlined via structure damage. Planetary structures have sub-capital levels of HP. Individual structures can be opened and the contents taken by anyone, like a jetcan. The same flagging rules that apply to jetcans apply to planetary structures.

Planetary development includes defenses. None of the defenses operate in space, only on the surface. The range of the defenses is limited and the amount of firepower that can be concentrated in a given area is also limited, similar in difficulty to a 10/10 complex or level 5 mission. However, the total number of planetary structures can be very large allowing large alliances to spend more on development, effectively producing a large series of 10/10 complexes if they choose to use a defense-heavy mix of structures. Planetary structures can be built on an area which covers thousands of kilometers. The occupying alliance can create links between structures, similar to POS setup, that controls the specific structures where mined planetary ores accumulate. The occupying alliance can choose to distribute the ores widely or concentratedly. There will be clearly marked areas using visual clues where specific mining operations will be more successful than average, so the total income of a planet does not increase linearly with the isk spent on development. These areas will be in the center of a grid. It will be easy to determine exactly where a given class of planetary structure is using the built-in scanner from space. Once a ship has a result from the built-in scanner, it warps to a position in orbit which allows approaching the planetary surface, then the ship approaches the planetary surface which is not instant. The specific structure that was scanned down will be on grid, though it may be far away. To approach a specific grid on a planet requires either warping to the same narrow spot in orbit that anyone else can find or traveling across a planet at sub-light speeds and dealing with whatever defenses are present. A ship leaves the planetary surface by the same spot in orbit where the grid can be approached. Orbit or surface fights can be forced via scanner or bookmark, and hostile forces can attempt to evade orbiting defenders by skimming the planetary surface and emerging in a different orbital grid.

A hostile force cannot bring capital ships to the planetary surface. A skilled hostile force can bring a single squad to a planetary surface and successfully negotiate the defenses, even very expensive defenses, through either tanking them, disabling them, or destroying them. Hostiles can also remove planetary ores from planetary structures. There is no way to prevent raiders from removing a large quantity of valuable ores except by preventing roaming gangs from entering or leaving the system and by keeping the total amount of ore at low levels through routine transport of the ore. Serious hostile raids on multibillion isk planetary developments may choose to put capital ships in orbit to carry the looted ore and ferry the ore to the capital ships via industrials. Thus a raid attempting to remove a large quantity of ore with value will need a significant amount of real time to accomplish the theft, perhaps as long as an hour. It is possible that a notification system similar to POS attacks might be needed, though time to intercept a hostile force will be on the order of minutes, not hours. Note that a hostile force needn’t destroy a planet’s industrial structures in order to begin fueling them, though a scorched earth policy is also possible. A hostile force cannot change the links between structures nor connect existing structures to new structures. There is no concept of a planet control tower or planetary ownership and no fitting requirements. The restrictions on new planetary developments are cost, fuelling, and risk.

The idea is that developing a planet in a station system your corporation occupies which has no hostile traffic is as easy and profitable as running a mining POS. However, a contested system or deserted system is easy pickings for coordinated raiders to steal a few billion isk worth of ore without needing to spend the time or bring the dps to siege a POS. Hostiles can also destroy a large isk value of undefended planetary structures with a sub-capital fleet and some additional time. The existence of a developed planet will encourage alliances to claim a home turf and defend it, while giving hostile small gangs a sub-capital target. Therefore alliances will tend to reduce the total amount of space they claim to occupy their home turf more densely, allowing new powers access to 0.0 space.

Furthermore, planetary control gives a small lowsec corporation an income without requiring them to become capital combat ready. Large alliances will not find these little planetary installations sufficiently valuable to move a large number of sub-capital ships down to take them over like rare lowsec moons, though some may become targets of opportunity. A small corporation running a planetary operation may be able to successfully defend parts of the surface against a larger force by attrition tactics over the planetary defenses of multiple areas, even if a huge hostile capital fleet is present in orbit.

Finally, the total amount of moon minerals will increase, reducing the stranglehold large cap heavy coalitions have on ferrogel and allowing the T2 hull supply to meet the rising population’s demand. POS still continue to serve a vital link in the T2 production chain. Moon mining POS will have a significantly shorter time to profit and significantly lower risk than planetary development will, especially for cap-heavy alliances, though the income available from planets may exceed the income available from moons in quite a few constellations for alliances willing to dig in their heels and occupy a system permanently. However, a spread-out or mobile alliance with a large number of hotdrop capable cap ship pilots will still have a profitable niche, albeit at reduced levels.

Rule 1 of piloting: Never ever stop flying the ship
I violated rule 1. Sir Erighan and I went out on a roam, he in his Ishtar and I in my Broadsword. On our way to BMN, I caught the very first target in my HIC bubble, ever. At BMN, Sir found Jack Soul in a Dominix on the station in BMN. Sir warped to a planet and Jack Soul followed. I met them there and we engaged. I put my point and guns on the Domi and entered a tight orbit.

The Domi webbed me and neuted my cap down to nothing. I lost my point and then my invulns. Jack was smart and kept all his drones on Sir's Ishtar, correctly surmising that killing my Broadsword would take more time than he had.

I didn't care for the way this was going down. Jack could engage us with impunity and warp off at any time. I decided to back off out of neut range to regain some cap. I timed my MWD activation just before the next neut cycle and glided out of Jack's web range. I set my range to 26km to regain my cap.

Both Sir and I missed the bump in local, but the Curse and friends who landed on us were unmistakable. Sir was pointed and webbed faster than I could tell him to get out. He told me to save myself, so I ran.

At 26km out, I didn't have any trouble overloading my MWD and getting out of engagement range. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by warping to the gate, but I warped to a planet. I was followed in warp, but again an overloaded MWD got me away clean to a safe. By the time I got to the gate back towards KLYN, they had it covered with a few recons and an Onyx on the far side according to Sir. I decided to stay in system and burned out of engagement range of the Arazu. I warped to a safe and began bouncing around safes and making new ones.

Then I made my second mistake. I sat at a safe and burned my MWD until I was low on cap while I fiddled with killboards and maps. These were not ships out on a roam, though, but pilots in their home constellation. They pulled out a Helios and probed me out in less than twenty minutes after we first targeted Jack Soul.

Right after I shut off my MWD, the Helios tagged me. Deep in space rather than at a gate, I should have immediately starting shooting the Helios or perhaps the Arazu which soon followed but I just flew around in increasingly pitiful circles, instead.

Rote Kapelle has been busy while I've been slacking. We've moved our forces into northern Syndicate and apparently are having a grand time with the locals there. I miss our old base of operations near Great Wildlands (:sniff:) but I am eager to get set up in our new base of operations. I'm putting some ships on a courier contract today so I can operate in Syndicate this weekend if I choose.

After a few minutes of bickering whether we should run the camp or not, someone decided he needed to make a run by himself. It might have been Galeric. At any rate, he ran through the camp and escaped unscathed to the next system. The camp took up pursuit, leaving the rest of us free to slip out quietly except for Maraner who was AFK. We made it back to Y9 in dribs and drabs before Maraner came back. He decided to make a run for it and made it to M2 or thereabouts. He found a Hurricane and a inty on a gate, but decided not to engage because he smelled a trap. Instead, a few of us circled back around to M2 and joined up with Maraner, while the targets received a few reinforcements, so we started falling back to Y9 and shouted on vent for everyone to mobilize. Unfortunately, we didn't leave eyes in M2.

When the enemies engaged in Y9, the odds were roughly even but they had EW superiority. We spent several frustrating minutes trying to break through the ECM, when suddenly local started spiking. The enemies brought reinforcements for their reinforcements! The call went out to disengage. A few burned off the gate and safed up in Y9. Myself and a couple others waited out our aggro timers and jumped into 97X. They had cannily left a few ships in 97X, but I was able to burn out of range in 'fast haggis' and safe up. In fact, everyone made it out except for our sole BS pilot, Karenzi. This type of incident really underscores why I hate to fly BS.

STIM, QOTSA, and UGH are starting up a new alliance, Rote Kapelle [STUGH]. Nothing has really changed, since we've been flying together for weeks, but it's nice to have the formal alliance in place.