Currently, the null sec PvPer outside of the major supercoalition blocs has a tough life. There have been reports of Supercarriers being dropped on bombers simply out of boredom, lolz, etc. EvE has developed to the point where grinding the 30 Billion Isk for a supercarrier is a daunting yet highly accessible task. This has lead to an absurd amount of supercapital production particularly in the last couple of years. Over the past couple of years there has also been feverish debate about how nullsec has become stagnant and is in need of change. I will provide an alternative perspective to the proposed changes based upon my beliefs about ship balance. Additionally, I will explore the idea of improving EvE by improving the small gang PvP experience. The thesis of this potentially exhaustingly long article is that CCP has a responsibility to look at the EvE sandbox from a political and mechanical perspective. Additionally, it is their responsibility to make adaptive tweaks that allow the highest number of ship explosions. In doing so, they will experience a greater level of growth and profitability. This analysis is done by looking at specific problems and offering a dynamic approach to ship balancing and Sov mechanics.
There are multiple theories of blame in relation to why null has become the stagnant and static. One of these theories implies that players have become too “risk adverse and unwilling to fight.” As a result, players have the null entity that they deserve, a polarized two part block where neither side is willing to sacrifice their delicious stream of renter income. This theory is primarily hogwash. The beauty of EvE lies in that no one can reliably predict the future. No individual knew that their decision to either kowtow to a bigger alliance or be destroyed would transpire into a renter based nullsec block. If you go back to 2011 – 2012 there was still a great deal of anti- renter propaganda coming from Goons to its membership. Additionally, the initial decision for the CFC to participate in renter based politics seems to have been implemented with a grain of salt. The clever and accurate metaphor of the Western Prosperity Sphere was used to convince some of the skeptics about the validity of this renter practice. This move was necessary because renting had always been abhorred according to initial principles of the Goonswarm organization.
Ultimately, at the coalition level EvE is no longer a skill based game. Conversely, it is a strictly numbers and political game. What does this mean for the average player even within these major coalitions? It means that they are irrelevant or a pawn in an attempt to consolidate power and assert dominance. Is this a bad thing? Quite simply it’s a matter of perspective. Being a pawn isn’t bad at all if you enjoy immense luxuries such as security and a tremendous comparative advantage over other players. However, the more power consolidation that transpires the less people are willing to undock. Its common sense not to go pick a fight with the bully that’s a 7 foot tall karate master.
__________________
1: Evidence of the profitability of these proposed changes is not directly expressed. Instead, the changes are implied by the loose notion that PvP is the most “fun” aspect of EvE and “fun” is more likely to engender more players and more revenue.
The average EvE player does not have the real life time or the dedication to hone fantastic PvP skills. Additionally, the game does not reward the individual or even the small group for improving their skills. Instead, they are met with blobbing and / or overwhelming force from ships that are far outside of their accessibility. The last sentence refers to Supercapitals in the hands of renters. This will be evaluated in a bit of detail later.
Currently in EvE I would argue that there is no such thing as a”gud fight.” Currently, groups such as Code and previously Pizza dash around like a chicken with there head cut off in order to gain a glimpse of the prestige know as “relevancy.” Ultimately, the following statements illustrate my idea of EvE and the problems of its current state.
1: The Pasta Syndicate has become relevant because they have found their niche in ganking high sec bear incursion runners by utilizing clever ploys such as market manipulation; however, they have little impact on nullsec game mechanics.
2: Supercarriers/ Titans/ Power Projection – The Supercarrier and the Titan are the end game of Eve Online. Regardless of how they are changed the state of EvE will remain stagnant not because they are “overpowered” but because they are currently churned out with unbelievable speed and efficiency. No matter how they are changed the EvE community in null will continue to be plagued by the two party coalition system because every EvE player who is not in a major alliance knows that they are absolutely powerless against these monolithic beasts (In mass.) It is the quantity and not the quality that is the problem. Experienced players know that there is an equilibrium of ship forces to bring to null sec. If they bring too many they enemy feels “justified” in dropping these monolithic beasts and ruining their day. Essentially, it is a matter or risk management. In the status quo, supercarriers and Titans are invulnerable to the average EvE player.
3: Is it CCP’s job to provide or ensure exciting PVP content? The answer may seem like an obvious “yes” at first; however, if you change it to “Is it CCP’s job to provide or ensure exciting PVP content that is accessible to most players?” The answer becomes much more ambiguous. I would like to believe that the answer is yes. However, I believe that the way CCP and many other game developers go about balance is wrong. Just because something is strong does not mean that it needs to be weaker. Oftentimes this perpetual cycle of nerfs agitates the players who enjoy flying a particular ship. Additionally, this strategy almost always provides a bandaid fix that is easily averted by the creative minds of the EvE community. In my opinion, CCP needs to actually think about the state of the game and provide changes that relate to the political state in addition to the mechanical state of the game. As an aside I don’t see the point of EvE Valkyrie. We knew linking it to Eve would be nearly impossible, and even if it was linked it would be such a radical change to PvP that it could potentially break the game and server load very fast. I think CCP needs to focus on improving the quality of their core product by attracting new players. I will talk about new player relevancy in a bit.
__________________
2: For the sake of this editorial the “average EvE player” has about 15 million SP can fly multiple subcapital ships. They can fly a bomber fairly soon and strictly for the sake of argument they are not in one of the major null supercoalitions.
4: Obligatory whine about the Dominion Sov changes with a different focus. Personally, I believe that in 2010 (source needs to be verified) nullsec rating was changed. In a pathetic attempt to encourage PVP CCP made is so that system upgrades would only improve ratting anomalies to a “good” level at -.5 security status and below. This change was largely misguided because it made it so that super coalitions needed to expand across multiple regions in order to maintain “good space.” Previously, if one invested time and effort into improving their space they were rewarded. Afterward, the vast majority of nullsec was left completely worthless from a rating perspective. Goons even said in their invasion of Fountain that the CFC needed the space and needed the moons for its coalition. I personally admit that there were so many reasons for the 2013 Fountain War that it is hard to establish whether or not this was eloquent lip service without an inside look at the CFC’s finance. It is still a mystery as to whether or not those infamous words were spoken as eloquent lip service or to establish the final stepping stone in Goonswarm’s manifest destiny. (BoB 2.0 🙂 If those words are true, it proves that CCP’s strange attempts to scatter null-sec wealth (R-64 moon distribution at that time) distribution have had the exact opposite effect. The changes to null sec post Dominion in relation to Sov value made it so little alliances have no reason to venture into null-sec. There is no incentive to take space without moons or high true-sec besides having your name on the post.
5: Sov mechanics are bad. Defensive SBUs are bad. The best thing to do is somehow make it so that sovereignty in a particular region is linked. A sov network in a region is a network where the impact on one system can have some kind of impact on the stability of other systems in a region. I don’t think it is reasonable to expect CCP to be able to maintain 1000 v 1000 fights without TIDI and I don’t think the EvE base will grow very much if the end game continues to be huge fights in soul crushing lag. Even if you make the lag slightly less soul crushing it is still something that can be appreciated by only the most dedicated EvE online players. Something needs to be done to make it so that multiple engagements across a particular region transpire during sov warfare. This also allows smaller mercenaries to be hired to attack or defend space. I think infrastructure hubs should be exactly what their name describes. They should be linked to maintaining the infrastructure of a region. Perhaps the infrastructure hub should be vulnerable to small scale attacks without being destroyed or having its modules damaged until more definitive control from hostilities is established. When one is hit or destroyed there should be consequences such as large penalties to POS resistances, structure resistances, or temporarily broken invulnerability for selective structures. Large penalties to POS resistances would open them to attacks from small bomber gangs if they are fit properly. Additionally, this would definately not apply to all POS’s in a region but some POSs in a particular system based on a somewhat random selection. Strontium timers would remain in tact. This idea is of course a rough concept.
Before the broadcast system was implemented the importance of tackling was an integral part of EvE online nullsec PvP. Now null sec PvP has evolved into crazy brawls of unreasonable size in TIDI. The tackler can’t navigate his ship let alone exercise his skill. To a certain extent, frigates have become completely irrelevant. I believe that in order to maximize their revenue, CCP needs to provide the newcoming EvE player with a meaningful PVP niche role. CCP needs to look at politics and decide how they can inject the relevance and the necessity of new players with a cautious eye. The rifter is no longer king. It is pretty much useless.
One idea is to implement a frigate or a module for frigates that costs approximately 200 million Isk. The module allows the frigate to use a warp disruption field generator like effect; however, the ship explodes in 30 seconds. New players don’t have 200 mil but alliances will throw that kind of money around to have fisher fleets of newbies be able to tackle capitals until a dictator arrives. This is a rough idea however.
CCP needs to look at what EvE players actually do. Currently, there is absolutely no way to make EvE appealing to a new player besides fancy graphics, tall tales, or the nurturing bosom of a supercoalition such as Goons / PL.
I think that all 0.0 space should have a retained level of value. In EvE people need to be incentivised to take risks. This concept is not new. The same principle applies to real life. The difference is that ultimately EvE is a video game and people can opt out of playing. Conversely, in real life you are forced to fight whether or not you have a decent chance of winning. One of the running jokes in EvE is that NC. pilots sit afk playing other games waiting until content is thrown at them at which point they login in. I believe this pretty much sums up EvE online in relation to null-sec coalitions.
Earlier I stated that the problem with EvE is the quantity of Supercapitals being produced. But the problem isn’t that Supercapitals are overpowered. Supercapitals have a job to do. That job is structure grinding or capital warfare. CCP and many other game developers need to stop thinking in this stagnant structure of (“Overpowered vs Underpowered”)
Currently, a game balance situation is treated with a player or company realising that part of a game is unbalanced. Either the players cry “hail marry save us from this OP beast” or the developers themselves say “hey, I say Sir, this thing is too powerful, too much power is bad we must take away that power.” The developers take away some of the power; however, the fundamental problem wasn’t the power of that particular element. The problem was the balance. Balance isn’t simply one element being strong. It is also one element being weak. In relation to Supercapitals, they are necessary for the Sov warfare element. However, they are not necessary for small gang PvP engagements. Supercapitals in small gang PvP engagements is unbalanced. In a cyno jammed system where the attacker is roaming through nullsec it is unreasonable for 1 supercapital pilot to negate the force of gang of 10 -12 people. Furthermore, it is unreasonable for 1 supercapital with the help of a small support fleet of even 1 – 5 guys to negate the force of a gang of 20 – 30 people. The attacker has to worry about ever changing parameters such as the cyno jammer going down, being blobbed to death, etc and that one pilot is able to establish dominance over multiple players.
When we look at whose “job” it is to take on Supercarriers the only answer is other Supercarriers and Titans. What is the small gang left to do. Ultimately, they dock up and POS up and even go play another game in frustration. Now, what if that same group was able to kill that Supercarrier with a small sub capital fleet. One would argue, Supercarriers cost 30 bil, its not fair that a small fleet can take out 30 bil so easily. This is where CCP comes in. I argue that CCP should step in and look at not only game mechanics but also game structure.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/40026741/
Take a look at this kill hear. Lets try to develop a narrative about this occurrence. Kyle is bored sitting lonely in his wormhole. Kyle decides to venture out for PvP in the vast emptiness of 0.0. Kyle sees a Tengu, maybe it is ratting or maybe it is sitting on the gate in search of luscious PvP rewards. Kyle takes a risk, putting his ship and his pod on the line and attacks this tengu. How is Kyle rewarded with this risk that he took. He is rewarded with a mothership bitch slap right across his face. (I’m not 100% sure if the Botlord Accords in relate to NC dot; however, for the sake of argument lets say that this engagement transpired in a protected zone where neither CFC or PL can bring Supers) Because of the Bot – Lord accords have polarized null-sec this mothership has nearly no fear of hostile response in his own space. There is nothing Kyle can reasonably do to deal with this threat. Ultimately he dies and he thinks twice before engaging a tengu next time. Kyle is not rewarded for his efforts. He did not get a good fight he was simply outclassed and there was nothing he could do about it.
Additionally, because of power consolidation. Shtornald is able to rat as a renter very hard for a month or two and save up for a Nyx. He has no PvP skills. He doesn’t need them he has the ability to singlehandedly protect his space from multiple attackers simply by ratting and saving up for this monolithic beast. The renters are happy, their space is protected, the overlords are happy, their serfs can pay rent. Additionally, both entities enjoy highly reduced risk in the deployment of capital ships in their home space Personally, I find the idea of Supercapitals in the hands of renters absolutely disgusting but one can safely dismiss this distress as bias if they choose. However, thought of building ships simply for the purpose of deterring ship explosions is absolutely appalling to me. Shtornald is a renter. Perhaps he is an alt but from the looks of it he isn’t getting ready to deploy for the next halloween war. So why does he need a super. Well obviously for self defence. Not actual self defense but projected self defense. The incomer fears the power of the potential overwhelming force. In this example, the Nyx was used for actual self defense; however, he could have exerted a similar force while remaining POSed up. Finally, this example is flawed because the supercarrier did zero damage meaning that perhaps Kyle lost to the Tengu fair and square and the Nyx came in to whore.
Now going back to balance. How can we bring Kyle’s perilous situation into balance. Using the traditional method you would nerf Shtornald’s Supercarrier; however, Supercarriers have already been nerfed and if they are nerfed too much they will not be able to perform their primary function in Sov warfare. You could target the nerfs. For example, previously supercarriers could use any drone. This allowed them to quickly dispose of small targets. Now supercarriers can only use fighters. This didn’t change much. Supercarriers can still dispose of medium sized targets that pose a threat to them with relative ease. They are vulnerable to small targets such as frigates, however, no frigate fleet (except “maybe” 100 enyos) has the firepower to deal with this threat. It is not reasonable for a small group to be able to take out a Supercarrier despite their skills. This gives Shtornald a relative level of invulnerability similar to how Supercarriers were invulnerable in low sec before Heavy Interdictor Cruisers were introduced. The difference is that this invulnerability is established through politics rather than flawed game mechanics.
So Kyle is in an unbalanced situation, however, it would also be unreasonable for Kyle to be able to take out a 30 billion isk ship in his pilgrim. That wouldn’t make sense in relation to ship balance and EvE general mechanics. So how does one stop this drought on PvP through the use of power projection aided by legal adherence to CCP EULA in the form of agreements. CCP has to look at in game politics and decide whether or not a tweak is necessary to make the game enjoyable to more players. In doing so, they will find themselves with a much higher player base and a much more lucrative stream of income. They have to think like a player in order to adapt to the natural tendencies of power and monetary consolidation which has been seen in the vast majority of capitalist establishments. CCP needs to understand that EvE is a capitalist game. In order to increase their revenue stream they need to make things interesting for as much as the EvE community as they can.
In Kyle’s situation, Shtornald’s situation is somewhat fun and perhaps amusing. However, this comes at the cost of amusement for any small-low sec gang or small PvP establishment. This is because one Supercarrier can easily become 10 without much effort involved. Even 10 supercarriers piloted by complete publords is a completely unmanageable threat. They have zero ability to establish terms or get reasonable chance at a fair fight. Ultimately some of them will go elsewhere. Even if they enjoy the constant rush of risky PVP, the continued threat of consolidated power in its current monolithic form will eventually inhibit their game enjoyment. Eventually, they will find some excuse and move on to a different game or log on to change skills only.
In this example, you can’t blame Shtornald him for his legal use of game mechanics to protect himself with overwhelming force. He did what was in his best interest. Shtornald isn’t the problem, CCP needs to decide whether or not they should break his relative invulnerability by studying in game politics.
So how does one counter a Supercarrier with a small force. The answer is simple. In the real world a bomber is used to attack a target with a large amount of force that is generally imprecise and often has collateral damage. These days this power can easily be delivered in a small package. In EvE, currently a single Tyrfing on a Nyx does more damage than a Nemesis with two ballistic control units (700 Dps vs 651 Dps respectively with max skills.) I find this to be absurd. Although the Nyx with Tyrfings damage can only damage large structures and capitals, a single player is able to put far more than out ten times the damage of a bomber in a capital ship. In fact, after bombers were nerfed they are pretty much useless for everything aside from black ops engagements on ratting carriers. That may not be alarming to you but think about this.
An untanked Nyx has 3 million hitpoints. It would take a bomber with 651 Dps 76 minutes to grind through those hitpoints. In PvP terms that is an eternity. Bear in mind that this is untanked. Now lets say this Nyx is tanked with A-type armor hardeners and dual armor reps. Its EHP jumps to about 7.3 million. 651 * 60 is 39060 damage in one minute per bomber. Not including the tank, it would take one bomber 187 minutes to grind through this heap of HP. If you divide that by 10 which would be a small group of bombers it would take 18 minutes, to kill the Nyx. All the while the Nyx has fighters which slowly widdle down the bomber fleet. Furthermore, a second Nyx with remote repair from a friendly rating system make this tank pretty much unbreakable. Eventually there is nothing the bombers can do except run with their tail behind their legs. With a fleet of 20 bombers dishing out kinetic and thermal damage at a ratio of 55 kinetic and 45 thermal, the nyx has 6.19 million armor hitpoints. The bombers have DPS of 13020. If the Nyx is omni tanked it can sustain approximately 5520 DPS of this type. The bombers end up doing 7500 DPS to the armor each second. This means it would take 14 minutes for 20 bombers to grind through the amor. Im going to be lazy and say i will take 17.5 minutes to kill the Nyx in total given 900K shield and 1.5 Million hull with a damage control. That is an enormous amount of time for a bomber fleet that has to tank the fighter DPS and maintain a speed tank. The bombers either have to fit specifically to be cap stable and speed tank the fighters or they will whelp. Even if they do everything right, all it takes is 1 other supercarrier to establish an unbreakable remote repair chain.
The problem with Supercarriers is that they currently can be used indiscriminately because there is no counter that is accessible to the average EvE player. However bombers are the perfect counter. In terms of lore it makes sense. Bombers by themselves are fairly bad against a variety of subcap doctrines. Bombers are designed to take on big ships but in their current form they are simply unable to do so. In order to balance this situation I would propose a siege mode for bombers in which they are unable to warp or be bridged. The value of the siege module would be about 120 mil making each bomber a worthwhile killmail. They would also be unable to target structures. If they could shoot structures in siege then they would possibly replace capital warfare and another imbalance would occur. In siege mode bombers would triple their DPS and missile signature radius coefficient. Additionally, the explosion velocity would be cut by the same amount. This means that both players have a lot at stake during a supercapital vs subcapital engagement. The sub capitals can still be blobbed with more supercapitals to the point where they are unable to break the tank; however, the supercapital fleet risks losing a single Super to a fleet bridging in additional bombers. In this situation 40 bombers would do 4.7 million damage per minute. It would be tough for this amount of damage to be tanked without a huge supercapital fleet. Ultimately, the supercarrier is now dependent on a subcapital fleet for support. Even with all of its utility a small supercarrier group is now vulnerable to being killed by a larger force of hard counters. This article did take into account bomber survivability. In the current metagame. A group of 20 bombers can kill a supercapital if they somehow manage to keep the interdictor alive and speed tank against the fighters. However, as more supers are added to the mix, the amount of bombers needed to actually pose a threat to even one of the supers goes up exponentially. This is the crux of the current problem. It is the core issue that needs to be resolved in order to bring things into balance.
Finally, one might argue there are some doctrines capable of inflicting damage to supercapitals such as kiting ishtars. An Ishtar fleet is an incentive for more supercarriers to land on grid without any risk or threat from anyone except the unlikely event that the hostiles have a supercapital fleet of their own. The Ishtars can’t batphone the opposing supercoalition because of the Bot-lord accords so this is highly unlikely. The point of this article is that every ship that is put on grid should be subjected to a reasonable amount of risk. This is not to take away the power of banding together. By allowing bombers to do their job you make it so Supercarrier use is changed without fundamentally degrading the ship that experienced users enjoy. Instead of applying a band aid to the problem you force the Supercapital user to adapt. You also make them vulnerable to smaller gangs and you create an interesting nullsec dynamic.
Because bombers can’t attack structures, Supers are still very important for bloc warfare. However, every engagement or structure grind has the potential to be devastating for a null bloc. Even the super coalitions can only sustain so many repeated supercarrier losses. After the the halloween war ended there was a period where supers were deployed across the galaxy to grind and consolidate sov. Imagine if each of those sov grinds was vulnerable to the swarming low SP fleets of Brave, Pizza, Spectre Fleet, or other Pubbies. Each structure grind would require subcapital support to be safe. While the combined power of subcapital support and Supercarriers would still be overpowered it would not be invulnerable. The enemy could bring an equivalent subcapital fleet and a bomber brigade. They would be incentivised to do so in that they may be able to take out 1 or 2 of the supercapitals even if they were burned to the ground and subjected to overwhelming DPS from the supercapital’s fighters. Conversely, if supercarriers were nerfed so that they could not use fighters, people would cease the use of supercarriers near hostile subcapital fleets completely. The second a hostile cyno comes up in a system the entire supercapital fleet would refit and prepare to jump out in self preservation. They would be completely vulnerable to subcapitals and therefore they would only relevant in sov warfare for structure grinding. There would be less content and less explosions due to the ship’s diminished combat capabilities.
EvE isn’t totally bad now. EvE players have access to a lot more isk than they did in the past. In fact, currently a weekend of incursions probably would net me enough income to buy a dreadnaught. Compared to EvE 5 – 6 years ago that is fairly impressive. I admit that a good portion of this article (perhaps too much) is spent whining about game mechanics that are not directly in CCP’s control. Like it or not, EvE has become stagnant because through a variety of situations 2 to 3 groups have established dominance and control through legal methods. This is the case in a capitalist society. You are forced to compete. However, in EvE you have the opportunity to kowtow and become one of the elite with an infinite source of income. This offer can be hard to refuse.
So how does the EvE player take back the game if CCP refuses to implement changes that are advantageous for the little guy. We adapt. I think one of the best innovations in EvE right now is Spectre Fleet. The ability for tons of little guys to band together and take on Goons, NoHo, PL, or any monolithic entity brings joy to my heart. However, quite honestly Spectre Fleet has no relevance in terms of permanence or nullsec establishment. This is because of their low SP combined with the fact that they of course can’t take on supercapitals. They can’t grind sov. They can’t do much of anything aside from kill the foolish AFK renter pubbie in their faction BS.
My dream in EvE would be a capital public fleet. Currently, issues of trust, greed, financing, stability, and spais make this an absolute nightmare to implement. Dreadnaughts have to be bridged in using cynos and can easily be sent on a quick trip to a molten scrapheap with the help of a dirty FC or spai. Despite these difficulties I think that this task is still possible. Similar to how Incursion communities have trusted FCs I think that there is a way to implement a badge of honor system for FCs and Cyno Pilots in this public fleet. Fleet leadership needs to make their absolute best effort to keep voice information on every cyno pilot and FC. In teamspeak their needs to be small record of each pilots voice stored for record. The pilots who become trusted get a badge. The badge would be mandatory “absolutely mandatory” in the trusted member’s bio. They would have a choice of 1 – 3 clever (or probably corny) choices such as “Trusted Official Inspector for the Intercontinental Ballistic Removal Team.” (This is a poor play on the idea that Supercapital buildup is similar to the nuclear arms race of the cold war.) Currently, I believe that the use of such a badge system or a similar device among the trusted members should be mandatory. This is to create a sense of camaraderie and prestige among the community. I hope that this is similar to the camaraderie invoked in the incursion communities of the present. Information on character sales, transfers, and trusted member activity in null blocs needs to be closely monitored.
The primary directive of this fleet is to punish the use of Supercapitals or Titans anywhere that they are vulnerable. This will be primarily guerrilla warfare and subject to espionage and counter dropping. The FCs need to be smart, adaptive, and clever. In addition, they need to anticipate the moves of the larger nullsec blocs by studying their behavior. The most important aspect of this idea is target selection and fleet form up. Personally, I would like the badge to be a form of respect throughout the entire EvE community. This is to make players reluctant to burn the fleet. Anyone who burns the fleet immediately loses their badge and they are quickly flagged for their misconduct. If the fleet is burned by the FC or others, it may be able to be saved depending upon how well established the fleet is. Lets look at an example, say an FC is calling for a small group of carriers to kill a Nyx that is supposedly moving. Instead the fleet lands on grid with a hostile fleet of Goon dreads and triage archons. However, the engagement is in space that is not protected by the Bot-lord accords (Else the CFC would not be able to field a capital fleet of that size outside of their own space.) If the fleet is established or reputable it could call upon PL or Black Legion to go save the poor naive carriers. Additionally, it might be able to save itself by getting more guys. This could ultimately turn a perilous situation into a “gud fight.”
Fleet form up is a problem because guerrilla warfare takes place very rapidly. I think that the staging system would need to be deep low sec near perhaps, Karan. I’m not 100% sure. I think that the best implementation would be a deep low system where good missions are available near by. The vast majority of the time pilots will be on standby. They will be able to PvP against one another in low sec or do missions. When a target is established hopefully participants can get to their ships quickly. Wh players can store dreads or carriers near the staging system. They can pod jump to their ship and get in on the engagement.
I think the buff to fighters may make it viable to use carriers as well. The longer jump range and lower cost of carriers means that staging in low sec may be logistically sound. I am not opposed to the idea of bridging into a capital engagement of the larger blocs; however, I personally would like to be a part of tactical engagements againsts capitals that are being moved etc. (I hate TIDI) Aside from special situations and because this is guerrilla warfare, I think that the vast majority of engagements call for cheap and disposable fits. Eventually, a sudo SRP program could be established; however, the goal of this fleet is to pose a “relevant” threat to blocs of considerable strength without the assistance of CCP. I also think that this could bring much life to the low sec region near the staging system.
Finally, I think the fleet should have lottery based loot distribution on high value killmails. Half of the loot would go to the corp leadership for SRP and other expenses; however, the value of the remaining value of the loot should be broken down into shares and each of the shares will be lotteried off to participating members of the engagement. This is to promote a source of income generation for the pilots and incentivize the trust and use of their capitals in a public fleet. Additionally, the control of information in relation to the destination of the fleet will remain a priority. Before fleet deployment, there will be 12 different destinations revealed for the fleet at a staggered yet rapid rate. This is in hope that the intel collected by the supercoalitions will be collected with a degree of confusion. There will also be fake form ups in which the members of the fake form up will be compensated for their participation. The fake form ups will go through the same 12 destination staggered release and information about the validity of a form up will be extremely limited. This is to prevent each of our fleet engagements to from being met with a superior super coalition force. Additionally, each of the fake formations should be promptly followed by a roam to improve morale.
