FW: not as bad as some people say

A few well-respected pilots have complained about faction warfare being completely dominated by risk aversion which leads to few, if any, real fights.

My experience, however, has been quite positive.

I started FW with a low-skill character last fall to take advantage of the loyalty point fountain coupled with low prices. Doing it casually, I think I made a few billion ISK from plexing and a few billion more from FW-related speculation - buying popular cashout items and reselling them once the plug was pulled on LP store discounts.

I kept training the character and he can now fly minmatar frigates with reasonable PVP setups so recently I started flying him again, looking for fights rather than loyalty points.

And it works. Playing, once again, rather casually, I still got into a number of fights, won some, lost some and gained some experience flying and fighting the updated T1 frigs.

While some people do indeed warp out the moment they see you on close-range d-scan, others are willing to fight, often coming back for a rematch. I'd say more than a half of Amarr pilots I've met were willing to fight.

In total, I've been in at least 16 fights since restarting FW on March 24, which, measured against my activity, is quite good. It's definitely more than I got with Nursultan. Oh, and the LP gain from kills and plexes (you sit there anyway as you wait for fights) is a nice bonus that could keep one in well-fitted ships indefinitely.

Right now my default ship is the Slasher:

[Slasher, AB-TD]
Damage Control II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer I

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I,Tracking Speed Disruption Script

150mm Light AutoCannon II,Republic Fleet Fusion S
150mm Light AutoCannon II,Republic Fleet Fusion S
150mm Light AutoCannon II,Republic Fleet Fusion S
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I

Small Anti-Explosive Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Nanobot Accelerator I

EMP, Phased Plasma, nanite paste and optimal disruption script in the cargohold.



Works reasonably well against turret-based ships, especially if you are inside a plex and dictate the starting range of the engagement. You either stay at range while disrupting their optimal (works best against blaster ships) or orbit close while disrupting their tracking (poor slicers).

Dies when successfully kited by MWD frigs. Takes forever to chew through a cap-boosted dualrep Incursus. I have yet to fight a buffer-tank missile ship, but I think it's going to be tough as you have no buffer at all and no way to mitigate missile damage (other than speed, so overheat your afterburner).

I usually turn off the auto-reload on the rep because at that stage I am usually in control of range and need minor repairs for rare volleys that get through or drone attacks.

I should probably get an MWD version as well to deal with those pesky kiters.

Mission: Get a Fight

It's about 20.30 EVE time and I feel like fighting someone after months and months of mostly PVE. I want to get a kill, preferably not a gank.

Location: Kurniainen, The Bleak Lands, station whatever-it's-called-there's-only-one-anyway.
Ship: cookie-cutter blaster Talos

Local shows mostly faction warfare fighters in system. Undock, scan out beacons, there they are. I don't feel like going into plexes in a kiting battlecruiser so instead I hang out at range from the entry gate. Lots of people, many of them flashy, move in but nobody chases me. No luck baiting in a belt either. Time to move.

Oyonata, Sahtogas. Two FW Cynabals on gate immediately engage me. A tempting situation but d-scan shows plenty of other ships in space and I suspect this will end badly for me. Re-approach the gate, jump back. I linger on the other side, giving them a chance to de-aggress and follow but, just like I suspected, they are not going to take risks.

Kovorix or Kil2 would have probably soloed them and their support as well.

Let's go the other way: Sosan, Tararan, Asghed... WTF dude, wrong turn... Tararan, Arzad, Ezzara, Vard, Siseide - nothing really interesting. Time to visit Mother Amamake.

Lots of PL people in local, caps and supers on scan. Warp to cyno to see what's going on but it looks like simple midpointing. Warp around for a while, choose a FW beacon, warp in at range and wait.

Fortunately, this time I don't have to wait long. An Omen soon warped in about 20 kilometres away from me and started burning in my direction.

This was a very good position for me to start a fight as the Omen's potential reinforcements could not warp directly to him so I was glad to return fire when he started pointing and shooting me.

I was already aligned so I just turned on my MWD and overloaded it to make sure the cruiser does not get under my guns.

It only took a few overloaded Neutron Blaster Cannon II volleys to turn the glass cannon Omen into a wreck.

Scoop the loot, dock and repair. Mission accomplished.

Plex Wars

Running DED complexes in Cladari lowsec can be insanely profitable.

My associate's Tengu more than paid for itself with loot from just two 5/10 plexes: a B-Type Medium Shield Booster and a B-Type Invulnerability Field.

But with higher rewards comes higher risk and stronger competition. While in the Bleak Lands one can run dozens of plexes undisturbed, in Caldari space someone will probably finish a 4/10 before you are done probing it down.

Last night, my associate spotted a number of cosmic signatures on scan in Hakonen as well as two Tengus and a cloud of core scanner probes, a clear indication of exploration activity. As he scrambled to pinpoint the sites, I came into Hakonen myself in a covops frigate and decided to try scaring off competition with combat probes.

My associate resolved a 4/10 and started clearing it - a very easy task in a Tengu but we had to be on alert, switching back and forth between overview tabs to kill rats and check for probes or incoming ships. Unfortunately, the site only produced a shield trasnfer mod, not worth much.

I returned to probing and located a 6/10 in the same system, already being run by one of the Tengus I had seen earlier. The pilot welcomed me in local as my covops went in to check his progress, meaning he had a cloaked scout outside. I moved on and found him in the middle of clearing the second room out of four.

Well, if he refuses to be scared out of the plex, I will have to use force, I reckoned, moving two jumps into a system where I had a PVP Drake. The second gate, however, was camped so on my way back I had to take a different, longer route, making me a bit concerned about time.

The Tengu, however, was still not done and warped out leaving me with several NPCs in the third room and venting his frustration in local.

Competitor > I did leave you alone in the Scout Oupost
Competitor > To bad my other toon is to far away atm
Competitor > Good luck finishing the plex though

In most DED plexes, the last room does not really need to be cleared, you just grab the loot and warp off, so I brought my own Tengu pilot and proceeded to finish the complex. Unfortunately, I was rewarded with the same type of module as before, just of a better variety.

Oh well. I mailed my competitor, informing him of the poor haul. Turns out he had at least got something out of it.

Re:plex
From: Competitor
 Sent: 2012.12.18 00:15
To: Nursultan, 


I'm flying dangerous all the time.. hense the low sec :)

The plex did give a dread stasis thingy halfway though.

To bad you didn't get a nice drop.

Fly however you like and do shoot others :P

.-)

--------------------------------
plex
From: NursultanSent: 2012.12.17 22:07
To: Competitor,

the drop sucked
and i really hoped for a fight, shame your pvp char was away
gl, fly dangerous 0/

Timmy, Johnny, and Spike in Eve

Time and again, the debate about seeking good fights vs playing to win comes up on the official forums, r/eve and individual blogs. Both sides accuse each other of playing the game the wrong way, taking it too seriously, being mad and butthurt, you name it.

I wanted to look at it from a different perspective.

Wizards of the Coast, the developers of awesome card game Magic: the Gathering, have identified three major types of players in their audience - Timmy, Johnny and Spike.

Let me just quote MaRo's blog and add my comments:

Johnny is the creative gamer to whom Magic is a form of self-expression. Johnny likes to win, but he wants to win with style. It’s very important to Johnny that he win on his own terms. As such, it’s important to Johnny that he’s using his own deck. Playing Magic is an opportunity for Johnny to show off his creativity. Johnny likes a challenge. Johnny enjoys winning with cards that no one else wants to use. He likes making decks that win in innovative ways. What sets Johnny apart from the other profiles is that Johnny enjoys deckbuilding as much as (or more than) he enjoys playing. Johnny loves the cool interactions of the cards. He loves combo decks. Johnny is happiest when he’s exploring uncharted territory. Like Timmy (mentioned below), Johnny cares more about the quality of his wins than the quantity. For example, let's say Johnny builds a new deck that has a neat but difficult way to win. He plays ten games and manages to get his deck to do its thing… once. Johnny walks away happy.

This one is very easy to translate into Eve. Garmon, Kil2, Matari Exodus guys, people who use creative setups, handicap themselves with "honour" rules such as not blobbing and not using ECM, are willing to spend hours looking for that one perfect fight.

Spike is the competitive player. Spike plays to win. Spike enjoys winning. To accomplish this, Spike will play whatever the best deck is. Spike will copy decks off the Internet. Spike will borrow other players’ decks. To Spike, the thrill of Magic is the adrenalin rush of competition. Spike enjoys the stimulation of outplaying the opponent and the glory of victory. Spike cares more about the quantity of wins than the quality. For example, Spike plays ten games and wins nine of them. If Spike feels he should have won the tenth, he walks away unhappy.

This guy represents the opposite end of the spectrum. "IF YOUR IN A FAIR FIGHT YOUR DOING IT WRONG!!!1111LOL." We all know them, rolling with Falcons/cynos up their sleeve or at the very least a reinforcement fleet one jump out.

Timmy is what we in R&D call the "power gamer." Timmy likes to win big. He doesn’t want to eke out a last minute victory. Timmy wants to smash his opponents. He likes his cards to be impressive, and he enjoys playing big creatures and big spells. ...What sets Timmy apart from the other two profiles is that Timmy is motivated by fun. He plays Magic because it’s enjoyable. Timmy is very social. An important part of the game is sitting around with his friends. Timmy cares more about the quality of his win than the quantity of his wins. For example, Timmy sits down and plays ten games. He only wins three games out of ten but the three he wins, he dominates his opponent. Timmy had fun. Timmy walks away happy.

Now who is this guy in Eve? At first, I'm tempted to say this describes "elite PVP" groups like PL and R&K but these guys are not happy to win one out of ten fights. Does this describe people like Gevlon who want to do "stuff that matters", namely win and hold sovereignty? Or is it about people who fly pimped-out battleships or solo in supercaps? Unlike Magic though, Eve is unforgiving to such players.

In a later blog, MaRo breaks down the archetype further, explaining that Timmies can be:

• power gamers (looking for domination)
• social gamers (obvious one)
• diversity gamers (trying out new stuff all the time)
• adrenalin gamers (pretty obvious as well)

Check out the blog for breakdowns of other types.

MaRo also describes hybrid types such as Timmy/Spike or Spike/Timmy (which better matches my impression of PL/R&K and the like), Johhny/Spike or Spike/Johnny (the EFT warrior who insists that his build is better than all the rest), Timmy/Johnny or Johnny/Timmy (erm, DHB Wildcat?) and, finally, Timmy/Johnny/Spike, the guy who wants "to play big cards, have innovative decks, and yet still win as much as possible".

What do you, hardly-ever-commenting readers, think?

Small Fish

Sometimes when you're trying to catch a big fish you only get a small one.

A Tengu and a Proteus were reported to be in Kurniainen.

The easiest way to catch them would be baiting so I undocked my dual-rep Dominix and started belt-ratting, However, there were no signs of the strategic cruisers.

What I saw instead was a Nemesis stealth bomber who first disappeared quickly but then reappeared closer and redboxed me.

I let my armour drop to about a half while firing up my MWD and approaching the bomber. Perhaps because he felt I would explode soon, he allowed me to get within overheated scram range and that was it.


Syrias Bizniz > oh god... :D

Gank Noir

Audit Log 50.1337 - Vladimir Norkoff. Lazily exploring the Forge and Lonetrek lowsec areas. Guristas Provisional Outpost. Will probably yield nothing but worth a try. An Ishkur enters Otsasai just seconds before me and the pilot's name looks familiar. Vladimir Norkoff. Internal Revenue Service. Taxman. A gum-shoe at the service of hoods who suck the blood out of businessmen. Wonder what he's doing here, rubbing shoulders with trouble boys. The gunsel spends most of the time issuing back-tax claims in high-security areas. Whatever. I have a business with Guristas greasers.

Warp to the outpost and Norkoff is here. Tax collection must be paying poorly these days. Doesn't engage me though. So I pretend to be a clueless ratter and clear the pocket.

EVE System > Channel changed to Local : Otsasai
Vladimir Norkoff > feh everything is locking me up in there
Nursultan > nbody likes taxmen
Vladimir Norkoff > apparently not
Vladimir Norkoff > much better when there's only you locking me
Vladimir Norkoff > ..... ok so no warping in here


Yeah. Right. I warp to the second pocket and proceed to activate all the triggers, prompting a Dread Gurstas cruiser to show up. Some rats aggress me. Others throw lead at Norkoff who has followed me into the pocket and made his way to the faction cruiser. This is becoming annoying. I shoot the Dread Gurista as I approach him. And lock up Norkoff. The dick probably wants to snatch the loot and fade.

Not from me. Overheated point lands on Norkoff's Ishkur. Web follows quickly. I let my gats explode. He returns the favour. Drones buzz around both of us. His tank gives up rather quickly. Norkoff kicks off. I grab the loot. Dread Guristas dropped dust.

Nursultan > gf
Vladimir Norkoff > poopy
Vladimir Norkoff > hardy a gf
Vladimir Norkoff > everything in there was shooting me and you were in a BC dude

And you chose to stay there and test my patience. Dude.

My tax rebate stands at at 3,595,110.00 ISK.