Sunday 7 October 2018

The curious case of the PL spy


"Spies are ubiquitous" ~ Absence of Substance 2018. 
Comment made in relation to null blocks spying and backroom deals.  Specifically in relation to the Goons/GOTG peace deal.


"What?  A PL spy?  Who are you kidding?  We ain't got nothing worth spying on...?"  ~ Absence of Substance 2018

Comment made scarcely a week after the one above when a credible source revealed that Schneckt had a PL spy in our midst.




Yes dear reader as unlikely as it seems Sckneckt has been spied upon.  The information comes from a very credible source and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of it.  What none of us understand is the why...

As explained before, at Schneckt we don't take ourselves too seriously.

We have no CTA's.  We don't have any titans or supers.  We are such a small corp that we don't threaten anybody or anything of any size.

When we ping for fleets for important stuff such as defending a citadel we can maybe get 15 Schneckt guys in fleet.

Generally, when we are outnumbered or outmatched and clearly can't defend a citadel, we just shoot at it ourselves to get on the kill mail - yes, we do that - count the number of Schneckts on that kill mail.  It is after all just a 3 bil Astra right?

Further more our player base has such a diverse range of SP that a lot of the time our "newer" players (a fair percentage of those in corp) cannot even field a battleship or a HAC.

In truth what we do best is running sh#t fits in solo/micro gangs in and around FW space.  Some would argue we don't even do that well - we lose 2 ships for every 3 we kill.

In light of that it would maybe, at a stretch have made sense to find an Amarr militia spy in our corp.  We have however quit FW so even that motivation, scant as it was is now null and void..

What does not however in any way shape or form make sense is for an entity like PL to even know of our existence much less spy on us?

Maybe it is just my naivete and there is something I don't see.  Maybe it was a mistake from PL.  Maybe it is something else entirely.  Whatever the case, I am really curious to know...

If you are in PL and happen to read this, would you please help my perplexed self out?




Wednesday 9 May 2018

Effort shock and the Big Wheel(s).

Effort shock as far as I know is a lesser known (unfortunately) term that was coined by David Wong the editor of cracked. 

Beware that the site has its share of weird s...tuff and is not for every one.  I can however recommend the editorial on Effort shock

For those who only have time for the answers the term relates to the fact that doing anything worthwhile takes effort.  So far so ho hum, BUT David Wong then goes and does a stellar job in pointing out that not merely does it take effort, but normally it takes SO MUCH MORE effort to accomplish something, than we had ever dreamed it would.

Ok Absence... so you read slightly unhinged material and being rather obtuse, strive to palm of what many readers regard to be everyday and mundane, as profundity... How does this relate to EVE?

Image result for eve online learning curve memeIn every way of course...

EVE is a fabulous game with a very infamous learning curve.  To get better takes time, effort and deliberate practice.

At every junction one has to actively make an effort to step up to the next level. 

In the early days time was the only way in which to progress in terms of SP. 

Even though SP can now be bought, in practical terms players have to somehow earn it - be it in game ISK for injectors, plex or real life effort to acquire money to exchange or plex/injectors - nothing is free.


The learning curve does not only relate to SP - the real learning curve is in player skill.  And knowledge.

Want to get into frigate pvp?  Learning curve.  Step up to destroyers?  Learning curve.  Cruisers...?  Yes learning curve.  Low sec? Null sec?  Small gang?  Nano?

The learning curve is not limited to PVP of course - PVE has it too.  PI and reactions?  Manufacturing?  Research?  Even mining has its own can of worms.

As per David Wong the surprise is not that effort is involved but how much more effort is involved in stepping up to the next endeavour. 

Now this is not a lament - on the contrary - this level of effort is in actual fact that makes this game worth playing - to the extent that I sometimes wonder whether long term EVE players are not victims of the sunk cost fallacy

TL;DR;  The sunk cost fallacy is the notion that (in the EVE context) players continue playing the game merely because of hours and dollars already committed, when most of the enjoyment in the game itself has passed.

Ok, Absence so you really have to make an effort to achieve the bare basics in the game... but surely everything is not about you...?

Ah dear reader, indeed it is not.  Today's missive in actual fact is about the Big wheels.  The enablers and the content creators.

In your authors' corp there are a few individuals that do an enormous amount of work that often goes unnoticed and is mostly under appreciated. 

We have for instance a website, slack channel and team speak that is all organised and hosted by an individual. At his own cost and in his own time.

In game we have a free jump freighting service that would move our ships from Jita/Hek/Rens to the warzone manned by 3 or 4 people. 

For those that do not know, this takes a 10Bil ISK ship and every single trip involves risk to that ship. 

Also often forgotten is the 40mil ISK or so for jump fuel for every trip.  The time involved, the need for an extra account (or accounts) with cyno characters.

We have corp doctrines and in some instances ships belonging to the corp (bought and paid for by selfless members - we have a 0% tax rate). 

Ships and fits that were researched and fit for purpose.  Shipped and staged (or moved via carrier jumps to the new staging point). 

In a recent citadel defence in excess of 20 battleships with associated command booster/webbing/tackle ships belonging to the corp were issued - no cost to the line members and losses accrue to the corp. 

We are speaking many, many billions of ISK here in addition to the effort to organise this little get together.


The common thread in all these endeavours seem to be that they invariably involve mostly the same people.  People that I expect are hovering on the edge of burnout at the moment given the levels of citadel defence fleets we had to field in the last little bit.

Bear in mind that these are busy people with real life jobs, hopes and dreams - in addition to their EVE lives.... 

From the perspective of someone like myself that can barely get himself into a not too sh#t fit frigate to run a novice plex, this type of thing leaves me in awe - I am under no illusions - there is no way I would be able to do this.

A corp like ours with a number of new players, alpha players and witless older players like myself simply cannot exist without enablers and content creators like these. 

Our corp is also not unique in this - the theme repeats in most other corps and even alliances - reliance on a couple of key individuals is such that whole corps/alliances have closed down or fail-cascaded  when one or more of these big wheels left.

Sometimes someone else steps up and life continues, sometimes the line members just move on.  Few players function without the prime movers (you get exceptions like truly solo players).

Absence is your corp in trouble...?

A dear reader no, not that I am aware of...

What I am however aware of, is that creating content is hard - much much harder than most of us realise.


















Tuesday 17 April 2018

FW: A venerable tsunami of farmers.

Long standing veterans of faction warfare are used to the ebb and flow in the warzone.  One faction will be on top and after a while things will change and the opposing faction will be on top...  


And so it goes.
"damn they plex so much they can't even keep up with the bashing"
~ Meo Fafard

The Minmatar militia went from majority control of the warzone in December 2017 to "only" 28 systems (out of 71) in Minmatar control currently.  

What's more, at the time of writing no fewer than 7 systems are vulnerable and likely to be flipped soon (see table below).

7 Systems happens to be 10% of the total war zone and a quarter of what Minmil currently control.

Even the most casual of observers would find that a spectacular decline - or rise - if your vantage point is from an Amarr militia perspective.

Indeed dear reader, looking at the table below one might be forgiven for wondering what in the world happened to Minmil?  Another civil war?  (No).  They went into hibernation?  (No).  Their morale was crushed because the likes of me joined their cause?  (No.  Ermmm... well maybe, but I don't think so). 

Well what about the other side of the equation?  Did the Amarr do anything special?  (No).  FCON joined Caldari milita? (Maybe, but not directly).  Suitonia's project is paying off?  (Don't know, according to zkill the guy spends most of his time in 0.0, and credit where credit is due, the momentum started swinging towards the Amarr long before this group showed up).



Now any and all of the above obviously contribute in some way shape or form, but the real reason for the very rapid swing in fortunes is farmers.  Farmers?  Yes.  Farmers.

Farmers are the nicest people

As a relative newcomer to faction warfare I have to admit I never realised the extend to which the farmers influenced the war zone.  

Whilst Minmil controlled the war zone I also did not notice many farmers as I don't warp in on blues in plexes.  

Since the swing in fortunes, boy have we been inundated by streams and streams of warp stabbed farmers.

Your author killed two of them and was rewarded with the nice comments in the image to the left (by no means an uncommon occurrence - both the killing of stabbed farmers and the insults) .



A cursory look at zkill tells the sad sad story of Demone DED, Demone1 DED and Demone2 DED:

This particular person has three farmer accounts and by the looks of it farmers are universally despised as zkill shows they are killed by Minmatar militia, Amarr militia, as well as the local pirates in the area.

Suffice to say Demone* is not the only stabbed farmer in the war zone.

To this end the news from fanfest about stabs being disallowed in plexes in the future is most welcome.  Certainly a step in the right direction but due to the sheer  number of farmers I am of the opinion it will not matter much - for any one of these kills the toon in question probably ran 10 or more plexes before he got caught.  

Such is the nature of the LP payouts that a player will "earn" enough LP completing even a single novice plex to pay for 10 or more of these ships at 600k ISK each.

It is also worth noting that these farmer alts can be very low SP alts - and this is the reason why so many systems are vulnerable and not flipped.  By-enlarge farmer alts don't have the SP to be worth anything in an I-hub bash.  Nor does an I-hub bash directly provide any ISK.

What exactly the answer to this farmer problem is, I do not know.  Indeed one would surmise that had there been easy answers CCP would simply enact them. 

There are a couple of suggestions from the self same suitonia on his CSM election forum.  There are other people on other forums that also have opinions.  For the time being your author has neither the time nor the energy (or the wherewithal) to come up with solutions himself and will simply play the ball as it lies.

In his corporation, Schneckt corp members are warned to not be overly concerned with the state of the war zone and systems - no doubt by seasoned veterans that has seen this before.  Schneckt is but a small corp and it simply does not serve to burn oneself out for this purpose. 

Against these numbers of farmers there is not much that we as a corp can do.  We also had a citadel to defend (more on this in the future) and some other adventures in the offing (also possibly more of this in the future)...

In the mean time we concentrate in plexing Lamaa (where we live) down.  We are under no illusions that we would hold it under any sort of sustained pressure - no, purely as a driver of conflict and for the time being, a small source of pride...

As always we try to have fun.  See you in the war zone!







Wednesday 21 February 2018

ISK

During my latest job search one of the recurring requirements in order to be a good corp member was "an independent, reliable source of ISK".

Sadly, by this (and many other) measure(s), your author is not a good corp member.  He has no "independent, reliable" source of income.  For him generating ISK tends to be ad hoc - i.e. when he's broke.  Because he is prone to PvE burnout he also tends to only farm ISK until he is barely not broke any more.

A casual query in corp revealed various "good", some even "great" corpies with lucrative income sources.

One has an alt corp in a wormhole.  Another manufactures rigs.  We have a builder of capitals.  Yet another has an army of alts doing PI.  All of these endeavours take a bit of time, skill and toil -  virtues distinctly lacking in your authors' persona.

To be honest the most tempting source of ISK  was suggested by a corp mate who claims to find 500 or so plex "lying on the floor of his hangar" every now and then - i.e. put there by his credit card.

Tempting, but as explained before I have an unfortunate moral aversion to this.

Of course with great amounts laziness and small amounts of creativity the commensurate adjustment to expectations and quality of life soon follows.

Whereas the aforementioned "good" corpies can fly "decent" ships and maintain losses of 3 to 5 Billion ISK a month, your author cannot.

He makes do with somewhat less "decent" ships and have to contain his losses.

Still even at his level he has to raise 500 million to 1 Billion ISK per month.

ISK generation follows the course of least resistance, which in the faction warfare context this means "selling" loyalty points from FW missions.

There is a nice guide on FW missions published by the Crossing Zebra's website.  In it that author - Gorski Car outlines how he runs batches of 10 FW missions in around 90 minutes.

Of course I am no Gorski Car and the same loop of 10 faction warfare missions takes me closer to three hours.

In addition Gorski seemingly has the luxury of running missions only when Minmatar is at Tier 4 or 5. Sadly waiting for an advantageous tier is not an option when you are broke.

Running missions and obtaining loyalty points is only part of the story.  LP has to be converted into items which in turn has to be sold on the market - (read: more time and effort).

One gets roughly 50k LP per mission and normally get a conversion rate of around 1000 ISK per LP - so I have to run between 10 and 20 missions in a month to sustain this level of activity.  Five to 10 hours a month of missions/hauling/market transacting.

Image result for paradox meme
This happens to be the absolute minimum amount of ISK to maintain this level of involvement (T1 frigates in novice plexes).  This is ok, and it happens to still be fun for a noob like me, but I cannot help but think longer term this will need to stagnation and falling into just another rut.

The consequence is that ISK generation has to be upped in some way shape or form.

One has to appreciate the irony in the fact that in order to experience PvP to the full one has to embrace a system that mandates more PvE to generate ISK, and at the same time then encourages risk aversion to contain losses.

I cannot help but think this is why some people stoop to botting.  Tempting but not for me.

Just one more of life's great contradictions.

If you, dear reader happen to have a nice idea for easy ISK please let me know!