Fountain: When the fuck are we going to welp a supercap fleet

[Fisty]

As somone who genuinely has little idea about the grand sweeps of campaign strategy I don't get why my idea is so horrible.

As I see it the current situation is that we have logged-off supers and caps stranded in 6VDT and you have a significant propotion of your active pilots camping the system. Secondly, you guys are able to easily resupply at will via the cloudring bridge network, with reserves in PNQ.

So it would seem that hitting the bridges and/or PNQ would either:

a) have a much higher degree of success if you keep your pilots ect in 6VDT, which if successful would make fighting the campign more . Combine that with PL hitting you at home would make sitting in 6VDT while the world burns much less attractive.

b) we break your camp, getting out supers and caps out (possibly additional assets) since half of you burned off to defend your supply route. The added bonus is that we get a much needed morale boost. Of corse going forward this changes nothing since you can go back to camping but it might motivate our guys and save assets - making 6VDT "just another" station sytem.

But by the time anyone or whatever those space gypsies PL do, you are already fucked as we have our shit here and don't need more reinforcements, and our timers are favourable to us and our allies left shooing gypsies off our lawns at home.

Time to start firesaling shit in 6vdt

[JimFromIT]

But by the time anyone or whatever those space gypsies PL do, you are already fucked as we have our shit here and don't need more reinforcements, and our timers are favourable to us and our allies left shooing gypsies off our lawns at home.

Time to start firesaling shit in 6vdt

I'm not suggesting that this is what we should do now - I'm suggesting this is what we should have done as soon as we knew you were going to camp 6VDT. With regards to hitting the bridge - it's what we should have done as soon as the invasion started......

[Endie]

Everyone coming up with "what IT should have done" is forgetting that the way that this works isn't by militarily defeating them. This camp is working brilliantly at revealing, yet again, that putting Molle in charge of a campaign is a recipe for ramshackle, comedic disaster. While Molle is desperately recycling any corporation with a hundred members in order to keep numbers up, next time he orders everyone into a system for an operation, how many people will be dumb enough to follow the genius of 6VDT, PR-, H-W and the rest?

On the mild unintended consequences side we have, slightly unfortunately, delayed the departure of one IT corporation due to them having too much trapped in 6VDT :V

[Endie]

Also, people are forgetting that we reinsured by letting AAA and friends know in advance what was happening. Even imagining that IT managed to pull off a series of actions and save the last timer in 6VDT, they would still have lost the just-as-important system of 49- and would be staring down the barrel of losing the east. You cannot hold Period basis without a tolerant Delve, and you cannot hold either with a hostile Querious.

[Hratli Smirks]

On the mild unintended consequences side we have, slightly unfortunately, delayed the departure of one IT corporation due to them having too much trapped in 6VDT :V

DICE should just leave now and wait a month or two to evacuate their stuff, you know, after their application gets accepted by RAZOR

[MpozoY]

PL isn't doing anything of consequence and heavy resupply doesn't need the z0rtal

Plus it's simply a matter of, if hitting those systems didn't work the last 10 times it was tried, what would be different now?

You're committing the mistake of thinking hitting infrastructure points is the key to winning a morale war. If IT really had a one trillion isk warchest Molle should have said "Oh, assets trapped in 6VDT? Buy them all again in Jita on my credit line, we''ll settle accounts after the goonie rifters have been driven off screaming" and been back in the fight in hours, hitting from a new and unexpected direction. But IT leadership is literally incapable of this kind of thinking because they've convinced themselves they're fighting a land war in Asia instead of playing a video game for fun.

[MpozoY]

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Interest in the subject, will participate in the discussion. Together, we can come to the right answer. I'm sure.

[Lake]

Jim -

There were valid responses, perma-sieging a system isn't a tactic without counter. IT leadership is too dysfunctional to enact any of them. The siege is to demonstrate that to the IT membership.

Your posting of "we should have..." shows that at least a portion (if only one) of the IT membership is getting the message.

Edit: Damn. Endie already said this. Though I'm confused as to how he has a reply 16 minutes ago to a post 1 minutes ago.

[Malaclypse]

DICE should just leave now and wait a month or two to evacuate their stuff, you know, after their application gets accepted by RAZOR

Also we're fully aware that the enourmous skill and womanpower centered around LadyScarlet would be too much for us to handle. And while to many Tenal seems vast and empty it probably still wouldn't be big enough to saturate her hunger and need for broad horizons. Not to mention that the sheer pressure of DICE's eliteness would endanger the alliance to collapse and, quite literally, get squeezed to death by the voluminous expectations.

[JimFromIT]

Everyone coming up with "what IT should have done" is forgetting that the way that this works isn't by militarily defeating them.

I'm doing my best (and probably failing) not to sound like a dumb ignoramous, it just seems that calling for fleets then standing them down is damaging to morale, while taking those fleets and hitting stuff that makes life easier for the hostiles - even if not significant - would be good for morale.

Since we all know it will be morale that wins this war it doesn't seem like it would have been a terrible plan ; agreed, all this should have happened earlier on and not one stroke before midnight......

[HADES]

The entire 6VDT campaign is one giant F You to Molle.

I think that's what you actually meant...

[MpozoY]

I'm doing my best (and probably failing) not to sound like a dumb ignoramous, it just seems that calling for fleets then standing them down is damaging to morale, while taking those fleets and hitting stuff that makes life easier for the hostiles - even if not significant - would be good for morale.

Since we all know it will be morale that wins this war it doesn't seem like it would have been a terrible plan ; agreed, all this should have happened earlier on and not one stroke before midnight......

War in EVE is all about convincing your players to log in while convincing the other side not to. There's really not much else to it. You have to make the game as fun as possible for the guys you do get while making it as crappy as you can for your opponents.

This is one of the fundamental flaws with the current sov system - you have no objectives that a gang of less than about 100-150 can do in any kind of reasonable time frame, so if you don't get those numbers, as far as sov warfare is concerned you might as well just stand down and try again later. Even moderate resistance drives these required numbers up in a hurry.

[JimFromIT]

This is one of the fundamental flaws with the current sov system - you have no objectives that a gang of less than about 100-150 can do in any kind of reasonable time frame, so if you don't get those numbers, as far as sov warfare is concerned you might as well just stand down and try again later. Even moderate resistance drives these required numbers up in a hurry.

True - but before it gets to that point you have to figure out why an alliance of ~5000 has a problem geting 100-150 in fleet.

[Devilish Ledoux]

True - but before it gets to that point you have to figure out why an alliance of ~5000 has a problem geting 100-150 in fleet.

Because they're not having fun.

[penifSMASH]

Because they're not having fun.

how much fun is your dead wife having

[Checkbox Poll]

Because they're not having fun.

NO FUN ALLOWED

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

True - but before it gets to that point you have to figure out why an alliance of ~5000 has a problem geting 100-150 in fleet.

Your alliance and it's previous iterations have never taken loss well. Once you get a losing streak you never seem to recover without either a new campaign or new powerful allies coming in. Or the other side becoming bored.

[Soft Insanity]

Your alliance and it's previous iterations have never taken loss well. Once you get a losing streak you never seem to recover without either a new campaign or new powerful allies coming in. Or the other side becoming bored.

That's really a problem with a lot of people here.

[Tradyk]

You can do sov warfare with a gang smaller then 100-150. Just drop ten SCars onto an i-hub - that does sov warfare fairly quickly. Solar/Legion love doing this around kalevala/geminate.

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

That's really a problem with a lot of people here.

It's true for most of Eve. But some entities suffer it faster and more completely than others. Tri is a good example.

[Checkbox Poll]

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/corp/Destr...fluence/events

looks like dice is peacing out

[Phey Onat]

How surprising!

[Dots]

True - but before it gets to that point you have to figure out why an alliance of ~5000 has a problem geting 100-150 in fleet.

When you form up and 9/10 times you are trying desperately to kite an alpha fleet with a shitload of maelstroms, guess what happens... people lose ships and with that lose faith on their leadership. Especially if those leaders are the first ones that evacced.
Also Molle saying "It's ON" or "I will lead that op to at least lead you to glorious battle" and coming short doesnot really boost moralle either.
A great example of boosting morale and getting numbers is the bomber fleet in 6vdt.

In short, leaders can only make so many mistakes and they have to think twice before announcing bid plans and making promises. There is a thin line between an inspired leader and a demagogue and that is how many of your BS can you back up.

[Altaica]

I'm doing my best (and probably failing) not to sound like a dumb ignoramous, it just seems that calling for fleets then standing them down is damaging to morale, while taking those fleets and hitting stuff that makes life easier for the hostiles - even if not significant - would be good for morale.

Since we all know it will be morale that wins this war it doesn't seem like it would have been a terrible plan ; agreed, all this should have happened earlier on and not one stroke before midnight......

I don't think anyone's objecting to the tactics of what you suggest so much as the impact it will have in the current context. Presuming you're not from high leadership of some sort then the fact that you can come up with this plan instead of Molle is part of the problem. We've seen through the various leaks that there are leadership disagreements within the alliance but through that everyone seems to continue to respect the authority/wisdom of Molle, one could say that this is one of the threads holding the alliance together.

Any plan, no matter how successful that came from another source other then Molle would serve to undermine his position and make more members question the wisdom of listening to him and ralleying to his calls to stop being headless chickens and move all your stuff to x and y system.

Basicly to get through the 6vdt camp without taking a signifigant moral and assets hit not only did there need to be a plan to break everything out but it had to be organized by the currently accepted leadership structure, other sources of solutions would lead to even more questioning of the leadership structure and more internal termoil.

[Snapstyle]

Honestly, I feel the thread that holds IT together (SirMolle) is starting to unravel because I'm sure SirMolle has the brains to come up with these basic strategies. In all honesty if you look at the fleet participation these past few weeks, especially after SirMolle's ZOMGCTA where he was supposed to hit cloud ring and send us all running backwards like headless chickens to defend our home turf, has hardly ever reached over 200. At this point I think SirMolle has lost the influence he had over the majority of his pilots.

[Lordo]

"Guys guys i am only having a 5 year losing streak guys"

[Malaclypse]

"Guys guys i am only having a 5 year losing streak guys"

5 years ago (so beginning 2006) BoB was actually rather good to go still. Killing the ASCN titan and winning the GNW (okay, that was mainly MC) were still to come 5 years ago. A 2,5 to 3 years losing streak is bad enough though.

[RansomList]

At this point I think SirMolle has lost the influence he had over the majority of his pilots.

In theory you only need influence over leadership, whom exert influence over the peons in your name.

That said, in theory spam recruiting destroys any semblance of quality at an alliance level and loyalty beyond ones corp.

[MartCo]

...send us all running backwards like headless chickens...

As this video indicates:

Chickens do not require a head to remain alive.

[Draws obvious parallels to IT Alliance]

[MpozoY]

In theory you only need influence over leadership, whom exert influence over the peons in your name.

That said, in theory spam recruiting destroys any semblance of quality at an alliance level and loyalty beyond ones corp.

Molle's problem has never been influence. His problem has always been that he sees his own alliance rank and file as dogshit only fit to grace his bootheel long enough to grind them into the face of his enemies, and his 'allies' only fit to crouch on hand and knee so he can tread on their backs while doing so. Spam recruiting destroys alliance culture, but he never cared about that, insofar as 'culture' meant anything beyond x'ing up, shooting the primary, and pouring tax isk into his wallet.

[Soft Insanity]

80 man gang tried to get into 6VDT.... didn't work.

[cyberjunk]

80 man gang tried to get into 6VDT.... didn't work.

Looks like the scrapheap ganknight crew chose 6vd-t as their destination and got what they wanted. And epic fight and the chance to die in a fire.
Also Vee streamed ralara's speech straight onto the goon TS server leading to allot of lulz.

[Snapstyle]

"OMG, guys i think theres a spy in this channel!"

Loved it.

[MtA]

Cuz sharing is caring...




Also, IT bombers, best bombers.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=8725596

[tulisin]

At last, a successful IT bombing run.

[Lucas Quaan]

80 man gang tried to get into 6VDT.... didn't work.

Yes it did, as evidenced by the fact that we all died in there.

edit: and holy shit! That Ralara NC-rage at the end was spectacular.

[Soft Insanity]

Yes it did, as evidenced by the fact that we all died in there.

edit: and holy shit! That Ralara NC-rage at the end was spectacular.

Yes, you are correct. Intel initially said they didn't get in, but KB says otherwise.

Apparently another 80 man hac gang tried again. Got in, bounced around a bit and got hit themselves.

[Thadeus Uatar]

Send moar please, the last batch was especially delicious.

[The Mittani]

I'm not suggesting that this is what we should do now - I'm suggesting this is what we should have done as soon as we knew you were going to camp 6VDT. With regards to hitting the bridge - it's what we should have done as soon as the invasion started......

realtalk

we are at the phase of sovwar where the invader crushes the defender's throat with their bootheel. a 6vdt only happens after a long series of failures on the part of the defender, because hellcamps are incredibly risky unless you can utterly dominate the defender in every single timezone.

so the question of 'what should you do in the situation of 6vdt' is incorrect, as the actual question is 'what should have been done months ago to prevent the situation degrading to the point where a hellcamp could even be possible'

[Sansa Comfrey]

"Guys guys i am only having a 5 year losing streak guys"

So BoB is the EVE equivalent of the Toronto Maple Leafs?

And Molle is Brian Burke.

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

Anyone get a recording of the rant?

[teds]

clicky

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

Thank ya sir

[Gynoceros]

So BoB is the EVE equivalent of the Toronto Maple Leafs?

And Molle is Brian Burke.

This is a metaphor to which everyone here can relate, I'm sure.

[Soft Insanity]

sure can, I love trees

[Dagny Bronstein]

The main victory that clusterfuck has gained in 6VDT so far is that they managed to make everybody (at least outside IT & allies who live in blissful ignorance anyways) believe that 6VDT is actually important.

The only winning move for IT is not to play - a victory is unlikely given the "hellcamp" while propaganda fallout from welping a supercap fleet would be terrible and just play into goons' hands.

Even if Clusterfuck would lose a battle for 6VDT they would just carry on without huge morale loss - after all they have tried to spin 6VDT into a deciding battle for IT, not for goons/testies.

I guess my choice would have been to keep goons on their toes for the full duration of RF timers (so the don't spread too much during that time) while not defending the system with supercaps.

Let clusterfuck have it for the moment, use the time to prepare a more adequate defense for targets that are likely to be hit after 6VDT - but make sure to take back 6VDT once goons' attention is elsewhere (because they try to replicate the same approach in the next system of their choice).

If there is any better rational approach to that problem I would be delighted to hear it.

IMO goon propaganda has managed to turn 6VDT into a battle in which the stakes are way too high for IT and extremely unevenly distributed.
Clusterfuck have tried to determine the location of the fight, the timing of the fight and the stakes of the fight - anybody who accepts such a fight (in EVE as in RL) is imho just a fool.

[captainktainer]

The main victory that clusterfuck has gained in 6VDT so far is that they managed to make everybody (at least outside IT & allies who live in blissful ignorance anyways) believe that 6VDT is actually important.

The only winning move for IT is not to play - a victory is unlikely given the "hellcamp" while propaganda fallout from welping a supercap fleet would be terrible and just play into goons hands.

Even if Clusterfuck would lose a battle for 6VDT they would just carry on without huge morale loss - after all they have tried to spin 6VDT into a deciding battle for IT, not for goons/testies.

I guess my choice would have been to keep goons on their toes for the full duration of RF timers (so the don't spread too much during that time) while not defending the system with supercaps.

Let clusterfuck have it for the moment, use the time to prepare a more adequate defense for targets that are likely to be hit after 6VDT - but make sure to take back 6VDT once goons' attention is elsewhere (because they try to replicate the same approach in the next system of their choice).

IT's Avatar trying to break out of the system after downtime sure thinks 6VDT is important.

Meanwhile, IT is paralyzed enough by the hellcamp that they aren't even bothering to contest the advances of Against ALL Authorities in Querious, or ROMANIAN-LEGION in Period Basis. IT is not making any progress on any timers within their space, and they are bleeding corps.

Furthermore, how the hell is IT going to be able to crack 4 consecutive timers in USTZ to take back 6VDT? IT hasn't won a battle in USTZ since before it was IT.

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

The main victory that clusterfuck has gained in 6VDT so far is that they managed to make everybody (at least outside IT & allies who live in blissful ignorance anyways) believe that 6VDT is actually important.

The only winning move for IT is not to play - a victory is unlikely given the "hellcamp" while propaganda fallout from welping a supercap fleet would be terrible and just play into goons' hands.

Even if Clusterfuck would lose a battle for 6VDT they would just carry on without huge morale loss - after all they have tried to spin 6VDT into a deciding battle for IT, not for goons/testies.

I guess my choice would have been to keep goons on their toes for the full duration of RF timers (so the don't spread too much during that time) while not defending the system with supercaps.

Let clusterfuck have it for the moment, use the time to prepare a more adequate defense for targets that are likely to be hit after 6VDT - but make sure to take back 6VDT once goons' attention is elsewhere (because they try to replicate the same approach in the next system of their choice).

If there is any better rational approach to that problem I would be delighted to hear it.

IMO goon propaganda has managed to turn 6VDT into a battle in which the stakes are way too high for IT and extremely unevenly distributed.
Clusterfuck have tried to determine the location of the fight, the timing of the fight and the stakes of the fight - anybody who accepts such a fight (in EVE as in RL) is imho just a fool.

Spinning like a fucking top.

edit: I sat to think a minute on if there was a small possibility this person actually believed this pile.

I decided there is not.

[BobFromMarketing [banned]]

If taking one system from an alliance completely paralyzes their war machine for a week solid as they bleed station systems in multiple regions while losing major corporations that contain the vast majority of their active playerbase, it's an important system.


That is one hell of a run on sentence.

[Dagny Bronstein]

IT's Avatar trying to break out of the system after downtime sure thinks 6VDT is important.

There's a difference between "don't want to have this ship trapped here for the next few days/weeks - would really like to make actual use of it" and "If we lose this system everything is going to collapse."

Also equating the importance of an asset to its handler/owner with its importance to the alliance is just a terrible fallacy.

Meanwhile, IT is paralyzed enough by the hellcamp that they aren't even bothering to contest the advances of Against ALL Authorities in Querious, or ROMANIAN-LEGION in Period Basis. IT is not making any progress on any timers within their space, and they are bleeding corps.

correlation is not causation? If I am not mistaken SirMolle announced IT wouldn't care too much about losing Period Basis long before the 6VDT camp happened.
Unless you think Molle has psychic powers (or good intel sources) it seems very unlikely there is a causal connection between these two events (he decided not to defend Period Basis because he knew 6VDT would happen and was paralyzed by this knowledge??).

Furthermore, how the hell is IT going to be able to crack 4 consecutive timers in USTZ to take back 6VDT? IT hasn't won a battle in USTZ since before it was IT.

valid point, only reasonable answer would be PL.
as for "4 consecutive timers" - my impression is that goons would really hate to lose 6VDT once they have it. This can result in situations in which IT makes goons chose between making further progress advancing into Fountain or turning back to defend 6VDT.
I don't expect IT to retake 6VDT soon (if it should get lost) but I think the threat to retake 6VDT is a nice asset (and it's only a good threat because goons made so many posts on how important 6VDT apparently is).