Time For An Intervention

Ok, it's time we had a chat wormholers.
No this does not apply to all of you but to those it does, cut this shit out.

The thing I'm talking about is talking in local in WHs.

For the past few months I've been seeing my local chat window flash more and more often when scouting chains and it's really starting to piss me off.

Waving hi in local to me when you see me jump in is about the dumbest thing you can do.  It immediately alerts me that there is someone else present and it also tells me that said person is not smart and most likely a total noob.
I guess you feel clever that you spotted me in some cloaked ship parked off a WH?  Ok, congrats.  Now how about instead of alerting me, and anyone else who might be visiting your system, that you're around, how about you use your advantage of knowing I'm there to try kill me?

There are VERY few good reasons to speak up in local chat in a WH and all of them involve the other people in the WH already knowing that you're there.
Information and surprise count for a hell of a lot in wspace and every time you speak in local you are losing information advantage and losing credibility as a competent pilot.

While this is sadly no longer as true as it used to be, wspace has always attracted a higher caliber of player due to the inherent difficulties of living there and as such, I expect better than to have random scrubs wave at me in local.
I don't tolerate it from people I fly with and I immediately lose respect for anyone who does it without a very good reason.

Just don't do it.

Confidence, Estimations and Risk

Confidence, Estimations and Risk

Risk is an inherent and key part of all aspects of EVE.  Each time you undock a ship you are taking the risk that there exists someone with the means and willpower to blow it up.  People who survive in EVE learn through experience and knowledge what risks are worth taking, when to take them and how to avoid them.
EVE is one of the only games where you can very easily lose everything you have with no way of getting it back and it is this real risk that makes EVE what it is.
One of the first rules all capsuleers will hear and need to learn is 'do not fly what you cannot afford to lose' yet how people go about defining and maintaining this rule varies wildly across the reaches of space.

I find EVE requires developing a balance in your risk taking.  These days, especially in wormholes, it is not hard to replace ships, even pimped out T3s and capitals, since ISK is not hard to make but I still do not go and blindly throw my Proteus into every fight I can, even if I can replace it at will.
I don't consider myself to be risk averse but no one is expected to whelp multibillion ISK ships into no win scenarios if the scenario can be avoided or if lesser or more suitable ships will do the same job or even better.

So how do you know when to fight?  There are a lot of people who make the call to always fight and while I certainly appreciate this approach, and tend to take it myself, you need to at least know what you're getting yourself into and what tool to bring for the job.

When deciding if to fight, you can make two mistakes. A) You can under estimate your opponent, or B) you can over estimate them.
Underestimating the enemy is an obvious mistake and tends to lead to you waking up in a station going 'what happened?'.  You can avoid underestimating your opponent by scouting properly and assuming they know what they are doing with the ships they have.
As a general rule, I find if you assume people are at least 80% competent in the use of their space ships, you will almost never overestimate them since in realty, most people are far worse than 80% efficient at piloting their ships.
Unfortunately, assuming people know what they are doing is what leads us to overestimating people, since a lot of them do not.
Overestimating is a different kind of mistake, but it is a mistake none the less.  It doesn’t lead to your death but what it does lead to is missing fights; not engaging and generally scaring away people by bringing way too many ships to the point where people won't engage you. 
I find I fall into this trap a lot.
As I mentioned before, I like to assume people are able to fly their ships to 80% efficiency.  I also know the ships I fly quite well and tend to know what they can and what they can't handle so if I'm facing odds that I know I can't handle at 80% enemy competency, I tend to be more careful than I should be and it generally ends with me sitting in space wondering why they won't engage me or why they ran away, since in reality, the 4 BCs that I brought 3 guys in T3s to blow up instead of just my Proteus were T1 fit and being flown by 4 month old toons that could in no way fly them at 80% efficiency.  Oh well.

So how can you make accurate estimations on the enemy's abilities so that you can get good fights out of them?  Well, the most important one is to know who your enemy is.  Are they a 3 year old, large wormhole entity full of bittervets in T3s with 100mil SP? Yeah, they might know what they are doing.  Are they EVE Uni or Brave Newbies in assorted T1 junkers?  Well, these corps are designed for rookie pilots, they don't have maxed skills and 90% of them will have T1 guns, T1 tank and poorly fit ships.  This kind of context matters a lot. 

In SUSU we found this out a few times with Brave Newbies.  The first couple of times we tried fighting them we brought guardians, tech 3s, ewar support, the entire wormhole PVP package in what we considered to be suitable numbers for fighting a force of T1 cruisers, BCs and BSs outnumbering us about 2-1. 
At the time we were annoyed that they wouldn't fight us but in hind sight, the call not to engage us at that time was spot on.  As their CEO put it in local 'There's no way we can break 4 Guardians'.
Eventually we figured it out and went in to pick a fight in T1 cruisers with minimal (ie 2) T1 logi support and they gave us a great fight.

In this day and age everyone and their mother flies T3s in wormholes but not all of those people are willing to really risk them in combat. 
I hear large WH entities complain a lot about people not fighting them but they all do exactly the same thing.  They roll out their 25 T3s and 5 Guardians and start kicking in doors.  Well think about it, what kind of fights is such a fleet actually going to find in w-space?
The answer is very few.
You'll get to gank the odd site running group and you'll get to have big fights against other large groups just like you with the exact same fleet comp on the rare occasion you're both kicking in doors at the same time but as for the randoms you run into? Yeah, not going to happen.
It's plainly obvious to everyone except for the groups who do this why people won't fight them but with very few exceptions, these groups will never ship down or actually offer reasonable fights.
Take what KILL did a while ago to REPO as a typical example.  They got mad that REPO wouldn't fight them, placed an eviction fleet into their system and then demanded REPO fight them or get evicted.
Now, REPO are no scrubs and they did go and fight but given they were severely outnumbered, the result was about the same as if they'd sat in their POS and self-destructed.

At the end of the day, most people do actually want to fight but they do not want to fight with zero chance of winning.  Can you really blame them for that?
I find it extremely useful to have some way to interact with forces you can't fight head on.  Personally I use a 100mn Tengu for this role as it's a ship that I will willingly throw into virtually any and all situations, even blindly, since it has a very high survival rate if I find myself in too deep.  You can throw it solo against 20+ ships quite safely and while it does require paying attention and some pilot skill, it lets you mess around with forces you can't brawl with and at least interact on some level.
It doesn’t have to be a Tengu either, any decent kiting or sniping ship will do for giving your larger neighbors something to chase.
Obviously no ship is unkillable and I have lost 5-6 Tengus in PVP but in the end it always comes down to flying what you can afford to lose.

The key to finding good fights has three main components. 
Firstly, you need to have confidence in the ship you are flying and you need to know what it can handle.  This is something you will need to learn from experience.
Secondly, you need to be able to make estimate regarding your enemy and what they can handle.  Will they run away if you bring logistics? Do they have backup? Can you deal with their Guardians?  This also takes practice but being able to anticipate how your enemy will deal with a situation is very valuable.
Thirdly, you need to take risks.  PVP without risk is not really PVP.  Killing a lone Drake with 5 Proteus with 3 Guardians for support has no risk and hence is not exciting and barely counts as PVP at all.  On the other hand, slugging it out against an equal force is always going to be more satisfying, win or lose.

Bottom line is this:  When in doubt, shoot it.  Is it bait?  Shoot it, see what happens. 
The amount of things you shoot should not change.  What should change is what ships you bring to each situation.
Enemy has us out numbered in brawlers and we have no logistics? Kiting time.  Enemy is in T1 ships with no support? Better leave the tech 3s in the hanger.  Time to go shoot a bait Gnosis? Where’s my 100mn Tengu.
In the end, situational awareness and knowing when to ship down makes better fights for everyone.
Sadly, shipping down is a concept most people in wormholes have forgotten.

As always, don't fly what you can't afford to lose.

CSM Minutes

Seriously, Just Stop

So the CSM minutes has been released and they contain an alarmingly high level of bad ideas for wspace.
I will be going through the full wormhole related section below, the full minutes can be found here:
http://cdn1.eveonline.com/community/csm/CSM8WinterMinutes2014.pdf


Wormhole-related topics
With Fozzie, Greyscale, Bettik, Masterplan


1)  WH effects.

"Chitsa brought up the topic of Black Holes. He said they’re not worth living in at all, and suggested making them provide industrial bonus effects. When asked what the current effects were like, James described them as “putting on a blindfold and going roller-skating on an ice rink”. Fozzie says that CCP could consider changing them, but they would also want to consider changing other systems, such as Pulsars and Wolf Rayets (mostly due to inability to buff capital reps because of those systems). The CSM expressed their support."

The first paragraph is presented as a discussion on Black Holes but it is in fact much more than that with the sneaking in of Pulsar and Wolf Rayet effects so let’s break it down.
Short of a few deranged loons, no one anywhere ever likes Black Hole systems and they are almost universally empty and avoided.  The idea of turning them into mining/industrial systems is an interesting one and I see no real issue with it.

So that's the good, now for the bad.

Here we see another prime example of CCP tacking on changes we do NOT want onto changes we DO want.
So we're going to change Black Holes? Ok cool, lets change Pulsars and Wolf-Rayets too while we're at it!
Wait, what?  Why?
The 2 are in no way related what so ever and yet have been lumped together here as if they were one and the same.

Allegedly, CCP want to change Pulsars and Wolf Rayets so that they can make fleet boosts apply to capital local reps.
Um, ok.  I guess.  Nope, you lost me.
Let's assume that fleet boosts actually need to apply to capital local reps, though personally I don't see why.
Would making that change make capitals over powered in these 2 WH systems?

Let’s start with an Archon in a C6 Wolf Rayet. 
Currently a well fit Archon can perma tank roughly 27.7k with fleet boosts (just the resist ones), without overloading or popping drugs, which in effect means you need at least 3 dreads to kill it outright through its reps if the pilot is good.
If you want to go the neut route, you would need 2 full neut Bhaalgorns to make it unstable running just its local tank or 3 if you want to fully cap it out without it running local tank.
For comparison, you need 1 less dread outside of a Wolf Rayet to kill the same Archon, number of Bhaals doesn't change.
So what changes if you buff the tank by the rough 35% that applying the other 2 fleet links would add?
Well to put it simply, you need either 1 more dread or 1 more Bhaalgorn to kill the Archon.
Ok, so there's clearly an effect but surely the whole point of making boosts apply to caps is to make them better right?
I hardly think this change is game breaking in any way, especially considering how much stronger Dreads were made in their buffs while Carriers have remained unchanged.

So what about C6 Pulsars and Chimeras?
Here you have the issue on the other side of the equation with cap regen being buffed by the Pulsar while actual tank is unchanged.  As such, a Chimera in a Pulsar doesn't inherently tank any more than anywhere else but it can afford to drop cap mods for more tank which ends up having a similar effect.
Currently, a Chimera can tank around 20.6k while needing 3 Bhaals to neut it out under tank (or 4 without running tank), or you can tank 26.5k and drop the number of Bhaals by 1.
Note that I'm talking about fits you're actually likely to run into, not 40bil officer fits that can, and should, get much better stats.
If you buff the tank by 35% you actually get a very similar result to the Archon in upping the numbers needed to kill/neut it by with the same fits.
That said, there is one big difference between the Archon and the Chimera in that the Chimera can be fit in a way where it has low tank but so much cap regen that it is virtually immune to any amount of neuting which means that it becomes very difficult for low DPS small gangs to kill as they can't cap it out.
I understand why people may complain about that but I really don't have an issue with it.  If you want to engage carriers in a Pulsar, you need to bring a combination of neuts and DPS which I don't see an issue with.

All in all, Pulsars and Wolf-Rayets are currently very well-functioning system types that are balanced and have a good level of upside and down side.
They do not need any changes, even if cap reps are buffed.


2.)  K162 Delay

"CCP Bettik then suggested a mad science idea, where incoming wormholes would not spawn the signature for the K162 immediately, but instead it would be delayed for an amount of time. James disapproved strongly of the idea, and expressed that such an advantage should be balanced by being unable to leave the grid until the signature is spawned.  Chitsa got excited and strongly approved of the idea.

CCP Bettik then explained that there are two options, where they could just delay it on the sensor overlay, but not to probes, or they could delay it for everything, including probes. Chitsa suggested a delay of three minutes, while CCP Fozzie proposed it could be a variable number of minutes. Chitsa was supportive of the idea. Malcanis suggested that the delay could go down to 0 minutes. Chitsa expressed that such mechanic would increase wormhole PVP as well as reinforce wormhole space as a harsh space to live."

This has been done to death in the threadnaught on the WH forums and I've posted about it before so I'll merely summarize here.
Yes, there should absolutely be a delay on the overlay for K162 WHs.
No, there should absolutely not be a delay on being able to probe newly spawned K162s.

The Ideal situation here would be to disable the overlay entirely in wspace and go back to how things were before.


3.) More Valuable WHs

"Chitsa proposed the idea of making some wormholes more valuable than others. For example some wormholes could have dual statics or increased chance of outgoing connections. Greyscale agreed that it would be something interesting. Chitsa expressed that such system would be great as players would need to find out by themselves as to which system is more valuable. James proposed the effect could even be a roaming effect. CCP and CSM were in general agreement that it is something worth looking into."

This is a really bad idea.
As soon as you make some systems inherently 'better' than others you end up with a massive arms race and will end up with a few huge groups holding the systems and no one else being able to get anywhere near them.
If you want proof of this, go back and take a look at what happened in nullsec with Tech moons.


4.) Lowering WH Income

"CCP suggested making w-space systems less profitable the more POSs there were in the system. James explained that this was effectively true already, as there is no way to increase income and the more players, the further income needs to be split."

Another terrible idea, well handled by James.


5.) I Don't Even...

"Greyscale asked what would happen if K162 wormholes did not spawn a signature, and was strongly rebuffed as this would vastly reduce the number of connections available in w-space."

6.) C7 Space, AKA:  AFK Cloaky Central

"Masterplan proposed adding some more systems without any moons. This was well received as well. Chitsa mentioned that such idea was already discussed a while back and it was called C7 space.
Greyscale then proposed making ships not disappear on logout in this new space."

Just Stop.
What exactly would be to point of this new C7 space?
A place where you can't anchor POSs, can't log off, can't live out of an orca... seems like a fantastic place to never go!
Even assuming you could log out normally, what would adding these systems bring to WHs?
I would need to hear some extremely good reasons why this space is needed before I'd be on board.
There are tons of empty existing WH systems, no need to add more.


7.) The Take-Away

"In summary, Bettik said his take-away was the geography needed a bit of a shakeup, rather than just the content. Chitsa agreed with the idea of shakeup as wormhole space has not had its fair share of shakeups compared to other spaces."

I have no idea why this was the take away CCP got but whatever.
Does WH geography need a shakeup?  I don't know.  It's certainly true that it hasn't had any shake ups since its introduction.

It may seem like I'm super conservative and don't want any changes to wspace but it's actually not true. 
I would love some changes to wormholes but I am not willing to sacrifice the great system we already have in order to get them.
The simplest most effective way of shaking up the WH geography would be to add more wandering connections which is something people have been asking for from the very beginning.

Currently C1-3 WHs have wandering connections from kspace and wspace, C5-6 systems have wandering connections from kspace and C4s have none.
I would propose adding wspace wandering holes to C4-6 and wandering kspace connections to C4s.
This can't be hard to implement for CCP, it wouldn't break any existing functionality and is easily manageable by adjusting the spawn rates if they become problematic.


All in all I don't think either CSM rep handled these issues very well with Chitsa being particularly bad at it.
I hope the next round of WH CSM reps do a better job.

JM