1 Week in EVE: Don't Fly What You Can't Lose

2 Weeks in EVE: Economic PvP

3 Weeks in EVE: The Long Haul

Right after writing my last article, I suggested my own roam: "Why don't I outfit a mining barge to bait enemies into attacking it, then grab attackers while the rest of the fleet jumps in to kill them?" Debate and suggestions broke out amongst Kite Co. about the best way to proceed while we slowly got about 10 ships into the fleet. Just before we were ready to roll out, a 10-man enemy fleet jumped into our system, intent on attacking BOVRIL mining space further in.

Us: "Oh, hey, someone brought content to us."

Them: "...Wait, you're all undocked?"

*pregnant pause*

*hell breaks loose*

The original intent of the roam was quickly forgotten as we chased them all the way to BOVRIL, back to CZK, and straight through BPA space into the waiting jaws of a SOUND defense fleet.

That's a pretty good analogy for how the last week has gone in Catch.

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I had a plan for this last weekly EVE update: now that I had cut my teeth on survival in NullSec and small fleet skirmishes, I would learn about commanding fleets and end my 1st month in EVE by leading my own small fleet on a roam.

EVE quickly overturned those plans. CFC (Goonswarm & Co) began deploying in Delve; N3 (Northern Coalition and Co) deployed there in response. The common N3 raids into our region of space slowed to a trickle... only to be replaced by a torrent of Russians.

The Russian alliance of AAA were the former owners of Catch. N3, being no friends of the Russians, had helped our HERO coalition drive them out of Catch. Now that N3 was deployed elsewhere in preparation for the brewing annual Summer War with CFC, AAA saw a chance to pay HERO back for taking their space. They were pissed, and they brought friends.

Things have been hot ever since. Every day brings a new timer on a starbase we need to defend or a blockade unit we need to take down. Fleets of 100+ go out daily to protect our new homeland. The previous N3 raids were a warmup compared to this; the Russians had a bone to pick with us, and CFC was eager to hop in on the glory.

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The first strategic-operation was 6 AM EST on a Sunday morning; the Russians had hit one of our starbases in an allied system hard, dropping it into Reinforce mode, and we needed to defend it once it came out of Reinforcement. Reinforcement is EVE's way of ensuring alliances don't lose starbases and systems before they can react: once a starbase or hub's shields are dropped to 25%, it becomes invulnerable until a set time the next day. Normally this time is set for the defender's busiest hours, so it can field a robust defense fleet. However, Reinforcement consumes Strontium fuel; if you don't have enough Strontium stored in the starbase, it drops out of Reinforcement early. And since this was a remote starbase, it was barely fueled... thus it only had enough Strontium to stay Reinforced until our wee morning hours, which was late night for the Russians. We would have to defend that starbase at one of our weakest hours (and one of the Russians' strongest).

Although we matched the Russians for numbers (100 vs 100), they were an older alliance and could field more advanced ships than most of us. After a half-hour of skirmishing, our fleet commander called for a withdrawal; we couldn't stop them from destroying the starbase with the forces we had. Morale was low on the trek back.

Standoff at the Starbase

"...Is this how we lose Catch?"

"Maybe we need to call N3 on the batphone."

"No, we can do this by ourselves. We can afford to lose this starbase. Save the batphone for an emergency."

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The Russian invasions alongside their CFC allies have forced me (and a lot of other HERO newbros) to reevaluate our relationship with N3. When I started a month ago, they were the annoying neighbors constantly roaming into Catch, hotdropping on miners, and blowing up any HERO ships they came across. But they didn't want our territory. The Russians wanted our territory badly, and they had CFC support. The only coalition that could fight on even terms with CFC was N3. Old grudges were put aside and N3 became a frenemy. Even INK, an N3-alliance who had tried to capture one of our systems weeks ago (see Week 2), threw their hat into the ring alongside us.

But why did N3 help a future enemy capture territory? Why did CFC, for the most part, step back and let their Russian allies get conquered? Content.

Alliances have to generate two things for their members: money and Content. Money is self-explanatory, but Content requires good enemies to fight on a daily basis. CFC and N3, the two biggest coalitions, have both signed treaties limiting how much they can interfere with each other, and attacks against each other carry the risk of escalating into humongous battles that wipe out spaceships worth billions of ISK. Neither side has such restrictions against HERO, and most members of HERO welcome the excitement.

HERO grabbed a foothold in Catch because it promised Content to the larger coalitions. Now with the Summer War gearing up, the Russians want revenge and CFC might want Catch as a staging grounds into N3 space. It remains to be seen whether CFC values Catch more as a foothold or a content-generator, but N3 prefers our content & would rather not let CFC get such a foothold, so they remain on our side for now. HERO survives just as much off our diplomacy & providing Content for the other coalitions as it does off our military prowess.

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Hours later, I returned to the former starbase's location to see what had happened. I expected to see a Russian starbase up; instead, I saw a Black Pearl Alliance starbase there. I messaged my contact within the BPA and asked what happened.

"After the Russians began constructing their starbase, we called in N3 backup, blew it up, and set our own starbase in its place. Did you think we'd let an enemy starbase get constructed in our backyard?"

When I relayed this news to Kite Co, they began howling with laughter.

"They set up a starbase and forgot to place the Strontium Tank first! Oh, this is too rich!"

Apparently the starbase should have gone into Reinforcement, giving the Russians a chance to defend it, but since they hadn't put any Strontium into it, it got blown up immediately. The Russians had made a bone-headed mistake just like we did. You may recall the Battle of B-R5RB (aka the costliest EVE battle to date) started because of an unpaid bill. Taking & holding territory in EVE reminds me of startup procedure in a flight simulator: if you don't do everything on the checklist, things fail spectacularly.

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Two days later, another strat-op launched out of our homebase of V-3 to destroy a Russian starbase being set up in a neighboring system. This was my first true large-scale battle; what started as a 100 vs 25 fight in our favor turned into 1 fleet vs 2 fleets, and then an INK fleet came to help us, and then- well honestly, things got confusing once there were more than 300 ships in the system. All of the fleets were jockeying for position in space, escaping to regroup and catch their breath, setting up stealth bomber runs, and past a certain point I just began focusing on my short-term goals of "shield-boost allies so they don't get killed". Naturally, being one of the fleet's "healers" made me a prime target; I lost 2 ships in that fight. The first time, I warped back to V-3, grabbed a spare fully-outfitted ship I had "just in case", and warped back into the fight. The second time, I called it a night.

Although I... think it was a loss for us (I'm not sure if we accomplished our goal of blowing up the starbase amidst all the carnage), it was my first big fleet brawl and I managed to save a few ships from premature destruction. The basic combat of EVE is quite simple compared to WoW: each ship usually has just one set of guns, some drones, a group of defensive or electronic warfare modules, and propulsion to turn on or off. Using those basic functions in a hectic fleet battle where you have to listen to target calls, lock onto multiple ships, keep track of distances to them, and watch for enemy ships targeting you, warp bubbles preventing you from escaping, and the occasional bombing run is much more complex. And then there's the preparation, planning, and spying that goes on around the battle itself...

"They used those ship types because they knew it was a good counter to our ship doctrine," a fellow KiteCo member explained. (Ship doctrines are standardized fleet makeups that work well together.) "You can be sure they have a spy or two in the fleet as well, relaying our primary targets to their support commander so they can start shield-boosting our targets before we fire. It makes it much harder to win these fights." 'Everyone's a spy' is a common joke in EVE, but it's often true.

"These fights would be so much easier if we practiced decent OpSex..."

"Wait, you mean OpSec?"

"Er..."

"First rule of OpSex: never tell your lover your name."

"Har har, very funny. But no, just figure there's always someone listening in for the enemy side, and don't tell people anything they don't need to know. Loose lips sink ships."

Any thoughts he might be a tad too paranoid were dismissed the next day, when I read a piece by Mittani (the de facto leader of CFC) detailing how his spies utterly frustrated an enemy's war against them by putting minor errors in their shared intel spreadsheet.

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The next day, an urgent call-to-arms hit our mailbox. "AAA is on the verge of destroying an ally's hub within the next day. We will not let that happen. If you can be there, be there. Do not run personal fleets during this strat-op or Military Command will rip you to shreds."

I joined early in another support ship and waited for the fleet to launch. So many people joined we had to split it into two fleets, and we were going to meet two other fleets there. By the time we were set up in the target system, there were over 500 allied ships in the system. We waited for the enemy to arrive...

...And nobody came. We saw 1-2 scouts which quickly hightailed it out; apparently the Russians decided they didn't like those odds and didn't even show up to the battle. We spent 2 hours destroying the Russians' blockade units and restoring the hub's armor & shields, suffering the occasional bombing run by a half-dozen Russian stealth bombers that destroyed a lot of drones but barely damaged us. In the end, the strat-op was declared a success.

"The best battle is the one you don't have to fight. Good turn-out, folks, we're proud of you. Don't worry if you didn't see any action today; I'm sure we've got plenty of fights left with the Russians in the future."

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Later, I learned a string of hit-and-run skirmishes had broken out between one of our larger roaming fleets and the Russians. An INK fleet arrived at the scene as reinforcements, scaring the Russians off except for a few scouts. The 2 fleet commanders agreed to lure out the Russians by having both fleets fire on each other. The Russians believed we were resuming hostilities and jumped back into system to take advantage of it. As soon as they revealed themselves, both fleets turned their firepower on them. We lost 4 billion ISK worth of ships, they lost 22 billion ISK worth, including a Carrier. Just from a random fight and a dirty trick.

I didn't participate in that, but man, I wish I had!

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With that, we come to today. My plans to lead a fleet of my own have been delayed by the Russians, but in the meantime I've learned about (and participated in) large-scale battles and defending territory. I am on the verge of learning the skills necessary to upgrade my support ship by a tier. I have 20+ combat-ready ships stored at 3 different stations. And I've just learned that Kite Co. has set up a new homebase dedicated to the late, great Ryan Davis. I'll probably spend the weekend moving my stuff from Pancake House to Point Taswell, in between helping with the defensive strat-ops, and once that's done it's back to mining ice for profit and fuel blocks. I'm not sure how long it'll be before something else rocks the boat, though; there's already rumors of Drama, and who knows what the Russians do next.

For now, though, I'll just take a moment to enjoy a view of the new station...

Point Taswell

With that, I wrap up my first month's impression of EVE. I've jumped from miner to missile gunship to trader to support ship to combat-ready miner. I've made contacts in 3 different alliances, had a fleet commander compliment me personally, and talked resources and economics with over a half-dozen people. I've lost 43 ships in combat, actually died 15 times in combat, and participated in several dozen skirmishes. And I have no idea what'll happen next.

EVE is a strangely fascinating MMO with long bouts of grinding punctuated by debates on economics, politics, espionage, counter-espionage, tactics, and the occasional explosion(s). The deeper you dive into it, the more you get out of it. And you can dive deep quickly. I don't know when I'll come back out, but until then, I'm going into OPSEC and REDACTING all my info.

See you around Catch. 7o