I've always seen Eve Online as the most expensive screen saver you'll ever see. A friend of mine used to play it, and I've never seen him do anything in the game except fly across the galaxy while alt-tabbing to another program. Thanks to a thread on the City of Heroes forums, however, it seems there's actually more to the game, at least if you're part of a large corporation, or are watching events from the outside (like me). There's some quite interesting drama that would make a heck of a movie, I think.
Long story short: Goonfleet, a corporation run by members of Something Awful, convinced a director of Band of Brothers, one of the largest corporations in the game, to turn coat, bringing with him a number of BoB properties and trillions of in-game currency (ISK), as well as the official BoB name. BoB and affiliates are currently at war with Goonfleet and affiliates over BoB's remaining holdings.
Audio of The Mittani introducing BoB director. The Mittani is the leader of the Goonfleet Intelligence Agency. (Audio NSFW)
Interview with leaders of BoB and Goonfleet
Human_Being on the CoH forums has been acting as war reporter, and doing a bang-up job of it. Here are some of his posts:
The WAR So Far...
Okay, I've been trying to follow this conflict since the thread started. However, it is obscured in a very real "fog of war" with both sides trying to spin defeats into non-events (or even victories) and victories into conquests. There's nowhere you can go and look for yourself to simply see what's happened. It's not easy to figure out who's where, doing what, why, and to whom.I've tried to bring disparate pieces together into an image of how things are going, but any of it might be off. So, I bring it here for your interest and entertainment. If anyone knows a different story from what I have below or can add anything, please fill in the missing pieces.
The Set up:
The Band of Brothers Alliance (BoB for short) has been in EVE basically since the beginning. They've been the dominating PVP force in the player-run, non-NPC areas of space for most of the game and hold the richest territory. They were the group involved in the "T20" scandal where a game Dev that belonged to BoB was secretly giving them ultra-rare items that granted an edge for the alliance. They are characterized by their detractors as arrogant and condescending elitists.The GoonSwarm has been in EVE since early in 2006 and made their presence known the whole time. They style themselves "the worst PVPers in EVE", yet have ultimately been quite successful against larger opponents that were deliberately trying to wipe them out. Having fewer resources and less discipline than other alliances, they take cheap but functional ships and hurl themselves at their opponents like a barbarian horde; safe in the knowledge that they can replace their losses more easily than what they inflict on the enemy. The leadership of GoonSwarm by contrast is highly organized and very bright (typified by the most feared espionage organization in the game). They are characterized by their detractors as a bunch of vicious, adolescent griefers.
This will actually be the third time BoB and GoonSwarm have clashed. The first time the Goons held up against a coalition of BoB and another Alliance that neighbored on Goon-territory, by simply being impossible to wipe out. BoB could blow Goons up all day, but the Goons focused on territorial goals rather than tonnage-of-ships lost and the neighboring enemy eventually backed off. The Goons actually expanded their territory and BoB returned across the map to their own holdings.
The second conflict was sometime last year when GoonSwarm lead a broad coalition of other Alliances in a deliberate attempt to seize BoB's entire territory (wiping them out as a player in larger politics). The war lasted for several weeks, and while BoB did pull back into more defensible areas, they proved too hard to evict from that ground. The other members of the coalition eventually grew bored of making great effort for little headway and stopped showing up for fleet actions. The Goons were the last to withdraw and their leadership swore that it was only technical limitations of the game-rules that stopped them; that they'd be back to take BoB's home some day.
The Strategic Puzzle
The reason it was so hard to fight BoB on their home territory has to do with the game-concept of Sovereignty. Sovereignty is granted to any Alliance that holds the majority of control in an area for a week or more and is ranked in four levels. Gaining Sovereignty levels grants cumulative benefits to the Holders that make it easier to make money off of the territory and defend it. In particular are "Capital Ship Assembly Arrays", "Jump Bridges", and "Cyno-Jammers". In order to get to any particular star cluster, you have to either use an existing "Jump Gate" to get to it, or you have to have another ship there to create a "Cynosurial Field" which acts as a beacon for the largest ships in the game to teleport to with their own Jump Engines. The Titan-class ships can only move through these ad hoc jumps because they don't fit within the regular Jump Gates. With Cyno-Jammers, no one but members of the controlling alliance can use these ad hoc Cynosurial Fields; denying opponents maneuver, stripping them of their strongest assets, and protecting their rear. "Jump Bridges" are player-created Jump Gates that Sovereignty Holders can use to move about their territory quickly. Finally, the Capital Ship Assembly Arrays allow construction of the largest and most powerful ships in the game right in player-held territory.So if you have Sovereignty level 4 in a group of systems, you have predictable routes that an enemy will attack on, can rapidly reinforce in response to an assault, may have an overwhelming advantage in firepower because you have Titans "guarding the gates" while the opposition can bring none of their own, and can make good even the largest losses in a prolonged siege. With BoB's advantage in "old money" and ship complements, no one was ever going to make more than laboriously-chipped progress in an attack against them....
....until the day GoonSwarm took their Sovereignty away.
The Nuke
A BoB Alliance Director from the Black Nova Corporation was playing on an Alt when a member of one of the GoonSwarm corporations attempted to recruit him. The Director ("Haargoth Agamar") decided this was an excellent opportunity to get a "spy" into GoonSwarm. He accepted, pretending to be a newbie mining character. A couple of days later, the recruiter turned up evidence that the Alt character had been associated with a previous enemy corporation of theirs during a background check (yes I said background check). The recruiter went back to him and told him he'd have to be kicked out. But Agamar revealed his identity and told him that he really didn't want to go because in the last two days he'd found that he really really liked playing and associating with the Goons. (The Goon head of intelligence, "The Mittani" aka "Mittens", later characterized this as a Cultural Victory.) Agamar was immediately handed off to Goon Intelligence and rather than using him as a long term operative and chancing his discovery, they started figuring out what they could steal through him. They scoured the BoB leadership forums for information, prepared to have Agamar rob Black Nova Corporation of every asset they had (amounting to hundreds of ships, including fifteen Dreadnaughts which are the second largest class in the game and take over two weeks of Real Time to construct), and prepared to alter the friend/foe alignment of all Black Nova assets which they couldn’t' outright steal. During these discussions, it was discovered that in addition to being a Corporate Director of one of the BoB members, he had long ago been erroneously granted Directorship in the Holding Company that served to keep BoB officially together in game-law. The holding company owned no assets itself, but with the way the rules were set up any Director could evict any member of the Alliance at will and have it take effect instantly. Apparently this had never come up as an issue in the game before.When all the BoB officers who could have done anything about it were asleep (most of them are European), the Goon intelligence agency pulled the trigger and the entire BoB Alliance and all that depended on that status vanished. In the space of a few hours all the BoB Jump Gates, Cyno-Jammers, and Capital Ship Assembly Arrays ceased to function. All the local production facilities dropped down to their base efficiency level. Every BoB member who had logged off at a Black Nova facility was identified as "hostile" when they exited "their" stations and instantly fired on by the automated defenses. Every non-BoB-member who operated in the territory started to panic. And GoonSwarm now permanently owned the rights to the corporate name "BoB".
Let’s go to the map (note: non-colored areas are actually NPC-space, not unclaimed territory.)
The BoB territory (now labeled "KenZoku") is in the lower left in blue. They are in a mutual coalition with Executive Outcomes to their south along with Against ALL Authorities and Red Alliance (a Russian group) to their east. In addition to the huge list of corporations that made up "BoB" proper, there were also hangers-on dubbed the "Greater BoB Coalition" (GBC) within the BoB territory who used BoB for protection. These lesser corporations and alliances (Skunk-Works, EXE, Frontal Impact, Goodfellas, Atlas Alliance, FinFleet, and more that I've probably never heard of) were referred to as "BoB's Pets". They were given permission to use BoB territory so long as they paid a "rent" to BoB and pledged support and subordination to their control in the event of a conflict, but they had no territorial rights of their own. Together, the GBC was the largest and strongest group in the game. Furthermore, there were many independent players that came to BoB's territory and also paid "rent" because it was not only a relatively safe area, but it was also the richest territory in the game (there have been past accusations that the mineral wealth of the area had been increased by corrupt Devs after BoB claimed it).
GoonSwarm controlled (past tense) two very large areas in the south and southeast. They are associated on friendly terms with the broad "Northern Coalition" consisting of the Tau Ceti Federation (a francophone group), RAZOR Alliance, Morsus Mihi, KIA Alliance, and the Pandemic Legion. The Pandemic Legion is very tightly aligned with the Goons and although they appear to actually be the smallest among these province-holding groups, everyone also seems to be afraid of their pilots. The bit of "Fountain" area that is home to PL was actually a wealthy BoB territory taken and held during the last war.
The first twenty four hours were utter chaos. Every independent or small-time operator who had depended on BoB's perennial protection grabbed their resources in a panic and tried to flee the area. Every group that had long wanted a piece of the rich pie that BoB was sitting on formed up and headed to Querious and The Delve. And virtually everyone else who didn't live under BoB's roof jumped in wherever they could to cause mayhem. The word coming out to EVE-Radio internet station was to "trust no one!" in The Delve and that anyone might suddenly turn on you. Someone called into the station begging for money because a friend of his had actually been captured while trying to flee and was being held for ransom (he later called back and said that when the bandits heard this on the radio they executed the captive ). Groups of Northern Coalition ships flew through Delve broadcasting: "BoB promised you would be safe, but these were lies! Corporations of Delve, do not cling to the False Comfort of Old Allegiances!" The Pandemic Legion instantly formed an attack force and seized control of a Delve moon designated "LMO" (aka 'The Alamo') four hours after a BoB spokesman announced on EVE Radio that it was their Alliance's impregnable bastion in case of invasion. The only "organized" response by the not-BoB-anymore corporations was to form a huge, roving, Titan-centered fleet that swept up friendly ships like a snowball as it went. Most of the Goons that reacted gathered in what they self described as either a "Waaaugh!" (a Warhammer-game Orc reference) or a "rapetrain with no brakes" and drove into the heart of their enemy's territory. A smaller, more organized group of Goons tried to gather on the points of entry to Delve and limit unfriendly entrance or exit from the war zone.
The Fallout
But the BoB leadership pulled a bureaucratic end-run on their no-win situation. Through some loophole (which I've never completely figured out), one of the smaller constituent corporations of the old BoB alliance had been associated with most of the Player Owned Stations that designate control for Sovereignty. This small corporation was officially able to claim control of the majority of the now-unowned territory. All of the ex-BoB corporations joined in an Alliance under this smaller corp "KenZoku". Since that corporate claim was now officially part of an in-game Alliance again, KenZoku was granted immediate Sovereignty to the area, starting over at level 1, just over twenty-four hours after those players "lost" it. "KenZoku" is a Japanese word for 'family' or roughly 'tribe', i.e. a 'band of brothers'.The "Sov" map snapped back to nearly the way it had been a day earlier and everyone who had previously panicked, freaked. They only had Sovereignty 1, and thus no Jump Gates or Cyno-Jammers, but "BoB" still existed and there was a flag to rally around. Every hooligan who had gone to the Delve region to run amok turned around and raced out just as fast. GoonSwarm and Pandemic Legion didn't.
The official response from KenZoku was that they were still here, still in control, and still had all their vast wealth. Yes, they'd been indolent and bored of late; there'd been much internal friction in the leadership and dissatisfied grumbling from the Pets. But now the unfair and cowardly attack on all that they and their friends possessed, along with the theft of their Name, had really, truly, finally *Censored*...Them...Off. They declared their intention to gather all the military force at their disposal and wipe out the Goons and company once and for all. Furthermore, since The Mittani had promised to post excerpts from the BoB leadership forums, they were opening them to the public so they could not be quoted out of context.
The un-official response from the Goons was "Oh My God! We Killed 'Kenny'! We're Bastards!" The "Pets" were subsequently dubbed "Barbie". It was also variously observed that "Anime is really just Cartoons". Officially, GoonSwarm declared that not only were they not backing down, they were going to claim their birthright "holy land" once and for all: they were pulling up stakes and abandoning their holdings in the South and Southeast. The Goon's home would be in Delve. Period. Furthermore, the Mittani thanked the KenZoku leadership for opening their secret forums since he had actually lied about having it all archived with intention to post embarrassing snippets. (Which claim is true or false, *shrug* who knows. That uncertainty seems to be the way he operates.)
The Psychological Front
The Psychological war started off with Goon quotes from the BoB forums where various members of the leadership had spoken with contempt or disgust about a particular Pet or even about all Pets in general. "Why should you show loyalty to ex-BoB when they see you as tools, treat you as tools, and are a bunch of Tools?" the Goons ask. KenZoku publicly replied that yes they'd spoken harshly about various Pets, but that was months ago. Those coalition-mates had vastly improved their performance since such words were spoken. They were all united by what the Goons had done now and the Pets had their respect.In counter attack, KenZoku declared that with this latest underhanded play the Goons were held in contempt, even hatred by the majority of the game. KenZoku/BoB themselves would be bringing every last erg of power and cent of cash in their greater-coalition to bear on them. KenZoku asked "How on earth do you plan to survive against, not only the crushing force we can bring to bear, but everyone who's ever had a grudge against you?" GoonSwarm publicly replied: "lolz wut?"
Neither side has made much headway in the battle of words. The Goodfellas alliance *may* have gone neutral, as their members are now making posts mocking both sides of the conflict and Goodfellas ships aren't showing up on the killboards anymore. Some of the BoB-forum quotes certainly singled out the Goodfellas as among the worst groups in the game, but I'm not entirely certain where the Goodfellas allegiance lay to begin with.
The only other result of both campaigns was the CEO of Against ALL Authorities making a post with a quote from the now-public BoB forums which read: "I don't care, just get AAA here! I will *censored* sing the Russian national anthem in teamspeak if it will get them here!" He declared that effective immediately, all AAA assistance to KenZoku would cease until this became a reality. Several KenZoku members helpfully provided links to websites with phonetic lyrics to several versions of the song.
The Eastern Front
When I first looked at the Sovereignty Map, the GoonSwarm territory had convex borders and was separated by a very narrow strip of space. Every day it has shrunk a bit more, with the areas of Tenerifis and Detorid seeing wholesale losses. The KenZoku coalition is making much of this, but it appears that the Goons literally are not defending their space. When their leader declared that they were moving to Delve, they meant it. They are taking everything they have and using a scorched earth policy behind them.This is actually a brilliant move for several reasons. Firstly, the previous campaign faltered because the rank-and-file lost interest in the fight. The general Goon mentality toward the game seems to be that of a band of marauders (or perhaps college frat-boys on a Friday night ) and while they are enthusiastic it's hard to keep them focused. Like Cortez, the Goon leadership has "burned their ships" and given their pilots a reason to focus on the campaign; if they lose they will have nowhere to go home to. Secondly, it means GoonSwarm doesn't have to fight a two front war with long supply lines; attacking the strongest coalition in the game while defending their own territory against neighboring enemies. Thirdly, it keeps the Goons' allies motivated because they don't want the Goons trying to "move in" with them in the case of defeat . Finally, it has limited the forces arrayed against them because enemies that otherwise would have happily attacked GoonSwarm are occupied in actively taking over the abandoned territory. Of United Legion, Red Alliance, and Against ALL Authorities, only the last has shown up in the Kill Boards for activity in Delve; and them only weakly.
The reason this is a delaying tactic is the way territorial seizure works. Sovereignty is calculated based on who has the most space station facilities in an area and is only granted if that balance has not tilted in another direction for the duration of one week. You must emplace your own stations and destroy those of your opponent. Player Owned Stations however have huge numbers of hit points. They require large fleets to assail at all and the Dreadnought class (second only to the Titans in size) is specifically designed to provide firepower for this purpose. Even then, a Large sized station might take hours of pounding to bring down.
The task of destroying a station is further complicated by "reinforcement mode". Stations can be given a particular type of fuel (Strontium Clathrates) that will allow them to enter an invulnerable state when they reach 25% hit points and remain there for several hours, depending on how much of this fuel they have. The intention is to provide a game mechanic where a corporation's facilities can not be swept away while the players are asleep or at work. During the "reinforcement mode", the owning corporation has time to try and kick the attackers off of their station and re-fuel the station. If they can, the attackers are back where they started yesterday.
Even if there are no defenders, destroying the stations is a time and personnel intensive undertaking. The Goons may not have left anything to loot, but it will still take weeks for their neighboring enemies to claim the territory for themselves.
The Sovereignty mechanics also mean that the map tends to lag the reality on the ground by about seven days. The Goon territory map is actually *worse* than it appears.
The Delve Theater
The majority of the fighting has taken place in KenZoku's space and is much harder to get a good look at. The Sovereignty map remains largely unchanged since the re-naming and re-institution of base-level Sovereignty in the region. Most of the information coming out of the area is from forum posts by one side or the other and Alliance Kill Board reports. Both of these are highly biased to say the least =/.All sides in the conflict essentially lie on their Killboards to one degree or another. (The linked website is perhaps the most informatively-formatted one of those involved.) Killed ships on one board often do not show up on their owner's board as losses. If one were to go solely on these lists, it would appear that all participants in the conflict are sweeping their enemies before them simultaneously. Furthermore, the boards tend to either lag with real time or not list the location that a fight took place until some time has passed (and the fight can't be reinforced by enemies reading the killboard).
You can still get useful information from them though. When many ships show up as defeated in a particular location, you know where the fighting is centered for that moment. If a series of battleships show up as defeated, a major engagement has taken place. If a station/tower or a Dreadnought/Carrier/Mothership shows up on the board, someone suffered a major material loss. Most of the time there are individual smaller ships listed, often reconnaissance ships (lots and lots and lots of dead reconnaissance ships).
If you click on individual entries, you can see a list of ships that were involved in the kill. (Wow, those Apocalypse battleships and Zealot cruisers are *really* popular.) Smaller lists of medium sized ships are likely defensive pickets or strike groups. Larger lists are obviously organized fleets.
From all of this you can get a rough picture of both sides heavily engaged in keeping tabs on where the enemy is dispersed and what they are up to. Roving bands of dps gunboats and crowd-control ships are actively "submarine hunting" for the other side's scouts. Individual or small groups of fast-frigates, mostly on the GoonSwarm side, are hunting outside Delve for enemy cargo haulers (for good reason). Targets of opportunity sometimes appear with ad hoc fleets pouncing on high value targets like Motherships that are separated from the majority or trying to enter the area. Occasionally unlucky recon ships get too close to an entire fleet and are swatted out of existence or come through a star gate into a waiting trap. And at least once a night there are huge fleet actions where billions in currency of ships are destroyed for both sides.
The Time Line
That gives an idea of how things are taking place, but not where or why. For that part of the picture you have to go by Forum posts and brags. Lesser actions appear to be taking place in the Period Basis southern region of KenZoku territory where KIA Alliance may be trying to carve out territory of their own, but are losing many ships for little headway. Querious region in the Northeast is seeing significant Northern Coalition (minus Pandemic Legion) attention and fairing a bit better, partially due to KenZoku's main attention being focused elsewhere. The scene of the majority of the heavy fighting has been in the "W-4" constellation in the Western-most corner of Delve (I can't find any good maps of the area with place-names marked; had to piece together where things were =p). This is where the Goons, PL, and some of their allies made their assault.The first of the major, organized fleet actions took place on Friday the 7th in the W-4 constellation’s J-LPX7 system. There were several hundred ships on each side and server lag became a serious issue. The "J-L" fight was a crushing victory for KenZoku. The Goon Fleet showed up with the wrong ships/equipment for what they found themselves facing. The Pandemic Legion Battleship fleet ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time and fought a losing engagement at five-to-one odds. And the worst event was Pandemic Legion bringing three Titans and having them not affect the fight at all...
Each Titan can mount one "Doomsday Device" that can be fired once an hour and disables the ship for ten minutes. The Doomsday weapon is an AoE with a 50 Km diameter area and does enough damage to obliterate support ships in the blast and seriously damage Battleships if not outright destroying them. The PL Titans intended to decapitate the enemy fleet and fired three of them at the same time....for a total of zero damage. The official explanation was: lag made the attacks not register even though the effects went off.
From the performance and the damage it looked like GoonSwarm really had made a mortal blunder: They had roused the most powerful enemy in the game to moral-rage, were fighting them on their own turf, and had nowhere to retreat to. People began taking odds on whether KenZoku would destroy GoonSwarm or decide to take Fountain back from Pandemic Legion first. For their part the Goons restated their self-description as the "worst Alliance playing EVE" and claimed they weren't deterred in the least.
The second night of major fleet actions consisted mostly of Battleships. The Goon Fleet came back as they promised and clashed with both KenZoku and all the Pets that mustered (the Greater BoB Coalition re-dubbed "KFC", the Kenny and Friends Coalition, by the Goons). When the fight was over KenZoku smugly pointed to their killboard for another heavily lopsided ratio of battleships. GoonSwarm countered that the picture only looked that way for KenZoku proper. If the Coalition Pets were taken into account then it was clear the balance of ships killed was a hundred battleships in the other direction. A poster on the EVE forums uninvolved in the direct conflict said that the battle had resulted in a debris field well over 400 km in length (and that he was having a fire sale on salvaged drones if anyone was interested).
Sunday night and Monday saw further Battleship engagements with similar results to the second night. GoonSwarm continued to hammer on the psychological front, claiming that KenZoku was using the Pets as a "meat shield" even though they couldn't afford to absorb financial losses the way their leader could. Of greater significance, Station Towers belonging to KenZoku began appearing in Goon and Northern Coalition killboards.
Apparently BoB had never bothered to add Strontium fuel to any of their Stations. Certainly not deep in their own territory away from the borders; who would ever make it that far so that it would be needed? Furthermore, it appeared that they had little of the resource available to them on hand. When the Goons started firing on a station, they could take it down in one attempt because it never became invulnerable. On February 9th, Pandemic Legion destroyed eight towers in one night. KenZoku began trying to haul Strontium in from outside their region and Goon frigates started trying to blockade them.
Tuesday continued the lopsided losses for KenZoku's coalition, with pages full of battleships and smaller support listed on their enemies' killboards. The majority of the losses belonged to the Pets, even though KenZoku suffered heavy battleship losses. It was suggested that the Pet corporations were beginning to agree with GoonSwarm that they were being "pushed out in front" and sacrificed by KenZoku.
Between Sunday and Tuesday, Dreadnoughts and other Capital Ships began appearing on the killboards. However, they appeared mostly on the Goon coalition boards. A few KenZoku ships showed up as defeats in areas adjacent to the main fighting, with no other defeats reported in those areas. The GoonSwarm Capital Ships appeared in their dozens listed as contributing victors in various fights. The Goons had managed to get their Capital Ships into the area and were bringing them to bear in large groups. Their KenZoku counterparts were not committed to the field.
Wednesday during the day (prime time hours for European-based KenZoku), GoonSwarm attacked and destroyed a KenZoku tower with an attached construction facility. A KenZoku spokesman immediately posted a congratulatory note on the EVE forums, and stated that a Mothership class Capital Ship had been "aborted" inside the destroyed facility. GoonSwarm members posted in reply with quotes lifted from the (formerly) private BoB forums suggesting that the vessel under construction was actually a Titan. They further stated that since they had such a convenient list of what was where, all the other baby Titans under construction were going to "get the coat hanger" too.
Wednesday night saw KenZoku step to the front and finally deploy their Capital Ships in an attempt to harry the Goons off of their stations in W-4. However, they refused to "enter siege mode", increasing their toughness and firepower but rendering the Capital ships immobile. They warped around the system, trying to keep from being trapped and surrounded by smaller ships. A Pandemic Legion battleship group formed up a chase party and "suicided" into the KenZoku fleet. They took massive losses but managed to destroy two capital ships in return.
KenZoku declared that they had delivered another strong defeat to GoonSwarm. Further, they stated the Goon's tactics against their towers were ultimately futile since it was obvious who had more resources in a war of attrition. They asked how the Goons could continue in their disastrous situation. The Goons replied that in trading many Battleships for two Capitals, they had come out ahead in the exchange. (A battleship can be constructed in five hours of real time, a Dreadnought takes more than two weeks and requires a station in a High Sovereignty Rated area to build.) They also retorted that while there was no way GoonSwarm could outspend KenZoku in the long run, that was not true of GoonSwarm plus all of the Northern Coalition. And even more, they claimed that KenZoku ships had performed so poorly against the Goon Fleet in the last week that the Goons now owned virtually all of the W-4 constellation; having free run of the area and the majority of Station Towers in most systems. It would take a week for the Sovereignty map to catch up with the status, but they had already accomplished the first goal in their conquest of Delve...
And that's where things stand as best I can tell.
It seems likely that GoonSwarm does have the W-4 constellation in hand. It seems unlikely that KenZoku will be able to hold off the Goon Fleet in W-4, bring enough of their own Stations into the area, and tilt the balance to reset the one week timer. It's still an open question what Delve will look like by the time United Legion, Against ALL Authorities, and Red Alliance finish gobbling up the former Goon territory and are free to enter the fight. Also unknown is how much of KenZoku's claims to un-ending resources to spend on the conflict is real and how much is propaganda. It is quite clear that despite BoB/KenZoku's reputation for PVP in the past, they are losing badly in every engagement against the Goons unless the Goons themselves make an error. That could change in either direction if the allies of one side lose interest in the fight.
For a boring game to play, it really does make a fascinating spectator sport.
*waves a small "Go Goons!" pennant*
OMGAnd now for your Daily Irony:
KenZoku committed themselves to (what was intended to be) an extended counterattack with their heaviest elements tonight. A mixed fleet of Capital Ships from both KenZoku and various Pet factions. In the engagement, KenZoku lost nine Capitals of their own, including a Mothership, for no equivalent kills on the other side.
KenZoku retreated and the Goon Fleet returned to their task of destroying a Large sized Tower. While they were so-occupied and just over two hours after the destruction of the Capital Ships, KenZoku surprise-teleported another fleet of Capitals into the midst of the Goons. This time the fleet contained a Titan.
But the fleet didn't include any other support ships to keep them from getting swarmed...
The Goon Fleet has destroyed a KenZoku Titan.
But wait, there's more...
Amongst EVE's hundreds of thousands of players, there aren't a lot of them with Skills that will permit them to pilot a Titan (just as there are a limited number of the ships themselves). The Titan was piloted by a player named Shrike. Shrike has now had a total of no less than four Titans shot out from under him; more than any other Titan pilot.
Further...
After losing the first one, he named his second ship Darwin's Contraption. He named both his third and now his fourth Titan Darwin's Revenge.
And today...is Darwin's Birthday!
For those still keeping score: half an hour after downing the Titan, the Goons sank another six KenZoku Carrier ships that either showed up late to the party or didn't have sense enough to leave earlier. That's 15 in one day, each representing over two weeks of Real Time investment; it matches the loss that Haargoth Agamar inflicted on Black Nova when he handed their corporate Capital fleet to the Goons. (I wonder how many of those ships were flying in the Goon fleet tonight?) Along with the Destroyed Titan, the fifteen capital ships, and a *second* possibly-Titan-containing Capital Ship Assembly Array that was destroyed with tonight's demolished KenZoku Large Station Tower, players are asking if this represents the most expensive 24hr string of losses in EVE history.
I've found some more information about what went on in the last nine days. However, it may just be a matter for the history books now. It's still too early to know for sure, and it's possible the holiday is just interfering (though time zones put it a day earlier for Europe), and I suppose it's conceivable that it's a deliberate strategy; but at the moment BoB/KenZoku appears to be.......well...
...Broken.
No engagement on the scale of the previous week has happened in the last 48 hrs. There was a small battleship skirmish, in which Shrike was defeated, again, in an absurdly fit Apocalypse Battleship (Apocalyspes get bonuses to Laser range, making them effective snipers at 100 km; they get no bonuses to Smartbombs which are 5 km PBAoEs. Comments are at the bottom of the page). Saturday night FinFleet attempted to put up five Large stations in the 1-A constellation (rather than the w-4 one where most action has occured), but three were destroyed before activation, one was destroyed before fueling, and the fifth was immediately put into "reinforcement mode". The largest number of ships KenZoku has had in any area appears to be 300 and they didn't attempt anything significant.
They just seem unwilling to engage. Unopposed, there are now some 40 KenZoku stations in "reinforcement mode" and on a timer to being destroyed. This is out of approximately 137 as of Thursday; most of these in the "J-L" system with 108 moons. On Thursday afternoon there were a claimed 117 GoonSwarm stations. If this continues, GoonSwarm could clear the constellation of KenZoku Sovereignty in another two days, with those systems already flipped appearing in the Sovereignty map in the middle of next week.
Things have quietened down enough that, on two occasions, fleets of small Frigates and Cruisers from Alliances unrelated to the conflict (PuPPet Masters, Force of Evil, and Minor Threat) flew through Delve in what appears to be a joy ride. Unoccupied with anything else, the three Pandemic Legion Titans in the area obliterated them both en mass with their Doomsday weapons. The second time they did this, the PL fast attack squadrons complained that their fun was being stolen, but were countered with "even if they outnumber you they won't engage anyway". A single ship from the first frigate fleet managed to dodge all three Doomsdays, evade the GoonSwarm/Pandemic Legion support flotillas, and make it back to NPC space. Pandemic Legion invited him to put in an application.
Furthermore, there's been a call through the Greater Coalition allied with KenZoku to focus on moving logistics from a particular system of non-PVP NPC space to a staging area in The Delve. It's been suggested that this is actually a cover to hide KenZoku evacuating resources going the other direction. A super-freighter was destroyed in the Delve end of this corridor that contained five Amarr Command Ships packaged for shipment. There's evidence that they belonged to Shrike.
Maybe events will explode tomorrow, but at the moment it looks like KenZoku morale has been shattered. And given extra details that I've learned, that's an entirely reasonable response...
The battle that culminated in the Titan kill actually raged over more than nineteen hours. Over the previous two days, the GoonSwarm side of the conflict had attempted to maintain a continuous presence in the region, 24 hrs a day, rather than having "peak" hours of a few timezones when people logged in. KenZoku, for their part, had put out a public call to all Pet Alliances and Coalition mates (including Against ALL Authorities finally) to make a priority of putting aside RL concerns and getting into the game for a major push. This was referred to as a "Red Pen operation". (I have no idea what the words signify, but it meant something to the board posters.) The tactical focus seemed to be several Capital Ship Assembly Arrays that were coming out of "reinforcement mode" through the mid and late day (North America time) Thursday. With the focus on them, it was speculated that again they contained Titans under construction.
The battle began with the Tau Ceti Federation in France's early morning. Hundreds of battleships were involved, with often 1,000 or more ships in a given system. The numbers on each side shifted throughout the day but remained essentially even. Participants said every time it looked like one side was going to overwhelm the other, reinforcements arrived for the opposition. There were lulls in the fighting, but neither coalition was left in control of the field throughout the day. A pilot jettisons in an escape pod when his ship is destroyed, and the pod itself must be targeted afterward to "kill" them. By noon, records showed that 760 pilots had died in the last 24 hrs in the J-L system alone, with 360 of them occurring in the last sixty minutes.
In the afternoon, GoonSwarm succeeded in preventing the repair of the first CSAA tower to come out of reinforcement and destroyed it. This was during prime time hours in Europe, when KenZoku should have been at their strongest. KenZoku, for its part, managed to repair several stations (without CSAAs) in the QY6 system. Titans' "Jump Engine's" were used to shuttle reinforcements in from staging areas, but didn't approach the battles themselves.
The effort to keep constant numbers eventually turned the balance in GoonSwarm's favor, with the battlefield stretching over 1000 km. The three major Alliances on the GoonSwarm side (Goon Fleet, Pandemic Legion, and Tau Ceti Federation) all had separate commanders and separate communications. the Pandemic Legion commander decided on a whim to withdraw from the battle line and set up an ambush on the QY6 stargate. His group moved under warp speed to the gate and dropped "Interdiction Bubbles", anchored effects tens of kilometers across that prevent warp travel and thus an enemy's escape. As soon as they had arranged themselves for the ambush, Waagaa Ktlehr and a group of KenZoku Carriers and Battleships warped directly into the Interdiction field.
Waagaa Ktlehr piloted an Aeon class Mothership, the second largest class in the game and requiring over a month of Real Time to construct. Once a pilot enters a Mothership, they cannot leave until and unless the ship is destroyed. Waagaa's Aeon was one of the first three constructed after their introduction to the game. He had been piloting it for two years. In his own words "that ship survived more Hot Drops than a cat has lives". Why he brought his Capital Ship group to the stargate is unknown because Capitals are too large to use stargates, they can form their own Cynosurial fields, and stargates are commonly the sites of exactly this kind of ambush.
GoonSwarm Cynosurial fields opened from neighboring systems and in minutes they had over a hundred Dreadnoughts firing on the Mothership with support ships engaging the Carriers and Battleships. The Mothership and other Capitals were destroyed, giving an unambiguous victory to GoonSwarm.
A Goon posted a haiku on the EVE forums commemorating the event:
The red pen descends
pet fleet vastly outnumbered
Aeon: dead on gateGoonSwarm was in control of the field and everyone thought that Waagaa's defeat had capped the day. The Goon Fleet settled down to mop up stragglers and finish off the remaining two CSAA Towers. Two and a half hours after the Mothership was destroyed, CovertOPs recon ships reported a Cynosurial field opening near the CSAA station. Interdictors were ordered to warp directly to it and try to snare whatever was coming through. Shrike Jumped into the 8WA-Z6 system with another fleet of Capital Ships. One of the Interdictors arrived and threw up an anti-warp bubble and shot the Titan to officially "aggro" it. (This is suicidal for Interdictors, but that's apparently the mentality that "Dictor" pilots have.) Seeing the trap, Shrike took a time-honored route to protecting one's ship: he logged off. But in doing so, he also committed a laughable "noob mistake". If a ship has been aggroed, it remains on the field for fifteen minutes even if the pilot logs off. Goon and Northern Coalition pilots jumped into the system from all over Delve. Some tried to make it in from as far away as Querious to get their name on the "killmail" list. There was no fight, no Doomsday, Shrike's Titan simply died. A fourth time.
But it turns out the humiliation goes even deeper than that. Shrike is actually an alt character of Sir Molle. Molle is the CEO of BoB/KenZoku! He's the head honcho, el Jefe, man-in-charge, he who calls the shots, The BOSS.
So KenZoku brought all the force it could muster, managed a draw at best throughout the day Thursday, failed to stop the destruction of their Capital Ship Assembly Arrays with whatever they contained, lost a legendary ship, lost a Titan, had their leader become (more of) a laughing stock, and the KenZoku coalition suffered the greatest losses for a single day in EVEs history amounting to hundreds of billions in currency. Said leader then further humiliated himself the next day. The Greater BoB Coalition of Alliances was based, not on mutual interest of territorial powers, but on subordination of many lesser powers who's interest was in being associated with "the best" Alliance in the game. "KenZoku" is a different name without the weight of success that "BoB" carried and stands as a reminder for the theft of that name.
Beyond that, territorial Sovereignty is being lost to what is being called the most prolific "Tower Spam" in EVE's history. The primary Fleet Commander for Pandemic Legion praised GoonSwarm Logistics for being able to have a Station emplaced, anchored, activated, and begin fueling "within seconds" of a KenZoku tower being destroyed. Goon Logistics was also efficient enough to have their Dreadnought forces martialed and moved to Delve within four days of hostilities being opened and during a mass migration. This is to say nothing of being able to keep supply of ammunition and tower fuel available around the clock. It's possible that even if KenZoku has more money, they might not be able to utilize it as efficiently as GoonSwarm.
It may be that KenZoku has had their morale broken and simply given up. If that's so, then here is your Daily Irony dating back a year to the first Delve Invasion.
EDIT: RAZOR Alliance propaganda flier.
KenZoku still refuses to engage in large numbers. Moderate sized fights took place in the 4K-TRB and 5BTK-M systems. In the 4K-TRB fight, KenZoku managed to inflict 31 to 3 Battleship losses on GoonSwarm. That minor victory is overshadowed by multiple Battleships lost in 5BTK-M, two KenZoku Stations destroyed, and another Carrier caught in a GoonSwarm interdiction bubble alone and sunk.The Psychological Front is going just as badly for KenZoku. Their failures on the field have undercut their "we will crush you" meme and GoonSwarm has switched tactics from division to ridicule. Since GoonSwarm owns the corporate name "Band of Brothers", two individuals are now posting under that corporate affiliation with the names "Sir Molley" and "SirTrolle". They are satirizing recent events and damage control spin from KenZoku, pretending to post from KenZoku's point of view.
However, while I can't pin down details, it does appear that the GoonSwarm Coalition has suffered a significant loss in the last few days. A member of the Pandemic Legion named WarGod "rage quit" and said that he was tired of leaving and then being brought back only to get sick of it again. Thus he needed to "burn his bridges" so that he would never be asked back again. He stole 34 million in game-money and 14 Dreadnoughts from a Pandemic Legion constituent corporation.
After this event, Tyrrax Thorrk posted on the EVE forums that he himself was in fact WarGod. Tyrrax Thorrk is the leader of the Guiding Hand Social Club, the organization that pulled off the ten-month corporate infiltration and theft that made gaming headlines in 2005. There is of course no way to be sure, but if this is true then the mercenary GHSC has ironically inflicted more damage on the Pandemic Legion than KenKoku has managed in the last week.
There's no word on where the Dreadnoughts are now, but GHSC's normal mode of operation is to sell such items on the open market (having no use for them themselves). A Pandemic Legion spokesperson later claimed that through some "social engineering", he had recovered "most of" the lost assets.
Earlier in the week, Tyrrax congratulated The Mittani on the dissolution of "BoB" and lamented that he didn't know how he was going to top the exploit. I'm sure he's still thinking on it.
Beyond that sideshow things very much seem to be going GoonSwarm's way. Goon control is beginning to appear in the Sovereignty map (yellow dots in the lower part of Delve; not the westernmost as I'd previously said. Told you it was hard to figure out placenames.)
During an interview immediately following the dissolution of their Alliance, a Band of Brother's spokesman tried to dismiss the importance of the name. He stated that originally they had been "Cookies Cream Cake and Pie (the CCCP)", but that CCP (the Devs of the game) objected to the name and forced them to take another. "We didn't want that name anyway" the spokesman said. During the same radio broadcast, The Mittani said the best thing to hear from an opponent when you take something form them was that they "didn't want it" to begin with.
This has become a running joke amongst the Goons. After a new event, someone will post "They didn't want that "<system/fleet/tower/sovereignty/Mothership/Titan>" anyway!" Each iteration of the joke becomes a larger loss.
Speculation among third parties has switched from "who will win in Delve?" to "when/what will Against ALL Authorities do?" They are an extremely large Alliance that is nominally aligned with KenZoku. Yet they have made little participation in the Delve fighting. They showed up during Thursday's Red Pen operation, but were not there for the heaviest fighting. Instead, they are fighting major fleet engagements against United Legion over the abandoned Goon-space. If Against ALL Authorities committed themselves to the campaign, they might be able to bring C0ven and Stain Empire with them. Coven has a great deal of enmity for the Goons and the Stain Empire has a Pandemic Legion-like reputation for "small but fierce". After the failed Delve Invasion in 2008, GoonSwarm attacked Stain Empire and were thrown back with painful losses; thereafter leaving them alone.
If I may armchair-quarterback for a moment, this is the worst strategic move in the entire war. It is true that AAA is a Russian based group with the timezone that that implies, but their focus should still be the Delve campaign. Even if other Alliances are taking open-territory that they want, those systems aren't going anywhere. The Goons on the other hand are in the middle of a Hail-Mary assault. AAA could have struck a bargain with KenZoku that they would commit themselves to assisting with conquest of any neighboring systems AAA wished in return for full effort in wiping out the Goons while they were vulnerable. Any of the battles in the last week might have gone the other way with more numbers on KenZoku's side; which Against All Authorities have. Broader coverage would also have made it harder for the Goon Coalition to destroy or emplace Towers.
Instead, an end to KenZoku (if that is what is happening) will mean that many of the larger Alliances will have to find a new enemy to fight. They might turn on each other without BoB/KenZoku to pressure solidarity, but that seems a little rash. Better to find an opponent outside the current alignments. If Delve falls, Against ALL Authorities will have the largest territory of any Alliance by default and will remain the last threat from the old "BoB" balance of power. Furthermore, they will be immediate neighbors for the Northern Coalition on their North (TCF's Wicked Creek), South (TCF's Omist), and West (NC controlled Querious).
With AAA support, KenZoku might win. If Delve falls, Against ALL Authorities will be the next target.
Message posted from GoonSwarm CEO Darius Johnson to KenZoku and Friends:--------------------------------------
I believe it's pretty clear to you by now that we are pretty systemically destroying you. Within a very short period of time Delve will belong to Goonswarm and camped into stations or not, there is nothing at all you can do about it. Were I Remedial this would be about the time I'd offer you terms of surrender. I am not Remedial however. I do not want nor care for your surrender. I want every single second of this to hurt. I want it to be as painful for you as possible and I have the people behind me to make this happen.
PL, the NC, UNL, ZAF, ALL of those you have been so ****y with in your "supremacy" of the game, while hilariously losing to them repeatedly, they are all here and they are all in your house destroying your work. No amount of spin or damage control you do here can save your stations. No amount of bull**** can save your alliance. You are finished. You have no clothes anymore and are found wanting. Nobody is fooled any longer and we are destroying you while you hide and look for hacks that can save you. There is no bat phone. There is no savior. There is only me and my friends.
So Kenny, look back with fondness on your days as a "force" in eve. Remember kindly your "contributions" and your "place in Eve history". I own all of that now and I will remove every last piece of it. You are splayed on the table before me and my allies and I will give you no quarter. No more convos from your pets asking for standings. No more convos from your corps asking for standings. Save it. This will be painful. You will not like it and I will be there the entire time twisting the knife every inch of the way. I don't want this to end easily for you or yours. I do not want a safe evacuation for anyone.
You are finished and this pleases me.
Send a few more sms's to people's phones if you want release. Call a few more people's RL jobs or intrude more on people's RL lives. Squirm and squiggle and try as you may to escape the noose. You cannot. I and mine own you now and it is right and delicious. Die slowly please. Me and mine are savoring this.
Your time is over. This is as it should be.
It turns out that AAA was actually fighting against BoB and with GoonSwarm + Company in a previous war. The BoB offensive was limited, much as the first Delve Invasion's was, by GoonSwarm Sovereignty effects. Not finding their progress satisfactory, they looked for another avenue of attack. BoB bribed Evil Thug, the leader of AAA, to switch sides in the conflict.BoB formed up for another offensive and sent signal to Evil Thug, who then had GoonSwarm's Towers in the region simply turned off. GoonSwarm instantly lost Sovereignty in the same way that BoB did a week and a half ago, though on a smaller scale. Free from Cyno-jammers, BoB surged into Goon-space. GoonSwarm eventually threw them back, but the base betrayal of the Goons and all their other Coalition-mates was remembered.
The inclusion of "UNL" (United Legion) in Darius Johnson's list of allies was the last piece. I'd heard nothing about the United Legion and where their allegiances lay, nor had I seen them in the Delve battle lists. In a search they're there, almost microscopically, but fighting on the GoonSwarm side. They've instead been fighting Battleship engagements with AAA in the South. I'd thought this was just squabbling over the spoils of Goon-space. But it's more harassment for an ally of KenZoku.
Instead of being "maybe the opponent they will attack instead of looking to each other" as I'd speculated, Against ALL Authorities has a cross-hairs on their foreheads painted there by the Alliances that are winning this war. Once Delve and Querious are taken, AAA will be completely surrounded on all sides. They really should have thrown their weight behind KenZoku.
Always stand with an ally, especially when you think it will hurt.
There are a few flottillas of fast cruisers and such looking for lone ships to pounce, but they and anything larger than them will run from anything that looks like it might turn into a serious fight. The majority of KenZoku ships that log on are hiding inside Station shields and refusing to come out if there are significant Goons in-system.On Saturday, the Goons became so disgusted with a battle fleet of their "elite PVP" opponent refusing to come out that they brought in Interdictors and threw up a couple dozen warp bubbles around the station. (I've seen several pictures, but can't find any that are easily linkable.) They left some support there to shoot anyone who stuck their nose out and the rest wandered off to wreck everything in the system unopposed.
There's some speculation this is The New Plan(tm): just hide and wait until the goons get bored and go away. That's roughly what happened last time with people simply not enjoying trading towers in the same system over and over. All else equal, KenZoku has about three weeks before any systems they still have Sovereignty in regain Cyno-jammers and movement in them becomes much more difficult for an attacker. It sucks as plans go, but may be all KenZoku leadership is willing to risk at this point.
It's not going to work this time though. Firstly, it's been made clear to the Goons that this is an all or nothing campaign; if they don't take any constellations they won't have any to go home to. Secondly, the Goons have already had a taste of the most intense fleet combat EVE has seen in its history. Since they are getting the food-pellet "sometimes", they'll push the lever many times when they want "food". Thirdly, they're winning. And finally, Darius' statement was perfectly timed and ideally crafted to armor the Goons against that kind of boredom.
The no-quarter policy means there's no uncertainty about where the end-point of the campaign is. The erase-their-works-from-the-earth and I-want-to-make-you-hurt policies means the Goons can take satisfaction from what might otherwise be tedium. The Goons are pretty simple animals. They want to have fun and see neat things happen. They don't have to be "the best at PVP" to go home satisfied. They don't have to be "the richest" or "the biggest" or "the strongest". After Darius' statement, even if KenZoku refuses to come out and fight, the Goons can destroy a few stations and log off with the fact they are making EVE history by "getting rid of BoB". Even if KenZoku refuses to engage, the Goons can smash some stations and know that they took something their opponent's valued; they made them hurt.
I think the Goons get underestimated because of their "lolz wut?" posting, but if you back off and look at them they're incredibly dangerous in this game. Morale is almost painfully important in EVE because if players have little expectation of "winning" they won't log on. The Goons though, are very difficult to dispirit. They freely and self-effacingly acknowledge they are terrible pilots. They gleefully own the moniker "worst Alliance in EVE". They're just there to goof around and do crazy things. If they go into a fight and lose, so what? That was what was supposed to happen. If they go into a fight and win, that's even more enjoyable than it otherwise would be!
Out of game, derision from an opponent bounces off of them. "You're not as good was we are at this game" is met with "yeah...so?" Since they are so un-pompous there's little they can't laugh at. Even The Mittani posts in a non-serious style. In his announcement post taking credit for disbanding BoB, he declared that he was "mitten, a mighty SPACE TYRANT~, i focus my space tyranny on the v. important job of being 1. warm 2. fuzzy". How do you mock that?
Yet that self-image isn't true any more. The Goons still take in lots of new people all the time, giving them large numbers, but they aren't an Alliance of "n00bs in frigates" anymore. There's a solid core of skilled and well equipped players now. Moreover, they have a very smart and coordinated leadership. The combination of the two means that in the long term, GoonSwarm is utterly determined and in the short term, they just don't give a [censored]. They can do things that pride would forbid others from doing; if they suicide a fleet to achieve an objective, so what?
They can also survive things that would damage the self-image of another Alliance. This morning a lone Goon Battleship called for fire-support, and due to some mis-communication the Pandemic Legion Fleet Commander ordered a Titan Doomsday Device to fire on its location. The only thing destroyed in the blast was the Goon Apocalypse. BoB would have found such an incident blush-worthy; the Goons think it's the second funniest thing they've seen all week! Also, the Goons actually lost a Mothership of their own two days before Waagaa was brought down. But it just wasn't important to them.
From an opponent's perspective though, being attacked by the Goons has to be painful. Besides the high-level coordination for psy-war, there's a continuous torrent of trolls and spam from the rank and file. Any attempt to fight back or vent makes you a target. Any riposte is either in-effective or thrown back at you: "how does it feel to get your butt kicked by the worst Alliance in EVE?"
You basically can't break Goon morale. The only ways to stop the GoonSwarm are to either completely deny them movement in your territory and allow them no foothold to attack from or to have them lose interest and go elsewhere. KenZoku seems utterly incapable of doing the former. Darius Johnson has closed off possibility for the latter.
1 comment:
this is awesome, thanks
Post a Comment