Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers - Update

After a long break from playing war reporter, Human_Being is back with an overview of the action since his last post:

War Profits
There are some mis-conceptions earlier in the thread about how much material damage Haargoth Agamar actually did to then-BoB's Black Nova Corporation. While what he took hurt, it was not in-itself crippling to KenZoku. He took all fifteen Corporate Capital Ships BNC had, but the KenZoku 'Dread fleet still numbers some 230 ships (all still in PR-8CA). Agamar also took the "corporate store" of BNC consisting of hundreds of sub-Capital ships and stocks of Tower/Jump Drive fuel. These ships represent a pool that would have been used to fill in utility gaps in a given fleet or replace individuals' ship losses after a major battle. All corporation members still possessed their own ships though, stored in their own hangars. Finally, Agamar took eight billion in currency from the BNC corporate account. This is a significant sum of cash, but represents a fraction of BNC's available resources. Most corporations have a practice of keeping most of their money divided in Directors' personal accounts. Storing cash in individual accounts allows Directors to pocket and mis-use funds, but also prevents the corporation from being rendered completely insolvent by exactly this kind of attack. As a measure of scale, a Dreadnought hull without any fittings will start at around 1.6 billion and a Titan will begin at 40 billion. So while it was damaging, it didn't determine the war's course on its own.

The economic portion of the war began with about the same standings as the military one: KenZoku holding an apparently stronger hand and GoonSwarm facing an uphill battle. And like the military struggle, the economic confrontation has played out almost in the reverse of expectations.

Goon-anomics
One might criticize their antics, their chosen equipment, or individual pilots' performance, but one thing that has impressed all the Goons' allies and surprised their enemies is the astonishing logistical feat that they have, and are, pulling off. Firstly they managed an orderly and near-complete evacuation of several thousand players' assets from their old space. Outposts were cleared, Towers were taken down, and ships were convoyed out. Any ships that could not be moved were "insured" and then fed to NPCs for recovery of partial value (yes, that's fraud). Everything was transferred safely to 319-3D in NPC Delve; a central location within jump-range of most points in the Delve/Querious region. Materiale was moved swiftly enough that the Coalition Dreadnought fleets were able to operate with full support within two days of the evacuation order.

Once moved, support personel set up stores and have maintained a continuous flow of supplies from Empire-space. GoonSwarm has a reimbursment program for anyone who loses a ship in a fleet action and new hulls need to be available. All of those ships launching sorties 23 hours a day (minus one for server maintenance) require ammunition of some sort, with many specialized types and expensive varieties. Besides ammunition, fitting a ship for different tasks requires specific ship-modules. Dreadnought, Titan, and Cyno-field capable ships need "fuel" for each Cyno-Jump they make from system to system. All Towers need fuel and equipment as well. They need not just Strontium Clathrates to guard them against attack, but regular fuel consumed hourly to make them function at all. Of course, each NPC-faction's variety of Tower also requires a different type of fuel . All of these things have been procured and provided so as to allow uninterrupted operations for weeks on end.

Also impressive is how efficiently supply is being maintained. The busiest player trade-hub in Empire-space is "Jita". Players in outer regions refer to the costs of their equipment as "Jita +X%". GoonSwarm is moving items efficiently enough (or bringing in raw materials and manufacturing them on the spot) that their pilots are paying "at or slightly below Jita prices". One Goon pilot has reported that with prices as they are from the logistics teams, he was buying and fitting a new hull for 10-20 million less than the ship-reimbursement value received from his corporation.

While all of this is going on, the logistics team is moving new Towers into place, anchoring them, keeping track of which faction-type is where, and keeping them all fueled. There are some 300+ Coalition Towers in the region now, with more going up, and all of them must be manually maintained by someone.

There are Real World militaries that can't do this and the Goons have kept it up for over a month. Slacker-retards indeed.

The situation gets more astonishing if you take into account that everything was from a standing start. The time from realization that they could destroy BoB's Sovereignty to execution of the plan was literally hours. No one outside the GIA (Goon Intelligence Agency) and GoonSwarm CEO knew that anything was going to happen. The Mittani actually explained what had been done to the rest of the GoonSwarm Directorship after the fact (warning: some language).

The Coalition had only one advantage in preparation. Before the de-Sov-ing operation, GoonSwarm had been under attack by AAA and BoB/GBC. The Goons were holding their territory (even in the face of a de-Sov-ing spy used by BoB themselves at DG-8VJ), but the war had largely turned into a Tower-trading stalemate. Not satisfied with this state of affairs, the Coalition leadership had planned a new offensive against AAA with new tactics to take their territory. In preparation for their plan, the Coalition members had quietly purchased and stockpiled....300 Towers.

Landed Nobility
In contrast, KenZoku started the war with all of their equipment already in place. They had 400+ towers in Delve alone. They had years of stockpiled ships in their hangars. They had regular supply routines. Yet they have been pushed into NPC space.

KenZoku and the Pets still operate daily fleets of cruisers and frigates, but they are mostly basing out of NPC Aridia to the North of Delve. This puts them even closer to the trade hubs of Empire-space, but a KenZoku pilot has reported he is paying "Jita +15%" for equipment. KenZoku ships are also showing up in Coalition killboards with some surprisingly sub-standard fittings. BoB always insisted on the very best equipment (and demanded the same of the Pets) for their fleets. Always having better equipment than their opponent was a matter of pride for BoB. It's unknown if the "fail-fitted" ships represent replacement ship-modules in short supply or unwillingness to risk their best assets in what amount to harrying attacks.

Questions are being raised about BoB's past finances. They controlled the richest area of the game for years. They had much of their territory occupied by Pet Alliances who paid "rent" for their space and cost BoB no overhead for that income. The Pet Alliances also took their place in BoB battle lines, but were responsible for their own ship-reimbursments and (BoB-dictated) Capital Ship building programs. BoB built literally dozens of Titans, some of which were sold to friednly powers and others it now appears were sold under the table.

"Where are the Titans??" has been replaced with "Where is the Money??"

AAA and Red.Overlords are derided as "ebayers" and "Farmer alliances" with accusations that they forcefully occupy high-quality mining areas so their leaders can sell game-currency for RMT as a profession. A single Titan is valued at several thousand real-world dollars by the known RMT rates. BoB as a whole had income in the hundreds of billions per month. If they had wished to, the BoB Directors could have skimmed car-payment worthy amounts of cash from their sprawling empire. With their vaunted Titan fleet failing to appear and their years of occupation in Delve, some are wondering with bewilderment if the leaders of the Elite PVP Alliance of EVE...were in fact the worst group of Gold Farmers the game has ever seen....

Bust and *BOOM*
Regardless of any RMT suspicions, KenZoku is now an Alliance looking for a working strategy to attack the Coalition. For most of the previous weeks the majority of their activity has been to form a sizable fleet of support ships during their prime-time and dash for PR-8CA. In the few minutes before they arrive, word gets sent out out over out-of-game communications and enough Coalition members log in to the System-Camp to double their numbers or more. After seeing that they once again were not fast/numerous enough, KenZoku would turn and head for Querious to find some mischief. The Coalition would subsequently pursue them until the KFC ships logged off or were destroyed.

This is most of the action the Coalition PR-8CA campers see. They maintain that they are not becoming bored however. The guards have said that they get rotated on a good schedule, can do other things on their computers while waiting for an alert, and as an NPC system it is easy to find "rats" if they want to hunt a little. Since the earlier slash fan-fiction was somewhat poorly received, the Goons are now trying to be more literate with stories read over the Coalition Teamspeak. The current reading selection is The Count of Monte Cristo. While not what one might associate with Goons on first blush, the irony in being read the ultimate story of utter financial, social, and personal destruction in pursuit of vengeance appeals to the Campers. They insist they can keep this up forever (or at least longer than it takes KenZoku to give up).

There is some minor friction developing amongst Coalition members regarding the chases of KenZoku/KFC "breakout attempts". Most of this annoyance relates to the Pandemic Legion fleet commander "Shadoo" and his willingness to launch Doomsday attacks on even small fleets....and regardless of how many friendlies might be mixed in with them. The complaint is less that pilots' ships have been destroyed than that Shadoo is "hogging all the action". There is now a running joke with the formula "Shadoo DDed a Scout Frigate on the 319 gate. Update: 10 Goon Cruisers destroyed in the blast". Before the conflict even started, Pandemic Legion apparently secured a diplomatic "pass" for any such incidents and they are making full use of it. Never the less, Shadoo has begun to pilot Interdictors, trap enemy ships himself, and then order a Doomsday on his own ship in joking penance.

However, despite his "guns blazing" combat style, Shadoo has been very capable as a Fleet Commander during the campaign. For example, one day last week he noticed that KenZoku's ships appeared to be following a route to Querious they had used twice before. He Cyno-Jumped his Interdictor to a system ahead of the enemy fleet along that predicted path. Inside the system, Shadoo plotted an exact line between the entry gate and the one several Astronomical Units away that KenZoku would take when exiting the system. He then activated his Warp Interdiction bubble in the middle of that line just before the fleet entered.

As the KFC ships warped across the system they were stopped and dropped out of warp inside Shadoo's bubble. The set up worked perfectly with the entire fleet caught in his trap. Shadoo instantly had a waiting Titan Jump in via Cyno-Field and fire its PBAoE Doomsday Device as soon as it was through. In order to escape the blast, the clumsy cruisers and battleships would have needed to have a tactical speed-boosting module equipped, activate that module, power themselves to the edge of the kilometers-wide warp disruption field, and reactivate their warp drive all in a few seconds.

There was a teensy flaw with the plan though. An uninformed Tau Ceti Federation task force had also set up a gate-camp in the same system. They intercepted the KenZoku fleet when they came through the gate...and naturally tried to immediately pursue them when their prey warped away...

Of course, after having fought beside Shadoo for over a month, some TCF pilots have become remarkably quick on the uptake.

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

For more than five days now, KenZoku and its subordinate Alliances have remained camped into the NPC station of PR-8CA. The only activity from the blockaded parties is a few individuals trying to leave in disposable frigates or shuttles. A greater threat is currently posed by...well...Minor Threat, who now seem to be intendant upon more than quick vengeance for last weekend's moment of comedy.

In the last three days a majority of the in-system kills by GoonSwarm are Minor Threat fast Frigate and assault Cruiser gangs roving Delve. The next night, more of them are back; seeking stragglers and targets of opportunity. Given their chosen enemy's indolence, I don't think GoonSwarm minds the distraction deep down. In different circumstances, an invasion of annoyances like this could be chased out with a few flottilas of Goon assault craft and sniping Battleships. However, the focus of attention remains the systematic destruction of KenZoku's hundreds of Towers and the claiming of their territory.

Again, keep in mind that the map represents the reality on the ground from a week ago. It takes seven days for a Tower majority to officially claim Sovereignty in a system. Regardless of the delay, KenZoku Sovereignty continues to disappear because all Towers in some systems have been destroyed. KenZoku enjoyed a 42-to-8 Station majority in J-LPX7 (the site of the heaviest fighting) this morning. Each station literally has millions of hit points. By tomorrow morning, GoonSwarm and its Coalition partners expect to have razed all of them; leaving them with 0-to-8 control of a system having 108 moons. The Dreadnought teams are working around the clock with what is now a practiced, machine-like efficiency.

Meanwhile, lesser strategic threats are also being dealt with. When the BoB Sovereignty collapsed, one of the groups unaffected was the Pet Alliance Axiom Empire. Axiom Empire held Sovereignty level 3 in a couple of scattered systems. They tried to help with the resistance by emplacing new Towers of their own early in the conflict as well. Now, Axiom Empire holds no Sovereignty anywhere in Delve; thus removing one more bolt-hole for GoonSwarm's enemy to base from.

Further East, the Skunk-Works Alliance also held Sovereignty 3 in a small portion of Querious and expanded that territory early in the War to stem the tide of Goon-Coalition Tower-spam. The RAZOR Alliance, along with other members of the Northern Coalition, has done yeoman's work in attacking this redoubt. Two more Skunk-Works held systems lost all Sovereignty this morning. While Skunk-Works is putting up as little resistance as the rest of the KenZoku Pets at the moment, it must be mentioned that RAZOR and company are having to do this the old-fashioned, brute-force way. Any system with functioning Cyno-jammers means rapid reinforcement and Capital Ship firepower will not be forth-coming.

Moving away from the major combat (if I may be permitted to call it that ) zone, Against ALL Authorities and its Southern allies continue their occupation of old Goon-space and are even moving on Goon allies. Prior to the dissolution of BoB, AAA (with BoB support) had been contesting GoonSwarm territory in Tenerifis and Feythabolis. Also in the South, Stain Empire, Systematic-Chaos, C0VEN, and Atlas Alliance were fighting for Esoteria against GoonSwarm and the United Legion (UNL). UNL was able to hold its own, and backed by GoonSwarm were denying the enemy territorial gains.

When GoonSwarm relinquished their holdings in the South, UNL moved rapidly to take possession of their Feythabolis and Tenerifis domains. They have had some success in Tenerifis, contested against AAA, but have been pushed back by Red.Overlords and AAA in Feythabolis. Loss of this area means their holdings in the Southwest are cut off from South-central. Furthermore, they were not able to claim the Goons' part of Esoteria and are now beginning to lose ground in Paragon Soul.

United Legion is very much a "rear guard" for the Delve invasion, with all the risks that come with that role. So long as Stain, C0VEN, & cetera do not take Paragon Soul, there is no escape route from the southern region of the war-zone through Period Basis. KenZoku and Pet posters have made much of GoonSwarm and the Northern Coalition "abandoning" United Legion. The Goons have replied that everyone in the War Coalition knows what is at stake, what must be prioritized at the moment, and that unlike BoB/KenZoku, they do not abandon their allies or treat them as servants. UNL for its part, has expressed confidence that they can hold against their bitter rivals.

So is that all AAA is up to? In an earlier post this morning, I pointed out that a Red.Overlord ship with a Cyno-field Generator had been destroyed in PR-8CA. That could have signaled the beginning of an invasion, but there has been no other activity through (and now beyond) Russian prime-time. It's entirely possible it was simply a head-game. A cheap (literally) joke at everyone's expense.

If the Kestral had been part of a larger invasion plan, I'm afraid I would have had to revise my estimate of their stance a third time. I'd previously expressed puzzlement over why AAA would not be fully backing KenZoku when they would become the natural next target for all the parties involved. I changed my mind after I recalled that AAA is Russian; with the educational point of view on history which that implies. If you look at Against ALL Authorities territory (Catch, Tenerifis, Impass, Omist, and Feythabolis) their constellations tend to be arranged in long strings. Most of these are heavily built-up Sovereignty level 3 systems. It may be the AAA leadership's belief that, even if they end up facing a large Coaltion, they have plenty of ground to force an enemy to fight for. Their territory is very "deep", and has recently gotten deeper. If facing more enemies than they can manage, they can make a fighting retreat of it while their central territories are untouched. AAA might survive this way for a long time.

Furthermore, if they sit and wait for KenZoku and the Pets to collapse, they can pick and choose amongst their best pilots to recruit. What other alliance could they join? Where else are they going to go?

I don't think the Russians are coming to help ...

So where does that leave KenZoku and the Pets? I'm reminded of a frustrated fan sitting near me at a hockey game who screamed to his team "Do Something! Even if it's wrong!" The current KenZoku strategy is like the occupants of a besieged castle saying "forget the food stocks, I'm sure they'll pack up and leave soon enough". The longer they sit inactive, the less a breakout is likely to accomplish.

KenZoku still has possession of 26 known Titans. A group of them could break the fleet out of PR-8CA in a few minutes. They would naturally be beset immediately...unless of course another Titan could also be used as a distraction. If one was spotted trying to hop north to the borders, the bored attackers would likely swarm it from all locations. Even more-so if it turned out to be Shrike in a fifth Avatar. (The deliberate sacrifice of himself to fool his enemies would also go some ways towards recovering face for him.)

Once a breakout was made, they could either stand and fight in a single throw of the dice or retreat Northeast. If they made a stand in PR-8CA with all of the Coalition members jumping in-system, they would be attempting to cripple GoonSwarm's numbers in their space with superior firepower and bring a halt to the Tower offensive. If they retreated to Skunk-Works space, they regain Sovereignty advantages for their base while being able to range freely across the rest of Querious.

As it is, a few KenZoku members are retreating to Period Basis. Why this is a good idea is beyond me. In the Northeast, resupply from Empire should be easy. Period Basis is a cul de sac. Resupply is extremely difficult and even if they had a route through Paragon Soul, the distance is too far for a Cyno-Jump; retreating that way would mean leaving their Capital Ships and Titans behind. The Executive Outcomes Alliance, in Sovereignty 3 control of the southern half of Period Basis, has openly told their members to get their equipment out to Empire-space while they still have time.

If anything happens, it needs to happen Friday or Saturday at the latest. Anything later means there will be fewer people with time to log on for extended periods and less likelihood of building any momentum. Failing to make a move by the end of Saturday in Europe will mean the loss of many corporation members as they are faced with probability of another week of inactivity while the leadership "waits". Throwing taunts at the Goons and promising to do it a second time tomorrow is not rewarding play. (Though there have been reports that a few of *the Goons* have been stunned into silence by the vehemence and personal nature of some of the smack-talk emanating from PR-8CA.)

If KenZoku is planning to rise phoenix-like from NPC space in a few weeks, they will be sorely disappointed. Even if the Northern Coalition has gone home by that point, they have stated they are leaving a battle-fleet and Jump Clones behind in an EVE equivalent of pre-positioning. If KenZoku should reappear weeks later with any kind of strength, the North could respond within hours. Furthermore, who will wish to come with them in these forays of vengeance with little likelihood of material gain? It's conceivable that Sir Molle could form new Alliances and sortie from Delve NPC-space for years; but each time he did it would be with fewer pilots and more derision. Meanwhile, the Goons will gain all the terrain advantages that their enemy once held and more. They will have "Fortress Delve" with easy access to Empire, allied groups holding their Northern and Southeastern approaches, and the Sovereignty Level 4 constellations that once belonged to BoB.

If KenZoku fails to fight any further for what they are losing, I firmly lay the blame on a Failure of Leadership. BoB was the strongest and most feared organization in EVE. Their stated opinion was once enough to sway other Alliances. It was Sir Molle who set BoB's goal of the destruction of GoonSwarm, citing them as too rude and uncivilized to remain in Band of Brothers' Game. It was Sir Molle who declared that GoonSwarm would never be allowed to hold territory in Player Controlled Space. Where now is this majestic heater repairman while his empire burns?

When BoB first came to destroy GoonSwarm they were a new, tiny alliance based in Cloud Ring. GoonSwarm didn't have the skills or resources to fight back against the Battleships BoB was fielding against them. For two and a half weeks they sustained losses against them. Then in a shift of tactics, they made dozens of new characters named "VCBee XXX", where XXX was a random number. These throw-away characters were used for guerilla warfare against BoB. Having them destroyed essentially cost GoonSwarm nothing and any losses for Band of Brothers gained them nothing. Furthermore the unique "Goon" mentality meant they could keep up the effort indefinitely while still enjoying themselves. BoB declared GoonSwarm "Destroyed" and left the North.

If Sir Molle is indeed planning to attempt harassment of GoonSwarm from NPC space at some later date, he is willingly adopting the position GoonSwarm held when he personally declared his enemies "Destroyed" so many years ago . Take that as your Daily Irony...

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

Why is the Goon side winning? In the words of Shadoo, Pandemic Legion Fleet Commander for the offensive (note: HAC = Heavy Assault Cruiser, a gunboat that can be fitted as a sniper and a favorite of Pandemic Legion)...

We have been successful this time (my 3rd time in Delve, 2nd proper offensive) -- NOT because we brought everything and the kitchen sink. We have been successful because we brought GF/KIA + MM/RZR + TCF + PL/SOT who have been operating pretty much as 4 entities with their own fleets and designated targets.

We've syncronized our sieges, had topes to cover each others and in fights -- called 3-4 different primaries across fleets on their own comms after having landed on field within a minute of each others.

Everyone's used a combined jabber, all FCs are always constantly polling for intel and how each others are doing and when they've started siege cycles. The communication and coordination over the past 2 weeks has been unparallel to anything I've seen/done before.

Delve mk1 we tried to do something like this, but it failed miserably. Nync did his own thing, Suas tried to coordinate with MC over MSN, RZR was in Querious, etc etc etc... Delve mk1 coalition assault reminds me more of GKC defence mk2 this time around infact.

You appear to be very badly coordinated, your allies on paper should outnumber/match us (and did for the first 2 days). Your issue was that your 2-3 different fleets (GKC, EXE, RKZ) in the first 3-4 days were warping in sometimes 5min after the fight kicked off and 2 min after one of you warped out. By the time you pulled everything to a single teamspeak -- your dicipline and fleet ability had dropped significantly due to heavy losses I presume.

You strategy seems to have been the old "pile up, lock system and hold it" in the W-4 const. You demonstrated very little manuverability and very little aggression to try to intercept any of the smaller groups/tower spam in the starting days of the conflict. And by the time you demonstrated aggression (Waagaa's fleet) -- I dare say it was too little too late.

When you swapped to combined fleets and shared your tower passwords for titan bridges -- you chose the Delve mk1 strategy of "pile everything to PR and base from there". I'm not sure if you expected Delve mk1 like 20 man PL HAC gangs to harass you in PR, but whoever made that decision completely failed to realize the field and spread of your hostiles.

The first time the combined fleet ended in PR -- was the last time so far it has undocked in there. It's not an issue as such for many, since you can JC and roam... But to do anything beoynd light roaming seems to have utterly stopped due to this, thus giving us keys to roam your kingdom with capitals 23/7 at speed I've not ever seen before.

I'm sorry to waffle on here, it just seems appropriate to respond to your points in your post that to me seem a little unrealistic. This whole "everyone is picking on us, so just sit and wait" line demonstrates the complete denial of what has happened and shows the usual hubris to acknowledge and try to address the issues that actually have lead you here.

Just look at the KB, view involved parties, check dotlan maps for pilot numbers and you realize -- you aren't outnumbered. Check the first 2 engagement involved pilot numbers if you want to argue "numbers on paper aren't on the battlefield".

"Hubris" is the Classical Greek concept of supercilious pride and arrogance; the unspoken belief that one can get away with anything because you cannot be harmed. Actions of Hubris end up shaming their victims and often their perpetrators. Hubris inevitably draws down the attention of Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution.

BoB was very much an empire. The Pet Alliances were subordinate and treated as such. They were not permitted free access to BoB's space, only what they paid rent for. They were not brought in to decision making for the BoB Alliance, or allowed to listen in; communication was through the Greater BoB Coalition (GBC) channels. If a Pet member showed up for a fleet action with "Tech 1" equipment as opposed to the more expensive "Tech 2" fittings, they were criticised by BoB's officers.

From the point of view of LuciasTrask, a Pet Alliance member (note: JC = Jump Clone, having your character appear in another pre-selected location and leaving all the ships/equipment you were using behind)....

I have been in both Delve wars, mostly on the side of BoB and then with VV for a little while, which sucked. But I can say this.

The first time around, when I was with Aftermath, we used BOB TS, we had direct orders and while the people that flew [censored] fit ships (me.. I was a noob) got scolded it still felt like one team.

This time around is different for me.

I am just an EXE nubbin right now, but when in the US TZ, we are not allowed on BOB TS so we have no idea what is going on. Im in fleets with people I dont know or have ever heard of before on the GBC TS.

I have lost 2 Falcons with only 1 rapier kill in curse to show for my efforts as the GBC leadership is alway behind the ball because of communications.

I hear "Support warp to so and so" Suddenly Im in a bubble.. then a pod, then a station. Nothing but reds in sight for the mos part. So my efforts are definitely hampered when by the time we are ordered to warp and engae, BOB has left the field and We warp onto an enemy that has already loaded grid. In some of these fights if the fleets had been unified we would have outnumbered the PL/SOT/GF/NC fleets. But we never actually seem to merge, just get suicided onto already loaded reds.

I have JC'd out of PR- leaving quite a few HAC/HIC and logistic ships behind. Whatever I will buy new ones. So thats not a big blow to me. I have plenty of BS in PB to throw at the war effort.

What does hurt the efforts in my opinion is a lack of communication between the GBC and BoB from a grunt perspective. I know basically nothing aout what is going on. I learn more from Sahdoos battle reports than when I am logged in. Kinda silly.

I have heard all the "BoB thinks you suck" talk and while it doesnt bother me if it is or isnt true I know some people it does bother. I think that is another problem.

The true solution to this problem is for everyone in the GBC to swallow their pride and shut up. Start working together, begin to fight with capitals on the field, and not be afraid to die. I mean [censored] I was in a meat shield alliance the first time around and died ALL THE TIME.

Its just pixels. Lets lose them in fun ways. The PR- camp can be broken by everyone stuck in there logging in and a quad doomsday on the station folowed by a mass undock. Then begin to drop the capitals in. Sure we may lose some, we may lose alot. We may lose a titan. But we wont to a conventional fleet, it will take a capital fleet to bring down that many caps and sub caps.

this war isnt over, it just needs to be rethought from our side.

Maybe I might get blasted for posting this, hell I dont even know if any of this is already planned. Like I said. Being a grunt on the bottom doesnt lend itself to knowing really anything of what is going on.

BoB/KenZoku has fallen to Hubris.

And the Goons are Nemesis...

Pulse

Vertical Studio has a fourth video out (I admit, I'm a bit late noticing. Sorry!). It's called "Pulse: Or How To Attain Enlightenment In Five Easy Steps":

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

In response to a comment speculating on KenZoku's demise:

I will reply to it nonetheless as there are probably more people thinking the same.

The USA had a bank holiday monday and that results in half of goonfleet being pilled up in pr- and active for any action needed. BoB (GKC) being mostly EU was at work as normal. I dont think pr- dropped below 300 enemies.

Now what i personally feared happened. A day after the order was given to all base from PR- that system gets completely locked down and dozens of bubbles are anchored at the station, all posses and all gates.

This is what you do if you want to completely immobilize a enemy. Its smart, it makes sense. Dont go frothing at the mouth and see the death of a alliance when they dont form a counter fleet against your pos shooting squads. The two are related and not seperate.

We will see what happens tuesday when both sides are on normal workday terms. But the odds are in favour for our enemies in every way at this moment.

It was expected we would lose a big chunk of the stations but damn its going fast now. NC is sieging multiple systems at the same time without a support fleet for the caps in some systems. I assume completely confident that if they come under fire a rescue fleet will be there in 1 siege cycle (and rightfully so atm).

I completely understand it must be epic for goons what is happening now and they must feel they are dancing on our graves now but this fight isnt over by a long shot.

The current situation we are in is because of one person killing Band of Brother alliance not some strategic mastermind or a briliantly executed campaign.

More fights after work, its eve heaven for me.

----

For your viewing pleasure, here is some video footage. It's a series of Tower sieges, first with Battleships and then with Dreadnoughts.

And your Daily Irony: Haargoth Agamar, the defector, was able to steal Black Nova's Capital fleet during the opening to the War because BoB had been concerned with territorial losses in Delve War I the previous year. To protect their assets, they moved many of them into NPC-space where they could neither be destroyed nor conquered. Had they been kept in player-controlled space, Agamar could have taken their ownership rights but GoonSwarm would have had a very hard time getting at them. Putting them "safely" in NPC-space meant the Goons had easy access to them and they were out of BoB's control entirely.

During The Mittani's recorded explanation to other GoonSwarm officers of what had happened, he mentioned the names of the two places where the ships and supplies had been cached. Only tonight I realized that these NPC systems were not in Empire-space; they were Pirate Systems in Delve. The two names he mentioned are "Haddock" (0-HDC8) and "PR Dash" (PR-8CA). The latter of which being...

...the very same place the bulk of KenZoku's active battle fleet is currently blockaded.

Vertical Studio

I've recently discovered an amazing video production team, Vertical Studio. To quote the blog page,

Our goal is to produce quality videos featuring original music, elaborate shots, and cinematic cameras movements.

The videos are quite good, and use the City of Heroes engine for the graphics. The videos are even more impressive if you play the game, because you realize how much demo editing went into making it.

Princess of Dusk:

Dies Irae:

Night Prayers: