While I believe caps and supers aren’t an issue (heck, I’d like to see something even bigger, e.g. ‘deathstars’), as a totally separate issue, I’m all for increasing gameplay options, content, etc. for small groups and individuals. Hell, I am an individual myself.
Out of interest which groups are doing this successfully so I can see what they are doing and maybe learn from them, i’m in a similar position as op so I would find this quite helpful.
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Get some friends with a cap fleet to counter drop…?
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It feels to me as this exact answer has led us to the current situation of nullsec lol, I guess there are some people that don’t conform to it like Tri but it didn’t end well for them :/, but that is a different situation I guess as they are pretty strong cap wise.
Mine did. For months, me and about five friends leading a small alliance (Don’t Tell Me The Odds) took on NC. in khanid and kor azor lowsec, snatching their R64s with superior tactics despite constantly being outmatched by superior firepower. The vast majority of attempts they made to hot drop us, we escaped with ease, because you learn how to recognise obvious bait. Some of them, we were able to kill the cyno ship after evading the hotdrop, and then coming back to kill the cyno that was still stuck in place when the supers left. It was nice when they used Pilgrims and the like, cuz they always loaded em with shinies. By the end of a two month campaign, we’d taken about half a dozen R64s and secured Kor-Azor and Khanid lowsec assets.
The alliance fell apart when one of its leaders, and a close personal friend of mine, had some big personal problems to deal with. Praethis Starloe was ultimately the brains of the outfit, I was the braun, while Edward Aivo was the business. We worked great together but it only took one of us not being available any more for things to fall apart, so we broke up the alliance, made a deal with TEST who took on a few corps and some of the R64s in exchange for letting Ed and I continue to operate a couple each with their blessing and protection. I moved back to my regular lowsec near Uedama where I help (when I’m playing) a few low and nulsec corps keep their transit lanes clear of spies and other pests, and play more casually these days.
At the end of the day, it’s all about just being smarter. NC. lost to us because they flew cookie-cutter doctrines. At the time, shield Ishtars were the meta, but we figured out how to break that a few times with different strategies. So they decided to stop bringing sentries, but still brought the Ishtars to tower defences, using regular heavy and medium drones. On one such occasion, we MJD’d an Armageddon 100km from our battleship fleet and with it, away from our logi as well, so it looked like an accident, and an easy target. NC. took the bait and and put their drones on it. As soon as the pilot reported all drones in range, we jumped in a few interceptors to chase down the Ishtars, our Battleships made a short warp to a point we’d bookmarked and, as the interceptors landed and started grabbing points, the lone battleship let off its smartbombs, took out the entire drone ball, and the other battleships warped to the interceptors and started smashing Ishtars. It was a longshot but it paid off, and after their surviving Ishtars ran away and about an hour of blapping, the R64 was ours.
Oh, and for the record, I never actually tended to my R64s so I gave them to one of my friends in Alcoholocaust that had flown with us and transferred to TEST. I honestly don’t know what I’m doing with them on my own and honestly, keeping them fuelled and managing the moon goo just felt like another job.
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The thing is that EVE is about emergence and spontaneous order. So you are going to get things like this. And asking CCP for a fix kind of goes against the ideas of emergence/spontaneous order.
A group with superior ability and willing to use it will have the advantage. And these guys have reduced their risk by allying with PL. So they use their supers with greater impunity.
So you need to increase/impose consequences for dropping supers on everything. Yes that is easier said than done, but there you are. Asking CCP is antithetical to what EVE is, IMO, and in the end even if CCP gives you what you want it may not work like you think it will. Players have shown themselves to quite innovative with certain things introduced to the game. Ask yourself if this can be used fruitfully by a small group what could a large group do with it?
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Your story is awesome! thanks for that bro :]
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I think your confusing me with op lol unless you just hit the wrong reply button, but I do agree with you.
In a game of chess, you only even need two pieces to get a checkmate. The ability to out-think your opponent is a force multiplier. It won’t always balance the scales, sometimes sheer firepower will win and there’s just nothing you can do about it. You have to learn to identify when there is something you can do about it, and take advantage of that. Study your enemy, learn their habits, look up their fits on zkillboard and find out what times they’re doing their killing, and where. Zkill is pretty good for rudimentary intel like that which can then lead to much more advanced intel such as exactly where they’re based, and what sort of jump range and capability they have. Don’t be afraid to use diversions. We sacrificed an Orca once to get one group’s supercap fleet (which we knew would be hotdropping) occupied while we occupied one of their systems entirely unopposed, and blockaded it for a few hours while we negotiated the handover of certain assets we wanted. It was kinda funny… every time they got their cyno alt out of their station to try to sneak it past us, we’d MJD it off the station with a command destroyer right into a waiting smartbombing battleship. The stopped trying after two attempts though.
Hell, we didn’t even have the system properly blockaded. We didn’t have the numbers to properly block the gates into the system, so we just got a bunch of alts in rookie ships into the system and parked them out of dscan range of the station so we could at least give the impression of having the numbers in local. A few randoms even came through the system that we were worried might be their alts checking to see if we had a real blockade going, but we suspected that even if it was, everyone who was available was in their supercap, trapped by jump fatigue and their only available cyno alt pinned in station. Was pretty nerve wracking but also pretty funny.
Keep in mind, though, that these kinds of plays are definitely not for a beginner. It takes time to learn and understand the game to develop a level of competence and intuition for the game that will allow you to pull this ■■■■ off. And it won’t work every time. You have to be prepared for epic failure as well.
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I guess you guys are right, more planning and strategy needed then, your stories sound legendary btw wish you made youtubes ^_^.
I do.
Not of any fleet stuff, though, just my solo PVP. Gotta resub soon and get back into it.
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thanks! nice fight there
But unless you get this on the cyno ship, it isn’t useful really. Carriers, dreads, etc can hit at 50 km easily. They simply bubble you and cyno outside the 50 or 40 on radius.
Maybe you didnt read the whole post or he edited it… or you just dont care. But there is a part where he said something about it taking 2min to setup and you can open a cyno is a few seconds.
I dont have a dog in this fight but I can see the problem there. The mobile cyno inhibitor should be at least fast enough to prevent someone from popping a cyno. Not deployed over the span of a calendar year.
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It is fast enough to prevent someone from popping a cyno. It’s not a tactical device, it’s a strategic one. You set them up in advance in an operation where an enemy might have need of a cyno. If you’re getting cyno’d on, it’s probably by big ships that will take time to lock you when they land, and you have a lot of time to warp off from that.
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Would a tactical version of it be bad thing thou ^_^?
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The problem then is… why call it a mobile cyno inhibitor if it may as well just be static at that point?
I personally if I were them, just move. New Eden is big enough… that or make bigger friends. Nothing more fun than getting a bigger friend to help you curb stomp someone who thinks their big.
I don’t know. I would have to give it some thought and read through various opinions. It’s not something that would bother me personally but it’s also not something I’m ever likely to use because cynos are usually very easy to evade when you know what you’re looking for.
Because you can carry it around with you. You really need to put more thought into your questions because I’m sure you can answer them for yourself.
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Fair enough, I guess the mobile version for structure defense should be enough then. And for the attack I guess warp off first come back later is the right call instead of wondering if they are bluffing as they are still stuck there for 5 minutes.