Yesterday CCP has run a Live Event. For those who never saw a Live Event before, it is a staged, lore oriented event run in game by the devs. First incursions were such events, and the battle over Caldari Prime (operation Highlander) was another example. Live Events are usually accompanied with the risk of losing ship (in first incursions due to a huge amount of NPCs present on the battlefield, and during operation Highlander – because it essentially becoma an FFA where Gallente loyalists would duke it out with the Caldari). With that thought in mind, I have picked up a cheap, expandable ship (plated Brutix) and a cheap “combat” clone (didn’t have a blank at the time).
There were two rally points, conventiently placed next to mission hubs: Meves and Sarum Prime. I’ve chosen the first one and have arrived way before the event. I met some friendly faces there, namely Ashterothi from Aideron Robotics and Akrasjel Lanate from Naquatech. Both are experienced PVPers. I have also noticed two CSM 8 members in our group: Mike Azariah and Ali Aras. We have formed a roughly 220 people armor fleet under an FCORD FC known as Super General.
Shortly after, a CCP actor has arrived:
[ 2013.11.07 18:34:04 ] Heder Elislar > The Caldari Navy and Imperial Navy will be working independant of our effort. [ 2013.11.07 18:34:14 ] Heder Elislar > We have no business with them. [ 2013.11.07 18:39:35 ] Heder Elislar > Well, that's a lot of capsuleers. [ 2013.11.07 18:40:01 ] Ashterothi > Heder Elislar When the call comes out, Federation loyalists answer [ 2013.11.07 18:40:18 ] Buppas > glad to be here Heder Elislar, the republic can always count on my assistance [ 2013.11.07 18:41:56 ] Heder Elislar > YOUR FLEETS MAY ADVANCE TO BOTANE, AND HOLD ON THE OURAPHEH
Jump jump jump, and off we went to Botane.
The Republic general was right, that’s indeed quite a lot of capsuleers. “Enough mass to bend the time” so to speak. But we will get to that.
[ 2013.11.07 18:48:31 ] Heder Elislar > FLEET WILL BE DEPARTING IN THE DIRECTION OF LOW SECURITY PLACID IN 10 MINUTES.
Low sec – good! We will be shooting stuff! But then everybody jumped… and a giant TiDi wave crushed upon us.
Dear CCP! I’d love a screensaver with this TiDi slowed down mid-system jump animation! Pretty please! It’s really lovely (no pun intended).
Unfortunately 10% TiDi quickly led to the fleet being disorganized. Fortunately it didn’t matter much as we were still in high sec.
It took some time to arrive in Stacmon (exactly fourty-two minutes). In the meantime we’ve learned that the next waypoint is…
[19:19:24] Heder Elislar > OUR NEXT RALLY POINT IS THE SYSTEM OF VESTOUVE.
Okay, that’s close to… Syndicate. So we are going to null after all. I smiled to myself, “good that I took a cheap clone with me, too bad I didn’t have a blank”. Flying what you can afford to loose has one big advantage: you are not focused on the fear of losing your bling ship, but on the combat itself, which means you are less likely to make any mistakes. That’s why many veterans often tell newbies to master frigates first. Of course some people love the adrenaline kick, and that’s where all those multi-billion ISK killmails come from.
Once the fleet started to jump, the TiDi wave came back, and everything again dilated to a slow-mo movie. Once we’ve entered low-sec, Super General started moving the fleet in an orderly fashion (commonly known as blob).
In the meantime we’ve got the final destination:
[19:26:03] Heder Elislar > copy that, 8V-SJJ is final destination for Fed-Matari forces.
Unfortunately, we were still on the way to Vestouve, surfing a TiDi wave. And then reports started flooding in: Squids hit a heavily bubbled gatecamp, and most of their fleet got destroyed there. And gallente-minmatar have supposedly already lost the battle in 8V-SJJ. The traps were organized by null residents, namely Goonswarm and RAZOR alliance. Well, our 200+ strong fleet was still on its way, so we still had a chance at kicking some random shooting some random Goons before dying in a big ball of fire. Fun to be had!
Before crossing the low-null border, the FC asked if anyone wants to turn around and go back to safety. This was a nice move! Of course no one came. Well, except for the new owner of Poetic Stanziel, who started shooting someone and went GCC.
Once we’ve arrived in 8V-SJJ, there was still a roughly 200 men group of Goonswarm & friends in the system. After I have reviewed the killmails it seems it was at least one armor and one shield fleet, plus a wing of bombers. Our fleet warped to one of the beacons prepared by CCP and started shooting Goons. We’ve managed to catch a Damnation and one or two cruisers.
We’ve also killed a random Drake, who was unluckily caught in the crosshairs of our fleet:
And then the bombs landed on top of us! Immediately after the first bombs shown on overview, the FC has ordered a regroup at planet II. Most of the fleet survived the bombing, but deep in hull and armor. Piece of advice: never turn your MWD on when bombs are inbound! Even if you have to clear a bubble.
My trusty Brutix survived the first encounter, but it catched some fire on the way!
While friendly logis were patching us up, we’ve killed some stragglers who warped on top of us. Sorry guys! We are NPSI! (a variation of NBSI: Not purple? Shoot it).
A minute later a Megathron pilot in our fleet went AWOX. So we’ve dispatched him, too:
Once our logi finished the repairs, we warped back into battle again. This time our FC has brought us to one of the wrecks, away from the main Goon fleet. Goons followed suit, dancing around with us so to speak… and then out of a sudden we have warped close enough to each other, and the fighting began. Unfortunately our nullsec friends had enough logis to keep the primaries alive. First we went after a Proteus, but as much as our 150 men fleet could do was scratch his paintjob. Then we went after tech I ships, which usually have lower resists, so it’s easier to kill them, even with logi support. It was a sound plan and paid us a couple of killmails, for example this one:
Unfortunately experienced and well organized doctrine fleet has beaten our kitchen sink (we knew it was going to happen eventually). I went after a Harpy that has been shooting me, and his friends primaried me. My Brutix went up in flames: loss: Brutix. There was a HIC bubble up, but somehow my pod managed to get away from it. I warped to a random moon at 50, and made a safespot on the way. The F-5 gate seemed clear, and there were reports on fleet comms that the other side is clear too. I warped to the gate and jumped on contact. On the other side I follwed suit, warped to a random celestial and made a safespot on the way. Unfortunately the next gate was bubbled and camped. There was an Intaki NPC station in the system, but it was outside of my directional. I made a mistake of warping to it loss: Capsule. Yup, there was a bubble waiting for me there.
All in all, I’ve done 1,4 billion in damage, and lost 200 million, which translates to 86% efficiency. But these numbers don’t show how much fun it really was. I’ve enjoyed it a lot! Kitchen Sink Fleet op success o7
An afterthought
Now as long as PVP goes that evening was fun. TiDi is just a game mechanic designed to keep server responsive even under extreme loads. I can’t blame the servers. The actual fighting saw no TiDi, everything was smooth and fun, just like it should be.
But wait a second, where was lore in all this? It was a regular player battle, inexperienced kitchen sink fleet vs. veterans of nullsec. Where did lore go? What was the story told by this event? All previous live events I took part in were a part of the New Eden storyline. Did someone forget this was supposed to be a lore event in the end?
Many people complained about the lag and TiDi. This could have been thought of and prevented. In my opinion sending a 1000+ people through not reinforced nodes was guaranteed to cause a massive lag. I know CCP didn’t want to hint the nullsec blocks where exactly the event will be, but:
1) it didn’t work anyway, nullseccers got a hint in a public message that was supposed to rally pirate loyalists, and they had enough time to learn of the final destination.
While I don’t know if they actually bridged or not, I would do that if I was them: rally in the general vincinity with a titan bridge at the ready, and then quickly bridge once the final destination was announced.
2) lots of players were stuck in 10% TiDi on a several jump trip
It could have been done better, I’m sure Federation Navy (or even CONCORD) could have lend the high sec fleet an Erebus Titan and simply bridge the entire fleet from Meves. It would give at least a minute or two for the actors to show players the story, before the nullsec fleets arrived.
The problem is, we’ve missed the whole story this time. It was just another Kitchen Sink Fleet op. Ever heard of RvB Ganked Nights? They’re actually better than this event was…
Unless… Unless it was all planned
Unless it was supposed to be a failure. It was staged to end in a disaster. Quoting the trailer: Empires are loosing their grasp on power. They are no match for capsuleer nullsec power blocks. And when we are at it, neither are the high sec capsuleer organizations. This event was a perfect sign of that.
Just one more thought
High sec pilots could have prevented some of this by preparing in advance. We could have tried to set up some doctrine fleets with proper amount of logis, same weapons range and the same tank. We could have get in touch well before the event, use forums, use Twitter. Get organized. And forming a recon/bomber/t3 wing with a black ops bridge wouldn’t be a bad idea either. It would remove the problem of TiDi for sure, not to mention that bombers could actually be quite successful against the enemy fleet.
More reading:
- Threadnaught about the Live Event
- Backfire @Jester’s Trek
- CCP dev-blog with details about the event (really worth reading)
With this presentation, i think you can make summary about mass tests on singularity interesting too.
Well, I would lie if I said the op was a smashing success because it wasn’t. I would also lie if I said it wasn’t at all fun to shoot these guys.
I would be pissed if I died to a sniper gatecamp, but I was on the Meves fleet that simply went to null and fought a battle. We didn’t die to a gatecamp like the Sarum fleet guys, so I have nothing to cry about. Yes, the TiDi was bad, but it was only there during transit. The fight itself was lag free. And I still vividly remember those laggy battles before TiDi was introduced (for example our fight against KIA Alliance in Noranim back in 2009).
But then there is the lore side, which IMHO completely lacked. CCP guys started and finished the event before our fleet even arrived, so from my perspective this wasn’t really a Live Event, but simply a regular null roam.
Oh and if you mentioned that mass test on 8th, there was quite funny moment when players learned that there are voice fonts on EVE Voice. Some people sounded really hilarious! The test itself was… well, a test. Nothing interesting to write about 😉 Well I could mention CCP Paradox’es Orca which orbited us at well over 1km/s (using dev-haxx GM speed mod of course).