Congo Free State

My New T-Shirt...

2010-01-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

Deutschland über alles

2008-07-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

Well... I've been traveling again. This time to Germany (Hamburg), now in Bucharest and will be in London on Saturday. My wife and I are going to take the Chunnel Train to Paris for a few days and then return to London (where I leave for Dublin for a day) - then back to the San Francisco Bay (home sweet home).

On to my post - Germany is an odd place. I'm a historian of Germany WWII History, probably have read more on the subject then I care to admit, so when I go to Germany (and I've been many times), it gives me the "creeps" I can't for the life of my understand the vast mechanical nature of Germans. My view on history and Germany is tangled, I tend to view Germany like I would view Pol Pot in Cambodia, it's a collective organization that has some very dark qualities. When an entire culture organizes to kill, and kill on the grand scale; I've always been fascinated by why this happens. I guess the question one asks themself is ... "why?"

I've never really been able to answer that question for myself and I've constantly researched and read my way into an answer to the question. I tend to feel, like Elie Wiesel felt, which is "all of Germany is guilty". Why do I feel this way, because it's the easiest answer.

I recently was in Washington DC, and I went to the Holocaust museum for the first time. This was not about some religious trek, I'm not Jewish, but one of a research assignment. I had read a NY Times article about a SS soldier, Karl Höcker, adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz. He had kept a photo album of his time at Auschwitz and those photos showed his "time at play" at the death camps. All the persons in the photo album were happy and joyous, and this was at a time when the camp was killing the vast majority of the Hungarian Jew population in mid-1944 - over 400,000 people were put to death in 3 months or 200 people an hour. You really have to be good at killing to get that efficiency. So, with that in mind, looking at those pictures frightened and disgusted me - I again, could not reconcile why and how someone could justify in their mind that what they were doing was right.

Evil is banal (Common in a boring way). See it for yourself

Why Faction Warfare is really Interesting..

2008-06-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

I've been writing on the eve-o forums the last few days.

I had this a-ha experience come to me in a second the other night (why roaming around) and finally got why CCP left out Alliances in FW.

It's simple really, it's a balancing mechanic that I don't think anyone really got (including me). I think they tried to explain in a way that frankly sounded like a circular argument.

Anyway, here is my basic premise -- from Eve-O forums -- I thought it might be a good blog entry to see how others in my bloggersphere world would relate.

What if Faction Warfare allows large local militias fighting in empire to re-form (coalesce) those militia fleets in 0.0 alliance locations (we know Alliances can't participate in FW, but Militia can sure as hell blow up alliance stuff in 0.0!). With some of the numbers that I'm seeing in gangs (75-100+) in empire fighting, albeit horribly with no real chain of command.. with time (and experience) they will improve

.. what if those same militias decide to move their large local influence and fleets into 0.0? what stops them? a titan? warp bubbles? bleh.. nicht don't think so... what if they re-form into their own corp aligned to a militia (around a regional fighting stronghold in Placid for example) - generating allies and critical mass that the best alliances could only help to generate. I mean look at the numbers for the Gallente Militia.. and that's in 1 week.

I wonder if someone in empire gets wise to the equation and uses FW as a mobilization mechanic to generate critical mass against large (or mid-size) alliances.. it comes down to numbers, large empire noob, experienced militia fleets against dedicated 0.0 alliance pvp'ers and there 100 care-bears industrial meat-shields.

0.0 alliances rely on static defense. If this defense not properly implemented it is designed to fail (just look at the Eastern Front WWII) - The defenders deploy in depth in heavily fortified positions suitable for all-around defense. The attackers can penetrate between these "hedgehogs", but each position continues to fight on when surrounded. This keeps large numbers of attacking troops tied up, attacking the well-defended strong points, while allowing the defenders to successfully counterattack against the units that bypass these strong points with their own armored reserves by cutting them off from their supporting elements.

Personally, go around all those death-stars - and fight them at their weak points - it's a numbers game. When Vendetta was fighting down south against FIX, the towers that had POS gunners (since many alliances FAIL at POS gunners - they have none) we went around and killed the travel lines - it was easier to bubble the station systems and wait them out - and kill the towers with no gunners. ALL successful eve corps are build on solid order of battle and delegated leadership. I think FW will DO THIS and MORE. You will get new leaders that normally would never have the chance to earn and learn that craft; you will get battle tested eve players making up those core fleet elements. Frankly, I now I completely get why they didn't allow alliances in FW - the basic tenant is FW is designed to balance or curtail large alliance dominance. Now 0.0 is no longer one directional, it's bi-directional. Alliances will need to figure out how to deal with incursions IN FORCE inside their cocoon (some not all) 0.0 locations.

This was my post - and surprisingly many felt that this was an interesting dynamic that might really change the game balance of Eve. I think that the notion that recruitment into corps will be some sort of training exercise is completely changed by this - you can now have a group of like minded individuals using FW to empower many who would not normally ever get the chance to PVP. Pirating is lonely and has just too many bad consequences.

I for one will be looking at this more and more over the coming months..

Faction Warfare Insanity...

2008-06-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

So I had to move my crap from Syndicate this weekend. I jumped over to PC9, put up for sale my Zealot and other crap and then tried to pilot my way out Syndicate in my new Cheetah (not sure I like the new model). I ran two camps, Syndicate is the pirate ghetto, I'm sorry, but too many people claiming too many systems; now with Bruce high-tailing it out of Fountain, it's even more crowded. Someone told me that Bruce wants to bring an anti-pirate culture to Syndicate - yea, with about 20 alliances in the region I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

So, I get into Empire in Harroule, and dock up to catch a breather and windex my Cheetah's windshield to remove all the frozen body parts. I leave one system out of Harroule in Agoze and there is 75 people in local? Wha??? in Agoze? Then I notice two beacons in the overview, one is a stronghold and the other is something else (can't remember the name). So, being the true idiot that I am, I cloak up and run to the stronghold .. a gate? huh? So, I go through the gate.. jesus h christ.. there are 60 ships duking it out, mostly frigates and cruisers all t1. The really nice thing, no lag.. I had a front row seat to a bunch of noobs slugging it out in Agoze.. I don't think any of them was being lead by any FC, it was like fleet chaos, but in a neat way, interesting. This chaos created a nice light show to watch.. and they just kept coming.. and coming..

Here is the interesting part... Some were just pirates from Placid going in to kill noobs in Faction Warfare, so.. on local you see.. "please, hey! this is FW, you not supposed to shoot me.. " BOOM!.. it was hilarious. I am going to do this more I think -- hang out in a contested system and then cloak up and watch the light show.

In many ways, this will bring up a whole new crop of noobs into pvp. I think if they can sustain their loses, then they will become better fighters. I think the days of uber 0.0 pvp pilots is going to come to an end. No longer will one have to become a pirate to effectively learn how to pvp. I really like this dynamic, since many are dissuaded from pvp merely on the notion that they can no longer traverse empire, this is not the case anymore.. which is quite interesting. Also, they will learn how to use maps and pilot around empire regions they no longer can enter due to their faction warfare status. Again, all of these skills are components many in 0.0 do, purely out of necessity. This is a drastic change, in my humble opinion.

I'm setting up my new place in Providence for a while, they seem like nice folks and we are back in a relatively secure piece of 0.0. We will have to get to know some new people out here and run some of our 0.0 recon gangs into Catch looking for AAA idiots.. they need to die.

But, all in all, I think the long term prospect of FW will be an interesting dynamic to Eve. Some of the short-sighted people are complaining, but I personally think that many will take advantage of this new dynamic to explore regions of eve that they normally would never venture into - now they can organize large gangs and work as a herd.. which we all know is the preferred method of travel in eve..

...harder to get picked off in a herd..

"At Last" by Etta James

2008-06-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

That's the song I want to play... Man I found a nice piece of real estate that I'm going to call "Stanleyville" - the first Congo Free State location was called "Leopoldville" after our fearless founder and heir to the throne. This one is just as nice...

Stanleyville is a non-autopilot system - deep in the recesses of Providence, where the mantra is to not shoot.. "it's all peace and love dude.." I like this. I'm now going to talk my mates into setting up what we've wanted to do, which is our recon gang services. We can fly all force recon ships - if we had a rapier, pilgrim, falcon, and a arazu in a fleet, that is just plain nasty. Web, Neut, Damp and Jam and then kill with drones and some guns. We've been wanting to do this for a while, but we haven't had a place to roam out of - now we do.

Frankly, I'm a 0.0 person, I spent the last two days getting my sec status down to -3 and it will take another few days to get it down below -2. That is just a pain in the ass - there is no real reward being a pirate - aside from blowing stuff up. I guess I need purpose in my eve life, and fighting is fun, but I have a bad command ship habit that I need to fund.

More to come ...

Rumble in the Jungle...

2008-06-09T17:17:00.000-07:00

so...... back in my Absolution in Providence the other night.. after I had gracefully left an alliance that was, let's just say.. EPIC FAIL

In my view screen local chat window..everyone was telling me..

Local Chat > run forrest.. run.. you're KOS
Fin> whaaa? How am I KOS in Providence?

How the hell did I get on CVA's infamous KOS list... Well a little know game mechanic that I didn't know about. From what I understand, if you're in a CVA KOS Corp before you leave to an NPC corp, you retain the old corp standings.. until you get into a new neut or "blue" corp to CVA... Well, I have never really flown around Providence, kinda a little creepy if you ask me, like the Moonies (a cult for those who don't want to follow the link). But I wanted to rat in peace and get my sec standing down.

So, I'm zoom zoom zoomin around -- and I'm being chased by a ton of ships... all of sudden.. up on my viewscreen, a convo request..I hit .. "ok"

CVA Member> you're KOS!!
CVA Member > do you need an escort out of Providence?
Fin> huh? what are you talking about.. an escort?

What FIN did NOT Say -- "what is this high school? !! kill me for christ's sake.. I figure I'm dead at the next gate and just bending over..

Fin> sure.. can you take me to the nearest station?
CVA Member> sure

(we go through two camps) and I dock

Fin> why am I KOS?
CVA Member> ^^ (see above for explanation) ^^
Fin> great.. I'll just join my old corp and be neut and you won't kill me .. right?.
CVA Member> yea
Fin> Thanks

........ kill convo window...clone jump out.. leave my absolution there..join the Congo.

Truthfully, what a bunch of pansies.. kill me. bubble a gate or something and kill my shiny pimped out Absolution..That's why I think they (CVA) are slightly strange, this whole role play deal in Eve.. there is a point to it and then there is the creepy point to it. You can only take the fantasy world so long before you start asking yourself.. "am I Amarr or just a game player..".. I would prefer to think of myself as a game player. You won't see me dressing up as a Minmatar anytime soon.

So, with faction warfare, which is just a convenient way to make low sec a little more dangerous without losing your sec standing (which personally I like).. you can blast noowb ships that just so happen to be part of a corp that doesn't like Minmatar for example and then destroy them.. me likely that idea.

I think I'm going to stay in my little Congo corp for a while .. and continue my Eve journey.. run some missions, rat in 0.0.. run some deals on the market.. but in general.. take it easy. I've been bouncing around a ton lately..

time to chill...

Eve and The Big Lebowski...

2008-05-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

My favorite line in the "The Big Lebowski" is the following:

The Dude: ....I've got information man! New shit has come to light! And shit... man, she kidnapped herself. Well sure, man. Look at it... a young trophy wife, in the parlance of our times, you know, and she, uh, uh, owes money all over town, including to known pornographers, and that's cool... that's, that's cool, I'm, I'm saying, she needs money, man. And of course they're going to say that they didn't get it, because... she wants more, man! She's got to feed the monkey, I mean uh... hasn't that ever occurred to you, man? Sir?

Well, "new shit has come to light..." and "she's got to feed the monkey"... Triumvirate is closing, BRUCE is vacating Fountain and Destiny and Insurgency running for the hills. I have to say, this is very reminiscent of the the collapse of the German Army in Russia in 1944. A complete and total collapse of all force cohesion. This is what happened yesterday - everyone ran for the hills.

I packed up my shit this weekend - seeing everyone else wandering around the train station. This was enough information to me. We felt (as a corp) that we needed to find some new pvp pastures. My Eve Friend, Bri (who has a good blog) has made that transition, and I think with insurgency vacating Branch - Insurgency will get back to what they are good at, hard core PVP.

If you look at Eve history, the really interesting alliances all "epic fall" when they begin to think about holding space. I've concluded that in Eve, unless the game mechanics change, space holding will be a combination of POS bashing and internal strife. I would imagine CCP will get this view as well, and I would think in future releases - new game mechanics will be introduced. Here are some that I think would be interesting:

Bug out fever -- I want to see the enemy run for the hills and break.. that's the whole point. There should be some initiative option that allows the alliance the press the attack, right now, it's kinda boring from one system to the next to remove POS's etc.. I think that a Blitzkrieg idea would be neat - sabotage, or something.. using Black Ops as Special force to open the door into a fast attack. The ability to break the passwords of POS's and shutting them down - a very small likelihood, but if you have the skill with a black op, you could pave the way... kinda like hacking but, uber hacking
Keeping the core alliance personnel - for example, Germans didn't all leave Germany, if you are vanquished, you become part of the spoils of war - this will make things more interesting in terms of size and scale. You are part of the conquering alliance for a period of time with no roles - not exactly how this would work, but ideas none the less.
Seizure of Assets (if you lose a system or series of system) you lose ISK and assets, or some transfer mechanism - but you need to get some more spoils to make the war making more interesting. This is war - you don't get to take the art and gold when you leave.. that shit is property of the invader - stations and outposts are not enough in my mind.
True tactical campaign management within Eve - organizing fleets are real Fleets and battles as combined arms. I think gang warfare is interesting, but it would be nice to have a campaign tool to organize units and then describe the attack like modern tactics are articulated. This would be a nice feature of ambulation - where a senior fleet commander can show how tactics would be implemented - right now I write my own tactical plans for operations - I would prefer to have something (like my link above) in Eve. I love Tactical plans. The only problem with plans is that they never survive the first shot.. but at least we try

So, ideas are just that .. ideas.

Frankly, it has to get more interesting to wage war, I really am disappointed that one alliance collapses and the rest follow suit - they should fight and fight hard for their space.. It's too easy to surrender and take your shit and leave.. war isn't waged this way.. there should be consequences on both sides; if you wage war, you better have the means to win and end it.. and those that are attacked, well,, fight..

I think we have too many French alliances in Eve.. as they like to say.. "I have some brand new French rifles to sell you.. never fired once!"

On to my new corp and pvp.. I think I'll have some fun in the coming months - these guys seem like a good bunch.

OVERTHROWN!!!

2008-05-11T13:15:00.001-07:00

More details to follow - but Congo is merging with Heretic Army (Heretic Nation Alliance)... King Leopold has escaped to Amarr and is living in exile with the Amarrian Royal Family ... the Military Junta lead by Finanche, SpcJnky and Brainstem decided to stop the carebearing..

According to the New Jita Times.. Brainstem was quoted as saying.. "Leopold liked his chocolate cake a little too much, and we decided that he should take his cake and .. well... you know.."

More to come on this harrowing story...

Jackass Empire War Decs...

2008-05-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

So ... last night I'm pimping out my new Absolution, I need about 8 more days to get t2 Med Energy guns, so I'm using a meta 3 gun instead, the rest of the beast is t2.

I head to Nonni (great market for those who don't know it) to pick up some other garbage, ecm drones, cheap amarr navy crystals, etc.. and I get into station - buy, fit and name my ship - then undock and there happens to be two mega's sitting there -- with a nice red star on them.. remember.. I'm tired and sleepy and it's 10:30pm my time.

So, being tired and not all that worried about my what's in front of me on my HUD, -- 1) I get bumped by one Mega.. and then I'm wandering aimlessly into the space abyss.. Shout at my crew and tell them .. get the mains online and let's get to Torrinos..

then.... "wait.. who the f$^# is locking me..." -- and then I see another blinky yellow lock on my hud.. and then bam!!! Rails/Blasters.. into shields.. (absolution has no shields anyway).. so I lock up one of the mega's and drop some laser love on him and drop my ecm drones on the other mega to stall while I try to get back to the station. Thank god.., no web.. so I'm punching this battleship with lasers and cutting into his sheilds and armor.. and the other mega is pissed since the ecm drones work well and this idiot I think was dropping his own drones to kill my drones... he should have charged me and bumped me further..

Suffice it to say.. I had enough time to make it back to the station (12km).. I got a small dent in the front fender of my Absolution.. but never got deep into Armor (those resists are just awesome - all at 90% with the gang mod). I did dent one Mega and if I had one more ship with me .. we could have easily taken down that Mega.. I was dead meat without the ECM drones, since the other Mega might have had a web and then I would have SLOW BOATED it back to the station and .. who knows. but the other Mega never locked me.

Just be careful with war dec empire corps.. jackasses..

Absolution - Slow and Mean

2008-05-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

I've been pouring over Absolution fits the last few days -- and I have to say it really fits my playing style.

I loved the Sleipnir, but you really had to get close and charge the enemy with an afterburner or microwarp drive (i tended to shy from a MWD since it kills cap and reduces recharge, which is a double-whammy). I think the Sleipnir is just mean in pvp, but frankly, it doesn't fit my playing style. I tend to like to sit at 10-15km with a point and a hard tank. I would fit a claymore or slep to do this, but if someone kills your cap, all you have is guns and no tank, and the arty's II just don't dish out that much damage. So, I would tend to run for the hills. As I like to say, you either love it or hate it.

So, now that I can fly an absolution - I ran across this post in the eve-o forums:

first off, why all the mwd? this ship is so slow it is not worth the loss of cap. you get webbed and slow as heck anyways. only thing you can do with a mwd is (TRY) to run away. this beast is for tanking and shooting. also, train some gang skills and put a gang mod on. its like having another EANM. that said:

High - 6x Heavy Pulse, armor resist gang mod

Med - Web, disruptor, cap booster

Low - 2x Med rep (or 800MM Plate), 1 EANM, 1 thermic, 1 dcu, 2 heat sink

Rigs - 2x aux nano pumps

This sounds like bliss -- have the web for short range frigs in on you - so you can slow them down and melt them, and the lows plus the gang mod is just nasty. You can effectively sit out at 15-20km with a Heavy Pulse II with Scorch and some ewar drones and it just gets bad for the enemy. This fits my style, slow and dumb with a slightly passive tank. I'm going to try this setup in the coming weeks with some dedicated tacklers. I think this with a small gang (rapier, demios, and a hyena) and another firepower ship this would be fun to roam around in.

The problem tho' is that this ship is slow and bad, and when there is no one else protecting your ass.. slow is bad...but heck, we all have to die sometime.

Έγκαυμα έξω, 焼跡, Brennen Sie Aus

2008-04-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

"Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. " - Deepak Chopra

Ok, back with a new post in a few weeks. Man, so many things to talk about, I moved into a new home and moving is ugly. I've traveled a ton and now I'm back home - soon to travel much more in the coming months (this stinks, there is no glory in travel). My eve time, well... it's been pretty non-existent.

Why?

Well.. I think I got burned out. I just woke up one morning and didn't want to do anything in Eve, not even chat with my mates. I just wanted to turn off the computer and watch the Giants and Dodgers play it out for 9 innings. I would get online and just stare at the screen, paralyzed and not wanting to do anything. All the glory of creating the Congo Free State (CFS) was somewhat overshadowed by this intense desire to stop playing the game... so I stopped.

Well, I got on the other night and felt ok, I chatted a little. The nice thing about CFS is that all of us can carry on the torch without one of us gating an item or signing on a new recruit. So, as I like to say, no one is irreplaceable and no one is above anyone else.

I think the mail I got from my quasi-eve friend Havohej started the flame slightly. He asked if we could swap some standings and get some of his mates into Deklein to kill some MM or Razor jackasses. I'm all for it - running with CFS folks.

But back to my burn out point - Starting this week, I'm going to park the POS shit and moon poo and just learn how to fly pvp really really well. I can fly both a slepinir and a absolution with t2 gear, I've just decided that it's what I'm going to do from now on. I need some new experiences in Eve and this seems to be a good start. It appears to me all the really cool corps are bad-ass pvp'ers. We have some good ones in our corp - so I think this will become the new mission of CFS... small, roaming bad-ass gangs that can kill. It will take some weeks and months - but it's time.

I'm going to squirrel away 500-750m and get some Absolution and Slep BPC's and just fight. I think as a small corp - 10-15 pilots - we can really hone our skills - since we have some really high SP players.

And to end - another quote...

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” - Sir Francis Bacon

Someone Crashed in my backyard...

2008-04-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Man .. they should get eve pilots to fly planes...

Congo Plane Crash

Roaming in Eve

2008-04-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

I think that living in Deklein and Pure Blind afford a bit of freedom that one does not get in the Drone Regions. The distance that the drone regions are from the remainder of the world, really limit it's interest to about "everything". If you have to jump 30 jumps to get there, pack a lunch, fill up the Broadsword with some plutonium; you tend to leave donut rappers on the passenger seat; finally falling asleep and hitting a star-gate.

I'm going to be getting some gangs together in the coming weeks to roam around Venal looking for some targets. I think it's time to flap my wings and get some dents on the Broadsword.

I have three main characters, and one Corp CEO alt. Quin Aquinas was my first character and he's my money maker. He's just a ratter, and as such has UBER raven skills (soon to be in a Maurader). Dennison Spade is the industrialist and hauler, he can fly, mine and use a Rorqual with great precision. My main character is Finanche (aka "Fin").

As I've said on this post many times, it's a low stakes game of chance. But, one of my corp mates flies ravens pretty exclusively, with the exception of a Manticore. He told me that flying one ship and doing it well is something that not a lot of eve players do - they play around with a plethora of ships and lose the piloting skills in each type of rig. I'm going to take his advice and learn how to fly two ships well; really well.

One is a Command Ship (I can fly Mini command ships, but I have a hard-on for the Absolution) - so I should have that ready in two weeks. But I would like to fly one additional fleet support ship, and I think it's going to be a Broadsword. I can fly one, but I haven't tested the pimped out rig and I think it's about time.

It's high time not to worry about silly things, like logistics and supply. I'm very into the premise that an army marches on it's stomach, and having a clear path back and forth to empire is key to survival in Eve. If you don't have this, you are prone to disaster. When I was in the the Drones, we would have to make 5 jumps to empire and those systems did not include cyno generators, they were manned by cyno alts and getting back and forth was a complete pain in the ass.

I'm not going to worry about it.. time to roam.

Eve and Concept Albums

2008-04-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

When I'm at work (or at home), I love to listen to concept albums. I think it's because all the songs generally flow together. It creates an environment of continuation - no breaks or disruptions between songs, but a continual stream of music.

I do the same thing in Eve - play concept albums - generally Pink Floyd - since I listened to them forever when I was a kid and loved the music. It dawned on me today that I didn't have "Wish you were here" in my collection. I can't believe I didn't have it - since "Shine on you Crazy Diamond (parts I - XI) is by far one of my most favorite Floyd songs. "Remember when you were young.. you were sharp as the Sun..." fabulous.

I've been exploring the systems in our new space of Delkein. I'm trying to understand the regional markets, the pipes and the logistical situation. I think I have a pretty good idea on what and how things work. We are hoping we can begin to move stuff up this weekend or early next week. Congo is definitely recruiting and trying to get seasoned pilots. I'm also trying to find other like minded corporations who might be interested in merging. I think having a seasoned pvp crew and providing for them economic models that allow them to hone their craft is good for an budding corporation.

It's not one for the other - that is, you can't be a good pvp corp and not have solid revenue streams - you need to do both (in some way of fashion). I think by the lastest post from Insurgency make clear the point that you need to recover your loses. It's not a zero sum game - unless you are buying ISK for RL (real-life) money.

In the immortal words of Floyd - "Welcome to the machine....."

Eve mathematics - well not really..

2008-03-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

I approach Eve like one big math problem.

I graduated with a mathematics degree from a small northeast Jesuit college. I initially wanted to be a history journalism major, but I realized fast that there was no real money in that pursuit. I still love to write (as you can probably tell) and I love history. I guess I'm one of those people who can work with both his left and right side brain hemispheres.

Lately though, I think I've begun to figure out much of the Eve game mechanics. I love solving problems and when I first started playing Eve it was like a gigantic "k-summation" - that is, a big proof. It had so many dimensions of understanding, that for me, the "head blowing up" experience was cathartic. I found a game that took more than just good eye-hand coordination; but real thinking and .... mathematics (so I thought).

I found when I used to try to solve complex math problems, that the thrill was figuring out the solution - the mix of variables and complexities. The end solution was very anti-climatic for me. I never got this "ah-ha or finished" experience, I just wanted a new problem, kinda like a junky looking for a high. I think this same principal applies to Eve for me. I've managed POS's, I know what ships do what and how to fit them, I understand the economic model, I know how to make and lose money, and I've figured out the skill matrix.

However.... I do know one area that I've not really exposed myself to, and that's hard-core pvp'ing. I'm not sure why it's not something that doesn't excite or drive me. I think it hearkens back to my high-school days at Valley Forge Military academy; that is, I realized that the best soldier with the best equipment is really playing a game of high-stakes chance. Sure, you can train harder, run faster, shoot better, etc.. but that doesn't really make any difference to a sniper at 150m with a 10x30 scope aiming for your teeth.. you're dead -- simple as that. No amount of training prepares you for chance.

When I pvp, I don't really get an adrenaline rush or high, I get the same feeling I got when I was back in military school, "how the hell do I get out of here without dying". You might think, well.. he's a coward, no... I'm not. The problem is that in military school, they teach you how to survive; the Sgt. York's of the world are thought of as careless - "never share a foxhole with someone braver than yourself.. ever!" A true "esprit de corps" is to survive and help others survive. One of the first tenants of combat is to ... "Keep your head down"... why? the bullet finds the highest mark... This is an absolute truth.

When I pvp, I think there is a detachment of reality that I can't get past. I want to survive more than fight, lose, clone and come back... it's just normal for my brain. Real life combat is confusing, it's LOUD, it's terrifying - and not filled with "lag" - sorry. You get extremely disoriented in your surroundings; you don't know which way is up - it's scary. I do remember one feeling I used to get after a mock-ambush that we would survive, a shear overwhelming sense of "relief" and terror. I used to puke my guts out sometimes at the rush - your body is jammed with hormones and adrenaline. It used to take me hours to come down.

I remember the drill instructor's telling us, the only reason for basic training is to teach you how to react and deal with confusion. I totally agree with that... pvp is full of confusion, many different variable calculations, excitement (for some), disorientation, and disappointment.

The reality of this post is that Eve is not so far removed from the real world... and Eve combat is not mathematics..

....instead of a high-stakes game of chance (your life), it's just a low-stakes game of chance (your clone)...

Exile on Main St...

2008-03-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

The best stones album ever... One that I listen to often. It's considered their seminal work.

I feel like the abandoned remnants of Vendetta Underground (EMD) are .. "exiled on main street"

"...Feel so hypnotized, can't describe the scene. It's all mesmerized all that inside me"

That's a great line from "Rocks off" - it's the first song on the album. If you can believe this - many of us have landed in Destiny alliance. An interesting group of chaps, all in it to have fun. It's like going from a police state to Disney land, I prefer Disney land. I worry that many in EMD don't know what's the leadership is doing or want? They have Bug-Out fever...

Bug-Out Fever was a derisive term for "unauthorized retreats" of troops who broke from battle lines and ran from the enemy. When the understrength, poorly trained, and inadequately armed American troops first engaged the better trained and equipped North Koreans they simply panicked. Well,, that's what's happening in rule.. I don't see an EMD MacArthur around to be honest; and I don't see any Inchon on the horizon. Things remain bleak. I wish I could share all the wonderful news of Destiny, but I think in the coming weeks it will become apparent what is going on. Remember a few weeks ago, I used the word transparency, well, they have it and more. It's so nice to have others in the corp share like ideas and interests. This alliance CEO, 5n4keyes is about having a good time and enjoying the many pursuits of eve. As a corp, we share those same ideals.

So, I will be listening the "Stones' this weekend as we move some stuff from Empire to the new digs in Delkein.

Oh and by the way, our first kill on our killboard was a EMD pilot -- nice!

Time to Map

2008-03-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

We joined Destiny.

Reasons this is good:
- We get to move from Empire to 0.0
- We are located in a nice part of Eve
- We are part of an alliance ecosystem (that contains Tri - yea!)
- No more drones.. god help us
- Time to think about some vision for our corporation

Some of us will stay in empire and mission for a while - this is always a good way to make some isk. I will go back to doing what I love - exploring and looking for new imperial conquests. I'm all about colonialism - call me a "robber barron" if you like.

I will get in my Cheetah and perform my "New Imperialism" mantra. I will get to rat for high-isk bounty rats and I can start to think about my corporate expansion.

This is going to be a good thing

0.0 Detox

2008-03-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

I am coming off 0.0. I've gone "cold turkey." As John Lennon said it best .. "I need a fix 'cause I'm going down.." I've been running lvl IV missions this weekend and what I make in 2 hours in missioning, I would make in 20 minutes in 0.0. It's humbling. It got so bad this weekend that I rambled into Great Wildlands, roamed around for 2 hours, evaded 3 gate-camps and clone jumped back to empire. Now I have a clone in 0.0 - just in case I get the "jones" again.

I've been working my diplomatic efforts with many alliance captains. I've made some good friends in Eve in my 10 months of playing. These seem to be level headed individuals and clearly into playing more than politicking.

I think I'm going to make an outreach to Destiny Alliance (one of our own went there). These guys seem to have it together and Deklien is mucho better than the Ghetto. We'll see what happens in the coming days.

New Imperialism

2008-03-20T16:07:00.000-07:00

By the time most read this post, our new corporation within Eve will have started. Congo Free State is now it's own corporation and we have moved out of the Ghetto.

Collectively, I think we all got tired of collecting soda cans and beer bottles and trading them in for 5 cents; we just hate traveling around with a shopping cart filled with cans. Compounds in the Drone regions are not bounty rats - and anyone who tells you differently is .. well insane.

The Congo Free State has moved to Molden Heath and settled into a nice back-end system. We are going to do some interesting things in the next few weeks; most of which is setup a scalable organization in which to pivot from. We will be recruiting, setting up logistical routes, looking for some interesting 0.0 locations and aligning ourselves with other corporations and alliances.

We have organized along functional lines. That is, we have created a semi-imperial oligarchy. This is a leadership of a few and it divides power along functional lines. In the modern sense, it's just like a corporation.

The original Congo Free State was a corporation first and a colony second. It served the financial concerns of King Leopold and not the Belgian people - in that respect, it served the share holders (there were many Leopold recruited) first and then the colonial interests second. Leopold made a fortune on the venture - but used very "ends justifies the means" mechanisms to achieve these gains. In the end, he was removed as the "CEO" of the Congo Free State and the colonial interests of Belgium took preceident. The Parliament of Belgium annexed the Congo Free State and took over its administration on November 15, 1908.

So, with the above in mind, we serve the shareholders of the Congo Free State first -- What we find, we take.

I have a new term... New Imperialism

Apocalypse Now Redux Encore!

2008-03-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

Redux means to "(d) Brought back; returned. Used postpositively." Many think it means "over again" or "second time."

In today's post I'm going to use the movie Apocalypse Now as an allegory to describe what is going on my current corporation and with my close corp mates - it's time to get to brass tacks. The corp and alliance has definitely "gone off the reservation" - people are jumping off the side of the ship while others are trying to pump out the water. Just not a fun time.

To start things off - you can get a very clear Apocalypse Now example of our current corp situation - when they approach the bridge at the Cambodia/Vietnam border - Willard gets out and looks for someone in charge. He finds no one.. Then finally he comes upon two soldiers. There is this screaming Vietnamese soldier on the other side and he is annoying everyone. Willard approaches one of the soldier and asks...

Willard: Soldier, do you know who's in command here?
The Roach: Yeah. [turns away]

That's us right now... We have whoever the Roach thinks is in charge ...

Let's relate our Eve characters to Apocalypse Now characters..

I tend to think of my role within Eve as something like "Chief Phillips" - who was in charge of the swift boat going up the Nung river (doesn't exist by the way). As Willard says in the movie ... "Then there was Phillips, the Chief. It might have been my mission, but it sure as shit was Chief's boat" ....That's me -- logistics, recon, and knowing the terrain. I'm not much of a fighter - but I'll get you to the fight..

Moving on .. one our mates RudyTPSA is clearly Dennis Hopper - the photojournalist. If you knew Rudy - you would totally agree. I can see Rudy acting and behaving like Dennis Hopper ...

"One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics"

Rudy likes tree...

We have four others in our gang -- one of our members is very much like Colonel Kigore (one of my favorite characters). Loki Tipan in Eve clearly wants freedom of movement and clear directives.. very much like Kilgore , who in the movie, is obsessed with one thing - to find a beach to surf on. The objective of his world and mission is to surf, who cares about anything else or that a war is going on... Lokie would love to say the following..

"You either surf or you fight and If I say its safe to surf this beach Captain, then its safe to surf this beach. I mean I'm not afraid to surf this place, I'll surf this whole fucking place! "

Brainstem is Lance (the laid back surfer) - Brain goes with the Eve flow. He is not too wrapped about anything, which is nice to have in a fleet battle..he just calls them like he sees them and is totally calm..

Closemonk (Monk) is Chef - he and Brain are close (Brain recruited me) and as such they should be thought of in relation to one another.

This is Monk and Brainstem from the Apocalypse Now...

Chef (Monk): Lance, hey Lance. What do you think?
Lance (Brainstem): It's beautiful.
Chef (Monk): What's the matter with you? You're acting kinda weird.
Lance (Brainstem): Hey, you know that last tab of acid I was saving? I dropped it.
Chef (Monk): You dropped acid?... Far out.

And last but not least is SpcJnky - who we can all guess is "Mr. Clean" the gunner in the back of the swift boat who loves Jimmy Hendrix.. "This sho' nuff a bizarre sight in the middle-a all this shit!" - that's Junky..

No one among us is Willard - since we aren't going up river to kill Kurtz, and none of us are Kurtz, well.. because.. well ... we haven't gotten off the boat, as Willard so poignantly said.. "Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole fuckin' program"

Our leadership has gone "mad" as Lucas (Harrison Ford) noted to Willard about Kurtz. They are clearly out of touch with reality. My belief is someone in another alliance or corp will get the following mission...

"Your mission is to proceed up the Nung River in a Navy patrol boat. Pick up Colonel Kurtz's path at Nu Mung Ba, follow it and learn what you can along the way. When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel's command"

Terminate with extreme prejudice...

Murphy's Law - Part Two

2008-03-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my favorite Murphy's laws.

Friendly fire.. isn't...
Never forget your weapon was made by the lowest bidder...
The easy way is always mined...

And one of my favorites and this applies to Eve ...

If the enemy is in range.. so are you...

We are taking down most of our Congo POS's in the ghetto (drone regions for those who haven't yet read my blog). The ghetto has some narcs, feds and others roamin' about pimpin their rides and it's not so safe for us roach hotel tenants. I think the tenants will start rioting soon and the Ghetto will become ... well.. "The Ghetto.." and I don't want to be on the streets when that happens...

I think many are tired of the war in the south, Bob has definitely re-trenched and satisfied another Murphy's law -

In combat, always kill as many bad guys as you can. The ones you miss today may not miss you tomorrow...

I also think many are suffering from war fatigue in the south and that makes Bob stronger. It's hard to up-root an enemy - just ask the Russians when they took Berlin - lost in the neighborhood of 500K soldiers in a 45 day siege - and still declared it a victory. Many in the north are coming back from the south and realizing that .."when the cat's away.., the birds will play.." Insurgency anyone?

I'm playing safe.. moving all my junk to empire and waiting this out - and abiding by one more Murphy's law..

Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself...

Banana Wars

2008-03-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

BANANA WARS:
(d) a catch-phrase for small wars, especially in the early 20th century, of interventionist expeditions in response to political pressure from commercial or religious entities, often without military objectives or exit strategies

Why start my first post in over a week with a definition?

Our alliance seems to be "waiting" for "bad" things to happen in the Ghetto. You know what they say about sitting on your hands.

Anyway.. a Banana War is a term that I learned in military school (VFMA for those alum out there); the term implies a "tropical climate" area conflict - but that's not what it really means. Many of the early "non-strategic" banana war battlefields were in places like Tampico, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc. They arose mainly from trade interests. They were, on the whole, completely non-strategic and a total waste of men and material. My instructor used to call soldiers in these conflicts (Somalia is a Modern equivalent), "social workers in uniform" - I clearly agree with him.

How does this relate to Rule of Three and our alliance?

Many of our corporation leaders suspect that our region will be undergoing a less peaceful time. While we hear and listen to all this "WAR" chatter - from various sources. Our leadership continues to think of this threat (more on that below) as another Banana War; a meaningless engagement (i.e. Branch). While we play with our big-wheels and swing sets in Cobalt Edge (8 Mile Road), others in our region are fighting a REAL life and death battle with Insurgency.

There is NO banana war going on in the Branch region of Eve with Phoenix, Razor, Morsus Mihi fighting toe to toe with Insurgency. I'll admit to one thing; I was dead wrong a few weeks ago with my posts about Insurgency - they are a motivated bunch of lunatics - with many pvp (very good pvp) corps joining the ranks and fighting hard. Some (me) are making changes, but everyone knows where they are going to come from and how the attack will occur - to me it feels like France, 1940.

The French should have read the old adage from Murphy's law.. "Anything that can possibly go wrong, does"

Murphy's law was coined by an aerospace engineer named Edward Murphy. The law, which states that "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way" is commonplace in America. Murphy regarded the law as highlighting a key principle of engineering design, in which one should always assume worst-case scenarios.

We should all read "Murphy's Law"...

Three Hour Tour....

2008-03-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

Well.. real life is here .. off to LA, Houston, Dallas and finally Kansas City.. returning to the SF Bay Sunday. I hate traveling like this - it sucks. You get tired and living out of a suitcase for more than 2 days is just un-fun, but the wife needs new shoes...

So back to my virtual life in Eve..

My corporation is going through the tough changes I had noted in a few posts ago. The law has been laid down. My overall feeling is fine - we all need rules. If you participate in the corporation and include others then all is well.. If you whine incessantly and make others feel un-welcome, then you are a loser and no corp would want you. So, I guess I'm ambivalent about the changes - since I'm not a loser and I like to think I include others. So no direct changes for me, at least not yet.. oh, I do need to pvp, I think my role will be support, scouting or logistics.. I seem to be a good ewar and covert pilot.

But I think I'll write today about what I perceive is a simmering low-grade power struggle witin in the corp - that is, the changing of the guard.

I have some strong feelings about power - frankly, it's totally overrated. I've been in charge of 500 person companies and hated it and then had no direct reports or org and made more money and loved it. I think people get intoxicated with power - as John Steinbeck wrote in the "Grapes of Wrath" - "...we lived off the fatta of the land...." When one gets fat, dumb and happy, they get lazy and then entitled. It's at that point that ego kicks in and you become a legend in your own mind. This is the direct result of those who crave power.. This typically ends badly... for everyone.

Now those of us who have experienced the above are in an interesting position. That is, I tend to think that power (now - not a few years ago - since I was the person above) is something that is earned and respected. But's in that earning process that one understands the proper level of respect, a "healthy" point of view.

When Teddy Roosevelt was charging San Juan hill.., he didn't say "Let's go men, over the wall.. take that hill!" .. he said "Men, Follow me...." He was fond of saying, good leaders lead fron the front. I totally agree with this and follow it to the tee in my Eve and personal life. I'm an "inclusive" leader - not a "consensus" leader the latter being those who cannot make a decisions without everyone agreeing -- many people confuse the two.

An "inclusive" leader tends to use his own experience and those around him to make a decisive and good decision. They are quick to delegate, but delegate tasks that others can handle and, most important!! - follow through on - and this is NOT some willy-nilly reaction to having a ton of work..,"here.., do this for me.. I'm overwhelmed.." That's a shitty leader.

So, I think we will see in the coming weeks how our corporate leadership gels.. I was voted a diplomat for the corp - which I seem to be quite good at.

I think as a corporate diplomat and explorer.. my ultimate title should be "Chartered Geographer" - for those that know what that is.. kudos.. for others who don't.. click the link.

I'm always dishing out knowledge on this blog...

Tactics are written in blood

2008-02-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

Not too much Eve stuff today.

I was doing some research on the battle effectiveness of modern combat units. I think we believe (rightly so) that elite Special Forces are so much more superior to regular line infantry. I can tell you, this is just not the case. These units certainly receive a ton more training, but the reality is that this training is worth only so much on the modern battlefield. Getting combat tested battalions (the smallest operational unit I'll talk about) is really where it's at.

This in relation to Eve - many think that if they are in a Tech 2 ship, they are so vastly superior to others on the field of combat. Well, I can tell you - this is just not correct. I'll take proven pilots any day over high skill points tech 2 wannabes (like me). Better pilot/units make up the difference 10 fold.

A veteran battalion is only made through combat and it's in combat that tactics are written. The battle tested units in Afghanistan and Iraq are what scares future enemies the most. I don't think these units are battle weary (they might be - but not the point) - they have faced challenges most units will never experience in any sort of training. If we chose to fight another middle-eastern foe, I do think that the experience gained in Iraq will prove immensely valuable, no matter how your politics align.

So back to how this relates to Eve - well obviously having units that are combat proven or fleet "ready" is so much a part of force projection and defense. I've come across some really good corps that clearly have a leg up in the "order of battle" game. That is, they have all worked together, know their roles and fight as a unit - i.e. they are veteran combat teams. They are not pirates, or gate campers or ratters - but combat teams that have seen plenty of combat and work together.

She Bangs the Drum...

2008-02-26T15:10:00.000-08:00

...I got this rat, this gnawing, cheese eating fuckin' rat and it brings up questions... You know, see, Bill, like you're the new guy. - Frank Costello

I love that scene in the bar with Frank and Bill in "The Departed" - Nicholson was awesome.

Bottom line - Rat's suck!

So to the "Rat" - We had a "rogue" alliance mate shoot and kill a senior Morsus Mihi guy in friendly space. We payed off Morsus for this idiot, but R0ADKill, Atlas, Smash and Chaos all claim that this idiot (Natalia Kovac - btw, I'll give 75M ISK to anyone who delivers his/her corpse to me) killed others in their alliance and set us to red and began shooting (fun huh!). Good news, is that MM sets up blue again after a significant payout - done by yours truly. But problems persist...

Atlas and Chaos in an attempt to make this "war-act" right with them, asked (demanded) that we set Ka-Tet (our neighbor) to neutral. I guess they (Chaos and Atlas) also claim that Natalia Kovac shot their people with Tri gangs - no kill posting tho.. (odd huh?).

Ka-Tet is a ally of Red Alliance - so as I like to always say, never piss off a Russian, it's just a bad thing. Too many have found that out the hard way. Believe me, I was raised to hate Soviets (went through 8 years of Military school) and thought "Red Dawn" was the best movie ever - but still knew that Soviets had Hind-24 Helicopters with 14.5mm cannons that could put holes the size of watermelons in you - not fun.

So, I get to thinking... This is just all too convenient. It smells bad. It smells like Natalia Kovac is a plant who created a situation whereby Rule can finally engage in a new war in the North. Hummm.., this smells of a conspiracy no?

This is what I think happened -- Triumvirate planted Natalia Kovac and set this into motion. They want a war in the North and decisive action. They would like nothing more than to have North shoot north (with/RA standing by shaky alliances) and while everyone isn't looking MOVE! - I think in Tenal and/or Oasa. It makes sense .. and note who Natalia Kovac was with in the kill-mail - Tri gangs. Tri wants to destabilize the North. They are the 800lbs gorilla in the Northwest - and in my opinion pulling the strings of this "phony war". Oh, and RA - they hate Tri...

A North war will not be like the South & Bob, it will be smaller and more of a "Guerrilla war" with disparate roving gangs and nuisance warfare. This, trust me, is a pain in the ass for stability and frankly we would all like to either fight and lose or fight and win .. but an in-between war is not something any alliance would want. In many respects, what DMC went through a few months ago was alleviating, the fought, lost, left and their space occupied. Done. I don't see this happening this time... it will be interesting to see how this will play out.

We (Rule) have, up to now, not taken sides in the "Northern Coalition". I believe those days are over - for better or worse.

The war drum beats - now.. someone, please bring me Natalia Kovac's head.

Brka Obama...

2008-02-25T21:52:00.000-08:00

I have to dispell some internal corp rants from my last post (New Africa):

I love RO3 - no desire to leave or create my own alliance - my rants were my dreams only
I work for the benefit of the corp, the many outweigh the one

And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives - People follow orders, or people die." - Col. Nathan Jessep

Back to my title of this post - I think Napolean had it right when he said "an army marches on it's stomach" - logistics I'm finding are the backbone of Eve. The challenges that it presents are daunting. I think the game mechanics (CCP) make it that way - that is, it's hard. The other aspect - it's expensive. So not for the faint of heart.

I'm really learning how to do logistics properly - and my "Mentor" happens to be Brka Obama...

New Africa

2008-02-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

New Africa -- That is going to be the name of my alliance when I get there some day. I think I'll reserve the name for now. My ticker will be "TIA", "This is Africa". Those of us who saw "Blood Diamonds" will know this saying from the movie - good movie BTW.

This new alliance will be deep space explorers and nomads. There was a great saying I saw on this person's blog the other day:

"Live in Venal once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in the drone regions once, but leave before it makes you soft" - Defias Blog

This is a very true statement.

The notion of Africa and Eve are neat parallels. Africa is, and continues to be this uncharted territory or new frontier. It's hostile and foreboding. If you watch those survivor shows on A&E or Discovery channel, "Survivorman" - that dude has the hardest time in African locales. The deep jungle, sub-saharian africa, the desert are just so nasty and beautiful at the same time.

Going up river (up the Congo) is the same as going to 0.0. You leave the safe confines of empire into great vastness of space. Frankly, I see very little people while going through 0.0, most of it is uninhabited - like Africa.

Explore, Find, Exploit, Move-on... that will be the alliance moto.

The Paradox of 0.0

2008-02-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

My little clan in Eve are a pretty tight bunch. We operate at the extremes of our corporation space. I sometimes think people in our corp don't like what we do and find it dangerous and distracting to corp business.

So I found it interesting the other night when my clan-mates and I are were talking about a few things. One mentioned, "Fin (my character) - for a person who hates to PvP, you really put yourself in dangerous positions far from home.." I retorted, "sure, but with risk comes reward". I can honestly say that being at the extremes has allowed our corp to explore much more of 0.0, find like alliances and explore for those gems (they exist folks). These are good things for a corp, not bad things. Sometimes if we eat our own dog food long enough, well.. we get fat, dumb and happy.

The other comment he made as we were coming back from Empire..,"it's funny, I feel safer in 0.0 than empire" - the answer to that question was an emphatic "WAY!" Those of us who live in 0.0 find the quiet nice, but also the red vs. blue.

Our overview is fixated on local:

if we see blue, we relax,
red we hide or fight (depending on numbers)
and neutral we think

So back to roles vs. risk...

Many espouse the idea that in eve you are either a fighter or care-bear. I frankly think of myself as neither. I think of my role as a Renaissance (meaning "rebirth") character. Eve needs to have some of this - too many get painted into roles and stay there. The Renaissance was a cultural movement (remember, Leonardo made and designed fortresses' in the 14th century that were still around in World War I). So, they liked to blow stuff up - Renaissance men were not pacifists. I plan to try to bring this new cultural thinking to eve.

On to the fighting part of the renaissance - I suck at PvP - I'm ok with support in PvP, when I'm not getting shot at, but fighting, nope - I suck (and I practice too). So, back to "legacy" eve thinking, roaming gangs are, boring, waiting at a gate, boring, POS bashing, boring. I like to explore, find ways to make the game capitalistic (makin' money) and overall, generate good will towards others - diplomacy.

I'm putting together a rather large undertaking in the coming weeks. I need the approval of our board to move forward with it, but I'm hoping they can allow my idea to move forward. I plan on practicing this in the coming weeks.

...as with all good operations, planning makes perfect.

Gun play in the Ghetto

2008-02-18T12:03:00.001-08:00

My alliance, Rule of 3, came up big this weekend. We mustered about 55 battleship's and support craft to fight our sworn enemy, Insurgency. I think Insurgency was slightly pissed that we along with Phallanx, Phoenix, Majesta and Rare Faction are hell bent on removing them from the north - total fleet size over 200+.

All in all, we shined up our pimped out Impala's and hoped we wouldn't drop our transmissions as we drove down Telegraph Avenue to engage the enemy in Branch/Venal; playing low-rider the entire way.

Hint Hint - Telegraph is a metaphor. Those of you who know Telegraph Avenue in the SF bay area, it goes from the deep ghetto (Oakland) into what I affectionately call "Beserkely". It's freak-show central -- and what the drone regions in Eve would look like in real life.

In one of my posts last week I had mentioned about leadership and how corporations are organized.

So, back to our enemy Insurgency and how this relates...

Personally, they are doomed to fail. They have 20+ corps making up a loose alliance confederation of about 1000+ members (not clear on how many alt's). Frankly, it looks like the old southern confederacy, that is, State's (corporation) rights trump Federal (alliance) rights - i.e. - Regional Fleets are a BAD idea.

*** Cardinal Warfare Rule #1 - NEVER DIVIDE your army, unless your Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville ***

If they are dominated by one corporation; one could argue Celestial Apocalypse, but I'm not sure they are in control. They do have some damn good pvp corporations, like "the littlest hobo's" but in general, I'm not clear on how they make money. You have to have balance to survive as an alliance - since we are blowing up their POS's as fast as they put them up, I'm not sure how they will continue to make money. Also, they have pissed off a ton of corporations and alliances, and once those logistics lines get "muddy" (blocked, camped, interdicted, etc), things will get stark.

Without some friends, you end up at Stalingrad surrounded by the Soviet 1st & 4th Guard's Army. Not a pretty picture. You can't sustain a fleet without proper logistics, the German 6th Army needed 800 tonnes of supplies a day to survive; at the height of the airlift, it was getting 117 tonnes of supplies from 500+ aircraft and on average less than 60 tonnes over the entire siege.

With that said, if Tribute (exit system) is closed to Insurgency - why I say this is that they are locking down blues to Morsus Mihi and killing them; so I think MM will have something to say about this - they lose a VALUABLE ally.

Option One - live off the NPC stations in Venal (Not gonna happen - all have been over-run by Triumvirate - who BTW - hate everyone).

Option Two, their own internal (POS's) ship building a manufacturing (which is getting blasted daily) - not very likely.

Time will tell, but I think the pincer move; that is both Triumvirate and our Northern fleet coalition, is making it very hard for Insurgency - I see bad things ahead.

BTW - I got some new 19" rims for my Datsun B-210 in Cobalt Edge this weekend...

I'm broke now...

2008-02-15T14:13:00.000-08:00

Well.. I can say I'm totally broke now. I need to sell some stuff this weekend to get my wallet back up - maybe do some ratting. The first capital I've ever bought cost a pretty penny.

My Rorqual pilot needs some additional training - but he can fly one ok. My goal now seems to get a small faction tower (domination) and use it as a launching pt for gravimetric sites - compress the ore, and ship it back into empire.

Small post today - slightly tired and really don't have much to say... I'll have more this weekend.

One Down.. One to go...

2008-02-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I got my Rorqual for 2B. I told my corp mate, I'll take it. So one less problem. That seems to be a good deal.

I do have another problem ("One to go") - I think I bent the nose of our gallant CEO, Brka. That certainly wasn't my intention, but I got a comment "What do you think about Brka's leadership?", and I have to say that I think he's a great CEO. I think he's holding together a confederation of corporations that are working in a part of eve that is, what I call "the ghetto".

The drone regions are, to put it lightly, devoid of prosperity. It's the equivalent of living in Detroit when the rest of eve is living in the San Francisco bay area. Also, the amount of effort it takes to move goods and material to empire for sale and purchase is daunting. The only good thing is that drones drop compounds and those compounds can be refined into minerals - so I don't think we are hurting for minerals, but the amount of work in relation to other parts of eve is ridiculous. I really hope in the next few patches that CCP really addresses the dearth of materials in the Drone Regions.

Back to my "One to go" post -- Our CEO is a good politician, I appreciate that about him. He is really good with all age groups and maturities. He allows us to explore and do things that many other corporations might not allow. He does allow us to take risks and he supports us if those risks don't pan out. He is not a "iron" hand kind of guy. He's inclusive and "transparent" as I noted in my last post. I think we, as I'm sure he realizes, suffer from a lack of scale.

Most real-life corporations suffer from "scale" that is, they can't! Most run out of money, materials and effort to get "over the hump" and really never get to a size that makes money. Corporations strive to "scale" and most just don't. They get to a point and run out of steam. Some continue on in this fashion, but the long term prospects of "making it big" are lost. The same can be said for eve. Inertia or Momentum are key metrics - but I hold another metric as a key mover, "timing". I like to say, "timing is everything"

Timing will be interesting in the next few months as the Bob war winds down and other vie for eve supremacy. I'm not sure what will take place - but I did find the recent post on "can someone take over all of 0.0" interesting - personally, I think it's totally possible - but as one astute player noted, you can't hold it. Taking territory is easy, but as many a conquering armies have found out, the holding and administrative components just overwhelm the conquering force.

I hope my CEO's feelings weren't hurt -- "all hail Brka!"

Still waiting for Churchill...

2008-02-13T11:14:00.000-08:00

well.. I'm still waiting for the price quote for the Rorqual. I was quoted a few weeks ago a price of 1.8B with all 48 compression BPO's - and now the price has increased to 2.3B, seems like Rorquals are in demand - this ship seems to be the oasis in the desert. I do think it's probably used incorrectly for most who have one - it's a monster if used correctly.

I plan on continuing my system surveys of each NPC region (currently in Great Wildlands) - it's funny, I'm not sure a lot pf people really take the time and effort to survey systems in their entirety. I find the task relaxing - jump from one moon to the next, or asteroid belt to belt and get all the information down for the eventual money squatting exercise. I find it calming.

There are so many ways to make money in eve, but those select few who are patient and plan seem to have the best luck. Money is power (duh!), but it's the projection of that power that is key.

I would imagine that the most affluent and powerful alliances out there are built on solid economics and power organizations; meaning they also seem to have an excellent delegation mechanism. I call it transparency.

Transparency is when power is distributed to a select few who have functional ability to handle and coordinate tasks to others without risking the alliance power or function. The ultimate goal of transparency is to let other "lesser-knowns" know enough about what is going on so that they buy into the culture. In many of these "great" alliances the CEO is a relationship builder - and delegates most of the functions to his board - very much like business in the real world. Remember, it's who you know baby!

I think the the cult of personality really kills many alliances (BoB and SirMolle for example) and also harms the overall efficacy of the alliance/corp. To be clear, I don't advocate for a democracy, this is more of an feudal oligarchy. There is no parliamentary function within these structures - but they are held up by regional or departmental chiefs. This is the modern equivalent of fiefdoms. I think it works very well in Eve when implemented correctly.

The other sort of alliance is the dictator or "one holds all power" and I think they have a place in eve as well, but frankly they are cults of personality. If that one person is, for whatever reason, out of communication or indisposed, then that alliance/corp is paralyzed. However, they do have the ability to move on a dime, there is no ambiguity who calls the shots and those edicts are followed or people die. I like these type of organizations for small, nimble alliances, but for anything greater than 50, it's very difficult to manage, and doomed to fail.

Why call the post "Still waiting for Churchill.."? Churchill in a matter of eight weeks saved the free world. From May - July of 1940 he was able to motivate, move and convince the free world that Hitler was hell bent on spreading fascism and national socialism. His greatest gift was his unwavering position.

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in

France

, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!"

—House of Commons, 4 June 1940, following the evacuation of British and French armies from Dunkirk

...we need more Churchill's in eve...

The beached whale...

2008-02-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hello to all -- well, I've begun my blogging life in 0.0 - waiting for an answer back on my cost for a new Rorqual (Norwegian "röyrkval" -- meaning "furrow whale") that I will be using in my next endeavor. More on that later...

On to the welcome - This blog is an attempt to share with you my thoughts and experiences within the massive eve-online universe. I started playing about 8 months ago, and I've enjoyed it throughly.

To me, the core of eve is persistence. Frankly, this is very unique to games. We are all used to saving a game, leaving and coming back and starting where we left off. In eve, the notion of saving is irrelevant - kinda like life. I'm sure we all wish we could hit the save button and then do life over again. Well, eve is like life, that's why I think it's so interesting. The metaphor of space makes it entertaining, but is where it's at. Bottom line, it makes you think.

Why "Congo Free State"and where did that come from?? Well...

I starting laying down player owned stations (POS's) a few months ago. I began to see that eve life imitated real life - that is, as a human, we love territory, territory is power. I felt a sense of ownership from my stations. I cared for them like children, until I realized I had to feed the children. All in all, POS's are the way to go for those power freaks in us. They are simple and quite safe - that is they provide ample "good-enough" safe harbor.

Back to the story... The location of my POS's were in Venal; and they were so far from our home system in Cobalt edge that I started calling the location the "Congo". Well, from there, I started calling my little part of eve the "Congo Free State". For those that are avid readers out there, the book of books in the last five years that I've read is called "King Leopold's Ghost".

The deep narrative of "Heart of Darkness" and Colonel Kurtz was too hard to resist. Others in my clan in our deep space POS loved the name and it stuck. The eery and dark nature of the Congo allows for a great backstory for our little division within our proud corporation called "Vendetta Underground".

Now, on to my grand plan -- I am buying this Rorqual "Beached Whale" for setting up different deep space exploration ventures. These ventures will be simple, find an excellent asteroid belts through gravimetric exploration, mine the hell out of it and then pick up and leave. For Moons, I might lay down a small POS to get the best yield over some delta, but frankly, the way things are working in eve lately, no NPC space location is safe - so get what you can and then leave. I've had good luck with ventures in Venal and Great Wildlands. My plan is to have hub POS locations in all NPC space.

I'm curious how others have used exploration to their advantage - I'm not so much a carebear as I'm a capitalist. Money First, then fun.

More on my venture in the next few posts ... right now it's in the planning stages..