HERO and PROVI Call For a Truce

As the changes of Phoebe loom on the horizon and the major Null entities get ready for the inevitable clusterfuck, HERO and PROVI have attempted to end the border dispute that has since become a proxy war involving PL, N3, RUS, and others.

An allegedly leaked image above details the agreement between the two groups.

Some may have enjoyed the progression of the dispute took over the recent months, but it made perfect sense that this would happen at some point.  Catch will be a very hot target in the coming months after Phoebe as more groups look to join the "fun" in Null.  And holding what they have should be the primary concern.

I'd bet my bottom dollar that we will see both groups pour resources into capitals and supercaps for the coming weeks.  And with PL returning to it's roots as a "burn it all" merc group, we may see a very big dustup between them and HERO soon.

Another interesting point is how both groups will seek to define the common enemy portion of the agreement.  And whether or not it leads to seriously bad outcomes for either.

Phoebe, and the Null Resource Advantage

Let’s talk more about the dark side of Phoebe and the jump changes.
First, let’s state the problem that plagues all competitive multiplayer games but open ended games like EVE the most, the n+1 problem:

All else being equal, the side with n resources is at a disadvantage to the side with n+1 resources.

In EVE, n can refer to the amount of ISK, skill points, friends, experience, etc. Basically, there is always an advantage to have more of things available to you than your opponents. This is a fact of gaming life. As well as business and life in general.  There is a constant need for more resources.  Or as the last George Carlin put it, "The meaning of life is just trying to find a place for your stuff.".

In gaming this inherent advantage is addressed by caps on players, either direct or indirect. Limiting points, items, money, or other in-game resources.  Limits in skill discrepancies, always trying to find ways to give the "little guy",   i.e. the side on the lower end of the n+1 problem, the ability to punch up against the “big guy”.  Adding in diminishing returns, or more of a particular item or mechanic to try and bring "stuff" in balance.

A common complaint about any changes to nullsec is some variant of “this change benefits the big coalitions more than the little guys you want to balkanize null sec with because they have more of [insert specific resource here]“.  Well, DUH!  The larger and more organized group will ALWAYS have an advantage over the smaller and less organized groups unless the former choose not to take it. This is not a surprise. The goal of changes should be to give so many decisions and actions for large groups to take that they cannot press the advantage in all areas at the same time.  To diffuse their advantage across multiple areas to the point they still have an advantage,  but so that the opportunity for smaller groups to enter into the scuffle is always there.

This is what the jump ship and fatigue changes in Phoebe are trying to do: limit power projection of all capital fleets AND force large coalitions to make choices about how they use their n+1 advantage to the best effect, hopefully leaving opportunities open for smaller groups to gain footholds in the game. Right now, there is no choice to be made when faced with the question of smashing a smaller group because of the ease of tactical and strategic deployment of capitals, or rather the only choice is “do I feel like it?” and that’s not a good gameplay design.

So we get Phoebe. And one of the responses is “well, the large capital using coalitions will just put caches of capital ships all over the galaxy and use jump clones or interceptors to get to them when needed”.

Yes, yes they will.

The groups we are talking about are some of the most organized and affluent in EVE’s history, there is literally no mechanical solution to force projection they cannot buy and/or maneuver around with enough effort. But that’s the key word there, isn’t it? Effort.

Yes, they will create stockpiles of capital ships in various NPC stations and POS around the cluster (easier with regular caps than with super caps). Yes they will be able to avoid the jump fatigue mechanic with interceptors and/or jump clones to get to the caches as they need them. Yes, they will recruit or create more specialty accounts to accomplish this. Yes, they are still going to be able to throw their weight around considerably.

But hopefully the effort of making and maintaining these caches in an operational and ready to go state adds enough complexity to force projection to cause these large powerful groups to have to make decisions that leave gaps in the defenses.  The point seems to be that these concessions will force a train of thought that means these larger groups will not only have to expend vast amounts of resources to maintain their holdings.  Creating the opportunity for exploitation by smaller groups with a keen eye and ear to the ground.  A small group with proper planning and good intel could easily cause havoc for these larger groups, mostly by gumming up the deployment of these caches.  Thereby forcing redeployment and restructuring.  A very cat and mouse game may emerge.

Only time will tell.

Eve NYX Event Hero Coalition

PLEX up to 800M ISK

Plex over 800m ISK

I will just throw this out there - my view on the Plex price.

The Plex price has broken above 800m ISK yet volumes are on the decline.


Worth considering that the supply of Plex is not related to the demand for Plex in the same way that minerals and ships hulls are related, for example.


The demand for Plex is perhaps easier to think about.  The demand is some sort of a function of the growth in the Eve population and the wealth of the Eve Population.  As those increase then the demand for Plex should increase.  So far, so good.


The supply of Plex though is less obvious (or it may be and i am merely missing the point!).


The question i am wrestling with is why does a player want to buy Plex for $15?  Clearly, the answer is that the player wants to buy ISK (or, occasionally spends US$ to dual train etc).


If so, then the more ISK that $15 of Plex creates then presumably the less total US$ the player need spend to buy the total ISK that they require.


For example, if a player wanted to buy $4bn of ISK, today they would need to buy 5 Plex = spending $75.  One year ago, that $4bn of ISK would have required about 7 Plex = $105.


In other words, for a player to achieve a level of ISK then that player need not buy as many Plex today and so the supply of Plex has gone done.


(For now, lets assume that 4bn of ISK today would get the same as 4bn of ISK a year ago).


Hence, we have a situation where the demand for Plex is rising and the supply is falling.  Leads to a self-fulfilling price rise in Plex until one of the demand factors breaks and then we get a self-fulfilling price fall in Plex! The inflation in terms of the dropping value of plex purchased looks to be not be reducing anytime soon.


Of course, someone with a load of Plex could dump on the market and cause a fall, perhaps temporary.


CCP then has a balancing act on their hands - rising inflation leads to more ISK being required by players buying it using Plex (good for CCP, bad for the Plex price).  But rising inflation also leads to more wealth and so a rising demand for Plex (good for the Plex price).  Which will win, not clear.

Nulli Secunda Alliance Update

Alliance Updates are intended for an internal audience and should be considered propaganda or taken with a grain of salt.

This update will cover what we will be doing for the next 10 days right up until the release of Phoebe and how you can get ready.  Please read the entire post thoroughly and work hard over the next week to findtime to complete any preparation that you don’t already have done.  Most of you won’t need to do anything, for the rest of you this should take virtually no time to get ready.  Our plans for Phoebe are simple, and we’re incredibly excited about some of the ideas we have for these new game mechanics. Here are the 5 steps/announcements/stuff of our simple Phoebe plan:

1) We will be moving everything out of Tartoken and deploying to a new staging system on Sunday, November 2nd:  

 

        The exact time of the move op will be posted on the calendar this upcoming Sunday after our corp leadership meeting, but expect it to be around the 19:00-20:00 range.  There has never been a more important move op, if it is at all possible for you to make it to the scheduled move then you need to do so.  I know this is cutting it close to the November 4th Phoebe patch, but because we only have dreads, carriers, and subcaps in Tartoken, this should be a move we are capable of making successfully before the jump drive changes.  We have very good reasons for waiting this late to shift to our final destination before Tartoken, and they outweigh all of the obvious issues that moving this late might cause.  We will do our best to run what is basically a constant cyno route to our new staging system for the 48 hour period between when we move and when the Phoebe patch is deployed.

 

        However, I know there will be some of you that will legitimately not be able to make any move op between Nov. 2nd and Nov. 4th.  If you know that you will not be able to make those ops, or are in any way concerned that you could miss those ops, then you should pack up all of your things and talk to your corp members to help get them moved during the move op.  We will be making more than one trip to go back and get all of the capitals and subcaps, so there will be plenty of opportunities for your corp mates to get your stuff moved.  You have 8 days to determine whether or not you will be able to make the move op and plan accordingly.  

 

I can not stress this enough, and will be pinging about this every single day until Nov. 2nd, BUT YOU NEED TO EITHER MAKE THIS MOVE OP OR GET YOUR TARTOKEN STUFF TO SOME CORP MEMBERS BEFORE NOVEMBER 2ND.

 

         If you have pvp assets in Kheram that you would like to move to our new staging system, then you need to move those assets to Tartoken before the move op.  Our new deployment will still be a combat deployment, so you still only need your combat assets.

 

All Titan and Super pilots have different orders that are on the supercapital forums.  If you are a super and titan pilot and do not have access to those forums, that sounds like a problem you should get fixed.

 

2) You need to finish training the mandatory jump clone skills we asked you to train during the Tartoken move op.  For those of you who don’t remember, these skills will be mandatory for everyone to have by November 4th (you can easily train all this in time):

 

Infomorph Psychology V

Infomorph Synchronizing IV

Advanced Infomorph Psychology IV

 

        We would actually like everyone to have all those skills ready by November 2nd, as we will be strategically placing jump clones during our move op (as well as during the week before it).  However, if you are going to be cutting it tight to make the deadline, We would rather you train Informorph Psychology V first, then Infomorph Synchronizing to IV, then Advanced Infomorph to as high as you can get it before the op (and then obviously finish it to IV as soon as possible).

 

        Every combat pilot, including dread and carrier pilots (but not supers or titans) is required to have these jump clone skills trained.  This is as mandatory as mandatory things get as far as I’m concerned.  It’s a quick train, but more importantly, so much of our plans post-Phoebe will revolve around our new Jump Clone strategy.  We will go over in detail our methods and plans at the Nov. 2nd meeting, but for now you need to start minimizing the amount of jump clones you have for personal use.  With the required skills trained, you’ll be able to own a maximum of 9 jump clones.  Right now we are trying to decide between requiring you to have 5 or 6 of your jump clones reserved for alliance use.  It’ll be at least 5 (but I’m pushing hard for 6).  This will leave you 3 or 4 jump clones for personal use.  If that's not enough for you currently, then you need to find a way to make that enough.  I wish we could be flexible on this, but we can't.

 

        Orders for where to place the jump clones will come out this Sunday after our corp leadership meeting.  This should give people who can’t make the Nov. 2nd move op plenty of time to teledeath and install a jumpclone somewhere.

 

3) Once you have finished training the required jump clone skills, we need you to spend 4 days following these skill training orders:

 

        While not as crucial as the jump clone thing above, it is very important that we get as many of you as possible to follow these next instructions before November 2nd.  The more of you who do this, the more effective we will be:

On any account you own, pick a character that you think you will lose the least post Phoebe (or make a new one if you have an open slot).  It’s important that this character is not your main PVP character, or isn’t a character you plan on Jump cloning a lot.

You will then pause the skill training on this account for whatever character is training so that you can train the 4 day skill plan below.  This is why it’s required for you to finish the jump clone skills before training these skills.  I know that no one likes wasting skill training time, but this is a 4 day skill plan for even the most basic character.  All we are asking for is 4 days.

The skills you need to train are listed in this forum thread: http://forums.nullis...and-aid-fleet/

If this character is not  currently in a nulli corp, he doesn’t need to join one yet, we will take care of that on November 2nd.

IF YOU ALREADY HAVE AN ALT CHARACTER THAT IS NOT A PVP CHARACTER AND HAS ALL OF THESE SKILLS, THEN YOU CAN USE THAT CHARACTER.  That should save you some time.

 

4) We are relocating Nulli’s home base/asset storage location from Kheram to UW9B-F in Curse: http://evemaps.dotla...ap/Curse/UW9B-F

 

        We told everyone a few weeks ago that we would be discontinuing Kheram as our home base as it is no longer practical to keep assets their with the Phoebe changes.  We have finally decided on UW9B-F as a place that fulfills the most of our needs in a “home system” for whatever that will mean in a post-Phoebe world.  UW9B and it’s adjacent system have good 5-LY jump ranges for various jump routes, and of course some of you will remember that this was the same system we used to pool our assets after the 0-W hellcamp.  Some corps already have offices, and there are plenty available either in system or within one jump for every corp to have an office.

 

        Basically, everything you have now in Kheram that you don’t want to leave in high sec and don’t want to take to our next deployment, needs to be moved to UW9B-F.  The focus should be on things that can’t be moved in a jump freighter, as JFs will still be able to move around pretty freely post patch.

 

5) There are no orders to evacuate anything out of any conquerable space that we currently own.  However, if you have things in a conquerable station that can not be moved with a Jump Freighter, and you do not want/need to keep it in the conquerable station, then the place you should move that stuff to is UW9B-F.

 

        Basically, there is no space we are planning on purposefully conceding or not defending.  So if you are doing industry things, or ratting things, or whatever down in our sov, then there is no reason for you to evac those assets unless you feel that you wouldn't be able to get them out quickly in an emergency.  If you have assets that are much larger than a few jump freighter runs (a.k.a you’ve been saving cap parts for a super/titan), or have assets that can not physically fit in a jump freighter, then you will need to discuss that with your corp leadership after this upcoming Sunday.  Your corp leadership will be getting information as to what we plan to do with things like super and titan building and other heavy assets of that nature on Sunday, and will then plan accordingly on what to do with your stuff.

 

Conclusion/Summary/whatever:

 

That's it, do those things.  Morale speechs and narrative crafting and shit like that will be saved for the November 2nd alliance meeting.  You should all make an effort to ensure that not only are you prepared and finished with all of these things, but that your corp is as well.  I'll be pinging this thread and information about it every day multiple times a day.  We will still be running fleets from Tartoken, so there's no need to leave here except to do stuff that is detailed in this post.