NC vs Dronelanders: LXQ2-T: 3100 in local, station captured

I missed a major fight on wednesday-ish, during which we took out the LXQ ihub and put the station in its' second reinforced cycle. We made out pretty well in that fight, killing 600 ships and losing 300.

Today the LXQ station finished its' final reinforced timer. Anticipating a big fight and for hostiles to try to get in system around downtime, we got in system 8 hours before the station came out, three hours before downtime, and local was already 600, mostly blue. Intel reported the hostiles had 98 supercapitals logged off in system, 74 supercarriers and 24 titans, while we were subcapitals only. We were hoping to get some super kills, since with so many inexperienced super pilots in one place a few are bound to make mistakes, but they never logged in. Numbers climbed slowly as we waited, reaching 1900 in local and mostly blue just before the station came out of reinforced. At that point the hostiles jumped in about a thousand guys and the node got a bit slow.

Pilots in space

We started out on a grid where several battleship fleets had titan bridged in. Lag was at the level where you expect the node to crash, but it hung on and local eventually broke 3100. I'm not certain how many we killed there, but it's highly unlikely that anything entering system would ever load. Based on a lack of armor broadcasts in my fleet I don't think we lost anybody, but there were probably 5 blue fleets on grid. Enemy bombers did a run, but their bombs decided not to move and blew up in their faces.

Brackets at the first fight

After approximately four hours that grid had been cleared and we warped to a second spot where hostiles had bridged in a battleship fleet. None of the ships moved as we killed them, indicating that none had loaded system.

These guys look blackscreened

Then we warped to a gate where blues were engaging an enemy drake fleet. These ones were actually in system and fighting, but that didn't do much to stop the multiple blue fleets on grid killing them. Local finally fell below 2000 at this point.

First drake fleet

When this was finished we warped to a different gate, where an IRC drake fleet had clearly blackscreened jumping in, and killed them too.

Blackscreened drake fleet

Eventually local got down to 1500, the fighting was over and lag disappeared. We're hitting the station now, and I'm logging off after 14 hours in fleet. I didn't get any kills except for a tower and some mods early in the morning, but it's all good.

EDIT: I actually got on one kill from the fight itself.

Hitting station

Killboard

To say the dronelanders' strategy during this fight was questionable would be an understatement. Jumping your fleet into a system with 1900 already in local is a futile gesture and hurts morale; strategy in a scenario like this should revolve around gaining system control during your prime time and keeping it until objectives can be completed.

According to rumor CCP moved the jita node to LXQ, which may be why the node didn't crash outright. Multiple CCP employees were present in local, and an ISD guy showed up as well.

Also, we killed god.

Victim: CCP Atlas
Corp: C C P
Alliance: C C P Alliance
Faction: Unknown
Destroyed: BH Mega Cargo Ship
System: LXQ2-T
Security: 0.0

EDIT: CCP used this fight to gather data for lag fixing purposes and we are now looking forward to a possible devblog. Their reporting software showed a peak of 3242 players in system. Also one of the things CCP Atlas was carrying when we killed him was actually a data gathering tool... oops :)

Some information here.

MORE EDIT: CCP Atlas' corpse was apparently sold for 5 billion isk.

In which I nearly participate in a banter blog

This month topic is brought to us by L’Dene Bean of Nitpickin’s who asks: Why, and how did you pick your corporation? Is your loyalty solid or just until a better placed organization “recruits” you. The shorter version: Who holds your unshakable fealty and why?

In his posts on the nature of alliance failure cascades, Mittani observed that they occur when the organization that corporations or players identify with ceases to be the alliance. People don't like to believe they are bad at the game so when an alliance starts losing, corporations may decided it is the rest of the alliance which is fail and leave. Similarly a player may decided that their alliance or corporation is fail and leave or stop participating.

When WI lost all their space my corporation left the alliance and I left my corporation, but the organization I identify with never changed. I found a new corporation by checking with all the corporations in the alliances I was interested in, eventually finding a place in razor.

While my corporation are a fine bunch of folks, and while my alliance is the most competent I have been in, they are just the place I live. The organization to which I am most loyal is the northern coalition as a whole, for the reason that I actually believe the leadership has the best interests of the coalition at heart. I can be confident of this because they have spent years building the coalition into the uniquely successful organization it is today, cultivating a highly resilient cooperative model rather than the cult of personality which has failed so many alliances recently.

tl;dr nc rules atlas drools yes I'm bitter

Coalition map update

December 2010 update here.

Since the southern coalition died hilariously in a fire it's time for a new coalition map. Accuracy not guaranteed. Credit goes to the people who do the sov map.

Blue: IT and pets
Brownish-gray: Ev0ke and co.
Green: NC and brosephs
Orange: Stainwagon
Pink: Drone russians and some other russians
Red: The new south
Yellow: Providence. Not a power block.

The south is a bloody mess as always. Sys-k is an IT pet but fighting stainwagon with the new south alliances, Init is closely allied with IT, IT aren't fighting stainwagon, CO2 and DT are allied with init against stainwagon and god only knows what CO2 and DT's standings toward IT are.

Providence is a shitfest. The region is as complex politically as the entire rest of the map and I'm not going to touch it.

Another general update

Over the last week the NC have been RFing Dronelander towers and incapping jump bridges to try to provoke fights, without much success. Since the last fight in N-RAEL there has been one big fight, over an ihub, which came out about even on killboards but we took the system. Today a second ihub came out, and since the Russians didn't show up to defend it we reinforced a station.

More NC entities have been deploying east to joing the campaign. I particularly noted the presence of FCON -- there was some skepticism when they joined the coalition (because, you know, :providence: ) so it's nice to see them throwing their weight around.

Out west in cloud ring it sounds like ev0ke space is continuing to be taken by the Deklein coalition, a new political bloc headed by Goons which includes TEST and a number of other alliances. The difference between them and the NC will be academic to an outsider, since we are blue to each other.

Finally, rumors have PL moving moving to NPC geminate. If true the timing of this is interesting, since it and the recently announced IT campaign correlate with rumors that IT+PL+dronelanders will be attacking the NC.

Happiness, definition of

NC vs Dronelanders: Lag-free fights

Alex Rembrandt > we're probably fighting the B team right now though
Karmic Enigma > our first fight was the D team, the second was perhaps a C+ Team

The first two hostile pos that we reinforced in drone regions came out after downtime today. We put together about 80 armor hacs with 10ish logistics, a second, larger shield BC fleet and bombers. We were expecting stiff resistance, these being the first strategic objective of the war, and intel reported 250 hostiles.

Our ahax were orbiting the lowsec gate when local spiked to 300. The hostiles, in shield BC, landed on us at zero and logistics were ordered to jump through if we were taking damage. They primaried the logistics, and though most managed to jump out we did lose a couple, including myself.

Oh snap, drakes at zero

It turns out that the strength of drakes against ahax is partly in their range, and things went rather well for us as I was reshipping. By the time I got back in system the hostiles were on the back foot, and they warped out and safed up in a pos. We defanged it while waiting for the second tower to come out of reinforced.

Aftermath on the lowsec gate

Before the second tower came out a red reinforcement fleet of about 80 came and we engaged them on their in-gate. This time they didn't primary the logistics, and for the most part weren't able to get kills either.

Hostile reinforcements jumping in

Toward the end of the second fight

Killboard

It is worthy of note that the fight was totally lag-free. The system was reinforced, of course, but with 300 people fighting on the same grid such a smooth fight is noteworthy.

Don't be this person (part 2)

I'm all for making isk faster, but please use caution.