Eventful January and February so far. I would like to share with you some updates. It will only include pure facts; this isn’t a spin to waste your time.
This update will include:
- 4-HW capital camp;
- Snuff campaign in vale;
- Venal & the middle scale entities around us.
4-HW capital camp
Since last year snuff started to pose their nose around our nearby lowsec, old friends in several different snuff corps poked me, in mostly joking manners, that they were not happy about the contents and the ways Snuff delivered such contents. Over time the conversations become more serious that was how I learnt about the super bait. The spy was proven later on by himself logging with snuff dreads every DT. Regardless, due to our pilots’ neglect we lost two titans. Props to them setting up with a supercarrier. However tau dropped nearly 100 caps because he was fishing for a larger prize, which led to this camp since Feb 5.
They tried 3 breakouts in EU/USTZ immediately after which was not the wisest thing to do. They were confident with volta/init expecting a weak FRT traditional off timezone performance. You slapped them in the face with an exemplary show of force. Now everyone knows we ain’t just a chinese alliance anymore. We field 500 non CN pilots at your timezone.
After several futile attempts tailed by angry/disappointed allies, snuff decided it’s only possible if they deploy within the bridge range of us thus we have them now in Hakonen. But more on that later.
With their new deployment they have adopted the lowsecer’s most despised muninn doctrine to fight us in a cheaper, more sustainable manner. We taught them how nullsec runs by presenting the old faithful ferox.
Eventually today before this DT Tau made the play while I was watching in 4H. They have tested that T2 large bubbles can be cleared fairly quickly by dreads. With the setup I mentioned in ping earlier, they manage to extract some of their caps while taking an acceptable loss from snuff’s pov. Again, props to them. They immediately started the narrative. The reason is that the more they convince you, our line members, that snuff caps are mostly out, the less committed our pilots might be in favor of their future breakouts. On the contrary from my perspective I’d like to advocate that it was a complete failed evacuation so I can maintain morale for the camp. However I’m sick of spinning, so I asked for a thorough locator on all caps in records and the results are public to everyone. Credits to our diligent agents whose names I can not share, thank them.
We tracked if the capitals are dead on zkillboard; then where they are if not; then which ship type they are in. The result is 19 capital dead, 32 escaped today, 60 remain trapped. Out of the 32 lucky souls more than half are carrier pilots, which are also main subcap characters. Snuff extracted 33% of its pilots for now, on the bright side 66% remains and 60 capital pilots ain’t a petty number in any regard. Our conclusion? We will continue the camp with the lessons learnt today.
Snuff campaign in vale
Everyone remembers Snuff has to deploy for an extraction, with the doctrine they despise the most even. You can now see ISRAD, DB7., etc camping 4-HW and its surrounding systems. They are the best at it, ask goons how 1DQ was camped for years. This is what I expect in Vale however, that we will be camped either by a bloc or any bored pirate entity nearby. ISRAD just happens to be the most resilient and sophisticated among them all. What do we expect then?
Ratting in anomaly is not preferred, especially in a heavy asset. Let me be bluntly honest. Yes CCP has pulled back some of its BRM change, no the meta has still shifted away from null ratting. The big CN crabs are now in mass vexors or barges or missioning. We are still working on guiding you to the best income methods. Some CEOs have warned me that I can not force playstyles onto you. I’m presenting to you what I believe is the most profitable way, while doing so will solidify our nullsec status because such playstyles are immune to interruption if real war happens. We will never be able to provide the supercap krab like drone region because the range to lowsec does not allow. our BRM can’t compete with a nice quiet rental pocket either. If that’s what you are after, I am sorry you won’t be happy here. It’s better to let you know what to expect than disappointing you afterwards. Living in vale/tribute is a daily king of hill game where you knock every challenger out. We stage here because it helps us grow/keeps us sharp. However I admit this isn’t for everyone; some might find it’s nicer quieter way of game. I will not judge anyway.
Back to the snuff campaign. Their main strategy is nullified covert T3C with dictor and ECM. It’s almost completely risk-averse and safe combined with their spies. They cover all exits from 4H, popping your unsuspected travelling ships. It’s hard to fight back thus causing grief.
Legion | TopKek Hemah | Killmail | zKillboard
Legion | DaPheel Thurogood | Killmail | zKillboard
Unless you learn to counter with the correct setup. It’s often part of a bigger more formal campaign by blocs placing such camps in stager. It’s easily discouraging to our members, so you have to tell them why it’s dangerous; how to fight back. I’ve sent an alliance mail. We also set bounty for all snuff camping T3C you kill; 200m for the prober, 200m for the last hit. Alliance pays 10mil ISK for friendly mobile observatory killmails in 4-H. Claim them with your corp leadership, they are notified already. This is a never ending process because players join our organisation constantly. If everyone is experienced ISRAD wouldn’t get any kills in 1DQ, but it’s important to be informed. There will always be a hostile camp in Vale that you should be aware of.
Venal & the mid scale entities around us
Last year I signed a deal with Brotherhood of spacers alliance that allows them to have citadels in exchange for limiting their activity in NPC venal. I made a mistake by going soft with these people. The deal was a failure that cost us more than expected. For that I am sorry to my members. NC’s campaign was just the trigger of all these that showed me such a deal is pointless and will only backfire. One can not deal with insatiable entities that have little or no to lose. Levelling their structures is a must but it’s definitely not the end.
You might think, Rote in Nalvula, Boss in Venal, Darkside in Maila, Snuff in lowsec, plus the freemen we evicted two years ago. How did we always get in trouble with these innocent medium scale alliances? Are we the baddies? Eve is a drying pond with many desperate fishes. When the water lowers every fish squeeze into the last few deep crates. Such are the caldari space surroundings. This is where people could find content with lowest efforts. Mid scale alliances can’t go far for food but these people happen to pick the same place where we wanna rest. It’s inevitable the conflicts will go on therefore.