Fweddit - USTZ Pwnage

So, Ushra'Khan was kicked out of the Minmatar militia. They're probably back in by now. What happened? Probably the result of accepting a corporation with very bad standings into their alliance. For an alliance the size of Ushra'Khan I doubt very much that one person's bad standings could have any adverse effect, so it had to be a corporation-sized entity of people with bad standings. A troll? Or just a recruiting oversight?

Amusing, nonetheless. A Minmatar roleplaying alliance getting the boot from the Minmatar militia. I'm curious how their roleplaying explained away that gaffe?

I had some fun with it, when we hit their home system during a brief respite from Operation Huola:

[ 2012.12.06 04:21:49 ] Poetic Stanziel > I hear Late Night kicked Ushra'Khan from the Minmatar militia. I'll be sad to see you go. You were good enemies.
[ 2012.12.06 04:22:02 ] Phobos Eversor > not what happened
[ 2012.12.06 04:22:10 ] Deuscariot > Rumors of our death have been greatly exaggerated.
[ 2012.12.06 04:22:28 ] Poetic Stanziel > Are you sure? Late Night runs the Minmatar militia, no?
[ 2012.12.06 04:22:33 ] flyingdank pocket > late night had nothing to do with uk getting dropped from militia
[ 2012.12.06 04:22:38 ] flyingdank pocket > it was all cynthia nezmor
[ 2012.12.06 04:22:38 ] Vana theHunter > UK, just join Amarr and purge LNA with us
[ 2012.12.06 04:22:41 ] Phobos Eversor > LNA is not involved with this
[ 2012.12.06 04:23:02 ] grazn8r > join amarr militia and we can crush LNA like we should
[ 2012.12.06 04:23:20 ] Poetic Stanziel > I'm not so sure. You guys do what Late Night tells you too, no? If they say "defend Huola" you say when and how often?

***

I'm finding my outlaw status to be a non-issue. I'm at -8.8 now. I haven't been to highsec with Poetic in weeks. Having a capable alt (and my alt can haul, blockade run, has reasonably high market trading skills, etc.) makes a sec status below -5.0 a non-issue. If you have the alt doing the boring shit for you in highsec, then there's never any need for your main to leave lowsec.

I used to be scared of the dreaded outlaw/pirate status. Figuring it was really going to crimp my playing, my access to various parts of the game. Back when I was in EVE University, I used to ask "How do these pirates function? It's really hard for them to get into highsec and do anything, buy anything?" Some of the brighter people would say "Alts." Others, the majority, would say "You don't ever want to be pirate, it will ruin the game for you."

If I didn't have the alt, if Poetic was my only account, then sure, being an outlaw would be a huge pain in the ass. Not terrible, or frightening, not unmanageable, just a pain in the ass. With an alt account, it is seriously no big deal.

(Even without the alt, I could sit in Egghelende, buy everything I need in Dodixie, since they're in the same region, then courier contract it all to lowsec. That would be a pain in the ass, but not unmanageable.)

***

A couple people have activated kill rights on me. One is offering the killright for free. The other for a cost of 5M ISK. Unless some complete fool runs across me, no one who owns my killright is every collecting anything. Again, as an outlaw, I'm already a free kill to anyone and everyone. No killright activation required.

***

Bounties have been pretty cool, so far. I put a 100M ISK bounty on Late Night Alliance, during the start of Operation Huola. That 100M lasted all of about four hours. It was a nice way to give some money back to the dudes helping out with the operation.

Bounties will be even better when I can define who gets paid. Then I can set bounties that only get paid to I Whip My Slaves Back and Forth members.

***

Mazel tov!

[ 2012.12.06 07:58:02 ] Poetic Stanziel > GET A CLUE, VOTE THE JEW! PINKY FELDMAN GETS SHIT DONE! PINKY FOR CSM8!

***

Operation Huola is going well. It's going to be a marathon, not a sprint. We're definitely overwhelming Late Night Alliance during USTZ. To the point where they rarely undock, or they simply log off. I hear they're getting particularly proficient at DOTA2.

Late Night is now relying entirely on their EUTZ pals in Iron Oxide to save their system for them. A sad state when they're logging off, basically giving up during USTZ, and putting all the boring grunt work on their allies. Depending on how slavish (it's in the Minmatar blood, after all) Iron Oxide is feeling, they may keep on saving Late Night's asses for the length of this war. Or they may not. Depends on if they're feeling used, I suppose.

The YOLOCOLO still have a problem with numbers in the European timezones. But we're starting to organize a bit better there.

An anonymous Late Nighter clued us in to their grand plan, if in fact they do lose Huola: "Here's a secret. LNA won't be moving from Huola. If they need to they will just leave FW and continue on as normal ... pirating."

Hans, leaving faction warfare so readily? I thought it wasn't about winning or losing, but about the fights. I thought, of anyone, he'd be the most dedicated faction warfare participant. Or maybe he's not of the same mind as his colleagues. At any rate, I guess it's no surprise really that they'd take their ball and go home.

***

Susan Black is AWOL. She disappeared around Black Friday. My theory, given the rumour that she "works with numbers", is that The Gap is particularly busy this time of year. Christmas shopping season and all.

***

So far so good on the faction warfare changes. The four different plex sizes have been working out great. It requires more planning and reshipping, but I think that's just adding to the fun. And plexes are bringing a bunch of fights. Moving the warp-in 10km from the button has been a boon to catching nerds. There's actually fewer fights on gates lately, more in plexes.

Time will tell if things continue this way, but so far it's looking better than it did this summer. It took two expansions, but CCP may have got faction warfare mostly right. (I still think more reward has to be given for PvP over PvE though, but at this point it's only a minor complaint.)

Late Night did have some fun with us yesterday using plex restrictions and their ability to reship in system to their advantage, . We'd run a small, they'd ship up to cruisers and run the medium. We'd jump two systems to reship to cruisers, but on our return they were already downshipped to frigates and running the small.

Turkeys. But good work frustrating us and using plexes to the advantage they were designed.

We eventually split the fleet enough to put the kibosh on that manoeuvre. Good to have the numbers in USTZ.

***

Instead of moving ships to our new staging system, I just bought a thwack more ships. Creating fittings for all these things, not my favourite thing to do. Thankfully we have Fenrir Vice who loves creating fits.

I am flying Amarr for the very first time. It took eighteen months, but I finally fired my first laser.

Also bought 40 newbro Thrashers, so that recruits don't have to worry about getting stuff moved. They just have to get in system to get their free ship to participate.

And we are back to recruiting. Especially looking for EUTZ corporations to join us. If you're EUTZ and want to PvP like heck, then contact Rina Kondur.

***

It's all been a crapload of fun since December 4th. More people logging on. More fights. More plans. And a worthy goal. There are few people in the Amarr that like Late Night as an entity (they have some good individuals, though), so kicking them out of Huola has everyone fired up.