NidenShareTweetA few months back, when the timeline for release of the new sov system was announced, it was widely expected that the major nullsec powers would hunker down and wait to see what changes the new system would bring. No major shifts in allegiance, coalition structure, or on the map, were expected. The past few weeks, however, have changed that completely. The CFC has abandoned several regions, N3 has all but disintegrated, Stain Wagon are taking space formerly occupied by N3, and HERO have abandoned Catch for the greener pastures of Fountain. In lowsec, meanwhile, Overload Everything has collapsed and a significant number of its members have moved to Pandemic Legion.With Fozziesov only weeks away, the map has seen, and will continue to see, significant shifts. With all of these shifts and movements in mind, what has surprised you most about the past few weeks’ shakeups in EVE? What impacts, if any, have these shifts had on your place in EVE? Do you anticipate anything else changing before the coming of Fozziesov? What, if anything, are you and your corp/alliance/coalition doing to prepare? Do you have any other thoughts or comments on the significant developments seen in both the lowsec and nullsec political landscapes over the past few weeks?Apoth: The incoming sov system has made everyone rethink what sov they want and what they’re going to be able to defend. Many are hailing it as “the death of renter alliances” which in my mind is a good thing. Wars have become weird and pointless. N3 invaded a region the CFC weren’t planning to keep in the first place and N3 probably knew they weren’t going to hold post the new sov system. This mean the only things on the line in the fight were the ships themselves, and the CFC are even more famous for these days for having little to no interest in fun fights, only the campaign level win so choosing them as a target when you’re looking to do a frontal assault didn’t really make all that much sense to me. WIth all their people and wealth, the WORST way to try to kill the CFC or force them to cede space they want to keep is an attack in one location.
Quite a lot of Sov right now is largely abandoned, N3 have made it clear as they flee from PL they’re not contenting their swathes of space, the CFC have shed their regions and consolidated alliances, having trouble even giving some of it away and are turtling up in the north. I *think* XiX/SOLAR/Tri are having a sov war in the far east, though that’s just kind of what they do, in the same way that come summer PL annually flattens whichever sandcastles A has built over the previous 10 months. It’s not strategic at this point, it’s tradition.
In my mind, a major shakeup of nullsec sov entities will not happen until a good time after FozzieSov has been released. The players in the game need to shift and move through organisations, some growing, some dying. A case in point was when BNI declared their intention to take Catch. They ended up taking largely abandoned space without much contesting, they even had a little help with the grind from N3/PL. They became a farming reserve for all of EVE to actually find fights, and it took their infrastructure and people months of drama, failure and shakeups to get to the point where they could really play ball.
What I guess I’m trying to say is that even after the June patch, the players will need to get to grips with the new sov system, entities old and new will grow and change and learn and only after that will some measure of fluidity and “big change” in terms of sov empires that the EVE populace have been shouting for will come.
Dunk Dinkle:
“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” – Helmuth von Moltke
Let’s be clear, all we are really doing now is guessing what will happen. Anyone who says otherwise is a blowhard. The first month will be chaos with much facepalming and angry posting. There will with bugs, exploits, emergence of cleary OP doctrines, and a call to return to Dominion Sov.
That said, it appears that to be successful in FozzieSov, a group will need a few key things to be successful:
Ability to hold the grid to apply the Entosis Link to the enemy structure – Looks like kiting fleets won’t work, so groups will need to be able to stand their ground and engage in a slugfest until one side cracks. This could be dramatic with entire fleets whelping since the engagement ranges will likely be shorter. New doctrines are on the drawing boards across New Eden, some marvelously OP, other hideous EFT failures.
Ability to prevent enemies from applying the Entosis Link successfully – Defensive fleets will likely have different doctrines, focused on delaying and destroying the Entosis Link wielding ships. Defenders don’t need to win the slugfest in a traditional sense, as much as prevent the enemy fleet from achieving their objective. Even if the grid can’t be fully held by defenders, many tactics will arise to kill the Entosis Link before fully cycling with bombs, alpha strikes, ECM, etc. Lastly, the ability to form strongly during ‘vulnerability’ times is critical.
Ability to win the Command Node constellation party – Likely the most unknown part of FozzieSov, forcing the battle to stretch across multiple systems will force even more tactical changes. Yes, your Machariel/Scimitar fleet is impressive and a tough nut to crack, but can it be in several places at once? Groups with more members and FCs will find this phase to be to their advantage.
Who can do all these things? Time will tell. Personally, I think that Constellations are the New Black and that holding a region is Old and Busted.
Xander: I think it’s going to be interesting what happens to the massive blue lists we have become so accustomed to in 0.0. We’re already seeing the CFC trimming the fat and N3 as a bloc appears to be dead. Are alliances reaching optimal size or are is there more downsizing to come?
Who comes out ahead from Fozziesov? I’m clearly biased but it seems to me that an entity not tied to sov with the ability to move around the map wholesale quickly and easily is going to be in very good shape…
I do agree with Dunk and Apoth though – what we’re doing at the moment is pure guesswork and we will only know the true effects of Fozziesov maybe six months after it ends up on TQ. I do believe that it will make for a much better Eve though in the long term.
Bob Shaftoes: I agree with you folks in that we cannot predict what will happen. But I am already liking what even the threat of “fozziesov” is doing to the current EVE influence map. Whole regions abandoned. The loss of one of the major present day coalitions. Lots of smaller and more regionalised conflicts without a huge blue list. The future is unknown and scary , but it also has the potential to be different , exciting and better for the game on the whole.
Niden: That it would be chaos once Fozziesov descends from on high no one has any doubts about. However, what surprises me, and keep in mind that for me nullsec is a spectator sport, is the escalation in sov warfare before Fozziesov. I agree with Taka’s original point here (he wrote the prompt this week <3): I was fully expecting everyone to tie their stuff down and turtle up until the new system hits. Why anyone would willingly engage in the the current system willingly boggles the mind. The closest I’ve gotten to it is shooting towers where the defenders don’t show up, that’s about as far as I’m willing to go when it comes to structure grinding.
Any road up, I think it’s fascinating that nullsec has turned into Game of Thrones, rather than the Walking Dead.
The shakeup in lowsec was equally unexpected, but for entirely different reasons. With the formation of the Federal Union (FU), we’ve been spearheading a new avenue of warfare within GalMil. The POS wars in the north have been raging for months now, of which Overload Everything was a major player. The going got pretty hard though and I don’t think the likes of OE, Snuff Box, Sniggwaffe and Shadow Cartel, amongst others, expected FU to step up as much as we have. Doomchinchilla had just a few weeks ago declared total war on us after we destroyed 11 OE carriers. Instead, Collapsed Out pulled their stakes and went to PL. I don’t think anyone was expecting that within our organisation at least. We were preparing for war against OE from the west and Snuff Box from the east. Instead, our western front has quieted down. Just to keep things interesting however, the Pandemic Horde newbro blob has been active with Sniggwaffe, another unexpected thing.
Taking a step back and looking at the big picture, I cannot help but feel very satisfied that there are so many storylines going on right now. There are a lot of moving pieces and dramatic events and it’s good to see EVE so rich with content.
12 year EVE veteran, Snuffed Out scumbag, writer, graphic artist, producer, Editor-in-Chief of Crossing Zebras and the second most influential player in EVE, according to EVE Onion.
Niden
Niden
