Life in Solitude: It's Actually Week 7?

Time flies when you're having fun, and fun I've been having. I guess somewhere along the way I missed a week or two of updates. I've actually been living in Solitude for 7 (8?!) weeks. Ah well. So this entry will mostly be a "war update", and then in the next couple of days I'll write up my thoughts on the new patch and the changes to WCSs and interdiction. Without further delay, the "war":

How Goes the Conflict?

The conflict has actually been dying down a lot lately. Not a lot of kills due to low frequency of contact: it's hard to kill people when most of the systems are empty, and when I do find a system with reds - they dock right up. I was so excited when Cruisers Crew joined and started mining in Ondree. I was really looking forward to ganking and bumping them. Alas, one little gank and they cut and run. I did manage to pop two Cruisers Crew barges in Ondree the other day, and then later noticed those same pilots mining in Yvelet. I'll have to stage some Catalysts there.

I do not deserve all the credit for this. I'm not the only one out hunting, nor am I even the most skilled - there are a couple of very prolific cloaky campers who have been very successful in interdicting gas huffers. I myself have been experimenting with a Purifier fit with a probe launcher and rockets to hilarious effect. Untanked Ventures die in a couple of volleys. I can pretty much catch and kill any huffer provided I land within 9km, which I almost always do because I bookmark the clouds. Combat probes scare people away - no one thinks twice about core scanners.

News From The Other Side: There's been more than a little internal strife over in <STFU> land. Recently much their leadership was demoted. While I was originally dumbfounded that they got so upset over 500m of moonpixels, it's all starting to make sense now:

Oof, that's not a good look. The alliance must really be hurting after that 250b loss in Aeter. How does <STFU> membership feel about being pestered over pennies?

 

 

That's gonna leave a mark. So essentially if you join <STFU>, you're just a number on a spreadsheet. You exist to make money for your overlords. And they will brook no moonpilfering! No amount is too small for their collection agents to pursue!

Know-Nothings, the main corp of <STFU>, has left the alliance and joined NSH (or was it LSH? I always confuse the two).

Know-Nothings was pretty much the most active corp US/EU TZ corp in <STFU>. But, I guess they weren't able to make enough ISK with no one feeling safe enough to mine and pay taxes, so now they're bouncing. Groups that try to "take over" Solitude never last very long - or so I'm told. The trick to living in Solitude is to get along; to work together, and not try to dominate the region. Otherwise people get mad and will make it untenable for you to be here. Sort of like the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

They still own the holding corp for the structures, but from this point on it's just a slow bleed. And as we learned in EMT training: all bleeding stops. Eventually.

Now <STFU> is left with AUTZ for their most active pilots. And their AUTZ isn't a very strong group; a couple of Catalysts or a cloaked scanner send them running for the dock button. They have a couple of good combat pilots, true - and I have nothing against QUOKA personally, or even Cruisers Crew for that matter (they just cast a bad bet, on a toxic, failed alliance). But QUOKA has fairly bad, toxic leadership (based on our chats at the diplomatic table) which isn't cultivating their newbros or promoting corp cohesion, and there are already cracks forming in the corporation. A few pilots have convo'd me to complain about leadership and the direction the corp is heading. QUOKA may stick around after <STFU> leaves, but not very much longer.

My prediction: Unless <STFU> manages to recruit a really good corp - and what really good corp would want to join a failed husk of an alliance - they're on their way out. Even with LSH or NSH or whoever holding their hand. Sure, it might be impossible for the current players to take out any structures under their blue umbrella (~wink wink~), but there's not much a cap fleet can do when people are just ganking your explorers, miners, haulers, and gas huffers. If you don't feel safe enough to make ISK where you live, you can't live there. Time to move on.

I give them 2 months on the outside, perhaps sooner. QUOKA might be around a bit longer, but not by much. I don't know how AUTZ responds to seasons. In the US, summer means lower activity. Our seasons are inverse but Australia is such a strange land, who knows?

Until next time. Fly safe, space cowboys.