Declarations of War – Revisited

You’re an empire-based indy corp and you’ve been wardec’d by a small group of people who love picking on the helpless indies to pad their killboards.

I’ve seen the evemail hundreds of times.

We’re an indy corp and someone has declared war against us! We need your help! We’re industrialists so we have no PVPers amongst us and they’re picking on us. They’ve threatened us to keep the war up unless we pay <insert amount> isk here. We’d rather pay you to get rid of them for us.

And so it begins, time and time again. The problem here is that while I feel for the plight of the industrialist… the constant wardecs, the constant ransoms, the occasional POS attack… hiring a professional merc corp or alliance to fight a 5-15 person griefer corp isn’t going to help. It [b]always[/b] goes down the same way.

• You hire us.
• We dec the bully.
• Bully docks up and doesn’t come out for a week.
• You grin ear-to-ear because you’ve taught the evil bully a lesson.
• The contract expires because Concord invalidates it.
• The bully undocks, re-decs you, and the circle continues.

A rather unpleasant and unfortunate set of events.

Why am I telling you all of this?
Because you need to make an intelligent, informed decision before hiring a merc corp to fight your battles for you.

Is that counter-productive to us making isk?
Well, not exactly – keep reading.

But how should the bullies be dealt wit then?
Confront them. Directly. With force. A lot of force.

But we’re industrialists!!! We can’t fight!
Bullshit. You certainly can. And you don’t need expensive stuff to do it either. All you need are a bunch of people that are sick and tired of being stepped on, some T1 cruisers with T1 fttings, and a pair of cajones!

What are cajones?
Balls.

But we don’t know what to do, how to do it, or even how to fit up our ships!
That’s what we’re for. PVP Education services. You don’t need to hire us to fight your battles. You need to hire us to train you on how to fight your own.

Our PVP Training services are a bit of unique approach. What we do is “Classroom” training to teach you the differences between the modules and how game mechanics affect PVP, and then give you some ideas for fittings that are better suited to your pilots’ abilities.

The training is broken down into four 1-hour modules that cover off the following:

MODULE 1: Ship Fitting Basics

• Racial Ship Fittings
• Ship combat modules
• Offence vs Defence

MODULE 2: Basic Tactics

• Overview Settings
• Directional Scanning
• Tackle
• Bait Ship
• Traps (spotting, setting, and sprining)

MODULE 3: Fleet Roles and Movement

• Fleet composition and roles
• Communication
• Intel gathering and reporting
• Understanding the lingo of fleet movement
• Basic fleet ideas and tactics

MODULE 4: Basic FC Training

• Responsibility of the FC
• Field threat assessment
• The importance of situational awareness
• Maintaining control in chaos
• Engaging while keeping things fun

The modules are available as a complete package or in pairs (Modules 1 and 2, or, Modules 3 and 4). You can contact Le Soltueur in game for more information.

Give a person a fish and feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish and feed them for their life.

Yes, I know.. cheesey quote, but still, it holds true. We can fight your battles for you if you REALLY want, but you’ll be better off (and likely with more ISK in your wallet) if you learn how to do it yourself.

Solty

http://podlogs.com/whack/

After our recent bloody contract in Fountain, I’ve aggressivly positioned Noir. to get a strong draft choice so we can improve performance for the next contract.   I’m proud to announce the newest member of the Noir. family: Terry Tate, Fleet Linebacker.

Some said it was a mistake to hire a fleet line backer, but i think once his message is felt in our gangs (eta when i get home from class in 3 1/2 hours) our productivity will rise to record levels.  Sometimes, it’s all about paradigm breaking, and in honor of the Alliance Tourniment I will share this insight.

Frankly, I wish I had ten Terry Tates…
http://www.returnofterrytate.com/

With our elimination from the AT, a summary is in order!  This has been a very interesting alliance tournament for Noir.   We had posted on our website and mentioned on our podcast a while ago that we had entered the tournament draw but were ultimately not picked.

Then some time before the tournament my CEO’s heart fluttered when I heard that so many teams dropped out they needed to create a second reserve list.   But alas, when I checked the post we were not drawn there either.  But there was a little blurb that said if you had entered and wanted to participate to mail them anyway.  So I did, never really thinking anything would come of it.

Then come tournament day, I’m loggin in right, just planning on listening to the tournament and chatting with people.   During one of the matches, I get a mail asking are we still standing by the interest expressed in the mail to CCP Alliance Tournament.  So I say, “Sure”.   Permitting myself to get excited, I then get another mail from the tournament character saying that we’re next up on the list if we want it.  And I totally did.  ”Last match, HUN Reloaded.  You have about 2 hours.”

Rightio…

So! with around 2 hours notice we started to get AT-virgin stuff together to face the former tournament champions.  With no time to really talk things out, we went with a gang type and tactic we basically knew already.  Luckily we were based near Amarr so the modification to our long range cruisers to meet AT requirements was easy.  Finding the pilots was a bit more challenging, as we were short 1 HAC pilot till around 30-40 minutes before our teleportation.  Dragonwraith logged on to vent and was “volunteered” to fly a Muninn before he even finished getting his character in.

Noir. vs HUN Reloaded

Despite feeling thoroughly spanked, we actually ranked middle of the pack, opening up the possibility of advancement if we got a complete victory in the next round.  Minutes after the fight we got to work on our forums theory crafting a new setup, and a backup.  They got kicked around and devils advocated till Saturday when we tested what we felt were the assumptions inherent in the designs.  Our primary setup, 3 big ECM boats backed by bombers and Drakes, turned out to be an unreliable paper tiger so we went with Plan B.  Plan B was an armor and speed tank combo centering on using Curse/Legion to kill enemy support frigates, a bait logistics and command ship, and cruisers freeing assault frigates to kill BS.  We were almost able to field the full setup but due to personnel shortages, we had to use an Enyo and a Hurricane when we had other ships in mind but it was close enough.

Noir. vs Rote Kapelle

Our setup was well suited against Rote Kapelle’s, however the warp in angles meant our Curse and Legion (all long range boats) started nearly at point blank range from tackling Taranis and the BS DPS they were spotting for.   While our offensive cruisers technically got their jobs done, they didnt live to put fire on the tank heavy enemy BS.  That fell to our assault frigates, which did their jobs admirably despite being deprived of drone dps by smartbombs.  However time was our enemy and while there were many twists and turns it was clear we would win the day but the question was could we do it before the time limit.  And no, we couldnt XD

And so our AT aspirations ended.  If we had killed more in our first match or brought down the last RK domi, we would have advanced to the televised finals.  Despite not advancing, I’m very glad we had the opportunity to participate and am proud of my corps performance under extraordinary circumstances.   We were able to organize a team in two hours and performed as well against former champions as some teamswhich had months to prepare.  And when given the opportunity to plan setups out and actually test them for a few hours, we defeated our opponents (aparently an upset according to several angry people who lost ISK betting on Rote Kapelle ;p ) and put on a good show doing it.

I fully intend to enter us again next time the event comes around.

ALLIANCE TOURNIMENT 8 CHAMPIONS HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

-Alekseyev Karrde

CEO, Noir.

So I was corrected on two points we discussed in Podcast Seven: First, that the wormhole of epic gankitude that we discussed was actually not found by yours truly, but rather by Hallan Turrek.  Mea culpa, we had probed about 50 wormholes out trying to find something to do.

The other correction was apparently the type of interceptor that was stolen from another wormhole. A Raptor, not a Crow.

We here at Declarations of War take accuracy seriously.

By the way, I’m looking for some feedback on the podcast audio quality. I’ve heard varying opinions:

* The background music is too loud.
* The background music is too quiet.
* The voices are hard to hear.
* The voices are crystal clear.

All this leaves me somewhat confused, so I look to you dear listener.

So throw your feedback on the pile by commenting on th podcast post. If there’s something we can do to improve the quality of the podcast, I’d like to hear it.

Welcome to the Declarations  of War Podcast Seven! Got a nice meaty cast for you today. Be sure to tip your waitress.
Tonight’s “agenda”:

 -Scheduling “issues”. Delays? It’s Jimer’s fault.
 -Shoutouts (with apologies to various Noir. member’s sisters).
 -Results of “What would Noir. mean if it was an acronym?”
 -Contract wrapup- Paladin Order OPFOR
 -Contract wrapup- Malum Exuro.
  -False starts.
  -Carrier kills, nom nom nom nom.
  -Epic wormhole gank.
 -EVE News
  -Dust 514- this time with actual information.
  -EBANK Implosion- It’s a Ponzi scheme. Shocking.
  -NC helping Goons get their former holdings back. Good times all around.
  -Coracao Ardente closes its doors (:sadface:)
 -This Week in Mercs
  -We need theme music.
  -Stealthfield Revisited (ed: Too many alliances with “X’ at the beginnng/end of their names)
  -Sir, the Kraken! (Giant Squid Corp declares war on Noir.)
  -Followup on joining/leaving alliances to avoid wardecs.
  -GM Fail (AGAIN): Noir. gets a warning for leaving and rejoining alliances to avoid wardecs. It’s OK to laugh, we did too. And for the fourth time, we go over how badly the GMs mangle the management of this game- for example, by levering warnings against one of most active PVP corps in EVE for- yes- attempting to avoid wardecs. >.> Good game!

 -In conclusion: A dramatic reading of local smack.
  -In lieu of a Jimer Rant, we present Takezo Kenzei going off on Zedrik Cayne after Noir. ganked some carriers. Truly a goldmine of lol.
  -Dramatis Personae:
  Takezo Kenzei: Jimer Lins
  Zedrik Cayne: Kan3r Blaze
  Miscellaneous guy in local: Alekseyev Karrde
 -Conclusion and Signoff

If you like our dramatic reading, send us your best smacktalk logs and we’ll take the best ones and turn them into dramatic readings too! We’re looking for the best you can give us, so we can have a fun and funny segment for the podcast.

Enjoy the podcast!

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