The Culling

The Culling
A Time For Blood


I have given some serious thought in the past week to Providence space. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot fathom living in any other space. Why? I mean, these boundaries were founded on unsavory roleplaying terms of a storyline involving religious zealots who plied in human trade. How could I want so badly to live here? Let's be honest, EVE is a rich storyline, full of vast ever farther reaching and encompassing plots that are meant to entertain not preach morality. Much like any good novel, there is always a mixture of grays, and few true black and whites. By making our own way through this region, we are simply playing and entertaining ourselves, in a way we sit fit as well. Let Ushra'Khan and CVA roleplay as they desire, if they even still do so by majority (more by proxy now I am assuming from the evidence I have seen), we are here for our own reasons, and none of them involve roleplaying or storyline tales.

So, that being said, what does keep drawing me to Providence space? It is the NRDS, or at least, the semblance of it, given recent events that have given most of our veterans a rather sour taste in their mouths.

Nowhere in EVE can you exist in null security with relative freedom to grow and develop as you please, within a few mostly benign parameters, that the NRDS dictates, or as CVA doctrine says, concerning POS in 0.0 space and such.

Giving much credit to the irony of it all, CVA has provided a wonderful means by which alliances, corporations, and players such as ourselves can have the freedom to experience 0.0 space ourselves and make what we will of it. They want Providence to act as an extension of Empire space, only we the players, we are the CONCORD of Providence. We have a freedom here that is unique in a sense that we are not beholden to any particular power bloc. While UK may do their damnedest to convince Providence residents that they are merely pets to CVA, the reality of the situation is that so long as we do not have any sovereignty in this region, we are a free agent, answering to no one, except the NRDS itself. Isn't it grand? I think so. Ajax gets to do his research, HuffDaddy gets to do L4s in Mamet, Sarah Tuttle gets to mine sweet ice in 0.0, Rayth gets to utilize our PvP trained members to pursue a Wormhole project, Cmdr GAT gets to dabble in reactions, members get access to ME/PE research at no cost, members like William Amato get access to manufacture their own goods, we get to explore ratting, 0.0 combat, PLEXs, the wide expanse of player policed space, the deep roams into hostile regions where we are constantly on the verge of annihilation and pitched battle against overwhelming odds, where our members can both do missions in low security, bring out their new ships and test their mettle in PvP combat, and in general get to live as they please, experiencing every aspect of the game that they choose (besides piracy obviously). Isn't that great?

But what if anything is required of us in return for this grand scheme? That we protect it. And we shall.

So what is the point? Well the point is Providence is going to the dogs, the dogs of war, in particular guerilla warfare. There are reds, everywhere. Every night. And it does not seem to be getting any better. What are the reasons for this? I cannot say here, too many intelligence and security issues that I keep to myself to protect Providence. What can we do about it? A lot. And when I say a lot, I really mean it. What would we have to sacrifice in order to do this? We would have to begin relying more on each member's individual will to expand their gaming experience on their own two feet than what we have now which is a system based almost solely on collective efforts towards multiple goals. We would have to have one goal, that goal would be to clean up Providence. Will it come to this? Only time will tell. I can tell you that if Providence remains as blast oven hot as it has been for the past week or two, by the time I get my Ark, that we will likely have to make some tough decisions about what we want to do. I can guarantee you that the newly reawakened Gremlin squadron will get kills though, and frequently, but it will require some sacrifices. How will it get these kills, and how can I guarantee something when I so infrequently lead PvP gangs of my own? Trust me. I'm an old salt when it comes to leading operations. Been doing this since '97. I just do not make a big deal out of it because I like to see others excel and make their own way to the top without me hovering over them wagging my finger like a doting father.

There will be a culling, and it will either be us or them (the reds), and I am certain you can guess which one I am going to choose.

Is it not strange how for the first half of the year our PvP operations suffered greatly because we so rarely were able to find hostiles to engage on a nightly basis and now we cannot go two or three systems in any direction without finding hostiles bearing down upon us? My how times change. In a morbid sort of way, I hope this trend continues, Providence is much more entertaining when there is adversity and challenge than when we roam in fleets of half a dozen or more for hours only to find ice crystals of condensation and fading ion trails from hostiles who have long since moved onto other regions.

The first half of this year was so quiet you could hear a pin drop in most systems between 8-12 EST every night of the week. Things are so vastly different now. While the notion of driving these hostiles back to the rock they crawled out from amuses me, it will require a lot of focus and attention from alliances just like ours to do it.

Synthesis

Synthesis
Mind & Body

So, I took a miniature vacation from all things MMO this weekend and dabbled in a bunch of console games I have not yet beaten or just wanted to experience again. I was probably encouraged to do this since I got podded for the first time on any character in the game since I started playing last April. Pretty good record there I think, especially since I have spent the past nine months floating around in PvP gangs out in low and null security. But it was a good experience, now I am not so soft on the idea as I was previously, thinking podding was some horrific experience, when in reality it was just a huge nuisance; lost 120,000,000.00 ISK in implants, but I had them for nearly a year and I had a spare body with a full array of +4s anyways prepared for just this eventually, so money well spent. Providence has been a death trap for a week, our Empire war was a joke yet I did not have the energy to expend doing L4 missions while anxiously watching local for any bruhaha coming my way, and corporate administrative duties were weighing heavily on my mind as I realized, we're not making money.

Staigor (Jay) has generously donated 500,000,000.00 ISK towards our Ark project and I found myself dipping into those funds last night to purchase Hydrogen Isotopes for the Minmatar POS. This means we are scraping the barrel, literally.

This summer has been vastly different than last summer was, and we had less members then. I guess that is the way it goes though, I should probably be spending a bit more time outdoors myself as I think it scares the cats when I turn on the light at night and all of a sudden there is this huge pale monster looming above them. Hehe. I think people are having fun though, both in real life and ingame, and that to me is a story of success. At the same time, it leaves me feeling like we are on a rollercoaster with no arm guard and we are holding on for dear life hoping it does not toss us off at any moment.

I had a bunch of bullet points of how we can address this issue but I think what is likely to happen is that when we acquire the Ark in twenty days, I may have to turn around and use it to ferry out a few hundred million ISK worth of minerals, and we may have to take down one of the POS until we can afford to fuel it again. I do not like this idea, but I think at this point we may have to do this in order to keep two of them operational. The people who have stepped up to the plate to assist us in acquiring minerals we need for production, isotopes we need for fuel, hauling fuel and goods for me so I do not go insane, and etc. have been thus far invaluable in keeping this train moving forward, but I am afraid given the level of activity right now, we cannot keep up with our expenses unless more people step forward.

I may be jumping to conclusions just from the nervous apprehension that rolls over me when I see we have hit empty on the fuel gauge, but I think given the circumstances it may be our only choice for now to scale back our operations for a bit. Logic and the alliance as a whole keep gearing up for more and more wars constantly without cessation and I keep looking at our fuel tanks and tapping on the gauge hoping there is a fume or two left. Not a good outlook in my opinion. Hard to fight a perpetual war when our war machine is rubbing the E on our fuel gauge like it's a hot prom date at the after party in a secluded hotel away from the chaperons.

So what do our POS do for us at present, and why are they so important?

The first one is our Research POS, undoubtedly the most valuable project we have at the moment, it is able to generate consistent income with little overhead.

The second one is our Manufacturing POS, able to produce any goods and materials we would ever need up to battlecruisers. This POS may not seem as valuable to you at present, but when you imagine a war to end all wars where there is a No-Fly issued for all of Empire and you are stuck out in Providence with little access to the Empire market, you will be grateful for a POS that can spit out not only a battlecruiser for you, but a complete T1 fitting for it, so you can utilize it from the moment it pops out of the oven.

The third is our Reactions POS, able to take simple and complex materials and mix them up, and cook up some amazing materials. Now, these materials may not really mean much to our corporation at the moment although they do generate consistent income, but in the longterm, when we want to produce complicated ships, especially T2 or Capital ships, these resources will be invaluable beyond belief. Take Capital Armor Plates for instance. On the open market, you can only find them for 3-4mil a piece, yet they take only regular minerals to produce, and they actually cost more like 500k-1mil to produce a piece. That is a staggering price difference. The only way we can get a hold of some of these T2 components required for T2 ship construction is to make them ourselves. Reactions have an invaluable long term yield once a majority of our members are using T2 ships regularly. Just ask Logic how he supplies his members with cheaper T2 ships by reacting some of the build components on his own, and having an engineer build the ships for him.

Now, which one is likely to be taken down in a few weeks? I do not know... all I know is that I would prefer not to take any of them at all down.

How could we make it so none of the POS must be offlined?

1) Rat more.
2) Mission more.
3) Use corporate ships more.
4) Ice mine more.
5) Recruit!
6) Market PvP!
7) Switch Minmatar tower to Amarr tower (connects to point 4 above)
8) ...and last but not least, participate more in general.

HuffDaddy, is a Mission monster, he listed the bulk of salvaged materials he has accumulated in the past few weeks or more and it was a staggering amount. Staggering. If you see him online, go help him out! It cannot be that fun to do L4s on your lonesome absolutely all the time, give the man some company, the L4s will go faster, the corporation will get more tax revenue, and those scrap modules he refines may even end up at our manufacturing POS, fueling the war machine.

Night Theifs, is a PvP monster, the Night Theifs corporation could never satiate their lust for blood even if they wiped all of Catch clean with a vengeful hand. They do roams nearly every night, so grab one of those cruisers contracted (soon to come fully T1 fitted) at the corporate level and go out and blow shizzle up with them or be blown up trying! Seriously, if we throw hundreds of million into insurance on these T1 cruisers and battlecruisers only to have the insurance run out on them cuz no one uses them, we have lost that money when those ships are blown up. Your tax money, up into thin air, with no more money to replace the ship you just lost. A horrible fate.

Mendolus, (Hey that's me!), is an Administrative monster, but is still struggling to keep up the pace with all the corporate duties he has taken on, so please do not take offense if I seem to forget a conversation we had an hour before, or log on the next day and you see virtual ?s floating above my head as you inquire whether I took care of what you had asked me to do. So please EVEMail me! Spammy spam spam that inbox of mine to remind me that you need something done. I think half the reason I feel stressed out every other day ingame is that I cannot remember all this stuff off the top of my head, and I have partial photographic memory, so you know it has got to be bad. Not only EVEMail me, but READ THE MAILERS, BLOG, FORUMS, ANYTHING! O-M-G, I feel better now. Hehe. But yes, I spend hours writing these blogs, and editing them, and worrying over little tiny phrases to make sure they make sense, so that you can find the answers at will, and I do not have to repeat myself 75 times, because I have dozens of other things I need to do as well. I know it sounds stupid, and a few people may question whether or not it is elitism (though I highly doubt it) for me to request you read here first before just talking to me directly, but I mean, sometimes I am hauling on two characters at the same time through low or null security space, and then someone in chat is like "We haz war?" and I'm mumbling to myself incoherently, "Please don't hurt him please don't hurt him please don't hurt him!" I know it is not really that bad overall, but sometimes it can be, so please, if it is something basic like, what did we do last night or what is new with the corporation, check here first, because I may be neck deep in doodoo hauling priceless baubles or administrative stuff and if I stop to type out a paragraph I die. Now, this is not to say in the least that I do not like being privated and asked a quick pertinent question, but try to check the information available to you first.


So, I guess that is it for now, and I know I am probably overreacting as I see our funds hover around the bottom of the tank, as thanks to the invaluable and endless efforts of some of our members, we have made a blazing comeback on our mineral reserves, and our logistics hauling is nearly perfect save the remaining contracts that I have marked as Priority that are not quite done yet. Hey, it was a nice weekend, I am glad people went out and did stuff in real life, but last night I looked at the fuel levels on our POSs and a brick dropped in my pants. Hehe.

You guys never let me down though and when things get rough I just remind you guys we are struggling a bit and it seems like people start coming out of the woodwork with good deeds and assistance of all kinds. I cannot thank you enough for that, it is such a vastly different experience than I have had as a leader in any other MMO. When things get really bad, everyone in this corporation seems to take a step up to the plate and come to bat for what we have going here. That's priceless in my opinion.

I think the most crucial point is that the Ark project is completed (twenty days until I can fly it). This will add an entirely new dimension to our corporate operations and capabilities, and I think that it will be best for me to wait to form a general synopsis of our projected future goals once I know more of what it is going to be like for us in the fall with the ability to jump goods in and out with relative ease. Should the Ark provide me with the leverage and freedom I so desire to devote more energy into other projects, I may very well do a 180 on my opinions thus far on how much our present member base can support in terms of projects, goals, and investment. So for now, I wait, and watch.