Nullsec Whining
Posted: 2009-12-11 Filed under: eveonline | Tags: freighter, gank, pvp, ships 10 CommentsWell. Once again, patch notes come with no mention of changing the truly cumbersome size of the strategic upgrade whodiwhatsit thingy that takes a freighter to carry into nullsec. When I hear people citing the freighters getting slaughtered while being in a cap fleet and this means that small corps are similarly going to be roflpwned while just trying to fit in with the big boys and they think they’re funny but no-one ever laughs and…
Where was I?
Oh yeah, tiny corps. Anyway, you’d have to be asleep in a safespot with local turned off to not notice a fleet of cap ships and freighters moving through nullsec. If someone I knew were to suddenly start playing eve and told me that he would bet money that the large corps have spies from other corps in them, I’d probably agree. Back in my alliance days, every single industrial move or fuel run would have at least one red waiting at the end of the pipe. Actually, it was just the one time, but no corp or anything grows too big without getting flawed. I mean, the first thing I’d do before going into nullsec would be to establish a network of alts and players to stay in the know. For example, alliance A, B, and C. I get an alt to join alliance A, and laughing and talking is had, and the alt listens for any fleet joining or roams that are scheduled. If they find something, I’d inform alliance B through a second alt who happened to be in a covops next to the roam as it was forming, hypothetically. then, in theory, in a new alt in alliance 3, cry out for help having just been steamrolled by”50 big ships ouch big fleet come fight them wah wah WoW was better”.
Well, if I wasn’t such a lazy bastard, that’s what I’d do.
Anyway, I seriously start laughing when i hear about the cap fleet fighting because in my opinion, they’re going about it in the right way for them, but the wrong way in practice. Elaboration:
If you live or live next door to nullsec, you are there to shoot stuff. Or mine, then run and hide when local blips red. Anyway, the entire experience of null is beating the crap outta eachother, and what could be a bigger target than a huge pile of cap ships and frieghters to people who play the game to pvp? What I’m suggesting is to go a more covert way around. Like, say, research when the people who’s nullsec you’re stomping through sleep. I wouldn’t go through shadow of XXdeathxx or whatever’s territory at 6 at night russian time because I’d get my effin ass kicked by a bunch of guys laughing in languages that my online translator can’t understand. Admitted, the big, giant alliances will probably have most of the timezones covered, but you can still work around that. When I was running some ittys through nullsec, I’d log the itty off, have my alt check the next system for reds, and if anyone was there log off immediately and check back in half an hour. Again, I’m no nullsec goer, but one red in local is a scout, two is a coincidence, three is a conspiracy, 4 is ominous, and 70 are “goddamnit, another dread fleet’s here.”
Please, please for the love of whoever your god or lack of god is, don’t take me up on this, but if I had a freighter and a covops, I could probably get it from one end of eve to the other in a small, 2 man op. Or 3 man, just by checking a system, waiting till it’s clear, then moving through. It’d take a long time, but it’d get done.
I mentioned this alternative a few posts ago, but no-one noticed it, or at least didn’t mention it in a well thought out comment proposing an intuitive counter-argument (wink). Take a covops, sneak sneak sneak to the system, scan a WH, get a link to friendly nullsec, lowsec, whatever, fly freighter through, the world is safe for territorial jerks hurray.
k162space 
The wormhole idea is good, but I think 1 freighter would pretty much kill a wormhole, which would leave you somewhat stranded. Also, if you happen to cross occupied wormhole space, wormhole corps (ideally anyway) are frequently scanning their system for incoming hostiles, and a freighter will get noticed very quickly by scans. Obviously avoidable by checking for active players in a wormhole (or forming alliances/NAPs with wormhole corporations to secure wormhole space routes, maybe get a wormhole alliance together to keep active maps of wormhole links for its members and offer these maps to allies?). In all I think wormholes are under used in their potential. But like all things in EvE, they’ll be abused soon enough.
True, one freighter would collapse small WHs, but large ones would be able to hold, and in case of small ones , the freighter goes through last, AFTER all the covops ships have gone through. Also, there are very few corps that live in WHs to pvp, and the ones that do don’t have posses. To that point, I haven’t heard of anyone doing that, i mean, you can fit everything you’d need for sleeper sites in an orca. but leaving the freighter in the first system, logged off, with a covops with it, while a second covops scans the next link, minimizes possible losses. plus, it’s very hard to judge numbers in WH, so 304 BSs escorting couldn’t hurt much. Finally, a situation where no local HELPS.
P.S. also, it’s a situation that small corps can capitalize on much more than large corps 😛
ok let me start by saying, that i am relatively new to eve, only about 7.5 months old, but i have been reading a lot about wormholes lately. i saw your previous post about moving the freighters through the wh’s and thought it was a good enough idea. but then i discovered that wh’s have mass limitations, and something even as small as a hulk can not fit through a c1. that said i do know that larger wh’s exist, but how common are they really? and what is the minimum class that something as large as a freighter carrying something as massive as an iHub(as i like to call them) can fit in? maybe something as small as a class 3 could handle it, but then again what if it takes a class 5? i am interested in the actual plausibility of this plan and information on wormhole mass restrictions.
have fun and GLOTR to all those freighter pilots
before I start saying, be forewarned that the complexity of your comment has forced me to stay up for another half hour(3:30 AM now) to provide fact for it. As a result, I’ll probably get… freaky.
alllrighty, quick look at eve-wiki puts the obelisk, which I will use for this example cause it’s bitchin, at 1,175,000,000 mass…unit…thingys.
a quick look at http://www.eve-metrics.com/wormholes shows…8 WHs that open into nullsec.
^ at this poin evemetrics crashed, so I will default to the use of knowledge. our WH op currently has a rorqual, which has about the same amount of mass as a freighter. Thus, it is possible to get a freighter into a C5 WH. our C5 has highsec WHs occasionally. QED, it is possible to get a freighter from highsec to nullsec.
hmm… I get the sense my argument is flawed somewhere.
Wait, eve-metrics is back up…lessie. Alright. According to eve-metrics half of the WHs that open into nullsecs have enough mass to support a freighter. Looking at that, half of the WHs that connect to a C5 have enough mass to support a freighter. The more important part, whether or not a highsec enterence can support a freighter, will be-
oh, evementrics just crashed again. But anyway, if this pattern continues, then in any given c5 or nullsec, any WH you scan out will have a 50% chance of supporting a freighter. So, if you close that with a handy-dandy orca lying around, you can scan out another link and hope that it’s freighter supportive.
if evemetriwhoziwhatsit doesn’t come up again, in summary, a nullsec-nullsec WH has a 50% chance of being freighter supportive and the exit could be closer to highsec, a nullsec-c5 WH has a 50% chance of being freighter supportive. I’ll be able to get the lowsec and highsec numbers once the website starts complying again, but it looks like the WH option will take longer than just running a fleet of capitals or a freighter very carefully through nullsec, but safer and a one-way trip.
HA! back up. No, wait… everything except the WH thingy is up.
/headdesk
HA! actually back up. Allrighty, all lowsec WHs have a 50% chance of being freighter capable.
highsec WHs…5 cannot support, 3 can.
Ok, so here’s the scenario I’m imagining. You have the nullsec you want a freighter in. You somehow get an orca or other similarly mass-heavy ship down there. Possibly a scorpion with 8 MWDs, idk. You scan in that system and neighboring ones for a connection that can support the freighter. Move the scan ships into it. If the connection is straight to nullsec/ highsec, which happens. Sometimes. Move the freighter through hurray. If not, and the WH has some too small WHs in it, move the orca in and use it and a BS or two to collapse the WH and scan a new one. Repeat until you find a C5 or another freighter friendly WH, move into it, repeat. If the WH is occipied, either close it or buy an exit off em.
So, in conclusion, a WH move is safer, but slower than said ramming capitals straight to nullsec. Sleepy time, hehehehehe….. sleepy.
*Thunk*
PS, anyone know how likely it is for each type of WH? like, a 10% chance a WH will be to highsec, n whatnot.
*Thunk*
ok so let me start by saying im totally with you on the thunk
ive been up all night studying physics for comprehensive final tomor…..today at 8 am(it is now 4am)
ok not this is something im really not sure about. does teh cargo on a ship count as part of the mass? im pretty sure fitting do, and your comment about the scorpion with mwds supports that. but what about the cargo? it may be that it is not counted, rendering this a moot point, but if it is included, then there may be some more problems with finding a supporting wormhole
my turn to thunk only i think im gonna make more of a *crash*
oh and sorry about keeping you up. /slip *crash*
Moving one freighter? Easy.
Moving a fleet of freighters is not so easy. And its not the local inhabitants you need to watch out for since capital ships can jump into combat from many many systems away.
Wormholes is not the answer for 10+ freighters.
If they have spy-alt challenges, why not use non-alliance assets to move their stuff. The alliance pilots do not need to be told what is happening, while still being detailed to provide localized security. Put them at chokes and to provide flank protection while the items are moved by either trusted-alts or even better yet, professional logistics corps, who are not even told their final destination until they are a few jumps from it.
Many alliances may actually be doing this smartly and we are just hearing about the brute-force methods, which are far more challenging to pull off.
Alright, in order:
Maxwell: The mass of it’s cargo doesn’t affect the mass of the ship:
http://eve-search.com/thread/1008416
Also, ha, my finals finished 2 days ago.
Kirith:
“P.S. also, it’s a situation that small corps can capitalize on much more than large corps 😛 ”
For large corps, I see how 10 freighters would be a logitical nightmare, but…well… I can’t add anything because Latrodanes already added everything I might be able to say. Thanks buddy 🙂
*Miningzen constantly wonders what the “edit comment” button does but is worried that using it would shame him.*