Breakfast of Champions

There is a board game called Diplomacy.  It is based on Europe during WWI and is profoundly simple in its basics.  Each player starts with one country. Each player gets on move per game. Random chance plays no part in this game; there are no dice.

I know, it sounds a bit boring, but the game has little to do with military tactics and strategy. The most important skill in the game is a talent for serial betrayal; that is, the ability to get other players to trust you while you stand, with a bloody knife in your hand, over the body of the last player who trusted you. Never play Diplomacy with anyone you wish to keep as a friend; I've seen marriages end and bosom friends come to blows over this game.

I would tell you that you should avoid contact with tournament-level Diplomacy players (yes, there are tournaments) at all costs, but that would be futile. Your first instinct upon meeting such a person will be to like and trust them, even knowing their ultimate intentions toward you are against your interest. You will want them to like you, even knowing they are trying to get you to piss into your own cornflakes. And they will be able to convince you to piss into your own cornflakes time and again. Given time, the best Diplomacy players can get their victims to take pleasure in pissing over their own cornflakes.

Over at Honey Badger Coalition (HBC), they're being conditioned to enjoy the taste of urine-soaked breakfast cereals.

In Farms & Fields: Metagame I said that, having cut HBC's leader Montolio's hamstrings, Pandemic Legion (PL) would abandon the coalition and side with Clusterfuck Coalition (CFC) once HBC was sufficiently undermined. In a variation on that theme, Pandemic Legion (PL) engineered a coup in HBC, purging Montolio from the coalition altogether. There are indications that Raiden[dot] was key supporter of the PL power grab and the position of Raiden within the coaliton has been improved considerably as a result. Thus PL, previously something of a trusted advisor in a coalition nominally run by Test Alliance Please Ignore, has assumed outright control.  And when I say that PL is in control of HBC coalition, understand that they are are running HBC in close coordination with CFC, and with CFC's best interests in mind.

In effect, CFC has engineered a takeover of the HBC coalition.

The usual post-purge activities are underway. Those loyal to the new order are being rewarded. A subset of those whose loyalty is in question are being marginalized; either stripped of sov altogether or demoted to marginal sov systems on the Southern front. This forces others who might object to the new order to hesitate, allowing PL to expunge the opposition piecemeal rather than attempting a mass purge and running the risk of civil war within the coalition. Frogs and boiling water, as they say.  Following the CFC model, PL and Raiden have moved to control the HBC internal narrative and announced that key forums and communication channels will be censored in order to maintain intra-coalition harmony.

'Cause, you know, PL is all about harmony. 

From here, I expect PL/CFC will maintain HBC on one of two glide paths to irrelevancy.  Both involve purging any elements troublesome to PL/CFC control of HBC from the coalition or rendering those them ineffective financially and militarily.  In this way, HBC will be slowly emasculated to remove the will or capacity to fight the CFC. Any HBC entities capable of effective resistance to the CFC will be either rendered ineffective or exiled to lowsec to play Faction Warfare. Then it will be a simple matter of choosing between keeping the HBC husk as a puppet kingdom or putting it to the sword in order to provide CFC and PL in-game content.

As they dismantle the only remaining entity capable of challenging CFC,  PL might be tempted to think their relationship with the CFC is special; that the bloody ice-pick presently being employed to lobotomize and emasculate the HBC will never threaten PL.  However, Pandemic's leadership may be just paranoid enough to recall the nature of the CFC metagame; that it, like Diplomacy, depends on a talent for serial betrayal.

I recommend each of you send Shadoo a box of Corn Flakes by way of reminder.

Nullsec Is Worth Saving

Consider, if you will, the barbarian horde.

Though much maligned and, in fairness, with a tendency toward poor table manners and an excess of hair, the barbarian horde serves an important function in ebb and flow of human history. Think of them as a forge in which civilizations, both established and emerging, are periodically tested by hammer and fire. Thus tested, a civilization may emerge stronger; refined and purged of the flaws that must accrue to any human endeavor over time. Or it may crack or break altogether under the stress, and be cast back into history's smelter to be incorporated into something new.

Without the Mongol horde, China's Xia and Jin dynasties are not united. Without Vandals, Goths, Visigoths and Huns, the Western Roman empire does not fall, thereby setting the table for modern Europe. Without the Golden Horde, Moscow does not lay the kingdom of Tver low and come to dominate northern and eastern Rus. The courts of Charlemagne, Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror, all born of barbarian invasions (Franks, Saxons and Vikings, respectively) and refined in the fires of subsequent barbarian invasions, never rise at all.

Supercapitals have made EVE's nullsec barbarian-proof. 

As I wrote last week:

At present, only those with vast fleets of supercapitals can take and hold nullsec, and only those who hold nullsec have the means to produce or afford vast fleets of supercapitals. 

With an unassailable advantage in supercapitals, the lords of nullsec can rest easy on their starry beds, knowing they cannot be dispossessed of their holdings by barbarians coming out of high or lowsec. The proliferation and consolidation of supercapitals into the hands of a few, a phenomenon unanticipated by CCP when they introduced this class of ship, has locked up nullsec's sov mechanics and led to the current ossification of nullsec space and nullsec politics.

Nullsec, long the public face of EVE Online, is broken. Upon a time nullsec was about the clash of interstellar kingdoms, and the trial of wills. But it has become about risk avoidance, wallet bloat and planned PvP combat. It has been turned into NullsecDisney®; the very theme park version of EVE that the present lords of nullsec railed against in the not too distant past.

I guess the current nullsec landlords find that EVE as theme park isn't such a bad idea if you're the ones selling tickets and collecting rents. Many of the nullsec rank and file may think otherwise, but the message from management has been clear: If you don't like riding the teacups, you can go join the barbarians in the outer darkness.

Happily,nullsec can be saved. And the solutions is a fairly simple one that does not require major surgery.

1) Eliminate supercapitals - Remove them entirely. This class of ship, more than any other, is responsible for nullsec's current state. Without supercapital drops and bridges the area over which a nullsec alliance or coalition can project force will be significantly reduced as will the the speed with which they can react to threats. This will shrink the amount of space a nullsec entity can reasonably control.

2) Significantly reduce Sov infrastructure hit points so that a large subcapital fleet of barbarians with modest capital ship support can reduce it in a reasonable about of time. This will eliminate the need to have Titan-class firepower behind any play for a piece of nullsec.

Of course, those heavily invested in supercapitals will be displeased with this approach, and I expect the implementation of these changes will be met with much umbrage and many alligator tears. Individual pilots should, of course, receive some remuneration for their pains; perhaps a combination of conventional capital ships and ISK or AUR. However, those most affected by this change are the authors of nullsec's current dysfunction. Thus my sympathy for them goes only so far and I will not lose sleep over their discomfort. Some small pain of their part is inevitable if nullsec is to be saved. 

These simple changes will revitalize nullsec, breaking up the current coalition blocks, reducing the span of control an alliance can reasonably exercise, and injecting nullsec with a much needed dose of risk. Best of all, it will open nullsec to outsiders not already possessed of vast fleets of supercapitals or endowed with trillions upon trillions of ISK.

They will be the EVE's barbarian hordes; pressing the current nullsec powers that be, and claiming space for building new kingdoms where the old ones prove wanting. 

Farms and Fields: Metagame

It is also important that when a prince has conquered a foreign state that he become the protector of the surrounding weaker powers, and do all he can to weaken the stronger ones....The new prince has no trouble winning the weaker factions over, because they will willingly become part of his new state.  He has only to see to it that they do not gain too much power and authority.  With his forces and their favor, he can easily bring down those who are powerful so that he will remain the only arbiter in the land.
          Machiavelli - The Prince

I've been a way for a while, and my apologies for that. Just one of those times when life and work pick the same time to go into overdrive mode and there's not world enough nor time for the blowing up of cartoon space ships.  Even my training queue had gone idle which means leisure time has been on starvation rations in the house of Mord.

As I turn my attention back to New Eden I see that things are pretty much where I left them. And if that revelation doesn't crease your brow with worry, it ought to. Normally this is the time of year when events of seismic proportion take place. Mighty fleets should be assembling, the engines of war unlimbered and the dogs of war unleashed. Epic deeds should be our daily fare and New Eden should resound to the cacophony of war and the crash of empires being torn from their high places and dashed 'pon the cruel, unyielding rocks below.    

Alas, no. I return to the silence of a tomb and little more by way of overt activity.  

However, as with the famed curious incident of the dog in the night-time, the absence of activity where activity is the norm is often a harbinger of troubles on approach but, as yet, unknown. So take this uncharacteristic quiet as a sign that something predatory may be moving through the tall grass, just outside our field of vision. With that in mind, let's have a look at the current landscape and see where the veldt is rustling.

Nothing of moment passes in nullsec beyond the incessant flow of easy ISK into the bank accounts of the haves. Faction Warfare is all same-old same-old, except for the occasional entry of Blue Doughnut (BD) alliances into that arena. CSM election bloviation seems to be the only subject in motion, wafting its turgid, greasy way from one blog to the next and then on to podcast-land.

Now, if you follow the CSM candidates, you'll note a particular sameness to the platforms held by the Blue Doughnut slate and their proxies in lowsec. In essence it's a combination of the Farms and Fields (F&F) platforms so heavily lobbied for during the December CSM summit, and the newer Reward/Risk (R/R) initiative. I've already pulled the legs off Farms & Fields elsewhere and won't repeat that delightful pastime here. The TLDR is that F&F as proposed can't meet its promised goals as long as highsec is a viable option for ISK earning.

Which explains the BD's sudden passion for R/R.

R/R calls for the ISK faucets in highsec to be dialed back to a trickle.  Reward, the reasoning goes, should be closely correlated with risk. Now, I personally hold that the Reward to Risk protocol is already in place: The riches of nullsec are vast. There's nothing like rolling out of bed and hitting an NPC anomaly without an hundred other capsuleers having emptied it out ahead of you, and running said anomaly with yourself and/or your mates the only traffic in local. The rare hostiles who show up are easily identified and, as long as you go about your day to day with an eye on the local/intel channels, the odds of losing a ratting or industrial ship are exceedingly long.  Then there are the rare minerals and moon goos such as Technetium that can't be gotten anywhere but nullsec.

Ignore the cries of poverty emanating from nullsec; even the rank and file there have access to easy ISK, though a healthy percentage of it is sucked upwards into alliance and coalition coffers by way of leadership-imposed rents and fees.   

Now, if I had to rank space by order of riskiness, I'd say NPC nullsec is the most dangerous, followed by lowsec, followed by shallow sovereign nullsec, followed by deep sovereign nullsec. As I've said elsewhere, null security doesn't mean no security. Rather, it means you only have the security the sov-holding organization can enforce. And right now, what with their holding the lion's share of supercapitals, the risk for BD players in deep BD space is negligible.  Personally, I think it would be 'fair' if NPC nullsec and some parts of lowsec produced higher rewards than deep nullsec. 

But, of course, neither of these initiatives have anything to do with 'fairness', do they? No, quite the opposite.

There are some null and lowsec players who support F&F and R/R simply because they can't sleep at night knowing that someone in highsec is having fun.  However, the primary goal among R/R's BD promoters is to make highsec a nonviable option for the serious industrial player.  In a single stroke they would remove highsec as an option to working for the new nullsec order, and increase the value of sovereign nullsec held by those pushing the F&F and R/R policies.

And it should not be forgotten that sovereign nullsec is not open to all. It is a by-invitation-only proposition. Supercapitals allow a relative minority of New Eden's population to control nullsec and thereby control access to both the largest ISK faucets in the game and the sole means of supercapital production. At present, only those with vast fleets of supercapitals can take and hold nullsec, and only those who hold nullsec have the means to produce or afford vast fleets of supercapitals.

Those who hold sway in sovereign nullsec are now and will remain the arbiters of who can immigrate to nullsec and under what conditions.  Further, if nullsec, with its securable space and monopoly on high-value production inputs, is allowed to become the default location for building high-value sub-capital ships as well as capital ships, the owners of sov nullsec will gain a non-trivial degree of control over the price of those ships and who can own them in large numbers.  And, of course, less money from financial activity and nerfed ISK faucets in highsec will increase the value of sovereign nullsec's existing neigh-torrential ISK faucet output. Under such circumstances, whoever owns nullsec could dictate political and economic events in the larger game of EVE to an extensive degree.   All and all an impressive bit of metagame, if it can be executed successfully. 
 
Which brings us to the second place the grass is rustling: Who is going to wield this one ring of nullsec power? 

As most are aware, nullsec is presently dominated by two coalitions: The Clusterfuck Coalition (CFC), led by Goonswarm Federation, and the Honey-Badger Coalition (HBC), led by Test Alliance Please Ignore (albeit with Pandemic Legion's influence writ large). Since gaining control of most of sovereign nullsec, the two coalitions have maintained a policy of 'controlled' PVP, in which each side's members are free to raid the others territory, but attacking sov structures is forbidden.  Despite a coordinated 'we hate shooting structures' media campaign to justify their no-Invasion pact (NIP), there are elements among member alliances who chafe at the enforced peace. Such voices are quickly shut down by those in control of CFC and HBC. However, there remains an undercurrent of uneasiness to the peace. And for good reason.

CFC's leadership cannot tolerate the presence of a second nullsec entity strong enough to pose a credible threat to the CFC.  When playing this sort of metagame, the only friends to have are those who can't do you significant harm, but are dependent upon your good will for their safety and their income.  And HBC, while at least a nominal friend, remains the only potential external threat to CFC hegemony in nullsec; a condition the CFC leadership will only tolerate for as long as it takes to set the HBC up for the coming fall.  

If fighting has not broken out yet, it is because HBC hasn't been sufficiently compromised to provide the CFC with a low-risk win.  When push comes to shove (and it will) Pandemic Legion will abandon Test. There is a high probability that other alliances within the HBC are compromised or being worked with that end in mind.   Further, assuming it isn't underway already, expect the CFC to reach out to Test's enemies in the South.  They are still smarting from the recent loss of their territories at the hands of Test, supported by Pandemic Legion.  It will not be hard for the CFC to convince the recently dispossessed in the South to attack HBC on that front when CFC and HBC come to blows in the North. Meanwhile, CFC territories in the North, particularly Deklein, are unlikely to offer a similar opportunity for the opening of a second front.

Test's leadership is very aware of all this, but appear to lack the means to counter the looming threat. CFC's leadership are the more accomplished metagamers, with a marked preference for ensuring their enemies are defeated, before the first shot is fired. Pandemic Legion's action to block Montolio's planned invasion of CFC territory while having Montolio smeared by CFC controlled media outlets and temporarily benched from HBC's leadership team was the first overt sign of how compromised the HBC's situation had become. Now, with their military dependent upon an untrustworthy Pandemic Legion, and their ranks shot through with likely CFC partisans, a war with the CFC has become a high risk proposition.

Meanwhile, HBC's leadership have no viable means to remove Pandemic Legion or other probable fifth columnists from their ranks. They do not have a dedicated media arm to counter the CFC's war for hearts and minds in the coming fight. They can only wait and depend on the CFC's promises of fellowship while, with each tick of the clock, their position grows weaker.

HBC has become like unto a rabbit frozen in the gaze of a snake; as its coils slowly move to envelope them, they dare not move and have little recourse but to hope for the snake's goodwill.

Preview

"Like Border Collies, if you don't keep Goons busy they'll start eating the sofa cushions and herding the household cats. Or the other way around. Both are messy and involve constant clean up."

- Fiddlers Edge: Mittens and Markets, December 20, 2011

Over at Crossing Zebras,  Zander has decided to do the dance on the edge of the abyss that is called speaking truth to power.  

The message sent by the blue doughnut leadership's slap-down of Montolio doesn't appear to be sitting well with a number of rank and file CFC pilots.  There is discontent at the current moratorium on sov warfare, which said pilots regard as an attempt to turn nullsec into a player-controlled Disneyland.  The message the coalition pilots are getting from CFC leadership seems pretty straightforward:  Speak the party line or stfu.  Thus, by saying what some of his comrades are saying, Zander risks taking up arms against a sea of troubles .

Ballsy word-smithing Zander.  Respect.

My comments responding to Xander's post anticipates some of the content of my upcoming post 'Farms and Fields: Metagame'.  And it's uncharacteristically brief, so I thought you might enjoy the preview. 

Mord Fiddle

The challenge for blue doughnut (BD) leadership is how to avoid losing nullsec now that they have it all in their hands. Therefore, Sov fights, which could cascade into civil war (as happened to the Drone Russians), must be suppressed.  War-time heroes who cannot adapt to the end of uncontrolled conflicts are peace time liabilities. 

As we've seen, they'll be re-educated.

BD leadership is attempting a new play paradigm in nullsec, which is why you're seeing the aggressive and disciplined promotion of 'Farms and Fields' alongside a smothering of sov fights that might destabilize the current peace of nullsec.  I expect to see any large scale 'invasion-level' actions redirected at NPC nullsec, lowsec and highsec to provide content to the rank and file.  I expect to see Intra-nullsec warfare restricted to controlled fights within 'Farms and Fields' framework.

In the mean-time, the war for economic dominion over New Eden has begun.

Farms and Fields: Pointy Haired Bosses

I still haven't stopped laughing over the minutes from the Winter CSM summit.  Especially the nullsec bits. Heaven help me, but I do love a good puppet show.  

The best bit was the lords of nullsec and their hangers-on stepping up one by one to say how awful it is in nullsec, how broken nullsec is, and how nobody wants to go to nullsec because it's so hard to make the Iskies. And how, oh how, can they possibly get those lazy and risk-averse carebears to come out to dreary, awful, broken (did we mention it was broken) and dangerous nullsec given the status quo?

You'd think nullsec was the nerdy frat-house on campus and couldn't get anyone to join 'cause all those cool highsec frat houses were giving away free sex and cocaine at their rush parties. Meanwhile poor nullsec house was stuck serving fruit-punch and two-day-old sushi.

I swear, musical themes from La Bohème must have been swelling in the background as the blue doughnut's proxies (BDPs) warbled as one from the 'Farms and Fields' songbook, held forth on nullsec's terrible state and prophesied darkly 'pon the consequences of CCP inaction.  Of course, in a later session UAxDEATH sneers that a trillion ISK as mere pocket change for a nullsec alliance (at which you could practically hear Alekseyev Karrde's jaw hit the floor).

Ah, the poor, lonely, rich boys of nullsec.  It just breaks the heart, doesn't it?

The TLDR of the BDPs' demands, as expressed in the CSM minutes and in the forums, amounts to this:  Change mining and manufacturing mechanics across New Eden so that these activities are far more efficient in sovereign nullsec than in empire or NPC nullsec.  Which is to say they want the baseline cost of manufacturing a given ship or module in empire to be higher.

Yeah, that's right. The BDP wants you to pay more for ships and modules. No, really.  Twocores/Mynnna even put it in print.  

Why? Well, according to the BDP, they want you to pay more for ships and modules so they can have economic independence from the cruel tyranny of Jita.  Of course, nobody's twisting the BD's collective arm to buy and sell at Jita.  And, if markets provide any indication, nullsec absolutely loves to shop at Jita.  However, the BDPs hold that, despite nullsec's near monopoly on high end manufacturing inputs, there is simply no way they can possibly develop industrial capacity within their domains that will compete on a price basis with empire imports given the present mechanics.  No way.  It's just not economically feasible.  

Piffle.

Despite all the BDP sturm und drang at the CSM summit and in the forums, developing a nullsec industrial infrastructure competitive with highsec imports is perfectly achievable with the current mechanics. Is it harder than having CCP hand you the wherewithal on a silver platter? Of course. But none of the changes the BDPs are lobbying for are required to get it done. As I pointed out in Comparative Advantages, back in July:

"If [nullsec's] economic ministers are truly interested in developing the farms and fields paradigm, building up nullsec's industrial capacity must become the primary focus of their efforts.  That will take some clever thinking on their part and require an incentives program geared toward creation rather than merely destruction."

I have done industry in nullsec. I know the difficulties involved, and know how nullsec alliances can overcome them.  Like as not, there are a large number of forward thinking industrialists, some in nullsec,  who could point the way as well. And, happily, you don't have to take my word for it.  As a reader recently pointed out, an article posted on Goonswarm's own propaganda outlet demonstrated that the lords of nullsec on CCP's Serenity server have overcome the industrial problem that has Twocores/Mynnna and the rest of the nullsec brain-trust throwing up their hands in despair. 

I suppose it's possible that Serenity's lords of nullsec have out-thought their Tranquility brethren or are simply better managers.  And it is certainly possible that I am just infinitely smarter than the combined talents of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal; the self-proclaimed 'foremost authority on Eve Online economics and game play'.  Or perhaps the lords of BD nullsec simply lack the energy for enterprise, preferring a free hand-out from CCP to rolling their sleeves up and doing some honest mental heavy lifting.

Improving 0.0 industry (the reason POS changes are being so aggressively pushed by the BDPs) is certainly worth talking about. However, speaking based on experience, the primary problem with industry in nullsec is mismanagement, not game mechanics. Nullsec is what its owners make of it.  If the BDP truly wants to develop an industrial infrastructure, they have it in their hands to do so.  Nullsec management hasn't made a serious effort at optimizing their space for industry with the tools at hand.  I see no reason to reward their lack of initiative with new special advantages for nullsec.  Nullsec has plenty of advantages as it is.

Some folk can't be happy unless they're holding *all* the toys. 

But, let's be charitable. Let's assume the BD lords of nullsec and their proxies know they can produce competitive ships and modules given the right policies (Industrial optimization, open carebear immigration, low use fees to incent industrial activity, etc.).  Let's assume they know that independence from Jita is theirs to grasp without any, (or only modest) changes to game mechanics. Why then, are they insisting the economic playing field must be tilted to their absolute advantage over both highsec and lowsec.  Why are they so anxious to push up the cost of cartoon spaceships.

Here's a possibility:

In the Economic section of the December CSM summit meeting, UAxDEATH states that Technetium can be nerfed if the desired 'Farms and Fields' changes replaces that income stream. None of the other BDPs record any objection to this statement.  This speaks volumes to revenue yields the lords of nullsec expect from 'Farms and Fields'.  Reading elsewhere in the minutes and the forums it is evident that 'Farms and Fields' is expected to provide nullsec alliances with a new large-bore stream of revenues from taxes on industrial activities. 

In other words, you need to pay more for your ships and modules so the BD alliances can get more tax revenues.   

Perhaps we should discuss that next.

The Edge Awards

I know, you were looking forward to another neigh opaque wall o' text on 'Farms and Fields'.  I know that because you are one sick, crazy bunch of logophiles.  My kind of people.  But no, there'll be no heavy lifting by the eyes, or brain-strain today.  No iPhones or Samsung IIIs will suffer an unsavory immersion because this post was too long to read at your desk, and you had to sneak off to read it during your bathroom break (No, really. It's happened).  For behold, Seismic Stan has declared a holiday on deep thinking.

In his most recent blog banter, Siesmic Stan has tapped the blogosphere to invent our own awards to recognize members New Eden's community for their contributions to the Eve zeitgeist:

"I would like to invite every participant to nominate their peers for whatever awards you think they deserve. Let's celebrate the best and the worst of us, the funniest or the most bizarre, the most heroic of the most tragic of the past year. They could be corpmates, adversaries, bloggers, podcasters, developers, journalists or inanimate objects. Go nuts."

Not as easy an assignment as you'd think at first blush. Many are deserving. And I do enjoy the company I keep in New Eden; from the callowest carebear to the bitterest vet to the hoariest interstellar pirate. Bro-hugs with appropriate back-slaps all around, folks.  Like Mr Javixx, I'd like to say you're all winners. 

But this is Eve, not Montessori school.  Not everybody gets a trophy.  For some to win, others have to suck vacuum. Not my rule. Just the law of the digital jungle. New Eden is a Hobbesean place, red in tooth and pixel. 

With that, and in the spirit of Hollywood's award season, I give you The Edge Awards.

Alliance Awards:

The Technetium Throne Award: Goonswarm Federation

"It is not a seat where a man can rest at ease. Ofttimes I wonder why my brothers wanted it so desperately."
    - George R. R. Martin

Credit where credit is due: The Goons have their collective nether-regions firmly parked on nullsec's Technetium Throne and none can say they didn't earn it.  Not only did their leadership lead the coup that unseated the high seat's prior Drone Russian occupants, they did so with a nuanced application of diplomatic maneuverings punctuated by brute force. All in all, a Machiavellian performance worthy of the great houses of Westeros.

Well played, gentlemen. Well played.

The Walking Dead Award: Against All Authorities

"What Hamlet suffers from is a lack of zombies....No need for iambic pentameter because they are grunting, groaning annihilators of humanity with no time for meter. You’re not asleep in the back of English class anymore, are you? This is what I’m talking about. Zombies.”
    - Libba Bray

Call it mental toughness. Call it 'Too dumb to die'. Call it zombification. Whatever. -A- have an annoying way of not knowing when they're beaten.  You can knock them down, shoot them execution-style, knife the body a dozen times, rub their collective face in the dirt and dog-shit, and walk away from their mangled corpse with their lunch money jingling in your pocket while you whistle tunes from 'Aida'. A week later -A- will be back, nailing the dismembered body of your beloved family pet to your front door.

-A- has been prematurely eulogized so often in the last few years you'd think they had a Summer home on the River Styx and rented jet-skis from Charon.  If this is their time to cross over to Hades, I'll break out the good stuff, toast their memory and ask if I can have their ticker and logo. However, until the boatman cashes in -A-'s silver coin, I'll keep the good stuff on the shelf and the pop-corn on stand-by. 

The Henry Higgins Award: Test Alliance, Please Ignore

"Pandemic Legion, you are to stay here for the next six months learning to behave beautifully, like a lady in a flower shop. If you work hard and do as you're told, you shall sleep in warm Deklein, have lots to eat, and money to buy bacon and go for rides in Supercapitals."
   - George Bernard Shaw (heavily paraphrased)

Who knew Pandemic Legion could be domesticated?  Under Test Alliance's careful tutelage, the Legion appears to have curbed their anarchistic tendencies, adapted to nullsec's new 'controlled PvP' doctrine, and behave in all manner civilized.  Props to HBC for teaching the toughest floozie in the nullsec gin-joint to walk and talk and dress like a proper lady.

Media Awards:

Best Blog:  Jester's Trek

Those of you who read Ripard Teg's blog know that he is a prolific writer, often putting up more posts in a day or two than I publish in a month. Mind, I make that an easy bar to get over.  Personally, I believe he keeps a platoon of middle-school composition teachers chained in his basement writing blog entries for him, and starves them if they don't produce.  But that's beside the point; my point being that Ripard Teg writes a lot. And he writes well on a surprisingly diverse set of topics; from player guides and ship fittings to game mechanic analysis and critiques of the the primary drivers to and impacts of changes to said mechanics. He also is known to opine on the effectiveness of CCP personnel and the elected members of the CSM, a body known to get a bit prickly when confronted with less-than-glowing reviews.

Regular readers will know I'm quick to snap Teg with a rolled-up newspaper when he goes astray, but he always stands up for his point of view and gives as good as he gets. And I'm every bit as quick to back him up when he suffers the slings and arrows of an outraged Eve media for speaking his mind.  Speaking truth to power is not for the faint of heart. 

Best New Blog: Diaries of a Space Noob

Diaries of a Space Noob began as two month long, day by day, diary of a former World of Warcraft player's early days in Eve Online from the beginning.  Those early Space Noob  diary entries were written from the perspective of a new player to a non-Eve audience and spoke eloquently the Eve new player experience with fresh eyes.  It is a portrait of the Eve community written from the point of view of an outsider.

Since those early days the 'Noob' soldiers on. He he still writes eloquently to the player experience and puts out an enjoyable and informative blog.  It is recommended reading for anyone who wants to know (or remember) what the Eve experience is for the first time visitor to New Eden.

Sail on, Noob.

The Four Feathers Award: Mynnna

Best Podcast: Crossing Zebras

Doing a podcast is easy.  Just record yourself and four or five buddies bloviating about Eve for four hours or so. Be sure to bring beer. Lots of beer. Four hours of bloviating is thirsty work and you're way more funny and charming after downing that first six pack. Drop in a little music here and there and post the resulting audio gold. See? It's not hard at all.

Unless, of course, your goal is a quality podcast.  A quality podcast is hard, exacting work before, during and after the recording session.  I respect people who put together quality podcasts and wish there were more of them. There are podcasters out there who behave as though they're yukking it up in corp TeamSpeak when they should be contributing to a quality product.

How much quality work do I expect for free? Quite a lot, actually. If you're doing it for love, learn to do it right.

Happily the lads over at Crossing Zebras stand as a good example of doing it right. The hosts, Xander and Jeg, have a good dynamic. They complement each others' on-air strengths and, I believe, have a much better audio presence together than either would have on their own.  The content they deliver is usually interesting and, a few hiccups aside, well paced and well edited.  I have the sense that they're keeping their audience in mind as they go; treating the listener as a silent third party to their conversations who they must include and keep interested.  The ability to do so is a rare gift.

Zebras is a relatively young podcast, and going back through their playlist gives the listener a sense of how their podcast has matured over time. It's an instructive journey for nascent or would-be podcasters. I think Zebras hasn't hit their peak yet and the best of their podcasts are yet to come.

The 'Fist of Doooooooom!' Award:  Poetic Stanziel

Likely the most fearless and uncensored blogger in all New Eden.  Utterly unafraid to speak his mind and pulls no punches.  You may not think he's right, but you'll never doubt where he stands.  Stanz may swing wild at times, but he hits hard when he connects.

The 'Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean'  Award: Voices from the Void

On a hiatus since early December, Arydanika's Voices from the Void is, to my mind, the best planned and produced Eve podcast out there.  The back issues of 'V&V' are well worth a listen, particularly those featuring Seismic Stan as co-host, and Dani and Stan's song parody series. Dani singing Sansha Baby to the tune of Santa Baby is not to be missed.  The disappearance of Episode 33, AKA the Lost Podcast of Zin remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time.

Hurry back Dani.

Farms and Fields: A Question of Labor

Nullsec does not have a Tritanium problem.  Nullsec has a labor problem.

Last week we discussed why the 'Farms and Fields' changes to nullsec being advanced by The Mittani® hive mind cannot reasonably achieve its stated goal:  Stocking nullsec with 'peasants' (i.e. industrialists and industrial infrastructure) for PvPers to to put to the sword.  This being obvious to anyone who understands nullsec and the players involved, it follows that the hive mind must have an unannounced secondary goal (or set of goals) motivating the aggressive propaganda campaign for the proposed changes. Clues to the actual goals of the policy can be found in game design changes being demanded by The Mittani®'s propaganda machine.

A key design change being pushed by The Mittani® to 'fix' nullsec is adding special 'super' ores to nullsec in order to solve what the Goonswarm sock puppet parade have dubbed "The Tritanium Problem".  In his November 27 article Addressing the Tritanium Problem, Goonswarm's Corestwo/Mynnna defines this 'problem' as "...the fundamental fact that sourcing large quantities of low end minerals and especially Tritanium is not feasible in nullsec". 

Now, whenever anyone calls a cornerstone justification for awarding themselves some privileged position, status, handout or free lunch a "fundamental fact", it is a near certainty that said justification is, in fact, not a fact at all; fundamental or otherwise.  Corestwo/Mynnna's so called 'Tritanium Problem is no exception to that rule.  It is, as international trade economists put it, a fat load of hooey.  Nullsec has plenty of low end ores for producing Tritanium.  When Corestwo/Mynnna says mining low end ores in nullsec isn't feasible, he means the ISK return per hour on mining low end ores in nullsec is so low by nullsec standards that no one in nullsec wants to mine them.  

In other words, nullsec alliances wishing to go into Tritanium-intensive manufacturing don't have sufficient labor willing to do the necessary low-end ore mining at a competitive wage.  Highsec,  on the other hand, is much more efficient at producing Tritanium owing to its larger and cheaper mining-sector labor force. 

"I don't know, Mord," some of you will be thinking about now. "While I'm inclined to accept that premise at face value, I'd be much more comfortable with the idea if you expanded on it in a vast wall of text".  Others of you, will be drumming your fingers impatiently about now and mumbling "TLDR already, Fiddle. Get to the effing point."  

I am happy to oblige you both.  For those of you with a passion for the wall of text, read on.  For those of you in something of a hurry, meet me below where its says "TLDR: Veldspar is not being mined in nullsec because markets work."

We'll begin at the beginning:  Mining is boring.

Most miners would agree. Oh, when the ore hold tops off there's a tiny stab of electricity, that most fundamental of video game rewards, but it's more akin to relief than accomplishment. The brain saying, oh thank god he's finished; maybe we can do something interesting now, like running a load of laundry or power washing the front walk. After an hour or so of solo belt mining one begins to wonder when the next Hulkageddon will inject a bit of excitement into the activity.

If there is pleasure to be found in mining, it is in mining with a crew. You watch each others' backs, joke and engage in the same sort of chatter that accompanies a long lull at a gate camp, an unproductive PvP roam, or the hurry-up-and-wait that accompanies most nullsec CTAs. But unlike those other activities, ISK pile up at an impressive rate when a good mining crew plies its trade. It doesn't provide the adrenaline jag of PvP, but the companionship and the ISK payout at the end make it worth while.

In my experience, fleet mining usually occurs in support of a corporation's manufacturing arm. The mining crew's pay-out for the ore they've harvested is usually made in Jita prices. A member of the corporation with perfect refining skills and good standing with the NPC corporation that owns the station refines the ores in order to maximize the mineral output. The minerals are then either sold or used as inputs to corporate manufacturing initiatives.

By highsec standards, a miner's payday is substantial for the level of skills required.  A solo miner in a Retriever with excellent Veldspar mining and refining skills can make five to ten million ISK an hour selling at current Tritanium prices (bearing in mind the time needed to transport the refined minerals to an optimal market for sale is not included). Working with a crew can bring efficiencies such as Orca and fleet boosts into play, increasing the per miner ore yield. However, depending on how the proceeds are paid out (for example, does the corporation keep a percentage of the minerals? Do haulers who don't mine get the same split as the miners? Is the local sale price of the minerals significantly higher than Jita prices?) the actual per hour payday for a fleet op may not exceed that of the solo miner by much. Always read the fine print.

Bear in mind too, that mineral yields from ore in highsec is often reduced due to refining using less than perfect skills and/or at stations where the NPC corporation retains part of the refinery yield due to the player's less that optimal standings. Performance, as they say, may vary.

Recall the Space Noob of Innocents Abroad; gleeful over having accumulated 700K ISK over several days. To new players, a million ISK is a small fortune. To them, five to ten million ISK per hour is an almost inconceivable income stream.  Mining is, by design, one of the best ways for a newish industrial player to build up a bankroll for purchasing more advanced ships, modules and skills.  As a result, there is a vast workforce of cheap labor plying the highsec asteroid belts; happily mining low-value rock, and supplying a steady stream of Tritanium and Pyrite to empire's manufacturing lines.

Mining in nullsec is an altogether different breed of cat.  In nullsec, the target of choice for miners are the ABC ores; Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite, which yield relatively large amounts of high-value minerals.  However, outpost refineries work at a 30% efficiency at best, as opposed to 50% in empire and at some NPC nullsec stations. Adding insult to injury, as refinery use-fees are an income stream for nullsec outpost owners, such fees tend to be quite steep and wildly uncompetitive with use-fees in empire and NPC nullsec.  To the enterprising nullsec bear, the answer is obvious:  The high value-ores are compressed using a Rorqual, jumped back to empire, and refined at a station near a market hub.  From there they either feed into the bear's empire production lines or are sold at market. The jump freighter then returns to nullsec loaded up with finished goods to sell.

In nullsec, ores of lower value than our ABC ores tend to be overlooked. The low-value ores are not cost effective to mine, compress and transport to empire for refining. Compressing and transporting mid-value ores may return a marginal profit, but not enough of one to make them of interest to the mining bear. The real ISK are in ABC ores. Even if outpost refineries operated at the same efficiency as those in empire stations, low end ores like Veldspar would rarely be mined in nullsec. Though Tritanium is selling at near record highs in empire, the same return per hour on mining Velspar and its humble brethren delivers too low an ISK return on hours of labor to to be attractive to nullsec miners.

Even refined Tritanium dropped by nullsec anomaly hauler rats is regarded as not worth the time and trouble of transporting back to station and is routinely left floating in space even after the wreck that held it is salvaged.

There are far fewer miners in nullsec than in empire. Those skilled miners that do abide in nullsec have income streams available to them that are more lucrative (and more entertaining) than mining Veldspar.  Thus, even though there is plenty of Veldspar lying around in nullsec, there is no financial incentive for the pilots with the appropriate skills to mine it.   Simply put, the cost of labor in nullsec is too high to generate and move around enough Tritanium to support a robust ship building industry.

TLDR: Veldspar is not being mined in nullsec because markets work. 

So, owing to its higher labor costs, nullsec is less efficient than empire at producing low-end ores. This is a commonplace scenario in international trade economics, and economics offers a number of remedies to it. However, economic solutions appear to be of little interest to Corestwo/Mynnna, Goonswarm's self-proclaimed 'guru of economics & all-around maven in Eve".  Faced with a problem rooted in market economics, he prefers to change New Eden's geology:  If low end ores are not valuable enough compete for the nullsec miner's attention, then new super-ores must be provided nullsec miners that will. As Corestwo/Mynnna describes the design goal of super ores:

"A miner in nullsec should want to mine any and all of the ores. While maintaining perfectly even isk/hour values is not possible (short of replacing all ores with a single mineral nougat that provides all minerals), even the 'worst' of ores should represent a considerable boost in income over those found in highsec."

In other words, Nullsec workers are so wealthy they can't be bothered to bend over to pick up a nickle, and Corestwo/Mynnna's answer is to populate nullsec with special nullsec nickles that spend like dollars. Encumbered with an inefficient labor force, The Mittani® hive mind wants special super-ores with yields of low-end minerals so vast that they off-set the inefficiencies of said labor force.  And apparently nullsec inefficiencies extend to the work involved in thinking.  It is far easier to cry 'unfair', weep Goon tears and demand New Eden's entire geology and economy be changed to nullsec's exclusive advantage than to HTFU (as Goons are quick to say) and think through a solution given the existing mechanics.  

It would seem the bar for becoming 'guru of economics' in Goonswarm is not high one.

Now, last week I pointed out that changes associated with 'peasants to the sword' were all one sided; allowing nullsec in general (and Goonswarm in particular) new competitive benefits while giving up none of their existing advantages.  Likewise, Corestwo/Mynnna calls for super-ores to be handed to nullsec without surrendering any of nullsec's current geological advantages.

Nullsec (and wormholes) will continue to be the only source for high-end minerals, specifically Zydrine and Megacyte, As a result, they must continue to overproduce these minerals for export to highsec.

This is key.  The nullsec members of the CSM have already insisted that they want to be independent from empire. However, based on the changes desired, they want this to be a one-way street. They do not want empire independent from nullsec. They want empire to remain dependent upon nullsec coalitions for high-end minerals, moon-goo and the more lucrative inputs to production.  They want to maintain a monopoly on their large bore ISK faucets, while denying empire (and highsec in particular) access to meaningful incomes.  They want jump freighters and a long trade reach without the attendant market competition.  They don't want there to be competitive advantage trade-offs between empire and nullsec; they want nullsec's advantages to be absolute and all-encompassing.

They wish to burn Jita without being burned themselves.

'Why?' You might ask, 'Is Goonswarm's propaganda machine, which previously sneered at industrial Eve beyond Supercapitals and moon goo's easy money, suddenly gone all a-flutter over the industrial game? Has The Mittani® caught a case of carebear fever?'


In part three, we'll address that question.