EVE Online 2: Giant in the Sandbox (Still a terrible game for terrible people)

[Psyren]

It can happen. That's how spies work...They infiltrate a corp, get into a position of some power, and then suddenly all the money is missing and your sovereignty is gone.

I see... but I'm guessing something like that would be really hard to pull off in Eve, perhaps even harder than IRL. Here you can change your name/identity if you want to run around defrauding people and companies. There, everyone has a unique username (I assume) so anyone who does this will get a reputation fast, and anyone who shows up with seemingly no history but a boatload of cash is going to be met with instant suspicion.

[Venetian Mask]

And only one guy is in charge of/has access to that? They don't have a backup guy monitoring it or able to put ISK in it? Couldn't someone become the treasurer (or whatever position) and then troll/grief their entire corp by either neglecting to pay or clearing out the funds and running for the hills?

1. Usually there are more than 1 guys who have access to the wallets of the executor corporation (the corp holding the sov).
2. They could, but most alliances will have 1 to 3 of the most trusted people have director roles in their executor corporation. No-one else can get to the wallet and usually these are people who've been with the alliance from the get go. You still have disgruntled directors pull the plug every once in a while (see Band of Brothers) but I can count the amount of times it happened to a large sov power on the fingers of one hand.

I see... but I'm guessing something like that would be really hard to pull off in Eve, perhaps even harder than IRL. Here you can change your name/identity if you want to run around defrauding people and companies. There, everyone has a unique username (I assume) so anyone who does this will get a reputation fast, and anyone who shows up with seemingly no history but a boatload of cash is going to be met with instant suspicion.

EDIT: Didn't see your last post.
On the topic of defrauding: each account can have three characters. Any player can have as many accounts as they want. No-one should even know your username, however with a full accountwide API key a corp can check all characters belonging to a single account. Spies are usually created on separate "clean" accounts for that reason.

[Psyren]

Well, it sounds to me like your corporations need some auditors that's a poorly designed control if one person in the company has that much power, no matter how deeply they are trusted!

[Ionbound]

Well, it sounds to me like your corporations need some auditors that's a poorly designed control if one person in the company has that much power, no matter how deeply they are trusted!

Well, the more people that have power, the greater the chance for betrayal as there are no checks on the Director's power.

[Brother Oni]

Well, it sounds to me like your corporations need some auditors that's a poorly designed control if one person in the company has that much power, no matter how deeply they are trusted!

My previous corp operated a 'hands on' system of control - if they can't get their hands around your throat, you're not getting any power.

[Janwin]

Hmmm...

So, is TEST any less terrible than it was when I left a while back? Any success at reshaping it and fixing its problems? I will say that it's probably a great alliance to be in if you're new to the game, but if you're not I recall it being pretty frustrating as people derped all over the place and never focused fire, plus the drama.

I was in Eclipse Navy. when it was a member of TEST during the collapse.

Been out of game since November, and had gone to a WH corp before that.

So, what can you offer with GITS that could convince me to come back? I got out of nullsec warfare because I grew tired of lagged/crashing systems and blobfests (I had been doing nullsec warfare since 2007 with burnouts here and there). As of when I left, I had my main PVP char with 62.5m SPs, a JF/Indy char with 54.5m SPs (21.3m in science alone), a neutral freighter char and an Aeon char in training.

Not really looking for much blobfest anymore, if that's all TEST does still. And if they're in NPC null, it's probably not stable enough to have indy POS set up for manufacturing. I used to make money by stocking markets, but have sold the JF for WH ships (which reminds me that the CEO of my last corp still has my 3b ISK blinged Moros...).

So, yeah. What ya got?

[Psyren]

Well, the more people that have power, the greater the chance for betrayal as there are no checks on the Director's power.

You misunderstand - I wasn't suggesting "give multiple people Director access." Obviously if all it takes is one person to yank the funds and run then that would only make the problem worse.

What I meant was - the control should require approval from multiple people to empty an account or any similarly risky activity, while putting money INTO the account should be less restricted since the impact would be felt by far more than those two people.

[Venetian Mask]

Hmmm...

So, is TEST any less terrible than it was when I left a while back? Any success at reshaping it and fixing its problems? I will say that it's probably a great alliance to be in if you're new to the game, but if you're not I recall it being pretty frustrating as people derped all over the place and never focused fire, plus the drama.

I was in Eclipse Navy. when it was a member of TEST during the collapse.

Been out of game since November, and had gone to a WH corp before that.

So, what can you offer with GITS that could convince me to come back? I got out of nullsec warfare because I grew tired of lagged/crashing systems and blobfests (I had been doing nullsec warfare since 2007 with burnouts here and there). As of when I left, I had my main PVP char with 62.5m SPs, a JF/Indy char with 54.5m SPs (21.3m in science alone), a neutral freighter char and an Aeon char in training.

Not really looking for much blobfest anymore, if that's all TEST does still. And if they're in NPC null, it's probably not stable enough to have indy POS set up for manufacturing. I used to make money by stocking markets, but have sold the JF for WH ships (which reminds me that the CEO of my last corp still has my 3b ISK blinged Moros...).

So, yeah. What ya got?

As a long time (May 2012) Testie I can honestly say TEST has improved - a lot. We lost quite a few of the horribly toxic people when they jumped ship to PL, BL, Goons, and EMP. Right now we're acting in an advisor role in the HERO coalition. We help the coalition with our experience in the metagame, excellent infrastructure, and experienced pilots. We are - however - not the leaders of this coalition, in the end the HERO coalition is controlled by Brave Newbies. (Who are actually very chill and nice, surprisingly enough, it's been rubbing off and really took the edge off :smallbigsmile:)

I'll have to be brutally honest on the topic of what we can offer as a corporation - it isn't much yet. We're still small and the small director team; me, BoSS Stubs, and CJ Gallante, are still working out the kinks and setting the corp up to be ran properly. We don't have offices in our alliance staging yet because of sov mechanics and we can't pay for reimbursements. What we can offer you is this:

• Awesome nullsec fights with the coalition. Right now we do anything from ANI's to Capitals and as far as I know even the capitals aren't afraid to dangerzone.
• A fun helpful community. We're still growing, but any time someone's around their usually up for a chat and up to help you.
• Small gang pvp. I enjoy roaming nullsec with small zippy ships. CJ used to be a pretty good FC in his day too. I've been known to train newbies into decent FC's. When the corp reaches a decent amount of members (20-30) I'll be planning at least weekly roams to have fun in slightly more SP- and ISK-intensive ships (when we spool up our income you can expect reimbursements for this to happen).
• Ratting space (yeah I know, you're no J4G, ), as a member of HERO the entirety of Catch is available to us for ratting, industry, and the like. We're going to be setting up a home system away from alliance HQ to do a little PVE and keep our wallets fat.

You misunderstand - I wasn't suggesting "give multiple people Director access." Obviously if all it takes is one person to yank the funds and run then that would only make the problem worse.

What I meant was - the control should require approval from multiple people to empty an account or any similarly risky activity, while putting money INTO the account should be less restricted since the impact would be felt by far more than those two people.

That seems like a perfect set-up for a corporation, doesn't it? There's a few reasons why it won't work, I'm afraid:

1. People leave EVE: Yes, even CEO's and Directors. If you need 2 or more members of the board to authorize a transaction and those people leave EVE without transferring over their rights this could force corporation activities to a standstill.
2. KISS: The more cogs in the machine, the more likely it is that it'll jam. Corporation actions requiring more than one persons approval make the corporation sluggish, especially when they need to act swiftly (for instance when a sov-bill looms).
3. Corporate Politics: If you have two directors and one of them decides that they want to press an issue they can refuse to give permission for something. This allows them to effectively hold the corporation hostage and would allow for dirty director tactics. (Now you could say, well then just demote the director and promote them, right? Wrong. If you allowed directors to assign new directors without the same permission system then a director could just bypass the system by assigning one of his alts as director and allowing the transaction with that alt.
4. EVE: Even if you still think its a good idea (and I'm not saying it isn't I mean, it honestly might be excellent) there's a breaking problem: EVE does not allow for this in its mechanics. So I guess the point is null and void.

[Psyren]

That seems like a perfect set-up for a corporation, doesn't it? There's a few reasons why it won't work, I'm afraid:

1. People leave EVE: Yes, even CEO's and Directors. If you need 2 or more members of the board to authorize a transaction and those people leave EVE without transferring over their rights this could force corporation activities to a standstill.
2. KISS: The more cogs in the machine, the more likely it is that it'll jam. Corporation actions requiring more than one persons approval make the corporation sluggish, especially when they need to act swiftly (for instance when a sov-bill looms).
3. Corporate Politics: If you have two directors and one of them decides that they want to press an issue they can refuse to give permission for something. This allows them to effectively hold the corporation hostage and would allow for dirty director tactics. (Now you could say, well then just demote the director and promote them, right? Wrong. If you allowed directors to assign new directors without the same permission system then a director could just bypass the system by assigning one of his alts as director and allowing the transaction with that alt.
4. EVE: Even if you still think its a good idea (and I'm not saying it isn't I mean, it honestly might be excellent) there's a breaking problem: EVE does not allow for this in its mechanics. So I guess the point is null and void.

#4 is a clear tautology - "it wouldn't work because it's not allowed to work." For the rest:

1) This is why you have succession plans and backup approvers. And if your entire corp bails simultaneously then I would wager sovereignty isn't your biggest problem at that point.
2) I don't know precisely how often you have to pay bills in Eve, but I doubt it's so often than needing another person to sign off would slow the machine to a crawl. It's not like you're doing this every hour or even every day. Heck, I'm willing to bet most of your big corps have at least a monthly "staff meeting" don't they? That's as good a time to do it as any.
3) This again is where succession plans come into play and people can be terminated for insubordination. Sockpuppets/alts can indeed be an issue but they're generally not hard to spot if you know the person, or (for the truly serious corps) they require separate IRL identification or meetings for each individual.


Now to be clear, I'm not actually advocating for this change - it seems that it would run counter to the occasionally brutal/cutthroat spirit of Eve where a titanic loss like this can happen in a blink. I'm just musing on what actual corporations would do about this situation in-universe, or if the stakes were high enough.

[Venetian Mask]

I've been killing some (NPC) pirates, and wound up with a fair bit of useless-to-me loot (Laser turrets and crystals, for example). Since they don't seem to be selling for much at the moment, is there a corp hanger I should dump them in as an alternative to refining them for materials? (Also, I don't have access to any corp hangers. Is this intentional?)

Since I missed this question; don't worry about dumping it in a corp hangar for now. We may set up a loot buyback system along with an ore buyback system at a certain point, but for now we don't have the means to process it. If your stuff is in Catch, consider using a service like Coolbeans Salvage to deal with it.

On the topic of hangar access: these are restricted for a reason, two actually. 1) There isn't much stored in the hangars right now, and certainly nothing you need. There may be a member hangar soon for members with stacks of ammo and some basic ships, but honestly, right now you don't need access. 2) It's a safety thing. Even though I like you guys I'm still fairly paranoid (as behooves a good CEO), which is why you don't have hangar or wallet access until I a) feel you need it, and b) feel you've earned my trust.

Sorry, but that's the cutthroat world of EVE and the metagame for you

[Janwin]

As a long time (May 2012) Testie I can honestly say TEST has improved - a lot. We lost quite a few of the horribly toxic people when they jumped ship to PL, BL, Goons, and EMP. Right now we're acting in an advisor role in the HERO coalition. We help the coalition with our experience in the metagame, excellent infrastructure, and experienced pilots. We are - however - not the leaders of this coalition, in the end the HERO coalition is controlled by Brave Newbies. (Who are actually very chill and nice, surprisingly enough, it's been rubbing off and really took the edge off :smallbigsmile:)

Yeah, I've always enjoyed Brave Newbies. They've always brought a great attitude to the field, though again they fully prescribe to the "blob anything" mentality. They just blob in tiny ships instead of supers. It actually rather amuses me that you're allied with them, since I've no doubt that they bring some hiliarity and fun to the table.

My concerns, however, about that is that they don't really have much of a capital presence from what I recall, or really any ability to throw together a unified and hard hitting fleet (BSes or such). Looking at the Dotlan map of Catch, I see that there's actually quite a bit of space owned by Brave, and as I'm not seeing really any space labeled TEST, I'm guessing that TEST lives out of their space? How good are Brave at SOV warfare, what's their infrastructure like (JBs if any, etc), and what are their current friends/enemies? Based on -A-'s presence in Catch, and the significantly lower sov level of Brave space, it looks like they're trying to purge -A- (which I'm all for, actually)?

If you'd like to take this to PMs, I'm more than willing (I can understand not wanting to disclose some friendships/etc in an open forum, but it's something I'd want to know before getting deeply involved in sov 0.0 again).

I'll have to be brutally honest on the topic of what we can offer as a corporation - it isn't much yet. We're still small and the small director team; me, BoSS Stubs, and CJ Gallante, are still working out the kinks and setting the corp up to be ran properly. We don't have offices in our alliance staging yet because of sov mechanics and we can't pay for reimbursements. What we can offer you is this:

• Awesome nullsec fights with the coalition. Right now we do anything from ANI's to Capitals and as far as I know even the capitals aren't afraid to dangerzone.
• A fun helpful community. We're still growing, but any time someone's around their usually up for a chat and up to help you.
• Small gang pvp. I enjoy roaming nullsec with small zippy ships. CJ used to be a pretty good FC in his day too. I've been known to train newbies into decent FC's. When the corp reaches a decent amount of members (20-30) I'll be planning at least weekly roams to have fun in slightly more SP- and ISK-intensive ships (when we spool up our income you can expect reimbursements for this to happen).
• Ratting space (yeah I know, you're no J4G, ), as a member of HERO the entirety of Catch is available to us for ratting, industry, and the like. We're going to be setting up a home system away from alliance HQ to do a little PVE and keep our wallets fat.

Oh, I'm not too concerned about things like ratting space. While it's nice to be able to set up a POS to do some invention and production, it's not the end of the world.

Mostly, I'd be looking for a stable (or at least relatively) group. I've had to evac far too many systems over the years, and it's pretty much a PitA. I'd also be looking for an active group since being the only one online all the time is pretty horrifically boring.

While there's no corp SRP, is there alliance SRP still for ops, or is it all out of members' wallets?

Also, out of curiosity, what TZ are you in, Venetian? It might be nice to sit down in TS3 or whatnot and have a chat. Probably more efficient than doing it here.

[Janwin]

As an aside, I have been rather amused watching Aura and EVEMon since I quit back in November...

I have an EVE website which costs a fee to use, and is fully automated. It's been steadily being used since November, and it's amusing watching my character's wallet slowly grow even while not playing. Not a huge amount, mind you, but 100m/month for not even playing is still amusing.

[Jonzac]

Cool. I think Industry is more my style, anyways. Less chance of being podded, and much, much more income, especially with TEST backing me up.

As a former industrialist...its not easy. In fact it can be very difficult. Mining is a high-stress operation that requires a combat fleet nearby. What happens is someone in a stealth bomber will fly into your Industrial level 4 system, cloak and then go to school/work/porn. While there is a red in your system, you don't dare pull out your shiny mining barge or exhumer because you dont "KNOW" he's afk. So you put in orders in null-sec for mining, which means you'll have to move them to your hub for processing...if your alliance even has a station with manufacturing/research slots. Then, don't forget you actually have to sell the stuff...and each null-sec area generally has an accepted "hub" to sell at, so you'll have to find a way to transport thos 20 crusiers you just built, two at a time in your Iteron V, all the while praying you don't get ganked...or have a second account in a stealth ship to scout for you...or you pay someone to move it which cuts into your profit. Additionally, if there is a CTA (Call to Arms) the combat wings expect you to drop what your doing and get into a ship...any ship for the fight. If you DON'T respond to CTAs you can be kicked for not helping...and if enough industrialist DON'T help there isn't enough combat force and you lose your space anyway.

Frankly, the combat side of null-sec is the easy part. The null-sec industrialist (unless you live DEEP in an alliance where no one comes) is actually much harder. You'll have to have money to make money in null-sec. If you can and have the time, mine. You can pull 500m to 1B in a weekend (your on most of the day) (and its easier to move out of null) if your left alone and have Roqual boost support, just mine the anomilalies.

[Venetian Mask]

Additionally, if there is a CTA (Call to Arms) the combat wings expect you to drop what your doing and get into a ship...any ship for the fight. If you DON'T respond to CTAs you can be kicked for not helping...and if enough industrialist DON'T help there isn't enough combat force and you lose your space anyway.

No, just no.

TEST does not do CTA's.
HERO does not do CTA's
**** everything about CTA's

[Janwin]

Yeah, no CTAs has always sort of been TEST's rule. It's one of the nice things about them.

[AcXen]

Yeah, I've always enjoyed Brave Newbies. They've always brought a great attitude to the field, though again they fully prescribe to the "blob anything" mentality. They just blob in tiny ships instead of supers. It actually rather amuses me that you're allied with them, since I've no doubt that they bring some hiliarity and fun to the table.

My concerns, however, about that is that they don't really have much of a capital presence from what I recall, or really any ability to throw together a unified and hard hitting fleet (BSes or such). Looking at the Dotlan map of Catch, I see that there's actually quite a bit of space owned by Brave, and as I'm not seeing really any space labeled TEST, I'm guessing that TEST lives out of their space? How good are Brave at SOV warfare, what's their infrastructure like (JBs if any, etc), and what are their current friends/enemies? Based on -A-'s presence in Catch, and the significantly lower sov level of Brave space, it looks like they're trying to purge -A- (which I'm all for, actually)?

If you'd like to take this to PMs, I'm more than willing (I can understand not wanting to disclose some friendships/etc in an open forum, but it's something I'd want to know before getting deeply involved in sov 0.0 again).

*snip*

Take all of this as you wish because while I am in Brave, BOLD specifically, I am not leadership of either TEST or Brave.

Not all of Brave prescribes to the 'blob anything' mentality. BNI does tend to blob everything, but that's also because they have the biggest member base out of the corps that are part of Brave. There are other corps that are geared toward other things in Brave. To site a specific example, my corp BOLD, is a heavy fixture of small gang/black ops combat. That's not to say that we won't blob something if we do anything with Brave, but that on a whole our corp tends to favor small gang stuff.

Strat ops, sure, the blob tends to come out... because to be honest with you, why the hell not? If we can drop 1500 people on an IHUB and the defending force can only drop 30, tough **** for them Good fights are great to have when you're not really really trying to accomplish something other than having a good fight. When it's time to win, all bets are off and whatever it takes to win is what gets done.

As far as cap presence, and not being able to field hard hitting fleets, don't believe everything you see or hear. Granted, there are tons of people in BNI who have no skills for that sort of thing, but BNI isn't the only corp in Brave, just the big one. BNI tends to be the corp everyone associates Brave with. Not to say that's incorrect, since it's the founding corp, and biggest, but there are a multitude of other corps that can field more than Atrons all day long.

With regard to how good we are at SOV warfare, that's debatable. Mostly, we've decided to jump headfirst into everything and sink or swim, which is usually the way we do ****. Like anything else though some of us really know what we're doing when it comes to SOV (not me, I just like to blow **** up) and some of us don't. Everyone is learning on the fly, and questions are asked and answered as needed.

TEST does not own space at the moment. They are free to do whatever they like in HERO owned space, but my understanding (which is probably wrong) was that they didn't want to own space at the moment. They just wanted to play in null again without the burden that comes along with owning any. Not to say that won't change later and they decide they want some space of their own again. It's just right now, they fill the big brother role of having been there, done that, and they're crashing on the couch throwing out bits of wisdom here and there as needed while raiding the fridge.

-Ger'bo

[Brother Oni]

Why on earth did CCP decide to get a new launcher?

Every patch deployed gets stuck on 100% step 3/4, which I have to repair before it lets me in the game. Given how often they hotfix stuff, that's a lot of time waiting for repairs. Thankfully I'm on an unlimited internet package, but for someone with a download cap, it would probably be a game breaking bug.

[Janwin]

Cool man. Thanks for the update.

As I said, I haven't played since November, so I know I'm operating on out of date information. Hence asking to be brought up to speed. *grins* I just remember huge fleet battles and Brave Newbies showing up in frigs to a cap fight and suicide rushing some random dread. Hilarity, but not really effective.

Interesting to hear that they've been learning a lot, and I like that. I've always held a bit of fondness for Brave because of their attitude of just having fun. It's also interesting to hear they've been bringing more experienced corps into the fold in order to field capitals and such. Basically, the question was designed to determine if it'd be me and like 3 other guys for the capital presence in a fight if I ended up joining.

Maybe I'll have to get one of my chars reactivated and swing by the game to see how it is these days.

[Jonzac]

Yeah, no CTAs has always sort of been TEST's rule. It's one of the nice things about them.

that's awesome and completely unusual in null-space (in my experience). I loved the industrial side of EVE and had finally geared up to start producing the corp's replacement ships (cruiser and below) as well as offering cheap throwaway fitting packages with rigs. I just don't have the time to log in and without constant love/care/feeding EVE just doesn't work (again in my opinion).

[Venetian Mask]

TEST does not own space at the moment. They are free to do whatever they like in HERO owned space, but my understanding (which is probably wrong) was that they didn't want to own space at the moment. They just wanted to play in null again without the burden that comes along with owning any. Not to say that won't change later and they decide they want some space of their own again. It's just right now, they fill the big brother role of having been there, done that, and they're crashing on the couch throwing out bits of wisdom here and there as needed while raiding the fridge.

I'm actually in TEST leadership (recon director) so I'm semi-qualified to answer that. TEST doesn't want space mostly because goons told us they'd hellpurge us out of any sov we took. They are - in fact - quite the bitter ex-girlfriends. Anyway, aside from that sov is pretty terrible to maintain so if you guys can do it for us we're totally fine with that On the topic of the big brother role, that's pretty much right, we bring the experience, understanding of the metagame, good corporate practice, and an amazing infrastructure. They bring tons of members, eagerness, and a can-do attitude. It's pretty fun to be in the mentor position for once

Why on earth did CCP decide to get a new launcher?

I think you answered your question there

that's awesome and completely unusual in null-space (in my experience). I loved the industrial side of EVE and had finally geared up to start producing the corp's replacement ships (cruiser and below) as well as offering cheap throwaway fitting packages with rigs. I just don't have the time to log in and without constant love/care/feeding EVE just doesn't work (again in my opinion).

It depends, EVE is a game which can require anywhere from an evening a week to 23/7 noliving.
I've gone periods of playing "Skill Queue Online" - pretty much what it sounds like, you update your skill queue but don't play. Or in my case mostly "Jabber Online" - you sit in out of game chat and play other games with fellow EVE players. EVE is only as fun as your community.

[Seatbelt]

It depends, EVE is a game which can require anywhere from an evening a week to 23/7 noliving.
I've gone periods of playing "Skill Queue Online" - pretty much what it sounds like, you update your skill queue but don't play. Or in my case mostly "Jabber Online" - you sit in out of game chat and play other games with fellow EVE players. EVE is only as fun as your community.

I can see that actually. I think now that I've got things a little more settled and know what my short term goals are (Jump clone in Irshah) I'm going to try and keep my actual playing to Friday/Saturdays with the occasional fleet during the week. I want to do the Army Go-Away fleet this Sunday.

[Venetian Mask]

I can see that actually. I think now that I've got things a little more settled and know what my short term goals are (Jump clone in Irshah) I'm going to try and keep my actual playing to Friday/Saturdays with the occasional fleet during the week. I want to do the Army Go-Away fleet this Sunday.

Oh I can definitely recommend that, Matthew is a pretty baller fc.

[Seatbelt]

Oh I can definitely recommend that, Matthew is a pretty baller fc.

I actually cannot join that. I thought it started at 5EST on Sunday because I misread it. Apparently it starts tonight at 11:00EST. Since I have to be up for work at 7:00am on Sundays, I go to bed at 11:00. I can't start a 2-3 hour fleet event instead. Which makes me sad because this sounded super fun.

[Venetian Mask]

Well, poke me. I'll take out a fleet.

[Seatbelt]

Well, poke me. I'll take out a fleet.

Yeah I am in bed every day but Thursday and Friday at 11:00CST. So during the week I'll only ever be on between 2200 and about 300. Also in the very early hours to que up skills. Sorry. :(

[Teln]

Remind me to never piss off PL: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014...titan-hunters/

[Ionbound]

Remind me to never piss off PL: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014...titan-hunters/

Indeed. That was hilarious.

[HyperInferno]

Indeed. That was hilarious.

And people ask me why I'm so paranoid with my supercap......

[Volatar]

Oh hey, I was thinking of switching from Brave to Test, and looky here. There is a GitP corp.

Where do I sign up? :D

[Venetian Mask]

Right here

You can find the details in the original post.