Sunday, March 20, 2016

Just my luck....

Just my luck...

Now that I am no longer having to act as a diplomat for our alliance (thanks John for saving me) I have more time to do stuff... sometimes stupid stuff but stuff anyway.

I decided, after selling off the gank-loot from the last few months, to buy 8 Billion in New Order Shares.
Of course... I had to do this in the same week someone bought 142 Billion in Shares... so no "top supporter of the month" for me!

Last time I decided to buy 8 Billion in Shares.... well... I missed the deadline for Malcolm Shinwa's giveaway by about 24hrs....... also just my luck!

Well... here's to more luck! Praise James! o7

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

How to Megathron, the right way.

Originally Posted by John, 10-05-2015 at 04:22.

A lot of our members might remember the Fountain War when the CFC Megathrons literally blotted out the sun and crushed all before them. That was what we in the New Order refer to as "casual" or "social" PvP. What we are going to discuss is putting negative ten characters in battleships, flying them safely through highsec, landing them within 5000m of a target, and then killing the target(s) before CONCORD ends the party... or "elite" PvP.

Identification: It's important to develop an eye for opportunities to smartbomb bears. Sure, you might stumble upon a good situation and look like a genius to the guys in fleet but there is a better way. The anonymous citizen of highsec serves beautifully in this case. Bears hate other miners just as much as they hate us. You should pay attention when a bear convos you and tease out information that could lead to good situations. Such as that bot fleet that eats all his ice before he even undocks. Once you get a tip it's time to verify the target. Here's some pain, you will have to fly a scout to the system in question. I know, I know :effort:

JUST DO IT YOU LAZY FUCKS!!!

Logistics: Anyone who has stocked a system will tell you that packing a station with SB Megas isn't something that is ever done. But the target is online, we have the numbers to do it, we need to move!! What do? Let's step back and observe a transcript from a real TS conversation where the logistics problem is identified and resolved. The names have been changed for opsec reasons.

Notloyal: Look at the link in TS, all those Hulks!
NotaTCEscrub1: <giggles>
NotaTCEscrub2: <keys up for unknown reasons>
Notjohn: I have a mackinaw ready to go...
Notloyal: Notjohn, can we drop down a channel?
NotaTCEscrub1: <giggles>
-change channel-
Notloyal: Let me borrow 2 bil...
Notjohn: No.
Notloyal: Bro...
Notjohn: We've been ganking freighters for 2 months, where is all your isk!?!
Notloyal: I haven't sold any loot yet.
Notjohn: ffs, fine!
Notloyal: Thanks friend! Let's go back up.
-change channel-
Notloyal: Notjohn, where is your freighter?
NotaTCEscrub1: <giggles>
Notjohn: 8 jumps out of Jita logged off.
Notloyal: Okay, I sent her 1 billion isk, log her on and get moving. Buy 6 and move them to <system>
Notjohn: Shouldn't that be 2 bil?
NotaTCEscrub1: <giggles>
NotaTCEscrub2: <keys up again>
NotaTCEscrub3: Can you buy me a PLEX?
-NotaTCEscrub3 is kicked from the server-
Notloyal: Alright guys, we're moving to <system> and shipping up? NotJohn, are you in Jita yet?
Notjohn: I haven't even logged on the freighter yet, what part of "8 jumps" didn't you understand!?!
Notloyal: Bro.

The next 30 minutes are a rapid fire, rinse and repeat of "Notloyal" asking "Notjohn" 1 of 3 questions:

1) How many jumps is the freighter?
2) You still coming?
3) Are you going to build them or are you going to trade them.

Let's roll: When it comes to moving -10 megas through highsec the most critical moment is the undock. The use of a good insta undock is imperative. If you haven't trained Spaceship Command and Evasive Maneuvering to 5 you will be escaping facpo by the skin of your teeth if at all. The fc must warp the fleet as soon as you land on the insta. Any delay will lead to disaster. You may get a web assist from facpo if you are slow. It's a weird mechanic that actually helps us get into warp. Sometimes you will see a scram icon from facpo but still get safely into warp.

DON'T PANIC!

After you jump through a gate take your time, stay cloaked, and make sure everyone is loaded before going into the next warp.

A time to die...: It's time to light up some bears. So I land and start mashing my f butans? That is correct, but let's talk about some other thing an "elite" PvP smartbomber should do while warping to the target. It really pains me to say this but you will need to turn on your tank. Yep, you're just like a thrasher ganker now. You should also overheat all of your cap boosters and 3 or 4 smartbombs. As you come out of warp quickly ignite your smartbombs and take a second to lock a target so you can watch the progress of the gank. If the scout gives you a common point to approach do that as well. Enjoy the light show... ZOMG CONCORD is here and our target isn't dead yet!!!!

DON'T PANIC!

Remember those overheated cap boosters? As soon as CONCORD insta neuts you get those fuckers turned on and you will be provided with enough cap to continue smartbombing. The trick is to play a game of whack-a-mole with your 7 smartbombs. Once you get cap, mash the ones that aren't glowing red and let them rip. It's not reliable dps but it is dps and every bit helps.

If you have any questions about some of the finer points feel free to hit me up.

Good luck!

edit: You can find our megathron fit in the CODE alliance bulletin.

Ours is not to reason why.... Thrasher Ganking

Update 10/2016: http://neworderlogistics.blogspot.com/2016/10/thrasher-ganking-update.html

Originally posted by Super Perforator 18-07-2015 at 19:44 (2201 Views)
Reproduced here for future reference (with permission from the author) are PVROCK's notes about Thrasher ganking.
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Trying to make miners better people can be quite tiring, I quite understand. I suppose I'm pretty well qualified to talk about thrashers now, I'll do my best to help. This will be a little out of order but I'll try not to forget any questions. Some of this will only be applicable to the secondary fit I use, a mostly tech II autocannon fit for industrials, destroyers and tanky frigates. I'm probably slightly crazy for doing that, but I had the thrashers and figured it just meant stocking more modules and scanning more ships.

First I want to address the choice of system: isanamo has... a lot of gates. You should check whether people really autopilot shuttles on consistent routes through there. Ideally you want people to be going to the same gate 80% of the time when they come from another specific gate. Perhaps the nearby Litiura would be better? UemisaisenNonni traffic is dominant there, I did some ganking there before, although that was vexors rather than thrashers.

Something you should ideally train that's not obvious: Siege Warfare. That 10% shield HP really makes a difference, when ganking on gates with multiple volleys you really always need more HP.

I'd quickly like to address pulling with shuttles: that's not what I normally do, I do normally just undock rookie ships from a pull station, but you happened to look at days when there were multiple squads spawned and I had to dump shuttles at offgrid bookmarks to get CONCORD off the gates. I could've made rookie ships for this but there were a lot of shuttles in stock in the system.

I stay in Sivala between ganks, white knights be damned. I'll chase people sometimes if necessary or move the gank up a gate, but mostly I stay in Sivala for the ganking.

Bookmarks: I have a fair few. Naturally like any -10 I have instas of both types, but for the gates I have offgrids to bounce at if I need to wait for a target, these are in the line of traffic so that I can use narrow and wide dscan to distinguish outgoing from incoming traffic.

For the gank itself I have bookmarks at two specific distances, which I really should increase to three but I'm lazy: 0 and 15km. The 0 is for artillery use and lets me warp to the gate from anywhere in the system and land at approximately the right point to have a decent amount of time in optimal with low transversal. The 15 is for targets I need to be on top of to gank with autocannons. The third distance I want is 10, for targets that I need to start ahead of to stay within autocannon range of during the gank. The 0 could actually benefit from being even closer to the gate than 0 maybe, but the other side of the gate is too far and you don't want to potentially bounce off the gate when you warp to it. Um this probably goes without saying but all the bookmarks are lined up with the other gate by making the brackets overlap with the tracking camera.

Range: I've found that shooting as the target passes 10km on my overview, slightly under 2km out of optimal is close to ideal for my lag and not too close to correct transversal. It might be different for you. Speaking of that, transversal: I manually pilot to correct transversal, which is mostly caused by warp variance when warping to the 0 bookmark. Bookmarks in space are so useful for this! I used to rely on pointing the camera at the gate and looking at the line to the selected ship to determine what direction I had to burn to fix transversal, but with bookmarks in space I can simply see where the bookmark is relative to my landing, that is so much easier.

Scouts: I like the Vigil for scouting thrasher ganks. It doesn't excel in any single area but has decent cargo, good scan res, decent agility, decent speed. I always warp the scout to the gate while I'm warping the thrasher to the gate, at 0 if I am only expecting blue loot and at 15 or 10 if I'm expecting yellow loot. If it's really important that I loot I might even take a second to make the scout approach the target. When scouting I use sort by radial velocity a lot.

I always ship scan any target which could potentially fit tank, even rookie ships although that's definitely paranoia on my part. I cargo scan shuttles if there's a lot of traffic or they wouldn't normally be targets, e.g. 575 m/s shuttles with no sec status at all would never normally be targets. I also cargo scan everything that I would need to break out the AC thrasher for or would probably or definitely not get the pod for if I use an artillery thrasher. I never cargo scan anything that I have already decided I'm going to kill. When there's plenty of traffic to choose from this normally means leopards or anyone with visible implants. When traffic's slim this can just mean the first shuttle I've seen in five minutes.

Quick note about implants: you probably already know this but base shuttle speed is 500 m/s, base pod speed is 150 m/s. There are a lot of notable speeds with implants, but basically 172, 180 an 187 are clean pods, 575, 600 and 625 are clean shuttles. 779 is full HG snakes, 653 is full genos to name the two most expensive other speeds. Also if you ever kill a ship and it seems unusually tanky, check the damage taken for slaves.

I do have an iteron mk 5 (ABSOLUTELY DO NOT RECOMMEND, THE HITBOX IS TERRIBLE, use a bestower instead) in station for when I hit an industrial, which is a bit of a pain and one of the reasons I don't like hitting them unless they're amazing. Regarding scooping yellow loot when everyone wants to kill you... well I probably don't have to tell you this, but the main technique is press warp then loot when nearly aligned. Sometimes I'll use fleet access to jetcans to keep the indy safe easily if I'm looting an industrial wreck, but looting with the indy itself isn't particularly hard unless you're getting bumped.

Hmm, what else haven't I covered. I'm probably forgetting a lot, but let's quickly talk system security: 0.5 and 0.6 should work just fine for three volley artillery thrashers even if unpulled. In fact even if CONCORD is on grid you can get a shuttle and pod in 0.6 just fine, though I suspect not in 0.7. The autocannon thrasher benefits from pulling in 0.6. In 0.8 you can still get a shuttle and pod if the system is unpulled, but I think two volleys followed by a pod may be too much. In 0.9+ you need to pull to get a shuttle and pod.

Oh and when using autocannons on autopiloting frigates, there's such a thing as being too close, manual piloting is a must.

Oh, IMPLANTS! Yours, not the target's!

SP-60x
SM-70x
Slot 8 is pretty irrelevant, a medium turret would honestly be best to use a cruiser with the same clone
SS-90x
WU-1003 as normal

Oh I forgot some of the most important information.

There are hmm five different ways to do this at -10.

A) Warp between gates until you get a target in range, kill it. Doable completely solo with just a thrasher, you will miss a lot of targets and get pointed by neutrals a lot but it's casual and works.

B) Warp between offgrids until there is incoming traffic (using a combination of wide and narrow dscans pointing at the gate as mentioned). Still doable with no scout, you spend less time in warp but can't distinguish manually piloted from autopiloting traffic until you land on grid. Less getting pointed by neutrals.

C) Stay in space warping between offgrids while the scout's next door monitoring incoming traffic. A short warp to the gate makes timing quite easy.

D) Stay in station, undock and warp to an insta then potentially offgrids then a bookmark on the gate. You need to know the timing based on how close the target is to the previous gate for your specific system and gates.

E) compatible with all of the above) Have an orca or bowhead full of thrashers at the gate. Warp to it and board one to gank regardless of your current criminal timer.

Minerbumping Blog "Prime" Posts

A thread originally started by Kalorned... I haven't bothered yet to collate all the information, but the basics are here. If you want more info, you can try talking to LvG.
--------------------------------------
Greetings all,

If you are a regular reader of the minerbumping blog, you would know that occasionally James makes 'significant' posts, meaning the posts are more than just another After Action Report and instead touch on issues surrounding clarification/elaboration on The Code as well as other issues that arise at the time it's posted. I like to think of these posts as the official lore/cannon for The New Order of High Sec, as they often provide James blessings on previously uncharted avenues of emergent gameplay. With that said, here is my collection of prime articles. If you have any other articles you feel should be listed, please let me know and if I agree I'll append them.

CODE Translations:
Russian: http://minerbumping.41656.x6.nabble.com/-td5955.html
German: http://minerbumping.41656.x6.nabble.com/The-Code-in-German-td5962.html

April 15, 2014 - Ignorance of The New Order and The Code is not an excuse for lacking a permit
In an otherwise standard after action report from agents Nu'adu and Pestario Vargas, James recounts the story of Taylor Who who's retriever was ganked while mining ice in a non-compliant manner. A common excuse used by angry miners after being ganked is that they were unaware of The New Order of High Sec and The Code. At the very end of the post, James declares that there is no excuse for ignorance, in no uncertain terms.
Originally Posted by James 315         
The New Order's presence is too big to ignore, even for a bot-aspirant. They don't need a "warning" before they get ganked. They've already been warned. Carebears of highsec, the time for warnings is over. The time for payment has come.

We must not fall prey to the arguments that new players are exempt from enforcement by virtue of ignorance. It is well documented that all High Sec residents young and old voted for James 315 as Savior of High Sec in a 100% democratic process. Many 'new' players in fact are not new at all, they only purport to be so as they believe it will gain them some advantage, such as having an agent look the other way while the miner violates The Code.

August 10, 2014 - Kills of the Week (Incursion Runners are Targets)
In an otherwise standard weekly Kills of the Week post James 315 broadens the official list of bot-aspirant activities performed in High Sec requiring mining permits to include inclusion runners. James writes about the behaviour of incursion running pilots, they fit inordinately expensive and fancy modules to their ships while going AFK in space between their massively imbalanced incursion sites appearing. Not only is the risk/reward balance of these incursion sites very imbalanced, the tendency of going AFK is the final nail in the coffin for these pilots.

June 19, 2014 - Yes, All Freighters Need Mining Permits
On the heels of CODE.'s primary FC loyalanon making an EVE-O post warning freighter pilots about the need for a New Order mining permit, many freighter pilots, anti-gankers, and rebels alike challenged this assertion that a permit was needed. Seeing the carnage and confusion, James 315 decided he needed to personally address the topic. In the article, James declares that flying a freighter in a number of styles, including but not limited to auto-piloting and flying without escort, are examples of bot-aspirancy which clearly violates The New Halaima Code of Conduct. Towards the end of the article, James also elaborates on permit display requirements, adding that it is the responsibility of a permit owner to ensure that they present their permit to Agents and any additional information needed to confirm the validity of the permit.

January 4, 2014 - CCP Study Vindicates New Order Philosophy
During the term of CSM8 Dr. EyjoG, the former Chief Economic Officer of CCP for the in-game market, made a presentation to the CSM concerning new player retention. The results of the study was that players who joined the game and immediately engaged in solo and/or PvE activities without ever encountering any other form of the sandbox or player communication were most likely to quit playing soon after. We can elaborate on this finding, and make an assumption that the same player who joins, mines for a few months, and then quits would never normally join a player-run corp anyways. With that in mind, when this individual is ganked, say by a New Order knight, we are forcing them to participate in other elements of the game, namely PVP. Contrary to what an anti-ganker or rebel may say, you can see how this level of engagement can only help in retaining more players. Knowing these same players would most definitely quit if nothing else happened, if even 10% of this subset of players who are ganked by The New Order are in some way motivated to action, whether joining The New Order or even becoming part of the rebel force, we can come to the conclusion that what The New Order does for New Eden has a net positive effect on player retention.

June 25, 2013 - The Secret Origins of the New Order
In this piece, James goes into far reaching detail about the days and weeks leading up to the June 24th declaration of The New Order of High Sec's creation. This article explains why the 10m ISK annual permit exists and why it is vital to The New Order's future existence and growth. Unfourtanately, since the article was posted, CCP contacted James 315 and required him to remove the images of CCP petition responses to which James obliged but kept a description of the responses intact.

January 1, 2013 - How the New Order Protects Your Democracy
A common refrain from miners when an agent reminds them of their vote for James 315 as the Savior of High Sec is one along the lines of "I don't remember voting in any election" - Assuming the miner gets over this initial obstacle of thought, they often challenge the agent, asserting that James election was illegitimate and, essentially, a hostile takeover of the democratic process. In the article James explains how democracy is actually being defended and in fact enhanced everyday by himself and his agents.

October 7, 2012 - The New Order Bathroom Protocol
James clarifies the AFK provision of The Code, further elaborating on what is expected of miners when they need to go AFK to use the bathroom. In the post, James refutes the overly-broad accusation by non-compliants that The New Order requires miners to gain permission from an agent before using the bathroom. Rather, asking permission from an agent to use the bathroom is just another alternative option a miner may take if he wishes to remain AFK in space. A miner is not required to ask permission to go to the bathroom provided they dock up first before going AFK.

August 10, 2012 - Clarification on the meaning of "AFK", and the allowance of agents to AFK cloak in space
The post elaborates on the problematic forms of being AFK. To begin with, James makes very clear that an agent idling AFK in space is not a violation of The Code. James moves on to specify out that the only form of AFK that is in direct violation of The Code is when mining is involved.
Originally Posted by James 315
Once again, this makes perfect sense. We would not, for example, threaten to bump someone who was AFK while docked in a station. Nor is it bot-aspirant behavior to be AFK while docked. Mining in highsec is the only situation in which being AFK is problematic.

While The Code is very much open to interpretation by agents while enforcing, we must also be careful not to contradict James himself. A permit holding miner who is AFK in a station, for example, is not in violation of The Code and should not have his permit revoked. The New Order seeks to reform High Sec players, enforcing a play style that forces people to pay attention to their game. We must ensure that our enforcement of the AFK provision is sane; should we begin revoking permits for silly reasons like being AFK in a station not only are we saying James is wrong, we are discrediting the validity of the permit, which hurts our overall goal of reform.

How I got my Avatar.

Originally Posted by Super Perforator 12-10-2014 at 12:37 (208 Views)    
So here is the story of how I got my Avatar (Forum Avatar... not the Titan that looks like a dildo).

I was created shortly after the banning of Erotica1 (I chose the hairstyle so I could remember her... even if it meant wasting a few precious hours training an Amarr to fly Gallente).

Back then I cut my teeth in Gamis, although I was not really powerful enough to do any serious damage. The Derelik region had a few active white knights, and they would try and interfere with what we were doing. Every so often I would get podded. I became fascinated with the "corpse in space" and wanted desperately to get a good frontal shot.

April 15th 2014: White Knight Svarii managed to activate a kill right on me. Having checked out his killboard (zkillboard.com/character/276758740/), and seeing that it was then mostly "red" I decided to undock in my pod a few times, and see if I could get a "frontal shot". Eventually I succeeded, as you can see.

Venture Hunting is Fun!

Originally Posted by  Super Perforator 02-01-2015 at 20:37 (789 Views)    
So there I was, sitting around in Alakgur, waiting for something to do. I spawned CONCORD and sent my scout off hunting for CODE violators whilst I waited for the criminal timer to wear off.

After the last couple of months enforcing there, the locals are slowly getting used to me. Normally after I log in something like this happens:

[17:43:39] Korvel Valkor > if you're in a retriever, there's a good chance you'll get ganked

Anyway, after a couple of minutes, bingo! A Venture shows up on DSCAN. Checking out the character (he did not change the name of his ship, so spying him out was easy) I saw a 3 day old character, that had just joined a new, 3 man corps. Best of all, he did not have a permit!

He was orbiting an Asteroid, as fast as his skills would let him. So I warped in on top of him and confiscated his illegal mining equipment.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/43558868/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/43558890/ (sadly a bully pod - empty).

I posted my triumph in local chat, and a corpsmate of the bot aspirant miner responded:

[17:46:25] Super Perforator > Kill: Spinner Mask (Venture) Kill: Spinner Mask (Capsule) no permit! http://www.minerbumping.com/
[17:46:45] Zac Steel > Oh my.

(Admittedly not very exciting, but it proved that someone was awake!)

I then docked up, pulled CONCORD out the belts and sat there writing him my standard "Your Recent Venture Loss in Alakgur" mail, complete with the bonus information, that orbiting alone is never enough to keep you safe. Shortly after the mail was sent, whilst I was refitting a Cat, the miner's CEO requested a conversation:

[ 2015.01.02 17:58:08 ] Super Perforator > o7
[ 2015.01.02 17:58:14 ] Lorniao > o/
[ 2015.01.02 17:58:34 ] Super Perforator > What can I do for you?
[ 2015.01.02 17:59:21 ] Lorniao > I'd please ask of you to refrain from continued contact with my friend. Just started out and is still on a trial account.
[ 2015.01.02 18:00:34 ] Super Perforator > Ok. I wasn't planning on continuing contact. Unless he carries on mining without a permit, and I happen to see him. Don't worry, I am not going to actively stalk him!
[ 2015.01.02 18:01:08 ] Lorniao > When'd ya'll start doin the permits?
[ 2015.01.02 18:01:13 ] Super Perforator > 2012
[ 2015.01.02 18:01:40 ] Super Perforator > 10 Million ISK for 365 days.
[ 2015.01.02 18:02:01 ] Lorniao > I got wind of the email.
[ 2015.01.02 18:02:21 ] Super Perforator > http://www.minerbumping.com/ - more than 2 years of policing High Sec...
[ 2015.01.02 18:03:10 ] Lorniao > Gotta stop those pesky Carebears, right?
[ 2015.01.02 18:03:37 ] Super Perforator > got to sell permits, to stop the evil of bot-aspirancy from spreading, yes.
[ 2015.01.02 18:05:58 ] Super Perforator > if he is going to rely on orbiting as a defence, he should stay in 0.8 and above...
[ 2015.01.02 18:08:25 ] Lorniao > Fly safe

Well then, I went back to work and sent the scout out flying. We spotted a retriever hanging around in belt VIII-1, and the scout went in closer for a look. What do you think he found??

https://zkillboard.com/kill/43559834/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/43559860/

That is right. It was the corpsmate of my last venture, hanging around in the belt in a ship with a bonus to mining yield. Naturally faced with such an opportunity, I had to take it (after all, CODE. is Elite PVP!), ignoring the retriever. Sadly another bully-pod, but you cannot have everything.

This kill gave rise to an email exchange that is actually not worth listing, because there was nothing special about it... but you can see that hunting Ventures is not just about confiscating illegal mining equipment, and trying to save new players before they get stuck in the botting-ways... oh no! It can be the key that opens the door to other interesting possibilities!

Venture Hunting Has Paid Off

Originally Posted by Super Perforator 29-03-2015 at 18:58 (368 Views)    
Hello Everybody!

I have just been watching the YOUTUBE film of the security presentation from CCP at Fanfest...

(When I watched last year... I assumed those hair styles were an accident... a result of having to fill in for someone else at short notice... this year proved me wrong!!!)

I am pleased to announce, or reaffirm, that the VENTURE is no longer the most banned bot-mining ship! A singular New Order victory!

As a prize-winner in every New Order Venture Hunting Competition that has been run... I feel proud to have contributed to our victory.
Way back before the competitions, when I was using Coercers to gank Ventures in Balle.... people laughed at me (because I bought coercers accidentally whilst drunk-browsing the market in Dodixie). Maybe I will write a post... later... about the advantages of Coercers over Catalysts... for ganking Ventures.

And with the other great news to come out of Fanfest, that ganking actually HELPS rather than HINDERS "New Player Retention"... we can feel especially reinforced in our beliefs!! If the Venture was not a bot... then it was a new player, that we helped to retain!

Praise James!

This is not a blog!

This is not a blog.
This is not meant to be a blog.

With the official CODE. Alliance forums undergoing some... difficulties... this is simply meant to be a collection of important information / posts for NOL / [NHCOC] members.

That is all.