Time for a new thread - funding pvp and stuff

[avl90]

I've been running frigates (t1 only) with basic fittings (meta 1) around low-security space and also participating in faction warfare, all solo.

The primary objective is just to acquire a ton of exposure to the different ways people can get you, the mistakes one can make, etc. Losses are expected, in fact I don't think I've had a kill in weeks.

That said, my this is expensive. Firstly, it looks like just about everyone in the OMS-Tama pipeline is flying T2 gear. Many pilots are even rigging their ships. While many of these guys have good stats on their killboards, I can't imagine spending a dozen million ISK pimping an Incursus. But everyone else seems to be doing this. Secondly, I've not been able to escape reasonably reliably with my clone. Generally that adds ~1m isk a pop if I am podded.

All told I risk about 1.6m a fight in a basic T1 frigate with all meta-1 fittings.

I can afford this of course, thanks to L4's and market stuff. But MAN that is STEEP as an entry fee for basic PVP in the game. I can't possibly imagine sustaining this as a newer player. I also can't imagine sustaining PVP in more expensive ships, or with better fittings.

How do you guys do it? Are these guys with their T2 everything ships just buying ISK?

 

[Dr Zaius]

Do you want the honest answer or the BS answer you'll get from people on the official EVE forums?

 

[Dr Zaius]

I'm hardly a master of PvP, but I've been in my share of fights as well as well as doing some other things. In my limited experience, most people that brag about making money from PvP are lying, it's just that simple. If you PvP a lot, you're going to lose ships a lot. And this holds true regardless of whether you're flying solo or part of a group.

Flying solo is tough. The majority of my EVE experience has been as a solo player, and like most people the only way I found to make a regular profit is from missioning or scanning down pirate sites. The sad truth is that flying solo will result in far more losses than victories as far as PvP is concerned. True, a lot of pirates will brag about how successful they are and how many kills they get. But don't be fooled by that garbage because most of them are more forum warrior than anything else. Are there dangerous solo pirates out there? Yes, but there aren't that many because it takes considerable skill and in most cases they can make a lot more money doing something else.

Fleet warfare is a different animal. In my experience, PvP as part of a big fleet operation, while sometimes necessary to hold space, is just as unprofitable as solo PvP. For starters, many alliances have strict rules about salvaging wrecks after a large fleet engagement. This loot is supposed to go to the alliance to fund the ship replacement program or whatever, which leaves very little opportunity for members of the fleet to make ISK. In short, you're far more likely to lose a significant quantity of ISK in a fleet engagement than you are to make it.

Small gang warfare is a rare example where PvP can be profitable. But it's also hard work and can be very time consuming, plus there is no guarantee of profit here either. While a lot of players consider small gang warfare to be the Holy Grail of PvP in EVE Online, it's hard to get these gangs together regularly or to find a good places to operate where you don't get attacked by giant blobs as soon as you undock. Low-sec is the best bet.

The vast majority of active PvPers have at least one or two alts to make money in order to fund the PvP habit. They run L4 missions in high-sec, trade on the market, or are into manufacturing ships and equipment. All of these things can be quite profitable with enough time and effort. It also bears mentioning that most corporate leaders use their position to skim organization profits for themselves while the rank and file members do all the dirty work and are left scrounging for crumbs. It's easy to be an "elite," fearless PvPer when you have a virtually unlimited supply of funds from skimming the moon mining profits! And that's an accurate description of 99% of the corporations in the game. Very very few make any attempt whatsoever to fairly share the high level profit with regular members.

One other point that bears mentioning is that the thriving market for GTC sales isn't being fueled by casual players. Contrary to what some people will try to tell you, a lot of this activity comes from established PvPers who need quick ISK to fund their PvP habit. They won't admit that, of course, and will try to sell you the idea that all that GTC activity is coming from carebears and noobs. But it should be obvious to any reasonably intelligent person that risk-averse mission runners have their own source of steady ISK, and most casual players who are new to the game aren't going to be willing to spend significant sums of real money when a single GTC retails for about what it costs to buy an average Xbox game.

If you want to go out and PvP just for the fun of it and wreck ships for no reason, then you're going to have to find a some way to pay for it because the mechanics of the game don't favor this being profitable. Perhaps this is bad game design on CCP's part, but that's a separate issue.

 

[LT COL KILGORE]

Also most PVPers belong to a Corporation, the good ones reimburse your ship lose in Fleet Battles. I fought the whole Delve War on just reimbursement payments.

 

[Dr Zaius]

A well-run ship replacement program certainly goes a long way toward mitigating losses in PvP, but I wouldn't say it will generally make an otherwise unprofitable undertaking become profitable.

I guess the bottom line for me is that PvP is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If doing battle and destroying adversaries helps achieve a goal or generates ISK, then I'm all for it. But if it's just an opportunity to lose assets without any potential for gain at all, then it hardly seems worth it. Unless I'm just bored. An exception to this is home defense, which is necessary and helps indirectly generate ISK by safeguarding assets and providing access to rats/resources.

By themselves, killboard stats achieve nothing.

 

[LT COL KILGORE]

A well-run ship replacement program certainly goes a long way toward mitigating losses in PvP, but I wouldn't say it will generally make an otherwise unprofitable undertaking become profitable.

I guess the bottom line for me is that PvP is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If doing battle and destroying adversaries helps achieve a goal or generates ISK, then I'm all for it. But if it's just an opportunity to lose assets without any potential gain at all, then it hardly seems worth it. Unless I'm just bored. An exception to this home defense, which is necessary and helps indirectly generate ISK by safeguarding assets and providing access to rats/resources.

By themselves, killboard stats achieve nothing.

That is why Pirates fail. :laugh:

 

[Dr Zaius]

That is why Pirates fail.

True story. I pissed off some pirates mightily a while back. :umbrella:

Very foolishly, I undocked my carrier and was testing the fit on some rats in low-sec. I only planned to be out for a short time and I was keeping an eye on local. However, this was still an idiotic idea and I got what I had coming to me -- a lost ship.

But that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that when the pirates showed up, they refused to negotiate or offer a ransom. Instead, they demanded I eject and give them the ship. That'll be the day! I stood them off for some time, but they eventually wore my defenses down and I didn't need a crystal ball to know what was coming. So I called in my fighters, set the self destruct, and drank a beer while I waited. Since they wouldn't consider ransom, I'll be damned if I was going to hand over a carrier for free.

Since I destroyed the ship myself, it denied them a kill for their killboard (which pissed them off something awful) and they also got zero loot. If they hadn't been so damned greedy, I would have considered paying a reasonable ransom if they had demonstrated any hint of honor at all.

I lost a ship, which is a loss I deserved. But they got nothing, nada, zip.

BTW, they also failed to pod me.

 

[Reepicheep]

For me, trade is the answer. My trade alt makes somewhere in the order of 200-300 million ISK a week. That's plenty of replacement T1 frigates!

 

[avl90]

It's just that the isk-making part of the game is so incredibly dull.

 

[pward]

Something hit me as I read this thread, so I feel the need to comment even if it's slightly off topic.

When you're flying a fleet operation, be it offensive defensive or industrial, aren't you really just flying a "mission" for the corporation head? I keep hearing "I'm PvPing, when we invaded/defended/abused-those-roids/etc.", but really, your agent is just the fleet commander, and his payout isn't in ISK or LP at all... (Except if there's a reimbursement for losses, it's not like you get ISK/system captured or defended...)

I know there are times that a fleet op will share the rewards, but limit this observation to just those instances where the CEO says "the alliance will be attacking XYZ-PDQ at 1500 server time tomorrow, be there or else"... How much different is that than some Agent saying "the <faction> have set up a base in <system>, please go kill them"?

 

[avl90]

Yes ...

 

[avl90]

Ok, next question from me...

What amount of combined arms work and coordination is actually taking place in your Eve fights?

I have yet to find any at all. Small gang, solo, blob, you name it. It's just a mushing together of elements without any kind of coordination or punch/counter-punch. A DPS smorgasbord.

This goes for the videos I have seen as well. The tournament fights themselves appear to be won or lost in the "purchase screen" as it were.

 

[Dr Zaius]

I keep hearing "I'm PvPing, when we invaded/defended/abused-those-roids/etc.", but really, your agent is just the fleet commander, and his payout isn't in ISK or LP at all...

That's right. But what is the payout in these "missions?" In most cases there isn't any payout at all. You're just fighting so that the corp/alliance can expand its space and the alliance leaders can get even richer from the moon profits they refuse to share with the members.

I've yet to find a PvP corporation that shares any profit whatsoever with members. So while fleet ops may essentially be the same thing as running a mission, it's like running an extremely dangerous mission where there's no payout.

 

[Dr Zaius]

What amount of combined arms work and coordination is actually taking place in your Eve fights?

There seems to be more in small gangs than large fleets. I think in large fleet battles it's pretty obvious the FC has his hands full just trying to keep track of what's going on, let alone coordinate any really innovative tactics. Tactics generally consist of "primary ship X!" or something along those lines.

"Blob" warfare is an appropriate term on many levels.

 

[avl90]

Can you give me an example of small gang tactics you've seen?

 

[LT COL KILGORE]

There seems to be more in small gangs than large fleets. I think in large fleet battles it's pretty obvious the FC has his hands full just trying to keep track of what's going on, let alone coordinate any really innovative tactics. Tactics generally consist of "primary ship X!" or something along those lines.

"Blob" warfare is an appropriate term on many levels.

Have to disagree here, as most small gangs are just out to get ganks, while large fleet battles involve alot of tactics, what ships for the fleet to bring, right time to engage the enemy, setting up warpins for engagement, when to bring in the Caps or titan, should we hotdrop on an enemy fleet or use our titan to Jump bridge to gain a tactical advantage. Scouts, Logistics and EW will have there own squads or wings to get bonuses that can help in supporting the Damage Dealers.The fleet battles I have been involved in require coordination between the Scouts, Damage dealing ships with Logistic and EW ships of the fleet and coordinating with other alliance fleets to trap the enemy fleet. The Caps will be in a different fleet all together most of the time, so the two FCes have to work together. The FC has to make all these work together and use tactics that will help win the battle. You have to plan usually at least a day in advance, when is the best time to form the fleet to your advantage, intel on the enemy etc. These are all tactics. While the small gangs will just form a gang to go out and gank someone, not much planning or tactics involved in that. If you have been involved with these kinds of fleet battles you would know that.

 

[avl90]

I can see that there is something to decide about what ships to bring as well as when to warp in. I get the impression though that there is pretty much a single way to do both, with very minor variation on this.

Once a given set of ships are engaged, is there anything more to do than pick a distance, target your enemy and activate your modules?

 

[LT COL KILGORE]

I can see that there is something to decide about what ships to bring as well as when to warp in. I get the impression though that there is pretty much a single way to do both, with very minor variation on this.

Once a given set of ships are engaged, is there anything more to do than pick a distance, target your enemy and activate your modules?

Join these guys, http://tgrads.com/vision.html and find out :thumup:

 

[avl90]

Join these guys, http://tgrads.com/vision.html and find out :thumup:

Why don't you just talk about it here?

 

[pward]

Why don't you just talk about it here?

I think he's inviting you to join his corp and experience it yourself...