EVE Fanfest 2016 - Wormhole Space: 7 Years Down the Rabbit Hole

[@VladTheImploded]

This presentation was put together really well. Good job dude.

[@mrspidey80]

The main thing to take away from this is that the corp icon with the golden star surrounded by 8 smaller ones is way overused.

[@K162KingPin]

You have a pretty good WH history here. Though I would point out at least one discrepancy that I was first hand witness to. Guillotine Therapy or "Rooks and Kings" as their alliance was known was destroyed by Aperture Harmonics. Rooks and Kings had a member on the CSM as well though he didn't get credit as being a WH CSM like Two Step did because they were primarily considered a Low Sec alliance. Their CSM leaked them some information about some very wierd effects in our home system that they thought they could take advantage of to evict us. Specifically our CEO had filed several petitions to the effect that EWAR was not working right because of the 100% EWAR bonus in "Magnetar" wormholes and that properly used it would be near impossible to defend against. For example you could use a tracking disruptor on a "FRINEDLY" ship and instead of disrupting his tracking you gave him perfect tracking. You could use a sensor dampener with a scan resolution script on a friendly vessel and he could insta lock a pod while flying a dread. You could even use a remote sensor dampener with a targeting range script on an enemy vessel and reduce their locking range to absolute zero. As sensor damps were never intended to be used as a means of permanently jamming someone this definitely seemed overpowered to say the least. Our CEO had forbid us from taking advantage of any of these unusual EWAR effects in PVP unless we had evidence that an enemy force was using them against us first. He had also received multiple petition responses after explaining these effects in great detail to the GMs that "the wormhole mechanics are working as intended" and "that it is not considered and exploit". So we had GM approval that everything was fine and we could use it yet we were still not allowed by our CEO to use it in PVP unless the other guys did it first. So here we are with rumors flying around that Rooks and Kings are preparing to evict us from our C6 Magnetar home sytem and that they are busying testing some stuff that their CSM member told them about on Singularity (the test server). We all knew immediately what had happen. Somehow their CSM member had gotten wind of the unusual EWAR effects in the C6 Magnetar but he didn't know that it was our CEO who had reported it. He obviously ignored any non disclosure agreement he had made about sharing such information obtained through his CSM status with his corp and they were busy trying to figure out how best to use these effects to wipe us out. Sadly for them we knew every single effect the EWAR could have and they had apparently only discovered a few. In preparation our CEO had given us permission to prepare pvp ships for defense of our home to take full advantage of the EWAR bonsus. We drilled for several weeks to be sure everyone knew how to use them most effectively and yet we were still forbidden from actually using them until we had evidence that Rooks and Kings were using it first. Rumors aside we didn't really KNOW that they knew or what they planned to do. Several weeks after then intel that they were planning the attack we got a cloaky ship into their staging system and found that they had several allies with them and they were non stop rolling holes with a C6 static. It certainly looked like they were preparing to invade someone and since we lived in a C6 static it was pretty obvious they were looking for us. We prepared our NON EWAR defense fleet and prepared for them to connect. The first battle was very breif. They thought they just had bad luck to connect to us while we already had a fleet on standby. Our people scanned down their new wormhole to our system before they could get more than their scout through and we had a fleet in warp to the hole as they were jumping in. Most of them made it back out and they double jumped a carrier to close the hole but we did manage to kill a Falcon that had a full mid rack of remote sensor boosters with targeting range scripts loaded. Now for those who missed this. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to put "sensor damps" on a "falcon" unless they were planning to take advantage of the EWAR bonuses and use that ship as a permajammer. In short we had caught them Red Handed. After that fight our CEO gave us the green light to use our own EWAR and show them how its really done. After a few extremely bloody battles were Rooks and Kings were slaughtered despite seriously outnumbering us they gave up fighting us in game and started fighting on the forums. They started smearing redit and evo forums with accusations that Aperture Harmonics are exploiters and that after throwing multiple fleets at us that "they" had finally reverse engineered our tactics and were going to tell them to the world. Needless to say we had made a lot of enemies in WH space. We had evicted dozens of corps from their systems. Taken billions in loot and ransom. And rarely considered any other group more than meat for the grinder. In sort we were good at eve. While we regret no ship we ever killed or any pos we ever bashed it didn't help us any in this situation. The mob had seen blood and they were raging on the forums. Rooks and Kings had convinced the masses that we had maintained our superiority by using these EWAR tactics throughout WH space. Nobody cared that there was not a single killboard record showing any of our ships fit like that in pvp before Rooks and Kings invaded us using the same. Nobody cared that the effects would ONLY work in a c4 - c6 magnetar which are incredibly rare. Nobody cared that we had proof that Rooks and Kings had used the EWAR against us not only first but also before they claimed to have "reverse engineered" our tactics. And NOBODY cared that we were the ones wo had reported this to the GMs begging it to be changed over 8 months prior before being told repeatedly by GM's and Senior GM's that "it is working as intended" and that it "is not an exploit". In the end CCP put a halt to all combat in our system for 2 weeks while the evaluated the situation. Aperture Harmonics was fined 100 billion isk a punishment for "exploiting". And the fine was forcibly collateralised by CCP theft of 100 faction pimped out T3 cruisers from all over our system. They claimed that because the T3s were in "corporate owned ship maintenance arrays" that they were corp property and so they didn't take anything from any players just the corp". They couldn't have cared less that the value of the ships they took was in excess of 150 billion isk. They only calculated the value of the hull and the sub systems and ignored any modules fit. They also couldn't have cared less that they were player owned ships and NOT corporate assets. Until very recently the only way you could store a ship was in a POS hangar officially owned by the corp. So most members had their own POS for them or their friends and no one in the corp was under any disillusion that the items in each POS belong to the member who put it there. In short this was the absolute most SHIT move CCP could have done. They said the EWAR was working right. They said it wasn't an Exploit. We were invaded by Rooks and Kings who were using it against us before we responded with the same. We absolutely would have lost our entire system if we hadn't responded in kind. And yet due solely to the public outcry Rooks and Kings and stirred on up the forums CCP Grimmy took it upon herself to ignore all previous petitions and responses assuring us that there was nothing wrong with it. Declare that we had knowingly exploited and steal 100 of our T3 cruisers from individual members as collateral for a 60 billion isk fine. She even returned all of the ships that Rooks and Kings had lost against us up to this point. Many of the T3s that were stolen by CCP belonged to members who had not even been involved in EWAR part of the fighting up to this point. So we took up a collection to pay of the 60 billion which took less than a day. Basically members loaning money to the corp. We set our corp tax at 50% for 2 weeks and had all the money paid back to the members. Reset the tax back to 8% and waited for CCP to figure out what to do about the EWAR problem which again we had asked them repeatedly to do 8 months prior. They ended up finally removing the EWAR bonus from all Magnetars and gave us the green light to resume fighting. Shortly after Rooks and Kings with their allies managed to get another direct connection to our home system and in poured their fleet. We had everyone we could ready to meet them. No Ewar this time we had a conventional fight on our hands. We were outnumber at this point almost 4 to 1 but we had a significant advantage is training and capitals. We were very comfortable at this point using lokis to web sleepers while dreads blew them away and carriers kept them alive. We dropped so many carriers and dreads on their heads there was literally nothing they could do but run. On top of that most of their fleet was typical null sec fits. Very few ships were pimped out with faction or officer modules while all of ours was. Very quickly the losses started adding up. We were taking loses too but we were killing at least 5 to one and hadn't lost a single capital ship. On top of that anyone who got out with thier pod could reship and be back on the field in less than a minute. Worst of all for Rooks and Kings we had a super rare direct to high sec wh in our system that day which was only a few jumps from where most of us had our death clones. Again no death clones in WH space back then. So I like several others did get podded but I woke up only 5 jumps from being back in system ready to fight again. In the end we would have won either way but this high sec connection made their defeat all the more crushing. Out of space. Will Continue in comment.

[@K162KingPin]

Rooks and Kings thought they had inside information from their CSM. They thought they knew something about our Wormhole system that we didn't. They thought they could use the forums to get CCP to temp ban most of us while they steam rolled our system. Then finally they though 5 times our numbers could overcome our pimped out ships and countless hours of pvp practice and experience. They were wrong! After the final battle for Nova it was clear to Rooks and Kings, CCP, and anyone else who actually cared about the facts that we didn't need the EWAR bonuses to win. It also became blatantly clear that we were serious about wanted them removed all along because that was the only threat Rooks and Kings or anyone else actually posses against us. Our CEO put Rooks and Kings on notice that for their pathetic attempt to take our system through CSM collusion and smearing our name in the forums claiming we were exploiting that they were hereby evicted from all wormhole space for all time. They laughed it off assuming that they could defend their home systems as well as we could and that it was the only reason we had won against them. They even vowed to come back and "finish evicting us before christmass" which wasn't far away. Over the next three months we hunted down and wiped out Rooks and Kings 5 primary wormhole systems. They never once put up anything resembling a fight to save any of them. As we wiped out one system they initially tried to move to others but we found and evicted them from those as well. All the while others had taken up the banner in the forums showing that "even without EWAR Aperture Harmonics was still kicking Rooks and Kings out of wormhole space". In the end our reputation was forever smeared with the idea that we might have cheated. Rooks and Kings got the "hero of the little man" persona for a while but one lost system after another without a fight and that was replaced with "Rooks and Kings big talk, little action" and from there their corp and their entire alliance fell apart. A few months after this "Robert Hudson" our CEO had to drastically reduce his play time due to RL issues and turned the corp over to "Nalrin". Before long Robert wasn't playing eve at all any more. In fact many of the older members in the corp simply thought they had Won Eve. We all had 10's of billions of isk. Some hundreds of billions. 10's of billions of isk. TBH I didn't even get the "pvp shakes" anymore. I mean we pretty much always won and even if I lost a 2 billion isk ship it was a minor loss. Wormholes are 1/2 of all the star systems in eve and there was nobody left who could challenge us. In many ways we did win. A lot of the older members played less and less and eventually none at all. They started playing other games looking for the trill they once got from eve but for eve it was over. Nalrin allied us with No Holes Bared and started moving what was left of the corp into their system. Also a C6 Magnetar with a static C6 though with less moons so easier to defend. At this point I quit myself. In the end the rise and fall of Aperture Harmonics as the Second wormhole super power began and ended with Robert Hudson as CEO. Under his initial leadership we conquered the then reigning Wh super power CCRES claiming their mantle as our own. And in the end he lead us to victory against the most powerful invasion any WH system had ever seen up to this point when Rooks and Kings and their other allies failed repeatedly to evict us finally ending in their total eviction from any WH and the collapse of their alliance and corps. I have no doubt that if he had been able to stay in the game and remain our CEO your presentation would have been "First there was CCRES. Then Aperture Harmonics came along... and that's it. They own wormhole space now."

[@zanac76]

It´s all true, I was there for it. And it was glorious.

[@davidbolduc828]

Thank you for taking the time to explain things very clearly from an insiders point of view.

[@CptArmarlio]

Awesome presentation!

[@lesdan2029]

Enjoyed listening to that, thank you.

[@davidulanovsky8943]

First question was Scott Manley

[@sno0p3r]

I love the cape

[@Uberkamper]

Looking forward to the 2018 presentation

[@jasperwillem]

As a non WHer, I really enjoyed this talk, thx

[@bluespruce786]

Great presentation. The message re risk adversity+ as being detrimental / problematic is a good one. Nice work.

[@siegesquirrel42]

"We're trying to beat them up, they're beating us up, some of which continues to this day." EVE Online in a nutshell, folks.

[@MrChuckEVE]

W-space best space!

[@GhastlytheTinkerer]

Woo! Half Massed made the present-quarter list!

[@tomoaks9028]

Could someone plz link the WH panel?

[@Heliodan326]

I like your presentation.

[@Dakonaz]

nice presentation. one nite. in 2013 disavowed was not evicted from a c6. they join whale girth in their c5, and hrd knocks and ssc tried to evict that wh later in the year, and were not successful. this followed with an unsuccessful counter invasion of kill it with fires main home wh. it was a super interesting time in wh politics.

[@Patrick_from_Youtube]

Wow really in-depth research, awesome job mate! "Evicting medium (citadels) looks like its going to be a pain in the butt," well, not if you just find them in the first 24 hours!

[@complacentcitizen124]

space is the place

[@dragonshardz]

28:14 Whole Squid is still around dude what the hell are you smoking. E: Good to see OI still kickin' it!

[@Exooki]

+dragonshardz not according to their KB :\

[@dragonshardz]

+Exooki Maybe you should see the Hole Violence killboard. The people are still around, just under a different alliance~.

[@zdraco]

no more living out of a goddamn cardboard box and getting your shit stolen.. Yay citadels! Great video, thanks for all the hard work!

[@afumi4486]

I love POSes. :) I also have a slight problem.

[@quglins]

wow.. back in my day pos'es were about all you had in null

[@ChromeStriker]

Odin relevant \o/

[@asashahni9090]

7 years later, they are in low sec 😅

[@Enclav3]

Huh. I remmember the days when in TDSIN me and a guy called Alzuram rolled c5 statics just for the data sites, and ship wrecks from the radar sides. I dont think There ever was an easyer way to mak 500mil in less then 15min. After 2 whole days of farming you were plexed for the next year..

[@TheAnon03]

Should have at least given a shout out to the old WH coalition in your history talk. Yeah we were terrible but you fuckin led it!

[@aloneinjpn]

He has something on his shoulder... 😐

[@romainbocquet]

WHBOO \o/

[@daeganorlenard1270]

:( not on the list

[@Exooki]

+Daegan Orlenard who did I miss?

[@daeganorlenard1270]

Toxic Refug

[@jimmypge]

Drop Bears represent, Number 1 best losers!

[@ianm1586]

This has some wrong info lol

[@Loan--Wolf]

+Ian M i would say not so much wrong but it is pretty incomplete i come into eve in 2013 went into a wh SRS was a player they disbanded combined with TU

[@mikkosisu7625]

+Ian M like?

[@Edcognito]

ADHOCRACY gave Eve Bob!

[@bobbiestutsman8705]

Chi

[@astaced2922]

/

[@malimate2265]

Big BS

[@papaversomniferum5247]

Am I the only non-virgin who plays this game? Wth…. I was talking to someone who said they are wanting to become a girl… when they were born, and always will be, a boy…. It seems mental illness runs rampant in this game. But it’s okay, just gotta gank them until they quit!

[@Smokey420Greenleaf]

im betting this kid grew up home schooled, still lives in mommy's basement, and has never had a date in his life that wasn't with his cousin.