Indices, now they actually have meaning...

Ever since the last re-vamp of sovereignty in 2009 with Dominion, EVE has had an index system within player controllable null security space.

These indices in the past lead to the number of anomolies/ore sites as well as the quality/volume of them appearing in a given system.  Military index has always been tied to ratting (killing red crosses) and Industry has always been tied to volume m3 of mining.

Certain systems have always been consistent with their indices, others have changed over the course of time.  This could be to changes in owners, level of PVE activity within the holding entity, and finally renters.

With the dev blog release on Tuesday from @CCP_Fozzie, we now see that the plan is to provide additional incentive to actually use the space that you hold.  Each system has a base timer for attacking forces to take advantage of the Entosis module.  System structures (TCU, iHub, Station) have a base time of 10 minutes.  Station services have a base timer of 5 minutes.  For each level that your indices are at, it increases the amount of time that the attacking force must spend to gain control over the object being targeted.

There is some speculation in the community regarding what will be done in the future with null sec residents.  As mentioned earlier, there are systems with high index levels, and there are some with nearly zero.

This map was taken as a screenshot on Tuesday roughly 10 hours after the blog was released.  The systems with colors in white or highlighted in green have nearly no ratting activity.  It is possible that there is mining taking place, but no matter what the residents of Tenerifis are not taking advantage of their systems.

This will be the key in the future.  The changes to sov mechanics now mean that more alliances will be able to engage in sov warfare even without having a massive super capital fleet at their disposal.  However, to maintain that space and make it as difficult as possible for an attacking force to attempt to take over you actually need to use your space, both mining and ratting.

I for one am very excited about these changes and I look forward to engaging in activities where we can turn over an apple cart or two in null sec.  A Band Apart. official has no interest at this time in taking sov space.  However, we are all about content and looking for it wherever we can find it.

First Step in the Death to the Donut

Just this morning, CCP released the latest development blog for Nullsec Sovereignty, if you have not taken a look yet, please head over there and take a look.

There are many aspects of this proposed change which is scheduled for June 2015 which are very appealing, but the one which jumps out immediately are the defensive bonuses applied for actual use of your system.

The current model of indices are tied to Military (killing red crosses) and Industrial (mining).  All of player controlled sovereignty uses this model and the higher the level of indices the more red crosses and ore sites will appear in system for you to take advantage of.  With the new model, all of this is still accurate from the PVE side of the equation, but the defensive bonuses of system are tied directly to these same indices as well.

So, to actually gain defensive bonuses above the standard times required for attacker you will actually have to make use of your system.

Where this really helps in sov warfare is that there are huge areas of null sec where systems are not in use at all.  No shooting of red crosses, no mining, literally nothing outside of jumps in and out of system.  So, all of these systems immediately become ripe targets for invasion.  This also makes it much easier for smaller alliances to take footholds into null sec and take advantage of that game play if they have ever considered it previously.

This initial blog and the potential it provides is spectacular.

Already the thread of tears is at an all time high for even the first few pages, and the twitter posts are quite fun as well.

I for one am very excited about the potential for these changes and hope that the spectacular success of Phoebe is brought forward into these changes as well.

New Bro Exploration Tip of the Week - Perches or How To Survive a Bubble....

There is a unique mechanism allowed in null security and wormhole space, Warp Disruption. This is either in the form of a probe (launched from an Interdictor), a generator (a module on a Heavy Interdictor) or a mobile variant (anchored in space).

The Warp Disruption field has a unique characteristic that prevents a ship from initiating warp (unless you are an Interceptor, T3 with Interdiction Nullifier Subsystem or have a Micro Jump Drive). All other ships and T3's will not be able to initiate warp while within the bubble.

There is another characteristic of the Warp Disruption field, and that is the ability to stop a ship which is in warp or to "pull" a ship beyond the intended landing place (a gate or wormhole). The field needs to be in direct alignment with the point you are warping from, and must be active PRIOR to you initiating warp. If the field is present, in alignment with your position and up before you initiate warp, you will warp to the edge of the bubble and be stopped. The most frequent example of this is getting a "bubble" in place 100km off of a gate or wormhole. This way, when you warp to the gate/hole you are stopped 100km away. You are too close to warp to the gate, and it will take a very long time to slow boat to the gate/hole.

In order to prevent this from occurring you will want to create a tactical perch off of the gate/hole. The perch can be technically anywhere, but you want to be at least 150km or more away from the gate/hole, so that you can warp from the perch to the gate/hole. There are ways to create the perch using celestials, but guess what Mr. Sabre pilot does, he will account for celestials as much as he can. It is best to create a perch which IS NOT in alignment with any celestial.

The way that I do this is to look into space, specifically for a place with no celestials. I double click in space to start moving my ship, and activate MWD. Note - this is best handled by an interceptor or very fast frigate. If you use one of those, you will have a perch in 15-20 seconds. Get to a point greater than 150km away from the gate/hole and create a bookmark.

If you live in a wormhole, every hole should have at least one perch, if not two. For null sec, you will want a few around a gate.