I think the Spartans put it best, GÇ£If.GÇ¥.
Whilst in general terms the gameplay could be described as sandbox in style the reality is that the implementation has always gone beyond that of a sandbox and it has always had to.



I think it has long been accepted that financially speaking the only winner is James 315, it is a good business for him. For everyone else the only new thing seems to be the slightly misguided belief that some new market has been created when in reality all that has happened is that a certain set of player behaviour has been grouped together under a single term. The business of disruption has a long history and simply reflects the reality that industrial game play is not necessarily as passive as it may appear to be on the surface.

A lot of irritation is actually rooted in the use of NPC or tiny player corps. Effectively there is an alliance with none of the cost or risk. The structure used by the bumper alliance in fact makes it cheaper and more practical to declare war on Goonswarm. This structure prevents industrialists from paying mercenary organisations to provide a more militaristic response than a Retriever will ever manage. Mercenaries are therefore not really a part of this food chain, certainly they are not able to make the amounts of isk that they would be able to on a level playing field.


Making considered observations of a suspected bot and then using the in game reporting system is the only effective way to take action against a botter. That is the only in game mechanic that deters botting.
I had always assumed that there was meant to be humour in the statement GÇ£Bot-aspirant behavior is not permittedGÇ¥ but there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding as to what a bot is aspiring to be. Why would the bot sit still while a gank capable ship approached it.

The issue is not so much if something should happen when two ships collide it is how that should fit into the rock/paper/scissor model that is typical of Eve.

IGÇÖll refer you to page 1 for a fairly clear statement about what is and is not considered harassment.

No, I complained that they were in NPC or tiny player corps. As your caveat eludes to, it would be easy for me to demonstrate that some are in NPC corps.
Just to be clear though, I have never claimed where the majority are and for the purposes of my point it would have been more beneficial if they were not located in NPC corps.

Kainotomiu has provided evidence that I need to expand what I said to include hiding in larger corporations which I am happy to do. The source he has quoted (in ball park maths) suggests that to war dec the twenty or so bumpers listed you would have to go to war with somewhere in the region of 13,000 chars, the actual targets being less than 0.2% of the people you would be at war with. That passes any test for being impractical to do. Doing so would certainly exceed the war dec price cap, something that puts TEST, Goons etc. at a disadvantage comparatively. That is why I proposed that it created an imbalance.

I must confess that my original point was largely inspired by a post made by the bumper messiah himself; I wasnGÇÖt expecting the theology department to have such a differing view on a tactic that has more traditionally been bundled as a part of emergent game play.

I have demonstrated that the majority are not in a single corporation/alliance as was claimed by admiral root. I have never said that the remainder were all in NPC corporations, the truth is that some of them are, some of them are in tiny player corporations, some are a part of larger unrelated player organisations and a minority of them are in CODE..



Personally I try to pay most attention to the column in the middle rather than the one on the left; the content is much more relevant. This posting alt is in an NPC corporation, I am of the opinion that in certain matters you should be able to post as an account holder rather than an in game character, certainly where game rules are called into question. The best effort I can make toward that is to remove any indication of my in game affiliations in order that they do not bias the interpretation of any comments I make. The point is to be able to have a reasonable discussion without having to resort to insulting groups of players.

And I've said that if your analysis comes out that yield is better for your level of risk tolerance, that's fine. You are more than welcome to not tank your 200m ISK investment. But you don't get to whine when you get ganked or claim that you cannot protect yourself because you chose not to.


Sure you do. You move more cargo in less trips if you risk more in each trip.
10 Freighter runs @1b each is safe, but slow.
1 Freighter run @10b is fast (well... you know what I mean), but unsafe.

Up to you to decide on the balance.