What he means is that an interceptor that chooses to engage can be killed, which is true but irrelevant to the discussion.

No no no!

If you have a HIC, two remote sensor boosting ships(because inty's are hard to lock fast), a 90% web ship (this is incase the inty crashes the gate), a keres, eos boosts for locktime and scram range, a dps ship (perferably with another remote sebo ship supporting), and a bumping/decloak ship. You can in fact catch one or two ceptors on a gate if the server ticks align perfectly. (With a 6k scan res keres)

It only takes 8-9 ships and a bit of luck!

Sorry if I gotta bolt after this for a while, but I was trying to has out the idea that if the time on station is made much longer (and no warp off and come back junk) to steal from the structure, then the ceptors end up not being a threat (to income) as long as you have some kind of fleet in the area to chase them off. That's where the newbie training fleets idea comes in.

My bad. From my reading of his post, he seems to be encouraging "home defense forces" as a "perfect thing to have an alliance's newbies do while they learn the game." All this would teach GSF newbies is that there's no point in try to defend, as any fight the newbie could win a (rational) interceptor pilot would choose not to have and any fight the interceptor would win would result in the death of the newbie.

Jesus. Trying using something other than gate camps to deal with interceptors. "Can't be caught by gatecamps" is not equivalent to "can't be caught".

You keep using this word "nullbear" I am curious if you would be willing to define it?

Ratting ships are very specialized PvE ships not cut out for PvP, expecting a ratter to openly engage in PvP means they are either stupid, suicidal, bait fit, or earning terrible isk. Non-bait ratters are ALWAYS going to run from PvP ships as both parties know who is going to win the encounter, while the people looking to kill the ratters rarely hang around for the ratters to switch into PvP setups anyways.

Not that any of that is particularly important because when these ratters are looking for fights, they go and do it away from their money making systems. The phrase "Don't **** where you eat." comes to mind. You speak of "nullbears" as people who will do nothing to defend their space, when in reality denying kills and fights to hostiles is exactly what is best for defending their space. If you get fights, you come back. If you face nothing but boredom and ratting ships watching you from the safety of a pos shield, you go somewhere else.

I don't insist a person PvE'ing attempt to engage us in PvE fit ships either. What I want to see is raid-able farms and fields where you get benefits for harvesting but only if you defend it from others harvesting it first.

1.) The amount in the ESS is proportional to the number of ratters in system. So the rewards for raiders will be most in systems filled with enough players to properly defend it. Spending 10 minutes in a system with a local population of 1, just to recover 20m isk in loot is not worth your time, unless you are only 1 or 2 players, because the local will not bother to defend it otherwise.

All one really has to do is check the killboards to see someone's motivation on the ESS topic.

http://www.agony-unleashed.com/killboard/index.php/pilot_detail/294286434/kills/

Surprise, surprise you like to cloak gank at very favorable odds

or engage relatively helpless ratters or mission runners.

The ESS doesn't give someone in null sec something to defend, it simply gives you (at least you are hopeful) a way to make some passive isk income while pvping. Hoping that it goes unnoticed perhaps?

May I suggest using empire alts like 90% of the rest of EVE has to do?

This is the "farms and Fields" we've all mostly been screaming for isn't it?

If you can't catch them on a gate with plenty of time to prepare and 8-9 ships hand picked for the task worth billions of isk, where and how exactly are you going to catch them?

No. No it isn't.

Most nullsec systems can't support more than 2-3 ratters at once, the very best can pack in five or so(but who will feel very crowded there).

Chase them. If they ever plan to do anything except warp gate to gate, a decent pilot can catch an interceptor.

If this is what CCP thinks we mean by "Farms and Fields," there has been a stunningly large miscommunication between CCP and the player base.

1.) I acknowledge the risk is imbalanced: It is too quickly accessed (meaning the locals don't have time to defend it), and its bonus is negligible compared to the upfront bounty reduction, especially in regards to the difficulties defending it. However, these can be resolved as ccp tweaks the access time and the payout rewards.

2.) You would only put up a hostile ESS in a bot's ratting system (until the computer programs become smart enough to recognize and destroy them). The only way this concept works (in its current form) is if the ESS's benefits make it worthwhile for you to deploy for yourself (see point 1).

3.) SBU's are not small gang entities, and not relevant to this discussion.

How does this get you fights? It encourages the locals to form up and fight you to defend their ESS bounty pool. It also gives them a limited time for response which limits the magnitude of their response. Finally it has small rewards, which means any hostiles accessing the ESS for isk will be encouraged to do so in small, engage-able numbers.

This is a game design problem... and CCP needs to address it pronto. Still, most high-value systems are clumped together. As such, while there may be 2-3 in a single system, they should be able to form up by utilizing neighbor ratters too.

This fits past descriptions of "Farms and Fields" pretty well. It just doesn't have a big enough payoff.

CCP and the CSM agreed about the need for more small gang activities and targets to disable (GÇÿFarms and FieldsGÇÖ) - not necessarily more structure shooting, which is boring. Stealing moon goo from harvesters was one idea.

After reading the 20+ additional pages I am glad to see that we are finally addressing the topic of small gang warfare. I believe that allowing small gangs to disrupt null sec industrial (ratting) areas is a good idea. It seems like this is part of CCP's overall plan for adding "Farms and Fields" to null sec.

There's a big difference between "Fitting the description" and being something that's of value and going to be used. Anyone who has done any requirements/project management is familiar with this concept.

If you use an ESS as a ratter your income will be higher than pre-1.1. If hostiles enter the system you have various choices in how to respond, some of them can lead to fights, it-¦s up to you. Don-¦t assume that anyone that stumbles into the system will automatically be able to steal everything, again, the likelihood of this is up to you. It-¦s only a nerf if you choose it to be.

Yes, and most of that boils down to "ratters are cowards and will vehemently oppose anything which negatively impacts their ability to be cowards".

Please spend more than 10 seconds looking at my KB before making a judgement:

We were a 6 man frigate/cruiser gang, and a 40 man BNI fleet came into the area to pick a fight with Usurper. So we swapped to bombers and attempted to lay out a trap, which their FC smartly avoided (mostly).

An alt corp of one of our members was wardecced by Shadow Squadron. We asked them politely to drop the wardec and leave the corp alone, but they insisted following through with their attack. As such, Agony joined the war as an ally, smashed Shadow Squadron's POS, after which they dropped the war.

I primarily partake in solo and small gang warfare, quite often outnumbered and facing superior forces. Nothing on my killboard will bring shame to me, so attack it all you want.

I make my isk through many avenues: I belt rat & run plexes in nullsec, I'm involved in t2 production in Highsec, PI in nullsec, and if I need lots of isk quickly I mission run or incursion in highsec. The truth is, I don't care about the isk-tag getting dropped. I care about motivating the locals to do more than dock up for 5 minutes.

Yes, and most of that boils down to "ratters are cowards and will vehemently oppose anything which negatively impacts their ability to be cowards".

So you agree that it is too conservative?