The siege of Gamma

[Omukuumi]

With the Athena update we decided to hold 3-4 alien cores, the goal being to test our ability to defend multiple cores.

The harsh reality of alien cores

In response, our enemies have put our cores in lockdown ~fifteen times, sometimes 4 on the same day, forcing us to organize ourselves well to allow everyone to come home from work, eat, take care of their family or simply rest. For having a minimum number of people at the end of each lockdown, just in case.

The ends of lockdown follow one another and still nothing on radars, the regularity required by this feature prevents us from pirating on asteroids or pipes as we did before, but the various changes have not reinforced either the interest of them, the motivation is therefore less and less perceptible and it becomes a chore to come and defend...

So we come to this evening of May 21, 4 cores are in lockdown;
Gamma, Theta, Iota and Zeta
Theta and Gamma are respectively under siege at 18:24 UTC and 18:56 UTC, knowing that it takes 20 minutes to secure a core without enemies, the timing is tight but nothing can tell at this moment that our enemies will take advantage of it...

A well thought out plan

18:36 UTC, Theta in siege but without contacts, when suddenly the announcement falls: "CONTACT ON THETA"
10 to 15 ships on radars, the fight is easily managed but a large part of our fleet is therefore in combat lock for the next 10 minutes, preventing warp, and an attack on Gamma begins to grow in our heads. Taking advantage of the combat lock to loot some of the enemy ships, meanwhile another group forms, alerted by the first attack and start moving in direction of Gamma.

18:58 UTC, Gamma in siege and the dreaded announcement drops: "24 CONTACTS ON GAMMA"
We are all surprised and at the same time excited, @here and @everyone appears on the various discords to call Legion for mobilization, we've been waiting for this moment for a long time, impossible to miss it!

We get together in voice, we regroup in the same place in game and we jump into the fray. Focus announcements follow one another, but more surprisingly, there are not 24 contacts but 50... 70... 100... (we reached 150 contacts on the radar at one point, allies and enemies). Several ships are dummys, but the enemy is really numerous, we will have to be disciplined and use our experience in PVP but also as a group.

The confrontation was complex, the previous patch broke the radars and transponders, impossible to sort the contacts on the radar and even less those who change their name like ours (our entire fleet bore the name "WONDU" on its ships), but LUA scripts save us and maintain some semblance of order in this nameless mess.

The station sees its shield descend little by little, an alt left on it allows us to follow it live, protecting the core is impossible without killing all our enemies, it must get out of the 10 minutes of combat lock to recharge its shield. It ends up being core, we manage to regain control, the core itself is not enough, we have to hold these 10 minutes. Unfortunately the timer is constantly reset, even after taking advantage of the fight; the dead ships then repaired by our enemies, the incessant comings and goings of small fast ships and those bearing our tag, it's almost mission impossible to prevent them from approaching, the fight drags on so long as we almost destroyed the entire enemy fleet.

The Liberation

"30 seconds left" (combat timer on alien core)
Announced in voicecom, still no hostile contact... When suddenly a M core appear, rushing to the alien core.
"15"
Some of our remaining forces are concentrated on him, the burst is violent but it's not enough.
"10"
He is at 80km from the core, almost dead but he still represents the last threat of these long hours of confrontation.
"OHNO OHNO OHNO HE IS SHOOTING [filtered] MY LIFE"
...
"IT'S REPAIRED"
Nerd screams, phew of relief, Legion held on but not without difficulty.

A big GG to everyone, even if the game is clearly not the most pleasant for PVP currently, it's events like this that make the game live. Bravo for the organization, the execution and the destruction of the core. We had a lot of trouble keeping our precious plasmas

Some stats about those fight
The opposing forces: Legion vs "Empire, BOO, CVA, Penrose, CYT, IC, CRN, MSI, SB Nation, UA and I think another 1 or 2, just a handful from each, think IC had the most, but mostly new to PvP"
+/- 150 ships involved
~40 Legion members at the end
More than 3 hours of fight
45+ wrecks still close to Gamma this morning
Very very little amount of stasis
Too much ammo fired
Too much kills
Not enough transponder xD
 

 

[CousinSal]

If this is pvp game has no chance when release comes.

[blazemonger]

 

Thanks for showing/confirming that Alien cores only have resources to harvest as an excuse. They are meant/designed for combat PVP content first and foremost with no justification without a PVP objective to bother with them.

 

Not saying that having that type of content in game is good or bad, I have no opinion on that either way. But it's not what NQ claims it is.

[Heartbeat1]

 

[CousinSal]

26 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

 

Thanks for showing/confirming that Alien cores only have resources to harvest as an excuse. They are meant/designed for combat PVP content first and foremost with no justification without a PVP objective to bother with them.

 

Not saying that having that type of content in game is good or bad, I have no opinion on that either way. But it's not what NQ claims it is.

 

It's NQs motive. They moving pvpers as far away from the other part of the game as they can. Pvp in DU doesn't co-exist with all the other mechanics.  Only redeeming factor of DU or main selling point is the single shard, where everyone lives in same shared universe.  But NQ purposely segregates gameplay.  I don't envision any scenario where more players than they currently have will play and pvp after wipe and release.  

[Msoul]

Really awesome to see some more fleet vs fleet pvp. Thanks for sharing and best of luck to both groups in your next engagement.

[Metsys]

well, despite what people outside of the PvP crowd think, this was actually hella fun!
The bugged radars and transponders frustratingly made this incredibly difficult and challenging to see who the enemy is, and who might just one of your allies.

We had ships from S to M to L sizes all represented, from the small cross section fast strike crafts to the larger L core battleships. We saw smaller ships trying to utilize their higher max speeds and we saw the bigger ships using their voxel to tank. It was a slug-fest the kind we haven't seen before and that brought excitement with it among us PvPers.

Personally I chalked up 8 kills (2x S, 5x M, 1x L) that I either partook in or even decidedly have gotten myself, but among the stress and hectic of the battle I couldn't save the positions on several of the wrecks from those that tried to flee the engagement zone but did not make it. I am sure there are still lots of wrecks like this, spread round the Alien Core.

 

We had up to 150 constructs, cored or not, directly around the Alien Core battle zone. With all the fighting slightly around it, it might be yet more that were directly engaged in the fight.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Metsys
edit reasons are stupid, I edit however I want

[Mulligan]

Some of the most fun I have ever had in DU. Been waiting for something like that for years. GF to everybody involved hope we get a lot more like that 

[Caerus]

Glad everyone enjoyed it, between Deadrank, myself, with help from Zer0krypt and Mukkbarovian a lot of time was spent crafting a strategy (including the spoof attack and hitting alien cores incessantly), building ships (for those new to PvP and the dummy ships-jettisoned via lua Dead wrote), organizing the participants (only 75% of those who committed actual made it), and detailing the timeline of where we needed to be when to hit the 20 min alien core timer window. We almost missed the time due to a construct not parked properly in the carrier preventing warp, but made it all work. Kudos to everyone on both sides, was a blast!  **Also thx to the orgs that supplemented the $1B+ Corrrino [CRN] spent!

[MasterDragon]

This was really Fun , Even with the broken parts that we had to deal with. But I think Its also to say a Thank you to NQ as the server really held up well during the battle with minimal lag problems.

[Omukuumi]

Yep, major problems during this encounter was: Transponder didn’t works, radar sometimes shutdown, desync in close/mid range and that’s all, from my side

 

I still hope they add colored icons and make the icons/range of our target more visible when there are 20+ grouped in the same place in 3rd person

[Koffye]

I hope they will adjust the Base Shield Generator behaviour, that not again the Combat timer of the Alien core will unnecassery get extended for multiple hours.

[Palis Airuta]

As a non PvP player let me say that this was pretty amazing. Interestingly it seems, there is a lot of strategy, planning, logistics, subterfuge, all the elements that make combat quite compelling. Two things stood out, one was we all had a great time, lots of laughs interspersed with OMG nooooo.... Secondly the servers didn't seem to miss a beat with 150 ships on grid engaging each other. Sure there are bugs but pretty smooth gameplay. Still thinking about it two days later and cant wait to get back out there. 

[EasternGamer]

Other than it was a great fight, I'd like to say it is your choice for you to monopolize as many alien cores as you do. Also, it's significantly more difficult for everyone else to get to these cores than you do. (Because of the apparent warp beacons of some form allowing travelling to be much quicker there)

So if it's a chore, it's your choice for it to be like that due to the number you have to defend. I don't see the problem.
Though, if it's a chore to you, maybe a good idea is to give an idea on how it can no longer be a chore, so that if the devs care or not, they can actually get an idea of solutions from the player perspective.

Other than that point, where you complained about a choice you as a group decided on, it was a great fight. I actually enjoyed the no-transponder gameplay even though I never really got to use it. It allowed more thorough preparation (making a list of friendly IDs) before the battle a logistical advantage and I wouldn't mind for EWAR in some way to incorporate this, disabling transponders, periscopes or other means of identification, along with improved stasis weapons.

[Omukuumi]

24 minutes ago, EasternGamer said:

Other than it was a great fight, I'd like to say it is your choice for you to monopolize as many alien cores as you do. Also, it's significantly more difficult for everyone else to get to these cores than you do. (Because of the apparent warp beacons of some form allowing travelling to be much quicker there)

So if it's a chore, it's your choice for it to be like that due to the number you have to defend. I don't see the problem.
Though, if it's a chore to you, maybe a good idea is to give an idea on how it can no longer be a chore, so that if the devs care or not, they can actually get an idea of solutions from the player perspective.

Monopolize alien core, without any alliance or without selling plasma, is the best choice we have to force all other orgs/alliance to group up and fight us. We don't want so many ressources or monopolize them for quantas, we want PVP content. Asteroids are broken now with MU, you can't find a fleet fight on them (no interest), piracy is a small group activity and dead too... So... We just got alien core ressources for allow us to find this content and create those opportunity for both side.

Any other core was claimed btw, I can understand that people fear Legion with with all the legends that some created around our number, but I'm sure it's possible.

[Metsys]

23 minutes ago, EasternGamer said:

 I actually enjoyed the no-transponder gameplay even though I never really got to use it. It allowed more thorough preparation (making a list of friendly IDs) before the battle a logistical advantage and I wouldn't mind for EWAR in some way to incorporate this, disabling transponders, periscopes or other means of identification, along with improved stasis weapons.

That's exactly the point of the transponders though, basicly giving your real-time feedback on who is friend and who is foe. If we didn't use third-party programs (namely communication tools like teamspeak and discord) we wouldn't really have had a way to identify friend or foe at all as defenders. It was a major issue, specifically as the defending party, because enemy ships slipped through multiple times and shot the alien core again, resetting the combat timer back to 10mins and preventing the shields to regenerate. Might have been somewhat fun for this specific encounter, maybe. Or provide an interesting challenge.

But this should NOT become the norm or even intended gameplay. Having your alien core be prone to attacks, having to be available for defense all the time, having to basicly have a multitude of enemies in DU simply by holding alien core(s), having to field the finances and production time of base shields and warp beacons, aswell as extractors and everything around that, is enough cost already. Burdening the defenders with bullshit such as (potential) intentional transponder scrambling goes a bit far imho

[Metsys]

I wonder if NQ has any data on this fight. I am sure they had some eyes on it. Maybe they can pin-point how many ships and players were involved

 

[Omukuumi]

Initial post edited with Sleim22 video btw if you missed it

[Blackbeard06]

I'm not heavy on PVP and this was my 2nd time engaged in it. Regardless it was one of the moments I had the most fun in DU.

 

I've collected some stats on the operation and got a lot of video (47gb worth!) I plan to release my video later this week, but here is the info I've managed to collect;

 

Operation Hunter-Seeker Stats: (Siege of Gamma)
1B+ quanta donations to launch the operation

10k warp cells just to 1 way warp 56 ships from our L Carrier

33+ players from various orgs who were apart of the first wave (Empire, BOO, CVA, Penrose, SB Nation, CYT, IC, CRN, MSI, UA)
56 ships brought on first wave,

reinforcement waves came in from time to time, but most where help up engaging Legion ships elsewhere

150+ on site by 1.5 hours in engagement

 

War Effort Estimation:
Legion 55 Kills
Oblivion 35 Kills
Alien Core Won & Lost, but we managed to destroy assets on core
3 +/-  billion quanta in ships destroyed

 

[EasternGamer]

2 hours ago, Metsys said:

That's exactly the point of the transponders though, basicly giving your real-time feedback on who is friend and who is foe. If we didn't use third-party programs (namely communication tools like teamspeak and discord) we wouldn't really have had a way to identify friend or foe at all as defenders. It was a major issue, specifically as the defending party, because enemy ships slipped through multiple times and shot the alien core again, resetting the combat timer back to 10mins and preventing the shields to regenerate. Might have been somewhat fun for this specific encounter, maybe. Or provide an interesting challenge.

But this should NOT become the norm or even intended gameplay. Having your alien core be prone to attacks, having to be available for defense all the time, having to basicly have a multitude of enemies in DU simply by holding alien core(s), having to field the finances and production time of base shields and warp beacons, aswell as extractors and everything around that, is enough cost already. Burdening the defenders with bullshit such as (potential) intentional transponder scrambling goes a bit far imho

I never said that exact thing should become the norm. I said in some way, shape or form. Like a targeted jammer that can jam a ships ability to see friend or foe. It would be useless to anyone coordinated, but for someone uncoordinated it is dangerous. And you do have, currently a way to tell. You lock onto the target and if you aren't some random, you should know roughly what ships are in your group... and even can distinguish that this XS core that just appeared is most definitely not yours because no one in your fleet uses XS cores or they were all blown up... xD

You actually have to think a bit, you know. And it works both ways, you can use the same strategy on attackers. The alien core can be fitted with jammers and you have a couple of people there just jamming whatever gets on grid unannounced. 

And your point also somewhat would fall apart if they added any kind of voice communication. 

These here are just ideas. Not something they should or shouldn't add. My ideas tend to not be that great, but it doesn't mean it can't work if you actually think of a balanced way to implement such a thing. And, again, I didn't even get to participate much because of local power company issues. So I didn't use this strat then, when it would have been most effective.
It was only at the end when my power came back on that I could head there and effectively under the radar get some of my ship back. If the guy that visited me while I was at my wreck stopped to even look at my ship for more than 5 seconds, they would have immediately recognized it was an Empire ship. It even had empire branding on it! XD

There are so many possible counter plays to transponder jamming and using the same names, so when you weave through those with pure luck it's an incredible feeling. It really was. It made an afternoon where I could hardly do anything and lost my only PVP ship due to my power cutting off into an enjoyable evening, even after slow-boating back at 20,000 km/h for 130~ SU, because it actually paid off in recovering some parts of the wreck against all the odds.

[Caerus]

1 hour ago, Blackbeard06 said:

10k warp cells just to 1 way warp 56 ships from our L Carrier

It took 2k warp cells for the main carrier, prob another 4k for the other carriers / L cores. The 10k warp cells was how many I had left over on the carrier after warping (subsequently deleted before a kamikaze run towards the alien core at the very end lol)

[Caerus]

3 hours ago, Metsys said:

I wonder if NQ has any data on this fight. I am sure they had some eyes on it. Maybe they can pin-point how many ships and players were involved

 

I contacted NQ prior, they said they would be there, (invisibly gathering data) but haven’t heard back.

[Metsys]

2 hours ago, Blackbeard06 said:

Legion 55 Kills

Oblivion 35 Kills

Hmm we definitely didn't lose 35 ships within Legion. You guys sure you didn't accidentally shoot eachother too?

Edited May 23, 2022 by Metsys
edit for damage control

[Blackbeard06]

the exact number is unknown. The estimated numbers are what I got from the videos, and general chatter going on. Who knows what the true number is... maybe NQ?

[Omukuumi]

The main thing is the fight itself and all that it required in logistics on both sides, the final count doesn't matter as long as everyone had fun and people learned about PVP.

 

Spoiler

The only important data in fact is that Lovoda/Imperious still can't catch me in PVP 😛