Providence, Catch and Ushra’Khan- a primer
[OOC- clearly, this was correct at the time of writing, but events have overtaken the article, and it now serves as an aide-memoire to what Providence used to be like. Please see this post for what's happened since]
I realise that people reading this pilot journal may not fully appreciate who’s who around the regions that we, the Ushra’Khan, fight in. In order to ease understanding, I thought I’d do a write up of who’s who in the area. Ushra’Khan’s history, and that of CVA‘s is a matter of public record and better people than I have written about them, so I won’t cover that here.
When I joined U’K a year ago now, Ushra’Khan was red to Against All Authorities (-A-) and based in Utopia, Curse Region. We were much smaller than now, and invariably spent our time catching passing traffic in-/out-bound to/ from Catch or going on roams. -A- must’ve respected our bravery and defiance, as they offered us blue standings and the ability to base out of F4R2-Q, just inside Catch. This was very welcome, as we had outgrown Utopia and it moved us 8 or so jumps closer to our real enemies.
(There has been much speculation about us paying rent to -A-, but this isn’t the case and never was. I don’t think people really believe it anyway, but it’s easy to use as a cheap flame!)
Since then, we have launched attacks up the two pipes into ‘upper’ Catch and Providence- the KW-I6T pipe, and through D-GTMI, and U’K has grown considerably as people have come to like our style of guerilla fighting in small gangs. Very recently, -A- offered us two constellations in Catch, along with two stations, which we accepted as we had outgrown F4. I don’t know the reasons why they offered them to us, but they wouldn’t have done it had they not continued to respect us and what we can bring to the party.
Which brings us to the current situation:
All of the alliances in the ‘bad guy’ column are at best blue to each other, and at worst, neutral. As CVA enforce strict NRDS in Providence, this means they all get along.
At any time, we face up to 9,500 pilots in the ProviBloc. Of course, not all of their pilots have combat training, in the same way not all our own pilots do. They still can and do outnumber us, and as we have to traverse through chokepoints to get into our normal hunting grounds. Those chokepoints are: D-GTMI, which is Paxton Federation (729 pilots) space- they normally camp the F9E gate in D-G and make getting through very difficult, but they don’t tend to roam around much and tend to prefer avoiding organised gangs that come to challenge their camps. I suspect this is down to the camps not having an FC as they’re fairly easy to perform, but I could be wrong. – A- tend to delight in smashing up their camps as they are only 3 jumps from HED-GP which is where -A- hang out a lot.
On the other hand, the KW- pipe is manned by Sev3rance (812 pilots) and Cold Steel (592 pilots), and their camps are usually smaller but more organised. Cold Steel sometimes drag bubble both gates in a system, and just for good measure, drag bubble the planet nearest one or both of the gates which is where pilots warp to in an effort to avoid bubbles on the gate. Sev3rance have the outpost in KW-, which they took over from SSI who erected it in the first place and then left (internal issues and pressure from U’K). You don’t get much Sev in the area other than ratters and POS guys, unless there is an organised camp on- they can bridge down from their homespace around KBP very easily.
Once through the KW- pipe, you are into territory recently given to three new alliances by Sylph, perhaps as an effort to put more ‘meatshield’ between us and them. The new alliances have been willing to fight, but are short on numbers.
Then you’re into Sylph territory. They backstabbed U’K during our time in Providence (before my time, so don’t know the details), so they have special attention from us. They have dwindled from 1200+ members down to about 390- we’d like to take some credit for this, harassing their industrialists and combat pilots until they leave for easier grounds. They have had leadership issues as well, which has contributed to their slide into decay.
Then moving up into ‘lower’ Providence from IS-R7P, you are into Aegis Militia space. They had expanded to a high of 760 members, and then shrunk again to the same levels as they were at four months ago. However, their pilots are always willing to engage us, and are respectful in combat. They are also getting better at putting up effective camps.
Other then that, there are CVA (1365 pilots) and Libertas Fidelitas (1097, they were as big as CVA until recently) who are formidable both in terms of numbers and combat prowess. Most roaming gangs will have members of these alliances in, if not making up the majority of pilots.
Of course, not to be taken lightly are the silent, mechanical allies to the ProviBloc- the Jump Bridge networks. After much fine-tuning, they have a very impressive network (mainly owned by CVA), which means they can move around vast tracts of space very quickly. This not only aids their industrial capability, it means their ships can travel more safely, and of course, means they can bridge fleets around to try to catch us, as we have to move conventionally. As we fight on their turf mainly, they have the home advantage. We too have a small JB network ourselves which we gleefully use to great effect when our space is encroached upon, but these are rare moments in comparison.
With the amount of camps awaiting us, most of our pilots stay in hostile space for days on end, only venturing back for resupply (or getting resupplied by friends in haulers). As we don’t have active wardecs against anyone who is really an issue for us in the area, resupplying from Agil, Esa or any other of the nearby trade-hubs isn’t too hard. However, we have, in the last 24 hours, been wardecced by Goonswarm as part of a larger picture (which I won’t go into here), so this is now something else we need to be on our toes about.
All in all, life in U’K is good- it’s fun being the plucky underdog, there’s never a dull moment. Even when you do face blobs, sure it’s frustrating, but we wouldn’t do it any differently if we had more numbers!
Seems accurate to me.
As a member of Paxton Fed, allow me to add to your piece a little. You said:
“Those chokepoints are: D-GTMI, which is Paxton Federation (729 pilots) space- they normally camp the F9E gate in D-G and make getting through very difficult, but they don’t tend to roam around much and tend to prefer avoiding organised gangs that come to challenge their camps. I suspect this is down to the camps not having an FC as they’re fairly easy to perform, but I could be wrong. – A- tend to delight in smashing up their camps as they are only 3 jumps from HED-GP which is where -A- hang out a lot.”
Our corp is trying to get the alliance to roam more since we joined a month and a half ago. As for the camps, because we get very little warning being so close to enemy space and forming a good fleet in short order is not easy when you have multiple comm channels to coordinate alliances, its often too late that we get the fleet ready to match the incoming fleet which had more time to prepare.
On the upside, we see a lot of action in our space and there is never a dull moment.
Cheers!
Kirith Kodachi said this on November 17th, 2009 at 1129 UTC
Hi Kirith, thanks for the comment. Always nice to hear the other side of things- I was hoping this piece would generate some comments!
Ombey said this on November 17th, 2009 at 1135 UTC
Hey Ombeve,
I’ve not long been in the 0.0 area and myself am new to Paxton, but all I would add is you guys in UK add a dimension to EVE and props go out to you for the fun you bring.
I’ll lose ships to you guys and some will to me, but hopefully the respect is mutual.
See you around in Provi/Catch
Praerian said this on November 17th, 2009 at 1249 UTC
Hey Ombey,
As you say – it’s interesting to see the “other” side. As a Paxtonite I also enjoy fighting you guys. Since proviblock has a really, really big red list, we are roamed by everyone and his dog. This has the unfortunate side effect that people get tired of constantly x-ing up for defense fleets. This compounds the problem above of sometimes having short notice of large incoming roaming fleets.
When we do statically camp F9E in D-G, our red neighbours scouts us out and then bring a fleet designed to smash in our heads
I guess proviblock tend to blob, because we’d go through ships at a prodigious rate if we had to fight on equal terms for every single gang that came through our space! We see literarly dozens of roaming fleets every single day. Also, from an RP perspective, we are commited to keep the ebil piwates out of our space, and if we can do that by smashing them with a blob – so be it. Let’s face it, any country will also bring down it’s full force on someone trying to invade their space (America totally out-blobbed Iraq, Afghanistan,etc).
Having said all that, I am absolutely not complaining! Our region and our neighbouring regions sees some of the most PVP and FUN PVP in this game IMO. And between boring camping, blobbing, counter-blobbing, there are some really excellent fights that go down.
May we see each other soon over the barrel of a railgun then and have some fun pew pewing!
DeLaBu said this on November 17th, 2009 at 1456 UTC
Heh heh PXF in the house o/ hi guys, thanks for contributing. I understand about blobbing, really I do. If you got the pilots, you aren’t going to tell them *not* to join a gang!!
I would add though, sometimes you go past the point of having a gang size we’d happily engage with a small chance of winning, and definitely not engaging as it’s pointless.
As you say, there are good fights to be had in there somewhere, which is why we’re all here in the first place!
Ombey said this on November 17th, 2009 at 1727 UTC
nice post m8, It’s quite interesting to read about the other side’s perspective. Mutual respect is a big issue here, and you nailed it imho.
Keep up the good work
paarlander said this on November 17th, 2009 at 2228 UTC
Much is said of the Provi blob but I don’t believe it’s a tactic that CVA and allies actively employ, more the case that when a good FC is in charge or there’s a sizeable quarry, then many pilots x up for the fleet. It wouldn’t be right to turn people away from a fleet and so often numbers can spiral. It’s not uncommon to hear an FC saying “oh there’s too many of us now, they’ll never engage”.
Anyway, thanks for the post. A good read.
Thathanka said this on November 18th, 2009 at 1142 UTC
As merely a fan of this blog, I find the insight into the whole ProviBloc immensely interesting especially written from your prospective. Nicely done.
Flashfresh said this on November 18th, 2009 at 1243 UTC
Really is a good read for all Southern pilots and pilots on both sides. Thanks for giving me a little background lesson Omb.
Tony "EVE's Weekend Warrior" said this on November 29th, 2009 at 2051 UTC
Thanks for all your kind words. Have added a section on Sev3rance which appears to have been missed on the original entry.
Ombey said this on November 30th, 2009 at 0928 UTC
As just another member of the Provibloc i have to echo the sentiments in earlier posts. You guys provide some of the most fun PvP I’ve ever had. I prefer fighting in a small group (maybe 2 to 4) and your small incursions on our space always make for an adrenaline filled fight/chase. I’ve found these fights all to rare in new eden so i have to say TY U’K for keeping it alive!
A note on provi-blobs, quite often, when a red fleet is detected alot of the holding alliences/residents of provi will form up a sizable blob. However this blob may be composed of several different fleets which in turn may be formed of several different alliences each. This causes a lack of co-ordination sometimes…. too many FC’s spoil the broth so to speak, but you have to admire the comming together of so many alliences at once. I can’t say I’ve ever seen so many different corps and alliences work together before and not start shooting each other (on purpose anyway).
Big respect to you guys for facing that and remaining un-deterred from your goals.
MOAR fun PvP PLEASE!!!!!
Noise Munga – 1st Pariah Malefactor Corp – FA
Noise Munga said this on January 26th, 2010 at 1655 UTC