by David Matterall in
Podcast
Talking in Stations
Talking in Stations
Memorial Day Special
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This Memorial Weekend show invites two groups – Best of Us and Broadcast for Reps – one to provide support for veterans across the world through play Eve and providing support for those suffering from depression and just needing someone to talk to.

Garst Tyrell talks to us about Triumvirate – after a massive play for the XIX evacuation super fleet, killed the DRF staging keepstar in 88A – and what the future holds for them.  Finally, we look at the longtime whale hunting group of Eve, Bomber’s Bar, with guest Nova Valentis.

On the show:

  • Carneros
  • Dirk MacGirk

Guests:

  • J Mclain [Best of Us]
  • Marrowbone [B4R]
  • Nova Valentis [DISCO – Bombers Bar]
  • Garst Tyrell [TRI]

Show Notes:

Memorial Day – Best of Us and Broadcast for Reps – J Mclain & Marrowbone

What do they do and how do they serve the veteran community of Eve? Talk about B4R and how they help the Eve community? How did they both come about, etc
Marrowbone – B4R was an organization started by Coffee Rocks and was funded through some streamers. It mostly a Brave Alliance organization as it was started to honor and remember John Bellicose. Marrowbone got involved with B4R with Coffee (who had been operating everything solely) who needed a break. What we do is we are here both in-game with an in-game channel ‘Broadcast 4 Reps’ and a discord channel. A bunch of other eve players, volunteers, moderators, and admins – a support group for people who are having a hard time in-game or real life and be there if they need to reach out. A peer support gamer to gamer. If necessary refer outside help or help them get outside help so the situation doesn’t end up in a bad way. At the end of the day, we are all people and here to help each other.

What is the history of the organization and where did the name ‘Best of Us’ come from?
J Mclain – I started Eve in 2013 after I retired from Army after being medically retired due to leg injury, traumatic brain injury and PTSD. Going home, I didn’t have a support system and a lot of free time so I picked up Eve. I started playing Faction Warfare and started a friendship with a player from Britain who served in Afghanistan.  That put me in a better place having that connection with someone who had a life experience with me. It’s very hard, even inside the military, to have to make a connection if you don’t have the shared knowledge of a particular experience and the specific way it affects you. After seeing how much it helped me – because I was for lack of a better term – a hot mess – basically didn’t leave my house for two years after I got out – things were starting to get better when I was able to talk to another veteran who shared that experience and find that connection that I had lost in that small group environment when I was in the military. I talked to Pukin and Mean Harry when they were still doing Podside Podcast and talked about getting the message out that if it (the connection I found in Eve with another veteran) could help me then it could help others who might not be suffering from PTSD but going through that disconnection that comes from losing that tight-knit group that shares these experiences. We got an in-game channel going and I was talking about it on podcasts and shortly after that I met Dirk and started going on the Open Comms show and they were really good about projecting that message out there. A critical point for me was going to Eve Vegas, before that, I had only gone a short distance from my house for a long time. I went to Vegas, firstly there was apprehension but once you get there, you get that connection, that tie with other players who play Eve. I went to Vegas the following year and did a talk about social support groups in Eve Online. Right now we are a community with a Discord – they gave us a server that can hold many people and a cool vanity invite tag – where we talk about the stuff inside about particular member channels and there to act as a peer-to-peer intervention.

Suicide very staggering issue within the military community and initially I focused on that. I lost one of the guys that I deployed with, he overdosed trying to deal his PTSD. Over time I have drifted away from the suicide message and I didn’t want the focus to be on the line of thinking that suicide was the inevitable end. Despite the real problem of veteran suicide and how it touches a lot of us in the military community. We focus on making sure people feel that they belong to a group that has their shared experience. The name comes from the time I was focusing on veteran suicide issue. The name ‘Best of Us’ means that those people who died – they had the potential to be the best of us but we will never know.

Is there something special about Eve Online that makes it a better environment for active duty and former service members to play? You meet a lot of people with those backgrounds.
What makes Eve Online in particular great for veterans is that it very much mirrors early human evolution. It is a very harsh environment – if you don’t team up with somebody else means you’re probably not going to get ahead. The benefits of teaming with someone else, working as a tight-knit community to achieve whatever objective or goal inside this very open sandbox, that reflects what we see in service, in combat and early hominid evolution. All of that makes it one of the most ideal places for military veterans to find that ‘if I come in here and work with the tight-knit group’ we can achieve something and that’s what something the military focuses on.

Short ‘Round the Board of Null-Sec (10-15 min) – Carneros

East: HORDE and B0T still under constant harassment from SNUFF + co., possibly going for content or stations. HAWKS, Suddenly Spaceships and others have successfully taken SOV and stations in Etherium Reach.

  • North East: Holy Empire (Skill Urself, V0LTA, HKRAB, etc.) still clearing out old DRF structures often in solo or small super groups after taking Cobalt Edge, Outer Passage, Oasa, and Perrigen Falls,. Seem to be moving down to hunt Legacy.
  • North: one of the Goonswarm SIGs moved their deployment from Pure Blind to Venal, GOTG redeploying to counter. CO2 moving to Fade, their current home is in Vale (future of those assets unknown). MOA drops from GOTG, some members confirmed going into CO2, some keeping the MOA name alive outside GOTG.
  • North West: Cloud Ring long since abandoned by HORDE now home to INIT and some FW groups (quick mention of LS cap brawl discussion next ep here?)
  • West/South West: MC deployment to Fountain has shifted to Querious with  NC. Not many big fights, but sov is burning.
  • South: Legacy deployment to Provi successful without much of any resistance. Many stations still owned by Legacy, but Sov is under Proviblock suggesting after June 5th Legacy will pull out. The biggest casualties of this war are the Legacy crabs back home. Recent BR: https://zkillboard.com/related/30002621/201805270300/
  • South East: TRI and friends have routed XIX who are in full retreat from their space looking to crash on Legacy’s couch for a bit. This resulted in getting a Super move op destroyed in C-L

The Triumph of Triumvirate – Garst Tyrell

Last year, Tri entered a war against FCON (FCON had joined XIX which became the Phoenix Federation) which was the tinderbox for would be the tinderbox in a war that dragged in a lot of different coalitions even as far as the north – GOTG, Legacy, and Horde. That apexed last year with the fall of Phoenix Federation – Immensea, Tenerefis and then the fall of Insmother and Tri’s departure for a few months and coming back in early April.

After they had retreated back to their keepstar in 88A, Triumvirate put that in final reinforce, they consolidated everything they owned in the one keepstar and it meant they had 4 days to evacuate otherwise they would have lost everything. Prior, Triumvirate had been killing every fortizar and structure worth anything along the evacuation route towards the south – Curse and Legacy space. We didn’t know the exact route but based on the ranges and that TEST had a fortizar in C0O-6 that they had been using to midpoint around to us – we had a pretty good guess they would go off in that direction. The biggest factor that decided us going in was the fact that TEST had completely half-assed it and brought in a Muninn fleet that killed the cyno jammer in C0O-6. We were set up to fight them there as we thought they would jump their supercarriers there, jump through the gate into C-L and align for the fortizar. We were set up to tackle them in C0O-6, fight them on the gate and set up our titans accordingly. Russians being Russians cyno’d their fleet to a ping in C-L and just sat there for 10 minutes doing nothing. Triumvirate/Lumpy/Fraternity/Red Alliance and many others had set up 100km off them and started the fight, luckily missing any titan bosons right off the bat. TEST had formed about 100 dreads that took a Fraternity Erebus that would be the only supercarrier casualty as they focused on the smaller fleet that had fewer apostles and triage. With Great Wildlands Coalition’s 40 dreads that they had brought in combined with the Triumvirate and company dreads were able to kill the 100 dread TEST bomb on the combined Triumvirate and co titan and supercarrier fleets. We dropped NC/PL/Snuff and about 100 TRI dreads on the enemy titan and supercarrier fleet and were quickly burning through the shield titan and shield Hels because they didn’t bring adequate FAX support because their Titans and supers were armor fit. A lot of Hels were ratting fit and died very quickly – after killing those we focused on the armor titan and supers.

Bombers Bar – Nova Valentis

Bomber’s Bar is an in-game channel with the same name. It is an NPSI organization that spans all over Eve – you can join BB fleets. Bomber’s Bar goes out and kills ratters and bombs fleet.  We only fly cov-ops cloak ships and our main business is killing ratters and bombing fleets. We have an SRP program called Bomber’s Care that gives isk for losts bombers on these fleets and financed with loot and donations.

How would you describe the characteristics of people in Bomber’s Bar?
Nova said basically from complete new bros to bitter vets. All different corps – Goons talking to NC people, pirates, high-sec people who have never pvp’d before, new bros who see their first capitals on-grid or have their first kills ever. It is a very mixed group. We try to make the fleets as uniform as possible – setting the rules and advising the new bros how to survive and occasionally running training fleets.

How long have you been in Bomber’s Bar and what is your history there?
Nova said 3 or 4 years. He started off as a newbro and then met Templeman in null-sec. Three months later he was flying in Bomber’s Bar and was FCing a few weeks after that.

How has Bomber’s Bar changed over the years?
It changed from five bombers in Providence bombing a jump bridge and killing some stuff to 100 man fleets that kill supers and carriers each fleet. We are always adapting and getting new meta going in cloaky warfare.

How do you pick your targets?
The hunters pick their targets, try to get behind the intel system and trying to catch them when they’re not looking. Sometimes roaming in the Imperium we would tackle a rorqual and they would counter-drop with supercarriers or other times just a few carriers and we would try to snag capitals off of that. One time we got a rorqual and then found a Hel still ratting next door which we then killed.

How have the targets – the landscape of prey – changed over the years?
That has changed two-fold –  first off, Templeman, for example, got really famous when he bombed a 100-200 TEST Drake fleet and the bombing has changed in regards that big fleets have fewer subcapitals and the Macherials were much more hard to bomb before their nerf. In hunting ratters, a rattlesnake was a good kill and then more people are ratting in carriers when they still had their drones. We had 20 man fleets killing those and now its supercarrier ratting and rorquals. Sometimes we still catch carriers but it is much less now.

What days of the week and biggest time zone that you run fleets from?
It is highly dependent on who is FCing but it is mostly EU from 18:00 onwards at the moment. There is some US
timezone stuff. Occasionally we have an EU fleet that runs long and we might get a big late US TZ kill.

How do you deal with a target that is blue with a particular alliance or corp within fleet?
A member doesn’t have to shoot a target he is blue with, he can just cloak up and warp away if he doesn’t want to deal with diplomacy issues. If he wants to shoot he can – it is his choice but he might have to deal with diplomatic troubles, sometimes he just put a target painter on a particularly juicy kill.

From an opsec standpoint where you have a mixed group that is rolling and you come across a target, how does opsec come into play where you might have a member feeding fleet location to the targets?
Sometimes people do that but most want to have the fleet have fun. Sometimes they try but Bomber’s Bar has been around for a very long time and have friends in many different alliances and if we get told that a person is giving intel away, we might tell him he can’t fly with us anymore or talk to him. Most importantly, the fleet members can’t see what the hunter is seeing or talking about since they are in separate comms channel. There isn’t much intel they can leak. In bombing fleets, they aren’t told where they are going and they are told system and take wormhole chains. Asher Elias was saying were so ‘impartial’ that we were siding with GotG and that is not true. We bomb their enemies as often as we bomb them but if there is a particular FC that isn’t as defended against bombs and we will exploit that.

Conclusion:

  • Thanks to Maccloud (Engineer), Keskora (Webmaster)
  • http://www.talkinginstations.com — back episodes, staff info and supporters
  • Thank you to our producers Artimus, January, Sarah, and MacCloud

Soundtrack: Instrumental – “But Not Tonight” (Depeche Mode)

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