Burn Jita
April 28th is Goonswarm's Burn Jita. An event still swathed in a lot of mystery. Goals. Targets. Length. All we know is the location. The rest, only The Mittani knows for sure.
What we do know is that Goonswarm has 1800 Tornados ready for the event. What they'll be targeting is the question. Freighters? Anything that has thrusters? Ripard Teg figures the event will last a few hours if they target freighters exclusively. If they shoot everything except freighters, Burn Jita could last a couple to a few days. Once word of what is happening starts to spread, Jita will effectively be blockaded.
The markets are going to go crazy. And that's what Burn Jita is really about.
Big sovereignty alliances need ISK. They need lots of ISK. They can never have too much ISK. Goonswarm is one of the largest, in membership and systems owned. With their recent conquest of Tenal, they own ever more space, which requires ever more ISK.
Goonswarm is like Roman society. There are the plebeians. And the patricians. The plebs make up most of Goonswarm. They play this game as would be expected of a Goon. They rip and roar, looking for destruction and tears. The patrician looks to the larger social arena, mayhem on a much larger scale.
The ice interdiction of late 2011 exemplifies these differences. The plebs are satisfied to individually gank ice miners. Small scale mayhem. The patricians use the overall action as an experiment in market manipulation, how to affect and hurt a larger cross-section of the playerbase. And it was successful on both fronts.
As large as most people think ice interdiction was, it was still small scale. It affected regional markets across New Eden, but it affected only a small portion of the overall market. Billions were made by Goonswarm, by patricians and plebs alike, many tears were shed by many different individuals. As a proof of concept of wide-spread market manipulation through terror, it was a success. Time to upscale that bitch.
Jita. The largest, most active trade hub in New Eden. Blockade it for a day, hundreds of billions could be made on the rising prices. Blockade it for two days, New Eden could start spinning out of control. The ultimate experiment for the patricians. How will the game, the industrial strata, how will it all react? The plebs get to blow a lot of shit up (and make some coin as well.) The patricians get to see how Burn Jita affects every single resident of New Eden.
Burn Jita doesn't stop there. Blockade Jita, and Amarr would likely assume the mantle of new trade hub during the interim. So Goonswarm has other alliances committed to burning Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek. How committed those alliances will be is a question that won't be answered until April 28th. There should be little question concerning Goonswarm's commitment to burning Jita.
Blow it up. Blow it all the fuck up.
Hulkageddon V
When Burn Jita ends Hulkgeddon V begins. This is sure to become the Hulkageddon that all future Hulkageddons are judged upon. This will be the first Hulkageddon that rewards you throughout the competition. No longer does the competition stall halfway through, as people realize that they cannot catch the kill leaders, there's still incentive to kill kill kill throughout the event.
For every ten hulks and mackinaws killed, Goonswarm will reward you with 100 million ISK. That is not insubstantial coin for the effort.
Ten gank Brutixes, enough to take down ten Mackinaws, will cost you less than 400M ISK in today's market. Those ten kills net you one quarter of the cost of your ganking. For 300M ISK total cost, you get to take down 1.5B - 2.0B ISK worth of mining ships. I'm not even counting the module drops. My one and only Mackinaw gank, a Gistii B-Type Small Shield Booster dropped, worth 52M ISK in today's contract market. Chances are you won't turn a profit ganking Macks during Hulkageddon, but neither are you going to walk away having spent ISK you'll later regret having spent, not considering the amount of tears that will shed over your activities.
(Word is [see comments] that you can do the same with a Catalyst on certain ill-fitted Macks, costing approximately 5M ISK each. Two such Catalysts can take down a Hulk in 0.6 space. So there is potential profit to be made from the ganks.)
Hulkageddon is narrative. Hulkageddon is EVE Online. By players, for players.
Want to get in on the action? Make sure to read The Goonswarm Guide to Highsec Ganking. Everything you need to know to be successful at taking down Hulks and Mackinaws in highsec. That article helped me get my first gank. If it could help me, it can help anyone.
(The Goonswarm document does not cover the Destroyer upgrades with Crucible. I'll try to locate some Catalyst gank fits and update the document.)
A T2 gank fit Catalyst is like 4M. It can solo a shit fit Mack. A two man team using meta0 mods can gank a hulk in 0.6, total cost is again about 4M.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Destroyer upgrade with Crucible. The Goonswarm document doesn't cover that. I'll have to find some further info on Catalyst ganking and post it. Thanks for the reminder.
DeleteThe real secret are the rigs. Hybrid Burst and Collision rigs. One of each. Other than that you can use meta1 guns if you are solo and too cheap for t2 Light Electron Blasters. Other than that, the Catalyst beats the Thrasher hands down for damage. 8 guns and 3 low slots is pure win. Just pick your targets carefully if you are going to solo.
DeleteHow about this (from TEST)?
ReplyDeletehttp://i.imgur.com/HrJFe.png
Cute, but it seems more like a REMEMBER ad for Summer of Rage (the date belies that ... but the monument seems out of place in a Burn Jita poster.)
DeleteI don't know the history of New Eden, but it seems to me that Jita is THE trade hub only because it is THE trade hub. Traders and buyers go there because of its reputation, which has a feedback loop of making it more popular. Fair enough, and blockading it will have an effect. But that still leaves Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, and whatever other high-volume systems untouched. A savvy trader, and savvy buyers, will simply avoid Jita and start buying elsewhere.
ReplyDeletePerhaps there is more to it than this, that the disproportionate number of Caldari pilots makes Jita more attractive and lucrative as a market hub, or the routes in and out of the system and region make it favourable. But I wouldn't be surprised if trading simply moves elsewhere. Word can spread quickly. That would be interesting in itself. If the Burn Jita campaign essentially displaces the hub to be somewhere other than Jita would that be considered a success? It would certainly show the effect combat players can have on the market players.
Hell, I've always avoided Jita period... Prices aren't THAT much better than Rens, Dodi, Ours, etc., only difference is the volume. If you don't need 1000 of x mod in bulk, go to another closer hub. ;-)
DeleteI'd check the price on the Brutix after this weekend. Should be interesting if they can afford ships for the duration AND the prize money. More money for me the Builder either way anyway.
ReplyDelete