View source for Fireside Chat Transcript 2025 12 20

'''Ranger Gama:'''


Hello, everybody. How's everybody doing today?


'''Beyondnoxx UNP:'''


Can't hear you, Ranger.


'''Zintage Enaka:'''


I'm just here so you don't fine me, Ranger. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Yeah, I'm just gonna let that one slide by, man. Nope, not gonna comment on that. Yeah, we're not gonna talk about the hand-egg ball game, so we're just gonna... But, yeah, we're just not gonna talk about that one. Alright, let's see. Numbers are going up a little bit, so we'll give it another minute more. I think we'll... Go and get started with everything. So last one for 2025, we are not going to do a Fireside next week. We're going to chill for next week on there. We do have a couple of events coming up that we put in. We've got our traditional snowball fight fleet on Christmas Day. We put up two of those for - one for EU, one for US. They're on the op calendar. We've got our traditional fireworks on New Year's Day. Those are on the op calendar as well. During Fireside Time next week, we're going to do the Meet the Directors Gooniversity event. It's linked in the War Room. Well, the thread's in the War Room if you guys want to see who's on deck for coming to talk to everybody. We've got quite a number of different people there. It should be fun for that.
And I'm going to get into the big announcements for today. The first one that I've got is that Locust Weekend is not going to be next weekend, but the weekend after. So it's the Friday after New Year's. It's the New Year's weekend we've got a Locust Fleet. We put up the next three Locust Fleets on the op calendar so that you can see them.
We have an incursion right now in Detorid. This is a farm incursion. So if you want to get in on some of that sweet, sweet incursion action, make sure you join the incursion group. They are actively out there farming it. Okay, I don't know if they're actually actively farming it right this instant, but they are doing it. That is a farm out there in Detorid. Oh, Charlotte says they are farming right now. Excellent. So if you want to get in on that, they are farming that one.
Big one came out. Now, they came in, pinged this out to everybody this morning, but I wanted to say it again just in case. For Secret Santa guys, when you are getting your contract that's sent to you, please make sure you check it, that it is actually a gift to you. We had somebody try and scam somebody this morning with Secret Santa. Fuck those people who are doing that. Just make sure you guys take a look at that. We don't want anybody to get scammed, especially with Secret Santa.
If you see anything like that of someone trying to scam you, screenshot it, send it to a member of the directorate so that we've got it on our file. And if they're stupid enough to be a goon in that, then we'll let Atrum handle them.
Next one also, speaking of Secret Santa, if you have not posted your I would like this in the Secret Santa thread, please do that. So whoever your Santa is knows what you would like for Christmas this year. And I'm going to turn it over for Sniper, who's going to story time with us about the ALC Keepstar scoop. So Sniper, take it away with story time.


'''Snipereagle1:'''


Sure, thanks, Ranger. Yeah, so Monday or Tuesday, I think it was Tuesday night this week, we went and scooped our last Keepstar we had to pull down in Drones in ALC. We did the R-A one the week prior, and we just ninja'd that one. There was nobody there. We picked it up, bridged it back. That was fine.
The ALC one, there'd been eyes on it the whole time, so we were like, alright, I think we'll form a fleet for this one and be ready for shenanigans. So, like, three Avalanches in system, we bridged another two in. A neutral that ended up at a BIGAB POS, so probably somebody from BIGAB, warped in on it as it unanchored. They fucked up their positioning and landed, like, 50 off, and... So there was a fun minute of panic in command where we were like, oh god, neutral Avalanche. And so we bridged the fleet in and everything. Yeah, so what happened is he initiated warp before it unanchored. So he landed at the edge of the keep instead of, or he had a bookmark or something. But anyways, yeah. But yeah, we got it. And they are all safely back in CJ for use somewhere else. So yeah, it was never a boring thing. But the biggest bummer about it was having to double bridge a battleship fleet, because the entire constellation between GQ and ALC had an incursion, and we didn't want to burn back through it. Indeed, Beyond, they were fitting small microwarp drives instead of big afterburners.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Okay, the last thing that I wanted to leave here, I left this to the very end because we all know you guys are just filthy crabs for your rocks. Here is the updated mining locations. We have increased them from, Sniper healp me on the numbers, 60-something to over 90 T3 mining sites now. 


'''Snipereagle1:'''


I think we went from 67 to 95. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


So 50% increase on your mining. There they are right there. You guys went through and did a lot of updates on this. We did mention these last week that if you are looking at something in your system, you're like, "Wow, there seems to be fewer ratting anomalies in there." That's probably because we had to shift it over to get mining with it. And so that's just the way that's going to work, guys. The way the new Sov system is, we've said this before, we'll have to say it again, you got to be a little more flexible on it. So we're prioritizing mining within drop range of CJ. So all of those kinds of pieces are in there. Go through, look at that thread, see how it is. 
And that is all that I've got for my notes for today. So it's been a pretty calm week, as is typical of this time of year. So questions for everybody. We'll open that up for any questions. And otherwise, we'll get you guys out of here a little early today. So questions for it. 
Oh, Rose, I forgot the Wiki janitors. All right, that's on me. We are restarting the Wiki janitor thing to get that going again. We tried this we had it going for a while and then tell people retired - space retired - and didn't have time for it. So we are restarting all of that again if you are interested in helping maintain the wiki getting all of the God-awful posts that used to be on there - mostly from Atrum, I mean, let's be real his postings terrible - up to date, then please reach out to Rose. She's taking over that kind of piece. So we'd like to get some more people in there. Spread around, US, EUTZ, whoever it is. Just reach out to Rose and she will work with you on that.
So, Tison, I think that's how you say your name there. It's for CAD Alts. We're leaving them in TCAG for right now. If you've got it moved to UALX, you can do either one of those, UALX or TCAG. We have not done a huge, we did like two move ops on it. For right now, if it's in TCAG, that's fine. If it's ULX, that's fine as well. Either of those works. 
Okay, questions away there.
So Gibbit (?), no, we're not changing anything. Whatever - this doesn't work like it used to, guys. The way the Sov system works now, the workforce, the power, all the shit that goes into it. Our guys sit in the background, they map the fuck out of this, and whatever they say goes. So that's just the way that it is. You've got to be more flexible with your ratting. If your system doesn't support whatever it is that you were doing ratting-wise, move to one over.
Burn Jita by Christmas. Well, given that Christmas is in five days, no. I'll admit, I always loved Burn Jita. I know some people don't like it. I always got a kick out of it, but it's just not possible with the game mechanics right now.


'''Snipereagle1:'''


"What are the director's Christmas wishes for 2026?" I don't know if Kaz is here, but I'm pretty sure Kaz is going to say to get invaded from the Drone Lands. 


'''Kazanir:'''


That would be lovely. It's a little early but...


'''Ranger Gama:'''


If you guys have not seen the... Kaz, can you link that map that we were talking about earlier? If you guys have not seen the Sov up in Drone Lands now, guys, Kaz found this very cool thing. It's right there. He just linked it. Take a look at how many groups are actually in the Drone Lands right now. That new map, we were geeking out on that in illum like an hour ago. It's pretty crazy. This new stuff up there is just madness. It is exactly what we wanted to see.


'''Snipereagle1:'''


Yeah, and this new map that somebody put together is cool because it does less of the like... The Verite one is obviously what we've all been looking at for a long time. But the way that it allocates part of the map makes it look like we own, like, two-thirds of EVE, which we don't.


'''Kazanir:'''


Yeah, right. The read map, I think, is using some sort of Voronoi area fill-in thing a lot. GTS does the same thing if you tell GTS to display sov, right? It tries to paint areas and stuff, but now that we have an actual game-endorsed 2D-ification of the map, like at the 2 version, I'm stoked that this has been put together. It came up on Reddit a couple months ago. There was a guy asking about it. I don't even know if this is the same guy. But I made sure to chime in and point out that actually this should be kind of easy to do. And they have all sorts of features on here too. If you look at this map, it has spinny circles where there are fleets out. It has coloured circles where there are upcoming Sov timers. It has squares where systems have high ADM. It's really quite exciting. So I'm stoked to see people playing EVE. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Yeah, this was great. As just mentioned there, Andy says the drone space looks like Christmas tree. It does. There's a ton of people in there. This is exactly what we wanted when Asher put out the update on Reddit saying, you know, leave it open for new groups to move in there. And quite a number of new groups moved in there. It's been really great to see. There's a ton of people up there. They are taking sov, they're starting to skirmish with each other, it's - it's great. It's exactly what we wanted to see.


'''Kazanir:'''


Yeah, I'll add some commentary because this comes up a lot. There will probably be a thread every other week about this for a month, uh, but like a lot of people are, like, taking their first opportunity to whine when something goes a way that they don't like up in the Drone Lands. Uh, someone complained to us the other day that there was a small gang of seven goons in the Drone Lands. And other people complained, "oh, these people are blue to each other". And other people complained, "oh, we think these people are blue to FRT". No one is supposed to be blue to any of the blocks, and that's the only real rule. Right? This thing could look like a Christmas tree for years. It could be that in a couple weeks, one of these alliances turns around and just smacks all of them and seizes all eight regions and declares war on us. That would be awesome, obviously. I'm hoping for that latter one, but it could be either of those, and we don't actually have to strategically care. Either could be cool. So we'll just see what happens. But there are a lot of people who are acting like they were hoping we would be dabbed and ensure they could take their small amount of space. That is not going to happen. So there are some people who have regrets now as they're losing to people that they thought that they would beat. There's still four unsieged Pandemic Horde systems remaining. That's how busy they are. It's really quite exciting. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


And I realized as I saw Xiopa type in there that I forgot a message from him. One quick thing, guys, if you're in a fax or in Beehive, if you need to go AFK, please drop the Beehive fleet so that the Beehive FCs know what faxes are around if they're needed. 
This one came up, but I didn't want to skip it. Where was your name? Snaps. The other free port Keepstar. Yeah, we control a couple of them that we are guaranteeing access to everybody in. Any others, right? It's up to them to do all those pieces. We're guaranteeing our set of them, and that's all that we're guaranteeing. We guarantee free port access to those systems to get you into the Drones, and from there, right, that's on those people to do whatever it is that they're doing. We guarantee just that first set that we laid out and said, these are going to be free ports. That's what we guarantee. Anything else is on the Drone Land residents. That's the whole point.


'''Kazanir:'''


Yeah, that's right. Someone asked about the cap rule sales, and I think we did update this. So cap sales are specifically allowed in Freeport West. No, sorry. Not West. Freeport East in F9-. So not LXQ and not the middle, which I forget the name of. But the third one, which is named Freeport East, you may sell capitals.


'''Snipereagle1:'''


Yeah, so there's a bunch... We're still going and going of the people being like "but my ratting system". Sov doesn't come down to one system anymore.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


I will address that for you. I don't care, man. Just shut the hell up. We're not putting that back in there. Decision's made. It's mining now. Move the fuck on. Next question. I'm tired of hearing this constantly. Adapt. There you go.


'''Kazanir:'''


It is the fate of all Ishtar ratters to slowly be shoved out towards the borders. We appreciate that we're wasting a little bit of true sec. It's just how it has to be. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Peppy... oh you and PI man. Yeah, to be fair, right, PI is a whole lot better than it was 15 years ago. 


'''Kazanir:'''


Or one year ago. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Yeah. The templates have made a huge change. For those of you guys who don't remember the way that pi was way back in the day, right, put your old man hat on um... "P.I. was better when it wasn't P.I." All right, we were seeded by the NPCs. Sure, sure. A lot of people made a huge amount of money when that changed. But it has gotten so much better. That is very sure. The 'reset all extractors' that is also very cool. I will admit, I do enjoy that. It is much more bearable. Yeah. Back in the day when you had to route everything, there were no templates. You had to reset it all. It was a pain in the ass. Okay. More questions or anything from you guys? 
Yeah, so taxes on PI stuff, it should be 1% across the board. We normalized all of that. So if you find one that is not, please reach out to mostly beyond. We threw him under that bus. Mostly reach out to beyond, but any of the finance directors. But they should all be 1% in our space.


'''Beyondnoxx UNP:'''


I just want to make it clear when Ranger says our space, he's talking about Goons.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Fair enough. That's a fair. Yeah. So reach out to us if it is not in GSF space. Other allies can set whatever they want. GSF space is 1%.
"What does Ranger want for Christmas, other than a hauler full of strippers and cap boosters". Man, cap boosters. You capswarm guys with those cat boosters on the deployment of North. Jesus Christ, man. We built a lot of those in ALC because they were so insane to ship out. I don't remember if Harry's in here and he's got, I think we built like 50,000 of them in total. And we shipped some in too. It was crazy. 
Yeah, I love Secret Santa. I have not actually gotten my Santees there stuff yet. That's on my weekend agenda to do.
It's something that... Don't bankrupt yourself, guys, for Secret Santa, but what you can do, that's kind of the whole point. This is supposed to be a fun thing to see what you can get, how it all goes down.
"Two DSTs loaded down with boosters and my Titan". Yeah, that's fair enough, man.
That's nice, man. Yeah, if you get something and you can tell they sent it to you from their main or something like that. You can send an in-game email or something like that. We used to do a thank you thread. Do we still do that, or am I making shit up like that? 


'''Beyondnoxx UNP:'''


It's up. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Ah, sweet. Yeah, if you want to post in there and brag on what you got. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, the thank you, fuck you thread. Those are always good.
Fourth time, I'm not sure what you mean by what about Winter Nexus? The Winter Login event stuff is going on right now. I'm not sure what your question is, maybe I missed it. I'll admit I'm lazy and I never do those events, so somebody who actually knows can answer that question. Is the event worth doing? I know there's that weird new Destroyer thing that Apple always loves.
"The event sucks bad." Okay. I mean, I'm doing the login thing every day to get my SP because I'm just a filthy SP hoarder.


'''Snipereagle1:'''


Pretty sure Ranger's get a pistol whip the next person that types "ratting" in Elysium. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Thank you for that, Sniper. 


'''Apple Pear:'''


I hear Omist is great for ratting these days. 


'''Snipereagle1:'''


Oh, we haven't upgraded anything there yet. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Is anyone doing a birthday roam after this? I'm not aware of a birthday roam that's coming up. 


'''Snipereagle1:'''


Oh, no. Oh, man. Yeah, pretty sure I have to find a strat op to do for something after the Fireside, right, Faros.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


I'll say, so there actually is going to be a birthday roam right after the Fireside. FarosWarrior is going to be doing one. But never not to press the euros, and yeah, we're just going to do it.


'''Snipereagle1:'''


This is some deep lore from a year ago that I don't even remember. But apparently he was going to do a birthday roam around Christmas last year, and some strat up popped up that he couldn't do.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Yeah I remember-


'''Snipereagle1:'''


I don't remember the specifics but he does.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


I couldn't tell you what the strat op was but it did happen.


'''Apple Pear:'''


I think next time you just should take the train.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Ha! Wow. That is some deep cut on that one. That's a good one. Yeah, do it to the twain.
All right. Any other questions here? We're going to let Faros do his birthday roam that he got denied on last year.


'''Kazanir:'''


Miami just went up 10-3 with one minute and 44 seconds left in the fourth quarter.


'''Beyondnoxx UNP:'''


We could all hear Asher yelling.


'''Apple Pear:'''


Should I tell him congratulations with the win and then like last time, they will fail?


'''Snipereagle1:'''


We don't want it to turn into the Seahawks or Ams game from Thursday. 


'''Ranger Gama:'''


Wow.


'''Apple pear:'''


I think the 49ers are very happy with that happening.


'''Ranger Gama:'''


It's funny too, the Euro knows more about American hand-egg ball than I do.
Alright, I think we'll call it good there. You guys enjoy your two weeks. We will see you in the new year. Take a look at the op calendar. We do have events coming up. I know corps are doing roams. Everybody's doing that kind of fun stuff. Just sit around and enjoy your break. If you've got something going on, please do that. Enjoy family time. We're going to be around if you want to come and chill with us on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. So take a look at those.
Cheerio, everybody, have a good time. Faros, we will ping your birthday fleet here shortly, man. 
Oh, that's right. Today is Leraine's birthday. I don't know if he actually tried to hide that from us because I saw it in like 10 other places, but happy birthday to Leraine. He doesn't get a ping because I don't feel like typing one, and we'll just say it here on comms. 
Yeah, send one is to Leraine. Yep, make sure you do that. 
All right, guys. Now we'll say cheerio. Have a good one. We'll see everybody in a couple of weeks.