Fireside Chat Transcript 14 Dec 2k19

Getting some questions about the obvious,
really Guardians of the Galaxy, Declaration of War.
We will absolutely get into that.
One moment here, guys.
Okay, so we're gonna go ahead and get started.
People that wanna be on the fire side
have the opportunity to be here,
and things have sorted out well enough.
Okay, so we have a few items of business.
If you've never been on a fireside chat before,
the way that these work is we ask questions,
sort of like the prime minister's question time
or what have you, in Elysium@conference.gamefleet.com.
That doesn't mean I will necessarily answer every question,
but we do our best on when and where we can.
So don't ask questions in Mumble,
don't comment in Mumble,
don't comment in the chat,
so don't ask questions in Mumble,
don't comment in Mumble.
I see somebody making fun of redline here in Mumble chat.
Put it into Elysium on Jabber, please.
Now, speaking of Elysium,
in in-game plug, of course,
we have two in-game channels
that sort of fulfill similar functions to Elysium
and gsisk on Jabber.
We have isk.imperium and we have elysium.imperium in-game.
You can find links to those channels
in the Alliance MOTD if you need.
And one of the reasons I'm bringing them up
is that we are going to move all contract linking
and all Hypernet relay linking to isk.imperium in-game.
Basically, Alliance chat and other areas
are getting clogged up by people linking contracts
and by people linking Hypernet relays.
So please don't do that anymore.
Link them in isk.imperium.
Because I don't really like seeing
our primary channels turned into shitty MMO trade chat
or Gino local when we do have
a perfectly good channel for that.
- Yeah, I would just like to add on that.
At the same time, we're just starting this now,
so let's not do witch hunts or anything
for people who haven't gotten the memo yet.
- Yeah, this is something that Inominate and Hiscry
are going to be enforcing,
so don't blow a gasket if you see somebody do it.
Don't turn into a circular firing squad
or be like a little high schooler.
Be chill, but basically that's going to be the policy
is we're going to have Alliance and Hypernet chat
dumped into isk.imperium.
- And if anyone can give foreign language translations
to add to the MOTD, just send me a message on Jabber.
I mean, native speakers, I can use Google Translate too.
- Me as the nominate for people
who do not know who Inominate is?
- I forgot about that.
- Okay, so moving on to some other stuff.
Interestingly, it's been a big meeting day
in terms of grinding through a zillion agenda items
and making all these plans and org reform stuff.
Essentially, the Alliance is going
into training montage mode.
We have been at peace for so long
that we need to run up some mountains
and generally get back into fighting shape
where across a variety of organizations
we have let all the peace get to us.
Oddly enough though, when it actually comes down
to the fireside side of things,
I only have a few bullet points to go over
because most of the org reform and train montage
and unfucking ourselves and fighting out
our fighting weight stuff is behind the scenes,
government model word work.
But what do we have?
Part of one of the most obvious reforms I've done recently
is stepping up our game in terms of Locust Fleets
because we got punched in the dick really fucking hard
four weeks back when the singing of the Locust Dania
went down and tomorrow I would invite all of you
to participate in the Locust Fleet.
Now it's a serious Alliance strategic op
and one of the things that came up in our discussions
about how to better defend and promote the Locust Fleets
is that even if you don't have a rogue wall,
even if you are not doing any mining,
if you have a Titan or a Super
and you want to come on the Locust Fleet
and just be part of the defensive response,
part of the umbrella, we appreciate everyone
that can come up with that.
You do not need to be in a rogue wall,
doing rogue wall things on a Locust Fleet to participate.
Even if you are just part of the cover fleet,
we want you guys there, please do turn up.
The guys have put a lot of work
into changing the Locust Fleet from a milk run,
which it was for like two and a half years
until we got kicked in the dick,
into a much more hardened, proper fucking
strategic operation.
And this is going to be our second time
that we have had an opportunity to post dick punch,
do a real, proper defendant's trap style Locust Fleet.
So please come, it'll be tomorrow at,
I believe 1700 Eve is around the time we do the form up.
I could be wrong on that, but someone will correct me
if I am wrong, hopefully in a moment,
but it is going to be tomorrow.
How are we going to incentivize
super cap participation in Locust Fleet?
We're going to incentivize super cap participation
in Locust Fleet by the fact that our enemies
are actively hunting the rogue walls
and there will be a shit load of killmales
if they make another drop.
The biggest cap fight that has happened at Eve
in terms of ISK damage done,
unfortunately most of that ISK damage was done to us
because again, it was a milk run for a couple of years,
was on the Locust Fleet four weeks ago
where we got kicked in the dick.
So if you want to use your big shiny toy,
there's a situation where there will probably be combat,
which is kind of why you have big shiny toys turn up.
All right, so we have a bunch of questions
regarding shield and armor.
And we also have questions regarding
to the test guardians, the galaxy thing.
We'll deal with that in a moment.
I want to stay on the Locust Fleet thing.
We haven't really spent a lot of time talking
about how we want everybody in the alliance
to have both shield and armor supers and titans.
We stopped talking about it
after we deployed 1100 titans to the north.
Last time we took all the toys out for a spin
during the NC. campaign.
We sort of fell off the fireside bandwagon
of saying shield and armor in every hangar,
but that is still our policy.
We haven't felt it necessary to hearth
for I suppose a generation of new players
who are new to our organization about this.
But the policy of the Imperium is still,
we want people to get to the point
where they have both a shield and an armor titan
in their hangar and building up the means of production
as it were to achieve that goal.
So if you are in a situation where you're like,
wow, I only have a shield or I only have an armor,
that is an indication that instead of hoping
that the game changes in some sort of way
to make only one of these things viable or necessary,
that's an indication that you need to pursue
the other aspect of strategic weaponry.
Okay, so there's that.
Speaking of strategic weaponry,
we have a strat op tomorrow at 1545, Eve.
It's a little bit early, but it shouldn't be a problem
because it's fucking Sunday.
So that means that everybody gets a chance
to stick their dicks in that.
Let me just link that sucker here.
So strat op tomorrow, be there.
Okay, a couple of different other things
we need to go through.
I wanna talk about the Warhol deployment.
(audio cuts out)
So first of all, because I did link something,
but I don't wanna actually wrestle
with trying to copy and paste
because I'm bad at computer machines, as it were.
So if one of Pathfinder guys can link
the Alliance Warhol deployment,
Warhol code streaming, that would be good.
Worst case scenario, I can do it myself.
But anyway, the Warhol deployment started last week,
and this entire first week has been like a teething process.
And I myself have gotten off my ass,
reinstalled everything, I've always had it installed,
but anyway, getting my UI set up appropriately
and relearning how to fucking probe.
Probing turns out to be a lot easier
than the last time I tried to do it.
CCD has made it a shitload easier.
And getting into the hole,
getting back on that real shit, and dusting off.
One of the things that's been really interesting about it
is that because we are intending to train
skirmish commanders and line members
on the basics of Warhol survival as a means to an end,
as a method of transport,
last week you guys heard me talking about the ways,
or the web way, depending upon what hypernet relay,
not the lottery analogy, you know what I mean,
I'm talking about like a hyperspace transport network here,
or ring gates, as it were,
'cause that was up until six in the morning,
watching the new expansion season.
Anyway, we have seen reports where our guys
who are in the hole are running around the galaxy,
blowing shit up, and we are seeing our enemies
through our spy network talking about
how goons have totally deployed here,
goons have totally deployed there,
oh my god, they're over here, they're over there.
They don't understand that we are using wormholes
as a means to the end of feasting upon the sorrows
of our foes across the galaxy,
rather than just going into wormholes
and staying in wormholes.
So it's been really cool to see the chaos and confusion,
being able to be in a different place
whenever you feel like it, essentially,
depending upon the will of Bob, as were.
So I highly recommend it.
We are looking in particular for new skirmish commanders,
not necessarily new skirmish commanders,
but I mean skirmish commanders that are new to wormholes,
and we want skirmish commanders to learn
how to do this shit, because if it's easy enough
that I can figure out how to do it,
then basically everybody can figure out how to do it.
And it really is a great method
of getting across the galaxy rapidly.
I don't want to see all of the burden
of providing content and learning how to rampage
around the galaxy, ganking everything that moves,
to fall purely on Pathfinders.
Pathfinders are there to essentially educate us,
org-wise, on how to use wormholes
to get from point A to point B,
how to do the basics of survival,
how to use the Pathfinder app,
how do we lend a wormhole space to our will
in order to better conquer and slaughter
our way through Nullsec.
And so I want the Pathfinder guys,
they have been doing a lot of ops,
but I want to transition from relying entirely
on the Pathfinder guys to both teach us how to wormhole
and show us content in wormhole space,
to training up a new generation of skirmish commanders
that are aware of how to use this tool
as a means to an end of getting what we wanted.
So now that we have established ourselves in the school,
we have been there for a week,
even I have figured out how to do some shit,
I encourage everyone to get on that real shit
if you're interested as a skirmish commander in particular.
We are looking for people to help lead
our marauding gangs of kill-frenzy
goons everywhere, basically.
So yeah, should be fun.
(silence)
Okay.
So speaking of that,
there is actually going to be after the fireside,
there's gonna be pings for training
to teach you how to do scanning
and use the Pathfinder app
and generally know what the fuck.
I myself found it quite intimidating
when I was going like, okay, I'm gonna get there,
I'm gonna do this wormhole stuff,
it's been years since I did it,
I'm gonna get back in there,
I'm gonna try to figure stuff out.
And the information posts that the guys in Pathfinder
put together was fantastic.
And so once you join the Into the Breach SIG,
which anybody can join without needing acceptance,
you just press a button to request
and it's an auto invite group.
So you press the button that's suggested
in the sticky worm thread.
And then there's this info post
once you're in Into the Breach
where it goes through and it links.
Here's how to scan the video,
here's how to use the Pathfinder app video.
And there's videos to explain to you in excruciating detail.
The detail is not excruciating, it is there,
but it is at the level of communication
where even I can figure it out.
And I put off watching this little
how to probe things video for a while,
'cause I was like, oh my God,
and then I realized it was only four minutes long
and I figured it out in like a minute and a half
and it was not actually a big deal.
I think one of the biggest challenges
that we have as an organization
when it comes to wormhole space
is the assumption that it is a vertical learning cliff.
And CCB has made a lot of the basics
of wormhole space a lot easier.
And organizationally speaking as well,
the support and the infrastructure
and the tutorials that the Pathfinders have created
have also really lowered the barrier to entry.
So if my sorry ass can figure out
how to get from point A to point B
in a wormhole and figure out how to scan things down,
you guys can do it too.
All right.
And as Benjamin Craft points out,
it is easy to do, but there are a lot of tricks
that can save a lot of time.
And one of the reasons why this whole school Pathfinder thing
that we're doing is so awesome
is that it allows us to rapidly communicate
throughout the organization, those best practices.
If you're the kind of nerd that gets excited
about the idea of best practices,
like me, because I'm fucked in the head.
And we give Andrew Kama and his crew a shout out.
They taught me a lot about wormholes.
So yes, absolutely.
The wormhole classes that good diversity types
have been running have been fantastic.
We are usually shouting this out on every fireside.
Okay.
So talking about wormhole stuff,
that's one side of the warfare topic.
Another side of the warfare topic,
we already discussed,
which is we're in training montage mode.
The galaxy is collectively gearing up
to have some sort of shit show.
We're not sure what, where, or how,
but we can just sort of sense that,
it's time to gear up for war.
And so, like I said,
lots of org reform stuff going on
at the Illuminati level and whatever.
And then the questions getting a lot about
all the fireside earlier,
guardians of the galaxy test,
Vili saying that they're going to war and whatever.
I don't really know what's going on with that
because I don't want to talk shit
about any of the sides involved in that,
but basically it's not really dumb
to announce that you're going to war
in a few weeks against this specific target.
'Cause it's just,
I don't see a way for a legacy
to project strategic forces to the galactic Northwest.
Like they're not really in a position.
It struck me more as basically like a CSM.
And I have no idea what went down on the CSM
between Vili and Surtragon,
but that whole thing looks much more like
a shouting match on the CSM between Vili and Surtragon
about something or other that got out of hand.
Because you just don't say,
"I'm going to war in like three or four weeks,"
when there's no path to,
first of all, you don't do that usually.
When you say you're going to war,
you immediately go for the fucking jugular the instant.
You're actually, ideally,
you're announcing it while you're in the middle
of going for the jugular.
You don't give your enemy an opportunity to prepare
or give them notice or any of those kinds of things.
- We do, Iko says the same,
to send us to war to kill them both.
One of the challenges that we have,
it would be kind of nice if somebody did actually
attack us here in Delve,
is that we are waiting to see
what sort of CCP resource depletion-y thing
might come down the pipeline.
They might be changing the chessboard itself, as it were,
and shaking up regional values.
And if they do that,
I think it will be a very exciting time.
The reason why we are going into montage mode,
we saw this right at the start of the Fountain War,
where CCP released the, I think it was the Odyssey patch.
I forgot what it was called,
but they released a patch,
they shook up all the moon values,
and we invaded Fountain and kicked off the Fountain War.
So we don't know if CCP changes the values of the moons
or adds a resource depletion thing,
and various regions are going to shift in value.
We want to be prepared for that
if and when we need to go someplace else
or expand our territory or kill somebody
or respond to other people trying to come after us.
Shit seems like it's about to go down.
That's basically where I'm going with this.
The stuff that's happening in the Galactic Northwest
is amusing, and that's cool.
Right now, it's kind of at a sort of a simmering,
soft conflict in the Galactic Northwest,
but my sort of spidey senses are telling me
that shit's about to go down in some of the next month
or so, particularly depending upon
how the resource depletion mechanic,
if and when that hits, works out.
So that's why we're all training Montagy,
if this makes any sense.
So that's also why I'm distinguishing for you guys
useful wars, real wars, bad wars,
wars that are not going to happen.
I don't think that Vili versus Sword Dragon is a real war.
On the other hand, if it gets out,
then I'm saying this on a fireside,
and that makes either Sword Dragon
or Vili extra butt-blasted,
and then they decide to make a real war out of it,
then that's cool too.
I like nice, awesome, sweet, but you know, whatever.
Do I like overnight oats?
I don't even know what overnight oats are.
I'm guessing that those are oats
that you spend all night making in like a crock pot
or something.
I'm very lazy when it comes to,
like I have a 30 minute effort threshold
when it comes to cooking.
I love cooking as a hobby.
It's like one of my big things,
but I've never even heard of overnight oats before.
I mean, if you inform me of it,
I'll probably smoke a bunch of weed and give it a try
and see what it's like.
I mean, I love cooking shit.
Yeah, Binging with Babish is a life-changing channel.
Also in particular, there is,
if you ever need to impress a woman on a date night,
and you can pull this off, there is a Binge,
and this was actually suggested to me by a fellow goon.
I did not come up with this, but he was like,
"Hey, if you ever want to impress a girl on a date
with your ability to cook,
there is a Binging with Babish YouTube
to show you how to make a pasta olio e aglio from Chef,
which was a movie with Jonathan Franklin, I think.
And it's just an amazing dish, and it's dead easy,
and it is very effective.
And I also just make that for myself all the time.
Even if I'm not trying to impress a girl,
I'm going to, you know,
it's one of my favorite weed dishes.
All right, so we're going to, yeah,
so Inmar apparently linked the olio e aglio.
I can't speak Italian properly,
so I don't know if I'm pronouncing it the wrong way.
Do I cook for myself?
Yes, I cook all the fucking time.
All right, so regardless of like cooking and dating tips
with the Mitani, as Tessie points out,
if people have questions about other things
and stuff going on, let's hear them.
We do have the, actually, you know, speaking of,
I think we even have fucking Surtragon,
speaking of the Surtragon stuff,
I think Surtragon's a guest on the Meta Show this week.
Yeah, so we'll get to hear from him
about all sorts of things.
All right, so.
Does my yacht come with a chef?
Typically when I'm renting a boat or something like that,
like when I was in France a couple months ago,
half the fun is buying like goods from markets
in little towns in France
and then taking it back to the boat
and then cooking shit on your boat
and eating it on your boat,
and it's badass as hell, so, you know.
Was there a Meta Show last week?
No, there wasn't a Meta Show last week.
Discord was shitting itself
due to some sort of Google Cache issue
that was affecting lots of things
across the entire internet,
so we canceled the show at the last minute
because we couldn't get any of our guests
to be able to connect to any of our services appropriately.
(silence)
Okay, I think that's gonna be it.
We need more Doctrine ships, says Incosys.
Incosys, actually, one of the things to keep in mind
is that we do have like shit stack reimbursement
for basically every single ship out there at some level,
depending on what region you're using it in
for peacetime stuff.
So if you are on an op and you wanna be like Baltet
and you're like, you know,
I'm gonna fly a Megathron on a Harvey Fleet
because I feel like it,
there are options for you to do non-Doctrine ships
and still get some level of reimbursement
depending on the hull.
And so I'm glad you brought that up
so I can advertise that to everybody
who might not realize that,
that we have a very extensive space welfare state.
(silence)
Can we get some hype from Mine One tonight?
Saturday Night Swarm with Mine One is that,
I mean, Mine One fucking owns.
So if he wants some hype, I'm happy to give him hype.
Dude is great.
And it was actually super cool to meet him in Vegas
and roll around with him.
(silence)
He and his lady love are both super legit people.
Okay, so we have a gate camping class in two weeks.
Ranger Gamma, who was getting shout outs earlier
for fantastic wormhole classwork.
We have gate camping classes.
10 different SIG leaders are on the schedule.
Just read what Ranger Gamma just put out there, please.
(silence)
Not be there tonight because I think I might be off
wallowing in depravity with my lady friend,
which is often a common thing on Saturday Nights for me.
(silence)
Okay, so I think that's going to be it
for the fireside today.
I see the number of questions has sort of gone down.
I will be in transit next Saturday.
So I will not be here for the fireside next Saturday.
I will be on my way to spend,
actually this is one last thing if you're Canadian.
I'm going to be in Toronto for between the 21st and the 28th
and then I'll be checking out Montreal from the 28th
through like the 31st thereabouts.
I've never really been to Canada before
or had like a party there.
So if you are Toronto or nearby area
or Montreal, nearby area,
and have some cool advice as to cool stuff to check out,
please let me know.
And who knows, maybe we'll spin up a good meet
if there's enough interest.
All right guys, thanks for coming.
And I would say I'd see you next week,
but I will be on the road.
So I will be back available doing a fireside
when it's available.
If not, if I don't see you between now
and the holidays being over, happy holidays.
Let's go out there and kill some shit.