Fireside Chat Transcript 2025 04 19
Asher Elias:
Alright hello. Hello Alterari's fleet that is staring at an ansiblex. It's me, your parasocial fireside host.
Please clap. Thank you.
Thank you Mobius for crying like a fangirl. Much appreciated.
Alrighty. We'll give people a minute or two more to get going. AFK tax. That's a good idea. I never really thought about that. An AFK tax would be great. Actually, just thinking about it. There are definitely some rich goons who would just pay not to be kicked. Like I know that was a total joke, but I'm like, Hmm. You know, I bet you we can get a little... no, it's not worth it. You could totally milk some rich goons who would just pay for the right not to be kicked. That just sounds like a way to get around Pap requirements through different means, though. Mumble questions tax. Think about how much money we would make from the mumble questions tax. That's a great suggestion. Mach1. You're the best suggestion haver so far. Oh Obsidian did too. Okay. I wonder if you guys both, did you guys both come with that simultaneously? That's pretty close. Yeah. Seriously. Tax suggestion tax. Now we're getting meta. Not reading the MOTD of the fleet tax. We, every person in this alliance would go broke under that tax. AB or MWD tax. See, there we go. Right? Again, I definitely think Jim Gonzo and Bruce Graff did not copy each other. That's within one second of each other. The same suggestion. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, I mean, I'm actually realizing that. Think about how much money we're giving up by not implementing all these taxes, guys, we could be making a lot of tax by taxing you guys for failing to tackle. Can you tax us and give us things so we can say we get free things from the Alliance? Shad says, just figured out how alliances work. Good job Shads. Well done. Well done.
Alright, let's get into it. So yeah, there is a login event now, so if you guys are not collecting rewards, please go ahead and start collecting them and save that sp. You know, we are coming up to that time where the swallows go to Capistrano. The lemmings run off the cliff, and our FCs reshuffle our doctrine. So, is now a good time to have SP saved up. And so, get it from this login event and then save it all for the whims of the FC team. Very useful information for you there.
There's also PVP boosters on the market. They expire June 12th, so you can get one for armor, shield resistance, capacitor, neut resistance, missile damage, velocity, range, capacitor capacity, et cetera, et cetera. Turret damage. All available through the 12th. So, you guys wanna pick those up on the market and use them in fights in the upcoming times.
The nicest moment in Eve I think is when you had like the original doctrine and the doctrine comes back to it. That's when you know you're a vet. That's true to me. That's the true bitter vet time. Like, oh. Ravens again like that. That's the actual moment. And there are some of you who have been waiting for a very long time to go maelstroms again, and it's not happening yet, but you never know. You never know when it will come back. Arty Machs were great, but not anymore. Arty Abaddons, man, that could possibly be a thing. Baltecs. Baltecs have a world they can come back in, but we're not there yet. But doctrines do cycle in and out and that is a good time to feel when they return.
Apple Pear:
Just need to bring back a ANIs.
Asher Elias:
Yeah. Apple. When he wrests control of the alliance for me, it'll just be all, all Aug Navy Issue.
Snipereagle1:
The nail in the coffin of any doctrine discussion.
Asher Elias:
Yeah. The old ANIs when? Marshall Fleet, when? We basically have that already. So, now. The time is now.
And then we have a move op. It is immediately after Fireside. Is that correct guys? So, Irmalin move op immediately after the fireside.Many of you have been asking for it, and now is the time to get your stuff moved.
I also wanna remind you, this is for you ice miners out there. Once again, we are asking you not to cherry pick ice belts. Please cycle them. This has not been a huge problem. We have seen a little small uptick in it, so, if you were within the sound of my voice, please cycle your ice belts, it helps the entire alliance, it helps everyone. And don't get in there and cherry pick them. It hasn't been a huge deal, but, we've had a couple issues.
Wanted to let you guys know that I am heading on vacation. I will be out the next three weeks. We have a fabulous, lineup of guest stars who will be hosting the fireside. Please be nice to them. I told them they can take questions and, you know, try to answer them as best as they can.
So if you wanna try to flummox them, they are allowed to say no to the questions though, so. I try to answer basically every question that I get. But, don't, don't be asking for everyone else. Jim Gonzo, there has been some speculation that I will be at fanfest, I have not confirmed or denied. I, I promise you, if I do show up at fanfest, I will be wearing a sticker that says my name is, you know, Michael Star Crusher and I'm a member of Brave. That will be, it would be something like that. Yeah. I will be Todd.
Sapphire says Gobbins Fireside. You know, if he wanted to host the fireside, I think I would let him. I think that would just be, that's just the kind of chaos that would really give me pleasure. So, if Gobbins wants to guest host the fireside, we will bring him on.
Where does Asher go on vacation? He already lives in Florida. Dictator, this may surprise you, but wherever you live that is not surprise or, you know, special to you. It's probably cool to someone else and it is not cool to you. And that's true for just about everywhere. There are people in Paris who are like, ah, Eiffel Tower, seen that every day, just some steel. Boring. Whereas other people, it's like the, you know, the goal of their life. I've read about this, Japanese people who visit Paris, and I heard the exact name, but it's just like called Paris Syndrome basically. And it comes from mostly Japanese women who have idealized Paris their whole life. And they go there and they see what it's actually like. And if you've been to Paris, you know what I'm talking about. And then they're very disappointed that it's not just baguettes, romance, and poetry. And then they have to have psychological treatment basically. Some of you are listing your frank opinions on Paris and I will not confirm or deny them because we do have some French members and I do not want to anger them even if they do live in a place like Paris. Yeah, Duren. I think you basically have nailed it right there.
Alright friends. So I think that's all for my announcements. If you have some questions, go ahead and throw 'em out. I will do my best to answer them.
Internet Knight says, why am I stockpiling capital BPCs? Presumably to build capitals?
What are your feelings about Paris? I think it has already been summarized by Duran Sun Steel.
More CAD move ops. I will let our guys know that you desire more CAD move ops.
Mach1 says Montreal equals heart. I visited Montreal. I went to the Grand Prix there. It was pretty nice. French speakers though. I don't know if you know that. That's the downside.
When Goons gonna complete EVE. I don't know exactly what that means, bitch forever, but, you mean like rotating around the whole map? We are not anywhere near that yet.
Apple Pear:
It's completing EVE not just moving to low sec.
Asher Elias:
Yeah, that is when you move to low sec, tell everyone on Reddit how great it is and never play again. Nina Blaze says, prediction for who we'll see on the Stanley Cup final? I am rooting for the Panthers, Nina. Hockey is definitely my weakest sport, so I cannot make informed predictions.
Palatine Keepstar is the winning condition. That is a good point. Did you guys ever play, was it Age of Empires 2 with the wonders you had to defend them for a thousand years? So, I think that's it.
Let's see. Iolokin, that's a rough one for me to say. I'm not sure how you say that, but Iolokin says, since you mentioned Grand Prix Piastri or Norris World Championship, this year? I, Hmm. I would say of the two Norris is definitely the more likely, but I don't think that we, I don't think this year is your set in stone at all. If you are on the edge of enjoying Formula One, this year looks to be one of those competitive, enjoyable years, not like 2023 when Verstapen won 23 races. So yes, Ham Norris will be winning the World Drivers Championship in Formula One. You are correct. That is correct. Willow.
Apple Pear:
At least Verstapen took pole today.
Asher Elias:
Thank you for spoiling for those who had not seen it yet. There you go. There is the pole information. I was gonna watch that after this, but I won't have to now. I appreciate you Apple.
Apple Pear:
You're welcome.
Asher Elias:
Tariel says, do you know if Kazanir is still planning to hold his shareholder meeting? I do not know that Tariel, probably, he, if you poke him, he will probably get to work on it.
When are we gonna destroy PH says Remy. Let me just hit this thing that I mentioned a lot. PH, Pandemic Horde is building a ton of dreads. They're telling their guys to build dreads, and to have any, and they're already ahead of us in dreads and have been for the last five years. I mean, if you guys remember, we were basically knocked back into the Stone Age a little under five years ago, and we've been rebuilding. And I think we're getting close to parity, but certainly one area where they have more than us is dreads. And that is probably the most important ship in Eve online right now. So, I'm gonna keep banging this drum. Build dreads. Have many of them. Have them ready?
I would like to fight them right now.
We had a classic kick someone and getting themselves kicked. Good job Lord Zander. Well done.
The dread gap, indeed.
Sharp Reeves says building dreads to never use them. You know, that is a very cynical way of looking at it. Obviously, they want to use dreads. They only want to use it in their most favorable conditions. And obviously Horde has a higher standard of what they will deploy, you know, into favorable conditions. But, that's who we fight and that's what we've got to deal with.
Vertical supremacy when, yeah. The Naglfar is unfortunately not a great vessel right now, which is bad because it, it was not a great vessel for a very long time. It had its time in the sun for a little bit, and now it's gone. It's left again.
Dreadnought race was blamed for the starting of World War I, by the way says Ramel Kas. Yeah, I mean, I, I don't think you can say specifically just the dreadnought race, but, it certainly was a contributing factor to it. When the HMS Dreadnought debuted, it was so much better than any other previous warship that it made them all obsolete just by existing. So, it really changed the face of naval warfare. Really interesting time in naval warfare and it actually has interesting parallels to Eve. I'm gonna do not a World War II history one, but World War I. So it's okay. But if you look at the way, you know, the Grand Fleet and the British fleet, you know, dealt with each other in World War I and basically the unwillingness to engage and how their one major engagement off Jutland happened essentially by accident when both sides had incorrect information that it's so reminiscent of Titan fights in Eve. I always like reading about capital ship warfare in real life because Titan fights in Eve are really similar and reminiscent of capital ship warfare when it was big gunships.
So who's the arch Duke in this scenario? I mean, I don't think Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was a particularly important person, so it would be like if the leader of some small alliance gets, you know, robbed and then starts a major war. That would be what would happen. You know, the Franz Ferdinand was probably the actual scenario was actually the casino war. Because what happened there, and if you guys don't know this story, it's quite long and it's very amusing, but I'll give you the short version. Is, the short, it's hard to phrase this in a, in an appropriate way. So, there were two people in a alliance that was allied to Goons at the time. And they helped build one of the Eve casinos and the, those two people then invited a member of the casino over to their real life home. And something happened that caused issues amongst them. Now, you know, what happened seems to be up for debate, and then the people who were allied with us in Alliance stole money from the casino 'cause they were mad about whatever happened in their home. And that was actually the start of the casino war. No one knew it at the time, but, then the casinos hired mercenaries to attack them. This was Space Monkey's Alliance. And, if you were around, if you're an old head, you might remember this. The Goon squad theta squad deployed to fight the mercenaries, and we had gotten really good at counter baiting, drops and doing that kind of thing. We basically stopped them cold. And then the Space Monkeys Alliance, you know, leadership, the same ones who had the issue and stole the money, came to our head diplo at the time, Sion Kumitomo, and said, you know, we can handle this. We don't need goons here helping us. And made us leave their space and stop baiting. And as soon as they did, they started getting dropped on again and could not handle it. And that just encouraged and set off the start of the casino war when they realized, wow, these mercenaries are doing, you know, really well. But I honestly believe that if, had they not, you know, forced theta squad to leave, then, it would've, it would've probably never happened. It would've been much less likely.
Mike, that hand pun was a little forced, good try though.
Eve seemed to simulate reality in a small event, spirals into a major war. Yeah, I think that honestly, like as much as we sort of poo the idea, there are a lot of like interesting parallels you can draw between Eve and real life war. There's obviously some huge differences, but, it is interesting how transferable some of the knowledge is.
Ceema already at work? Okay.
Yeah. A real life clone bay would really change how war is handled.
Just Mia says, How many dreads should everybody have? I would say as many as you can afford is like, probably the non joking answer, you know, one at least. But, you know, keep building them. It's something that we want to have many of. I would say a good number is to have three on a character and then, but go for multiple characters first. You know, if you can have two on one character, that's good, but having one on two characters is far better.
Shad says, I'm hearing there have been more activity of blops stain action, but is that because the Russians no longer defend their space or if stain blops are not as bad as it sounds? So Shad, it's not that the Russians don't defend that space, it's that it is NPC space. There are NPC stations. So it's essentially, more or less impossible to interdict that unless you want just 24/7 bubble camp. And why would the Russians be doing that? So. Yeah, they're just, they're just an NPC station and they're just chilling there.
Apple Pear:
That's very important. Somebody saying, dread alts, please have your main ready to be in a subcap ship and your capital in an alt. That would make everybody so much happy.
Asher Elias:
Yeah. Let me just talk about that.
Snipereagle1:
Obviously if you have a, like, if you have a subcap. If you have an alt, you can fly subcaps on the, the point there is not that Snipereagle1 needs to be in a Rokh, it's that Snipereagle1 needs to not just be sitting in the dread fleet waiting for something to happen. Not flying a subcap.
Asher Elias:
Yeah, exactly. I think that, that a lot of time, you know, you want to get your, your kills on your main character, and so you get them in a dread and then you just end up sitting in a dread because dread fights just are, as you guys know, something that happens oftentimes spontaneously. You know, in the war up north where we went and fought with B2, the one that happened up there was, I like to call it like the, let's have a baby to save the marriage Hail Mary. You know, their leadership was so burned out that they just forced a dread fight and, and didn't really tell anyone because from their perspective they're like, well, we're basically done. If we win, then we win. And if we lose, we're outta this quicker. So, it was a fight that we were not prepared for, didn't really want at the time even. But, if we, if we were gonna take it, we would've wanted to do it, you know, in a different way. So, dread fights often happen at unexpected times. And the point is, if you're flying in a subcap, you're actively helping in every fight and you can have your alt or your main waiting for that eventual dread fight. But having a situation where your main can only do one or the other and you don't have anything else is a lot less useful.
Dread-fense in depth, I, let's workshop them one a little bit more.
Dreads are a fleet in being thing, to some degree Rammel that is, that's accurate. I wouldn't say entirely. I mean, certainly Titans and supers are more so, but. It, there is a lot of times where just them existing and being around or logged in has a pretty big effect on fights and, and what happens. So, you're not wrong there.
Is a hot dog a sandwich? Yes. A hotdog is a sandwich.
Bruce Graff Petrov says, I know it's hard to generalize, but is the typical scenario with a cap plus sub but cap fight that pilots who start on one side will stay there? Or is there a lot of switching? So you mean can a sub cap pilot switch to a cap mid fight? If that's the question. No, that is not super common and it, it's something you should not rely on.
Is cereal a soup? I would say no. Is pizza an open faced sandwich? No. Is lasagna cake? No. Cake should be sweet. And by the way, British people stop making sweet things savory like pies. Come on, get it together. Is schnitzel a steak? I don't know. Is pizza with pineapple even a pizza? Yeah, pizza with a topping. Do fish drink water? I don't think so. Do you prefer brisket or steak? I, I like a nice steak. Heard Mexican food to spicy for me. Are sharks more deadly than asteroids? On a year to year basis, yes. On the scale of the lifespan of the planet, no.
Can you piss someone off so they invade us, pretty please says Balin Khazad-dum, I have a guess of what your fandom is there. Piss someone off. so they invade us pretty please. I think it's pretty clear over the last few years. So, you know, we talk about rebuilding and you look at horde like, they had us down to one constellation, you know, up to our eyeballs and debt and they couldn't finish it. Finish it, and then, they've had, you know, five years of having an advantage, and for five years they've sat banging their chest and saying, why don't goons invade? Now I believe that is for the average line member, like I think average line member presumes that, you know, all alliances make the same amount of money and are in the same position. But obviously we were not. And the leadership of Horde know that, it is clearly a strategy of theirs to never, never invade again. I have to presume that having such an advantage for five years and just sitting on it and not doing anything means that world war B and not being able to get 1DQ just shattered Gobbins confidence 'cause I can't think of any other reason not to do it. Certainly if I was in their position and I had five years of such a strong advantage, I would've done something with those five years other than just sit. And I do kind of hate these accusations that, you know, the, the big alliances are RMTing, because I don't generally think they're true, but sometimes when I sit here and think about having a, such a large advantage for five years and sitting on it and doing nothing with it, I wonder what is the point? Like, what, what are you here for? Is it just to have your name on a map? Maybe it is. So although I don't like those accusations, sometimes I have, I, like I go, huh? What were you doing? So, piss someone off so they invade us. It's a great idea, but clearly they're not interested, like clearly. Certainly at this point they do not have the advantages that they've had a year ago or two years ago, or even more so three years ago, or even more so four years ago. You know, five years ago we had lost all but one constellation. We were up to our eyeballs in debt. Like, you know, they had every advantage and they never pressed it. So I don't think that they're gonna be invading us anytime soon.
Apple Pear:
They even didn't press it when we started moving because they thought we would go away again.
Asher Elias:
Yeah. That, that's a great point. Apple. I mean, we saw the leak from Gobbins saying, oh, we're not gonna fight them in Catch, we'll just retake it when they leave. I added the ha ha. But it just seemed like he was just really high on his own farts, right. And, I, yeah, if you needed more proof that this guy is not interested in fighting, and just had his confidence broken, it's right there. We're not gonna fight him. I'm, it's, I'm some Machiavellian Mastermind and we're just gonna take the space back when they leave. And then they just let us take all these regions with no fight. And even on the move where we are like, okay, we are super vulnerable. You know, we sat around planning this for weeks on how to deal with it. They did nothing. Like nothing. So, the odds of us being invaded in a serious way are relatively low. We'll just put it that way. If we want fun, we're gonna have to make it for ourselves and that's fine. We just need to get into the position where we can do that. So that's why I keep talking to you guys. Please build dreads. Please get alts, get us to the place where we can do that, 'cause we want to give that to you. They don't want to give it to their members.
Ranadine Oramara says, what would you the second thing to say, recommend to a person to the whole SOV Null thing, but not new to Eve after please read and understand the blue fucking policy. I mean, that wouldn't be the first thing I would say. The first thing I would say is, the point of being out here in Null in a big alliance is to be social, to know people, to have connections. You can play EVE alone. It's very possible. So if you're here taking advantage of that, you know, make friends or at least make acquaintances, learn the people you're flying with, you know, do that kind of thing. Go out and talk on comms. Put yourself in a slightly uncomfortable position. We don't know how, you know, pipe up and say, Hey guys, what's up? You know, I'm new. I guarantee you, you won't get bit, right. People are really happy to talk to a person who's new to the Alliance. So meet people, get to know them, and everything else will fall in place. You don't need anything else.
Is INIT a threat in the West? I mean, if you mean to us, I don't think that they intend to invade us. And I think, you know, I think Shines has lots of plans and, certainly they could, but I don't think that's something we need to think about in the next month or so.
Dictator Imperator says the dread race reminds me of the Titan race during the Rorqual era. Yeah, it is pretty similar actually. It's pretty similar. And it's easier to get a dread now than it was to get a Titan then. It was easy to get a Titan, but it was still more work. So please get dreads. We get many of them.
Irtoh Night says, IDK it's mentioned a lot. Returning Goon player here. Why did we end up moving out of Delve? So CCP made a lot of changes to sov null and Delve was basically no longer sustainable for us. It became too small because the changes CCP made and we moved and essentially, it's been, it's been a huge benefit, you know, since we moved. There have been a lot of opportunities open to us. There's a lot more space. It's been a real boon to us, but, basically CCP change kind of pushed us into something that we'd already been discussing quite a bit.
Can we a Ceema fire side while you're on vacation? I don't know if Ceema would want to talk.
It still smelled like, Bob, we couldn't get this thing out of the couch cushions. Yeah.
Do we expect more interesting fights soon or just the same blocking things? I dunno what the same blocking thing means, but yeah, I think that there are more interesting times coming up ahead. If you guys saw the ping I put out a couple days ago, you know, Horde has put up a Keepstar chain towards us, so that they do not have to take regional. So they're anticipating something. So I certainly think that the odds of interesting action have gone up quite a bit in the last few weeks.
Are we involved in faction warfare? I just wanted to give you the answer there, but, you can get involved. It's not, it's not, something that we're deeply involved in, but we do have groups that are involved in faction warfare.
Have you practiced your sword skills? Yeah, I've been working on it. I have to study the blade so I can be the, the goons who win.
Chase. Unfortunately, this is the sucked. So, apparently there was a lot of desync in that system because people were commenting in local about how it was mis-pointed too, and we took screenshots and they, it actually is pointed at the gate, but there was just some CCP stuff where it looked like it was pointed wrong. Unfortunately, for the comedy section, it is pointed correctly at the gate, the Keepstar they did drop.
E-bushido shines in space. That is something we should end all meetings with. That is a great ending.
Should we expect regional 49- crossing fleets in the future? Yes. Mike Monster, though we will still be doing those periodically.
Shepherd asked about expanding blops saves for Rorquals into Immensea. It's mostly a range thing, Shepherd, kind of, Immensea just probably too far away to do it.
Lord Jason, I see your magic the gathering reference.
Alright, friends, looks like the questions are drying out, so I'm gonna assume we've answered all of them. Thank you guys for so much for showing up. I will be outta here in the next three weeks. We'll have some awesome guest speakers and then I'll see you on the next one. Have a good one and see you later.
Snipereagle1:
I'll put a ping out shortly. The fleet for Irmalin is on my main and will be in op 7.
