New to 0.0?

I’ve been reading about, and harshly ending the dreams of, small 0.0 alliances along with the rest of Goonfleet for a while now and a pattern has emerged that has proven true for a lot of them.

They claimed to possess power far greater than they actually did and inflated their egos far beyond what is reasonable, acceptable and, frankly, healthy.

Case in point: Triumvirate – a 0.0 alliance which has, admittedly existed in the North for a good while, since the D2 wars. While they have been around for a while, they seem not to have learned the basic rule of survival in 0.0

If you are a starting up in a hostile environment, don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself.

This is important and you can see this happening in the real world where resources are scarce and competition abounds. If you draw undue attention to your actions then chances are that someone who is after the same resources are you will step in and interfere in a decidedly negative way.

This translates to EVE like so:

• Small lowsec mission running/pirate/PvP corp decides to venture into the brave new world beyond CONCORD and secure space.
• Said corp believes their pilots are great at PvP from killing lowsec gankers and pirates and hence would have no trouble with 0.0 fleet, POS and roaming warfare.
• Corp claims a system or 2 for itself and announces its presence and advertises itself as a “Hardcore PvP” corp and overinflates its own ego through banging the proverbial drum about how they bravely carved out a slice of space for themselves and invites others to do the same.

Good in theory. Really, really bad in practice. Here are some common mistakes that newcomers and corps who simply refuse to learn make:

1: Announcing their presence and declaring themselves to “Elite PvPers”

I cannot begin to recall how many corps have clung at this dubious title and ideology. Titles like these are about as impressive to established 0.0 veterans- dare I call myself that – as a Nigerian general’s exuberant uniform with ribbons, medals and sashes is to a battle-hardened marine fresh out of a war zone.

Most serious 0.0 pilots do not claim to be great PvPers, but simply get on with the job at hand, whether that be camping gates, running fast tactical gangs or moving large, heavily-armed fleets in strategic strikes. When they come across this sort of self-glorification, their response is almost always “F1-F8”.

If a startup alliance announces their presence in 0.0, they may rest assured that very soon, one of the established factions with whom they have no standings set will get curious and a commander such as myself will come with a fast, heavily-armed gang to see what the matter is and kill off a good few expensive ships before disappearing again. And noting the system for future attacks.

**2: **Erroneously believing that 0.0 warfare is not too different from lowsec.

0.0 is MUCH more harsh. In lowsec, there are sentry guns on gates which provide a modicum of safety for moving ships around and prevent gatecamps and so forth from being staged in any meaningful way. Nullsec (0.0) has no such safety nets. There is no NPC intervention, nothing to stop players indiscriminately slaughtering you in space wherever they see you and you cannot run to a station after escaping aggressed players and know that the sentry guns will shoot them to pieces.

Pilots who believe this will be in for a nasty shock when the next roaming gang comes through their system, bubbles the station and picks them off as they warp to the station to save themselves.

**3: **Believing that because they have not done anything overtly hostile toward any of the established 0.0 alliances or even their neighbours, they will be left in peace.

This sort of links with the first point. Fleet commanders such as myself will often lead gangs out into surrounding territories to explore and find targets of opportunity and if I happen to come across your main ratting/mining system, then be assured that your ships will come under attack.

Countless corps and alliances have cried bitter tears over the loss of POSs, T2 ships and other expensive assets. Some have written to our diplomats decrying the unprovoked violence from our pilots and demanding that the perpetrators be “dealt with” and some compensation is dealt out to them.

The response from our diplomats is unforgiving and almost always mocking. Needless to say, nobody gets compensated and the “perpetrators” are applauded. This goes for most other alliances who operate under a Not Blue Shoot It policy.

**4: **Thinking that there is justice and honour in 0.0

This is a myth, by and large. 0.0 is a lawless place where the etiquette and standards and “e-honour” that may exist in lowsec is thrown out of a 20th storey window, run over by a truck and then scooped up and used to pick up the broken glass.

Justice is subjective – usually in favour of whoever is dispensing it from an assorted array of offensive weapons. Cries for mercy will fall upon deaf ears and cries for justice and decency will be met with mocking, derision and more death directed your way.

Before you flood my inbox with ignorant hatemail, read below:

This post was not intended as a hate speech against small-time alliances who are trying to carve out a name for themselves as a 0.0 alliance. Rather, it is a narrative on my experience of the mistakes said alliances persist in making through a combination of an inability to adapt to a hostile and changeable environment, living in denial of their shortcomings and an overinflated ego.

As always, comments are welcome!