Hashu Blog: Thump Thump

After disappearing for two months I decided to withdraw from my coalition and alliance positions and stepped down as CEO of Imperial Dreams.  I felt it was not fair to my coalition, alliance, and corporation to hold important positions and responsibility and not be around to fulfill them.  Ironically this move coincided with a major real-life move and job searching time.  Meaning I had a lot of free time and suddenly have become more active in the month of November than I have probably been for all of 2013 prior.  I have refrained from 'reactivating' Provi News as I will likely be starting a new job in December and I didn't want to start again if I am just going to disappear.  So while I may occasionally post some information, please be aware it will likely be sporadic and not as regular as it had been previously.

I also started playing League of Legends this summer and am slowly grinding my way to lvl 30, hopefully will have it by the time season 4 comes out of preseason.  If you want to play a few games I'm on the NA server (Rovern Hashu), send me a friend invite and let me know your eve character and corporation/alliance in the friend request.

Edit: Also . . . Happy Thanksgiving Americans!  May you stuff yourself with Turkey and have peaceful naps while watching the football games and parades today!

Hashu Blog: Summer

Some will probably notice that Provi News got very quiet over the last month or two.  For the first time in several years I can say with confidence that the summer bug bit quite successfully and I have not been around.  That is not to say that nothing has happened as we have seen quite a lot including success in the first two weeks of Alliance Tournament XI as well as a four week campaign by CVA in the Amarr Faction Warfare milita.  Sadly all good times come to an end and unfortunately this one will end more violently as anticipated.  Stay tuned for new news updates from Providence.

Hashu Blog: Providence Overviews

With the re-emergence of Polaris Project as a strength in CVA we've seen a few friendly fire incidents because of sec status.  Therefore we are proud to present the following image, originally created by Sandra Voi, a well known local resident and CVA member who has suffered from these attacks quite frequently.

Hashu Blog: EN24 Rebutal

On December 7th Riverini released a poorly investigated 'the sky is crumbling' piece on CVA quoting two FC farewell speaches and a short bit from this site.  While I'm sure his intent was 'informative to the general public' in nature his three sentence analysis were far flung and misleading.

CVA/Providence Coalition has lost its lead FC’s (EU TZ Hidetoshi Rushd and US TZ Tyrus Tenebros) in a period of a month due to internal drama. With these two instigators gone, CVA is crumbling.   ~ Riverini, EN24

 First and most important to understand is the loss of Tyrus was a radically different and probably much deeper loss to CVA and the region.  Tyrus has been a CVA member for over four and a half years and was the driving factor in the rebuilding of the Celestial Janissaries after the 'disappearance' of its CEO, Lonewolfnight.  He has been instrumental over the last year in getting some organization set up during the US TZ on the part of CVA who have since their inception been a heavy EU tz alliance.  His and the loss of Rory, another active US TZ CJ FC as well as Garreck, famous for the development of 'in action' roleplay and as the first non-ammarian character to become a member of CVA.  These are not new people brushing up against 'old guard' as some would like people to believe, but they themselves are old guard looking for a different pasture after numerous years.

A lot can be said about Hidetoshi leaving.  As a bloc level FC with experience he was most definitely a important FC to the coalition.  He helped develop an independent reimbursement program and along with Danny John-Peter and the 'old guard FC's" that people like to blame helped refine todays fleet doctrines.  However, Hidetoshi struggled with not being 'incharge' and when the one or two people who could overrule him in strategic decisions did or when he was internally criticized by people other than himself he would cause problems (Which honestly fits right in with the other CVA FCs).  The final straw for Hidetoshi was an internal rebutal for trying to pick a fight with a powerful third entity when PL/TEST activity was rapidly rising and he was told no.

The loss of both FCs is felt, both by CVA and the powerbloc at large.  However these events are no evidence of a failscade or a crumbling of the Alliance.  CVA has been around since November of 2004, with over 8 years of history we have gone through many cycles and many staffing losses over the years.  Policies have changed, faces have changed, enemies have changed, but CVA has continued to survive and while not always in the best manner, has continued to adapt to the environment around it.  Already several individuals, some new faces, others old, have stepped up to fill in the holes left by our departing friends.  The sky is not falling, the world is not crumbling, things are simply evolving.

~ Rovern Hashu, Imperial Dreams CEO, Curatores Veritatis Alliance

Hashu Blog: Old Guard?

Recently Boopa on Kugutsmen made a comment about 'Old Guard' FCs within CVA.

Hidetoshi wanted to bring CVA into 2012. He wasn't the best FC in the game or even top-tier, however, he was better than anything else the coalition has sitting around. The old guard FC's (who collectively call themselves the Warhawk Generals, FFS) kept talking shit to him and trying to undercut his initiatives. He got frustrated and left. So now we're left with old dogs like Wildcard Trek and Sollana, who are both garbage as people and FC's.

Not a failcascade, but not a positive development either. (http://www.kugutsumen.com/showthread.php?9800-Providence-Snoozelum&p=456057&viewfull=1#post456057)

As a member of Imperial Dreams, and CVA for almost five and a half years, I found this comment really amusing.  Why?  Because every single FC that he was talking about who had anything to do with the subject at hand had been members of CVA for a max of perhaps two years.  Infact our current FC manager has only been a part of CVA for a year and a half.  Yes I realize in most alliances that longevity would be considered Old Guard.  But for an alliance that has existed since the dawn of Alliances, whats a couple years?

So how do I break down "CVA" ' s Old Guard?  Well I tend to break it down into Old/Middle/New Guards'.  In fact I could probably break each of those into a High and Low if I wanted too.  Each 'breakdown,' I feel, has a distinct difference in expectations from the individuals who joined during those eras and in their views on what "CVA" is all about.

Old Guard
CVA Old Guard is ancient and archaic.  The 'Old Guard' has historically been used to refer to members of CVA who joined prior to the fall of 9UY and the successful reclaiming of Providence.  These folks were hardline amarrian loyalists.  Their priorities were for the empire and the expanding of Holy Amarr.  Within this catagory you could also split into High Old Guard and Low Old Guard.  High Old Guard can refer to members who joined while the alliance was still restricted to Ammarian characters while Low Old Guard can refer to members who joined after that restriction was listed.  (I believe Garreck and AMDEF would be the first group of "Low Old Guard").

Middle Guard
Middle Guard is the group that I as an individual relate to.  To me this generally refers to any one individual or group that joined CVA between the Fall of 9uy and the loss of Providence to the Southern Coalition.  I can break the Middle Guard into a High and Low grouping as well.  In this case the difference is less of a specific time and more split along the lines of attitude and values.  High Middle Guard are individuals and groups who for the most part joined CVA fairly close to the fall of 9uy (I joined Imperial Dreams the week after 9uy fell for example).  During this time most new individuals still held fairly strong amarrian loyalists values and tendencies.  Golden Fleets meant something, and we had little to worry about politically coming from other Null Sec groups as we had a strong connection to IAC and Sylph on our Catch Border.  While High Middle Guard were loyalist and still Amarrian focused.  The Low Middle Guard can be viewed as more Null-Sec and NRDS focused.  During this time the emphasis of new members slowly shifted from being amarrians to being NRDS pushers.  New groups were also less "loyalist" orientated and much more 0.0 focused.

New Guard
In my eyes the 'New Guard' are for the most part individuals and corporations that joined during the Squatter Wars and after the Reconquista of Providence.  With perhaps two exceptions on a corporation level, new corporations have nearly nothing to do with being amarrian loyalists nor do they have any interst.  New Guard tend to be completely Null-Sec orientated, many even bemoaning Fleet Ops that happen in low-sec.

There really is less of a reason or difference amongst 'new guard' groups to separate into a high/low group at this point but as time goes on and 'new new guards' form bemoaning 'old guards' who are themselves fairly new, differences will be sure to emerge.

In conclusion, the folks who bemoan the 'old guard' today really are just complaining about the previous group that came before them, who themselves likely complained about 'the old guard.'
Most people who would be old guard according to my definitions stopped played or have removed themselves from positions of power years ago.  The current power structure of CVA is for the most part in the hands of 'Middle' Guard and 'New' Guard individuals.  However despite that there is still the ever-present feeling of 'the old guard' looking over your shoulder and keeping you in line and I recognize for newer groups who come into the 'system' this can be very uncomfortable.  The best advice I can give you is just stick with it, even if you bump heads, eventually someone newer will come along and they will likely have the same opinions of you.

Hashu Blog: Burn Out/Tanks/Outside Eve?

So some of you may have noticed my disappearance lately.  Fear not I still am here, just suffering from a bit of burn out that I tend to go through rather regularly these days.  This latest bit started at the beginning of October and came into full force during the last two weeks.  As a few personal friends and corp mates may know, i'm a bit of a anime fiend so I can often disappear for a few days to marathon a show (or catch up on airing stuff).  Alas October was the beginning of the Autumn 2012 airing season and this year its loaded with good titles (always willing to talk about anime if anyone is interested, just hit me up in-game).  One of the shows, Girls und Panzer has similar mechanics to World of Tanks which resulted in me spending two weeks grinding out my KV-1 crew to 100%.  In combination with work this meant I disappeared a bit and there hasn't been any news reporting.  That will be getting fixed this coming week as I return to fuel POS' etc so hang in there.

Hashu Blog: Sieh (10/6/2012) AAR

The Following is an After Action Report following action in the star system of Sieh on October 6, 2012.  Originally posted on theCitadel Forums.

First I'd like to thank Hidetoshi and theLadio and the guys who joined their quick tempest fleet for coming up and helping us.  That could have gone very poorly if you hadn't formed quickly and shown up.

It started with a ping amongst a few people by Tinator from Excon (PILL) wondering if there was any interest in getting some people on standbye.  A neutral POS had been reinforced in Sieh by some KOS folks who had a history of killing POS' with capitals.  I said sure and got a few IG caps on standbye and in fleet as well as a few other CVA folks, mostly out of *censored*.  

POS came out of reinforced but hostile corporation only showed up in a bs or two and a drake to shoot the tower.  After waiting a bit PILL warped in a few battleships and killed the drake than left the tower to the sun were they waited to see what would happen next.  After a bit a second neutral group (RELOADED DOT) cynoed two carriers and some support and started repairing the tower.

While we were running a quick test to determine if these folks were KOS (or needed to be KOS) our BS in system warped to the POS than warped out to see how reloaded would respond.  Just as Awg went "they killed a CF guy so probably should be KOS" they attacked Tinator's battleship, and it was on.  Things quickly escalated as their support became 10-15 battleships and a couple logis.  Initially didn't bring any capitals in because they had a lot of battleship on the field but Tinator quickly decided to bring a triage and when I offered I also came in in a triage Archon.  For the next twenty to thirty minutes three battleships and two triage Archons faced off against two Thanatos and about 20 BS and logi support with neither side able to break the tanks of the other side.  With about twenty minutes of triage left and no real end in site I started pinging P-FC to see if someone could form quickly and turn the fight for us.  Hidetoshi nearly immediately said sure and he and theLadio formed about 30 tempest + logi support for us.  

In Sieh we were fighting around this pos.  I had come out of triage off and on a few times and managed to wander about 70k from our other triage archon.  Seeing how far off I was hostiles pulled their battleship fleet over to me and forced me back into triage.  However they refused to move their thanatos which they were not triaging, meaning their battleships were being pulled out of thanny repair range.  This move finally allowed us to take down a person or two.  Around the same time I was getting down to about three triage cycles left and getting a little paranoid.  We had been on the field for almost 40-50 minutes.  I asked Hidetoshi to just burn instead of waiting to sort the titan bridge (in retrospect a mistake as we likely could have killed a bunch more).  Tinator brought a fourth battleship onto the field and cynoed in three-four extra carriers who brought in some extra stront for me.  

At this time we assume the hostiles had spotted the Tempest fleet inbound. They started retreating towards the POS.  Despite our best efforts they managed to get their carriers inside the shields just as the Tempests entered Sieh.  We decided to kill the pos because we could and the tempest fleet started shooting.  In order to speed it up we did a quick ping for dreads and managed to pull a decent number in under five minutes.  Just as we lite the cyno for the dreads a known RnK cyno entered system.  Tinator pulled all the caps off the field and we let the battleships quickly finish off the pos alone.  While that was going on we managed to get eyes in Nakah to find RnK not forming (so we likely would have been okay) but things worked out in the end.

Finally tally in the end
Lost 2 Geddons and an Abaddon during the inital engagement before triage entered the field.
Killed Drake, Hound, Tornado, Abaddon? and the control tower + Mods.

Probably the funnest fight i've had in ages, even though there weren't many kills it lasted a long time.  There is something about fighting five against 20+ and coming out okay that is just thrilling.  

So again, thank you tempests for coming to the rescue, from me and the "For Medicinal Use Only" crew.

Fun Fact, found out after I jumped in that I didn't insure the triage archon . . . >.>

Killmails will be forthcoming when I can find time while eve-kill is actually working to sort links.

Hashu Blog: Smartbomb Ratting Part 1:Ships

So in response to several comments in the ratting carrier articles about ratting in Battleships I'm going to be doing a three part series on Smartbomb ratting.  While the fits I'll share aren't set in stone and are certainly tweak-able, and there may also be better ships to use or other formats, this is the way my corporation, Imperial Dreams, as developed our technique.  When used properly and efficiently can produce up to 30 mil an hour ticks when working with another battleship.  Solo it can make up to 15 to 16 mil ticks.

In this first part I will be sharing ship fittings.

My setup generally involves two battleships, which I run on two accounts together.  This isn't necessarily required as you can easily either work with someone else when running the more advanced sites or you can even use this set-up solo with specific anomalies.

The Ships I use are the Typhoon Fleet Issue as the smartbombing hull and the Armageddon Navy issue.  The reasoning behind the Typhoon Fleet Issue over a normal typhoon is the larger base armor and shields and faster speed.  The reason I prefer a Typhoon hull to say an Apocalypse is the greater speed and the base EM resist bonus that Minmatar hulls receive.  The reasons behind using the Armageddon Navy Issue over saw a normal Armageddon is for three reasons.  First it has higher raw armor and shields than the base hull.  Second it has an extra medium slot.  Third is its increased drone capacity allows it to not only carry a full flight of sentry drones but also a flight mediums (or two flights of lights) for situations when you might need them.

The Typhoon Fleet Issue

My fit puts its emphasis on capacitor generation.  8 Large smartbombs will drain your capacitor very quickly.

In My low-slots I have

x5 Capacitor Power Relay II
x1 large 'Accommodation' Vestment
x1 Armor EM Hardener II
x1 Armor Thermic Hardener II

I have generally preferred Meta 4 Large Armor repairs on my ratting ships, mostly because I have generally not needed the extra repair amount that a tech II armor repair provides.  It also uses less capacitor overall which is generally what I am in need of the most.

My Middle slots consist of:
x2 Cap Recharger IIs
x1 Stasis Webifier II
x1 Experimental 100mn Afterburner I

When working with a turret battleship the web is really not needed but if you ever plan to smartbomb rat solo the web becomes vital when you get a double battleship spawn as makes it much easier and more efficient to keep the battleships in smartbomb range.  If you don't want the web you can drop it for another Cap Recharger II

My Large Slots consist of a mix of 8 True Sansha and Dark Blood Large EMP Smartbombs.  You can use any combination of faction smartbombs as the three Navy versions and the two Pirate versions have exactly the same stats.  This allows you to shop around on the markets, picking up whatever combination is the cheapest for you.  Using faction smartbombs is pretty important.  not only does it provide extra damage than its T2 counterpart, it also has an expanded range (7500 meters) which means your hitting more ships for longer periods of time.  When I first started ratting faction smartbombs were running around 70-80 million each.  Now they are between 100 million and 120 million.  But when your making 30 million ticks, it doesn't take long to recoup your investment.

Lastly my rigs are all Large Capacitor Control Circuit Is.  With this fit, running all the modules, I become cap dry in a little over three minutes with Energy Pulse Weapons V.  However you will very seldom be running your afterburner and your smartbombs at the same time.  The theory behind smartbomb ratting is to sit on the spawn/respawn and smartbomb things as they spawn.  This involves no movement so your afterburner is mostly used for getting to the spawn after warp in.

Armageddon Navy Issue

The fit for my Armageddon Navy Issue emphasizes two things, raw damage and capacitor longevity.

In my low slots:

x1 Capacitor Power Relay II
x3 Heat Sink II
x1 Large Armor Repairer II
x1 Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
x1 Armor EM Hardener II
x1 Armor Thermal Hardener II

In this case I do have a faction module in my lows, in this case it is simply because I had it on hand and the extra resists were nice when I was using the fit solo against hubs and ports.

My low slots:

x3 Cap Recharger IIs
x1 100mn Afterburner II

Rather self explanatory, afterburner to get into optimal faster and cap rechargers for cap regeneration.

My High Slots:
x7 Mega Pulse Laser II
x1 Utility (I have a Salvager II fitted)

I find the tech II Pulses very convenient as it allows me to utilize Scorch Crystals in the rare cases when something has managed to get far away.  Normally I use IN Multifrequency or IN Gamma and carry IN  Infrared for long-range stuff.

My rigs are of course Capacitor Control Circuit Is

The next key fit for this ship is drone layout.  When working with the smartbomb battleship you want to use sentries, Garde IIs are the best choice around here because of their thermal damage against Sansha rats.  Being a Geddon Fleet Issue also allows you to run a complementary set of medium drones or two flights of light drones, for the pesky frig that spawns too far away.

In general these ships are fairly light on their tank, only tanking the bare minimum.  Alone the Armageddon Navy Issue can tank a hub as long as it stays afterburning underneath the Sansha guns.  (Yes you can sig tank rats in battleships).  If your wanting to run harder anomalies or use these settups for other things I suggest running a heavier tank.  But you need to be careful, the Typhoon Fleet Issue is at a sharp balance between armor tank and capacitor life.  I have never had a problem but if your armor and capacitor skills are lacking you may need to overtank.

Hashu Blog: Smartbomb Ratting Part 3:Duet

While ratting alone can be simple and relaxing, its not nearly as efficient as working with another character, either a buddy or an alt.  A smartbomb battleship in unison with a turret battleship can earn twice the ISK as a lone smartbomb battleship.  When looking for the right anomalies to work, your looking for similar characteristics that a solo SB battleship will be looking for, specifically ones with spawns that are close to the warp in and where the spawns do not move from wave to wave.  Unlike when solo however your also looking for large numbers of battleships as your turret friend is very good at blapping those away.

In Providence two types of anomalies that you will find in any fully upgraded system are Sansha's Forsaken Rally Points and Sansha Ports.  The system where the image on the left was taken has a security status of -0.07, one of the worst in Providence (Only 13 other systems have worse (higher) security status).  When fully upgraded, this system will have two forsaken rally points which is generally what your looking for.

Forsaken Rally Points are ideal for the smartbomb form of ratting.  The spawn is roughly 10 km from the inital warp in.  It never moves, and although the area that ships spawn in is slightly larger than other anomalies, the range of your faction smartbombs means its generally not an issue.  It also routinely has 3-4 battleships per wave which means your turrent battleship is going to be busy.  Ports are also fairly good but not quite as ideal because their spawn is 20km away from the warp in and they have fewer waves and less battleshps per wave.  While some people might consider trying to run Hubs I would generally suggest against it, because of the higher dps in the inital spawn and the significantly longer travel time from your warp in they take longer to run and generally are more dangerous, even though they provide a better reward per anomaly run because of higher battleship counts per wave.

Sansha Forsaken Rally Points

The warp in will generally put you 9-11 km from the spawn point which is in the center of the wrecks in the gas field.  The initial spawn consists of 1-2 battleships and 1-2 cruisers, in this case it was 2 battleships and a cruiser.

This image shows a top down view from the smartbombing battleships pov.  Notice the placement between all the wrecks and the Armageddon Navy issue's placement 10ish KM away.  I can normally get away without moving the ANI but sometimes on the warp in its in the inside, in that case you normally want to move away a few kilometers to place yourself in a better position, optimal wise.  You normally want to be at LEAST 9km away from the SB battleship so you can safely deploy sentry's for each wave.  The final spawns for FRP's are easy to identify as they will be a full wave of battleships, either three or four.  Just a notice FRPs escalate into 8/10s, which while they drop a higher overseer loot, generally produce lesser quality loot drops than 6/10s which you can get from Sansha's Rally Points that you run solo.

Sansha Port

Ports have three initial spawn types.  The first type will have a mass of frigates and cruisers centered around a control tower.  The control Tower is your spawn point.  This one can be a bit tricky as the turret bs can have a hard time hitting the frigates and if they get under its tracking.  The best way to handle this is quickly get the smartbomb battleship to the spawn and actively smartbomb, if your lucky you'll clear the frigates before they are able to disperse in their orbit around you.  The cruisers are generally easier to handle.  If the frigates do get outside of smartbomb range and your having problems hitting them, this is the time to use those drones you've brought along.  The Typhoon Fleet issue can easily carry several flights of lights and mediums.  Lights in particular are good as they can return quicker allowing you to restart your smartbombs (which you turned off to let your drones out).  Be very careful not to smartbomb your drones.  Once they are back light them up and blap the battleships.

The second type of initial spawn involves three cruisers about twenty kilometers from your warp in between you and the sentry towers.  The initial spot of those cruisers is your spawn point, your going to have to judge this a bit and readjust after the first wave is done.  I generally quickly try to kill the crusiers with the turret battleship and use the first wreck as a rough guide for the SB battleship.  The third type of spawn is just like the second only it will have four battlecrusiers instead of three.  You handle it exactly the same way.

Ports finish must fast assuming you don't take too long on the inital wave.  They lack the number of waves and the heavyness of the waves that Forsaken Rally Points put off but still work fairly well producing 15-20 mil ticks generally for both pilots.

Several things to keep in mind when running with Armageddon Navy Issues.  Watch your sentries!  It is very easy to lose several, either because you place them too close to the smartbombing battleship or because they are targeted by a new wave.  Rule of thumb is to pull your sentries after each wave than put them back out after you put the first battleship into armor with your turret battleship.  You also need to watch your smartbombing battleship if your duel boxing this setup, its very easy for it to wander off the spawn if your not paying attention or hit the wrong button, this can seriously mess up your efficiency and cost valuable time that you could be making isk in.  If both characters are paying attention and on the ball, you can easily be making 25-30 mil a ticks, which equates to 75-90 mil an hour, or 150-180 mil an hour if your duel boxing.  This is one of the simplest ways to run anomalies well that doesn't involve massively pimped ships (apart from the smarties) and is potentially doable in every system in Providence.  In theory any system in Providence could be supporting up to 6 characters making 45-90 mil isk an hour using these setups these techniques. (Two people running Sansha and Sansha's Rally Points as solo smartbombing battleships and two teams of SB BS and Turrent BS running Ports and Forsaken Rally Points).

Hashu Blog: Smartbomb Ratting Part 2:Solo

When your going to try smartbomb ratting solo you need to be very careful which anomalies you try to run.  Several important keys to the right anomaly include distance to the spawn from your warp in, location of subsequent spawns, and the number of battleships that appear in each spawn.

 If the warp in is 50 km from the spawn, your going to waste a lot of time traveling.  During that same time your taking damage, your not set-up to be an uber tank, and this can lead to some harry situations as you travel through the rat optimals to get to them.  Different spawn locations for each wave can also be an issue.  First your wasting time traveling between the spawns, your also providing time for the rats to move around so they are not going to be at the same spot but will try to stay at their optimals to you, forcing you to chase them down or use drones to kill them, which is something you only want to do as a last resort.

Finally you don't want more than two battleships spawning in any specific wave.  While working with someone else this isn't an issue as the other person is blapping the battleships with guns, but when your main weapon is smartbombs, killing a battleship before they get out of smartbombing range can be problematic.  With just one battleship in the spawn it is less of an issue as you can potentially follow them a bit without wandering off the spawn.  With more than one battleship it becomes more difficult, which makes that web on the smartbombing battleship important as it allows you to control hostile bs speeds, providing you more time for your smartbombs to apply damage.  Smartbombs themselves don't do a lot of dps, but they do it to a lot of hostiles at the same time, so keeping the rats within range of your smartbombs is key to ratting with them.

In Providence, two anomalies stand out.  The preferred anomaly to smartbomb in solo is Sansha's Rally Point.  The main reason for this is the warp in is within 2 kilometers of the spawn for this anomaly.  Rally Points are also nice as they are predominately frigates and cruisers which die quickly to smartbombs.  They also have either a single or duel battleship spawn in their last wave.  The finishing touch is their escalation.  Sansha's Rally Points escalate into 6/10 plexes, which have the possibility of dropping Centum A-type loot including A-type EANMs which run up to a billion isk.  While your generally going to make between 12-16 mil a tick running theses solos, when you get several 6/10 escalations a week with up to a bil drops in faction loot, the isk quickly adds up.

The other option is Sansha Rally Point (notice the small title difference).  While very similar to Sansha's Rally Point, Sansha Rally Points have a few quirks.  The biggest one is the respawn is roughly 20 km away from the warp in.  This can slow your attempts to clear the site down as you need to travel to the spawn.  It also has a slightly heavier initial spawn (Sansha's Rally Point is all frigates while Sansha Rally Points have a mix of cruisers and frigates).  If your lucky you can afterburn to the 'clump fast enough and get at least the frigs with your smartbombs.  However if they aggress and move to their optimals quick enough, you'll likely find it easier to kill them with drones and focus on deploying on the spawn to use smarties for the next wave.  Once your on top of the spawn and the initial wave has been killed the remaining waves will play out the same with either a single or duel bs spawn in the final wave.

Initial Sansha's Rally Point Spawn

Final Dual BS Rally Point Wave

Inital Sansha Rally Point Spawn, note this spawn is near the right tower.

Had to use drones to finish the last part of the initial wave.

Final Sansha Rally Point Wave

In the initial tick I ran two Sansha's rally Points and part of a Sansha Rally Point and earned over 13 million isk.  Note this wasn't efficient as I was taking screenshots and waiting between warping to anomalies to do other things.  I've made 15-16 million ISK a tick off of bounties when actually paying attention.  The nice think about smartbomb ratting, especially when running Sansha's is that it is very simple and doesn't require too much attention.  After your initial warp in and F1-F8 of your smartbombs you theoretically don't need to do anything till the final spawn as you should be able to kill everything before they get out of range except the battleships.

Hashu Blog's

I would like to introduce a new segment on Providence news titled Hashu's Blog.  Till now Providence News posts have been just that, simple informative news briefs.  Hashu's Blog will be slightly different, including things such as guides, personal stories, and other segments that may be less focused on the bare facts or announcements and more about stories, opinions, and guides, etc.  Basically non-news posts.

The first segment will be a simple guide to the form of smartbomb anomaly running with Battleships that Imperial Dreams corporation pilots have developed.  This technique was pioneered within Imperial Dreams by Wariak but we've seen other groups and corporations use similar set-ups throught Providence and New Eden.

Ratting Carriers and Why They Are Banned In Providence

CVA doesn't have very many rules when it comes to making money or extracting resources from providence.  We are generally pretty open to letting people come in and do what they will as long as they don't bother anyone else.  One exception that we enforce however is a ban on the use of capitals when it comes to ratting in belts or anomalies.

This rule has created a large amount of debate and even some resentment among Providence residents of late, resulting in several threadnaughts within theCitadel forums and several diplomatic incidents within intel and other channels.  However Equinox Daedalus, CVA executor, spoke on the issue in a recent forum debate ...

1. The rule is that there is no ratting capitals allowed.
2. If you do not like this rule there is thousands of systems in eve that do not have this rule, so you are free to go there, and rat in carrier to your hearts delight.
3. No one has given a single reason WHY carrier ratting is better which is what the title of this thread seems to be about, it is only a place where people complain because they are "not" allowed to do something.
4. Faction/Pimp fittings are allowed (although quite useless most of the time)....i'd perfer people use common sense but well, when we have 7 pages of thread about ratting carriers i guess that is in short supply.
5. If you do not like this policy you have 3 options, convinve me personally why they are better, and thus should be allowed, kick cva out of providence and establish your own policies, or find a place to go rat in carrier unmolested.
~ Equinox Daedalus

There are a number of reasons behind the ban.

1) Carriers aren't efficient, BS can easily out earn carriers when it comes to running anomalies.
2) Capital Kills carry significant trophy value to roaming hostiles, even beyond expensive faction ships.  Their loss also tends to affect the general morale of the area.  The loss goes beyond just the financial loss of the pilot but includes the morale loss to the organization that the pilot belongs to.
3) Ratting capitals attract attention.  Hostiles will camp systems which routinely have capitals ratting in them.  This affects not only the capital pilot but all the other pilots in the region who use that system to rat..
4) Tackled capitals attract lemmings.  When capitals get tackled often people will charge into attempt to save it, unorganized and unequipped to deal with what is holding the capital down.  Many experienced roaming commanders will tell of their favorite fights where they tackled a few carriers and managed to kill several times the carriers value of people trying to rescue them.

Some people have asked about sitting on POS shields and assigning fighters, claiming they are perfectly safe.  Potentially they are, assuming they can react and get within the shields in under ten seconds.  DDs have been reported to follow capitals inside pos shields of the doomsday has spooled up before they enter, which can take as little as ten seconds.

So what happens when we catch capitals ratting in Providence?  Generally we tell them to stop and dock up.  We also will inform their CEO.  If they refuse or it becomes a habit we may be forced to ask the person or corporation to leave the area.  Attacking the ratting capitals ourselves remains a final but potentially valid option.

In Short, ratting in capitals is inefficent and attracts attention we don't want, as a result the practice is banned.  Despite the ban it still happens.  While we generally use diplomacy to stop it we are not above using force as a deterent or punishment for the continued practice.  Assuming hostiles don't beat us to the punch.  Providence tends to lose at least three to four ratting carriers a month.  While people man not like this rule, it will not be changing anytime soon.

This Article brought to you by CVA Leadership, written by Rovern Hashu