Greedy Goblin

Monday, June 23, 2014

The real reason of the death of the Triumvirate titans

There are detailed articles why two Triumvirate titans died. They give the story of the events in great detail. Yet they are both completely wrong. While the placement of cynos, the known cyno alts, the lack of safespots contributed to the deaths of the titans, they are irrelevant details.

The titans were dead before they jumped, due to a horrible fitting choice: none of them had a cynosural field generator. Everyone around supercaps could tell that they are absolutely essential, as the troubled super can call for a rescue fleet. But the problem is deeper than that: even having the module wouldn't help them. Triumvirate is a small, NPC-null alliance without affiliation to a powerblock. Who would come to the rescue of the supers? A covops gang?

The fundamental reason of the death of these titans is that they existed without affiliation to a nullsec powerblock. They had no chance to ever participate in a supercap battle on the winning side. The very best case scenario for them was to never see combat in their lives. So they had no reason to exist. One pilot had kills with his titan, but he was in the N3 coalition when they happened. The killboard of the other pilot contains a single POCO in the last 6 months. Those titans definitely worth keeping (after leaving a coalition)!

I've spent way more than the price of a titan on the GRR project, but I own no titans. Actually I made peace with not owning titans and retrained my titan pilots: the one with the fleet booster Ragnarok plans is learning battlecruiser skills to fly fleet boost ships, the one with the mainline Erebus plans is learning dreadnought skills. There would be no point of me having titans since I wouldn't use them anyway.

I obviously don't say "Triumvirate isn't good enough for having titans". I've just posted how unaffiliated "pirate" groups made the 2/3 of the damage on the CFC with Tri having a high spot on the list. I'm financially supporting Mordus Angels, who are the allies of Tri. They are very good in what they are doing. But that's not fighting supercapital battles.

Dear non-powerblock rich people: sell your supers! They won't do you any good. Do as I did: give the money to non-powerblock groups (your own alliance!!!) to keep them in subcaps! From the price of the titan, lot of T3 covops gangs could bring hell to the evil dwelling in Deklein! I speak from experience, seeing my donation users fill the killboard with the corpses of enemies is much more fun than spinning a titan in an empty system.


Here is an example of a kill that is good to look at. Another one, also with "interesting" fit. Also, this jackpod.
Finally, this isn't a very valuable kill, but reveals the true nature of CFC.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're completely missing the point of small alliances having Titans. Power projection, these aren't combat titans. They are 120 billion bridge ships. My alliance bought several titans for the sole purpose of being able to bridge around the area of low sec we live in. It gave us a huge advantage over the poor, titanless fucks we were fighting. We could reinforce 5 moons when they were sleeping, form up on the titan for RF timer with 1-3 bait tanked cyno ships in each RF system. See where they had strength and simply bridge in a smash whichever tower they had the longest route to. If they divide up to defend them all we smash them, if they group at 1 we smash the target furthest from them. Power projection yo.

Anonymous said...

Titan is not for fighting. again you are wrong. it has high value for your fleet bridging where you want, like hotdropping. thats their main propose

Gevlon said...

If they are alliance bridges then they should have alliance escorts, fake cynos and such while moving. Also, lowsec is much safer than NPC null, as PL can't bubblecage the tower.

Also, there are black ops bridges on ships that can dock, can cloak and cost 2% of a titan.

Anonymous said...

Plenty of small unaffiliated groups have titans for strategic reasons. They are NEVER intended to be used in combat and are in fact just meant to be bridges for force projection.

Even wormhole corps who are rich enough keep a few of them handy in low and NPC null for the purpose of bridging raiding fleets or crossing vast expanses of nulsec to get a favorable entry.

RnK, a well known super elite non-sov PvP alliance have a small fleet of titans for precisely this purpose. At least 1 of their signature tactics of pipebombing actually relies on titans to bridge smart bombing battleships ontop of an enemy fleet.

Your entire argument seems to be predicated on the fact that they can never use them to be on the winning side of a supercap fight - and you are 100% right. Absolutely. Except that isn't why they own them.

Anonymous said...

black ops cant bridge all ships...

ofcourse the titan loss is stupid, but you miss their main role in your blog. they are not for fighting. basically they also should not move..

Anonymous said...

Also, there are black ops bridges on ships that can dock, can cloak and cost 2% of a titan.
Yes there are. Is this you admitting that bombless bombers have their place?

Gevlon said...

I was thinking about covops T3, but yes, bombers have their place.

But not at a structure.

Anonymous said...

I was thinking about covops T3, but yes, bombers have their place.

But not at a structure.
OK, so what fleet of blackops bridging ships would you use to take out a structure?
Or would you just take dreads with no support? (as support needs a titan bridge)

Ryanis said...

They my not be afiliated to a power-bloc, but power-blocs will come if they see an opportunity to kill their ennemis supers. Calling for help does not cost anything.

Freddo said...

A cyno wouldn't save you if PL or a similar entity drops on you. Best time to move a private supercap is just before downtime. And trainign a new cyno alt takes less than a week.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion they die because they try to move alone, a lot of the supers and titan stupid kills happen when pilots try to move them alone. They should ask their corp or alliance to escort and scout for them, titan pilots are the guys that provide bridges so you don't have to take 15 gates and get some "insta-fun", I'm sure people would help. Not asking for help when you need it is stupid too.

Anonymous said...

Do you has that stats on how many ships those titans bridged in the last six months also? Titans many use is bridging, not combat, and this all boils down to how CCP balanced that ship, not how players feel about them. Yes a titan can do a huge alpha strike, then it's stuck at 5k DPS for ten mins. Moro's does 14k DPS, and is forty times cheaper? Why use a titan in combat? It's not as if it doesn't have it's uses outside of combat, in fact you could argue it's out of combat use it far greater then it's in combat use, and this is even evdent by looking at how even large nullsec blocks don't use them that often in combat.

Gevlon said...

And why would an individual have a bridging titan? A group can have such titan (usually piloted by a leader/FC alt) but then why would it travel alone?

CFC Grunt said...

Even if you have a cyno and heavy backup, with today's power projection you will probably still die - and your alliance/coalition will lose more than a Titan.

Asakai is one example - Boat jumps instead of bridging, a friendly cyno goes up to jump in more to protect his Titan, Asakai happens.

As for Black Ops and bridging T3's - you run into funky fuel issues, not to mention covert T3s being generally fairly terrible. And you get no logis.

Gevlon said...

You can protect the titan travelling better than a response fleet. For example when you light the jump cyno, your corpies light several fake cynos. Or a friendly bubbler places defensive bubbles on the gates so when the enemy tackler jumps in, he can't get to the titan (inties can't tackle titans).

My point is that having a titan in an alliance that is unable or unwilling to support it is dumb.

CFC Grunt said...

Defensive bubbles are all fun and games until you're moving a Titan through lowsec. Which is a double-edged sword because you actually increase your chances of surviving - you need a hic to bubble your titan, and he needs to use a focus point.

(A lot of titans die to lowsec residents. In fact, one of the Tri rags that died died in lowsec.)

Decoy cynos are a good theoretical approach, but actions like this turn heads. When a super is moved, it's usually moved quietly - the more attention it attracts, the more likely it is someone will come after it.

Hunters are usually one step ahead of their prey, and sorting through hostile cynos to plot a route and a few chokepoints the Titan will need to go through isn't exactly rocket science.

Anonymous said...

Inties can light cynos to bridge things to tackle titans, though.


Also, moving private Titans should happen either:
a) Through lowsec and in recharge fit (which means you can jump before breaking jump invuln and becoming lockable).
b) Just before downtime.

Anonymous said...

My point is that having a titan in an alliance that is unable or unwilling to support it is dumb.

not really. no. The only alliances who are actually able to support a titan are massive sov blocs. which is why they are the only ones who deliberately put them in the line of fire.

Bridging titans in smaller groups rarely, if ever, move. The problem is that if they accidentally hit jump instead of bridge (which is a simple miss-click) they end up light years away with no support fleet. Usually these groups only have a small handful of titans and rarely are they geographically close to each other so lighting a cyno on the bridge titan and expecting the cavalry to come in isn't practical. Given how much eve loves to dog pile on potential super kills, that miss click just cost the owner of the titan his ship.

But, a lack of an ability to support a titan isn't a reason not to own a titan. unaligned PvP groups depend on them for power projection. They depend on them to get fights. They depend on them to answer bat phones and merc contracts. They depend on them to make a living.

When you get a reputation in a particular region, people just stay away from you. A few titans means you cannot be avoided.

lowrads said...

Surely it would have been more cost effective to sell the titan pilots.