OUCH has a new CEO

As of today I am no longer CEO of OUCH.

I've handed the role over to CampoV, who has been my trusted Lieutenant, my right-hand man, and my Training Director for the past year or so.  He has effectively been running OUCH from within the US/EU timezone, and has been responsible for the training that has been developed and implemented since I handed the training over to him in 2010. Today I have rewarded him for his hard work and dedication by officially handing over the leadership.

With me being in the Aussie timezone it's been a challenge to effectively run the corp. Right from the beginning I knew that I had to find trainers and leaders in the US and EU timezones to manage the state of affairs while I was asleep. It took some time, but I was able to achieve my goal.  I developed a core group of Directors that took on senior staff roles, and I could not have continued without them. OUCH's success so far has been thanks to all of them.


Why did you hand over the CEO position?

I'm not so egotistical to think that the corp couldn't survive and prosper without me.  I am not the corp.  [Edit: I'll revisit this in 12 months and see if I'm right... :) ]

From the beginning of OUCH's inception, I knew that this was just another step in my ongoing path through the Eve Online galaxy. OUCH was a great idea that needed to be developed and implemented, but I knew my leadership was only temporary. I knew that one day I would hand it over to someone else.

So I set in place the mission, and I looked for the leadership staff that would share my vision for OUCH, who would follow it, and who would promote it. Once I was satisfied that CampoV supported that mission, and waited some more until he himself was ready for the role, we organised the transition that was completed today.

My involvement with OUCH is not over, and it might never be over. I am now a Director of OUCH, and will be responsible for recruitment and public relations moving forward. Oh, and maybe a bit of management advice every now and again.

This is OUCH's mission that I'll continue to promote:

Mission Statement
OUCH provides nullsec survival and pvp training to help new pilots and carebears survive and overcome fears about the dangers of nullsec, and become valuable assets for any nullsec corporation or alliance.

What next?

Now that I'm no longer CEO, I'll have just a little bit more time to do some other things that I want to explore. My alt, Alexia Morgan, is a Director in a new lowsec PVP corp called Kadavr Black Guard, and will be assisting its recruitment, growth and operations. Now I can focus a bit more on this.

As Alexia, I want to do the following:

• I want to do more hunting for the abandoned POS's of inactive corps and organise battleship fleets to go smash 'em up and scoop the loot
• I want to be involved in more wars
• I want to get better at PVP (I never considered myself a good PVP'er, and OUCH started as a nullsec survival corp... the PVP training came when I had good PVP'ers onboard who could provide that training)

As Black Claw, I want to do the following:

• continue to help OUCH grow and become the premiere nullsec surival and PVP training corp in the Eve galaxy
• promote OUCH's activities more in the public arena, eg. blogging, Twitter, etc
• get more involved in PVP (see my PVP comments above)

As you can see, I have some nice plans for my enjoyment as Alexia, so I'm quite looking forward to that!

Thank you

To all those who have supported OUCH, or gone through OUCH training and moved on, or are even still in OUCH today - thank you for your support.  Without every single one of you, OUCH wouldn't be the successful corp that it is today.

And it's only going to get better.  

Eve Online Education Organisations

This is exciting!  I got an email from CCP today to advise me about the new Eve Wiki entry about Educational Organisations being run by corps and alliances within Eve. I was very excited to see that OUCH was already included and even had appropriate content provided by CCP.

Eve Online Educational Organizations

I've done a little bit of editing to tidy it up and get it up to date (some of the info and links were to stuff from last year), and now it's ready for access.

Just another element in the exposure of OUCH as a training organisation.  Yay!

ECM and the Art of War

There's a lot of people that seem to think that using ECM ships is cheating, which is quite odd when you take into account that CCP developed these ships to be used. If using them was 'cheating', then they would be removed by CCP, Eve Online's developers.

But no, using ECM ships is not cheating.  Instead, it's taking advantage of ship resources (when available) in order to gain an advantage.

"All warfare is based on deception.

1. Therefore, when you can attack, it must seem as if you can’t.
2. When moving your fleet, you must seem idle.
3. When you are near the enemy, you must make them believe you are far away.
4. When you are far away, you must make them believe you are near."

- Black Claw's Art of War

The real issue is not with ECM, but with the people that are too lazy or too stupid to learn how to deal with it. Instead of thinking about the situation and coming up with strategies on how to mitigate the effectiveness of ECM ships, they cry.  Boy, do they cry.

Every time someone complains about something in the game rather than thinking of a strategy to deal with it, I see a child who just hasn't matured enough to cope with a changing environment. Maybe they will, one day.  But for now, they throw tantrums, cry, and complain that their opponents are cheating.  Or they're gay. People that use ECM are gay, they say.

Stupid.  Really stupid.

And it's really sad when people that you once respected as being your adult equals, when confronted by ECM ships and ECM tactics, break down and cry and scream and do their absolute best to show you that they're really small children with no ability to cope or think outside the box.

I have no time for them.

The Art of War Alliance is for smart people who want to use their brain and understand how to fly smart.  Most people fly stupid, and after some recent crying and gnashing of teeth by some ex-alliance members, I've decided that we just don't want those kinds of people in our alliance. 

I've had reports that some corporations and alliances that pass through our operational areas of nullsec do their very best to avoid us, apparently because we use ECM and we cheat.  I laugh a lot when I hear these stories.

"Therefore, to fight and conquer in all battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without actually fighting."
- Black Claw's Art of War

You have to remember that OUCH is the primary member of the Art of War Alliance, and OUCH is filled with noobs and carebears.  it's a great feeling to know that elite PVP corps and alliances are wary of us.

Of course, sometimes they want to fight us, and sometimes we fight them back. Sometimes we avoid them.

"It is the rule in war:

1. If our fleet is ten to the enemy’s one, surround him.
2. If five to one, attack him.
3. If twice as numerous, divide the fleet into two.
4. If equally matched, we can offer battle.
5. If slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy.
6. If unequal in every way, we can flee from them."

- Black Claw's Art of War

It amazes me how many people think that 'real PVP' is all about fighting losing battles against overwhelming odds.  You're not a real PVPer unless you repeatedly engage ships you can't win, and you avoid using ships or tactics that will help you win because you believe that doing so is 'gay'.  They're the ones that call you 'gay' or 'faggot' because your single frigate runs away from their fleet of battlecruisers.

It's amazing how much stupidity there is in Eve Online.  If we could smell in space, we would know it is filled with the aroma of stupidity, left in the wake of all those that travel the systems, imagining how 'elite' they are because they lose their ships against overwhelming odds.

The fleets of OUCH and the Art of War Alliance are commanded by people who understand the Art of War.  It's an essential element to our success, especially when our fleets are populated by pilots who are inexperienced at nullsec PVP or even to the game itself.  Most of our successes against the 'elite' are from noobs and carebears who are taught how to modify and use the environment to their advantage,

"There are five essentials for victory:

1. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior fleets.
3. He will win whose fleet is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
4. He will win who, prepared, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the civilian leadership.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, you will gain as many defeats as victories. If you know neither yourself nor the enemy, you will always fail."
- Black Claw's Art of War

No matter what people say about our tactics, they work. And at the end of the day, if you're going to engage in battle with someone, you should be choosing to engage to win.  If you don't think you can win, why fight?  We're often engaging in guerilla warfare tactics, knowing when to fight and when not to fight.  It means we win much more than we lose.

After some recent experiences within the alliance that have been great for helping me learn new things, I've decided that any potential new members to the alliance must agree to certain expectations based on the Art of War.  If they're going to fight within the Art of War Alliance, they need to commit to learning and practicing the Art of War. And flying ECM ships to gain an advantage over your opponents is allowed and encouraged - with appropriate support and leadership, of course.   :)

I don't want any more stupid in the alliance, it leaves a bad taste.

Tales from the front line #5

Please enjoy another 'tale from the front line'.

It's all part of the service

Open University loves to bubble camp.  As part of our null security survival training program, members of OUCH religiously bubble camp the same single system in Curse almost everyday.  We do it to provide basic PvP training for our students, but admittedly, we just like it.

Unfortunately, we've recently discovered that bubble camping is NOT Real PvP.  Truly, we did not know this. We don't know how this could have happened.  We were trying so hard and it certainly seemed like PvP to us.

We have learned that from the POV of our adversaries, all OUCH does is gank 'poor innocent travelers' in pods, noobships and shuttles (not to mention pvp fit dramiels, vagabonds, and cynabals) when they land in our mobile warp disruptor bubbles. We dishonorably use ECM and EWAR to score cheap kills on Real PvP pilots just looking for a good fight (and a killmail or two). We don't even fly real ships, (just cheap cruisers and frigates, and "damned cloakies"). And when a fleet of Real PvPers (in HACs and BCs) comes in, we hide instead of giving them a "good fight".

Damn.  You caught us.  Guilty as charged.  Mea culpa.

What our detractors don't understand is OUCH provides a valuable service.  We provide ready targets for solo pilots and small gangs on roams, looking for something to do.  Sometimes we fight (and kill) cruiser and battlecruiser gangs who fly all the way (or titan bridge) from their home bases to get a shot at killing noobs who don't do Real PvP.

Now, sometimes we just safe up and watch them kill our bubble. It happens. You just can't please everyone. Bubbles are cheap.

Either way, we give these pilots something to do.  Sometimes, we send them home in pods, where they can complain to their mates that Real PvPers don't use ECM.  Alternately, they go home in their ships, pausing only to call us rude names for not engaging their 6 (sometimes 20) ship BC gang with a handful of frigs and cruisers.

Either way, if OUCH didn't provide this vital service, many of our adversaries would just roam through Curse bored to tears, flying from gate to gate with nothing to do.  For these pilots, OUCH brings vitality to otherwise boring lives.

Here's feedback from interaction with some of our adversaries:

• "Don't you guys get bored doing the same stuff everyday?"
• "Everyone in Eve knows about your stupid bubble camp."
• "I'm going to have to come back and grief you everyday now."
• "Fight me, or I'll kill your bubble."
• "I still like you guys, I just hate what you do."
• "We would have owned you if it wasn't for that Blackbird."
• "You obviously don't know what a good fight is."
• "Come on kids, go to bed already."
• "You guys suck."

Sometimes we wonder if it's worth it, bubble camping a small unimportant system trying to teach new players that null sec doesn't have to be scary.  It's testimonials like these that keep us doing what we do.

And for that, we like to send a "Thank You" to all of our happy customers.

Sincerely,

Bren Genzan
Open University of Celestial Hardship

Tales from the front line #4

Please enjoy another 'tale from the front line'.

We watch, and sometimes, we learn

Open University of Celestial Hardship [OUCH] is part of the Art of War Alliance. We train newbie PvP pilots to fly and die in NPC null security space. We do a lot of bubble camping.

Bubble camping is the lazy pilot’s PvP. We hang out and shoot the bull, watching for traffic. It’s kind of like duck hunting, ‘cept the ducks can get pretty big, and more often than not, they shoot back. It’s the perfect way to break a brand new pilot into PvP. The pilots of Open University and our brothers and sisters of Art of War Alliance have gotten pretty good at killing the careless, foolish and fearless.

We’ve seen a lot of cool things in NPC null, dodging the huge BC/BS fleets travelling through on their way to battles in SOV null, dealing with the smaller BC fleets looking for trouble. We’ve been hotdropped by Black Ops gangs, and Titan bridged battlecruiser fleets. We give fights to the guys who bring just enough fleet or ship to make it interesting. We hide and wave as the large fleets barrel through looking for something to kill. They deride us when we don’t engage their bait. We try to act surprised when local lights up, and the dozen or more battlecruisers that were waiting next door jump in.

With the lull in the summer, we are trying a few new things, but we had a chance to observe several fleets camping in the systems that we normally camp. It’s pretty interesting and even amusing.

We’ve seen a decent cloaky gang, Falcon, Hound, cloaky Sabre (not too unusual ) and a cloaky Vagabond (a bit unusual) running a gate camp or two. The cloaks allow them to choose their targets, and the ‘dictor bubble holds their target hopefully long enough for the Sabre and the Vaga to overcome their targeting delays and get scrams/points/webs their prey, while the Falcon protects them and the Hound brings the DPS to let them kill medium to large sized ships. They were pretty successful.

We’ve seen a Pilgrim, Vaga, Hurricane and Drake try something similar on a bubble camp. We engaged them with a frigate/cruiser fleet, mixed it up, and withdrew, keeping all of our ships intact. They in turn commenced to camp our bubble, the lot of them, cloaked up on it in scram/web range. They could not catch our interceptor, so we unanchored and pulled the bubble out from under them before we had a chance to see if their plan was going to work.

We’ve come to understand that “Everything cloaks in Curse”. Dramiel? Yep. Cynabal? Seen it. Armageddon? You bet. Rattlesnake? Hmm… Was that last week or the week before? Pretty sure it was last week.

We’ve watched a formidable gang camp our normal hunting grounds: 3 battleships, 4 battlecruisers, 2 logistics ships and a Dramiel. Multiple bubbles to catch traffic. The battleships sat on the bubbles, the rest of the gang on a tactical to warp in to the bubble that caught the traffic. But we didn’t see them catch anything except a beating, when a medium sized battlecruiser gang filled their dance card, killing several ships without taking significant losses.

We’ve seen Strategic Cruiser boosted Nano ‘Canes, Nano Drakes (yes, plural) , Vagas, and Cynabals. If a Tengu or Loki jumps in and stays one second longer than it takes to pass through the system, we can pretty much bet on his speed fit friends arriving shortly.

We’ve seen a small gang play our game: Rifter, Thrasher, Hawk, and Blackbird camping on a gate that we’ve been known to camp. That’s a play in our playbook, and they were playing on our field. We ran a play of our own on them and sent them on their way.

We’ve seen our former blues, but still colleagues, from Eve University bring large fleets into our region. Well balanced fleets heavy on EWAR, designed to herd new pilots into a PvP experience, which is no easy task. We respect that. But they’re way too big and we don’t think that they are going to find the fight they are looking for in our region of space.

And that’s the crux of the matter. It seems that most fleets are built around bringing overwhelming force, something that other fleets might think twice before engaging. But the bigger the fleet the harder it is to find a controllable fight.

That’s the catch 22: You want to be big enough to fight and win, but small enough to get the other guys to bring you the fight. Sun Tzu would say, that the good general wants to appear weakest where you are strongest.

Open University does small gang PvP. We fly light ships in small gangs, and when people want to engage us, it’s because they think they have a chance. But we don’t fight fair. We work hard at finding advantages and exploiting weaknesses, and if we don’t think that we can handle our opponent’s 7 ship Minmatar Rush gang… well… we let them go.

“So sorry, no kill mails for joo. Joo ‘ave a nice pocking day.”

That large bubble camp gang with the battleships we talked about earlier? They certainly had firepower, but they lacked mobility and they paid for it when the BC fleet showed up. That small gang we spoke of, playing our game? They were doing alright, and we’re sure they had scouts and a plan, but they couldn’t account for all the folks in local and it cost them a handful of ships.

For us, a 12 ship fleet starts to get complicated and a 20 ship fleet is about our limit. We balance our fleets with light and heavy tacklers, DPS, stealth and spread quite a bit of EWAR around. We’ve learned that if the fleet is too big, (or the ships are too big) people avoid you. As the ships get bigger, it becomes harder to bail out when things go bad. And if the fleet is too big, or the ships are too big, other fleets will up-ship or plus-ship so that they are bringing more than enough fleet to dominate you.

Ask any permanent Open University member how many guys the other fleet is going to bring to kill one Rifter, and you’ll get the same answer: “All of them.” That’s more than enough.

Staying light allows Art of War Alliance to be mobile and hostile. Our new guys might be flying T1 'cause they are inexperienced, but our veterans appreciate that you can fly a T1 Frigate or Cruiser and keep it fun. Killing command ships with frigates makes for great stories: you haven’t lived until you warp away after the tackle, trailing fire and smoke while your mates finish off that warship that cost 1000 times more than the ship you’re flying.

We’re not afraid to engage guys bigger than us, or in more powerful ships, but we do it on our terms. We’re fast, light and territorial killers. Like barracuda. Go small or go home.

Bren Genzan, Chief of Operations, Open University of Celestial Hardship [OUCH]

Are you rage quitting too?

So many people rage quitting over Incarna and the macrotransactions... Me? Well, I just wont be buying the things I don't want, as I always have.

Ok, so you're quitting in protest. I wish you well. Could you please donate all your stuff to OUCH? The nullsec survival and PVP training Corp could really do with your donations, and your stuff would help a great deal of people.

Please contact Black Claw in-game to organize your donations. Thank you.

Tales from the front line #3

Please enjoy another 'tale from the front line'. This is a recent engagement that our OUCH members were involved in. I want to remind you that these professional soldiers were - only very recently - noobs and carebears. There's no shame in being new, or being a carebear, because OUCH exists to help you grow. Just like it helped the below-mentioned members grow.

Gatecrashers
It was a normal day in our favored hunting grounds, with the exception of having two bubbles (one for each gate) up due to the size of the gathered fleet. I had chosen to come out in a covert ops scout to expand my growing inventory of tactical bookmarks and provide probing support and additional EWAR to the fleet, which appeared to have sufficient tacklers for the afternoon's festivities.

The traffic that day was enough to keep things interesting, but was also primarily singles and small fleets that are a welcome sight compared to the overwhelming blobs that usually interrupt our activities. Eyes in the adjacent systems kept us well informed about our next potential customer as they approached the system, and several ended up in the bubble as a snack for the wolves gathered around it.
This continued satisfactorily for a while, but then our eyes reported ships setting up a medium bubble next door. The fleet composition was a Myrmidon with ECM support from a cloaky Blackbird. It was noted that they had placed eyes in the system we were camping as well. We coexisted for an hour or so, with occasional report from our scouts.
Then one of our experienced pilots spoke up in fleet, "You know I could fit-up a tanked Vexor real quick for bait."

This simple statement was initially met with resistance by the FC, but the tactical planning and evaluation machine had already been set in motion. Experienced pilots began offering their analysis of the situation and our potential for successfully breaking the neighboring camp. The FC was reassured of our chances and planning began in earnest, while a lone pilot docked to begin crafting the bait.
The only remaining doubt was the possibility that our potential prey might have friends beyond the gate they were camping. This was put to rest by a scouting report that there was no relief available for the unsuspecting targets beyond the gate. "Clear to grid and scan, two neuts, different corp and alliance."
While this was happening, our quartermaster was busy contracting the remaining modules necessary to bring the bait ship online. Then the Vexor undocked and made its way back to the bubble for a final debrief before departing on its perilous mission of deception and mayhem.
The final plan was to ineptly pilot the baitship across our system, falling into our second bubble. This would hopefully be within sight of the cloaked spy stationed there by our targets. Following this the bait would then slow boat to the gate before jumping into the next system and warping into their waiting "trap" and engaging the hopefully eager Myrmidon pilot and his Blackbird partner. Knowing that eyes were watching the gate, the non-cloaked elements of the fleet aligned to their gate tacs and awaited the FC's order to warp to tacs and proceed through the gate to ultimately warp to the baitship, and hopefully victory.

A forward scout had achieved a position off their bubble which would be ideal for our ECM and EWAR pilots to engage the targets with an impressive array of electronics that has tipped many a fight in our favor. Our ECM ships were directed to warp to the scout when they entered the system.
In preparation for the orchestrated chaos that was about to occur, I positioned my cloaked Buzzard at a tac which was a short warp from the gate to the neighboring system, and the targets which lay within. I watched with excitement as the order sent the baitship into our bubble just off the gate and watched as it slowly cleared the bubble and made its journey to the gate and jumped beyond.
Voice comms were eerily silent until the baitship pilot reported "in warp to the bubble... in the bubble... Myrmidon engaged!"
Suddenly comms came alive, "fleet warp to tacs, go to gate, jump on contact." The order was answered by a flurry of reports that pilots were in warp. I initiated my short warp to the waiting gate as the first ships were arriving at tacs just off the gate, and jumped as the tacklers and damage boats were hitting the gate behind me.
Upon entering the neighboring system, I initiated my warp to our scout at 50km, hoping I would be in a good position to employ my sensor dampener and tracking disruptor while engaging my cloaking device in mid warp. I could not have hoped for a better vantage point.
The rest of the fleet swooped on grid and engaged the Myrmidon as the baitship reported that its cap was dry and was rapidly loosing armor due to the Myrmidon's neutralizers. We would learn later that the Myrmidon was fitted with a full rack of neutralizers and not a single gun, relying instead on its drones to put out the damage necessary for its purposes. Being unaware of this, I decloaked, engaged my sensor booster and targeted the Myrmidon, bringing my tracking disruptor and sensor dampener online, while a friendly Blackbird and Falcon set about removing the Blackbird's ability to jam our tacklers, which were swarming the Myrmidon.
To remove any possibility of the Myrmidon escaping, an interdiction sphere was launched. This unfortunately prevented the warp out of our baitship, which was deep into structure and was subsequently lost to the Myrmidon's drones. This was our only loss of the engagement.
Meanwhile, the Blackbird who had been jammed to impotence by our own ECM pilots warped out to our dismay, only to return to the killing grounds a short while later. The Myrmidon was almost through armor at that point, but we were soon to learn that it was hull tanked! Let me say it again, hull tanked!
The Blackbird's return was a grave error on the pilot's part, as I targeted it and cut its targeting range as soon as the ship exited warp. The doomed pilot hovered in space as a Rifter disengaged from the melee below and streaked with laserlike precision to the now aligning Blackbird.

"Scram web" was nonchalantly announced over comms by the Rifter pilot, who could probably tackle a cruiser in his sleep. My vantage point, some 80km from this maneuver, afforded a fantastic view of the purple box settling into what appeared to be a slow and deliberate orbit of the now trapped Blackbird, as the statement "Blackbird is jammed" was calmly passed via comms.

Following this flurry of activity, the Myrmidon slowly melted before our combined firepower as his accomplice watched, awaiting their own turn to go up in flames.

I locked the Myrmidons pod as it was expelled from the wrecked ship and tagged it briefly with my tracking disruptor, before reengaging it on the immobile Blackbird, just for the hell of it. Ultimately, the Blackbird pilot's pod escaped, perhaps due to the time they had to prepare their escape. The real prizes however, lay burning at our feet.
The fleet then set about looting the wrecks and cleaning up, while I engaged my engines and reengaged my cloak, delighting in the excitement of the hunt and the success of the operation. Afterwards, we set a course back to the bubble we had left unattended in our system, while leaving the bubble placed by our prey intact and unmolested. It was a good day.

I hope I have accurately portrayed the events of the engagement in such a way as to give credit to the intentionally unnamed pilots who made it all possible. These pilots are the reason that I came out to null, and are the primary reason why EVE and OUCH are providing the best online gaming experience I have had in twenty years of online gaming. Many thanks.