The Siege of Tama
I discovered something profound about EVE Online.
Not about ships.
Not about fittings.
Not about tactics.
About people.
I was travelling through Tama and encountered the usual gatecamp. The kind of men who sit on a gate waiting for strangers to wander into their guns. The sort of activity which would be called "fishing" if fish could scream in local.
So I returned.
In a corvette.
And died.
Then I returned again.
And died again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
At first I set my home station in Nourvukaiken. Then I realized I was unintentionally griefing innocent travellers by leaving wrecks all over the gate and interfering with MWD-cloak attempts. So I moved my clone into Tama itself.
This was not a battle.
This was logistics.
For eight hours I fed them corvettes.
Three hundred and thirty two killmails.
Three hundred and thirty two opportunities for a gatecamper to ask himself a question:
"Why am I still here?"
Because here's the thing.
Ships are finite.
Ammunition is finite.
Attention is finite.
Corvettes are not.
Cloning facilities exist.
The gatecampers believed they were farming me.
In reality, I was farming them.
Every time I appeared on grid they had a choice:
- Shoot me.
- Ignore me.
If they shot me, I won.
If they ignored me, I won.
The killboard became irrelevant. ISK became irrelevant. Combat became irrelevant.
The conflict had escaped New Eden entirely.
Inside the game we were equals.
Outside the game we were competing on a different battlefield:
Who has more free time?
Who has fewer responsibilities?
Who has less need to justify their existence?
Who can endure boredom longer?
The answer became clear after eight hours.
Not me.
Them.
Because eventually HellssAngell and the rest of the camp left.
I did not defeat their ships.
I defeated their willingness to continue.
The gate belonged to me.
Not because I could survive it.
Because I was willing to die more times than they were willing to shoot.
Many people misunderstand power in EVE.
Power is not a Titan.
Power is not ISK.
Power is not killboard efficiency.
Power is forcing your opponent to play your game instead of theirs.
You can kill me forever.
You can never stop me from undocking.
And eventually, one way or another, you leave.
I don't.
I have all the time in the world.
See you in Tama.