Fourway Tango.

alexhandr 69 Comments

One of the amazing things in EVE Online is how quickly you can escalate content and incorporate many different players with the goal to kill something. Sometimes a single pilot can escalate an event that takes dozens or even hundreds of players over the course of minutes or hours. This was also the case in the system J204030, owned by Cro-Magnons and Zacharia Explorations Group, where a small fight between two entities led to an escalation that involved 109 players over a period of 1 hour 45 minutes. On the 10th of September a neutral player by the name of Dhuras decided to use an alt in that wormhole to gather intel on the locals, as they were confirmed to have multiple capitals inside the wormhole over a period of two months. Around 15:00 EVE, he noticed that the local residents anchored both a Fortizar and an Astrahus within a short timeframe. A small hostile force of Strategic Crusier Club had set up shop in order to smash these Citadels down during the anchoring period. Their fleet consisted of a few random kitchensink ships, and a small plan was hatched. After talking to Alexhandr Shkarov and Virtuozone, Dhuras decided it would be a great idea to bring two triple rep Hyperions and a meme-drake with application mids. We can win this, right?….

Three people, like David versus Goliath!

Once we started to prepare to move however, the locals used three basilisks to fight Strategic Crusier Club and friends, meaning we couldn’t reliably deal with the increased difficulty. As the high-sec also died at that time, we decided to utilize the time to quickly pull in friendly corporations ( House of Asterion and Gambrini) to join us in our fight. In about thirty minutes most groups were formed and moving towards the connection, waiting one jump out to prevent showing our hand right away. Meanwhile our scout that kept eyes on the connection started to call out that multiple bombers arrived on the wormhole at zero. Oh shit. Spectre Fleet arrived in a buttload of bombers. Great. For those who do not know the game very well, bombers are fantastic ships in the sense that their damage application on large targets is absurdly high, but as a pay off they can not hit small, agile ships. As they can cloak and warp away with their cloak, it becomes possible for them to disengage at long ranges and be extremely damaging to our fleet.

Time, however, was of the essence. At the moment the call was made, there were 55 minutes remaining on the anchoring time for the Fortizar. With all the preparation and movement included, it meant that our fleet arrived right when the Fortizar was at around 9 minutes from finishing its repair timer. The Strategic Crusier Club and friends were bashing the Fortizar with two Rattlesnakes, a handful of Feroxes and two Basilisks. We quickly engaged with the order to spread tackle randomly and ensure that none got away, resulting in a very quick two minute dumpster of the Strategic Crusier Club guys. At this time, the Fortizar was down to 07:38 before it would finish repairing, and we proceeded to hit the structure, ignoring the Astrahus completely. But wait, you might ask. What about Spectre Fleet? Well, they ended up starting to mess with us from range on the Fortizar but eventually pushed off towards the high-sec connection. There they set up shop in order to try and catch stragglers in our fleet as well as rolling ships. Twenty bombers with 400 DPS each kill battleships incredibly quickly. As we were losing a few ships, we decided to pull off the Fortizar to push off the Spectre dudes but eventually the risk of losing the Fortizar kill was too large for us to keep bouncing back and forth. Funnily enough, the first battleship to eat the dust was that triple rep Hyperion flown by Dhuras. Talk about having bad luck! All these tactics force us to have people reship into anti-tackle frigates in order to cull the herd, giving us many many bomber kills.

Eventually, after a good hour of constant harrassment, drone pulling and redeploying and repositioning, the local defenders decide that they have had enough of sitting on the sidelines and proceed to actively drop their capital fleet onto us. Oh boy, things are going down. After warping to a ping, the local defenders land their fleet smack down in the middle of our fleet, and attempt to burn off our Bhaalgorns and Armageddons. With three Armageddons and four Dominixes, supported by a Thanatos and an Apostle, the locals brought a small but very gnarly fleet that ended up costing us a few ships before we managed to pressure their Apostle enough to start killing their subcapitals. Personally, I was really glad I got my Turbo Chicken Prophecy along, as I ended up taking the brunt from the hostile fleet for quite some time, just about holding with four guardians repairing.

Turbo Chicken

Slowly though, the Fortizar bled time due to reduced DPS on it, pausing eventually at 28 seconds remaining. Oh shit, all drones on the Fortizar and try to kill the rest with minimal DPS. Not ideal, but we didn’t want to let that Fortizar get online. Luckily, the FC for Spectre Fleet agreed on our mutual interest as pilots to kill the local defenders, resulting in their bombers leaving our fleet alone for the most part. Of course, sometimes you got these special snowflakes that don’t listen, but overall it was neat. With their pressure and the relaying of primaries, life became a lot easier and slowly each capital started to burn down, starting with the Moros, followed by the Thanatos and finally the Apostle. As the fight for the capitals went on for a good 40 minutes, the Apostle ran out of charges. Apparently they weren’t fully prepared for an attack of this scale.

As the capacitor for the Apostle was completely depleted, the remote repairs were failing and eventually we cleaned up their entire fleet. Virion Stoneshard honoured his promise as Spectre FC and moved his fleet away from the grid in order to allow us to gather loot and salvage all the wrecks after which we gathered around 4-5 billion ISK worth of loot across the board. A good amount and definitely helping to cover our losses.

In the end, three guys with a plan caused a total of 109 pilots to skirmish for the kill of a Fortizar, three capitals and many different subcapital fleets, with over 35 billion ISK worth of kills across the entire system. One note of respect must be given to the local defenders. It takes balls to drop your entire capital force on an superior hostile fleet and be willing to fight to the death to defend your home system. Groups like these, no matter their background, form the basis of wormhole space and need to be properly honoured for their effort.

Battlereport: http://evf-eve.com/services/brcat/?s=1001124&b=7728030&e=163&t=GhU1fuvvvrvvvr9f&o=1

Lighting the fuse, walking through the Ember Sands.

alexhandr Leave a comment

citadel_crazyglue

Two years ago we started the current incarnation of Swamphole, with the goal to become a solid PVP entity. Over the time we had struggles and after two years I feel it is time to work on our corporation in a slightly different way. In the last few weeks we’ve been in touch with some friends of ours that are looking to have our corporation form part of their organization.  These people weren’t the first to ask, in the end we had about seven groups over the last year ask to join up with them, but they did provide a platform that I feel would be best for our corporation.

As we’ve rounded up our discussions I am very pleased to announce that as of the 6th of November 2016 we have joined up with the good folk over at Ember Sands. We’re extremely excited to see this teamwork come to fruition in the coming months!

Since we’re joining a new organisation we will have a period of adjustment. While we work on this, we’re preparing a set of programs that benefit new players in engaging content while teaching them more about the game as a whole. If you haven’t yet checked our recruitment information, you can click the banner on the front page!

Edit:

We have since moved on to form our own plans again and be independent as organisation. Our teamwork didn’t work in the way that we envisioned and at that point it is better to separate than to keep struggling.

Two years down.

alexhandr Leave a comment

Time flies when you’re having fun and boy, did we have fun. A few years ago I started playing EVE Online in the middle of a terrible position in life, and it allowed me to escape the negativity because I met wonderful people. We didn’t always get along, but in the end meeting people like you helped me shape who I wanted to be as a person.

When I was fed up with nullsec in early 2014, I decided that I’d need something fresh. A former CEO and a friend started a group called Worm Hole. In a C2/C5/Null. Being fresh of the boat, I had no idea what to expect but we went for it balls deep and ended up getting burnt once or twice by incompetence. But hey, that’s how things go, it is all part of the game. So eventually when the then CEO resigned, I tried to build an environment that one day could be competitive. One day. You see, eventually we felt that we were bound by the negative reputation of our former CEO and we moved our member base to the Confederation of Independent Systems. This was an interim corporation in which we had ups and downs, but ultimately we settled on a new name on the 7th of November 2014. We became Swamphole Inc, a small corporation that focused on transparency and integrity as values. If I were to list all the ups and downs here for you, I’d need a secondary e-mail just for that alone.

And this brings us to today. We’re still with that same dream, but at a slower pace. In a little less than a month there will be the official two year anniversary of the corporation. While I do not have any plans for celebration presently, I do want to send everyone of you this message.

All of you have been an integral part along the line of Swamphole. Your effort, your time and your attitude helped shape who we are, what we achieved and what challenges we have ahead. While we may not always get along very well, I do look back to two very fond years of which you all have been a part in some capacity. For that, I’d like to thank you. I want to thank you for taking a plunge and try to make an environment that suits us all. I want to thank you for being a part of our history, how big or small it may eventually be.

In one month I will celebrate our existence. But I couldn’t have done it without the bunch of you.

Thank you for being part of what made Swamphole be awesome in it’s own way.

In name of Swamphole.
Alexhandr Shkarov.

Ending our support for Broadcast4Reps

alexhandr Leave a comment

Hi there,

After a few weeks of consideration we’ve finally decided that our corporation will stop supporting Broadcast4Reps in it’s current form.

We’ve been supporting this organisation for months, but eventually we came to the conclusion that the entirety of the Broadcast4Reps program and it’s affiliated aspects do not align with our organisational goals. We strive to create an environment that is open and welcoming to all players in EVE as long as they follow our six core values. That said, we also value that we help others that are in a bind both in-game and in real life.

We have been trying to support this organisation for a while now, but there is a dangerous trend that persists in their current implementation. We strive to be supportive, but in order to be supportive you need to be able to say things directly. In our experience, the current form of Broadcast4Reps is dominated by a small sub-set of players who have a priority in comforting but not truly supporting someone. It is full of meaningless platitudes, and that’s not how we feel being supportive should be. People have different ways to help one another, and if we’re not able to be direct with someone without being told off by the moderation team, it becomes clear that Broadcast4Reps is not an environment that we can consciously support without question.

We do appreciate the core idea of Broadcast 4 Reps and welcome anyone whom feels they need someone to talk to, to send us a message. That said, unlike Broadcast4Reps we strive for people to be respectful and direct. Giving someone comfort is nice, but helping that person get on their feet towards solving a problem is better.

 

Please remember that we are only players and that for any issue it is always recommended to consult a health professional. We do not provide advice, only a supportive ear. Please seek out professional assistance for problems.

Recruitment and Security

alexhandr Leave a comment

In Swamphole we’re trying to allow people with a past to participate in the community, when we feel the person may have a benefit and changed his/her old ways.
Obviously, that does put you at risk occasionally of a bad apple slipping through the cracks and missing some information that is crucial.

This happened to the recruitment process of Zedarh Amarizto. Initially the player applied to the corporation and we followed normal procedure of API-checks, security checks and such. Sadly, out of our complacency at the time we missed the fact that the history of Zedarh Amarizto contained clear proof of attempts to steal corporate assets. In this article I’d like to go into some of the details we found, and what it tells us as recruiters.

Initial observations:

When the player joined our public channel for questions, he seemed to be a decent lad with not much up his sleeve. We spoke about his experience, the goals and such. You know, the standard recruitment pitch. When we noticed he was acquainted to a very well known corporate thief named Searbhreathach, he became a little vague but not to the point where we intitially got suspicious. Flag number one: His reasons for knowing Searbhreathach was that they were in a similar public channel hanging out. This should’ve worried us but after some talking we kind of dismissed it as being that relevant. That is a mistake. Nothing is irrelevant when it comes to information about characters.

In order for us to filter out the people who aren’t serious about the corporation, we usually wait 24 hours untill we check the API-keys. We do this, as a person who is impatient (and thusly not interesting for us) will search/join another corporation without informing us. Alternatively these recruits resort to excessive request of when they get an update. Both are reasons for denying an application, and Zedarh Amarizto was displaying the latter of the two in some degree. This should be a warning sign but again we didn’t make it a breaking point when we should have.

So we noticed a few important things.

  • Zedarh Amarizto has multiple alts which would trade/send him money.
    • Gian Bal is the main character that recieves and transfers money to Zedarh Amarizto.
    • Akk Akk allegedly is an alt that traded actively with Zedarh.
    • TheLastSparton has repeatedly traded with Zedarh during heists, making him a potential accomplice.
  • There was a financial pattern to Zedarh leaving corporations, and items changing hands.

How did we find these aspects?

First off, we looked at their mailing history and for some reason it “magically” stopped with the mail history at the time he applied to the previous corporation. That in itself is a red flag but it was missed in the first place because our recruitment training wasn’t sorted out properly yet. As people weren’t aware of this technique, it was missed in the first review but stood out like a sore thumb in the second check.

Secondly, the financial logs of the player would indicate that he would have severe amounts of trades with his other character (Gian Bal) right after he left the corporation. In this example below, you’ll see that Zedarh Amarizto left the corporation named Allcorp Resource Union on 2015/08/06:

At the same time, the wallet entries show the following entries from during the time that he’s been taking stuff from the corporation:

When we confronted him initially, his argument was that Gian Bal was a guy who lived in his street and they would generally share ISK left and right. At that moment, the explanation seemed plausible to the recruitment team and we missed that there was a strong pattern that would reoccur during his membership in SL33P3R C3LL. We contacted the leadership of Allcorp Resource Union after we started to get some more doubts, and when we asked what they knew about Zedarh, they confirmed that he was a corporate thief. Upon looking into the API-key we noticed that there was a pattern to these transactions like the above, where Zedarh would sell a bunch of the things and then mail the money back to the original main: Gian Bal. Why would anyone sell items for someone else on such a consistent pattern and then claim it’s his friend? A red flag of its own.

Another example is when he left SL33P3R C3LL, where he was spotted taking ships with his other alts.

In the meantime we have had contact with the leadership of SL33P3r C3ll, and KARNAGE to confirm these allegations. Karnage could not verify if there were thefts done by Zedarh, but the wallet shows similar behaviour right before he left this corporation as well. While we were dealing with the damage control of him being in the corporation after we messed up initial recruitment, we got contacted by a member of Catastrophic Communication Failure further more affirming that the user above was indeed a corporate thief.

The Aftermath:

Obviously we removed all of Zedarh’s roles and permissions right off the bat, and changed all passwords for towers that he has had access to, but that didn’t stop him from trying to convince us to stay. As a CEO I have to choose if I wish to keep someone who is questionable but possibly a nice guy, over the reputation of our corporation. I do not mind giving second chances, but only if that does not hurt our corporation as a whole. The actions of Zedarh are severe enough that we could not consider him to be a member of our organisation.

What did we learn?

There are a few lessons that we need to keep in mind:

  • There is no such thing as 100% guarantee.
  • We need to revise how our recruitment process works internally.
  • We need to take our time, and not rush. As a result, all applications will take at least 24 hours, and after a maximum of 72 hours you should get a status update.
  • Apply a four-eye principle more thoroughly, meaning that new recruits will need at least two independent recruiters approving the background checks.

Conclusion:

As a person, Zedarh came across like a good lad with decent motivation. Sadly he is a confirmed corp thief, and while he might be the nicest lad in the world, we draw the line there.
I recommend everyone who runs across this guy to do a thorough check, and I hope that this article helps a future corporation in their recruitment process. That said, I also hope that people will not take this as a ticket to instantly begin and harass the guy.