Look, more alternative facts that Goons are dead. So dead we are the most economically active alliance in the game. The RMT Empire is alive and well, everyone to the party yacht while our hordes of bots get us unassailably rich for zero work!

Jealousy makes people say and do strange things. Mix jealousy with a healthy helping of dumb, and you get clowns twisting themselves into a pretzel to try to explain something that, in reality, is rather easy to see for anyone not suffering from crippling idiocy and paranoia.

If you are a moron, go ahead and believe this. I’m sure you believe Riot causes teams during the (live broadcast) of the LCS to also lag since they, like CCP, pick winners in their clearly rigged game! Or do what most people do, have a good laugh, and come back to reality when ready.

Let’s tackle the topic of high-sec citadels, since that’s by far the easiest one to understand. Anyone who logs into EVE will see that, most of the time, there is a 0% tax citadel up around Jita. When that isn’t the case, there is a .01% citadel up, so if you can’t wait, you can go use that. Who owns the citadels really doesn’t matter, as it changes often, and since you are likely selling only PLEX or injectors in those cits (almost everything else is still sold in Jita 4-4 for obvious reasons), either your stuff near-instantly sells (you posted at the current lowest price), or worse-case you get your stuff out of asset safety after a week should the order stay up long enough for said cit to be blown up.

Now, is there money to be made hosting these citadels? Yes. Is it ‘unbeatable wealth’? Of course not. Evidence? Those cits get blown up all the time, there has never been a long-standing established hub with a non-zero tax rate, and null groups have shown that when they want, they can clear the area, only for multiple cits to pop right back up offering 0% rates.

When the cost is around 6b to bring a cit online, basically anyone can do it, while it takes the coordinated time and effort of dozens if not a hundreds of pilots over the course of 3 weeks to remove them. By design, the system controls itself, while also providing a new venue of content for those interested (people hosting, other people blowing them up, on and on we go).

As people tried to patiently point out to Gevlon, and that continues to fly straight over his head, The Mittani makes MORE money off taxes from our market up in Delve than anyone currently makes in Jita off a citadel, for a hell of a lot less effort (more on this later). This makes sense if you understand even a little about how null empires work; no large group would survive leadership telling people to deploy to high-sec to structure-bash 24/7/365 to keep the Jita area clear for just one market citadel to stay up with a high-enough tax rate to make it worthwhile. In addition to structures going up for the 3 week window that you can’t shut down, the minute there aren’t enough pilots to destroy those cits, or the force isn’t large enough to stop a hired group from stopping them, the whole thing collapses. And whenever a 0% cit is up (which again, today is most of the time), your market cit with a high-enough tax rate is sitting idle. Guess which is going to happen sooner; enough null group pilots get bored and stop showing up for structure bashes, or the supply of people dropping 6b cits reaches and stays at zero?

With that explained in painful detail for even the slowest of clowns, let’s talk about why the dead and defeated alliance know as Goons is causing Delve to be the most economically active region in the game, and why ratting income overall is up in the game.

The biggest factor is pilot maturity, which was greatly accelerated by the introduction of skill injectors. Ratting in a VNI with decent skills and without uber-min/maxing gets you about 30m or so ticks. Ratting in a better sub-cap with better skills might get you 50m ticks. Carrier ratting gets you 70m ticks. Super Carrier ratting gets you 100m ticks. If someone is really dedicated to min/max ratting, those numbers all increase. Prior to skill injectors, even if you could afford a super carrier, you either had to buy that pilot or wait for your skills to train. And then there was the issue of getting the hull, which was also far more difficult prior to citadels. That’s not the case anymore with injectors/cits, which of course leads to more people moving up the ratting tiers faster.

Combine this acceleration with Goons pumping out capitals and super capitals at massive rates in Delve (thanks Rorqs!), at very affordable prices, and it’s safe to say it’s never been easier for a Goon to afford and acquire a capital or super capital in EVE to rat in. Likely the same can be said for PL, NC., TEST, and anyone else who owns and correctly uses null space.

Now take the above and further combine it with the fact that Delve is ‘safe’ for non-idiot ratters, the fact that we aren’t currently at war, and that our systems have been upgraded and corps organized to spread people out, and boom, exploding ratting income. All of which is taxed by the alliance, meaning bigger coffers for stuff like expanding ship replacement programs, carrier fleets, and other fun/powerful benefits. Plus RMT yachts of course, can’t forget the yachts.

It’s almost like Goons are benefiting from a null system designed to rewarding people for living in their space, something the greater null community wanted for a long time and that finally CCP delivered on. Shocking that one of the better organized groups with highly talented people at the top who put in an amazing amount of behind-the-scenes work to make it all run would be so successful. What horrible game design rewarding those people and the tens of thousands under them over know-nothing clowns that just cry about things (that may or may not actually exist in reality) from the sidelines. Can’t believe such a game and the clearly corrupt developers behind it are posting record revenue 13 years after release.

And please, for the clowns chirping from the sidelines, continue to ignore that all of this only works because not only does said talented leadership put in the time and effort to entertain thousands, but said thousands also organize themselves in defense fleets to make ratting ‘safe’, show up for Ops to defend the interests of the alliance, and the work of all of the people behind the scenes putting doctrine ships up on contract, filling markets, fueling towers and structures, running things like our hauling service, our newbie programs, our training classes, and the metric shit-ton of other stuff that is in place to keep it all going and to be attractive enough to continue to being in new people. Things that aren’t required in high sec, in smaller groups, or for solo players.

But don’t worry, I’m sure any minute now someone is going to come along and create the perfect MMO to cater to you and the massive market you represent. Just please hold your breath until it happens, ok?

Fake-edit: Perhaps the most hilarious part of all the bitching that how this is all unfair and undefeatable and blablabla is that literally anyone can join Goons or the other major null empires. So long as you aren’t such an insufferable assclown that even freaking TEST would rather scam you then retain you, you too can reap the rewards of being part of a group that works its ass off to entertain you… err I mean CCP has selected to be the winner while knowing most of the ISK is being funneled out for RMT profits!