I've been pondering if this will set a bad precedent for future events or not, given the seeming hopelessness the Sansha loyalist side has.
Interesting.
The few incursions I've been to (for some reason CCP hates my time zone) have felt like it didn't matter what the defenders did, and thus was pretty hopeless.
But I have wondered what the Sansha supporters get out of it, since it's not obvious to me that they have much affect on the outcome either.
One of the things that piss me off about it actually, is that despite the OOC ambivalence about showing up to GM-show-off events over which I don't think I have any influence, IC I sort of have to if I find out about them if I want to stay true to the character.
A little of column a, little of column b.
We loyalists have an effect on the turn out of the incursion from our mere presence on the field, I've found. Circumstantial evidence with the turnout of the incursions none of us were at, versus the ones we were at, indicate this. If this is true, then we
do affect the number of people abducted, and even have helped to coordinate wormhole bubble drops on enemies (Odatrik for example).
However, in high sec, what we can actually do is very limited. We normally go after war targets, or ninja loot the people who die, or sometimes go for the people we have kill rights on. Whenever one of the Navy or CONCORD actors show up we dog pile them because it's pretty much the only thing we can kill as a group. We preach it up in local, regular PR mouthpieces like me go off but some of our attending members never bother because they think it's pointless, etc...
Lowsec is entirely different in my mind, because how our incursions turn out is a direct result of our participation even more so. There is no CONCORD preventing us, no mechanical system we can't bypass, so to everyone (I presume) it feels like we have a much greater impact. Our small numbers can't fight the uber blob, but we can definitely buy time as much as possible with harassment.
We definitely have sway in certain aspects, and our efforts overall have helped to drive the Sansha PR machine (possibly develop it more as a faction?) so there
are things we have gained from this. However, there are those that wish they could do more than preach in highsec. Ninja diving to steal people's remains can only go so far
Also, maybe I am being off topic by focusing on the live events and not the incursion expansion? (although I have trouble differentiating the two)
