Providence continues to be the hot spot in null sec, leading the chart again for ships and pods destroy in the last 24 hours by a significant margin.
F-YH5B seemed to be a particularly contested system as almost a quarter of the ship kills in the region happened there.
While after the non-event of last night I opted to watch some more of season 4 of Boardwalk Empire with my wife, others in the north used their jump clones or hopped into interceptors for the ~20 minute run down to Provi to join in on the action there.
This was, after all, day four, when the timers set on day two started to come out and structures became vulnerable to the Fozzie Sov whack-a-mole attack/defense mini-game.
Again, I do not have any personal anecdotes or pretty screen shots to distract people with, having come back to the north during day two for our own little Fozzie Sov mambo in UMI-KK. So I figured I would sit back and at least tally up the score from the events down south.
The primary stated mission of this war, aside from experimentation with Fozzie Sov mechanics, was to blow up all the infrastructure hubs in the region. Taking sovereignty by eliminating territorial claim units and freeporting stations and such, those were bonus objective. The ihubs were the goal. So I should count how many ihubs were destroyed.
Unfortunately, ihubs do not impose themselves on the game in a very trackable way. You can find out when they are reinforced. There is a listing up on DOTLAN for each region. But once they have been destroyed, what gets left behind? There are not structure kill mails any more. The ihubs don’t flip sides, they just go away. There is no history of them being there, so far as I know, just an indication as to whether they are there or not right now.
So I have to go with what I wrote yesterday, when I looked at the structure map for Providence to find out how many systems in the region lacked an ihub. My visual tally was one. A single system lacked an ihub, which meant that there were 83 ihubs in the 84 systems.
Unfortunately, of all the maps variations of which I took screen shots, that was not one of them. So my somewhat faulty memory is in play here. I don’t know how I can prove there were 83 ihubs yesterday. All I can do is show you the map as it stands to day, of which I damn well took a screen shot.
Providence Structures – August 27, 2015
That map view shows the structures in each system, with T being a TCU, I being an ihub, and S indicating the presence of a station. If you expand that and count you might end up with the same number I did on the third try, which was 46 systems with ihubs, 38 without.
So 37 ihubs destroyed out of 83 possible so far, with some still counting down to their vulnerability time frame. 44% success to this point, with another 26 ihubs still reinforced or vulnerable according to Timer Board. So that number could peak at 60 ihubs, or 72% of the region.
I also count, looking at the structure list for the region, 15 stations that were put into Freeport status, which means anybody can dock up there. That actually seems like a very Provi thing, maybe they will keep that. Or maybe not. It will affect the ADM. Anyway, out of 77 stations in the region, that means a mere 19% were set to Freeport status. But that was also a secondary objective, so count that as you will.
As for TCUs, for that we have to look at the sovereignty view of the map, because any system that is owned by an alliance has to have a TCU. So for that we can count unowned systems plus systems captured by alliances of The Imperium.
Providence – August 27, 2015 (late)
On that map I see 9 unowned systems and 2 systems captured by alliances of The Imperium, one by The Bastion (BASTN) and one by Space Monkeys Alliance (SMA), for a total of 11 systems down, plus another system grabbed by the Gun Fun Alliance (GFA in H6-CX8) a third party that appears to have taken advantage of a moment of opportunity, bringing the tally up to 12. Provi bloc has not, as yet, recaptured any of their systems according to the sovereignty change listing for the region on DOTLAN. That is 14% of the region turned.
The summary I come up from this is:
- 37 ihubs destroyed (44% of ihubs in the region)
- 15 stations put into freeport stations (19% of stations in the region)
- 12 TCUs destroyed (14% of the region)
Plus, of course, lots of battles and ships destroyed.
That is my attempt to summarize the war in Provi with some of the metrics available. I would be interested to hear if somebody has come up with a better, clearer, or more reliable way to track sovereignty war progress under Fozzie Sov given the information available. This is, after all, Spreadsheets Online, so agreed upon numbers are clearly required.
Addendum: As brought up in the comments, Gun Fun Alliance is a Provi Bloc alliance, so while the TCU destroyed count remains at 12, the Provi Bloc have recaptured a system by dropping a new TCU. My mistake for not looking into Gun Fun Alliance more deeply than I did.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Its only 11 TCUs. Gun Fun is a Providence Holder.
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@Anonymous – I did not look closely enough at GFA.
But it is actually still 12 TCUs destroyed. CVA lost that TCU, but GFA managed to drop another TCU to take it back for Provi Bloc.
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Actually the real reason for it is to serve as a deterrent from other null-sec powers attempting to attack the Imperium. (new nickname “imperil’um” as in attack us at your own peril).
I initially regarded this whole operation as an error, personally preferring to keep the cards close to the chest. But it is probability about time, that the dogs of war were given some exercise. But it high-lights the unassailable front of imperil’um within Eve overall. Internal senior failure or betrayal, general apathy or CCP intervention are remaining Hail Mary’s for the much needed in-stability which necessary for a game of conflict’s vibrant core.
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Now comes the post-Blitz tactics and strategic discussion; what worked and what did not work.
One area of focus is that some of the coalition did not manage very well – look at FCON and CO2’s constellations – and we didn’t have enough skirmish FCs to manage the sheer number of nodes spawning. Trollceptors also didn’t work very well for capping many nodes, as the active warzone meant many third parties killing the interceptor before help could arrive.
I expect next time it’ll be a rolling war of 1-2 constellations a day, using the entire coalition.
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@Telke – Yeah, tanked Entosis ships seem to be a better thing now that everybody has adapted to the tollceptor. That was what we used to hit the nodes for the station timer at UMI-KK.
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The easiest ones to capture seem to be the pocket constellations where the fleet can blockade the entry point while the Entosis ships work unopposed. But at that point, pretty much any ship will do. But even without trollceptors, the preferred tactic so far seems to be avoiding fights. The fleet does not need to defeat the enemy fleet; It only needs to burn down the Entosis ship and warp out before the enemy fleet arrives. So far I have not seen any attempts to hold your ground.
There is an old adage about armies being designed to fight the previous war, not the upcoming one. I wonder whether the next one will have Entosis ships focused on staying power and staying power alone while the rest of the fleet gets faster and faster.
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I honestly expected ~wolfpack~ fast HACs to be everywhere come the first month of Aegis Sov, and it didn’t happen. Shirrath’s adage about armies applies well.
We’ve definitely seen the push for speed coming now though; Cerberus and Caracal fleets abound, MWD HM Tengus for some of the Imperium, beam Omens for TNT, and third parties running interceptors to catch stragglers. I’m hoping there’s a space for armor hacs like Zealots as well, but we’ll see.
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And I did not notice that GFA placed the TCU thereafter CVA lost it. Thanks for pointing that out.
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