War never changes, or something like that. This war is now past the two month mark and a few things have changed.
In Delve, the Imperium anchored two more Keepstars in 1DQ1-A.
Keepstars anchoring behind our staging Keepstar
The number of Upwell structures in our staging system was already to a point where they flooded the overview, but now there are two more Keepstars on grid with our main staging Keepstar. The grid around that area is… crowded.
1DQ1-A staging Keepstar grid
The red circles are the four Keepstars on grid, while the two yellow circles are Sotiyos. The blue circles are the array of faction Fortizars taken as part of the peace deal from the war two years back. I don’t think I circled them all as they are hard to pick out in that screen shot, which is also slightly angled off the up-down axis, so doesn’t line up quite right. But there are a lot of them. You can see some of them lined up in this screen shot from above the home Keepstar.
Fortizars to the left, right, and below
This grid will end up being a hell of a fight should it come down to it.
Northern Front
After marshaling their titan and super force and driving it all the way around from Catch into Fountain, the invaders destroyed the final Keepstar in the region, the one in Y-2ANO.
Attacking the Keepstar
A few ops were run to help people get things out of the Keepstar before the final timer. I managed to get a Ferox and a Megathron safely back to 1DQ1-A. However, an Ibis I left in there is now in asset safety and will be redeemable in Hophib in a couple weeks. Hah.
That brought the attacker Keepstar kill count up to six.
Keepstar tally so far
After that, the invaders appeared to be done in Fountain. A few more smaller structures were destroyed, but they didn’t bother to form up for the final timer they had set on a faction Fortizar in Y-2ANO.
Faction Fortizar glows as the timer runs down
Instead they started move ops to move their forces elsewhere, perhaps to threaten Querious or Period Basis… or who knows, maybe they’ll actually come to Delve?
Not getting a fight on that faction Fortizar, Elo Knight dropped out Ferox covering fleet into their staging at I-CUVX where we mauled a move op and reinforced their staging Fortizar while the hostiles sat and watched, not bothering to form up anything to fight us.
Battle Report Header
Not a war winning fight, but a send off from us. I did not come back for the armor timer, but it did not go well for us.
Southern Front
Querious saw clashes over structures, including the faction Fortizar in ED-L9T, a location well remembered by many in Reavers as the sight of one of our most epic fights a little over five years back.
Sovereignty in the eastern end of the region remains mostly uncontested as a swathe of systems sit with nobody bothering to drop an ihub. It just isn’t worth the effort to either side.
Querious ihub map – Sep 6, 2020
Meanwhile, the invaders have made no progress on the western reach of the region, when GSF and The Initiative still hold ihubs and TCUs.
The big action in the south took place in the Paragon Soul region, in G-M4GK, when the Imperium spotted some titans in there and threw down to try and take them out. Subcaps and capitals were through the gate and into a brawl, with supers and titans formed up and ready to follow them in, all late on a week night in USTZ.
In the brawl in G-M4GK
Things did not go our way, the supers and titans did not gate into the fight. The dreads and faxes that got on grid ended up taking heavy losses, including a Vehement faction dread.
Doomsdays hitting home
The battle report showed losses at a 3:1 ratio against us.
Battle Report header for the G-M4GK brawl
But it was a moment of very high excitement, on both sides I am sure, as it looked like something might break out and become one of those legendary battles. Once everybody who could be extracted was out, we escorted the titans home and called it a night.
Seeing our titans and supers safely back
My Participation
I managed to get into the G-M4GK fight, where I lost my Guardian as part of Elo Knight’s Ferox fleet, then joined Dictorian Pilot’s fleet in a Sabre to help camp the G-M4GK in TCAG-3, where we caught quite a few hostiles trying to slip in to catch our caps as they pulled out.
I also went out with an interceptor fleet to witness the death of the Y-2ANO Keepstar… and to whore on the kill mail. I was a bit bummed that I could not stay on grid to see it explode, but the hostiles were looking for anything to shoot.
My damaged comic fit Ares
I had a snowball launcher and a fireworks launcher, along with a civilian weapon off an Ibis, so you know I was serious.
I managed to get off grid to repair on one of our Fortizars when a hostile Tengu warped in on us at zero. He was quickly tackled by the the others interceptors sitting with us, who were actual fit with useful things, like webs, scrams, and points. The Tengu was taken down by the dozen interceptors.
Get the Tengu!
My efforts are visible in that screen shot. Both fireworks and snowball launcher were in actions… and the gun as well. I got on the kill mail. To be fair to the poor Tengu pilot, tidi was pretty bad with over 2,000 people in the system, and he might not have known what hit him until it was too late. But it was a nice little addition to our day.
So my loss count for the war incremented by one, with the loss of the Guardian. My total:
- Ares interceptor – 9
- Atron entosis frigate – 5
- Drake entosis battle cruiser – 3
- Guardian logi – 2
- Malediction interceptor – 2
- Scalpel logi frigate – 2
- Ferox battle cruiser – 2
- Bifrost entosis command destroyer – 1
- Cormorant destroyer – 1
- Purifier stealth bomber – 1
- Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
- Sigil entosis industrial – 1
I have two Guardians on the list as I went down my losses and realized I forgot to add one from early August.
Overall
With the invaders moving their forces elsewhere, it seems like the northern front my be done. The rumor is that PandaFam is going to install some smaller alliances in the region in order to hold it, which I am sure will end well. But we will have to wait and see if that comes to pass.
The big question is where will the invaders strike next? Will they focus their forces and attempt to do to Querious what they just finished doing in Fountain? Will the stage back in Catch in FAT-6P or use one of their 13 Keepstars deployed for their move op to try to approach from the Khanid region? Or will they force a move into NPC Delve to hurry things along?
I suppose it depends on who is running the show. TEST and Legacy have seemed lackadaisical in their approach to the war relative to their PandaFam allies, who have really been putting in most of the work. But, as was pointed out, Legacy is still at home and can rat and mine and do much of their peacetime stuff, while PandaFam is deployed far from home and no doubt feels some pressure from line members to get stuff done.
The Sunday peak concurrent users has dipped back down a bit, reflecting the reduction in action. (Numbers courtesy of EVE Offline)
- Day 1, Jul 5 – 38,838
- Week 1, Jul 12 – 37,034
- Week 2, Jul 19 – 34,799
- Week 3, Jul 26 – 34,692
- Week 4, Aug 2 – 35,583
- Week 5, Aug 9 – 35,479
- Week 6, Aug 16 – 34,974
- Week 7, Aug 23 – 38,299
- Week 8, Aug 30 – 35,650
- Week 9, Sep 6 – 35,075
And then there is the Quantum Cores patch, the subject of my post tomorrow, which will change some of the way Upwell structures are handled. That may have some impact on the war come October. But we’ll get to that and we see what week ten has for us.
Addendum:
- INN — World War Bee: Week Nine
The Ancient Gaming Noob 