23 | January | 2023 | The Ancient Gaming Noob

Pochven is the region created at the end of the Triglavian when 27 systems were ripped out of empire space, including Niarja, a key system in the old shape of high sec shipping. There was a big fight over that system before it fell.

The map triangle

That is a nice logical map of Pochven. Actually in the star map it is a little more confused.

The route between the stars in the new region

Pochven is like wormhole space, in that you cannot get there via gates and local chat only displays those who actively say something, and like null sec space in that it is a region with gates between its systems where there is no CONCORD or other empire space rules.

I’ve been to Pochven three times. The first time was when the Triglavian change over took place. It was the creation of Pochven. I Ieft a character there in a ship that was blown up not too much later due to carelessness.

The second time was a few weeks back. I was fiddling with the Imperium wormhole tracking app and was out in my Buzzard scanning down holes and just traveling around to see what I could find when I decided I wanted to see how to get to Pochven. Most people use special filaments to get there, but I didn’t have any of those and thought I remember something about wormholes being used to get there.

I ended up finding the Pochven Entry Guide, a web site put together by a couple of people, including Debes Sparre (who has left a comment or two here and who I met in person at EVE Vegas) that helped guide me and my Buzzard into the region.

A Buzzard in Pochven

But I didn’t have anything to do there besides explore, so I left and found my way back to Delve via other wormhole connections. I had learned I could get there, get back, and that the whole place was dark… much darker than null sec… and tinted red, just the way the Triglavians like it I guess.

And the third time, well that was last week and it was for a structure fight. Pandemic Horde has a Fortizar in Skarkon, one of the Pochven systems, and a ping went out alerting us to be ready to go to a fight over the armor timer.

A Fortizar in the dark red space of Pochven

Pochven is also special in that you can’t drop structures there. The only player structures in the region are legacy ones, deployed before Pochven was formed. So killing this structure would be kind of a big deal. So I was in for that sort of event.

We formed up in 1DQ1-A in Delve. I ended up in Mike Flood’s fleet, which was our Sacrilege doctrine. I nearly jumped out to join up when Asher put up a Stormbringer fleet, but decided to stick with the tough HACs. (Also, they were asking people not to jump ship.) So we had 250 people in fleet ready to go, we just had to get there.

Getting there was a task in and of itself.

The easiest way into Pochven is filaments, but you can’t filament a 250 ship fleet. So we had to break up into fleets of 15 players each, fly off into a safe because you cannot be close to a structure or a celestial when you filament, and teleported into Pochven. We landed in Senda, which happened to be where I ended up in my Buzzard a few weeks back. Then the fleets had to reform and travel to Skarkon.

Sacs taking a Trig gate in Pochven

We were being joined by some other parties, like Brave and WE FORM BL0B, who were also keen to see if we could bring down Horde’s special Fortizar. Because of this we had to be careful who we shot. As it turned out, our FC would be calling enough targets to keep us busy so we didn’t have a lot of time to get into trouble shooting temporary allies by mistake.

The timer counted down and we were soon pretty heavily engaged with Horde and their allies. While they brought a lot of people to defend this valuable asset, they also called in friends, so it was a fairly large fight. Of course, there being wormhole style local means I can’t tell you how many people were in the system at any given time, but the battle report, which I will link later, put the participant count at 1,485.

Sacs flying across the battlefield

For us it was quite a busy time. The battle only lasted a couple of hours, which was a good thing on a weekday evening, but we made the most of it. Mike led us against a Horde Sleipner fleet that seemed to pose the greatest risk to us.

Following the FC through the wine dark sky

We were locking up targets, firing a single volley, then moving on to the next, having enough firepower to pop ships that way.

We went on like that for quite a while, not sustaining much in losses as the many fleets on the field sought their own targets. The Stormbringers seems to drawn more attention to us, being annoying pests with their bouncing lighting firepower and their expensive hulls. Eventually though we attracted enough attention to start taking some hits.

A Sac blowing up in the middle of the formation

Horde has some bombers around and they lined up on us and hit us with electron bombs, which drained our capacitors, turning off our armor hardeners, our tracking disruptors (which we had been harassing the Horde Paladin fleet with), and our MWDs, which made us slower and more vulnerable. Losses began to mount.

Another explosion in the fleet

The fleets were so intent on each other that we ignored the structure after a while, each side concentrating on blowing up ships.

In the end, the Fortizar repaired itself. Horde won the armor timer. Their structure was preserved this time around.

Meanwhile, we hit a point where the odds were growing against us. Getting back into the fight was easy for our foes… or at least the ones that remembered to set their home in the Fortizar. We had to make our way back from Delve. And it was late and the objective had been decided, so people started calling it a night.

We set about trying to disengage, which can be a tricky thing to do. Getting away can be fraught with danger, and I have been on fleets that have hazed a retreating foe, inflicting more losses every time they made a mistake.

With the help of some sacrificial interdictors, we managed to get some distance from the enemy and get ourselves to a rally point.

Gating away from the fight

Then came the chore of getting back home. You can filament straight TO Pochven, but when you filament out you go where the filament takes you, which for us wasn’t going to be anywhere close to Delve.

I figured, but Buzzard bravado still lingering, that if somebody could just get us to the hole out of Senda I could find my way home. But we had some exit filaments, which meant breaking up into 15 ship fleets again and finding the right system in Pochven for the optimum jump out.

Our group got out okay, though we were delayed because the FC left our filament in the station where it had been traded to him. People were already forming up into groups, taking a path up through Cloud Ring to the Eye of Terror Ansiblex highway which would lead them home to Delve.

Feeling a bit left behind, I got out the Imperium wormhole tracking app again and found the that there was a Thera hole not too far away and another that would drop me in Aridia, not too far from home. So I ran that route, in the main fleet but taking a different path. That cut off enough jumps that I ended up catching up to them back in Delve as they were arriving. I was home again, ship intact, only minus some ammunition and most of my drones. That happens.

The fight was one of those battles that both sides enjoy, somewhat even in outcome, but with enough kills that everybody felt like they got a piece. Somebody put together a battle report that separated out the two main parties from the third party locals who showed up.

Battle Report Header

The third parties are Team A, we are Team B, and the defenders Team C. A pretty close fight. I ended up on another 52 kill mails according to zKillboard. Somebody also posted a video of the battle, if you want a closer look at the action from the PanFam side of things

After the fight Asher, who had led the fleet that set the timer initially, said we would be headed back. So we shall see if I get into Pochven for a fourth time.