A Look into March 2023 Destruction in EVE Online

While I said I was giving up on the Monthly Economic Report posts for New Eden, destruction is both a little more interesting and a little less accessible than some of the other economic numbers CCP provides.  And these are economic numbers.  Nothing drives the New Eden economy like destruction.

EVE Online nerds harder

So once again into the killdump.csv file in the MER.

According to those files there was a total of 461,239 losses in New Eden in March.

That was up from the February number of 400,617 and the  January total, which was 425,629.

That gives a destruction per day, which I think is going to be my new activity metric for these posts, of 14,878.67 kills per day in March.  Using that metric the year so far looks like this:

• January – 13,729.96 kills per day
• February – 14,307.75 kills per day
• March – 14,878.67 kills per day

The daily destruction has been trending up.  I am sure the war up in Pure Blind is part of that, but there is always activity all around New Eden.

The top 20 types destroyed by hull classification were:

Type	Count
Capsule	122,313
Frigate	80,096
Cruiser	36,219
Shuttle	36,138
Destroyer	31,001
Corvette	17,973
Combat Battlecruiser	14,368
Heavy Assault Cruiser	12,924
Mobile Tractor Unit	10,148
Interdictor	9,294
Hauler	8,885
Interceptor	8,167
Assault Frigate	7,351
Battleship	7,321
Stealth Bomber	5,217
Tactical Destroyer	4,746
Mobile Warp Disruptor	4,640
Mining Barge	4,090
Strategic Cruiser	4,046
Covert Ops	3,397

I had been separating out capsules and corvettes previously, but I changed my mind on that.  If nothing else it keeps me from having to write an additional line about them and there is the top 20 data unfiltered.

I am also experimenting with formatting, just using the paste from Excel for the data rather than trying to turn it into a ranked list.  Feedback on whether that is better or worse would be appreciated.

When we dig into specific hulls, the top 20 looks like this:

Type	Count
Capsule	121,085
Caldari Shuttle	12,075
Venture	11,892
Amarr Shuttle	9,758
Mobile Tractor Unit	9,687
Heron	8,041
Ibis	7,409
Gallente Shuttle	6,701
Minmatar Shuttle	6,371
Ishtar	6,208
Caracal	5,392
Vexor	5,338
Thrasher	5,046
Sabre	4,792
Tristan	4,431
Velator	4,294
Merlin	4,091
Catalyst	3,736
Atron	3,657
Punisher	3,492

Now, I like those two lists, but they still feel very incomplete to me.  They give no sense of the economic impact of those losses.  I mean, we know that the corvette losses don’t mean anything, and shuttle losses are microscopic in the economy compared to many other hulls.

So I used Power BI to make myself a new list.   This is the top 20 hulls, the number lost, the total amount of ISK lost they represent (by which the list is sorted), and the average ISK amount per loss at the end.

Type	Count	ISK lost sum	ISK lost per
Capsule	121,085	3072.33 billion	25.37 million
Paladin	1,009	1993.65 billion	1975.86 million
Vargur	791	1625.23 billion	2054.65 million
Ishtar	6,208	1474.05 billion	237.44 million
Golem	516	1136.01 billion	2201.56 million
Loki	1,516	1114.96 billion	735.46 million
Tengu	1,404	1049.21 billion	747.30 million
Gila	1,777	835.82 billion	470.35 million
Praxis	2,285	642.44 billion	281.16 million
Athanor	331	596.73 billion	1802.80 million
Orca	274	464.80 billion	1696.35 million
Revelation	82	457.31 billion	5576.98 million
Legion	591	398.92 billion	674.99 million
Fortizar	37	385.93 billion	10430.61 million
Proteus	535	384.82 billion	719.28 million
Kronos	218	379.92 billion	1742.75 million
Rhea	32	376.51 billion	11766.00 million
Astero	2,000	347.05 billion	173.53 million
Nestor	168	344.69 billion	2051.72 million
Sabre	4,792	324.31 billion	67.68 million

So that is the economic impact of those losses.  Capsules do, in fact, belong at the top of the list because, while an empty capsule is valued at just 10K ISK, people do insist on plugging in shiny expensive implants.  And Paladins… that is the war up in Pure Blind driving that.

And, just to flip that around, I also sorted it by average amount of ISK loss per kill, just to show what hulls represent the most expensive average losses.  The results are, perhaps, unsurprising.

Type	Count	ISK lost sum	ISK lost per
Avatar	2	160.93 billion	80.46 billion
Leviathan	1	74.08 billion	74.08 billion
Victor	1	52.54 billion	52.54 billion
Wyvern	1	34.85 billion	34.85 billion
Nyx	11	295.64 billion	26.88 billion
Hel	6	139.67 billion	23.28 billion
Aeon	1	18.47 billion	18.47 billion
Nomad	8	105.52 billion	13.19 billion
Laelaps	1	12.94 billion	12.94 billion
Ark	18	219.68 billion	12.20 billion
Rhea	32	376.51 billion	11.77 billion
Anshar	11	118.61 billion	10.78 billion
Fortizar	37	385.93 billion	10.43 billion
Tatara	4	34.60 billion	8.65 billion
Azbel	12	82.79 billion	6.90 billion
Rorqual	43	271.94 billion	6.32 billion
Revelation	82	457.31 billion	5.58 billion
Moros	19	101.06 billion	5.32 billion
Moros Navy Issue	7	36.30 billion	5.19 billion
Bowhead	6	29.88 billion	4.98 billion

Hey, guess what, capital ships are expensive!  If you lose one it is kind of a big deal, economically speaking.  So are freighters and jump freighters if you fill them with stuff.

Also, Alliance Tournament ships are extremely expensive.  There are two on that list and I have linked to the kills on ZKill.  CCP is dramatically undervaluing those ships in its own world, though they are tough to value because they rarely, if ever, appear on the market.  Those two should really be at the top of the list.

Then, of course, there is the question of where all of this destruction was going on.  The kill dump file shows these as the top ten regions:

Region	ISK lost sum
Pure Blind	2.85 trillion
Delve	1.57 trillion
Metropolis	1.36 trillion
Lonetrek	1.27 trillion
The Forge	1.24 trillion
The Citadel	1.17 trillion
Vale of the Silent	1.17 trillion
Sinq Laison	1.17 trillion
Fade	1.06 trillion
Heimatar	1.03 trillion

The war in the north and the battles and the destruction of Keepstars would make you hope that Pure Blind would be at the top of the list, but sometimes it is nice to have that confirmed.

Delve also ranks because, while the war was going on the north, Pandemic Horde was trying to divide Imperium attention by sending fleets into Delve.  There were quite a few fights in Delve and even a couple of structures lost… and the usual capital lost because the pilot in question hadn’t really been paying attention to the war news and the warnings.

For simple loss count, the top ten regions were:

Region	Loss Count
Pure Blind	36,476
Pochven	29,315
Heimatar	24,552
Essence	21,889
The Forge	21,064
Delve	16,821
Metropolis	16,753
The Citadel	16,066
Fade	14,020
Vale of the Silent	12,965

Pure Blind remains at the top of the list, but the fights in Pochven… which is 12th on the value list, so didn’t make the top ten… burned enough hulls and capsules to jump to second place here.

Interesting is The Forge, home of Jita and often the top region, is a ways down the list in March.

That moves us along to a solar system view, with the top ten by ISK value losses being:

System	ISK Lost sum
Auga	608.34 billion
X47L-Q	589.28 billion
5ZXX-K	498.41 billion
Ahbazon	448.76 billion
Gheth	448.02 billion
Nalvula	393.35 billion
1DQ1-A	358.88 billion
Finanar	316.16 billion
Jita	312.50 billion
Sivala	278.47 billion

Auga, a low sec system in Amarr/Minmatar Faction Warfare topped the individual system list, with X47 and 5ZK, both in Pure Blind, following along..  Jita was way down in 9th position, and had 166 billion ISK fewer losses than in February.  People must have been busy elsewhere.

For raw kills the top ten solar systems were:

Solar System	Count of Losses
Nalvula	20,410
Auga	15,035
Jita	9,805
Ahbazon	9,479
Deven	9,159
X47L-Q	7,948
Ouelletta	7,335
1DQ1-A	5,185
Tama	4,983
Rancer	4,946

For sheer numbers Navula, takes the top spot.

And, finally, there is the monthly top battles data from CCP which generates this less than useful map.

Mar 2023 – Battles in New Eden by Participants

I will say, looking at the data they did seem to move towards some reconciliation between the CCP value of a battle and the ZKillboard value.  It isn’t perfect.  The totals have CCP with 38 trillion in losses and ZKill at 47 trillion.  But the top battles on their list are at least not off by orders of magnitude this time around.

Solar System	ISK Sum – CCP	ISK Sum – Zkill	Day
5ZXX-K	316.75 billion	323.45 billion	15
Nalvula	201.74 billion	218.97 billion	17
Finanar	147.80 billion	152.50 billion	3
KLY-C0	132.42 billion	128.58 billion	21
Nalvula	107.12 billion	108.44 billion	15
5ZXX-K	105.41 billion	111.82 billion	26
X47L-Q	104.49 billion	136.55 billion	12
Reblier	103.47 billion	112.11 billion	15
X47L-Q	87.29 billion	101.49 billion	12
O-BY0Y	83.60 billion	83.89 billion	1
Auner	82.58 billion	83.23 billion	30
2D-0SO	82.41 billion	83.77 billion	1
Farit	81.02 billion	80.43 billion	11
Manjonakko	79.90 billion	79.64 billion	11
KQK1-2	76.71 billion	75.97 billion	1
Egbinger	74.08 billion	74.10 billion	16
Istodard	69.45 billion	78.17 billion	4
AB-FZE	67.46 billion	72.06 billion	13
Ouelletta	64.19 billion	73.22 billion	11
F-QQ5N	57.08 billion	63.01 billion	26

This is where CCP’s map doesn’t help me much, even the HTML version that you can mouse over slowly and carefully to find the battles.

The 5ZXX-K Battle data from the HTML map

They are done as a heat map by participant, but then they don’t give me that data, only the loss values, so it is some work to tease out what really happened.

If I was feeling really motivated, with the data I have, I could go build up a battle report for the dates given… but I am not there at the moment.

Anyway, this was a look into the losses.  If nothing else, you can see that mobile tractor units remain a favorite target out in space.

Once again, all of this was drawn from the kill dump files you can find in the Monthly Economic Report for March 2023.  And, as always, feedback on what might be useful or interesting things to look into with a post like this is welcome.