I am the rocks of the eternal shore. Crash upon me, and be BROKEN!
–Apocalypse, X-Men animated series
There had been a ping on Saturday about Winter Coalition declaring that they were going to go big on defending the armor timer of TEST’s Keepstar in the Atioth system in Geminate.
The Keepstar besieged – screenshot from Imgur
Why does TEST have a Keepstar in Geminate, just 14 gates from our staging system in C-J6MT (and just six gates if you include jump bridges) in 2026?
I don’t know. You would have to ask TEST. But in the midst of the collapse of Pandemic Horde, while The Initiative and Winter Coalition were absorbing refugees and re-allocating their space, TEST decided to move from the further possible location from the Imperium to right next door.
And then, when we started to attack them, had the complete lack of self-awareness to ask, “Why?” on Reddit. I mean, I know “some guy on Reddit” isn’t all of TEST, but it isn’t just one guy. It keeps coming up.
If there is one thing the Imperium tends vigorously, it is the history of the game. The ongoing stories of player led empires is really the most sustainable hook for null sec. Leadership and old line members alike remember our ups and downs, our victories and defeats, which groups were as good as their word, and which groups declared a war of extermination against us.
So yeah, TEST moving into the neighborhood was always going to be like waving a red flag to us. We clearly can’t spell out “TEST is next door” without stopping at “TEST is next.” They asked for this situation and if they don’t like the results they need to complain to their leadership, who chose the location.
Also, again, the collapse of Pandemic Horde has left us without much in the way of local foes, which has been a bit of a pisser after spending 18 months taking space, moving to Tenerifis, taking more space, then moving to Insmother only to have our intended foe decide to divest and run away because somebody gave them a hard look.
Understandably, all of this hasn’t made WinterCo too happy. They had just gotten themselves invested in a war with The Initiative when suddenly the apathy of Gobbins meant that their southern flank was suddenly open to the Imperium. The neutrality of the Drone Regions was good for them, but we’re still six gates from Geminate.
Anyway, enough background. If you need more then I am sure there is somebody over on r/eve ready to capsuleer-splain it to you. Or, you know, select the “null sec” category here on the blog. There are almost a thousand tales recorded just here.
Back to a Keepstar in Atioth. We set the time at some point and the armor timer was set to come out Sunday in later Chinese time, which is when their structures are set. That is their best defense, that we have to fight with them when we’re supposed to be asleep.
So when I saw the ping Saturday afternoon about us forming big as well at 14:30 UTC, I quickly did the calculation and declared that I would be asleep at that time and that I would get into a reinforcement fleet when I did get up.
I then completely forgot about that, but when I got up around 7am on Sunday morning… which constitutes “sleeping in” for me as I have become my grandfather and now rise with the sun whether I want to or now… I got myself a little breakfast together, started up the computer, opened up all the usual apps, and managed to get Jabber up just in time to see a ping for a reinforcement fleet.
Oh yeah, that! So I got EVE Online up and running and got myself logged in. Then I pondered the ping for a moment, as it said the following:
REINFORCMENT FLEET
Check contract for ships
FC Name: Executor Apophis
Formup Location: C-J6MT
PAP Type: Strategic
Comms: Op 9
Doctrine: Typhoons > else
Sure, reinforcement fleet, as expected and just on time. But… Typhoons?
We don’t have a Typhoon doctrine.
I mean, we have had them in the past. The Typhoon is one of those hulls for which Asher has an affinity and we have been down the road with them more than a few times. I remember flying them back in the Hakonen campaign, at various times in Reavers, and at intervals before and since, but it is never a doctrine that sticks. There is always something a bit better.
I asked the “Seriously, Typhoons?” question in fleet, but the FC was busy in command coms, so I checked contracts. And there were a bunch under alliance contracts named “storm riders.”
As I later learned, this was a late plan by Asher to show up in some very tanky battleships in order to get on grid with the hostiles and brawl. So it was time for Typhoons again. Armor tanked Typhoons.
In addition, there was also a fleet of Abaddons out for us as well. Armor tanks, pule laser fit Abaddons. We were bringing out the classics.
Abaddon Fleet pointed up
You can see the red tint in that picture above because, among other things, the was a plasma metalinimal storm in the area which, among other things, boosts armor hit points. So while there were also other fleets, including Maelstroms, Raven Navy Issues, and Ferox Navy Issues in the mix, it was the Abaddons and the Typhoons that were up close and engaging the defender.
And the Typhoons were taking the most damage, so they needed the most reinforcements. Once I figured out that Typhoons were a thing, I bought one off contracts, fitted the rigs, and was ready to go.
Asher later rolled out that quote and video at the top of the post to go with this statement.
goon typhoon fleet being shot at by 7 enemy fleets
The Typhoons were holding the line. Now I just needed to get there to join in.
We undocked, rolled the five gates to K-IYNW in the Great Wildlands, and tethered up on the Keepstar. There we left fleet and joined the fleets we were slated to reinforce. That put me in Asher’s fleet because he was leading the Typhoons.
Typhoons on the edge of tether, ready to warp and jump the gate
Then we aligned to the Atioth gate until we were told to warp and jump. We hit the gate, started the jump animation… and waited. And waited.
After about 15 minutes I started to load in. The UI still had me in the previous system, but I could see more than 4K people in local and tidi was down at 10%.
Waiting for things to load
Then, after about 10 minutes of that, I got the dread disconnect message.
Now you’ve done it!
I quit and reloaded the client. The character login screen… I still use the class “choose which character” screen… showed I was in Atioth still, undocked and in space. A good sign. At least I had made it. So I clicked on Wilhelm to log in and went back to waiting. I made some toast, chatted with my wife, looked at Reddit, all while listening to Asher leading the fleet. The Typhoons were engaged with a Zealot fleet and were slowly whittling them down.
Eventually the client screen went black, indicating it was getting serious about logging me in, and eventually things started to happen, the screen started to draw, and I could see I was in game.
The Keepstar awaits
There were still nearly 4K people in system. I opened up the window to see the command queue and the server was clearly being slammed as it was taking multiple minutes for the game to respond to any input.
Rather surprisingly I was able to warp to Asher and get fairly close. Then it was time to see if I could get a shot or a jam off. It was still taking minutes for the UI to respond and I would try to lock somebody only to have them blow up long before that command reached the top of the queue.
Also, the UI was playing tricks. When I logged back in, it looked like my guns had been ungrouped.
Six launchers accounted for
Except, of course, if you look closely, you can see a red highlighted “6” on the first launcher, which means that they actually were still grouped. On my big screen it took me a while to notice that. I kept trying to activate each launcher independently… and the UI would look like I was doing it. But then they would never light up as active… but the numbers would count down as though they were launching.
Welcome to tidi madness. But I was catching up to the fleet. I got in some shots once I was there.
My Typhoon falling in with the fleet
The reinforcement fleet had undocked at a little after 16:00 UTC and I started the tunnel animation at the gate into the system around 16:20 UTC. I disconnected, then reloaded back in at 17:25 UTC, after which the first kill mail I was recorded on in the fight was at 17:44 UTC
Things take time when you’re moving at 10% speed. (Or less when the server queue is backed up.)
I got on the next kill mail at 18:16 UTC.
About then things were starting to lighten up a bit. At around 18:30 UTC the defenders announced to their members that they were disengaging and, after getting on a few kills targets started drying up as aggression timers ran down and they were able to tether or dock up.
The other fleets kept shooting the structure. We were going to win the timer.
We managed to pick up a few more kills as the tidi relaxed a bit. Then it was quiet for a while, with no targets. And then there were the post-game snacks as some pilots walked away from their computer while on tether but still in motion, leading to them wandering off tether and getting popped. At about 18:45 UTC we started getting some new targets due to that, with the last kill mail I was on, a nice Zarmazd kill, landing at 19:06 UTC.
By that point the hull timer had been set.
The count down to destruction begins
That will put the kill at some time early on Wednesday morning my time. I am not sure I am going to get up early to get on that, but we’ll see.
The fleets started pulling out at that point. Asher warped us off to a perch in a wide wall formation.
Typhoons hanging in space nose up
We then were told to warp to the gate and free burn home. Anybody who was still on grid with him after a few minutes would be assumed to be AFK and would be warped to a POS we had in system.
The ride home, all six jumps of it, was uneventful. We were back home and that was it.
The battle report showed that we had not only won the objective, but had traded pretty well against the defenders, coming out ahead in the ISK war.
The Battle Report Header
And yes, for some reason it is sticking INIT in with WinterCo, but 19 ships didn’t make much of a difference in what happened.
Not a battle of epic scale, but a solid fight with more than a quarter of a billion ISK destroyed. And at least WinterCo is fighting… and winning at times. We are not having this all our own way. Today worked out for us. In the past we had struggled in their time zone.
Probably the most interesting bit on our side was that the Typhoon and Abaddon doctrines were rolled up about a day before the fight and then the sky team built a couple hundred battleships and got them on contract in time for them to take partk
We shall see if the Keepstar falls tomorrow. I suspect that it will and that TEST will spend the time moving stuff out that they want to save.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 