Fraternity’s Pochven Fortizar Destroyed

I want to note this event both because it is kind of a big deal and because I referenced the Fortizar in a post last week and we attacked another such structure in Skarkon back in late January.  Otherwise, this is another second hand report, meaning I wasn’t there.

The Fortizar in the dark red space of Pochven back in January

Fraternity’s Fortizar was in the Nalvula system in Pochven.  They deployed this Fortizar before the systems being battled over during the Triglavian invasion event were absorbed into the new Triglavian region of Pochven.

Once Pochven was formed, players have not been able to deploy structures in that region, so any legacy structures from the before times are extremely valuable as bases from which to farm the profitable Triglavian sites in the region.

As I mentioned, we took a run at it in cooperation with B2 and some low sec people, which was something of the nascent coalition that formed later for the current war.  So while we were messing with Fraternity Keepstars, Snuffed Out and the Freemen of the North, a group who Fraternity blobbed out of Tribute a couple of years back and who have been fighting a low level conflict against them ever since, went after that Fortizar.

That led both sides in the war against Fraternity to pile into Pochven once more to lay siege to the irreplaceable Fortizar.  And this time it was destroyed.

But, the battle report looks a little crazy.  I was tempted to go with a headline about 7,000 ships being destroyed.

Battle Report Header

That header, divided into Fraternity and its allies, the loose association that is the Freemen of the North, and then the B2 Coalition and the Imperium, appears to show that the latter two won a victory against astounding odds.

The thing is, Pochven is like wormhole space, and when you kill a structure all the stuff in it drops into space rather than being sent nicely packaged to asset safety.  So, shortly after the Fortizar was blown up, the field looked like this.

The Pochven loot pinata pays off

Those are all the hangar containers and ships and whatnot that were kicked out into space, and anything that wasn’t valuable enough to be scooped up and hauled off was blown up.  So if you run down that battle report you start seeing a lot of shuttles, corvettes, and other small ships as part of the destruction.  And whoever those ships belonged to get counted as being part of the battle, even if they were not logged on.

So, it sorting out the battle report losses for Fraternity and allies, aside from the Fortizar itself, there were 7,051 ships and capsules lost, broken out by the following groups.

Type                  Involved      Lost      Value
Shuttle               3,598         3,597      843m
Frigate                 845           843     5.35b
Corvette                616           616      202m
Destroyer               373           363     9.03b
Cruiser                 263           254     6.35b
Capsule                 229           228      327m
Interdictor             223           216     12.0b
Heavy Assault Cruiser   144           142     29.3b
Stealth Bomber          127           113     4.99b
Interceptor              95            92     2.71b
Logistics                64            64     13.4b
Hauler                   64            63     1.91b
Command Destroyer        61            61     3.61b
Tactical Destroyer       60            53     4.82b
Assault Frigate          45            41     1.48b
Battleship               41            40     24.6b
Covert Ops               39            39     1.84b
Combat Battlecruiser     39            38     3.84b
Expedition Frigate       35            35     1.08b
Command Ship             34            34     10.8b
Mining Barge             29            29     1.26b
Logistics Frigate        23            22      819m
Mobile Tractor Unit      18            18     2.85b
Electronic Attack Ship   13            13      497m
Blockade Runner           9             9     1.47b
Combat Recon Ship         6             6     2.61b
Attack Battlecruiser      7             6      724m
Industrial Command Ship   5             5      455m
Strategic Cruiser         4             4     2.15b
Marauder                 11             3     5.49b
Flag Cruiser              1             1      211m
Force Recon Ship          2             1      199m
Deep Space Transport      1             1      119m

That is quite a list.  The capsules is probably much closer to the count of those involved on the side of the defenders, since you can only lose a capsule if you are logged in.

Still, reports were that the fight was pretty spectacular, with Rote Kapelle even bringing in a titan to pile on… a titan that managed to get the final blow on the structure.  CCP was on the scene and grabbed a screen shot of the Erebus unleashing its lance doomsday weapon on the Fortizar.

A hit on the Fortizar

So their Pochven Fortizar is gone.  As I noted before, it is now a question of where the war goes next.  Fraternity has lost three Keepstars and more Fortizars in Pure Blind, which has been a blow, but which also reduces their distractions.  The Keepstart in X47 is now the core of their line.  Will they continue to defend it, or will they be worn down and evacuate it to its fate?

Related:

• Reddit – Frat vs The Freemen of the North – Week 115 (tale of the fight)
• Reddit – Navula Fort Final Moments (screen shot)
• Reddit – Pochven Fraternity Fortizar Falls (where I found the loot pinata screen shot)
• Reddit – Fraternity leader Noraus issues a statement (Google translate at its finest)

Fortizar Fight in a Wine Dark Pochven

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.

Related:

• Reddit – Battle Report and fight description
• Reddit – Video post and fight details

CCP Teases about a Gate to the Stain Region as part of the EVE Online Foundation Quadrant

As mentioned in an article released on 1 April, the four Empires will also be embarking on projects to construct new stargates to their territory, and they will be asking the players for help to reshape the map of New Eden. So, you may want to keep your eyes peeled for some highly anticipated Gates coming this Quadrant.

–EVE Online Foundation Quadrant Announcement

CCP announced that the next quadrant for EVE Online will be arriving shortly.  Dubbed “Foundation,” it is hinting at some strange things.

The Foundation Quadrant is Coming

That quote above is strangely portentous as the only thing that CCP posted on April 1st was the assumed April Fools joke about the long asked for low sec gate to the Stain region.

The April Fools Tease

That seemed almost cruel at the time, being something argued about for years by that point.  But now maybe it was a double reverse fool, where on April Fools an item that was obviously an attempt to fool turns out to be not a fool at all?

Of course, what I have quoted at the top doesn’t say that a low sec gate to the Stain region will be a thing, just that the empires will be building new stargates, so this could be a triple twist, a tease that is followed by hope only to turn out to be an even more cruel tease at the end.

However this works out, the Foundation Quadrant will be focused on the four main NPC empires of New Eden.

The usual NPC suspects

There will be a special trailer for each of the empires.

This also leads into the EVE Online 18th anniversary events and a new login event will kick off on Thursday of this week with the usual round of prizes for Alpha and Omega clones.

EVE Online becomes an adult I guess

There will also be the usual updates to the game with the announcement saying that there will be update to Pochven, the Triglavian region carved out of empire space by last year’s event and the possibility that reserve bank ESS keys might become available in some form, allowing players a way to access to the billions of ISK that has been locked up in them since CCP hit null sec (and then low sec) with the ESS and dynamic bounty nerf last November.

The first few updates arrived earlier today.  They include new hangar visuals in Jita 4-4 and a fully 3-D rendered Aura.

Most of the Triglavian gates in the Pochven have had their standing requirements removed, thus clearing a huge obstacle to anybody wanting to start of in the region.  Of course, some of those already farming the region are not best pleased at having their crabbing disturbed by strangers.

And structures can no longer be transferred from a Corp that has a negative wallet balance, which feels like a bit of a swipe at the Dronelands botting groups who have evade sanctions by just moving assets around in their alliances to carry on as before.

The Patch notes for today cover this and a few other items.

The EVE Online October Update Changes Space and Commerce

Things were happening and CCP was keeping its cards close to it collective chest for the last couple of days, so I really felt I couldn’t even start writing a post about the update until they released the patch notes and the game was up and live again because there were any number of things that could have potentially been in the update.

And then all of them showed up, so I am just going to go down the list a day later than usual.

New Region of Space

The Triglavian invasion has culminated in an event that has taken the 27 star systems that reached final liminality, detached them from their old stargate connections, and created a new wormhole flavored region called Pochven.

I left a char in Niarja

On the old map you can see the region name.

Just a big name in space

With the new map it will actually show you the gate connections.

The route between the stars in the new region

There have been few maps of the new region circulating.  I like this one I found on Reddit:

The map triangle – click to see bigger

There is also this one I have seen floating around, which is a little clearer, but I am not sure where the original source for it was, otherwise I would link it.

This one has constellations

As for what all this means, CCP says the following in the patch notes:

• The Triglavian Invasion has come to an end. The Collective now inhabit 27 systems severed from the rest of New Eden, forming the new Nullsec Pochven region which can be accessed via wormholes and filaments. According to reliable sources some Triglavian vessels in the area may carry filaments for escaping this new region. Unconfirmed stories also state that these filaments are available for purchase in the new Triglavian stations. Active Market Orders and HyperNet Offers within Pochven have been cancelled and both goods and escrow have been refunded. In addition to that, Agents within Pochven have been removed and any active missions have been cancelled.
• There is a lot to discover in these systems as they function completely differently now that the Triglavians have taken them over. More details will be reported by The Scope in the coming days. Until then, Capsuleers that dare to venture into the new Pochven region can discover things on their own. Since Medical Clones within Pochven have been moved to a character’s birth Station, some capsuleers will need to travel to the systems to uncover the mysteries – the lucky (or unlucky) players already within those systems are free to undock – at their own risk.

I think Elise Randolph had a better/more useful summary on Twitter:

• Wormhole local
• You can’t JC/clone in
• No belts
• Sun status: still spooky
• New gates! But you need Trig standing to use them.
• Also the gates spawn 400km so you gotta burn
• Ore anomalies are phat

Warning on getting Triglavian standings: rogue drone sites are an exploit now.

Meanwhile, back in normal space, the gates to those systems are just gone, vanished, kaput, missing in action, like they were never there in the first place.  I am sure this is going to be a huge pain for Wollari, who runs DOTLAN EVE Maps.

So now the run between Amarr and Jita, which was made more dangerous by the change to Niarja, has been made longer even if you’re willing to take the risky route.

Short route vs. Safe route

I am sure more will come of this.  I hear that stargates around New Eden are still experiencing outages.

Ore Changes

And since Elise mentioned ore, we might as well get to the big mining change.  I hope you refined all your ore before the patch since it will refine less now… except maybe Hedbergite, which is getting a nocxium boost.  That is supposed to get people to go mine in low sec.

This was all covered by the Resource Distribution dev blog and the essentials have not changed.  Where ever you live in New Eden you are likely going to find less rocks to mine, the rocks you do find will have a smaller mineral yield, and some minerals you used to find will no longer be around your part of space.

The patch notes spell it all out in more detail.  Despite using the word “distribution” in the dev blog, this is more of a drastic reduction.  Even I was out mining a bit to build up a hedge against the future, where I expect the price of everything will climb.  The October MER will should be interesting.

UI Only Mode

As I mentioned in a post a while back, CCP has been working on a way to turn off 3D rendering and only display the UI.  This was available on the test server, but has gone live on Tranquility with this patch.  Those of us running multiple clients in large battles around Keepstars will no doubt avail ourselves of this feature once we have another big fight.  Of course, dropping Keepstars got a little more complicated due to the next item.

Quantum Cores

The second stage of the Quantum Cores plan has come in with this patch.  Initially, the cores were made available for sale and Upwell structures got a bay into which cores would eventually be installed.

With this update any new Upwell structures deployed will require a core to be installed before it will become fully functional.  Until the core is installed services, including tethering, will not be available.  This will make deploying more Keepstars in NPC Delve slightly more awkward as somebody has to haul in that core to install.  If they don’t, they won’t have the tether advantage they had during the second FWST-8 fight.

Existing Upwell structures do not have to have a core installed until January 2021.

ECM Stabilizer Tiericide

Another module group has been normalized in naming and stats.  Honestly, I am not sure I know what an ECM Stabilizer is.  But that is EVE Online.  Lots and lots of ship modules.

Player Bounty & Kill Rights Disabled

You can blame this one on the current war in Null sec because those seem to be gumming up the outstanding calls list when we have those big fights.

Bounty calls piling up

Announced in a forum post, this is temporary while CCP investigates what sort of performance hit these calls may be having.  They pop up every time you target somebody or somebody targets you and tend to dominate the queue.  If this led to CCP revamping the bounty system (again) into something more useful, that would be nice.  Kill rights are also being turned off temporarily because they are connected to bounties aand can similarly gum up the works.

This does not affect NPC bounties.  That limitless ISK faucet will continue to flow freely.  However, if you put a bounty on Brisc Rubal in an attempt to help him achieve his goal of being in the top ten for bounties, you can’t get your ISK back.

Fonts

Apparently there was a change made to how in game fonts are rendered, which some people love, some people hate, and some people, myself included, didn’t notice until they saw somebody going on about it.  I guess they’re fine.  It is hard to tell on the big monitor.  I have to wear my glasses to see them still.

Other Things

There were also a lot of small changes and fixes and the usual stuff that comes along with any update, just more so than usual.  All in all this was a pretty big update that will have a lot of long term impact.  I feel like this update should have been given a name so at least we could curse it later on down the road when all the unintended consequences come home to roost.

Or maybe everything will turn out great.  We’ll have to wait and see.

For those wanting more details, the patch notes have been posted.  There are also the general feedback and known issues threads in the forums.  My favorite known issue is that some hangars outside of the Triglavian region have the Triglavian decor.  Seems like a win, but that might just be me.

Meanwhile, CCP has announced that we have entered the fourth development quadrant for 2020, the Phoenix Quadrant, and has previewed a bit of what we can expect from development as well as launching another pack that sells skill points for cash.