Doomsday lasers light up the galaxy in Eve's most destructive battle in four years
The second most costly battle to date
The galactic war of Eve Online chunders on. A massive battle on Wednesday ended in the destruction of over 50 Titans, the game’s biggest, most expensive warships. The laser-laden space ruckus occurred when a huge fleet of ships appeared close to a Keepstar (a giant and powerful space station) prompting defenders of the space station to scramble their pilots and brace themselves for an assault. Soon, the lasers were flying. By the end of the eight-hour slugfest, the amount of money lost in destroyed ships was an estimated 9 trillion ISK (Eve’s fancy space money). To put that into perspective, the game’s most notorious and costly battle to date, the “Bloodbath of B-R5RB” resulted in losses of 11 trillion ISK. That means, if estimates are correct, this is the second most destructive battle New Eden has seen.
The battle took place in the memorably-named X47L-Q system, and was fought between Imperium-led forces and the Northern Bloc. These are two sides in a galaxy-wide conflict that is raging over territory. In part the war is fuelled by bad feelings over a previous conflict, the Casino War (also known as World War Bee). But mostly, it is space warlords simply doing what space warlords do best: lasering each other to death. If you want to know what it’s like to see thousands of ships firing at each other in the abyss, the New Eden Report made a nice-looking video of the battle from afar. Which is useful, since Eve Online normally looks like an impenetrable screen of icons, buttons, numbers and symbols.
A battle report for the assault puts losses for Imperium-led forces at 5 trillion ISK, with 27 Titans being turned to spacedust among other heavy losses. On the other side, the Northern Bloc lost 29 Titans to well-aimed space lasers, and suffered a total loss of 4.1 trillion ISK in the destruction. Although it is possible that tally will increase as the battle report becomes fully rounded.
As you can see from the above screenshots posted by "Itsmyky", the Titanic tactic was to fire volley after volley of giant doomsday lasers, one of the most destructive attacks in the game. It is quite frightening.
The scrap centred on a Keepstar citadel, like I say. These space stations are basically unassailable fortresses, but they have some windows of vulnerability during which an attacking force can arrive and start destroying them. It was during one of these windows of weakness that Imperium forces descended on the system with a huge capital fleet. Northern Bloc scrambled to defend and fought back hard, but by the end of the fight, the Goons of the Imperium (along with allies in TEST and other groups) had managed to chip away at the Keepstar space station, forcing it to enter a “reinforcement” phase.
Basically, this is a win for the Imperium and their cohorts. A “reinforcement” phase means that the space station locks down, which gives everyone a breather and time to pull out of the fight and regroup. But it also means another window of vulnerability will soon open. In other words, the Imperium are expected to come back and finish the job next week, when the station becomes vulnerable again. They lost more money in the fight, yes, but will claim a strategic victory in the ongoing war.
If you want more detail, the New Eden Report has a blow-by-blow account of the battle and there is also an after-action breakdown on the Imperium News Network (although be warned that the latter will likely be peppered with propaganda).
In other war news, remember those Northern Bloc forces who were trapped in a “hellcamp” following a similar battle? Well, they have since escaped thanks to a 10-minute operation that evacuated the ships.