27 Weeks of World War Bee

The past week saw both sides adjusting to the reality after the battles over the Keepstar in M2-XFE.  The Imperium has used their momentary advantage in morale to take back ihubs.

On the PAPI side, Progodlegend issued what has been called the “Dunkirk” update in which includes a mea culpa about knowing that jumping into the second fight at M2-XFE was a bad idea but that nobody wanted to be the person who called it off.  Also in the update:

• Shifting to a “much simpler and much more fun game plan”
• Breakout plan for trapped capitals under way
• Titans lost at the fight will be reimbursed; may need to go to third parties for hulls
• May issue war bonds to cover mounting costs

It has been reported that TEST is unanchoring some structures to avoid having to pay for quantum cores, the theory being that they can pay for SRP or pay for cores, but not both.  Critiques of the prosecution of the war have been rife, with Vily even being compare to George McClellan.  Certainly this past week did give PAPI a taste of the Seven Days Battles of the Peninsula campaign.

On the Imperium side, the M2-XFE system has been camped from downtime to downtime since the first fight and there are usually two fleets running because one is inevitably full.  Camping that space has become a priority as there are said to be 337 titans logged off in the bubbles under the Imperium Keepstar.  Some Imperium members have been offering to buy trapped ships, which led to at least one Wyvern logging and getting blown up.

On the weekly fireside chat Saturday The Mittani urged us all to man the M2-XFE camp as it is our key threat to PAPI assets at the moment.  When asked about negotiations, he did say that he would offer a golden ticket out of the trap to any single alliance that offered the best terms.  While he did not expect anybody would take the offer, he did explicitly exclude TEST from it as they are the ones who sowed the seeds of war and who thus must reap the whirlwind.  TEST is estimated to have more than 90 titans trapped in M2-XFE.

And then, on the finance front, the first series of Imperium war bonds has been sold out.

Delve Front

While Delve has been the primary focus of the war for week, these past ten days have pulled most everybody away from the secondary fronts.  The Imperium has setup a downtime to downtime camp, complete with bubbles, around the M2-XFE Keepstar.

In furtherance of this, the Imperium blew up the Fortizar PAPI had setup on the Keepstar grid to act as a staging point for attacks.

The PAPI Keepstar begins to explode

In its place the Imperium dropped its own Fortizar just in case any supers or titans managed to log off on tether.  PAPI defense of the Fortizar was limited to a small group of interceptors there to harass the attackers.

Bubbles on the M2 Keepstar Grid

Those bubbles groups are:

Bubbles on the M2 Keepstar Grid – Annotated

The primary trap is where the titans from the first battle have (mostly) remained logged off since downtime on Dec. 31, 2020.  The secondary trap is the point where PAPI titans, supers, and other capitals jumped in for the second battle, the location of some “ghost” titans.

Maintaining that camp has been declared the coalition’s highest priority due to the estimated 337 titans trapped in the system.  Jay Amazingness has been named the Bubble Czar to make sure that we have correct coverage of the areas where hostile ships are logged off.

The camp itself continues to feed people kills, which helps keep it going.  I have been on enough to have caught a titan and a few faxes.  Every so often somebody will log on… either by accident or in futile hope… and they get blown up.  There have even been some ghost titan kills, which means that not all the empty fit titans that were blown up during the second fight were moved back to their starting point.

You only die twice

PAPI sends interceptors and other small ships out to attack the anchored bubbles now and then, which also feeds the camp and keeps it engaged.  Give us PAPs and some kills and apparently we’ll sit logged in all day every day.

PAPI was in a funk early in the week and the Imperium used that time to work on some of its own problems in Delve.

Delve – Jan. 10, 2021

The Imperium started by taking back all of the ihubs in the NJU-QV constellation, which includes M2-XFE and is the route into the Fountain region.  The ihub blitz carried on and flipped more than a dozen ihubs, about half of which were systems containing Keepstars.  The systems hit were:

• KEE-N6
• M2-XFE
• 5-CQDA
• I-E3TG
• ZXB-VC
• S-6HHN
• 4X0-8B
• 23G-XC
• D-W7F0
• SVM-3K
• 6Q-R50
• UEXO-Z
• 9O-8W1
• 1-2J4P

Towards the end of the week PAPI started putting up a stiff resistance, and the struggle over the D-W7F0 ihub was a long fight. By the weekend the invaders were able to field enough pilots to keep the Imperium from flipping the 1-SMEB and M5-CGW ihubs.

Catch Front

The aftermath of the fights in Delve relegated the Catch front to a distant second over the last week, which was probably fine with Brave.

Catch – Jan. 10, 2021

The Watchmen space continues to remain empty and the two metaliminal storms in the region both seem to be making their way towards Delve as if they want to join up with the storm already there.

The one bit of influence the region has was when The Initiative reinforced a TEST Keepstar down to the final timer, which required Legacy to show up and make sure it did not get blown up, something that coincided with an ihub contest in Delve.  There was also a fight over the ihub in FAT-6P, a system on the Legacy Ansiblex jump gate network that went to the Imperium, disrupting their travel infrastructure, though Legacy regained the ihub to restart the time until they can use the system again.

Other Theaters

Even more so that Catch, Querious was very much a backwater after the events of the last week or so.  Some small changes, but not a hot spot.

Querious – Jan. 10, 2021

While the Imperium has been focused on Delve, northwest Esoteria remains a camp in the middle of Legacy space and a spot from which to launch attacks.

Northwest Esoteria – Jan. 10, 2021

And over in Fountain The French ConneXion has picked up a couple of ihubs that were sitting empty.  I do not know if this is the start of something, but the two systems the grabbed would make for a nice Ansiblex jump gate conneXion.

My Participation

While the ihub struggles tend to be in EUTZ I managed to get into fleets that help turn the NJU-QV constellation and was there for the see-saw struggle over the D-W7F0 ihub.  I was also around for the destruction of the PAPI Fortizar in M2-XFE.  And then there has been the camp in M2-XFE, which is something I can log into and put in the background so that just my overview and the fleet window are poking out behind whatever I am working on.  If a target pops up I can click over and shoot.

That was all fairly low key and I did not end up losing any ships over the course of the week, so my loss count remains:

• Ares interceptor – 15
• Crusader interceptor – 5
• Atron entosis frigate – 6
• Rokh battleship – 5
• Drake battle cruiser – 4
• Malediction interceptor – 4
• Scimitar logi – 3
• Ferox battle cruiser – 3
• Purifier stealth bomber – 2
• Guardian logi – 2
• Scalpel logi frigate – 2
• Raven battleship – 1
• Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
• Gnosis battlecruiser – 1
• Bifrost command destroyer – 1
• Cormorant destroyer – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
• Sigil entosis industrial – 1
• Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1

Other Items

Just a bit of New Eden war trivia, but I was out on an op and saw a vaguely familiar name pop up in fleet chat.

Haargoth Agamar returns to the game

Haargoth Agamar was the player who, close to 12 years ago now, disbanded Band of Brothers back during the Great War, one of the great moments in EVE Online.  World War Bee has brought back a lot of old names and we can add one more to the list.

Meanwhile, CCP has been doing their usual bang up job when it comes to presenting a coherent message to the user base.  While they’ve spent the last year nerfing the ability to earn ISK in game, they still want to push wealth as an objective in the New Eden.

Get Wealthy!

As you can imagine, this has irked a few people.

• Day 1 – 38,838
• Week 1 – 37,034
• Week 2 – 34,799
• Week 3 – 34,692
• Week 4 – 35,583
• Week 5 – 35,479
• Week 6 – 34,974
• Week 7 – 38,299
• Week 8 – 35,650
• Week 9 – 35,075
• Week 10 – 35,812
• Week 11 – 35,165
• Week 12 – 36,671
• Week 13 – 35,618
• Week 14 – 39,681
• Week 15 – 40,359
• Week 16 – 36,642
• Week 17 – 37,695
• Week 18 – 36,632
• Week 19 – 35,816 (Saturday)
• Week 20 – 37,628 (Saturday)
• Week 21 – 34,888
• Week 22 – 33,264
• Week 23 – 33,149
• Week 24 – 32,807 (Saturday)
• Week 25 – 31,611
• Week 26 – 39,667 (Saturday)
• Week 27 – 34,989 (Saturday)

And, finally, the requirement to have quantum cores in all structures hits this coming week.  Quantum cores were introduced with the September update and, since October, new structures have required them.  January 12th is the date that all structures will need them or ship fitting, tethering, and ship/module repair services will be disabled.  Without a core structures will also be vulnerable to immediate destruction.  No timers or return trips will be required.  I expect this will be another “happy time” for Upwell destruction.

Related

• INN – World War Bee: Week 27
• INN – TEST’s Sword of Damocles
• INN – From the Ashes of M2
• NEP – M2-XFE: Titandeath YC122
• INN – Welcome to Delve
• INN – FCs of WWB | Sandrin Stone
• INN – Morale Boosts and Deep FRT Plans
• INN – FCs of WWB | Wallymarts
• INN – World War Bee: Six Month Summary
• INN – D-W7F0 and other iHubs Secured by Imperium forces
• INN – FCs of WWB | Ichinumi Tsukaya
• INN – The Battle for the D-W iHub
• INN – Conflict Is Not War: The Ecosystem Fallacy