As last week passed I was starting to wonder what would be the headline item for this post. A lot of stuff is on fire in various regions, but there didn’t seem to be any big news.
And then at the Saturday fireside The Mittani announced that the Imperium was giving up the M2 Hellcamp. After two months holding the pigeon, as the metaphor went, we were going to finally let go. Move ops to get people out of M2-XFE happened immediately after the fireside. I was out during the meeting and missed the move ops, but was able to get a bridge out later that evening on my own.
On bubble left on the M2-XFE Keepstar Grid
There has been a lot of follow up hurf and blurf about this, but the primary reason behind dropping the camp is that TEST holds the ihub and we have been unable to wrest it from them. The ADM is up to 6 as they have made it a capital system, so any entosis contest is a steep hill to climb even if we can get even odds as we have to entosis each node for an hour while they only need six minutes.
And they have held the ihub for long enough that they will soon be able to put up a cyno jammer on the system. The hellcamp has long depended on our ability to bridge/jump in reinforcements in response to any breakout attempt. With the cyno jammer, that will no longer be an option, so it is time to let go. The Imperium Keepstar in M2-XFE is now bereft of its many bubble companions, looking lonely there in space. And soon enough the remaining PAPI capital ships will log in and jump back to their staging, free at last.
Now the Imperium’s posture in Delve is defending 1DQ1-A and harassing the invaders by setting timers.
Delve Front
With the M2 hellcamp over, the Imperium is left with just the O-EIMK constellation unconquered in Delve.
While there have been any number of revisionist “we don’t need to take 1DQ1-A” war goals thrown out there, both TEST and PanFam have had that on their list from early in the war. Vily and TEST need it to make any sort of claim to their extermination goals and PanFam had set its sights on the faction Fortizars in 1DQ1-A as their target. PAPI can claim they won the war at this point, but the Imperium will feel rightly validated in their resistance if, after having most of null sec arrayed against us, they couldn’t throw us out of our capital system. “1DQ stood!” will be on the lips of every Goon forever going forward any time the war comes up.
Delve – Mar 7, 2021
So the final Imperium constellation, now circled in blue on my weekly map, must be the focus of PAPI in the region unless they just want to go home. Otherwise they’ll just burn down the remaining structures outside of O-EIMK and wait. PanFam can always walk away, having destroyed enough of our stuff to satisfy honor or whatever. But Legacy, and TEST specifically, wants to live in Delve and have given up defending their old territory in order to move in. A bee’s nest of angry Goons in 1DQ1-A is not something they can safely ignore if PanFam leaves.
Meanwhile, in the weather news, the electrical metaliminal storm that had made its way through much of the region has finally pushed off into Fountain. Only the two systems adjacent to that region, ZXB-VC and 5-CQDA, are still feeling its effects. And the gamma storm seems to be headed towards Period Basis possibly, after having traveled through Catch, Querious, and Delve.
Other Theaters
Over in Querious Brave managed to take all the ihubs that Siberian Squads had grabbed and continues to hold onto other systems, including GOP-GE and W6V-VM, which both have Imperium Keepstars.
Querious – Mar 7, 2021
That effort has come with a price however, as we look over at Catch. There the core systems that made up Brave’s home previously continue to fall.
Catch – Mar 7, 2021
Red Alliance, The Initiative, French ConneXion, and even Against ALL Authorities… a name from the past… have taken some of their ihubs.
Likewise, Legacy alliances are also under pressure in Immensea, where ihubs continue to fall.
Immensea – Mar 7, 2021
And then, down in Esoteria, The Bastion and its allies have begun to spread, killing more ihubs.
Esoteria – Mar 7, 2021
Going through zKillboard for the region shows that there is action daily there, so TEST hasn’t given up in full, but they are finding it more difficult to keep in control. Ansiblex jump gates seem to be a favorite target of The Bastion.
My Participation
I didn’t do shit this past week. Work, home, Valheim, and a lack of action in my time zone conspired to keep me from doing much in the war besides spending a couple hours on the hellcamp and then getting my Rokh back to 1DQ1-A. As such, my losses remain as before.
- Ares interceptor – 15
- Malediction interceptor – 7
- Crusader interceptor – 5
- Atron entosis frigate – 6
- Rokh battleship – 5
- Drake battle cruiser – 4
- Scimitar logi – 3
- Ferox battle cruiser – 3
- Purifier stealth bomber – 3
- 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
CCP Rattati, the EVE Online Director of Product, gave a long interview at the Oz_EVE Twitch channel in which he went over his views of the New Eden economy, the economic starvation plan, titan proliferation, and the new Expert Systems “rent-a-skill” plan. The whole interview is available on YouTube and there is a transcript of it over at INN.
During the interview, which took place on Monday, CCP Rattati was quite adamant that CCP did not want to sell skill points. Then, on Wednesday, CCP sent out an offer to many players to sell them skill points. So if CCP is wondering why their player base can be such cynics about what they say, I might have a good example for them.
Meanwhile, the peak concurrent players for the week held above 35K again this week, but it is cresting slightly lower every week, with Saturday falling below the 35K mark this time:
- 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)
- Week 28 – 34,713
- Week 29 – 35,996
- Week 30 – 38,323
- Week 31 – 38,167
- Week 32 – 37,259
- Week 33 – 35,886 (Saturday)
- Week 34 – 35,626
- Week 35 – 35,379
Related
- INN – World War Bee: Week 35
- INN – Catch Burns, Brave Moves
- INN – Legacy is Bleeding
- INN – The Saga of Delta Squad – Part I
- INN – Brave Rolls the Dice on Querious
- INN – The Big Lie
- INN – No Retreat, No Surrender
- INN – Horde and Goon: A Conversation About M2
- INN – Imperium Ends the M2 Hellcamp
- NEP – Imperium Abandoning the M2-XFE Hellcamp
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