57 Weeks of World War Bee – Victory in Delve

The tide certainly turned this past week.

The battle of 1DQ1-A on August 2nd, the final assault on the Imperium capitol, turned out to be the high water mark of the PAPI invasion.  Even as PAPI forces, trapped in the bubble field, were being routed, alliances in the Legacy coalition began to unanchor structures that they wanted to save from any Imperium counter stroke.

This mid-fight move caught Legacy’s allies in the PAPI coalition by surprise, so rather than getting word from their leaders many PAPI coalition members found out due to Bjorn Bee mentioning it on his stream.

PAPIstarted trying to pull out of Delve gracefully as the Imperium did its all it can to hinder tham.  PAPI told their line members they would have two weeks to get their stuff out of the region, but the Imperium’s pressure moved that up to “get out this weekend or asset safety!”  And even then some groups, like Pandemic Horde, just punted on their late subcap move ops, leaving some of their line members to fend for themselves.

As for TEST, whose leadership were the ones to declare the war of extermination, they have been offered a home in Outer Passage, possibly the second furthest region from Delve, and only because somebody wants Cobalt Edge, the furthest region.

To get there they have a long march ahead.

The TEST Route from Delve to Outer Passage

Once there, behind the bulk of WinterCo, Fraternity has promised to remain blue to them.  In return Fraternity will now receive a share of the Tranquility Trading Consortium profits, presumably out of TEST’s cut, TEST no longer being the leader of a major coalition, but a supplicant.  Legacy Coalition is dead.

Brave is said to be set to take up some space in western Geminate, under the cover of PanFam.  Evictus is going to head back to Esoteria where they still hold some space, while rumor has it that Federation Uprising and Eternal Requiem might just disband, though they seem to be holding together for the moment.

Then, in a sign of a conflict to come, the Army of Mango Alliance that it was also leaving Legacy behind and forming a new coalition under the Pan-Intergalactic Business Community banner, the PBIC.

Those who pay attention may recall that is the name of the alliance that “won” EVE Online on the Serenity server by becoming the all powerful ruler of New Eden there.  That is sure to draw attention and ire from some of the other Chinese alliances on Tranquility.  AOM, Fraternity, Ranger Regiment, Dracarys, as well as some corporations like the People’s Liberation Army all came from the Serenity server in China.  I don’t recall who was on vs. against the PBIC there, but I suspect that this move will make them choose up sides.

And, finally, there has been a lot of talk in the Imperium about historical analogies and the name of the war.  I have favored Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, but it lacks meme-ready imagery and a snappy name.  Things that have floated around include Afgoonistan and Dumbkirk.  But the one that has gained some traction is Beeitnam, so now INN is rebranding the war as that.  I’m sticking with World War Bee for the sake of consistency, as I did with the Casino War when everybody was trying to rebrand that further down the road.

One Year Ago

CCP announced Metaliminal Storms, some of which would keep you from cloaking.

We were running out to Stain to work with the Russians who were happy to take shots at TEST.

The ihubs in Fountain were largely lost and we were starting to fight on Keepstars in the region.

In my week five update I noted that French ConneXion had joined the Imperium and that PAPI was already confused about who was invading whom, demanding that we attack them.  Also, Fountain Frank made his meme debut.

The latest update on 35m ISK Corms

He is now Frank triumphant.

Delve Front

The situation went down hill fast for PAPI in Delve.  But at least we’re done with that Siege of 1DQ map that I have been running every week since late April.  The bubble sphere around the T5ZI gate in 1DQ is gone as the Imperium no longer wants to hinder traffic through the gate, since traffic is pretty much all us going out to attack PAPI.

There is an Amarr jump in the middle of that

The week started with the final assault on 1DQ that I mentions above, which went south fast and led to PAPI declaring that they were leaving Delve.

PAPI, attempting to keep their evacuation route secure, formed up multiple fleets when the Imperium went to contest the ihub in 1-SMEB on Tuesday.  This also went poorly for PAPI.

They continued to put up fleets to skirmish with us up into Wednesday, then ihubs began to fall and the rush for the exits began.  By Friday Imperium fleets were moving about the region unhindered save for the occasional gunner in a citadel.  Even in T5ZI, where they occasionally put up a small gate camp, structure shooting fleets went about their business with impunity.

I was considering dragging out the old Delve map template I had with each of the constellations named and highlighted in order to chart progress made on ihubs, but then the Imperium went all out with fleets around the clock for structure bashes and entosis ops and… well… there are no PAPI held ihubs in Delve any more.  The last few fell Sunday afternoon.

Delve – Aug 8, 2021

I haven’t spent this much time in fleets since the M2-XFE hell camp.

TEST, who had planned to move into Delve and live there after the war, left structures all over the region and was in the process of trying to unanchor most of them.  That takes almost a week and has to start over again if the structure is reinforced, so we have been interrupting as many as we can.  It seems unlikely that TEST or PAPI will be around in force in Delve by the time the unachoring process can cycle through again.  TEST is going to lose a lot of structures as they seemed to have dropped things as haphazardly as we did back in the day.  That will be the first payment extracted from TEST.

The Delve campaign report for week 57 bears out how much went on this week.

Delve Campaign Week 57

The report broke because Pandemic Horde and/or capsule counts caused an error, but rolling back a day puts the total losses at 1.6 trillion ISK, with PH accounting for 232 billion.  TEST rang up an amazing 322 billion ISK in additional losses on Sunday, so the total for the week is probably close to 2 trillion ISK.  The is a 4x increase and the structure losses are still coming.  Fortizars are being dropped on grid with each of the PAPI Keepstars to serve as platforms from which to destroy them.

Other Theaters

The Initiative went to town in Fountain, starting to purge ihubs from west to east on the map, starting with the Federation Uprising space.

Fountain – Aug 8, 2021

They have vowed to cleanse the region of PAPI.

Over in Querious, Imperium forces have taken the ihubs in “Fake Querious,” the portion of the region that is an enclave within Delve space, as well as driving along the north of the region, which happens to be the PAPI evacuation route.

Querious – Aug 8, 2021

It may not be the Brave route though.  I was in Badivefi on Sunday and there were a lot of Brave pilots docked up in the NPC stations there.

And even down in Period Basis PAPI ihubs have started being purged.

Period Basis – Aug 8, 2021

The 13 month long assault on the Imperium is being rolled back in just days.

My Participation

A busy week.  I was there for the grand assault on 1DQ, the fight over the 1-SMEB ihub, and for a bunch of structure shoots.  I did lose a Sabre in the 1-SMEB fight, but that is what Sabres are for.

In tidi you get to watch your ship go boom

I also lost another Atron entosis ship along the way.  I got a bit ahead of the pack.  But mostly I was out helping tear down PAPI structures.

Shooting PAPI structures in T5ZI in my Bhaalgorn

The Imperium is very serious about making all those structures explode.

A TEST faction Fortizar explodes in 39P

At the end of the week, my total losses for the war added up to:

• Ares interceptor – 18
• Malediction interceptor – 7
• Drake battle cruiser – 7
• Atron entosis frigate – 7
• Cormorant destroyer – 5
• Purifier stealth bomber – 5
• Crusader interceptor – 5
• Rokh battleship – 5
• Scimitar T2 logi – 5
• Ferox battle cruiser – 4
• Jackdaw destroyer – 4
• Scalpel T2 logi frigate – 3
• Guardian T2 logi – 2
• Sabre interdictor – 1
• Eagle heavy assault cruiser – 1
• Scythe T1 logi – 1
• Raven battleship – 1
• Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
• Gnosis battlecruiser – 1
• Bifrost command destroyer – 1
• Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
• Sigil entosis industrial – 1
• Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1

Other Items

Amarr Foundation Day arrived, with login rewards and events for players.

Your Foundation Day login rewards

Then there was good news on the peak concurrent user front this week, with the uptick in war activities driving the number up to nearly 30K concurrent on Sunday.  After several weeks where the count never topped 25K, week 57 saw every day in the 26-28K range.

• 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
• Week 36 – 35,085
• Week 37 – 34,394
• Week 38 – 36,319
• Week 39 – 35,597 (Saturday)
• Week 40 – 35,384 (Saturday)
• Week 41 – 33,708
• Week 42 – 33,521
• Week 43 – 33,731
• Week 44 – 33,742 (Saturday)
• Week 45 – 33,758
• Week 46 – 31,768
• Week 47 – 29,898
• Week 48 – 31,462 (Monday)
• Week 49 – 27,914
• Week 50 – 26,045
• Week 51 – 25,661
• Week 52 – 24,262
• Week 53 – 24,290
• Week 54 – 24,922
• Week 55 – 26,259 (Saturday)
• Week 56 – 27,176
• Week 57 – 29,953

Related

• INN – Beeitman: Week 57
• INN – Legacy Failscade as Rout Continues
• NN – 1DQ Status: It’s Happening
• INN – BlackOps In The Backfield
• INN – Progod announces TEST moving to Drones as PAPI Allies abandon war
• Reddit – Transcription of TEST Post-Town Hall Statement
• INN – Silver Linings for PAPI; Considerations for Goons
• INN – The Unfettered Flame
• INN – Honey-golden linings: A Response to Seir
• NEP – PAPI Forces to Seek Withdrawal from War, Null-Sec Shakeups, Disbands, and More
• TNG – The Siege Of O-EIMK Effectively Ended Yesterday
• TAGN – PAPI Begins Pulling Out of Delve
• TAGN – Operations in Delve as World War Bee Continues
• Reddit – FRT and Winter Co Plans
• INN – PAPI’s Retreat Daily Report: Days 1-7

Blizzard Continues Its Pandemic Profit Roll in Q2

We got the 2020 Q2 financial results for Activision Blizzard earlier this week and it confirmed what many had probably already guessed; people staying home play (and pay for) more video games.

So, not really a surprise that they did well, though I am sure senior execs from Bobby Kotick on down will claim that their leadership was the magic ingredient.  It is always their work that causes anything good and unavoidable market conditions that cause anything bad.  So the execs get huge bonuses and the employees… well… and it isn’t just people on the Activision side of the house.

Anyway, as the presentation shows, revenue was up year over year.

Activision Blizzard Q2 2020 Financial Results Presentation – Slide 10

Of course, things were looking pretty meager a year ago, with the 2019 Q1 results showing people had fallen away from Battle for Azeroth with Q2 reviving slightly… margins up from 16% to 20%… on anticipation of WoW Classic and the Rise of Azshara update which unlocked flying in the expansion.

It wasn’t until the Q3 results that included the launch of WoW Classic that things began to look better.  And then, of course, the national disaster of the pandemic hit and kept everybody home.

So things are looking up for the company.  Surprising to me is the lack of depth in the portfolio at Blizzard and across the company.  The only thing new in Q2 was the Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale addon to the Call of Duty franchise and the promise of the Shadowlands expansion for WoW some time this year.

Activision Blizzard Q2 2020 Financial Results Presentation – Slide 7

Of course, maybe that shouldn’t surprise me.  Activision is mostly Call of Duty these days, and Blizzard has some other titles, but WoW is still the revenue juggernaut and when it sags there isn’t anything to take up the slack.  A new card pack for Hearthstone isn’t going to make a huge impact at this point and Diablo: Immortal still seems to be far from going live.

So I expect things will remain upbeat so long as we’re all encouraged to stay home as much as possible, and there no doubt be a spike when the Shadowlands expansion launches in Q4.  But the company remains the same.  It is WoW and everything else.

For those interested, the financial data, presentation, and audio of the conference call, can be found on the Activision Blizzard investor relations page.

Teamfight Tactics vs Dota Underlords

I have now spent several hours playing both games and I am here to break it down for you, to give you the full and detailed exposition as to how Teamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords are different.

It comes down to one thing and one thing only.

In Dota Underlords, you place you heroes on squares.

Dota Underlords is squared up

In Teamfight Tactics you place your heroes on hexagons.

Teamfight Tactics will put a hex on you

That is it.  Otherwise the games are literally so similar that if you didn’t know better you would swear that one of them copied the other wholesale.

Of course, we do know better.  We know that both of them were copied from the Auto Chess mod for DOTA 2, which is what launched the Auto Battler genre.

But seriously, the game play is exactly the same.  You’re matched up in groups of eight, you earn gold to buy heroes, buying three of the same hero yields an upgrade, you put your heroes on the board and watch while they fight some NPCs for a couple of rounds before being matched up against the other players you’ve been grouped up with, and so on and so forth.  Heroes are also part of two or three groups, and having multiples of those groups on your team give them boosts.  Battles play out before you and, at least half the time I cannot really tell why I win or lose.

So most of what I wrote last month about Dota Underlords applies to Teamfight Tactics as well.

Right now neither is monetized, but that will change soon enough, and both feel like they need some tuning.

Anyway, that is about all… what?  What are you saying there?

Okay, stop your howling.  There are, in fact, some other differences between the two.  I’ll tick off a few of the differences… and maybe even help you choose which one you ought to try.

Teamfight Tactics is somewhat hidden in the League of Legends client, so you need to have that and an active LoL account, and the ability to find the game therein.  There are a couple of things that seem to be telling you it isn’t available on the landing page.

The hub is down, but the game is there

You need to click the play button, then select PvP (because nothing else in LoL is PvP? I don’t understand?) and you’ll find the button to launch TFT.

On clicking the button, then another, you’ll get grouped up with seven other people, at least one of which will forget to click the accept button, and the grouping thing will have to run again until you finally get into a group five tries later.  I don’t know why you have to click an accept button.  You cannot see, to my knowledge, who you are even playing.  This is why I assume people are simply forgetting to click rather than hitting the reject button.  I don’t know.  It seems like an unnecessary step.

Dota Underlords is on Steam, which means you need the Steam client and an active account, and is early access, which means it is effectively hidden from view more so than TFT.  But at least there is nothing telling you some aspect of the game is down.

DU launches as a stand alone game using your Steam account credentials.  You click the PLAY button, decide between tutorial, bots, and players, then wait a while while it matches you up.  Then, for a brief moment every single time it does something that looks like the whole process is about to fail, then suddenly you’re matched up.

TFT uses the champions from LoL, DU uses the heroes from DOTA 2, so if you play one of those already you are a step ahead of random people like myself.

TFT also has an odd start point where a bunch of champions are marching around in a circle and everybody has to run out and grab one.  That is your starter champion.  However, the champions do not have names visible nor can you click on them to get more information, so unless you know all the LoL champions it is something of a crap shoot.

TFT also, for reasons I do not quite get, gives you and avatar on the battlefield.  By default it is a little ghost that looks to be straight out of the Mario universe, though you can earn other versions.  I saw somebody who had a penguin.

My little ghost avatar

The ghost is what you use to grab heroes during what I am going to call “the circle jerk.”  Champions walk around in a circle and you jerk them onto your team.

Everybody grab your champion

You also use your little avatar to run out and grab drops from the NPC rounds.  Otherwise, your guy has no impact on the battle so you can run around during a fight to be annoying.   Sometimes I will accidentally right click on something which will send the avatar wandering off, sometimes off the board, which will drag the camera with it.  Annoying, but not something I would claim should steer you away from the game.

On the plus side, TFT does seem to be a bit more free with gold.  I never feel quite as cash constrained playing that as I do in DU.   Also, the pace in TFT seems a bit quicker, though that is in part because you seem to lose bigger as the game goes along so you are rarely lingering along in way behind in 8th place for many rounds.

That bigger win factor also means the tide can turn pretty heavily.  One match I won the first 9 rounds in a row.  I still was at 100 while the next highest player was at 56.  And then my advantage faded and I lost the next 6 in a row and was in sixth place and the lowest ranked survivor with only 4 points left.  And I managed to hold on and end up in fourth.  Wild turns of fate happen, and make the game interesting.

When it comes to Dota Underlords, one of the primary problems is that it isn’t as far along as TFT.  Neither feel done yet, but DU has been changing up quite a bit every week.  For example, even as I started writing this DU was updating to add a competitive ranked mode, something that TFT already had in place for a while.

But DU has what I feel are two big advantages over TFT.

First, DU is available on mobile.  I am rarely in a match where there isn’t somebody who has the cell phone icon indicating that they are playing on mobile.  I haven’t tried it myself yet, but my daughter says it is pretty good.  It might be a decent iPad game to play on the couch for me.

And second, and more important to me, the UI in DU is dramatically better.  It is more clear, more helpful, and much more informative that the TFT UI.

For example, if you look at the two game screen shots further up the post, it is easy to see which units in DU have been upgraded.  Normal units have one star above, the first upgrade has two, and the second upgrade gets you three.  Easy to see.  You need to click on units in TFT to see their status.

When buying units, if a unit in the list pops up that will complete a set for an upgrade, DU highlights that unit in an obvious way.  TFT doesn’t give away such hints.

Not getting a hint might not matter if the units in the buy list were easy to discern.  They are in DU, where they use the same avatar in the buy list, the reserve slots, and on the game board.  There are a couple that looks a little too similar, but I am able to discern most of them pretty easily so I know what to buy.

TFT on the other hand seems to want to punish you for not knowing all their champions by heart.  In the buy list TFT doesn’t use the field avatar.  Instead it uses a dramatic graphic of the unit, which doesn’t always look a lot like the champion on the field.

Units in the TFT buy list

I spend way too much of my time between matches trying to figure out if one of these champions on the list matches somebody on my team, which means matching names.  It is just a lot more work.  And then there is the above mentioned “circle jerk” event, which comes up every so often during a match, where you have to pick a champion based on no information at all… unless you know them all by heart.

And just beyond that, the UI in DU has larger, clearer text consistently throughout the game when compared to TFT.  The UI clarity is probably related to the fact that the game also runs on mobile, but even on the PC this is actually important to some of us old farts who now have to wear glasses to read text smaller than a certain size.  I don’t have to wear my glasses to play DU.

So if I were to recommend one these games to a new player who was not invested in LoL or DOTA 2, it would be Dota Underlords.

If you’re already invest in one of the MOBAs, then you play the spin-off that has the units you know.  If nothing else, deep knowledge of LoL champions will give you a marked advantage in TFT.

Of course, there is still Auto Chess Origins, the stand alone game from the team that made the Auto Chess mod for DOTA 2 that kicked all of this off.  And, given the buzz that the Auto Battler genre has been getting, I expect we will see more knocks offs, so there is still the potential for a Fortnite-like entry into the field with some special twist that will steal market focus away from the first round of games.  We shall see.

WoW Classic Server Names Announced

WoW Classic is coming soon and we have reached the server name step.

Classic is as Classic does

Earlier today Blizzard posted the names of the US/Oceanic and European realms for WoW Classic.  They are:

US/Oceanic – Name/Type/Time Zone

• Atiesh Normal Pacific
• Mankrik Normal Eastern
• Myzrael Normal Pacific
• Pagle Normal Eastern
• Faerlina PvP Eastern
• Fairbanks PvP Pacific
• Herod PvP Eastern
• Thalnos PvP Eastern
• Whitemane PvP Pacific
• Bloodsail Buccaneers RP Eastern
• Grobbulus RP-PvP Pacific
• Arugal PvP Australian Eastern Time
• Remulos Normal Australian Eastern Time

European – Name/Type/Language

• Golemagg PvP English
• Hydraxian Waterlords RP English
• Mirage Raceway Normal English
• Pyrewood Village Normal English
• Shazzrah PvP English
• Zandalar Tribe RP-PvP English
• Auberdine Normal French
• Sulfuron PvP French
• Everlook Normal German
• Lucifron PvP German
• Хроми (Chromie) Normal Russian
• Пламегор (Flamegor) PvP Russian

Comments have been mixed about the names so far as I have seen.  They do seem to lack some of the epic names of the original servers.  But I guess with 200 or so servers already in play, you end up having to move down the list of names.

There have also been some comments about there being too few servers. (With a few wags saying there are too many.)  But we have to remember that Blizzard has a new server technology structure for servers, their layering system, that will allow one server to effectively be multiplied into multiple.  That makes name scarcity a thing, but you will be less likely to be on a different server from your friends.

Speaking of names, the big day of player name reservation comes on Monday.  They had to have the final servers in place for that.

And we also have the last pre-launch load test event going on.  This is open to all players with active subscriptions, if you want to get in and get a peek.

Which server will you pick?

For normal, I am favoring Mankirk, though only for the obvious jokes it will spur.

I am tempted by Bloodsail Buccaneers. While I am not so much into RP, RP servers tend to be chill so long as you don’t rock the boat and stay at least “RP compatible” with your name and actions.  I am always “RP compatible.”

More Titans Die at the Final X47L-Q Keepstar Timer

But not as many as before.

If the battle report I cooked up sufficiently reflects reality, a total of 20 titans were lost, down from the 56 destroyed last fight, with the split being 1 lost from attackers and 19 of the defenders titans being destroyed, along with the Keepstar itself.  The battle report shows 2 attacking titans lost, but zKillboard doesn’t show an Avatar being lost by Wotan Oden, so something still needs to catch up.

This, as I mentioned yesterday, all kicked off before I was even thinking about lunch at the office, but I brought my iPad along to stick in the corner of my desk to keep an eye on the battle.

Over in front of my phone, which never rings…

I do have to say that INN knew what data incoming views wanted to know with their overlay.  They had a counter for titans, supers, and specials destroyed, another for the local count, a count down clock for the timer itself and, once the fight started, a display showing the percentage of hull hit points left on the Keepstar.

Aside from the kill counter being a bit confusing… I assumed it was counting attacker and defenders blown up, but it was counting how many ships the attackers and defenders had blown up… that was all I needed running silently at the office.

Anyway, due to the above confusion about the counter I was wondering how the defenders lost a titan before the counter even finished.

Almost fifteen minutes left to go and already a titan down

But it was the defenders who manager to kill a GSF Erebus that was likely bumped, ended up exposed and blown up.

Then the fight actually kicked off and the counter began a lopsided swing towards the attackers.  Later on I heard that one of the things learned from the first fight was positioning.  To deal with the titans on the Keepstar, able to safely tether up quickly after a doomsday kill, Asher positioned our titans at the extreme edge of doomsday range.  That meant of the defenders, who were all over the Keepstar, only some of them would be in range to take a shot.  Unable to bring all weapons to bear on every target they were denied kills.

The attackers, both larger in numbers and grouped up in a tighter ball, had no similar issue and quickly started dispatching vulnerable defending titans one after another.

And then the DDoS attacks started, hitting Imperium coms, forcing the attackers to use text channels to coordinate targets as well as the EVE Online login server.

Tranquility is currently experiencing a severe DDoS attack.

Please keep an eye on this thread for more information:https://t.co/b2LmZciKlu#tweetfleet

— EVE Status (@EVE_status) August 8, 2018

The usual “Well, of course X did this…” accusations flew, as always from people who have no special insight into the issue, but this attack didn’t help either side.  It imperiled the ability of the attackers to blow up the Keepstar and effectively ended their titan kill streak, while the defenders were unable to bring in additional titans they had staged nearby.  Leadership of both coalitions were unhappy with this state of affairs.

CCP Falcon got on the INN stream to talk about the situation.  The stream itself was dropped from the fight several times.

Back live with CCP Falcon speaking

CCP Falcon gave more information about the state of the servers as well as speaking about why the client end crashes on its own during such big fight, the latter often related to the client trying to allocate more memory than it can access.  This is something that won’t happen nearly as often once a 64-bit client is available, something Falcon said we ought to have within a year. (Until then this post on Reddit can help you avoid that sort of crash.)

All of which happened while I was still at my desk at work.

When I finally headed out the Keepstar was still up, but it was destroyed in the half hour it took me to get home.

On arriving home I logged in my alt, pre-positioned in X47L-Q in a cloaky ship, and warped on grid to see what I could see.  The Keepstar was gone, but the attacking titan fleet still appeared to all be on grid in the bubbles meant to keep them from warping off if they disconnected.

A mighty mass of titans

A directional scan I did of the area showed 466 titans, 322 force auxiliaries, and 191 super carriers.

A closer look at that titan blob shows the smaller capitals mixed in with them.

Zoomed in some on the blob

The area around where the Keepstar was located was still clearly staked out with its own array of bubbles.

Around where the Keepstar was

While there appear to be still some ships there, including several titans, those are all ghosts, either safely logged off or destroyed, but still showing up in space and on overviews due to some sort of server malfunction under the stress of load.  You could not target them, though that didn’t keep every new person who showed up from thinking they could get on one last titan kill.

That titan is a mirage

The wrecks though, they were still there and some enterprising pilots were off to try and harvest some of the loot on field.

An Initiative Mercenaries Rorqual looking to loot

While the battle was over there was still clean up to be done.  A fresh Baltec fleet was called in 6RCQ-V to help cover the returning capitals as well as collect up stragglers and those disconnected earlier in order to get everybody home.  We were bridged to the mid-point Fortizar, where titans were already beginning to collect.

A lot of ships hanging off that Fort

That Fortizar, and another not too far off, was the scene of a heavy interdictor massacre.  A fleet of HICs, as they are called, was sent in to delay the incoming fleets and ended up being slaughtered.

We moved on to X47L-Q where we picked up some subcaps that had been wandering around.  Then we were sent out to blow up wrecks, including the wreck of the Keepstar, in order to leave nothing of value on the battlefield.  Also on the list of things to blow up were friendly ships apparently adrift and not responding.  The only kill mail I was on for the battle was an allied Archon.  Again, we were not leaving anything behind, including free kills.

Then we headed back to the Tosche Station Fortizar and got a bridge back to the mid-point where we had to wait for 25 minutes due to jump fatigue.  While CCP cut back on those timers, jumping four times during a short period still leaves you with some down time.  So we got to sit and watch out bridging titan change the SKINs on his Ragnarok.

Maybe the prettiest

When the time finally came we jump we were out and able to dock up.  That was the end of the battle, with the current battle report numbers indicating that it cost the defenders about two trillion ISK.

Battle report not guaranteed 100% finished or accurate

The battle report has about 100 individuals from various third party groups, but their losses do not add up to much so I left them on the Imperium side of the chart.

So that was that, the latest battle in the war of the Keepstars.  The war is not over.  There are certainly more citadels to assail, including the Circle of Two Keepstar in DW-T2I.  I don’t think the Imperium will be satisfied or think about turning for home until at least that has been destroyed.

Others who covered the battle:

• Stabbed Up – The Battle of X47
• INN – X47 Final Timer Live Blog
• YouTube – Video of the Fight by Shingly
• Reddit – Screen shot from the perspective of the Keepstar