The Downfall of The Tower of Legends

If you were looking for a moment to mark the end of the war, this might be as close at you’ll come.  It isn’t the end of the destruction or even the end of the fighting as the Imperium dogs TEST in its retreat to Outer Passage, but it is a significant milestone in the series of events.

The Keepstar that PAPI anchored in Delve named “The Tower of Legends” in the T5ZI-S system back in November, just one gate from 1DQ1-A, the capitol of the Imperium, was destroyed last night.  That was their staging point, the base from which they sought to assail the final stronghold of the Imperium.  That location that was on the same map I posted in the weekly update for so many weeks.  One more time won’t hurt I suppose.

O-EIMK Constellation – The situation before the PAPI retreat

That situation is now officially over.  The Anisblex jump gate connection to E-VKJV has been gone for a week now, and the ihubs and TCUs have been taken, and now their staging Keepstar is gone.  The Keepstar in YZ9-F6, the bubble wrap Keepstar, is gone as well.  But T5ZI was the main event.

The form up for the kill was a bit early, but not excessively so.  The rules were set out in advance, no capital ships, no alts, and no drones to be deployed.  The hope was to get as many people on the kill mail as wanted to be while not overloading the server to the point that the kill mail would fail to generate, the way it did with the NPC Delve fights or the Sotiyos in T5ZI earlier in the week.

Ten subcap fleets were announced, with a flavor for just about anybody.

• Rainbow Lazor (any laser ship with different crystals)
  • FC:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Asher Elias
  • OP 1
• Maelstrom> other Minmatar BS > Winmatar
  • FC Name:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Dave Archer
  • Comms:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Op 2
• Eagles
  • FC Name:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Xanos Xellos
  • Comms:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Op 3
• Ravens and Rokhs – Caldari Supremecy
  • FC:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Arakine Zamamammayid
  • Op 4
• Gallente best portraits – Megas and others – no drones no problem
  • FC Name Klexos
  • Comms:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Op 5
• Muninn fleet (the FC will SHOCK you)
  • FC:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Elo Knight
  • Op 6
• Can I bring my drake? YES
  • FC:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Kor Anon
  • Op 7
• GARBAGE DAY!!! Any old ship
  • FC:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alterari
  • Op 8
• Cerb your enthusiasm
  • FC:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Kretin Valefor
  • Op 9
• Battle Badgers & Firework Noctis (no drones)
  • FC:‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Vex Tsnipe
  • Op 10

I got a spot in Asher’s fleet, both out of Reaver’s loyalty and because I was happy enough to get my Bhaalgorn out yet again.  While I rarely used it during the war, it has become my structure bashing ship of choice.  Lasers with standard large crystals never need to be reloaded.

Bhaalgorns were pretty popular, with 48 showing up in his fleet, outnumbering the popular Apocalypse by a few.  There was a wide range of laser wielding Amarr ships, from Harbingers to Paladins going in with us.

We jumped from 1DQ, which was under heavy tidi with all of us logging in and undocking, to T5ZI, where a node reinforcement request had been placed in anticipation of the fight.  Then it was just a bit of a wait as the timer counted down.

Not long now

As the time got close, the fleets warped into range and we opened fire as soon as we were able.  A weave of beams and projectiles formed on the grid in front of the Keepstar, and tidi began to kick in, dropping down to close to 10%, before settling around 25% for most of the fight.  That is actually a pretty tolerable level of tidi.  The server had enough power at that point to be immediately responsive to most commands.

We open fire on the Keepstar

The shoot was not uncontested.  The Keepstar had a gunner and the weapons one can bring to bear can be quite formidable.   Bombs and missiles and fighters and the Arcing Voltron Projector, the Keepstar doomsday weapon, were all deployed against us.

The first time the doomsday reached out it zapped a series of ships, the effect bounces from one to the next randomly, blotting them out, including KarmaFleet DJ Mind1 in a Kronos.  The battle bard was down!

The Arcing Voltron Projector lances out

If that weapon hit you in a subcap, if you were chosen to “ride the lightning,” you were done.

The Keepstar reaching out to zap us again

Fortunately there is a fairly long recharge timer on the weapon.  It was estimated that it might be able to fire 6 or 7 times if the gunner got shots off right away.  I counted five, so he may have been careful with his shots.

The gunner seemed to be going for high ISK value targets rather than famous names, Mind1 aside.  There were any number of notable Imperium FCs on grid to shoot, and up above the Keepstar was The Mittani himself in a Megathron, who was left unscathed by the weapon.

The Mittani shooting from his perch

I thought at one point the lightning was going to get to me as it zapped through a couple of Paladins that were not far off, but my number did not come up.

That shot right past me

Overall the gunner was able to take out more than 500 ships and capsules, including an unfortunate bunch that got pulled into range of the point defense system and murdered before they could get clear.  The battle report shows that the gunner racked up more than 52 billion ISK in kills.  But that wasn’t much compared to the loss of a Keepstar.

Battle Report Header

The Keepstar was undervalued on the kill mail because TEST pulled the rigs, which can run into the tens of billions or more, before the structure was destroyed.  A petty move to save themselves a bit of face in the ISK war.  And then there was what was inside.

I wish CCP could give us a report as to how much stuff went into asset safety.  There were surely a lot of ships and supplies still left in the structure from which PAPI had staged for more than seven months.  Any time you settle down into a place it starts to collect junk.  And all of the junk that got left behind will be delivered via asset safety to an NPC station in the Irmalin system in the Khanid region.  That is a long way from the Dronelands and Outer Passage, where TEST is headed.  Individuals can always arrange to have things shipped to Jita or Amarr, though you have to actually go to the station where your stuff has landed in order to reclaim it and make it available to move.  I am sure somebody will be camping that station when the time comes.

With tidi in place the shoot took longer than it might have otherwise.  It would have gone more quickly if we had just used titans and supers.  But we wanted to go with subcaps for the reasons stated above.  And it worked out, a kill mail was generated with 2,354 of us listed on it.  We all get that on our record of the game.

There was a lot of built up emotion coming out as the moment of destruction came near.  Everybody got called to Op 1 on Mumble to try for a long, voice server crashing “Aaaaaaah” chain, where everybody keys up their mic and says “Aaaaaaaah” for as long as they can.  It was quite a sustained event.  I had to mute the channel after a bit… my wife was wondering what the hell I was doing… but if you want to listen to it, somebody recorded it and posted it up on Reddit.  Or there is a video of the explosion with our voice comms running over it.

 

And then the moment came and the Keepstar exploded, but the “Aaaaaah” chain went on and on, buoyed by our success.

The Tower of Legends brought down

We hung about as the core was scooped, held down by bubbles still lit by the afterglow of the explosion.

After the Keepstar went

Then, once GSOL had spirited away the core, the loot, and the salvage, a new structure was dropped in place of the now destroyed Keepstar.

A Fortizar deploying… some fireworks in the foreground

The Fortizar was not dropped for any sentimental or ceremonial reasons, though that spot will be a special point in space for the Imperium going forward.  As I understand it, any super or titan pilots who were in their big ships and logged off when the Keepstar went up will log back in and find themselves in space.  The Fortizar is there to be the hub of a camp that will probably end up destroying some more big ships over the next few months.

That done, we were able to head back through the gate to home.  There, on the Imperial Palace Keepstar, fireworks were being set off, lighting up the structure.  Fireworks might be one of the low key best things CCP has added to the game.  They get used a lot.

A celebration at home

The work isn’t done yet.  Not long after we got back more pings started going out.  There are more structures to kill in Delve, Querious, and Period Basis.  The Region Commander board is alleged to have over 200 targets that will require attention over the next week or two.

There is also the pursuit of TEST and the rest of PAPI as they return to their homes, old and new.

Then there is the rebuilding effort, the new Delve to create once we clear up the wreckage of the old.  But the pace will settle down eventually.  A new normal will be created.  We’re already headed there.  The intel channels are starting to be lively again, with reports of people… not PAPI, but third party groups… roaming through our space looking for targets, the way things were before the war.

Once things settle down, once our homeland is secure again, then there will be some revenge to take.  But that will be another war at a later date.

Related:

• INN – The Tower of Legends Falls

Destroying the Forge of Heroes

Last night saw the first big structure big structure kills in PAPI’s staging system in Delve.

It was just a few weeks ago that we were prodding the already somnolent PAPI by gating into T5ZI and and shooting their structures while they sat around and watched, unable to form up enough pilots to stop us on a Saturday night.  Now we were back into the viper’s nest to blow up some of those very same structures.

A TEST Sotiyo waits for us

With PAPI’s failed assault on 1DQ last week and the subsequent announcement that they would be withdrawing from Delve, the Imperium moved into high gear to retake the region.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s war summary, but Sunday afternoon the Imperium had recaptured all of the infrastructure hubs in Delve, the critical piece of the sovereignty mechanics that gives an alliance control over a star system.

In addition to that, the Imperium had also been busy reinforcing hostile structures across the region in order to keep them from being unanchored and carried off by the retreating PAPI forces.  That included the key structures in their staging system of T5ZI.

Those timers started to come due last night, with two Sotiyo engineering complexes and a Tatara mining and refining platform on the menu.  One of the Sotiyos carried the rather dramatic name “Forge of Heroes,” which alone paired it with the Keepstar, named “Tower of Legends,” as a primary target.  Hubris must bring down wrath.

As the time approached the capitals and super capitals undocked and jumped one system over, going from 1DQ to T5ZI.  There is no cyno jammer there any more and it is easier to spend the jump fuel than try to shove all those big ships through the gate.  They landed at cynos on the Fortizar that was anchored on the Keepstar grid in T5ZI, which is where all the targets were located.

The big toys jumping in

The first target was a different Sotiyo with a less pretentious name (Mad Scientist’s Lab or something) to which all the supers warped to in order to start the attack.

Open fire on the Sotiyo

The titans are big and obvious, but up above them is a flat formation of supercarriers who were there to add their fighters to the mix.

Closer up on the supercarriers

As that was under way there was also a Tatara was also out and available.  Some of the subcaps went over to start on it in order to pause the timer.

The first Sotiyo was beaten down, though it took some time in no small because there were so many ships in on the shoot, which turned the tidi up effectively slowing everything down.  But it was worn down and exploded nicely.

The first Sotiyo blows up

You can see the bubbles put up during the last could percent of hull in order to keep any any PAPI ships from slipping in and grabbing the quantum core, that valuable “always drops” item that has been required to activate all citadels since the update in January added in grandfathered structures.  The Sotiyo core is worth 10 billion ISK.

From there everybody shifted over to the Tatara and applied fire to it.

A new target for the big toys

That too blew up nicely.

The Tatara begins to brew up

Once again you can see the bubbles up to thwart core theft as well as the two Rorquals that GSOL jumped in to collect the core, any loot, and salvage from the kill.

During this the Keepstar, the “Tower of Legends,” came out for its armor timer.  We were not going to get to kill it, but fighters were sent out to hit it so as to advance the destruction cycle to the final phase, the hull timer.

And then the “Forge of Heros” hull timer came up and that was the next target for us.

The turn of the Forge of Heroes

I have a picture from the other side with overview brackets turned on, which marks every ship, fighter, and drone with an icon.  You may need to click on it and view it full size to get a good look at how many ships were on grid.

Brackets on showing ships on grid

The Sotiyo was gunned and even managed to kill a few of the attacking ships, including a carrier.  But the outcome was ordained.  The Sotiyo blew up.

The Forge of Heroes undone

Unfortunately, neither Sotiyo generated a kill mail.  That sometimes happens when there are a lot of players on a kill mail.  We had that same issue with the four Keepstars we blew up in NPC Delve back in Octobers.  We would have to content ourselves with the Tatara kill mail and some of the fighter kills.  There were also a few ships in build in the Satiyo that showed up as kills.

After that the show was over.  The system went from about 1,200 people down to a few hundred pretty quickly as the capitals jumped out and the subcaps headed for the gate.

A crowd at the gate… and a Trig dread coming to take the gate with us

The next big show will be the Keepstar.  That timer is set.

The time is foretold – Thursday at around 23:59 UTC

I am sure the crowd wanting to join in on that kill will be even bigger, and the carnage even greater as a Keepstar’s defenses can be quite formidable.  Killing that will terminate a lot of clones locked up in the station along with sending a lot of left behind gear to asset safety.

All of that will end up in Irmalin, in the Khanid region, 30 days down the road.  I am sure there will be some camping of that station when the time comes.

Saturday Night Action in Delve

It has been a while since I have been in a fight in the was that was worth a post, but last night we had quite the time.  It was time to get Munnins out to shoot things.

Muninns out for a shoot

It started with an innocuous ping from Asher calling for a Muninn fleet.  It was only about 10:30pm local time for me, not too late to join in on something on a Saturday night.

Asher calls

There were about 100 people in fleet when I joined, which swelled up past 150 before we undocked.

When we did undock, we warped over to a titan that bridged us into NOL-M9 in Delve, a system with some history, both old and recent.  In fact, it had been the focus of a clash earlier in the day when PAPI forces tried and failed to kill an Imperium Astrahus in the system.  That structure, now safe, was where we landed.  Once assembled, we moved over to a PAPI Fortizar which we started shooting.  The plan was to try and reinforce and to see if we could draw a response.

Asher kept us appraised of PAPI’s ping status, the joke now being that they have to ping multiple times to get enough pilots into a fleet in order to come fight us.  On our side pings went out with links to The Count from Sesame Street to indicate how many pings they needed.

Six! Six fleet pings! Ah ah ah ah!

Eventually that number would far exceed how high The Count usually takes his numbers on the show.

They put a Falcon on the Fortizar, on tether but as far from us as they could, which seemed to indicate that they would be bridging in an opposing fleet soon.  As the likelihood of its arrival grew, Asher had us split out one gun from out stack to keep on the Fortizar while the rest would be for the battle.

A Ferox fleet joined us, along with some bombers, and PAPI eventually dropped Muninns of their own along with carriers and fax support.  It became a fairly even exchange between the Muninn fleets, but we still managed to set the armor timer for the Fortizar.

Muninns and Carriers around the Fort

And then, with the timer set and no need to split guns any further, Asher noticed that one of the faxes was off tether.  So we loaded up short range, high damage ammo and he brought us in very close, inside the PDS range of the structure, where we took a shot and one of the faxes… and managed a kill.

A fax kill

Then we managed to grab another.  Then another.  And finally a fourth.  Four faxes down.

Four Faxes Destroyed

That turned what was already a bit of smug… we managed to ref one of their structures while in combat when they had capitals on the field… into a very smug moment for us.  Asher warped us off the Fortizar and back to our Astrahus, the job done.

The battle report fell in our favor, helped along by those four faxes.  We got the objective and won the ISK war.

Battle Report Header from NOL-M9

Asher pointed us back towards home in 1DQ1-A and the Muninns and Feroxes started gating back.  But before we got too far, Asher asked us to respond in fleet whether we would like to just go home and stand down or if we wanted to try and reinforce another structure on the way.  We voted to reinforce.

Mind1, who was doing the Saturday night show, got in our fleet and joined in the fun, streaming our progress and laying down a motivational beat.  Did you know that the Imperium has its own official DJ?  It is a glorious thing.  You should check out his stream.

So we stopped one system short of home, in T5ZI-S, the home staging system in Delve for the PAPI coalition, the place where all of their members are supposed to be and where all their ships and supplies are stored.  We were going to hang out in the lion’s den and shoot a structure.  We would see how awake the lion really was.

Not very.

After a while shooting the Fortizar without a response, Asher moved the Muninn fleet over to their main Sotiyo engineering complex, pretentiously named “Forge of Heroes,” in order to see if that would provoke PAPI to action.

Shooting the Sotiyo

You can see in that screen shot, below the Sotiyo, their Keepstar in the system.  That is their main base.  We were that close to the heart of enemy and for a long stretch the only opposition we faced was the gunner in the structure shooting bombs at us.

I have trouble visualizing something like this happening one gate over in 1DQ1-A, our home, where the presence of bads tends to draw an eager response from people looking for combat.

The first response from PAPI was to get out carriers and HAW dreads to make sure we didn’t take out any of their cyno jammers.  Fighters were sent to cover those as that is all that stands between them and the looming menace of our titans and supers.  Progodlegend, the leader with Vily or TEST, got out on the Sotiyo to assess the situation, but didn’t do much otherwise.

The Fortizar was reffed by the Feroxes, who then came over to join us on the Sotiyo.  The hostiles eventually joined us as well.  Asher had us strip a single gun out of our stack yet again to keep on the Sotiyo and then we started going after the hostiles.   They brought a Ferox fleet of their own and it was on.

Time dilation hit 10% at points and there were nearly 1,200 people in the system, but the biggest frustration was that my guns would cycle fast enough so I ended up only getting on every second or third kill mail, the hostile Feroxes were blowing up so fast.

We stayed in range of the Sotiyo and kept one gun on it while blapping hostiles as quickly as our guns would cycle.  The Muninns went relatively unscathed as the hostiles were more focused on support ships and the easier to kill Feroxes.

Combat on the Sotiyo

The Sotiyo was reffed, the armor timer set, after which we saw ourselves out, warping to the gate to 1DQ1-A and jumping through.

Through the gate to home in 1DQ

The battle report was more even this time.  In the scale of the war, these losses were pretty minor.

T5ZI-S battle Report Header

Strategically this did not change anything about the war.  It was a Saturday night lark and the enemy is likely to get their act together and form up to defend the armor timers of the structures we reinforced.  There is little danger of any of them being blown up.

When it comes to demonstrating morale and responses however, this was another stark illustration as to how low things seem to have sunk for PAPI.  We did something on a whim in their main staging system that they haven’t been able to manage in our home next door in all the months since they set down that Keepstar in T5ZI back in November.

Even the Reddit thread about the whole thing was mild.

PAPI, as a coalition, theoretically out numbers us by a ratio of three to one.  But even in their home they could barely get together equal numbers after sending out nearly 50 pings to get people into fleets.  (The Imperium ping count for the same time was 23, at least half of which were images of The Count or The Mittani smugging and sending out battle reports.)

I am reminded to the tale of why the cheetah doesn’t catch the gazelle nearly as often as you might suspect.  The cheetah is just running for his lunch, the gazelle is running for its life.

The Imperium remains motivated despite the odds because we’re fighting for our survival.  I am not sure what PAPI is really fighting for at this point, but if it is for their lunch then they don’t seem to be very hungry.

25 Weeks of World War Bee

As expected, the Imperium Keepstar in NOL-M9 was destroyed by PAPI supers as we were unable to take back the ihub to prevent the system from being cyno jammed.  This will likely be the same fate that the Keepstars in D-W7F0 and 1-SMEB will face.

The highlight of the war last week was likely the Christmas Truce, where each group asked its members not to set timers that would come out on December 24th or 25th.  The truce seemed to be mostly respected, though not everybody got the word and the usual suspects on r/eve and elsewhere tried whine their way to a propaganda victory over things few cared about.  Nobody in an actual leadership position called out the other side.

There was even a game of “Griffinball” in T5ZI-S that both sides in the war participated in.  I saw the ping for it, though I didn’t have the time to join in myself.

Of course, the truce only covered structures and sov timers, so there was still plenty of shooting going on.  A big battle broke out on the T5ZI gate in 1DQ and there was an attempt to dread bomb a PAPI Erebus on the Keepstar in T5ZI that went wrong.  Christmas Day saw more than 150 billion ISK in ships blown up across the 1DQ-T5ZI front, most of it being Imperium losses.

And once Christmas Day was past, things returned to the usual grind, though PAPI seemed eager to give us a few last minute presents as they fed first one, then another Marshal blackops battleship for a combined loss of over 18 billion ISK for two subcaps.

Finally, there was a leak from a Fraternity alliance meeting that they were urging their members to get ready for a “big push” in Delve in January, so perhaps PAPI will make another move on 1DQ or Helm’s Deep.

Delve Front

There were not many big changes on the Delve front over the past week.  Timers came and went, but we haven’t been able to wrest any of the Keepstar ihubs back from PAPI.  Their doom awaits.

Delve – Dec. 27, 2020

The electrical metaliminal storm has kept on moving into the region.  Right now it is at a crossroads, where it might head up into the YX-LYK constellation or it could roam right into Helms Deep and its protected areas.  The storm in Helm’s Deep would actually help the Imperium as the only real threat there right now is covert ops bridges into the area to shoot at those still bothering to rat or mine.  Keeping them from cloaking would be a boon.  But even now, with it on E3OI-U it is keeping covert ops ships from slipping past the gate camp.

Catch Front

The Catch region remains in play with Brave and its Legacy Coalition allies having to spend time defending timers and structures.  Early in the week Brave had to defend its ihub, which The Initiative had reinforced.  They managed to form up enough to keep it from being take in the entosis event, but when their propaganda team compared it to the Imperium defending 1DQ I snorted audibly.  High on my list of objections to that comparison is the fact that PAPI hasn’t actually managed to reinforce the 1DQ ihub yet.

Catch – Dec 27, 2020

We keep pecking away at their infrastructure.  The Watchmen, which I mentioned last week because they appeared to be folding up shop, has lost a bunch of members and its sov will be up for grabs.  Legacy seems to have given up for now on killing our staging Fortizar in 0SHT-A, falling back to a defensive posture.  Brave has been keeping up a small gate camp on the gate between GE-8JV, their capital, and V-3YG7, the direction in which we lay.

Meanwhile, in addition to the Gamma storm that has been wandering the region for a few weeks now, the Plasma storm in Providence has started moving closer to the war zone.

Other Theaters

Querious continues to be a low intensity tug of war over some key ihubs in the region.

Querious – Dec. 27, 2020

Meanwhile, The Bastion and friends down in Esoteria are still holding on to a set of systems in the region.

NW Esoteria – Dec. 27, 2020

The Army of Mango Alliance appears to have all but given up fighting in the region.

And, if you have been watching Rorqual losses on zKillboard, you might have noticed that The Initiative has been busy dropping on Legacy’s backfield where they have been mining.

Dec 27 Rorqual kills

That should keep some crabs on their toes.

My Participation

My week in New Eden started with some fights and ended with some fights, but in the middle I wasn’t on all that much.  I formed up a few times for fleets in Delve where not much happened, but out in Catch with Reavers we have had some fun.

Waiting with Asher

I was involved with the fight over the GE-8JV ihub.  While we lost the entosis event, a significant brawl developed where we at least won the ISK war.  I had a close call on the way out.

Cutting things a bit close

But my Ishtar made it into warp and lived to fight another day.  It also has seven kill marks on it now, which is my new all time high.

Headed home for repairs

After the Christmas truce ended we were back at it in Catch on Saturday, reinforcing ihubs and shooting Ansiblex jump bridges.  Brave eventually formed up for us, but not before one pilot threw their Nidhoggur at us to try and stop an ihub hack.

Nidhoggur tackled

I gather he felt that his smart bombs would defang our Ishtars, but we pulled some range, dropped sentry drones, and took him down from a safe distance.  Not too long after we ran into a Jackdaw and Munnin fleet sent to see us off.  We were seriously outnumbered and had to safe up and log off for a bit.  But after that we were able to get out and home.  Through all of that I managed to not lose a ship.

I did lose another Ares, this time by forgetting it was on an alt sitting on a gate in hostile space because I was focused on my main for too long.  So it goes.  My loss count for the war is now:

• Ares interceptor – 13
• Crusader interceptor – 5
• Atron entosis frigate – 6
• Rokh battleship – 5
• Drake battle cruiser – 4
• Malediction interceptor – 4
• Ferox battle cruiser – 3
• Purifier stealth bomber – 2
• Guardian logi – 2
• Scalpel logi frigate – 2
• Scimitar logi – 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 released the Monthly Economic Report for November 2020 which showed the impact of the latest round of nerfs to the economy.  I wrote a post covering that, but the big news is pretty well summed up in this chart.

Nov 2020 – Top Sinks and Faucets Over Time

Mineral prices are at an all time high, destruction remains high due to the war, and the ISK faucet of NPC bounties has been cut back down to nearly the low point of the Chaos Era null sec Blackout of 2019.

The MER was followed up yesterday with a self congratulatory Dev Blog from CCP about how well they have done fixing the economy.  They promise things won’t remain as grim as they are now, so long as you can do without self-sufficiency, predictability, or wealth.  You can call my cynical and I’ll agree, but I think history warrants it.  I’ll probably do a blog post about the dev blog later this week if I find the time and energy.

Meanwhile, the peak concurrent user count for the week fell on Sunday.  The holiday week was slow and Saturday did not crack the 30K mark, but Sunday it managed to break through to 31K.  The time when it his it peak corresponded to a form up by both sides in the war over a Sotiyo timer.  No fight ensued, so we all just bridged in and glared at each other.

• 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

Still, that is the low point of the war so far and, while it might be explained away by the holiday, the count does seem to be trending down.  As I mentioned last week, CCP was patting itself on the back for managing to get 1.9 million new accounts in 2020, more than the previous three years combined, but it doesn’t seem to be reflected very well in the PCU.

Related

• INN – World War Bee: Week 25
• INN – Christmas Truces in History
• NEP – How to turn Christmas into your Own Personal Narrative (post does just that!)