We made it past the four month mark in this conflict and most everybody still seems to be around and fighting.
CCP acknowledges the war in another video from The Scope, where the first two minutes of the nine minute video review a bit of the war.
Then they moved on to the Triglavians and a lot of lore packing to try to make their shake up of high sec fit into the game.
Meanwhile, the war carried on, though still not at the same scale as the week of Keepstars we experienced in October.
Delve Front
This remains the primary theater of action in the war, with PAPI pushing to reinforce and take ihubs. The week started off fairly well for the Imperium as we were able to push back on some of the constellations that PAPI had previously swept, retaking ihubs in the W-4U1E, OK-FEM, LSC-4P, and F-I56R constellations.
However, PAPI pushed ahead, reinforcing and taking two ihubs in the YX-LYK constellation taking all of the B4H-9W constellation, which holds a series of gates that leads right to the Imperium capital in 1DQ1-A.
On Saturday it was announced that the Imperium would be going with the “Helm’s Deep” plan, so we’re moving from historical and 40K references and back to Tolkien, which involved re-staging the Imperium capital and super capital fleet in the system of E3OI-U.
That leaves the Delve map looking like this as I write.
[Update: The entire B4H-9W constellation was taken back by the Imperium in AUTZ before this post went live. The see-saw effort continues.]
Delve – Nov. 8, 2020
PAPI also was able to blow up two Sotiyos and a Tatara in QY6-RK.
Other Theaters
Querious remains an active point of skirmishes over ihubs and many have changed hands. The Imperium forces PAPI to come back to defend ihubs in territory already taken, though cannot hold on to them. PAPI knocked out most of the Imperium ihubs, but many systems remain empty, with no ihub installed now.
PAPI also finally made headway in “fake Querious,” the constellation that lays within Delve space, taking the ihub in E-VKJV.
Querious – Nov. 8, 2020
The Period Basis region, after some back and forth over a few systems, is now solidly in PAPI hands. The Imperium has been reinforcing ihubs there, but that is more harassment than anything.
And over in Esoteria, the SIG from The Bastion held out another week deep in TEST space, holding on to their systems and structure and forcing TEST to come back and defend timers. Their allies in Ferrata_Victrix even took another ihub from TEST, bringing the count of systems held up to nine.
Esoteria NW Corner – Nov. 8, 2020
My Participation
I went on a few fleets this week, and even saw some action, but they were all fairly light ops. The biggest potential for a fight was when we were out with Mister Vee in 150 Cerbs and PAPI had 400 in system with us… and then chose not to engage with us. We picked off a few hostiles, but they were not keen to fight.
One common thread with the ops I went on this week was that they were all in late EUTZ and led by FCs from Europe. Once we got into USTZ, which is when most Imperium timers are set, action dropped off somewhat. I gather than a lot of us in USTZ were engaged with the big new fad last week, learning the names of counties in the states of Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. It was kind of a big deal in the moment.
I also moved my fax with the rest of CapSwarm during the jump to the new staging system.
Caps landing on the new Keepstar
That barely counts as an op though, as all I had to do was log in, get in a fleet, and jump to the cyno indicated. I am glad I got fuel conservation trained to V though, as the mining nerf also reduces ice spawns, so fuel prices are going up.
As such, I ended up with no losses over the week, leaving my loss tally as:
- Ares interceptor – 11
- Crusader interceptor – 5
- Rokh battleship – 5
- Atron entosis frigate – 5
- Ferox battle cruiser – 3
- Drake entosis battle cruiser – 3
- Purifier stealth bomber – 2
- Guardian logi – 2
- Malediction interceptor – 2
- Scalpel logi frigate – 2
- Raven battleship – 1
- Crucifier ECM frigate – 1
- Gnosis ratting battlecruiser – 1
- Scimitar logi – 1
- Bifrost entosis command destroyer – 1
- Cormorant destroyer – 1
- Hurricane battle cruiser – 1
- Sigil entosis industrial – 1
- Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I – 1
Other Items
Once big timer that was set this week was for the Imperium Keepstar in 49-U6U in Querious. It has been sitting there for weeks untouched by PAPI. Now they appear to be turning their gaze towards that. Killing it would be a morale boost for them. The system is now cyno jammed and well away from any Imperium staging system at this point. The armor timer went uncontested as TEST did that shoot with some shield titans and a few supers. The Keepstar managed to pick off a Minokawa during the fight, but that was the only major loss.
Otherwise the war remains a grind, a waiting game for who gets tired of showing up first.
The PCU for the week dipped a bit. The end of Daylight Savings Time in most of the US probably skewed the peak time a bit, but there wasn’t a lot new or special to get more people logging in.
- 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
This week will see CCP introducing a bunch changes with an eye towards having an impact on null sec space. We shall see if they have any effect on the war. Expect a sharp drop in NPC bounties.
Other Coverage:
- INN – World War Bee: Week 18
- New Eden Post – Massive Capital Movement Taking Place in Delve
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8262364
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