Gigantic Space Battle Breaks Out in EVE Online, Thanks to Unpaid Bill

One week after this monstrous galactic throwdown in EVE Online, the sci-fi MMO is the scene of another humongous space battle—and it's all because of a missed bill payment.

Because this is EVE, the intrigue leading up to one of these rumbles is often more entertaining than the fight itself—especially when it gets so large that time itself has to slow down to account for all the ships in the area of operation. According to an email EVE Online sent out today, more than eight Titans—these are the real bad mofos of the EVE fleet, capable of equipping a superlaser—have already been destroyed in the Battle of System B-R5RB. The belligerents are, once again, the N3 Coalition and the Cluster**** Coalition (CFC), with other alliances assisting both sides.

"Earlier today an alliance in the N3 coalition missed a bill payment for the system where Pandemic Legion is staging and storing their fleets," writes EVE. "This missed bill caused sovereignty to drop across the system leaving the station vulnerable to capture. Seizing the opportunity, the CFC (Goonswarm Federation, Razor Alliance, Black Legion and the Initiative) and Russian Coalition (Solar Fleet, Darkness of Despair and Against ALL Authorities) captured the station."

You might remember that CFC got its collective ass handed to it back on Jan. 18, when it decided to tangle with Pandemic Legion's "Wrecking Ball" fleet down yonder in System HED-GP. N3/Pandemic sent aforesaid Wrecking Ball into B-R5RB to retake the station, although at a smaller strength. CFC brought in "a large contingent of Dominixes, Dreadnaughts and Titans," and decided it was time to play the Feud!

Here is my favorite part of the email: "The fight is ongoing with both sides banking on their European, and soon North American, players returning from work to bolster their forces."

You can follow it all in this Twitch livestream but I warn you, those who say EVE is like playing a spreadsheet won't be proven wrong here. With time dilation in high gear, this is not so visually arresting—except for the hilarious news crawl. (Noting, as of press time, more than 2 trillion ISK in materiel loss).

It'll be left to the victors to write history and when they do, we hope they do it with style.

A massive battle involving more than 2,200 players in main battle is underway in CCP's massively multiplayer online game Eve Online, easily the largest battle in the game's decade-long history, according to Alexander "The Mittani" Gianturco, the CEO of Goonswarm Federation.
An exact real-life currency figure of the in-game damage is not currently cemented, but unconfirmed estimates put the amount at more than $200,000. An automated battle report will be generated from server data once the battle concludes. The current battle stems from 'The Halloween War" which instigated multiple warfares between unofficial political alliances.
"But today's battle happened literally by accident: system control (sovereignty) was dropped in a key staging system due to a mistake," Gianturco told Polygon about the war underway in B-R5 sector in Immensea, a Nulli Secunda system. "This then escalated into the largest battle in Eve history, which delightfully our forces seem to be winning."
Last year, a fight erupted in the lowsec Asakai system after a ship piloted by a member of Goonswarm accidentally jumped into enemy space alone, which escalated as more ships joined the fray to attack and defend. According to Gianturco, the participants in the current fight were involved in last year's battle, which involved more than 2,800 players.
"This is a bigger battle in terms of the hardware and players involved though there's less raw numbers in a single system — this fight is over multiple systems," Gianturco explained. "The main fight is in B-R5, with approximately 2,200 players. The blocs are keeping the numbers intentionally low to make sure our guns don't lag out."
More than 50 Titans, capital class starships, have been destroyed in the 15-hour battle so far. Gianturco estimates that his side has lost 18 to 23 Titans, at the time of writing, and that the other side is down more than 40 Titans so far with "more to come." Notable Titan kills include The Kan's Erebus, which is valued at 222b ISK, or approximately $5,500.
"As vengeance for Asakai goes, it's somewhat ironic; our forces lost three Titans and seven supercarriers last year in Asakai, and lost the battle," he said. "This year we've killed 40+ hostile Titans and we have seven more hours of killing before downtime."
Beginning at 14:30 GMT, there is less than seven hours left of fighting to go. Gianturco explains that their forces — made up of his coalition, the CFC, along with a group called Black Legion and another coalition called the "Russian Bloc" — have already won the battle and all that remains is mopping up work.
"We've already won the fight, what remains is just killing work when someone breaks and tries to run from the field it becomes a rout," he said. "They've lost the ability to kill any more of our Titans and we're still killing theirs, as their force quality has degraded. So this is mop-up as they try to extract."
To check out the battle in action, users dobbb, nick fuzzeh and sdeel are streaming the Eve Online fight on Twitch.tv.
Eve Online wages largest war in its 10 year history, Polygon, January 28, 2014.

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