In EVE Online, an incredibly elaborate plan led to the destruction of “Fort Knocks”. This was the first Keepstar in the history of New Eden. Players worked for almost a year on this plan to crack the impregnable fortress.
What is Fort Knocks? “Fort Knocks” is the 1st Keepstar of EVE Online. Keepstars are massive death stars and the largest structures in the universe of the SF MMORPG.
“Fort Knocks” was located in a wormhole system in sector J115405, known as “Rage”. Home to the corporation “Hard Knocks,” this wormhole sector has been heavily industrialized over the years.
Wormhole systems have several peculiarities in EVE Online. It’s complicated to enter them, but they offer many resources.
Through absolute control over this sector, “Hard Knocks” was able to quickly gather the resources for the Keepstar in 2016 and build it as the first in the history of the MMORPG.
There, in their wormhole, the corporation felt secure due to the special location and years of peace – too secure.
That is why “Fort Knocks” was considered indestructible: For years, it was deemed practically impossible to attack a wormhole system from the outside.
This is so complicated because one must find a suitable wormhole to reach a system like “Rage”. These wormholes shift and are unstable. Once a certain mass has passed through, the wormhole collapses.
- Therefore, it is only possible to occasionally sneak small ships through such a hole.
- However, small ships are not suitable for besieging a Keepstar.
Invasion fleets can only consist of “small ships” and must act quickly. Because defenders can simply hunt heavy ships through wormholes to collapse them.
Seemingly an unsolvable dilemma.
Thus, the invaders devised a plan for 11 months to reach “Rage” and destroy Fort Knocks.
This is how the Keepstar fell: Since December 2017, players from the corporation “The Initiative” began to consider how to crack “Fort Knocks”. They formulated a plan.
- In recent months, more and more small ships sneaked unnoticed through the wormholes into Rage.
- These fully loaded, unarmed freighters had material loaded to form an invasion fleet. They waited logged out in “Rage” to initiate the attack.
- On December 8, the signal to attack was given. All 550 members of “The Initiative” and allied troops from “Imperium” and “Snuffed Out” were called.
- Through a sophisticated system of wormholes, they brought their troops in small attack ships to Rage. There, they disabled the starbases and established new facilities of their own.
- Then the freighters logged in, which had been parked there for months, and docked at the space stations.
- Now the pilots exchanged their small attack ships for the big brutes.
- Despite Hard Knocks and their allies putting up fierce resistance, they stood no chance against the vastly superior numbers of invasion forces and eventually focused on damage control and evacuated
- Ultimately, “Rage,” the first Keepstar fell and “The Initiative” triumphed.
This is the impact of the coup: The site Kotaku describes this course of the attack and explains that the destruction of “Fort Knocks” has affected all of EVE Online. The “wormhole residents” would now rethink their situation and feel insecure.
Additionally, numerous heavily loaded freighters were reported in December. Apparently, other aggressors are also planning to replicate “The Initiative”‘s plan.
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