On New Year’s, one of the largest battles took place in EVE Online, involving thousands of ships. The total damage amounted to €285,000.
What is happening in EVE Online right now? Since July 2020, a war has been raging in EVE Online, referred to as World War Bee 2. The two major factions, PAPI Coalition and The Imperium, are facing off against each other.
Since its inception, this war has burned an enormous amount of resources and set various records in EVE. This includes the largest battle with over 8,000 active participants. More than €800,000 has already been spent in the war. This amount has significantly increased with the latest major battle.
This is the battle in question: The true escalation of the conflict occurred last New Year’s when two gigantic armies from PAPI and Imperium clashed in battle.
A battle of such magnitude cannot, of course, be conducted under normal circumstances. The servers would not withstand it. Therefore, there is a mechanic in EVE Online known as Time Dilation.
This slows down in-game time so that not all effects happen simultaneously and extremely quickly. In the battle for the Keepstar, it was reduced to 10% of the normal gameplay speed.
YouTube user Rupia published a video of the battle M2-XFE, which has been accelerated by about twenty times:
The fight was over a Keepstar space station owned by The Imperium. In this scenario, the PAPI Coalition was the attacker. Over the course of the more than 12-hour battle, both sides threw more and more resources into the fight.
You can actually watch the near-complete course of the battle lasting 11.5 hours in a stream VOD on YouTube, if you have the time and desire. The Time Dilation was not accelerated there, and you can see how the battle actually took place.
Over 5,000 players and thousands of ships
Here are the numbers: The official Twitter account of EVE made a post about the battle, calling it one of the largest in the history of the MMORPG.
The exact numbers show slight variations depending on the source, but they are roughly as follows:
- Duration: about 12 – 13 hours
- Maximum players in the system: about 5,600
- Titans: 1,200
- Supercarriers: 400
- Dreadnoughts: 445
- Carriers: 250
- Titans destroyed: about 250
According to newedenpost.com, 23.6 billion ISK were shot to space debris during the battle. This amounts to approximately $347,000 (around €285,950).
In comparison, the last largest battle, the bloodbath of B-R5RB, consumed about $330,000 worth of resources.
And who won? Both sides fought a closely contested head-to-head battle for hours. How close it was throughout the entire duration of the battle is shown in a graphic:
A report on the battle states that the Imperium was able to destroy more Titan ships than its opponents. PAPI, on the other hand, caused more financial destruction by destroying more supercarriers and the expensive Vanquisher-class Titan from the Imperium.
The damage inflicted by the factions on each other led their respective leaderships to firmly believe, after the conclusion of the battle, that they were the victors (via Kotaku).
What happened next? Since the end of the battle, which was interrupted by server maintenance, members of the Imperium have logged back into the game and are waiting at the positions around the Keepstar for their opponents.
The pilots of the PAPI Coalition, however, have received strict orders to remain offline. They must wait until the structure timer of the space station expires, which will happen today, January 2.
The gigantic battle is set to resume soon.
EVE Online is one of the oldest MMORPGs on the market. And it has held up extremely well, like these titles:
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