EVE Echoes, which has been out over two months, has already seen multiple large-scale battles break out between alliances in null sec, despite the fact that a formal sovereignty system has yet to be implemented. While battle sizes, numbering in the hundreds, have yet to reach the EVE PC counterpart, a fight between Genesis Federation/Trimark and OP4S to destroy a capsuleer outpost reached a landmark number of 1200 players in system. Due to the lack of tidi which is slated to come in December, crashes and disconnects were common on all sides. However, Netease (the game’s developer) released a statement a few days later saying that it will continue to work to improve performance. The following is a battle report submitted by Mommasaurus Rex, from the alliance Genesis Federation.
Pre-war
Trimark and the RED wing of OP4S were coalition partners. There was dispute between them over territory and behavior with each other, but the exact nature of that dispute is not known to us. Trimark broke the coalition and attacked the RED base. We were not involved in that attack in any way, even though we knew of it ahead of time. I personally messaged Bretonec and told him that we could take his station down, but we chose not to participate. The next day, we were blamed on social media for the attack and the failure to take down the station, even though we never participated. To defend itself from Trimark, RED allied with DEAD, a known ultra-toxic group, and enemies of GenFed. I messaged both parties and let them know that GenFed would be participating in the next station battle. Trimark went to war with RED and regularly reinforced their stations. The last time, they got the station into structure and a seven-day timer began. Trimark notified us of the impending fight and we agreed to help them.
War
We staged cloaked people in the system days in advance to give us warp-ins to the desired location. We formed up early, approximately 500 pilots. Our Asian time zone pilots went in Condors and light ships throughout their primetime hours to engage in small fights near the system. With 90 minutes left until the timer ran down, we warped in to our large cloaked scout team, approximately 1000km off the enemy station. The lag was already pretty strong right when we warped in. The enemy had approximately 40-50 dead space fit battlecruisers (Hurricanes and Prophecies) and 120 cruisers already in grid. Once the bulk of our fleet was on field, we located their exact position on the station and warped our fleet 100km off them. We engaged in battle for 45 minutes. The enemy had at least three battle cruisers each and several cruisers each. When one would die, they would come out in another ship. Some of the battle cruiser pilots did dock/undock to attempt to draw fire with untargetable ships (thanks to the new 60 second targeting rule). When RED was down to about 30-50 combatants on field and 20 minutes to go on the timer, the Trimark and WG fleets arrived. Trimark appeared 2000km off the station and the whole system ground down to a halt. They could not move to us and we could not engage on field because the system capped out at 1200.
It was immediately apparent to us and Trimark that we would not be able to continue the battle with both full fleets on field. I asked Trimark to pull back to restore some connection and let them know that we had this grid secure. They agreed and moved to the gates. They completely locked down the gates and the pilots who did actually make it on field with us stayed there. As soon as the station became vulnerable, we hit it with everything we had. The station popped in approximately 15 minutes. It was damage capped the entire time. Much to the credit of RED, they fought when they had no way to win and they even came back out in seeded frigates at the end.
We encourage the developers to look at the large battle lag. Obviously, we play this game for the wars and we hope to have large wars. This pushed the game to its absolutely maximum ability. Tidi would be most welcome, as well as options to devote server resources to particular areas during play. There was very little difference in the end between emulator players and mobile device players. All suffered massive disconnects.
Total Losses
(Genesis kills/losses only; we have no reports outside of us) Kills: 13,977,431,960 Losses: 5,347,967,790 (approximately 0.5 bill was from people who stayed after the battle and did not return with the fleet as they were meant to). We will work to improve this in the future. This was another hazard of the bad lag; they could not log back in to clear out with the rest of the fleet.
