Epic battles are popping up all over lowsec due to the shift towards Snuff Box-style life by many alliances. Over the past month EVE has seen fight after fight in low security regions costing both attackers and defenders tens of billions of ISK. Today was no different and saw 458 members of The Imperium engage 217 members from NC., PL, and friends.
The Stage
In The Forge on November 4 from 2059 to 2150 EVE in the system of Ohkunen, Imperium forces engaged Pandemic Legion, Northern Coalition, and Project.Mayhem. (16-13). Days before the fight, 16-13 reinforced a tower owned by The Bastion in the same system, a common occurance in the region. As the Bastion tower came out of reinforced mode, NC. and friends piled in for the kill. Imperium forces ultimately saved the tower and inflicted over three times the ISK value in losses that they sustained over the course of the engagement.. The fight never even made it to the tower, and instead was fought on the Obe gate in Ohkunen. As PL and 16-13 tried to escape through the Obe gate, Imperium forces followed through and caught them again. Once in Obe, PL and friends lost that small skirmish as well, losing multiple Sleipnirs.
EVE Online: Scenes from the Battle of Ohkunen [2015.11.04]
The Doctrines
PL, NC., and Project.Mayhem. used Rattlesnake, Machariel, and Sleipner doctrines while The Imperium fought back with a dozen dreadnoughts supported by Hurricanes/HFIs, Machariels, Bhaalgorns, Drakes, Cerberuses, and Hawks. The Imperium’s multiple fleets were led by CO2’s gigx, FCON’s Nour Samy, BASTN’s Jed Stevens, RZR’s Wolfpack10, and CONDI’s Sothr asil, while NC’s fleet was led by Travis Musgrat.
The Cost
The 16-13, NC., and PL-led side inflicted 13.94 billion ISK in damages, while soaking a whopping 41.28 billion ISK worth of destruction caused by the assembled Imperium fleets. Notable kills included three Naglfar dreads owned by The Bastion, as well as the majority of the PL/NC/16-13 fleet, which largely consisted of faction battleships.
Personal Accounts
TMC got a hold of Sothrasil, who was the FC for the Goonswarm Federation fleet, to go over details of the events leading up to the fight and the fight itself.
TMC: What were the events leading up to this monstrous fight?
Sothrasil: Mayhem reinforced a tower owned by The Bastion, and everyone just dogpiled in for the fight/third party on the fun.
TMC: So, The Bastion dropped their caps in to save the tower and called in Imperium forces for backup?
Sothrasil: No, the tower was just an excuse for all of us to go there. I don’t even think that anyone was very concerned about the tower. NC. and Mayhem were set up on the gate (the Obe gate in Ohkunen) when CO2 arrive. The rest of the Imperium was still five jumps behind, so CO2 waited patiently for us to head over. After we all arrived, we (CO2, Bastion/RZR, FCON and GSF) went in all at once and fought them right there on the gate.
TMC: That would explain why the fight spilled over into Obe when the enemy attempted to disengage.
Sothrasil: Most of us had aggression timers and could not follow them through. There was a sizable group of folks that did not have timers, so they followed through and caught the PL Sleipnir fleet.
TMC: With nearly 700 pilots in local, there must have been terrible TIDI. How was your experience in the TIDI and did it have an adverse affect on your fleets performance?
Sothrasil: It was bad… almost 10% TIDI the entire fight. I can give credit to the poor server node, as I didn’t experience any lag during the engagement.
TMC: What can you say about the coordination between Imperium fleets? Do you think anything could have been done to keep the fight going?
Sothrasil: Oh, I was amazed by the communication between our fleets. We held the enemy fleet as long as we could. Dabigredboat FC’d our interceptor fleet and he did everything he could to keep them tackled. Maybe I should’ve picked a more tanky FC ship though — the enemy fleet headshot me off the field from the beginning. Ah well, nothing more exciting than FCing from a pod!
TMC has reached also out to gigX and NC. for comment via evemail. This article will be updated with their responses, as well as player recorded videos of the bloodbath if available.
UPDATE: A video of the engagement from Tychus Findlay (zombietychus in the comments section), a member of UVIM, has been embedded above. Thank you for posting your video!
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Lemba.
