Week 23 of World War Bee was busier than the rather quiet week 22, with 27 total hostile actions and a few major fights, outside of border skirmishes, per INN’s tracking. Action was largely in the Southwest, although Catch in the East has seen an increase in hostile traffic.
The ISK split in the war zone of the Southwest is still roughly 65% to 35% in favor of the attackers. The belligerents have lost 52.9 trillion ISK, up nearly 2 trillion week over week, with 480,500 ships lost, an increase of nearly 20,000 ships per week.
Across New Eden, since July 1, the ISK split is 54.1% to 45.9% in favor of the attackers, another week over week improvement for the Imperium. The belligerents have lost 67.1 trillion ISK an increase of 2.6 trillion week over week, with 565,771 ships lost, an increase of 22,000 ships week over week. The average ship cost 118.6 million ISK. A rough estimate of the real world cost of the war is no less than 932,600 USD/700,000 GBP/783,000 EUR.
There were two fights in week 23 that were outside of the 1DQ1/T5ZI border that exceeded 20 billion ISK. One was an outright victory for the Imperium as they ambushed a Siberian Squads move op, while the other was a draw where the Imperium extracted and hazed a fleet that successfully reinforced a Fortizar in Period Basis. Of additional note, PAPI forces killed the HIX4-H Keepstar against no opposition in Period Basis, and an Imperium Keepstar extraction operation was dropped on by some Horde dreadnoughts, killing the freighter which scooped the packaged citadel. Lastly, the Imperium also successfully denied a headshot attempt by PAPI forces at the 1DQ1-A iHub.
The three major theaters are the North (Fountain and the border with Aridia and Cloud Ring as well as northern Delve), the South (the rest of Delve, Querious, and Period Basis), and the East (Paragon Soul, Stain, and Esoteria).
THE NORTHERN THEATER
The Northern theater, as ever is full of small capital ganks and the loss of various minor citadels in parts of Fountain. The Initiative has lost some additional parts of their retaken sovereignty to Lowsechnaya Sholupen, but NC. and the rest of PandaFam have seen large swaths of the constellations they had taken emptied of iHubs. Fighting in the North continues to be largely small gang actions, although there was one major action of note. The Imperium formed HACs to assault Horde iHub timers in Northern Delve, but were outformed in AUTZ, and ended up losing 9.9 billion ISK for 4.4 billion in kills.
THE EASTERN THEATER
Action in the East picked up as The Initiative officially joined in guerrilla warfare in Catch with Bastion in Esoteria and the assistance of other Goon groups. Week 23 kicked off with a bang as an Initiative and Stain Russians group dread bombed a Siberian Squads supercapital move op, killing three supercarriers, a jump freighter, and a Rorqual, bringing the total butcher’s bill to 105.3 billion ISK killed for 7 billion in losses. Saturday saw a number of Imperium groups come together to begin assaulting critical infrastructure hubs in Catch. First was the killing of the HED-GP iHub, a critical artery from Catch to Khanid, formerly hosting an important jump bridge. During the node fight, Init. killed 4.02 billion ISK for 1.23 billion in losses.
Thursday saw another Goon ambush of Legacy capitals as a group of dreadnoughts attempted to gate from 49-U6U in Querious through to Catch. All in all, the Imperium forces killed 16.9 billion ISK for 96.1 million in losses. Additionally, Thursday saw many iHubs in Catch reinforced or taken by Imperium forces, continuing to reset critical jump bridge connections. Friday saw Init. kill a TEST Azbel in a Catch border system, followed by a fight on Saturday that saw Init. see off a Legacy Sacrilege gang in the same system, killing 4.7 billion ISK for 3 billion in losses.
THE SOUTHERN THEATER
Week 23 kicked off in the South with the Imperium failing to capture the BX-VEX iHub with a Goon Jackdaw gang eating loads of DPS on the gate to YQX-7U, losing 4.1 billion ISK to 396.1 million ISK killed. A few hours later, the Imperium formed Jackdaws again to contest the UEXO-Z iHub, this time accomplishing their objectives of killing the hostile iHub as well as defeating a largely TEST fleet, destroying 4.1 billion ISK and losing 2.4 billion. Towards the evening, Imperium bombers ripped through a Horde Ferox structure bashing fleet, killing 6.6 billion ISK for 1.95 billion in losses, 1.4 billion of which was a pair of Athanors. TEST closed out the day by dropping a new Keepstar in QY1E-N on the C3N-3S gate from Fake Querious back into Delve. The 1DQ1-A/T5ZI-S border battle report was pretty heavily in favor of the Imperium, with the Imperium losing 22.2 billion ISK for 68.7 billion ISK killed.
Monday was a bit of a surprising day as the major action in Delve was PAPI forming to defend the onlining timer for the new Keepstar in QY1E-N. When they realized that the Imperium had little interest in contesting the new citadel, they pivoted to make a headshot attempt at 1DQ1-A, as announced on various PAPI Discord servers. The Imperium quickly blunted the PAPI assault despite the two sides trading body blows. The final tally for the day was the Imperium killing 60 billion ISK for 43 billion in losses.
Tuesday saw the Imperium lose a number of citadels to structure bashes, but most importantly was a Horde SIG ambushing a Goon Keepstar extraction in W-KQPI. Their hypervigilance led to them instantly dropping dreadnoughts on the freighter as it tried to leave grid. The border battle report was nearly even over the day as the Imperium lost 19.1 billion ISK to 17.5 billion killed. Wednesday saw Goons lose an Azbel, a Sotiyo, and a faction Fortizar. The daily border skirmish saw another lopsided battle report in favor of the Imperium because of a Fraternity supercarrier baited into jumping to a hostile cyno, leading to the Imperium killing 48 billion ISK to 19.2 billion lost.
Thursday saw the Imperium form to fight a pair of fleets reinforcing a Fortizar in TPAR-G, with the Imperium killing 14.3 billion ISK for 9.1 billion lost, although Horde and TEST did end up reinforcing the structure. The border skirmish battle report was the Imperium losing 21.7 billion ISK for 16.1 billion killed. Friday saw TEST finally kill the HIX4-H Keepstar. The border skirmish battle report was another close affair with the Imperium losing 11.2 billion ISK for 10 billion killed. Saturday closed out the week with the Imperium assaulting a gate camping Astrahus in AJI-MA during an iHub node fight, killing 4.2 billion for 588.6 million in losses. The week closed with another favorable battle report in the border skirmish as the Imperium killed 53.4 billion ISK for 27.9 billion lost.
ELSEWHERE IN NEW EDEN
One other action of particular note saw the Initiative kill a TEST Fortizar in Curse on the Catch border.
