Welcome to my new series. Throughout this multiple-week series my goal is to give readers a look into what fights and engagements look like in wormhole space, which is largely ignored by the rest of EVE Online players. In wormhole space, fights are very different than in nullsec or lowsec. Less politics, more of a gang feel, but still enough players to have a decent fight. In J-space, large groups will come in contact with each other randomly, through random chains and statics or rage rolling operations. These processes are all in the pursuit of content, whether it be ganking dreadnoughts or fighting another large opponent.
In wormhole space, the main goal for most members is to have fun doing intense PvP activities. There are not many allies, treaties, economies, or much politics in general. The idea of no borders, no geography, and wormhole restrictions leads to conditions where PvP players will get into medium sized fights, in very blingy ships, with no TiDi. This makes it a fast-paced experience, but almost ignored by the rest of the game. With the lack of politics, everyone that you come in contact with is a potential target. It seems like wormhole societies are uncivilized, but when you remove constant borders and politics, you are connected to a new enemy and situation every day, meaning you must adapt to survive. Under harsh conditions like these you become violent with your neighbors, which results in fights, whether it is personal or not.
There are two likely situations which result in fights in wormhole space: connections and evictions. Connections can be random, or manipulated by rolling. Evictions are their own beast, similar to a nullsec invasion, just that the ISK reward is much greater. Still, the overall battle is on a much much smaller scale than the massive fights in nullsec.
Most of these fights are a result of a “Rage Roll,” which is the process of collapsing C5 and C6 holes with capitals, which spawns a new static. The static wormhole is the class of wormhole to which you are always connected. Say a system has a C5 static; then, they are always connected to a C5 system of some kind. If that static is desirable for PvP then they keep the static, but if not, they roll it again, and repeat the process until they are bored or have found a group to fight or people to gank.
In the case I’m about to describe, Hard Knocks (HKRAB) and Lazerhawks (LZHX), which are two of the largest and most powerful wormhole alliances in the game, came in contact with each other and decided to brawl before the FAX ships were balanced. Both sides met each other halfway with a heavy armor doctrine, which is very common in wormhole space. The numbers were almost evenly matched, with HK having only a few more members involved.
At first the fight was even, with both sides trading ships, but once HK targeted Lazerhawk’s fuel and ammo trucks, the fight started to become one sided. In wormhole space, most large battles have ships called “trucks” which carry ammo, strontium, and most importantly, cap boosters. These are needed because most of the time holes that have been gone through collapse, making refueling impossible without ships carrying ammo and fuel. Also, all capitals in WH space must be active fit, because it is the most efficient without logi. But, without cap boosters, dreads will quickly cap out and die.
Lazerhawks lost one of their Phoenix class dreadnoughts, which was the main dps of the fleet, followed by the FAX, which was the main logi for the fleet.The fight then turned into a clubbing, with Lazerhawks getting clubbed. The survivors managed to escape the bubbles and HK’s dps fleet.
The zkillboard can be found here.
The battle report from inyour.space is here.
Hard Knocks lost 12 ships, totalling over 10 billion ISK; Lazerhawks lost 40 ships totaling over 47 billion ISK, making Hard Knocks the clear winner this week.
These fights are common. Multiple large wormhole groups do many rage rolling operations a week, and there is typically a large scale eviction every month, while small scale ones happen every day. Most of the fights you will see will come from one of the “Big 3” ( Hard Knocks, No Vacancies (NVACA), or Lazerhawks) while some involve other groups, such as Scary Wormhole People (WHBOO), Mouth Trumpet Cavalry (MCAV), Inner Hell (-INHE), and Hole Control (HOLE). So expect more soon. Thanks for reading, and see you next week.
