3,500 Ships Clash in Epic Battle in EVE Online Because Someone was Bored

Source: CCP Games.

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Great clashes of alliances and betrayals are the main reasons most players have heard of EVE Online. However, the latest great space battle involving 3,500 pilots resulted not from in-game interstellar politics, but from the boredom of its participants.

The clash occurred on Tuesday in Sector 4-ABS8, and was summarized by Reddit user AlphaEmpire. It began at 7:30 p.m. with a rescue signal sent by the Banderlogs corporation: its key structure was attacked by the combined forces of Fraternity and Winter Coalition.

1. After that, other parties sent their own "pings" to mobilize, including through so-called jump cloning (transferring the pilot's consciousness to a cloned body elsewhere; it's a de facto fast travel system offered by EVE Online). The clash was joined by PanFam (Pandemic Legion and Horde coalition) on the attacking side and Empire (GoonSworn, BRAVE, Bl0B and INIT) on the defending side, among others.
2. The clash escalated quickly, especially when PanFam's dreadnoughts entered the fray after the Goonsworn lost nine battleships (the price for destroying three Scimitars). After that for three hours both sides tried to counter each other's dreadnoughts drops, before the last of them "fell" on the battlefield.
3. In the end about 1,700 players on each side took part in the clash, with equipment losses estimated at 4.8 million ISK. Not everyone joined the main battle - there were minor clashes on the outskirts - but even so, the game slowed down time in the sector so much that one actual second was equivalent to ten in EVE Online (time dilution, the so-called TiDi).

The clash ended in victory for the attackers, mainly due to efficient logistics, i.e. the proper placement of so-called "cynos" (Cynosural field - points to which ships can quickly jumps). Nevertheless, as AlphaEmpire stated, both sides won in terms of "fun," for it was the desire to find entertainment that was said to have been the main reason for the clash.

In EVE Online this is an almost unrealistically trivial reason. Nevertheless, the Internet user leaves no doubt about it, and none of the other participants in the clash commenting on the thread on Reddit mentioned any strategic goals, grand betrayals or other political motives for the clash. Rather, they talk about how much fun they had (or how that "fun" suddenly becomes important when the Empire loses the battle).

Of course, the above description of the battle is very condensed. We also did not include comments from other participants, such as on the time dilation also in the nearby sectors (which made maneuvering a bit more difficult) and their losses (a meagre 10 million ISK) and overall impressions from the game (if only briefly, since both pilot dreds were immediately fired upon by enemies after drop). Or questions about a second round.

If you're interested in the full report or a slightly more extensive discussion, take a look at the original thread on Reddit site or to the summary on Battle Report Tool. You may also be interested in a recording of the battle shared by one of the participants, although don't count on much action in the nearly 5-hour-long footage.