Battle of UALX-3

The Battle of UALX-3 was a part of the attempted invasion and eviction of TEST/Legacy from the South by the combined forces of basically anyone that wasn't either Legacy or goons. It failed.

Here follows the AAR written by TESTs own Campaign Commander vily:

On Saturday/Sunday, a plan is hatched. We will drop a keepstar in UALX.

We know the forces arrayed against us, we know the players, we know the numbers, we have monitored their formups, we have seen the ranges, the caches. We know how we can take a fight to win and how we cannot.

We attempt to drop the Keepstar on Monday night, but suspicions and a large enemy formup for the DZ6 fort make us choose against it. We can win a timer in USTZ flash vs. flash, but pre-formed vs. flash my could lose. We chose to delay a day.

Progod is going into full x-files mode throughout, Paranoia and concern, he knows we have to get this thing anchoring successfully or we are cooked.

On Tuesday night we Stratform for an impass fort while we let them kill a tatara earlier. Keepstar is dropping and while Pandemic and crew do login 20 titans with 6 minutes to go the anchor is successful.

Coordination is ongoing throughout. Imperium has been consulted, they are a piece of the puzzle and plan. We cannot make this play without their support. The Imperium shield armada will come.

And so begins Wednesday. Spies, spies, spies. The relays are like a rooster in the morning, da-ding da-ding, gotg is coming, horde is coming, all the players are coming. They have told their guys to take off work and ignore their life. I harken to ever ask that of anyone, but Progod does, and I thank him for that. We also hype ping throughout the day. Even an alliance mail is sent out. It is crucial none fail to recognize the importance of this timer.

I write up a short speech outline and a reddit post for r/gaming should this kick off. It’s terrible and nowhere near as good as progod’s 9-4 one, but I felt the larger gaming community should understand the scope of what may happen should both sides commit to this fight.

At T-minus eight hours we have a coord meeting between the Joint FC team. Imperium and Legacy. We consolidate our strategy tactics and plan. We work out a few kinks, get everyone on the same page and go back to prep.

At T-minus 4 hours we are mostly set. The cynos are ready, the Dreads are fueled. I actually have to get some minmatar phenom’s imported as we really didn’t have any from lack of use. (since they are terrible for every occasion except a super on super battle)

CJ cannot make it and asks me to take his Komodo into battle, I warn him this will be bloody, but he says “that’s what she’s meant for” and say so be it. I have to dump 800mil into refueling it properly, but at the end, we will ride into battle at the head of a Komodo. (and I have my levi for a backup if they try and succeed in headshotting me)

With 2 hours to go we start organizing fleets.

Titan and super numbers force us to split into 3 fleets for titans/supers/fax. We pull 97 shield titans and 4 armor titans with shield fits. We are holding nothing back.

We have 172 Hels, and 37 Wyverns by the last checks that I remember.

We know goons are on the way with 40 titans and 80 supers. That puts us at 140 titans, and 250 Super carriers.

We have just short of 600 dreads, 250 carriers and somewhere around 400 FAX.

We have access to our Cache which is large. By the end of the night it would not even be depleted by half.

We see the enemy formup. We know they have 160 titans and 170 Supers roughly. We don’t have their fleet exacts but it is roughly that. They have an NC, BL and FRAT dreadbombs. Tri and Skill U have large carrier groups. They have a large number of FAX with caches but unlikely as much as us.

Subcaptials enter the system with an hour out. We have nightmares, dual Imperium Baltecs, Legacy Cerbs, Bombers from both, and a skirmisher fleet that is helping to escort the Imperium superfleet through catch.

Enemies have Eagle fleets from horde and frat. NC and PL in cerbfleets, BL in muninns, and lots and lots of bombers.

As the timer ticks down all the subfleets get into system save for the gotg fleet which got themselves cut in half on a wormhole and are still slowboating through catch and curse.

Of all the groups black legion leads the way. Their muninns warp in first and begin engaging the keepstar followed shortly by PL and NC cerb groups. They pause the timer with 10minutes remaining. Friendly subcap fleets begin getting onto the grid in tether range to reduce risk of bombing as they arrive.

Also of note is how very close PL comes to losing their whole cerb fleet on the warpin with a dangerously close bombing run from boatt.

And thus the subcap fleet war begins.

While BL is the original target horde warps in late followed by gotg but they are very close to the keepstar and we focus all fleets we have upon them.

As this is happening we begin our first slow escalation bringing in half of carrier fleet 2 in the goalposts and deploying lights to assist in the subcapital war. They pulverize and demolish any targets they reach and fighters at this time are receiving minimal lag.

As well, the goon baltec 2 is caught by an awox hictor and bombed. They lose most of their support and a few battleships but mostly survive albeit slightly bloodied.

The two goon baltec’s supported by the skirmisher fleet, the nightmares the carriers and cerbs all lay waste to the horde eagle fleet until they are forced to reposition, then it is onto the gotg fleet.

They take hard fire and are forced off as well, the friendly fleets taking limited fire in return as the enemies are forced to utilize their damage to keep the keepstar paused. Even a minute delay in damage could result in the timer being unpaused and in tidi it would all be for naught.

And thus the first cyno went up and a lone PL Aeon entered the field. Today the Eastern Bloc would roll the dice. Shortly after loading the Aeon put up his own cyno and thus began a slow drawn out process of the entirety of the PL/FRAT/TRI/SKILLU Superblob’s entrance onto the field. Almost exactly 290km off the Keepstar.

As they came in we were sure it was some weird bait. Dropping at 290km made almost no sense. We couldn’t figure it out. The Keepstar isn’t fit, it doesn’t have nuets or a DD. There is no reason to be at max range. Shield Supers are better at range than armor supers as well, when all that matters is buffertank and DD’s.

So for the better part of their slow process of loading we waited for them to stop coming in, expecting some form of trap. But there isn’t. They continue to jump to the same central blob, slowly expanding its size. Bit by bit, titan by titan.

Meanwhile all but the NC cerbs are repositioned away from the keepstar. The Cerbs serving to keep the keepstar paused until the first of the titan guns can start laying into the keepstar and thus keeping it permanently paused. And once that application begins they too decide to skedaddle away to their supercap blob for cover from the friendly subcapital forces.

While the slow growth and loading of their superfleet was taking place, Carrierfleet 1 and Wyvernfleet (with half hels) was coming into system along the keepstar undock and goalposts. Their orders were to load ss and begin movement of heavies and ss towards the enemy group.

All this is happening in very slow motion, so are having considerable debates and discussion about how to position based on what we see. The decision is made to come in at 280 off the enemy edge. This should create a situation based on the spherical cyno in where all but a few of our titans are in range while more than half of the enemy should not be.

We also begin bringing in the Supercarrier fleet (Hel’s) at 330km off the enemy blob on the bottom of the keepstar.

We then send in a levi for our initial cyno and thus begins our slow process of jumping in.

Meanwhile the Imperium superfleet has mostly arrived in jump range now and are setting up on their fortizar. They experience extreme difficult with cyno disconnects and are all but crippled by the lag. They cannot get one of ours to join their fleet because lag and their cyno’s wont load.

So the loading continues, slower and slower. All our fleets save dreads now are in. Titans, Hel’s, Wyverns, half our fax, all our carriers. Bit by bit we load…. Alone.

And then we are loaded. Tethered, waiting for the other 1/3rd of our team as they continue to be trapped by the mechanics of lag, tidi and disconnects. Eventually they would get in, but we sat loaded for a good half and hour to an hour waiting and I think in hindsight perhaps I should have started without them. I don’t know.

Either way our plan worked. Over half of the enemy titans are in range of zero targets. We are all in range of about a dozen enemy titans. With our bottom side in range of fifty or more.

As this is all happening a Tri Ragnarok disconnects. He is probed, a squad of 10 dreads is organized and deployed. Subs being mostly pushed off field engage as well. He dies in very short order. First blood to Legacy.

Being that the goons are loaded or mostly loaded we begin our plays.

2 Titans are broadcast, DD squad 1 and 2 are assigned, each reinforced by titans from DD3 to ensure clean kills. The Volley goes in and two titans are dead.

Meanwhile we have all carriers going SS now, all supers dropping their ss and have the fighter war beginning about 50km off the enemy blob in the no-man’s land between the fleets. Wyvern fleet has their heavy bombers heading down and Helfleet is holding theirs for an expected counterbomb on us.

As our first two DD waves have happened now the server shits itself, mass disconnects take place, people are kicked off their accounts at random and everything goes tits up.

At this point PL responds with their first counter attack. They put between 50 and 70 DD’s into the disconnected rag of Overcompensate. He dies on the volley.

We are now beginning our dreadbombs. Dreadfleet one is put into the center of the blob and told to “apply pressure” kill FAX and carriers. They insure, they know it’s a one way trip. Shiny and Chrome brothers. Dread 2 also goes in shortly afterwards their cyno is a bit off center of the blob and is a little more open to being boson’d. It later will be.

Meanwhile all the PL titans that cannot fire DD’s at our titans are now engaging the dreadnaughts at close range. As well the Nyx Heavy fighters are being deployed and utlizied to clear dreads. The majority of the Eastern Blocs firepower shifts to the dreadnaughts. It becomes clear that their play at this point will be to maximize their fire on regular capitals regardless of how that will play in the larger fight.

Now that goons are in they pick their first target. Logan’s run. They fire a full wave into him and push him into low armor, but their DD’s are not syncd. We throw what spare DD’s we have into him as well, but in the delay between seconds hundred of reps are hitting, he leaps back into full armor in short order. One full wave of DD’s wasted.

Next would be The eastern bloc’s counter wave. It is fired into Kate Pole. He see’s the yellows early and gets his overload off. He tanks 38 DD’s by count and holds at 30% shield. FAX bring him back to full in short order.

The stakes are clear now. Nothing but a perfectly sync’d DD wave, with enough DD’s will do. Neither side will fail again for the rest of the fight.

Meanwhile in the eastern blob, dreads are dying and taking FAX with them, we are losing dreads left and right but that’s the role they play. As well all our FAX are now committed. There is no point in holding anything back and there is no guarantee anyone would ever load under pressure.

As well we begin bringing in our LR dreadgroup to further augment the damage we can push into the enemy without reprisal. Some of these would come in close enough to be in DD range of the freefire crew sadly but they would do their job throughout the fight.

The carriers are fighting a bloody war for superiority of the air, slowly winning through attrition.

The Subcapitals also now have an avatar caught at a safespot and are moving to attack while a dreadsquad is being prepared to support.

A DD wave from Legacy will insta-kill and Erebus and a wave right back will hit Muleo in a Ragnarok. I don’t know why nobody likes Muleo but the dude can lose rags’ like a champ.

At this time both NC and Imperium are reportedly moving their superfleets from the North. The juggernauts approach. Imperium leaves about an hour before the NC. A slightly quicker approach and this lead up time will factor in later.

BL has also dropped their dreadnaughts in a defensive role now to clear our dreadbomb. Its low-risk low impact stuff, perfect for mercenaries and an effective role to fill.

At this point we also begin fading the targets, broadcasting multiples to hide our next likely target. The lock speed is becoming as much of a struggle as anything else. We coordinate our full target list between the Imperial Legacy and when the time comes fire a wave into the Erebus of Custodian.

At this point the Keepstar is dead. Long live the UALX keepstar. Tether is lost at this point, not that it accounted for much and Eastern forces have accomplished their strategic objective. In the Scheme of things, it matters not a lot for the continued movement of the fight although we had hoped it might alleviate the lag a bit to our dismay.

The SS war is slowly being pushed closer and closer to the enemy blob at this time, with some of heavies starting to peirce the enemy wall. The Hel fleet is also given the green to deploy their fighters, the NC/FRAT dreadbomb just doesn’t seem to be coming.

Our dreadbombs are now being augmented by a surprise XIX fleet. Revenge it seems is something the Russians crave without remorse. I don’t even know their coming until they arrive, but hey, it’s a party, bring all your friends. Their cyno is poorly positioned near our dread2 Cyno and open for boson’ing. I don’t think they eat one, but certainly not ideal.

We trade more DD’s another faded target from the eastern bloc is vaporized and shortly afterward they fire back and take out a rag. We are consistently volley’ing 2 titans to their 1. Shield’s huge buffer and our advantageous positioning is making this a battle where even the mistakes we make are not critical.

The NC/Frat dreadbomb finally comes in. On their own blob. Our shock was… palatable. This defensive usage of a dreadbomb was very surprising and is a hugely compromising situation as it can no longer be used offsenively. But so be it.

We trade again two titans for one, an erebus and an avatar over 30 minutes with another rag lost in return.

The Imperium’s Armor fleet is now arriving, another 50 titans and more supers, the table is about to shift even harder in our favor.

As well the disconnected Avatar is finally killed by the subcaps and a small squad of dreadnaughts. Another Avatar is caught at a safespot and tackled and the subs begin moving onto him.

Fibos are heading back in

Our dreads are beginning to lose critical mass despite reships, we have chewed through 75 FAX but obviously it will not be enough to affect the armor core so we have retargeted the Tri Mino’s. We are down to the final 10 as things begin to slow. We have a rag eating damage from over 100 dreads now plus fighter bombers

Another Avatar is caught at a safespot now, Dreads are being organized to kill him as well. That puts us at two avatars being killed at safes, 1 rag dying to dreads with a new dd wave about to come up.

The next volley’s are planned on A PL Avatar. Word is that NC is now in range and jumping.

We call out our DD Volley, 7,6,5,4,3,2,1…… FIRE.

But there is no response… nothing. No new enemy supers appear, no DD’s hit.

Nothing.

The Node crashes.

We Wait

And wait

And wait.

I give a short speech on the Super comms, I’m so proud of my dudes. From 3 titans to 103. From 6 Supers to 216 Supers. We’ve come a long way. LOGIN

Spamming to come in, LET US IN.

Finally we get in, loading… loading… they aren’t logging in. They know their fate. But wait? An Avatar is landing. There is no tidi. Hold DD’s we suspect he might be the first of many. But he isn’t. A dozen or so enemy capitals relog and 1 avatar. We kill them all. We have 30 minutes to loot what wrecks we can before DT. Luckily we have hundreds of capitals and we clear the enemy bubbles quickly. We loot, we leave and then we rest…

Good Fight.

A camp has been establish and a new keepstar anchored.

Now it seems we will play this game over again.

The initial Legacy Keepstar was destroyed but a second was anchored meanwhile the enemy supercapital fleet sat hellcamped for a week, sneaking ships out around downtime and consistently feeding capitals while attempting to do so. No attempts at breakouts were made, only logging in and running for it. Eventually the hellcamp was lifted as other priorities presented themselves.

At the end 4 TEST Titans had been destroyed to 11 hostile Titans.

New Eden Report on the battle

Polygon article on the battle

vily's AAR reddit thread

Breaking news report from EVE News 24

Breaking news report from Imperium News Network

Report on the hellcamp by Imperium News Network

Breaking news report from EVE News 24 on supers extracting from the end of the hellcamp