Earlier this week the first quadrant of 2021 – Reign – got underway. It brought with it a long-requested feature in the form of an enhanced fleet finder which you can read about in the Fleet Discovery news item.

The new fleet finder tool is great for NPSI (Not Purple, Shoot It) communities and so this weekend CCP will be teaming up with Spectre Fleet to run a public NPSI fleet specifically aimed at new players or just players new to PvP! If you’ve been curious about trying out PvP in EVE this is a great low stress, low cost way to get started. You’ll have dozens of fleet mates to learn the ropes with and some excellent leadership from Spectre Fleet’s seasoned fleet commanders. And you won’t need a lot of skill points or a lot of ISK to get involved.

CCP will be joining players in the fleet and streaming the event from our point of view on CCPTV, so if you can’t take part you can stlll tune in.

The fleet is currently scheduled to depart from Jita on Saturday, February 13 at 20:00 EVE time. If you would like to participate in the fleet you should check out this thread on the EVE Online forums for updates and information about any preparations you’ll need to make before setting off. Fleet communications will be in English.

Spectre Fleet is one of EVE Online’s longest running NPSI communities who run regular public fleets and welcome capsuleers from all over New Eden to X up and get their shoot on.

The Abyssal Proving Grounds return with a new twist! Until 11:00 UTC on 16 February, you can engage in 2v2 Tech I Cruiser matches. As a special inclusion this time around, and in the spirit of the Guardian's Gala event, there is an allusion to the Guardian Angels and the Serpentis Corporation with a 50% bonus to the web strength of all Stasis Webifiers for this round of matches.

Permitted hulls for this round are: Arbitrator, Blackbird, Bellicose, Caracal, Celestis, Maller, Moa, Omen, Rupture, Stabber, Thorax, and Vexor.

Limitations for this round are:

• Modules limited to meta level 5 and below
  
• No pirate implants

Make sure you have your Proving Filaments ready, either from Abyssal Deadspace loot drops or from the in-game market. This will be a dramatic series of fights so don’t forget to track your favorite Capsuleer’s performance using the leaderboards!

The striking Heartsurge SKIN returns to EVE Online's New Eden Store for a limited time only, until 11:00 UTC on 23 February!

Furthermore, you can get the Jackdaw Heartsurge SKIN free when you purchase 30 days of Omega from the NES until 11:00 UTC on 15 February. In addition, the Heartsurge SKIN for the Svipul comes free when you purchase 500 PLEX from the EVE Store.

For all other hulls in this line, the Heartsurge SKIN is being sold individually (or in bundles with 10% off) in the NES, so show your fleet some love and grab it for the following ships:

• Confessor
  
• Cynabal
  
• Daredevil
  
• Dramiel
  
• Eagle
  
• Hecate
  
• Ishtar
  
• Machariel
  
• Vagabond
  
• Vigilant
  
• Vindicator
  
• Zealot

Gatecrashing Capsuleers,

As part of the new Reign Quadrant, the notorious Guardian's Gala event returns to New Eden, and you are once again invited to disrupt the annual Serpentis pirates and Angel Cartel celebrations! There are event sites in known space and wormhole space, daily login rewards, plus 90% PvP loot drops and an increase to warp speed in wormhole space until 11:00 UTC on 23 February.

Guardian's Gala sites in wormhole space offer greater challenges, and contain more lucrative rewards. Valuable loot up for grabs includes Serpentis and Domination faction items, ship SKINs, limited time Skill Point boosters, and Overseers' Effects which can be sold for ISK.

As well as the Guardian's Gala event sites, you can also claim free gifts through the daily login event until 11:00 UTC on 23 February, including Spirit SKINs available for Serpentis ships for the first time, and thousands of Skill Points to help boost your skill training.

Check out the image below for a snapshot of potential event and login rewards:



In addition to the rewards for pilots in Alpha Clone State, as an Omega you will get even better gifts such as a bigger haul of Skill Points and more SKINs. If you upgrade to Omega after the event has started, you can still claim all Alpha and Omega rewards retroactively as long as you log in to EVE Online on 7 of the event days.

UPGRADE TO OMEGA

Reigning Capsuleers,

Achieve tactical supremacy and victory in New Eden with EVE Online's new Quadrant "Reign", the first in 2021! Launching a new year of Quadrants after 2020's successful introduction of themed content for EVE, Reign brings with it exciting new updates to fleets and travel, continuous balance and meta changes, plus returning events such as the Guardian's Gala and The Hunt.

Fleet options in EVE will improve during the Reign Quadrant thanks to the Fleet Discovery update.

Many more upcoming changes will soon see the light as the Quadrant progresses, as has been the case for all of EVE's Quadrants so far. One upcoming change will give Capsuleers more control over fleet formations and presence on the battlefield. For the curious, the Quadrant trailer is a solid starting point for theory crafters.



The Reign Quadrant also kicks off with substantial improvements to jump tunnel animations, providing a more immersive sci-fi experience, with the regions you are travelling between now visually reflected in the tunnel itself!

In addition, there are updates to how your home station is represented on the map, how it's managed, with the price for changing its location removed, plus quality of life improvements throughout the Quadrant which some you can check out on the EVE Online forums!

The notorious Guardian's Gala event will return to New Eden soon, and you are once again invited to disrupt the annual Serpentis pirates and Angel Cartel celebrations! More info on that is coming very soon, and the Abyssal Proving Grounds will continue into 2021 as well.

A CLASH OF TITANS

The largest war in EVE (and video game) history had been raging for months and tensions were building. The two sides of the conflict each possessed the largest supercapital forces in New Eden and a large scale confrontation felt inevitable as the battle lines pushed closer, the fighting grew bloodier, and each battle became more critical to each side's success, survival or morale.

On December 30th 2020 this tension finally came to a spectacular head in the most destructive battle New Eden had ever seen. As PAPI forces were continuing to press into the Imperium home region of Delve they began an assault against a seemingly "irrelevant" (1, 2) Keepstar in the system of M2-XFE. PAPI cleared the shield timer without much contest however when it came time for the armor timer, the Imperium supercapital fleet was poised to respond.

A lone Imperium interceptor pilot is credited with attacking the M2-XFE cyno jammer just prior to the start of the fight, granting the imperium forces a window in which they could bring in capital reinforcements while the cyno jammer repaired. The cyno jammer was then hit several more times by a small number of imperium pilots to keep the window open as they brought in additional reinforcements - however the attackers too were bringing in additional ships, as both sides attempted to achieve a numerical (and firepower) advantage.

At 22:33 GMT the PAPI forces moved into position below the Keepstar and all waited nervously to see if the Imperium forces would break from the safety of the Keepstar tether to engage. As the first shots were fired by PAPI at the structure, the Imperium broke from tether and returned fire - the resulting fight would be the most destructive in EVE History.



The fighting lasted approximately 14 hours as each side volleyed Titans and enemy supercapitals off field, one after another. The trades on both sides were incredibly even, with each side losing supercapital ships at around the same rate. The bloodbath continued until daily downtime the next day, when PAPI forces were issued the command to stay logged out after the servers went offline. As the dust settled, New Eden was left to tally a larger battle than had ever been seen before amidst a mountain of shattered titans.



(Yes, all of these pictures are actual in-game captures of the fight)

THE FINAL TALLY

ISK Lost: 29,111,604,784,863

Titans Destroyed: 257

Total Ships Destroyed: 3,404

USD Value of Losses: $378,012

Based on the average sale value of PLEX. This number is simply given as a way to represent the effort-value of the destruction and not an actual amount of money spent by participants on this fight.

Most Expensive Ship Destroyed: Grencia Mars's Vanquisher weighing in at approximately 381,097,221,673 ISK - over $5,500 equivalent USD value alone!

EVERLASTING TESTAMENT

Amidst the wreckage, a monument is being constructed in M2-XFE.



From the Designer: The initial concept was very clear in my mind: a diorama inside a semicircle with ships ready for the battle on its two opposite sides, and a banner in the middle bearing the records of all the players involved in the fight. I wanted something majestic and imposing to represent the epic scale of the battle. I was greatly inspired by the architectural rhythm of Hallgrimskirkja for the main structure. My team suggested implementing the shape of the Keepstar in the design; from that point I tried to include that shape as single piece or in a pattern in multiple ways. Once I found a solid shape for the main structure, I tried to merge with it some of the other previous experiments where I had used the shape of the Keepstar as a base until I ended up with a semicircular monument with the shape of the Keepstar inside of it.

M2 BY THE NUMBERS

The numbers involved in this battle may not mean much to you in a vacuum, so we've gone through the most destructive battles in EVE history, some of which you may be familiar with including the now unseated 'Bloodbath of B-R', to help provide a sense of scale.






The numbers shown in this chart are not exact amounts spent by players on this battle (as much of these fleets were paid for in thousands of man hours of in-game work) but an equivalent value had they attempted to buy all the ships and equipment used in the fight out of pocket via PLEX (and bear in mind, this is just what was destroyed!). The USD value is calculated using the average value of PLEX purchases at that time and the average ISK market price of PLEX.

Interestingly, you can get an idea of how the value of ISK has changed over time, particularly looking at the differences in B-R (2014), between the ISK and USD graphs.

Data for the 2nd Battle of M2-XFE is absent from these graphs due to the issues experienced during the battle - including the unreliability of kill reports generated during the battle for ships that survived.




Of the 1,304 Titans that participated in this fight in M2-XFE an incredible 257 of them were destroyed - which amounts to nearly 20%.



Battles in EVE Online have grown steadily with time, from HED-GP and B-R back in 2014 (only a few days apart) to today. While the battle didn't quite break the record set by FWST for max players in a single battle, it certainly took its place among the top. Bear in mind that this graph is showing only those top battles in terms of destructive value.

For some of the following data we supplemented our numbers with data from our partner, Zkillboard. While this data is less 'official' it is reliably accurate with only the potential of kills not appearing if ESI data was not provided, so the numbers may slightly underrepresent reality - however all 257 titan kills are accounted for.



When it comes to Titan losses, this battle did not have a clear-cut winner. PAPI forces lost a combined 130 Titans while the Imperium lost 122, giving them a narrow 8-Titan lead over the attackers.



While the Titans tend to take the spotlight due to their size, power, and value - they were not the only ships fielded. Over a thousand players in subcapital ships also played a part.

If you'd like to browse the destruction for yourself, you can find more detail in this Battle Report.

OKAY, SO JUST HOW BIG WAS THIS BATTLE REALLY?

Let's forget about ISK and dollars for a moment and just talk about what a Titan is in the universe of EVE Online. Titans are MASSIVE weapons - but just how massive? 2,400,000,000kg to be specific (the mass of the Avatar). That's 2,645,547 US tons - the equivalent of over 7 Empire State Buildings (src) and nearly 14km in length (8.5 miles). A single titan is enough to scar a planet, should the planet be so unfortunate as to collide with one.

Mass of the Titan Wreckage: 591,100,000,000kg enough to be a dangerously large asteroid. Slightly more massive than 4769 Castalia, a potentially hazardous near-earth object. We can be thankful the wreckage is being salvaged for use in the monument and isn't at risk of careening towards any populated planets.

Approximate mass of all 1304 titans which were present: 2,999,200,000,000kg Just a bit more massive than the minor planet 1566 Icarus - a potentially hazardous near earth object which sparked a project at MIT to consider how to defend the earth from a potential impact, should it be found to be on a collision course (the final plan was to use 6 100-megaton nuclear warheads and pray that solved the problem).

Length of the Titans end to end: (assuming an average titan length of 15.75km) 20,538km - approximately half the circumference of the earth and nearly twice the diameter. In terms of raw scale, this was truly a massive battle. The pictures you see here showing fields of titans may be hundreds or thousands of kilometers across!

And these are just some fun fact about the size and mass, not even touching on the mind-blowing scale of capital weapons. The total firepower brought to bear in this fight was truly earthshattering – a very rough estimate of the total energy released of all the doomsdays firing simultaneously is equivalent to that of a small star (estimate based on the Nuclear L charge mass, damage and a comparison to modern nuclear weapons yields): Over 100 billion terajoules of energy - and yes, there are many other ways to estimate this and get very different numbers.

THE STORY CONTINUES

The war continues to rage in nullsec and the story has continued on since this battle, including PAPI forces finding themselves trapped and their daring escape from the Imperium 'hellcamp'. We are happy to celebrate the incredible achievements and historic events of this chapter of EVE's history and, as always, look forward to seeing where the epic tales you weave will take us next.




Images of the battle provided by Razorien EVE (now also known as CCP Aperture!)

FROM THE PARTICIPANTS

"This was a bare hands, bloody knuckle fight over a backwater keepstar in a system that didn't matter, and it turned into one of the most consequential fights in the history of EVE, lasting 14+ hours and seeing more Titans die than every other major Titan brawl put together. It was amazing to be there, to cover the entire fight from start to finish live on stream... even if it did cost me a Titan." - Brisc Rubal, The Imperium

"This battle is a bit like a poker game where both players stockpiled weapons for several years and then went all-in. One side started escalating the fight to the absolute maximum of their resources, and the other matched in full; not just in terms of manpower but also in the value of assets committed. It is rare in EVE to see so much at stake in a single fight as the losses can undo years of effort from thousands of participating players. However, in this rare instance it did indeed happen, causing the biggest fight we have ever seen, both for the numbers of players involved and the amount of assets destroyed. Really remarkable." - Gobbins, PAPI

MEDIA & COMMUNITY ARTICLES ABOUT THE BATTLE

Kotaku - Both Sides Claim Victory in Massive EVE Online Battle

MassivelyOP - The Christmas truce in EVE Online ends in explosive fashion with a costly $300k battle at M2-XFE

ScreenRant - EVE Online: Latest Battle Cost Players 250 Titan Ships & 23 Trillion ISK

New Eden Post - The Massacre of M2-XFE A Titan Graveyard Unlike Any Battle in EVE Online History

INN - M2-XFE in Pictures

INN - EVE of Destruction: The Titan Massacre at M2-XFE
The Ancient Gaming Noob - Titan Massacre at M2-XFE

Alpha Orbital - Graveyard of Titans - The Massacre at M2-XFE

Model Capsuleers,

Mixed Dimensions have released yet another batch of awesome EVE Online ship models, and this time you can get your hands on the formidable Armageddon, Hyperion, Scorpion, and Typhoon class Battleships!

There will be even more ship models to look forward to in the future, and you can check out which EVE ship models Mixed Dimensions have already released], including the Dramiel, Cynabal, Machariel, Rifter, Tristan, Magnate, Talos, Tornado, Condor, Naga, and Oracle. Get yours now!

A popular Abyssal Proving Grounds event returns! Make sure you have your Proving Filaments ready, either from Abyssal Deadspace loot drops or from the in-game market.

Until 11:00 UTC on 2 February, you can engage in 1v1 Tech I Battlecruiser matches. Permitted hulls for this round are: Brutix, Cyclone, Drake, Ferox, Gnosis, Harbinger, Hurricane, Myrmidon, Naga, Oracle, Prophecy, Talos, or Tornado.

Limitations for this round are:

• Modules limited to meta level 5 and below
  
• No pirate implants

This will be a dramatic series of fights so don’t forget to track your favorite Capsuleer’s performance using the leaderboards.

In the rich universe of New Eden, many activities can be more fun, efficient, or offer a larger destructive power when performed in groups. The new Fleet Discovery update makes it easier for Capsuleers to find and create fleets with other players that fit their plans!


Soon, as a new pilot, you will be able to utilize the new Fleet Up tool located in the center of The Agency to find and join fleets that match your skill level and interests.



Are you looking to fleet up and do some mining? Sort by Resource Harvesting to view active fleets, read their descriptions, compare how far away from you they are operating and if they meet your criteria, then simply request to join!

The new Fleet Up tool also supports filtering for fleets that are new player friendly, so as a fresh pilot, you will have an easier way to spot groups that will help you on your journey in the harsh vastness of space and connect you to the content you're after!


The added functionality in the Fleet Discovery update will also help Fleet Commanders (FCs) classify fleets more precisely, so you can recruit for Incursions, Faction Warfare, or seek out the experienced hot-droppers to help you achieve your grand plans much faster!

You can head over to the Singularity Test Server now to discover and try out all the functionalities of this new upcoming feature. If you do, please share your thoughts by joining the player discussion on the EVE Online forums, Twitter, or the EVE Online subreddit.

Fly safe, and fly together!

Cosmopolitan Capsuleers,

At the end of last year, we welcomed back the dedicated players from Japan by releasing a fully supported Japanese localized version of the game. With the influx of new pilots and the return of battle-hardened veterans, we must not forget that we are all pilots in the EVE Online universe united by a shared passion.

To revere this milestone for our ever-growing community, we will have a week-long United Eden celebration filled with daily rewards and challenges for both the Alpha and Omega pilots, that will run from 19 to 26 January!

Please be sure to log in daily during the event to claim exclusive items at both the Alpha and Omega clone levels. To claim the full series, you will need to log in 4 of 7 days during the event. These rewards include:

• Slasher, Tormentor, Kestrel, Tristan, and Capsule Zakura Hansei SKINs
  
• Skill Points
  
• Zakura Bazei Firework
  
• Men’s and Women’s ‘Saikadori’ Facial Augmentation

Please watch for daily challenges posted on your overhead display. These challenges reward skill points. You can use Skill Points to help you boost your skill training towards piloting better crafts, wielding better weapons more effectively and more.

Happy celebrations, pilots!