Wednesday 29 January 2014

Crystal Ball Gazing

By now most people will have heard about the fight in B-R5RB, the outcome is the loss of at least couple of trillion ISK and bloodied noses for most of the major alliances in the game.
 
The death of a Titan is something few and far between and usually only one at a time, this was something else. To see over seventy die in one engagement is quite something but looking at the killmails more so.
 

Replacement Ships

 
Titans aren't easy to come by nor are they to produce. BPC's easily command a couple of billion ISK not to mention tens of billions of ISK needed for the raw materials to make one. Add in the build time, at least 2 months in a secure null sec location.
 
I don't believe the alliances have spare ships in the quantities lost, they may have a couple but not dozens needed to replace the losses seen. It is going to take many months perhaps even a couple of years before these losses will be replaced.
 

Fancy Modules

 
Looking at the killmails it shows a lot of expensive deadspace and officer modules being destroyed, these modules exist in small numbers and as a result they commanded a high price. These modules no longer exist in-game and as a result we may see more officer or drops within DED sites to replace these.
 
This should be good, I can count on one hand the number of good drops I've had in 9 or 10/10 DED sites and the one Officer spawn I've had was pretty terrible when compared to drops others have had. Not that I wasn't happy for the ISK I got as my cut.
 

Effects

 
Short-term: I think there is going to be very little change, perhaps some players who can secure replacements will buy new modules and will invest as such, but there will be little else.
 
Medium-term: Minerals in high sec will be bought in large amounts as alliances start to accumulate the materials needed to replace these ships or to replace those materials already used in production. High end officer/deadspace modules will see an increase in numbers for sale with most being bought within a week or two of being put for sale.
 
Long-term: We may see a dip in the amount of minerals available for sale but aside from this I think the long term effect of this battle will be not industry related but force projection. We'll see, at least for a year or so, little use of titans or supercaptials in battle and more use of expendables such as dreadnaughts and sub-capital ships.
 
Alliances will not be tempted to use their titans/super capitals for sometime after today, losses will be harder to replace and as such the authority to use these ships will not be given lightly.
 

Wrapping Up

 
I could be wrong, I probably am but I stand by what I think we may see over the next three, six and twelve months.
 
All sides will spin this as a victory or loss or even a "oh I never wanted that ship" but what happened will have ramifications for everyone in New Eden. I'm hoping CCP release a devblog on the server node/nodes that held the battle as after the issues previously this node held up much better.

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