Assault Of M-OEE8

The Assault of M-OEE8 or Siege of M-OEE8 was a battle that was waged in the MMORPG Eve Online between December 3rd and December 10th of 2016. The focus of the battle was a Keepstar class citadel owned by the Alliance known as Circle of Two, which became the first fully operational Keepstar to ever be destroyed in Eve. The final battle on December 10th may have been the largest single engagement to ever be conducted inside a video game, greatly surpassing the Bloodbath of B-R5RB with 5,300 players simultaneously participating at its height.
Background
Citadels were released during the . After the update was announced, alliance military directors across the game began developing possible tactics for destroying a Keepstar, the largest and most expensive citadel in the game. These massive structures measure over 24,000 square kilometers in size, and cost roughly 300,000,000,000 ISK (in game currency known as Interstellar Kredits), or $5,100.00 USD when converted using the in game PLEX system. While a Keepstar was destroyed during its initial anchoring on September 8th 2016, it was not fully operational and did not reinforce.
The Three Stages of Attack
Citadels in Eve Online are protected from instantaneous attack by a system called reinforcement. They can only be attacked during a vulnerability timer predetermined by the stations' owners, and only a certain amount of damage can be done during each timer. Keepstars are the largest citadels in the game, and have to be reinforced 3 times before they are destroyed. Citadels also have the unique feature known as tethering, in which any ship within a certain radius of the structure is untargetable and invulnerable to all damage sources.
Stage One - Shields
The first attack against the Keepstar commenced at 18:43 Eve Time (Aligned with coordinated universal time) on December third. The original attacking force consisted of Mercenary Coalition in Ferox Class Battlecruisers, Northern Coalition in Machariel Class Faction Battleships, and Pandemic Legion in Typhoon Class Battleships. The attack was mostly uncontested with the exception of the Keepstar's own defensive weapons and point defense. The shields were completely destroyed by 19:11 Eve time, and the citadel entered a 24 hour reinforcement cycle, setting the time for the next attack.
Stage Two - Armor
The second attack started at 18:44 the next day, on December 4th. In this attack, offensive forces began by using Supercarriers equipped with high-damage fighter-bombers to damage the Keepstar from over 1,000 km away, safely on top of their own citadels that had been anchored after the previous battle. Circle of Two were able to destroy many of the incoming fighters though, forcing the attackers to engage up close with a mix of sub-capital ships and dreadnoughts. The Keepstar entered it's final reinforcement cycle at 23:16.
Final Stage - Structure
The final stage of attack began at 18:44 with 4,950 players in system. Unlike the previous timer, capital ships were not extensively used to attack the structure, instead being reserved for fleet commanders to tether on their own citadels. Northern Coalition returned to their Machariels, and Mercenary Coalition along with Pandemic Legion formed in Typhoons for the final battle. Various other forces assembled in ships including Stealth Bombers, Proteus Class Tier Three Cruisers, and Scorpion Class Battleships. The Keepstar was finally destroyed at 23:36, just under 5 hours after the battle began.

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