The Thing About Titans

(I'm off today and tomorrow so at home busy with at home things. Posting will be light as a result.)

This news item from ISD about several friendly alliances getting all their titans in once place for a show of force in the former Kenzoko system of 49-U6U caught my eye:

49-U6U, Querious - GoonSwarm and their allies deployed a camp on KenZoku's sole remaining outpost last night. A joint force of pilots from Pandemic Legion, GoonSwarm, Morsus Mihi, Razor Alliance and KIA deployed 27 titans around the station in a show of force and gave a demonstration of the sheer power embodied in such a gang.

The kicker? This:

To emphasise the potential power of such a fleet, Viper ShizzIe sacrificed a Thanatos-class carrier in a demonstration.

The titan fleet activated their doomsday devices in waves: Avatars followed by Erebuses, Leviathans then Ragnaroks. The Thanatos took over 400,000 damage before it exploded, and only 16 of the 27 doomsdays managed to register on it before it succumbed.

Sweet merciful crap. We are at the point where coalitions (i.e. group of friendly alliances) can field fleets of Titans and use their Doomsday weapons to destroy almost any other ship unable to run away. As an offensive weapon, that's impressive. As a defensive weapon, its nearly undefeatable.

Wotlankor thinks Titans are out of control and need to be reigned in:

The very way EvE is constructed around star gates and POSs makes their grid killing ability to the most formidable weapon in EvE. Jump in a fleet of battleships that are needed to take down the cyno jammer and facing 3 Titans the fleet is doomed. Hope you the average player out there enjoyed that ! Ohh you escaped the initial 3 doomsdays then welcome to the cyno jammer. you have to stay there for some time, not like the gate where you can get away. Boom. Did you enjoy the game ?

There is no defence. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. You can of course lock down your own system with around the clock Titans, which is equal to, “Hey you have the very same options as we do” I can hear the larger alliances with the Titans saying. The field is level for all. But truth be told it is far from level. The only option a new player coming to EvE has is to join one of the power blocks. There are no new alliances formed that can challenge the supremacy of the Titans.

I don't know if I agree with him completely, but he has a good point that existing alliances have an advantage with their Titan wings defending their space against Titan-less attacking alliances. Fortress Delve allowed BoB to surivive assaults until they were brought down from the inside. Now Goonswarm has the defensive position backed by Titans.

I think there are ways for a new alliance, if they are dedicated and talented, to attack and defeat an existing alliance. Watching what The Initiative can do with large gangs of remote repping battleships has been instructive on that count for one. But perhaps there is room in the game for a sub-capital ship capable of absorbing doomsday damage and threatening a Titan sufficiently enough in return. Sort of a pocket Dreadnought perhaps.

A thought for another day.