EVE Fiction

Using this the New Eden Crew Guidelines I decided to try and get an estimate to the actual human cost of the largest scale capsuleer battle to date. For the number of crewman aboard ships lost I did an average of the Minimum Crew (Capsuleer) and Max Capacity value for each ship, then multiplied them by the number of ships of that overall type destroyed.

The numbers that come out are truly astronomical.

75 Titans
Average Crew - 56,000
Average Survival Rate - ~50% (Widely varies between 20% to 80%)
Probable casualties - 2,100,000 crew

13 Supercarriers
Average Crew - 18,175
Average Survival Rate - 50%
Probable Casualties - 118,000 crew

370 Dreadnaughts
Average Crew - 9,025
Average Survival Rate - 22.5%
Probable Casualties - 2,588,000 crew

123 Carriers
Average Crew - 7,265
Average Survival Rate - 45%
Probable Casualties - 491,000 crew

3,139 Sub-capitals
Average Crew - 3,475 (assuming most were battleships)
Average Survival Rate - 37.5% (assuming most were battleships)
Probable Casualties - 6,935,000 crew

Total Probable Casualties - 12,222,000 crew KIA

I know that number is probably high as there were sub-capitals besides fleet battleships involved in the action, and no doubt there were ships that were under crewed involved, but even if that number is 10 times higher then the actual casualty figures... over 1.2 million capsuleer crewman died monday. Nothing on Earth's history even comes close to that scale of death and destruction in a single battle.

Battle of Baghdad - Mongol Conquests: 2.1m+ dead
Siege of Leningrad - WW2: 1.1-4.5m dead
Battle of Berlin - WW2: 1.3m dead
Battle of Stalingrad - WW2: 1.2-1.8m dead



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_by_casualties

"75 Titans
Average Crew - 56,000
Average Survival Rate - ~50% (Widely varies between 20% to 80%)
Probable casualties - 2,100,000 crew"

On this:

The variance in survival rates is directly linked to how the ship dies, with the lower (20%) survival rate being if a ship is alpha'd off the field via OpFor Titan doomsdays with no warning. As this was the main cause of death for many of the Titans lost, the casualty totals with the listed average crews would be closer to 3,000,000+.

Incidentally, with the estimated total ISK value destroyed at B-R being 11 trillion ISK, that figure would mean that each crewman's life was worth about 3.5 million ISK.

3.5 million isk for a crewman? That's a laugh.



Keep in mind that casualty count includes civilian losses... If you remove that, nothing comes close. Especially if you just look at naval engagements where at most there are around 300,000 people participating.

And yes, I think the Titan survival rates I used were rather conservative, but then I used battleship values for all the sub-capitals so it evens out I think.

This is why the Amarr have slaves it cuts costs dramatically. don't need to pay them and if we need more crew just get some more off a Minmatar planat.

24 hour battle of this scale is amazing. It's one draw of EVE Online. Only wish I could have been a participant. It is the biggest most expensive battle to date, but it is a record that will be surpassed by capsuleers in the future. This game is growing!

Each ship is piloted by a capsuleer but there is still a crew. A much smaller crew but still a crew. Look up the ship descriptions in evelopedia and it gives some details (interceptors may be only ships without crew).

IIRC, the most common subcapital ship class lost was Interdictors, which presumably have crews of similar sizes to tech 1 destroyers.