2.3. Change of plans

Nightmyre on Alliance Politics:

the raid on asgard - a recounting of the events from Fury's perspective.

so, the long ordeal started at roughly 15:30 server time. at this time, a few people monitoring online activity noticed that SH/PM had over 50 people online - indication of an op. we recalled everyone in the area, assuming a raid was imminent. at this point we had around 5 RC's online, sitting on the planet, and ready to stock, along with dozens of shield and power restockers, ready to start at any moment. we believed that the planet would be invincible, that nothing would have a chance at taking it. infact we even told people not to bother reshipping or anything of the sort, convinced we would be fine.

shortly after 16:00, the first attack came. as normal we shrugged it off, waiting for the shields to start dropping. the drones steadily went down, and eventually one SH roulette raider was killed by the planet. of course this was anticipated by both sides, so it didn't slow the raid down much.

as the drones went down steadily, we attempted to get a count of their raiders insector. this proved rather difficult due to the extreme lag and drones insector. under the assumption that SH/PM were coming at us with their normal 2-3 raid teams, we even decided to deliberately not repair the shields and power, letting the planet refresh deal with power and allowing the shields to drop so the RC's could then suddenly bring it up after.

this went on for some time, and eventually the first planet refresh drew near. at this point the planet had around 60% of its maximum power. we eagerly watched the refresh, as we noticed that the SH raiders had done virtually zero damage since we started.

then, the first bug hit. as the planet hit refresh, the power restored itself to 100%, as we expected. then, suddenly, it dropped back down to 60%. it appeared as though the power was not properly refreshed due to a bug. upset, we began stocking the power fully again, and slowly started restoring it back to 100%.

it was about at this time that the first raid scan came in. as we began looking over the data, it became more and more evident that this was not a normal op. SH/PM had not two, not three, but FIVE full raid teams, with a sixth partially formed.

it was clear at this point that this would turn out to be one of the biggest raids ever. even here however, we were sure we would hold the planet, and we didnt panic or even start rushing new RC's in.

the raid continued as normal, with the shields falling slowly, the power falling slowly, and the population, a key factor, falling rather rapidly. as we steadily restocked the planet, we attempted to get a more reliable raid scan. shortly this arrived, and, after looking it over, we began calculating the full power of their raid team. soon, we realised we would have to start fighting much harder - we began restocking in full force, using all five of our RC's online, and all of our restockers. the power and shields held stable at 100% for a few hours at this point.

the next refresh, once again, lead to the experiencing of the same power refresh bug - again, we were denied about 40% of the power restored by the planet. we continued to restock however.

it was about at this point that the planet level had dropped to catastrophically low points. suddenly, the SH/PM raid force came alive. they began battering the planet with their full force, and the planet started falling rapidly from its full down to almost half defense before we were able to catch up. for around half an hour we battled with the raid team, the rating going up and down. some time during here another SH raider caught a pod, from what we assume was an accidental double trigger.

as we were fighting for our lives, we began to notice another disturbing factor - the manpower was beginning to reach critical levels. unfortunately, none of us knew what this implied, as, in the history of tdzk, to our knowledge, a raid has never gone on so long as to make the planet's population dip under 500k. at this point we began devising emergency plans, and sending in new RC's and dronestockers. we managed to sneak another RC in, as well as some new restockers, and kept fighting.

soon we would reach the next crucial moment - as the manpower fell down to a critical point, the next refresh brought about the next bug - the shield bug.

this , and the other bugs , are still under heavy investigation. from what we can presume, when the manpower collapsed below sustainable levels, the shields SHOULD have fell to 0. and infact, they DID fall to 0. and it appeared as though SH/PM were fully ready for this, as they had stopped shooting long before the refresh.

we were ready for this as well. as the planet reached near refresh, we dropped several hundred drones on the planet, and had every ship online ready to drop full shields. the clock ticked past :45, and we all dropped instantly. and nothing. no shields were lost seemingly. we heaved a huge sigh of relief, and started to relax, thinking we were fine. then suddenly it happened - the shields dropped to 0. we began frantically restocking. then .. the shields filled back to full again. completely puzzled, we glanced at our reports to be sure that the planet truly was full - it was. so .. we looked. a few seconds later, to our horror, AGAIN the planet dropped down, this time to around /100. so we began restocking again. this continued four or five times before the planet finally stabilized at full shields again.

this would appear to have been the death knell for the operation. for the next hour, a few sparse shots were fired intermittetly, which were repaired instantly. as the next refresh drew near, we sent ships out to shut down reload stations just incase. once again on the refresh, the shields seemed to hold stable, only to suddenly drop to 0, then restore back to full again. the cause of this bug is completely unknown, and will likely be discovered sooner or later, but all we knew was that we couldn't rely on the planet to guard us. we kept constant watch on the shields, ready to drop the second they fell. but fall they did not.

at this point, SH/PM decided to give up. they began pirating their raiders one by one, and after they were all done, their ships left system and the raid was over.