Kills of the Week: The Battle of Aufay

Before this week, no one had ever heard of the Aufay system. Now they will never forget it. Agent loyalanon and the Knights of the Order looked upon Aufay, a quiet little 0.5 security system in Sinq Laison. Despite its placid surface, they knew terrible things were happening there. Major highsec trade routes go through anonymous Aufay. The system has long been used and abused by bot-aspirants, especially auto-piloting freighters.

This, too, our Agents knew: Aufay belongs to the New Order.

What you (barely) see above is not the CODEdot's entire killboard for the month. It's a list of freighters ganked by the New Order in one system, in one week.

KILLMAIL

Jump freighters, of course, are the primary target for any serious ganking operation. They're not easy to take down; this is only the fifth jump freighter killed by the New Order, ever.

KILLMAIL

As loyalanon continually kept me updated with reports from Aufay, we were both amazed by the degree of decadence. Shockingly, an Orca worth over 5 billion isk was destroyed. Judging by the cargo, the Orca contained everything the carebear owned, including a library of blueprints. Bizarrely, the anti-tanked beast had a cloak, a probe launcher, and even a warp scrambler. A kill such as this would be worthy of its own post. But in the carnage of Aufay, it is easily overlooked.

KILLMAIL

Industrial ships weren't the only high-value kills in Aufay. A faction battleship worth 2.7 billion isk was vaporized for the crime of autopiloting without a permit. Or perhaps the ship merely went AFK on the gate. In the fog of war, tragedies piled on top of each other.

KILLMAIL

Behold, the first freighter to be suicide ganked after the Kronos "expansion" went live. CCP's long-awaited nerf to freighter ganking was implemented by buffing freighter EHP at the expense of cargo space, and giving freighter pilots fitting options. It was all for nothing. The New Order has already become too powerful. Saturated by anti-matter delivered by our terror weapons, the post-Kronos freighters went pop, just like the ones who came before.

KILLMAIL

Meanwhile, the freshly-buffed freighters turned their new fitting options into an excuse for more bot-aspirancy and immodesty. Bantam Rage, who was soon to live up to his name, chose to anti-tank his freighter for more cargo space--all so he could carry a single blueprint!

The reports of dead freighters continued to pile in. Though Aufay is merely another link in the auto-pilot chain for most, pilots began to take notice.

DrysonBennington > Eventually the ganks will stop IP because the entire high sector will be at war because of CODE

As recounted in yesterday's post, the white knights were powerless to stop the ganking. The New Order simply had too much firepower at its disposal. In despair, at least one white knight biomassed himself (or his "son" did it). Though the freighters' EHP had been buffed by CCP that very same week, the carebears put their hope in more nerfs to ganking. That was quick!

DrysonBennington > No but word of their exploits will spread and even more CODE will form...Jita, Dodixie, Hek, Amarr, Ours...all will burn with the fire of CODE....at least thats what they want

Apocalyptic visions of an Order-dominated highsec filled the rebels with dread.

KILLMAIL

Two more jump freighters were killed in Aufay, the one seen above and this post-Kronos one, the sixth and seventh jump freighters ever killed by New Order pilots. The seventh jump freighter was, as I said, killed after Kronos went live. Jump freighters have lowslots now. The jump freighter pilot didn't care, and left them empty. Our Agents brought their gank ships and made the jump freighter's cargo bay empty, too.

As the violence reached its peak, Aufay burned. The faint red blob, extending from the words "Caldari State" to the bottom of the picture, represents Aufay.

Curious pilots were drawn into the system. Not since Burn Jita had anyone seen something like this happen in a highsec system.

Aufay became the killing-est system in the entire EVE galaxy. Other systems have experienced intense violence. EVE pilots have engaged in spectacular battles over territory. This time was different. This time, they fought for the Code. And the judgment of the Code rained down upon those who worked evil in the Aufay system.

45 freighters, 3 jump freighters, 10 Orcas, and numerous other bot-aspirants were killed in Aufay in the name of the Code. The damage is estimated at more than 200 billion isk, all in one week. The freighter count rivals that of the first Burn Jita in 2012 (though they also killed a dozen jump freighters).

That sound in the distance is the steady march of progress. Carebears of highsec, are you listening?