"Wrecking Ball" formation just off the system's space station, a formation which had previously defeated the CFC and Russian alliance. As the conflict was a surprise and occurred on a Monday workday, CFC and Rus decided to take advantage and gain field superiority before N3 and PL could respond and so deployed their entire capital fleet to the system. Meanwhile, they deployed their sub-capital fleets to N3 staging systems, including I-NGI8 and GXK-7F, to delay any reinforcements. Each side then attempted to rush all available pilots into the system, and the game's time dilation software engaged. Time dilation is a game feature created by developer CCP Games to handle heavy loads on the game server without the game lagging or disconnecting players. In time dilation, the game slows to ten percent normal speed, with each second of game time displaying as ten seconds of real time. The two sides traded Titan kills every hour, when their Doomsday weapons could fire again, and the system became filled with warp disruption bubbles, making extraction difficult. For a while neither side gained any real advantage, though CFC/Rus managed to on-line their Territorial Claim Units and held a slight lead in the number of enemy Titans destroyed. Throughout the engagement, related battles played out across the entire game universe as fleets tried to block reinforcements, destroy fleeing capitals and super-capitals, or trap pilots attempting to enter the fray. The tide of the battle started to turn when Manfred Sideous, the initial N3/PL fleet commander, handed control to Vince Draken, CEO of Northern Coalition. Vince Draken managed to concentrate fire on and destroy several CFC/Rus Titans, and forced some additional Russian Titans to leave the system with depleted shields and armor. However, N3/PL overestimated their success and began to focus their attacks on the Titan belonging to Sort Dragon, the commander of all remaining Russian forces in the field. This Titan had very high damage resistance, and Sort Dragon drew upon his entire fleet to assist in repairing it, enabling it to hold out much longer than most other Titans up to that point. By the time his Titan fell, the CFC/Rus had managed to destroy five N3/PL Titans, putting the alliance well ahead. James Carl, a member of the N3/Pandemic Legion coalition, reported to the Associated Press that "It looks like CFC is winning, but we're hoping now that all of our US players