I wasn't supporting the notion that corporations have "hundreds" of titans sitting around waiting to be activated. I'm just saying that I would double or triple your number and I would be more likely to agree.
The last report I saw suggested over 70 titans destroyed. You don't commit that many highly expensive ships to a battle unless you can replace them, or you are really really desperate to keep that system.
Also, keep in mind that this is apparently just another skirmish in a war that's been waging since October where dozens of Titans have been lost so far.
I'm getting the impression you might not play the game actively. With that in mind let me assure you that as both a player and a super capital pilot that yes they are used without easy ways to replace them regularly. Even if you can afford to replace them straight away build time cuts into that an no alliance can afford to have 70 titans sitting around waiting as replacements. The side that dropped sov in this has had near immunity with using their super capitals as the other side was more risk adverse with them. The other side decided that this was the time to go all in and they happened to win. One of the sides is believed to have a small cache of titans for rainy days. The other side isn't.
Dozens is also high for how many titans have been lost in this conflict. It's been going on for a while but from what I can remember the number is actually less than 12 up to this point with no other real super on super fights.
Another point is that at this level most of the people are just looking to finally use their titans in a fight. When you fly a titan for most alliances almost all you will ever do is bridge other fleets so its not hard to convince titan pilots to get into a fight.
You're right, I'm not an active player. I'm likely referring to tactics that don't apply. I'm just going by the reports I've read so far.
I can see people sacrificing titans out of boredom, it's mostly wasted time unless they invested actual currency into the ship somehow. I seem to recall one of the massive battles lasted longer than normal simply because everybody was ready for a large battle more or less out of boredom.
Anyway, I'm more satisfied with this last statement than your previous as I was only saying that some of the larger corporations surely have a large number of titans sitting around waiting to be active. I wasn't saying they would have enough to replace 70 immediately, I was saying dozens which could be 24, 36, or 48. I say this simply because if you months of time on your hands and raking in serious resources on a large corporation level, why not spend it all on building the biggest ships in the game?
You're changing my words to fit your beliefs. I never said the large alliances have even dozens. Only one alliance is believed to have a decent stock pile of alliance available titans. And even thats just a rumour. You can say that this doesn't mesh with them using them if you want but the fact remains.
To answer you last question it's because it is a LOT of work to build them and not fun work either and it is extremely expensive to get into building them so the number of people that do it is limited and the people that do it tend to do it when there is orders for them and it'd be pretty well known if one entity was offering to buy none stop production.
PL is believed to have a decent cache(~20) the other alliances involved don't. I'd be amazed if the others had even one or two spare ones each, best case they convince a few inactive titan pilots to log on and give theirs to someone that lost one in the short term while they build a replacement for them.
>why not spend it all on building the biggest ships in the game?
Because only a handful of people can fly them and they are almost never useful. It's much better to spend your resources on smaller ships that everyone can use and get 2000 pilots out there not worried about dying.
The last report I saw suggested over 70 titans destroyed. You don't commit that many highly expensive ships to a battle unless you can replace them, or you are really really desperate to keep that system.
Also, keep in mind that this is apparently just another skirmish in a war that's been waging since October where dozens of Titans have been lost so far.