June 2024

Suitcase Challenge Day 50: Backing Away… Quickly

OK, I know the screenshot above is really messy, but I wanted to make an attempt at showing what a typical game play period might look like for me when I have nothing really in mind and want to explore data/relic sites (non combat). I’ve been contemplating trying to move to a new wormhole but I am pretty specific about what I want. This day was a whole lot of ‘NOPE’ and some close calls. So I left my ‘home’ wormhole (it’s covered up, and this post is postdated so none of these connections will be this way when you read about it) and jumped into a C2 with a C1 / H connection. There was nothing much going on there, so I jumped into a C1 that had no statics at all. Maybe I’ve just never paid attention before, I didn’t know there was any such thing. There was nothing there, either – but it did have a connection to a C3 that looked promising. Unfortunately that C3 had a nullsec connection – and they had been hot and heavy on the combat. Kitchen Sinkhole, Fraternity, and Salted Fish Alliance. I accidentally ran right into their little war going on, so I immediately popped back into that C1 with no statics. From there I popped into a C5, which is a fine wormhole if you’re looking to go after gas, mining, or combat anomalies, but the data/relic sites are actually combat sites and not cans – not what I was in the mood for. I knew I’d have to scan my way out of there and find something better.

It had a C4 static, but there was also another nullsec entrance, and I decided what the heck I’ll pop out – YIKES. Immediately I was in B-7DFU which had 44+ Goons just.. there. I popped right back into that wormhole so fast, I was terrified that someone would have spotted me and followed. Thankfully I had already scanned down the whole C5, so I was able to pop over to the C4 static instead. No one followed me (to my knowledge). This new C4 had a C1 and a C4 as statics. I wasn’t interested in the C4 because I knew there wouldn’t be any relic/data sites to make use of, so I decided to explore the C1. No recent kills to be concerned about, most of the deaths on dotlan looked like NPC kills. There was also very little of interest there. Shoot. I was starting to get tired and really had nothing to show for my adventures. I decided to pop into the LowSec connection and see what was around. It was empty! Unfortunately there was also only a single relic site with a few million ISK worth of items. After a few minutes, a marauder popped in so I cloaked and waited to see what he was up to. He dropped some drones so I figured he was ratting, and as soon as I uncloaked in my relic site he scooped his drones and left. I took that as my hint that he might be back in something that was meant to smush, so I once again dove back into the wormhole.

This time I went into a C2 that had a C5 and a nullsec connection. Neat. Also highly valuable as far as wormholes are concerned, there were people living there. FOUR buildings set up – but they haven’t been active lately. In fact, it looks like they had a bunch of people griefing them in early June, they lost a bunch of POCO in the system, and then The Initiative and The Tuskers Co. had a bit of a brawl in there too. No action since June 14th. I wanted to go nose around the buildings, but instead I was distracted by the EIGHT relic / data sites that were in system. EIGHT! FINALLY! Jackpot.

Finally, almost 300 million ISK in my haul, it was time to find a high sec connection so I could dump it off to my market character. Then I’d have to use my scanning character to figure out where my static HS lead to, and make my way back to my orca suitcase. All in all, it was a pretty profitable day, a nice break from gas, and I got to see some cool people doing cool things (and then I promptly flew away before I was discovered, as is my way).

Fly your way! o7

78 Days in Signal Cartel

I know I mention it from time to time, but I don’t really make a lot of posts about my days in Signal Cartel, mostly because I don’t want to accidentally cross over into any credo breaking territory. Our stance on all eve players, no matter where they hail from, is neutrality. As neutral as we are, it is (quite often) not always reciprocated. We can defend ourselves in combat – but we do not ever instigate, or perform activities that would lead to putting our neutrality in question. So far I’ve found this corporation fantastic. We basically all just do our own thing, and meet up occasionally for events / classes / every Sunday for ‘coffee’. There is no pressure, as long as you partake in and love activities that involve exploration.

Besides roaming jspace looking for data / relic sites, I help tend the eve scout caches that you may have seen strewn about in systems. These cache include a probe launcher, some probes, and sometimes ‘hugs’ which is just a little extra item to cheer up anyone who might be lost and need our services. Basically, we help people who forget to bookmark exits, or who have had a wormhole roll before they could get back out, or any other manner of being ‘stuck’. We use a co-pilot called Allison who helps us out with all of this, and I’ve really been enjoying my time in the corporation so far. It’s quite different than a ‘typical’ corp, which honestly works perfectly well for me. Some times I don’t feel like being social, and there’s no pressure for that. Sometimes I’m overly social, and that’s OK too. The corporation is filled with like minded passionate people who want to help others and I love it.

We are of course also free to pursue other activities, our exploration ships need funding after all, but the majority of what we do is exploration. My Signal Cartel character also has a lot of combat training to her, but I haven’t really made use of that for some time. I might get into it more and explore Abyssals. These are Eve’s version of instances / dungeons, with quirks, of course. Any way, more about that (if I attempt it) another time.

Fly your way! o7

Bring on the Twitch Drops

I’ve been trying to find some Eve streamers to watch throughout the day, but there’s a lot of ‘bro culture’ for lack of a better word, so it has been a slow process. CCP has offered some pretty nice rewards for watching during the weekends, and I’ve tried to make a point of catching those as often as I can. The EverMarks I could do without, but the ship skins can be traded to other players, and are usually not too bad looking. The mysterious crates have been meh – but it’s nice to get the skinr items, I’m hoping I eventually collect enough that my purchases will be minimal.

I have been working away at the dailies on my main only, I honestly can’t be bothered to do it on alts. None of them do any mining, or scanning, or manufacturing, and that makes the majority of the tasks unobtainable. I don’t think we should be expected to do all the things on each of our characters per account, and I wish CCP planned this better. Still, I AM looking forward to the skill points that I’ll get tomorrow. I’m very close to finishing up my training on drones V, and my main just crossed over into 51,000,000 skill points. My alts are all much lower than that, but that’s OK, what they do, they can do pretty well (minus that new LP farming character who is horrible. I’ll get there). As always, fly your way! o7

Suitcase Challenge Day 47: Sneaking Past Conflict

I haven’t had very good luck lately with relic/data sites, and I think that’s because it’s the weekend. From Thursday to Sunday afternoon, EVE gets pretty busy. I’ve come to expect it (let’s not get into the player numbers since Equinox has released and the disappointment people are feeling with that) – any way, I was out exploring down the chain of WH from where I’ve set up my Orca, and happened to walk right in to some conflict going on between a tengu, gnosis, astero, and three or four other ships (maybe alts). In J164104 They were fighting on a high sec entrance and I wanted out, so while they were all preoccupied with each other I slow boated (cloaked) my way around the other side and manually flew my ship out. I checked the zkill and it was pretty populated, a lot of WH that I explore don’t have much displaying. It looks like Pillars of Liberty might be set up there, I saw quite a few deaths from their side since May 27th or so. Before that it looks like they spent some time in J144956. Which has just a huge amount of combat. The Astero in the fight made it out alive, but I saw that some others didn’t fare quite as well – an Epithal being one of the fatalities (it looked like it was empty).

I’m not a huge fan of PVP game play, but I understand and respect that this IS a (mostly) PVP game, so if someone engages with me in a WH I will at least provide them that content. My goal though is to avoid being seen / found / detected at all. I picked a very quiet WH for that exact reason.

I have been watching a really neat video from someone who lived as a ‘nomad’ and recorded his adventures, and he made some great points about picking a system to live in that I didn’t really think about and that’s making me consider changing my home base system. I was concerned about finding a system that had a high sec connection – but if I’m looking for quiet, it might actually be better to find a quiet system with a C1-C3 connection, and a C4/5. The C1-C3 systems have a very high chance of having a high sec connection. High sec connections means busier (usually). Lots of day trippers and lots of hunters. Anyway, it’s something for me to consider.

I’d like to have proximity to gas & ore, with the option of finding a high sec connection “easily” (within 2-3 jumps). My second account has been training up a blockade runner, and I think that would help when it comes to moving stuff around. I plan on continuing my PI adventures at the Wormlife Freeport, honestly that’s a fantastic set up already and I wouldn’t be able to improve on it. Their 4.5% tax is incredibly reasonable, and having others around works to my advantage – I’ve got two alts who have been living in one for almost a month now. The system is too busy for me for ‘regular’ life, but it works well for PI.

Much like real life, I just seem to be getting an itch to move to some place else. In my day to day I’ve moved over 20 times, rarely living in one location for more than 5 years. My family was military, and it was just normal to frequently move. My spouse now is a first responder, and we still move every 4-6 years. I’ve never minded this, and I think it carries over to my experiences in game. Doing ‘the same’ for too long starts to wear on me.

As always, fly your way! o7

The Little Astero That Could

I’ve been using my Helios almost exclusively for exploration, but I did win the fully fit Astero from Signal Cartel a few weeks after I joined, so from time to time I like to dust that off and fly it around too. It’s fit for sub 2s warp which I really like, and it has a bit more room than the helios, plus a few drones that I like to keep around in case something jumps me and I need to put out a distraction so I can get away. Everyone seems to like the way it looks, which I think is OK but I’d like to pick up (or design) a skin for it in the future.

Really though, the Astero is just a stepping stone to the Stratios, which I also own but for now I cannot fly it with my Signal Cartel character. I know both ships were pretty expensive due to some specific components, I’m not sure if it’s coming down in price, but that would be great to see. I built my Stratios after winning the BPC on hypernet, and like I mentioned, I won the Astero. I don’t take them out very often, especially since I can fly a T3C already (on my main, at least) but it’s still also fun to switch things up. I see a lot of “why do you fly abc123 ship, this xyz ship can do all of that and BETTER!” – sometimes, you don’t really need a ‘why’ – the answer is “because I can.”

Fly your way! o7