2024

A Home for Peaceful Explorers

stargrace April 9, 2024 No Comments

When people talk about EVE Online, I’m always surprised at how many different ‘things’ the game is to each individual. To some, it’s a PVP game. To others, it’s an industry game, and for some – EVE is a game about exploring, and discovery (it can also be a game of all of these things, that’s the point). It’s no surprise that I fall into the later categories, and to be honest I’ve always felt a bit awkward, like I wasn’t “playing the game right” because I’ve got zero interest in blowing up other people. I am glad there are many different ways for each person to play, but I never truly felt comfortable doing what I enjoy, in a corporation setting.

Then I heard about Signal Cartel. A neutral corporation who helps players who are lost in space, no matter their standings. They thrive on exploration, and the more I read about their credo the more interested I was. I hummed and hawed over the decision for a month and then decided to take the plunge. I got an invite. I joined. I met people. I tended to my first EVE-Scout cache, and for the first time in 15+ years I felt like I was HOME in EVE. It’s not a ‘safe’ choice, since Signal Cartel does get wardec’d frequently, and let’s face it this is EVE, but right from the start, it felt like the right choice for me. If you’re not sure if your current corporation is the ‘right’ fit – then go out and find one that is. I promise such a thing exists, it just takes a bit of time to wade through everything first.

After I joined, very little changed in my day to day except that I had more purpose (and a lot of reading). I was already jumping into WH and mapping – that continues. Now I can tend the caches that are placed for lost pilots while I’m already out and about. Industry is a nice background activity, and I continue to do that, too. I’m hoping that this ends up being my ‘home’ for a good long time, we’ll just have to see.

As always, fly safe o7!

Woah. Auviken has something going on

stargrace April 6, 2024 No Comments

Yesterday I got an email from CCP saying that there was something mysterious going on in the Auviken system, and if we were to turn in some drone graviton emitters, we could help contribute to the development of the new facility, and earn LP (loyalty points) that could then be traded in for a new consortium tractor beam and mobile tractor unit.

Right now these items are going for a LOT of ISK – but I’m not sure I have any interest in trying to collect them right this second. I did fly out to the location, and well, a LOT of PVP has been happening over there, even though it is a high sec area. My concern is that if I try to turn in the parts, I’m more likely going to get killed and have those bits stolen. There were some cargo scanners going off – and while I was as “safe” as I could be (I just headed out in a tiny imicus with nothing important on me for screenshot purposes) I don’t really feel like tempting fate. I’m quite content to let everyone else chase after the new shiny, and I’ll just watch and take screenshots – much more my thing.

The rest of the day was filled with my usual adventures. I scanned down sites, I found a few quiet sections of space with some data/relic adventures, and of course I continued with my industry, and earned a bit over 100m ISK for the day. I had to do some shopping, my Orca was out of booster / compression components, but it was still a pretty nice day. I found one particularly neat looking relic site that was filled with all sorts of space junk floating around – took a lot of screenshots.

Today – shield management V is finally finished! My training queue is sitting at 370 days (hah) just of items that I actually want / make use of. I do have almost 47m SP, but that is just a drop in the bucket. I have nice skills for flying / using what I have but I’ll be chasing that SP train for years still and I’m OK with that. Even though I find the PVP aspect of the game incredibly fast paced and anxiety inducing, the rest of the game is pretty relaxing and low key (minus the constant paranoia that I’m about to get ganked). It’s the weekend, so the skies are filled with players, especially in my little neck of the woods where everyone comes out for the ice belts.

As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself!

My Biggest HS Win To Date

stargrace April 5, 2024 No Comments

Yesterday I wrote about how I wanted a new Tengu fit, and that I had spent the evening cobbling one together that did what I wanted it to do (ie: things I actually enjoy) – and then I took it out and played with it in some HS combat sites. I lucked out.

The first site I scanned down was called ‘Serpentis Lookout‘ – and what’s most important about this site is that there is ore here that you normally cannot get in high sec.

• Scarcity Update: This site, like other cosmic signatures, contains ore.
• As of 15 February 2021, this site contains the following units:
• First room: 3x 5,000 Hemorphite (15,000 units, 45,000m³), 25,000 (50,000m³) Jaspet
• Second room: 85,727 Omber (51,436m³), 835,762 Plagioiclase
• 3,192,395 Veldspar (throughout)
• The acceleration gate permits expedition frigates, exhumers, and the Orca to enter the site. An Orca and Skiff were sufficient to kill all NPCs present.

• Warning: Once the Boss has been destroyed, the site disappears from the Probe Scanner.
• Once this happens, the site will despawn immediately if you abandon the site.
• Keeping at least one character in the site will prevent the despawn.

While mining after the site is complete, an additional frigate may occasionally spawn.

Since I was in my home system, it made things pretty easy. I started working away on collecting the ore once I dispersed of the site, and then that little tidbit at the bottom about the additional frigate happened. Well.

When I killed and looted that frigate, I managed to pick up an additional 44,000,000 ISK worth of value. That brought the total value of this single HS site to over 100,000,000 ISK – That was the biggest payout I had in HS to date. My overall ISK gained for the day (between a few sites, industry, etc) was: 349,904,003 and all of it was done in HS. Peanuts compared to the big guys, but I’m less than a month back in game, and I was so excited! I know there’s all sorts of comments about folks who live in HS, and I hear about how the ISK/h is very low – but none of that really matters when I’m enjoying myself playing the game the way I want. Overall, the entire day was just a gigantic win.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!