EVE

Ahbazon? Sure, I was There

stargrace August 30, 2024 0Comment

*note* These posts are all historical in nature, everything has already happened, and I’m no longer in these corporations at the time of posting, which is why I’m posting. This will be a series of posts about my experiences in Nullsec, the good, the bad, and what I learned as someone who was new to it all.

In April of 2024, I watched a YouTube video talking about making ISK in EVE Online, and in specific, it went into details on how to do this in nullsec, which at the time, I had never lived in before. It was basically click bait, but I didn’t know that, either. The very first step in this video mentioned joining one of the nullsec blocks, Pandemic Horde, and then spinning vexors for hours while semi afk. Since I’ve always been a big fan of the financial side of EVE, I decided I was going to make a new character and try this.

Pandemic Horde Inc is the entry corporation that doesn’t do any background checks, not that they would have found any with my brand new character anyway. I opted not to blog about my adventures for a while, and I’m not a big PVP player anyway, so it’s doubtful that I would have any intel to give. When I first joined I was overwhelmed with the information they throw at you – but I learned it. I joined discord, mumble, and various websites. I read about the corporation rules, where we could rat, where we could do PI. I read about the history of the corporation, where we had come from, and where we were headed.

I was approached by a member of the ‘NBI’ team – this fantastic entry level community called the Newbean Incentive. They check in with new players, offer them free ships & skills, and answer questions. They also provide classes to teach you how to live in nullsec. This program is the main reason I stuck with Pandemic Horde Inc for as long as I did, and I have almost nothing but good to say about it. There are a few ‘bad apples’ who make you feel lesser, who want you to jump through some hoops for them and want you to know how important they are compared to you – but those people are on the minority side. Ideally, you hang out in PHI for a little while, and then after some time passes you move up the ranks to an ESI gated corporation, someone who does background checks on you / your accounts and vets you, before you join. This opens up the areas you can do things in, and so after 2 months of PHI, I did move on.

When I joined PHI I was immediately overwhelmed by it all – but I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to prove my worth, and be a part of things. So when pings went out for fights, I went. My first ‘big’ fight was Ahbazon – I flew logi. There was so much TiDi I was terrified I was going to do something wrong. This fight took 6 hours. It was NOT exciting but the idea of it was. The idea that there were so many pilots around was fascinating. Needless to say, I did not break even in that fight, but it was an experience that set the stage for the immediate future and I was hooked. I felt this strange patriotism towards a corporation that I had only recently heard of, had never been a part of, and I felt like I belonged, and that we could do no wrong. None of this ended up being true, but it didn’t matter.

90 Day Suitcase Challenge – Conclusion

stargrace August 18, 2024 2Comments

I debated if I wanted to remain in my WH for more than 90 days, but decided to take a little break – not from EVE, but just from the stress of leaving the Orca in a wormhole. It’s an expensive ship – and I rarely ever logged it in unless I absolutely had to, but that came with pros and cons (as does anything in EVE).

Overall, I absolutely loved my time living in jspace. I’d (ideally) like something more permanent – but nothing in EVE is permanent, and if you go at it solo (as is my way) you tend to get picked off fairly quickly. The goal with this challenge was to live in jspace using as small of a footprint as possible so that I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.

I made a LOT of ISK. Most of my ISK came from gas huffing and exploration (relic/data sites). A little bit of it came from running combat sites (I stuck to C1-C3), and a good portion came from PI. I’m not sure if PI counts because even though it IS in jspace, I’m using a wormlife freeport with a few alts rather than doing PI in the system I was living in. Once a week I’d collect my goods and move them to highsec, and then pick them up with the squall I eventually purchased.

I made a few friends out there – I joined up with a community of like-minded nomads, and watched a lot of videos and learned some things that I didn’t know before. I also figured out that living in jspace is absolutely my favourite place to be. I loved everything about it.

Taking my Orca home was rough, but not the part where I was moving it through jspace, the part that was rough was when I was trying to get back to my home system, in highsec. There were three gate camps going on when I initially wanted to move, so I had to wait those out and find a better time. It took days before I finally found a window to make the 35 jumps it would take to get back home. Ideally I should have just been patient and waited for a closer connection, but I was eager to move on to the next adventure.

The best thing I saw? Probably shattered wormholes. They’re beautiful. The scariest? Any time anyone showed up on d-scan. There were a few times I would leave my relic/data sites because I felt a weird feeling of being watched, even though I honestly didn’t know if someone was or not. I always used a perch to do my sites so that I spent as little time at the cans as possible. Oh, my favourite system is the one in the screenshot. It looked like an ocean in space, and it was beautiful.

Things I’d do differently if I were to do it again (which I might, I haven’t decided yet) – I THINK I’d like to anchor a small structure, or a POS. I know that it leaves a bigger footprint, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I know lots of corporations live in jspace, but I’m really not interested in joining up with a whole bunch of people that I may or may not get along with. In any case, it was a fun 90 days, and it went by VERY quickly. I can’t wait for the next adventure.

As always, fly your way! o7

Interesting Skinr Loot

stargrace August 17, 2024 0Comment

I mentioned in my last post that this week I’ve been farming a metaliminal electrical storm for relic sites, and I’ve probably done 100 or more by this point. Today was the first time I looted any skinr items, and I have no idea if they’re any good (I assume not) because so far I still haven’t played around with the system. I’m reluctant to spend plex on skins, I haven’t really seen any that catch my eye as a ‘I must have this’ – but I did hear that they’re making a lot of changes / improvements over time (maybe due to the lukewarm reception) and I hope it eventually gets to a functional state that both players and developers are happy with.

I will have an update tomorrow on my 90 day suitcase challenge! I know it has been a while, I haven’t forgotten about it. Life has just been pushing me about lately and I haven’t been able to fit in everything I would like.

As always, fly your way! o7

A 3rd Account, and EVE-O Preview

stargrace August 16, 2024 0Comment

I’ve been playing two accounts in EVE for quite some time, but I wasn’t very optimal in my play style, opting for one account on one monitor, and the other, on my second monitor. Then I learned about EVE-O preview, which lets you stack your clients and then have a smaller preview of each window on top of whichever window is active.

Game changer.

In fact I love it so much that I decided it was time to start up a 3rd account. This account is a bit different than my other ones, because it’s actually the very first account I ever made. My character is over 14 years old, but she also has less than 3 million skill points and got caught up in the renaming that happened many years ago, so her name was Gallente citizen 238423984723894738294738. Thankfully, CCP changed her name easily enough, as her original name was taken, and I spent some ISK and bought a month of game time to get started.

This week has been incredibly profitable when it comes to exploration. I found a storm system and camped it for a few days, earning just shy of 1b ISK in materials. I got some mining done (but not much) and have happily found myself back in the throws of EVE – despite my inner voice reminding me that The War Within launches very soon. No matter how I try, I just can’t seem to convince myself that Warcraft is where I want to be right now. I log in for market purposes, and then immediately log out. It’s exhausting trying to balance so many games, and I just don’t have the patience to play something that I’ve got to convince myself to enjoy.

In any case, I figure this 3rd account will become another mining character, and once the skills for that are trained up I’ll work on some combat skills. Nothing fancy is planned, but I know ISK/h goes up the more accounts you’re running (in most cases) so we’ll see how it goes. I can always drop back down to two accounts if it’s not for me.

As always, fly your way! o7

EVE Online Content Creators (I won 1b ISK)

stargrace August 15, 2024 0Comment

I’ve mentioned in a few prior posts that I was looking for EVE Online streamers to watch on twitch – it tends to be a mixed bag, I’m not a fan of loud streams as I use them to relax, I like to lurk, and I don’t enjoy the very (VERY) “bro” like culture that typically stems from EVE Online. That being said, there are a few streamers I have found that I enjoy watching, and one such streamer is known as ‘Steve’ and his channel is ‘Steve’s Haven‘. He runs a lot of giveaways for people, the more subscriptions in the channel (gifted, etc) the more he gives away.

Last night I was hanging out in the channel – and for the first time ever, I WON! I was so excited! A billion ISK is no small amount, and I was very thankful and excited. I probably used up all of my luck for the year.

I know there’s a lot of controversy around EVE and how they treat their content creators lately. Some folks are frustrated, feel like they can’t grow, are not appreciated by CCP, etc. I hope that these people know how valued their streams are to people like me. Chaos1298 is another streamer that I enjoy watching, along with Erst, and MarkeeDragon (Oz_Eve, also, of course). I’ve been thinking about streaming my own adventures but I don’t think it’s in the cards, I have far too much anxiety and I really dislike people constantly telling me I should fit my ships THIS way or why am I doing THIS etc. I am not a fantastic EVE player, it’s just a game I really enjoy (and I’m good at making ISK in it).

Anyway. It was a really awesome night, that ISK is going to be put to some good things and I should have some more posts coming up about what I’ve been up to in game since details have been a bit sparse.

As always, fly your way! o7