Sansha Hordes

Clearly no final night would be complete without my own mini-adventure. I was flying my final few agent missions before the upgrade and got sent deep into the system of Unkah after an escaping Minmater scout ship (an ex-slave race, who are never in the Amarr good books). The location was rather picturesque - we faced off a few km from a wrecked station and several wrecked ships. I was delighted to later discover the many frozen corpses floating amongst the wreckage, a suitably gruesome end.

A wrecked battleship, dwarfing my tiny cruiser.


The wrecked space station.


The wrecked space station.

As my combat came to end (my cruiser made short work of the scout) over fifteen Sansha ships warped within a mere 30 to 40 km of me. There was another player in the distance, Gfidex of the Stain Alliance, clearly engaged in some kind of level 3 agent mission. Thinking I could safely take that opportunity to investigate the wreckage, I stuck around. Not the wisest of moves. The ships in question were rather beefier than those I had run into myself, and one Sansha equipped with piercing red laser (that never seemed to actually stop firing once turned onto my ship) took a liking to me.

The 'rat was still at long range, so I experimented with my 125mm named Railgun and Tungsten ammo, trying to make a dent in his shields. I had little luck, whilst he pummeled my shields and my capacitor (that was feeding my shield booster) rapidly ran out. Before I knew, my shields were empty and my capacitor non-existent. With my armour being eaten away I desperately warped away to repair and recharge. By the time I returned Gfidex had killed the entire force and was happily emptying his cans. As I explored the wreck, he gave up picking up his loot and left the system, leaving most of it for me to pick up, purely to keep space tidy you understand...

Twas The Night Before Christmas...

EvE goes offline at 10 am tomorrow as the Exodus upgrade begins. For me it's my final night of slow money earning doing agent missions, hitting the delights of 23 million Isk as my evening ends. I've begun running a level 2 Amarr agent for more challenging missions and greater rewards. I shall still be plundering the high quality level 1 agent I've been using in an attempt to get more implants, but this low quality level 2 will provide much needed variety. Already I've been sent jetting off across the constellation after a kidnapped "damsel". The 'rat in question was tougher than I've faced recently, hurling missiles from behind an almost competent level of shielding and armour. A final log in tomorrow morning then, change the not quite finished Drones skill from level 5 training and slap in Astrogeology to increase my money making in the inevitable mining next weekend. Exodus ahoy...

Brotherly Love

I spent yesterday afternoon mining feverishly with my brother's character, Andan Chosmith, doing the hauling in his Industrial (and mining as much as possible too). We're both in desperate need of more cash for next week's Exodus expansion, so we made a good 1.2 million from our couple of hours graft. Serpentis pirates roam the belts of the 0.6 system in which I usually do any solo or small group mining. They're no threat at the worst of times, but when I'm the only defence (with seven medium drones able to launch at once, currently) I usually lose a drone or two along the way. A somewhat costly exercise.

Brothers mining hard in Caslemon, drones circling.

I moved agents in Amarr space again on Friday. I was fed up with the low quality rewards of my previous Internal Security agent, so now I'm working towards a level two agent and more challenging foes again. It looks like there will be no large mining operation this afternoon to earn me more Isk, so it's time to run agent missions until the lure of Half Life 2 becomes too strong again. The raids into Amarr space should be taking place at some point today, so my eyes are flicking to the map every once in a while for any indications it's begun.

Sticking My Nose In...

There's always something happening in the depths of EvE space and recently I've introduced myself to the Events forum. This board details not only official events run by the staff ingame (be they raids into player alliance space or strange happenings, for example) but also player organised events. One such event was the massive anti-slavery protest by over 120 Minmatar pilots in Amarr space this last Sunday. As I understand it, the protest was basically peaceful (even during an incursion by Archangel ships) until the arrival of several loyalist Amarr fleets (PIE amongst them). Then events become hazy but it appears the Amarr loyalists opened fire on those of the protesters who had yet to leave.

All of this has resulted in a raid being organised by Minmatar corps against Amarr slave convoys for this Sunday. And I am left desperately wanting to watch this, hopefully avoiding death in the process! It's great to have these things happening around you, totally independent of a huge percentage of the player base but at the same time involving significant numbers of them. I intend to spend part of my Sunday feverishly studying the "player kills in the last hour" display for each system on the map.

The Amarr Vacation

I recently took a holiday from my usual stomping grounds of Gallente Federation space and moved my Vexor cruiser "Channon I" into the heart of the Amarr Empire. The scenery is all rather different (see the screenshots below) and the missions potentially more lucrative for me in my current state. I've spent the past few days working for an Admin agent of the Imperial Family, attempting to earn some more level 1 implants that I'm missing. After a few too many dull courier missions I decided to leave my Admin friend be for a while and move my focus to an Internal Security agent. I see many hours of killing the strange looking Sansha pirates on my horizon.

The Imperial Monument and Imperial Family station.


A different type of station in Amarr space.


Another Amarr station variant.

Whilst jumping back from a courier mission I passed a small fleet of ships affiliated with the pirate "m0o" corp. I attempted to follow them but failed miserably as they were still some way of their final destination. One of these days I'll manage to track down a fleet fight or other happening, and snap myself some pictures. Alex Jerusalem, roving EvE photographer!

I was also spoken to by Cold Acid, a Caldari member of the "Templar Industries" corp. They're on a recruitment drive and asked me if I was interested. It's been a few weeks since a corp last tried to get me to join, but I'm still not quite ready to leap into the proper world of player corps and alliances. Sooner rather than later, but not yet. TEMP are marked for future reference, however.

And Why Not?

I've been playing EvE since September 11th 2004 and thought - why not Blog my adventures. My character, Gallente male Alex Jerusalem, is still young and fresh faced in the huge EvE universe. There is much to learn, many things to be destroyed and many millions to be made. My character still resides with the NPC (non-player character) controlled corporation Centre for Advanced studies, where many Gallente newbies begging. Despite the excitement available by venturing into proper player-run Corps, I'm enjoying the company of my fellow [CAS]ers for now. We're a friendly bunch of varying levels of experience and a lively ingame chat channel, so my desires to leave are on hold for the immediate future.

For now many people are in a state of hoarding in EvE, whether it be hoarding of money or hoarding of refined minerals. The Exodus expansion will soon be upon us, with wondrous new ships for all levels of player, and many other changes to our gaming world. I and others keep a close eye on the latest updates to skill requirements for our desired forthcoming ships, slowly preparing our characters for the upgrade. So back to work for now and let's see if a daily blogging of my activities succeeds.