Eventful Evening

Well that was a rather eventful Friday evening. Before the Exodus deployment the Gallente Federation presidential elections were bubbling along in the background of EvE. Gallentean pilots like myself were able to vote whether or not to allow the standing president the opportunity to run for a third term. He won the vote and now a presidential election is on the cards. Last night the NPC starter Corp I'm part of was contacted by one of CCP's ingame helpers, in the guise of a Gallentean official. A convoy of fake votes was on its way somewhere and we had to intercept. I decided I'd have a shot at stopping them and headed to their destination at the time. Long time EvE player Farjung made first contact and was promptly demolished as it turned out the "four escort frigates" were in fact dangerous Assault Frigates! I was left to merely shadow the convoy as they journeyed onwards, whilst joining up with the growing gang of Gallente players ready to stop them.

Four or five of us made contact with the fleet by a jump gate but disaster ensued. One player targeted & attacked another member of our group and got taken out by Concord police officials. Another player opened fire on the targets but the rest of us did not. I attempted to target the hauler carrying the votes but it jumped before my drones could reach it. With two players lost we followed the convoy some more, picking up players on the way. When they stopped for supplies we attempted to ambush them, with a few of our gang succeeding and taking out the hauler and two of the escorts. The remaining two escorts ran into the bulk of our small force as they tried to leave the system via a different gate. I was in amongst this force but repeated warnings of Concord retribution dissuaded me from opening fire on the target (an irrelevance I realised afterwards, but I'd just watched Elliott Manchild get torn apart by the police and didn't fancy it myself). The final two escort ships were soon taken down, however, and the players who had engaged returned to the Gallentean official with ballot papers and the corpses of the renegade pilots for rewards.

Feeling rather stupid, I made a note to damn the consequences in future and just wade straight in to these things. I made the three jumps back to my current base of operations and decided to try some agent missions. Working for a level 2 surveillance agent I engaged in my first since the Exodus upgrade. They're still not firmed up (for deadspace missions the rewards are generally too little and for all missions there's a tendency to flood the pilot with immovable station containers and vaults) but I fancied some fun. I hunted down a Serpentis convoy, retrieved some important papers from the middle of one Serpentis hideout and rescued slaves from another. I also had my first Deadspace mission, the purpose of which escapes me but involved hunting down various pirates whilst sustaining heavy laser fire from two turrets! Fun but rather poorly rewarded. Hunting down the Serpentis convoy proved to be the most enjoyable, as when my drones took the hauler down and my turrets had finished off the escorts, wave after wave of eight Serpentis craft at once jumped in. I think I may put mining on hold this evening and run more of these missions.