For a couple of days I have now been the first-time owner of a Mercenary Den. A Mercenary Den is a structure that can be attached to a Skyhook, and it will produce some artifacts that can be traded for blueprints and other neat stuff in Zarzakh. However, what it also does is messing with the Skyhook’s workforce output, negatively impacting system-wide installed upgrades for mining or combat sites, or Ansiblex Jump Gates! Luckily that only happens after a while, and it gives you the possibility to prevent that from happening: by running so-called Mercenary Tactical Operations, which can be activated every three days.

And today I ran such a Mercenary Tactical Operation for the first time, specifically a Rogue Drone Emergence. There’s three possible sites that can spawn, I’m excited to run the other two as well!

When I activated the acceleration gate, my heart made a small jump into the direction of my pants. (Proverbial pants, I’m a capsuleer, I don’t do pants.) About 30 NPCs, Frigate- and Destroyer-sized, were waiting for me, and as soon as I landed, they did not waste any time and pounced. They also are not shy with EWAR; about a dozen ships neuted me, I was webbed and warp-scrambled by another dozen, and the rest put their target painters on me. Most of them consisted of little more than paper, though, and my drones tore through their ranks like a butcher through a pig.

It continued to be this way for three waves, and in the fourth wave there was a change: there were a lot less Frigates and Destroyers on grid, but a Cruiser-sized vessel appeared, the Secure Emergence, which is the main target of the site. It did not pose any more threat than all the other ships, and so I had dispatched of the whole ordeal in about 20 minutes.

So, that was a successful morning! The production of my Mercenary Den has increased, and its Anarchy has been reset to 0, making sure that the Skyhook does not get impacted by it. Tonight I’m going to anchor a second Mercenary Den, and even though each Mercenary Den is a responsibility, I am looking forward to this!