Tag Archives: nullsec

Added Responsibility

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.

A Mercenary Den attached to a Skyhook in front of a beautiful planet.

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!

New Things Are the New Old Things

Heh, just as I was getting into a comfortable rut, things are – of course – changing once again! Brave will finally complete the move to Delve, and Querious will be passed over to Sons of Bane, an ex-Pandemix Horde (or Fraternity?) renter alliance that has joined the Imperium. Time to get those Jump Freighter and Carrier skills up to snuff!

Old Things Are the New New Things

My trusty old Vexor being shot by evil Blood Raider pirates.

So, what has life been doing to me over the last couple years? A bit, you might say… we were neck-deep in a war with Pandemic Horde, Fraternity, and the rest of the Northern Coalition, back in Pure Blind and Fade. We managed to keep them off with our friends from B0SS and V0LTA (under the awesome name of “B3”), but at some point we decided that this was no way to live, and we relocated to Querious, joining the Imperium. We have since then expanded to Delve, after Goonswarm have moved over to Tenerifis, to be closer to content.

Okay, so, new space, anything else? Not really. I have taken up a bit of freightering stuff around, but I still spend most of the time nibbling on either rocks or pirates; in a completely non-sexual way, I swear!

I have recently taken up a hobby that is quite close to beating pirates in the face with a hammer, but with a purpose: ADM Upkeep! Shoot as many pirates in as short a time as possible, to increase the Military Index of systems that have a low Activity Defense Multiplier. This helps defending the system, in case any of our neighbours should get any funny ideas.

It’s not glorious, but it’s honest space work, and I ❤️ it.

Trying New Things

I have recently started to diversify my undertakings a bit, to catch more of the beauty New Eden has to offer. And what I currently feel drawn to quite a bit is nullsec, the lawless wild-west style area of New Eden that comprises an estimated 75% of the known star systems (too lazy to do real math now).

I have always enjoyed hunting pirates in empire space but here in nullsec the bloody pirates are everywhere! It’s quite impossible to take a turn somewhere and not stumble upon a huge number of pirate installations that are just begging to be taken down! And with the nicely increased Bounty Risk Modifier set up by CONCORD I am more than happy to oblige! 😁

And the loot all these battleships drop is amazing. Sometimes it’s so much that I can’t scoop up all the loot and my MTU at the same time! 🤪

I just need a way to chew through all those battleships a little bit faster because my drones sometimes take their sweet while but I already do have a plan for that…