I wasn’t playing much EVE at the beginning of August, so my ISK making chart remained mostly empty – and then when I got back into the swing of things I decided I should start up a 3rd steady account to play along with my other two – so that’s exactly what I did. I had been training the account for some time already, it’s an old one I had from 2010, but had stayed at the alpha level. I used ISK to plex the account.
Still, I made over a billion ISK for the month even with my limited game play. I did some mining, a little ratting, and because there was a lovely electric storm for a few days I was able to get a lot of hacking done. I debated if I wanted to sell everything or keep it for crafting, but in the end, I sold it. Next round I’ll be hanging onto the bits though. Things are getting expensive, and I’d rather craft it all myself.
At the end of the month I was in a strange frame of mind where I decided I should sell off some of my mining ships, which I instantly regretted and re-purchased at the beginning of September. Still trying to work myself out of that debt at the time of this post. I’m not sure why I buy / sell ships depending on my moods and whims, I should just hang onto them for the future when I change my mind, because I almost always do.
My market character is almost done training to fly a blockade runner, and I’m thinking it might be time to get back into market trading. For now she’s been hauling my PI that I drop off weekly (I have 2 characters living at a Freeport Wormhole who do PI and nothing else) and I also use her to run hauling missions when the daily requires 50LP. I don’t know what I’ll train up next on her.
On the 3rd account my character is able to fly mining barges and exhumers – but I’ve downgraded the exhumers because of the cost and the fact that there’s a lot of gankers around. I mine slower – but safer. I’m OK with that. We’ll just have to see what September brings.
Joining Pandemic Horde Inc back in April of 2024 opened a few doors to me that I never knew existed. First of all, a huge number of the regular / steady EVE Online players belong to nullsec blocks. Whether it’s Goons, Pandemic Horde, or someone else. Even if you don’t play in nullsec, I dare say that everything that happens in EVE, is touched in some way by these players. Whether it’s the huge battles & content that happens, the mining, or the ratting. To implement things like scarcity within null is to make a change that trickles down and affects every single person in the game – and scarcity, is not good. CCP needs these players to keep doing their thing, so that other aspects of the game continue to thrive and survive. I was astounded at just how many nullsec players are active in the game. On reddit there’s tons of comments about nullsec players crying when changes happen – but nullsec players are the majority. Implementing changes that cause them to quit, is bad. Whether or not everyone else likes it.
Content is good. Cheap ships are good because that lets everyone undock and create that content. If we’re all too scared to undock because ships are expensive, that’s bad. Lack of content is bad. People LOVE the big fights. They LOVE being a part of something larger than themselves. They thrive on the drama. It was so easy to get caught up in it all. Some take it a lot more seriously than others.
Because Pandemic Horde Inc doesn’t have a screening process, ‘Awox’ is common. This is when someone joins only to lead the enemies right to your own alliance. Sometimes it’s as simple as a 1 day member, sometimes it’s someone who has been around plotting for months. Scams are common, preventions are put in place, until those are figured out and so on.
I remained loyal to Pandemic Horde while within their corporation, but eventually you learn you’re just one tiny little insignificant person within a giant cog of other more important people. In a lot of operations, bodies, are what matter. Even when I left PHI to join an ‘ESI-Gated’ corporation (I eventually joined two) – it was quiet. These people had been gaming together for 10-15 years, and I was an outsider joining. The friendliest corporation I joined was actually PHI because of the rotating new players. I’ve mentioned a few times now that I’m not a huge PVP player – but I do feel a fierce loyalty to my ‘area’ in space, I’ve stood up to gankers who were harassing miners, and I chased neutrals out of spaces when they were attempting to rob ess, or skyhooks. ISK is easy to make in nullsec, but there’s also risks. Some newer players would (wrongfully) assume that because it was “our” lands that it was 100% safe. Absolutely not true. It is ‘safer’ than other areas, but never 100% safe. Anyway.
I learned how to fit ships, how to make ISK, how to escape when someone was after me. I learned how to protect an ESS, how to defend a gate, how to roll a wormhole, and so many other little tips and tricks that you can’t learn in EVE without participating in something bigger than yourself. My bookmarks folder overflowed with charts, graphs, websites, and information all relating to EVE Online. I stayed out of the drama portion of it, but I read about it in chat and saw others talking about it. Why certain fights went the way they did, why we did certain things over other things, etc.
One thing that constantly came up that frustrated me to no end was the abundance of misinformation in the newbean channel in game, and the inability for people to just read. I doubt this is a PHI specific issue, more likely an issue with people in general. All of the information someone could ever need has already been written out and posted, somewhere, you just need to actually read it. Day in and day out, the same questions would be asked, and answered, sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly. I obviously don’t know everything about the game, but there was just so much misinformation. I wasn’t expecting that.
*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.
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.
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.
A Pixel Nomad 