Tag: EVE

[EVE Online] The OOC of it all

If you had of asked me 2 years ago if I thought I’d be living in NullSec, with Pandemic Horde, I probably would have laughed. I always thought NS was forbidden, and I left it at that. Then I learned about Pandemic Horde, and their NBI program.

The NBI program gave ships & lessons to anyone who joined Pandemic Horde Inc, no matter their background. We were allowed to fly in Dronelands in a handful of areas without being required to do heavy security checks. This was good, and bad. It left PH open to a lot of AWOX (where your own alliance mate turns and attacks you, or leads enemies to you), but that also brought some content. A lot of corporations within the alliance really disliked PHI because of their open door policy. There was a lot of paperwork involved.

Moving forward, PH has decided to change how PHI operates, and they won’t be marked blue to INIT (even now, in PHI I am neutral to most of my old alliance mates). Pandemic Horde Inc will be left out of the alliance, and this also means they cannot be wardecked. This is a sharp and drastic change to the PHI that I’ve known for the past two years. I have no idea where PH is headed, but crashing with INIT has a timeframe of 10 weeks.

There is a new branch of Pandemic Horde called Cool Beans, and it ESI is required (and has other basic security checks). Activity is also a requirement to join. We’re meant to be “graduating” from PHI to this new corporation.

I’ve done my fair share of PVP over the past two years with my PHI character. I also floated between gated / non-gated corporations within the alliance as I tried to find a good fit for my playstyle and casualness. I am a creature of habit, and the past two weeks in game have been a LOT of changes. I’m frustrated and angry with so many things, and I don’t like that in my video games.

I don’t feel like Pandemic Horde is the right corporation for me any more. I don’t feel like the changes align with how I want to play, and I especially don’t like the lack of control I have about this whole situation. I understand I am a single nobody in a whole ocean of nobodies, but it is absolutely up to me to make sure I am having the sort of game experience that I want. If I’m not, it’s up to me to change that. I also don’t like how chat has been reduced to “suck it up buttercup” if anyone complains, and how somehow we’re not “true pandemic horde members” if we are uncomfortable with how this shit show went down, or if we want to get off of the sinking ship.

I have not left yet. I’m trying very hard to make educated decisions without letting my frustration about the situation take over. I think it will just take more time.

Fly your way o7

[EVE Online] War Update

Filed by Gallente Citizen 4586793463

It began like most disasters in New Eden do — not with an explosion, but with a series of CONCORD notifications.

At first, Gallente Citizen thought it was a glitch. The Alliance feed kept lighting up, a steady drumbeat of messages from CONCORD that all read the same:

CONCORD War Update: Post Nut Clarity With The Boys has left Pandemic Horde.
CONCORD War Update: Our Sanctum has left Pandemic Horde.
CONCORD War Update: u.k militia forces has left Pandemic Horde.

And on it went.

The sound became background noise in the clone bay — the soft ping of corporate departures rolling in like rain on a tin roof. By the time Fusion Enterprises Ltd and Inner Legacy were gone, most pilots had stopped pretending not to notice.

In the hangars of F7C-H0, pilots floated between ships in that quiet, aimless way people do when they aren’t sure if they still have a home. Crates of ammunition sat unopened. Ship fittings were half-finished. The market buy orders looked like they’d been placed by ghosts.

Captain Johnny Trousersnake’s name was still pinned to the top of every alliance broadcast, but the tone in his pings had started to change — less rallying, more “we’re monitoring the situation.”

[Trousersnake Broadcast]:
“We’ve had some corporations make different choices recently. We wish them well. The Horde remains strong and united.”

In local, someone replied:

“Define strong.”

The list kept growing.

Royalty. has left Pandemic Horde.
Death’sEnd has left Pandemic Horde.
Splash Inc. has left Pandemic Horde.
Sand Storm Town INC. has left Pandemic Horde.

Every line felt like another plank being pried off a sinking ship.

By the time Office of Krabbing Regulation and Auditing left, Gallente Citizen could only laugh. The accountants had fled. That was never a good sign.

The comms chatter grew restless. Some pilots were angry, others mournful, a few just relieved to have an excuse to go somewhere else. Everyone had a theory — that Gobbins’ departure announcement had shaken the leadership, that Johnny wasn’t ready, that the move to Cloud Ring was a mistake.

Gallente Citizen listened quietly, leaning against a shuttle wing, the blue glow of Cloud Ring’s nebula reflecting off their visor.

“Are you going too?” someone asked over fleet chat.

“Nah,” Gallente replied. “I’ve already unpacked my stuff.”

There was a pause. Then someone chuckled.

“So you’re staying?”

“For now.”

It wasn’t loyalty. It was inertia. Horde might be bleeding corporations, but it was still home — at least until something better came along.

When MASS, one of the older names in the ticker, finally left, the alliance feed fell silent. Even CONCORD seemed tired of reporting it.

Golden Fleece has left Pandemic Horde.

The last one.

After that, nothing.

The absence of sound was deafening.

Gallente Citizen opened the Alliance Members window. The list looked thinner now — hollowed out. But there were still names there. Familiar ones. The pilots who stuck around not because of promises or speeches, but because they hadn’t yet decided to quit.

They closed the window and smiled faintly.

“Still plenty of us left to lose.”

Then they climbed into their Zealot, powered up the engines, and began another patrol of F7C’s gates. Not because it mattered, but because routine was comforting.

Somewhere in a distant comms relay, another CONCORD message queued up, waiting to be sent.
Gallente Citizen didn’t bother checking who it was this time.

They’d see soon enough.

[EVE Online] The Breakout at R-AG7W

Filed by Gallente Citizen 4586793463

Three fleets, one plan.

Two of them would muster in MTO2-2 — a solid forward point. The third, smaller fleet, would stage from R-AG, still under the watchful eyes (and smartbombs) of the Goons’ hellcamp.

Gallente Citizen 4586793463 was in that third fleet.

They hadn’t volunteered. They’d just clicked “X up” too quickly in the ping channel, and now they were part of something called “Fleet Three: Maelstrom Shield” under the command of Captain Nina.

It was supposed to be straightforward: break the camp, and slowly head to rendezvous with the others. Easy. Routine. Practically tradition.

Except, of course, it wasn’t.

The staging hangars in R-AG were alive with comms chatter as the fleet assembled.

[Fleet Broadcast]: “Maelstroms only. Shield logi. Bring ammo.”

Gallente Citizen had never owned a Maelstrom.
They were expensive, loud, and looked like flying furniture.

Still, they borrowed one. Temporarily.

Then, minutes before undock, a new ping came through.

[Captain Nina]: “Change of plans. Zealots instead.”

A moment of silence followed, broken only by a confused Maelstrom pilot typing “???” in fleet chat.

[Someone]: “Didn’t we just buy the Maelstroms?”

[Captain Nina]: “Yes. Sell them back. We’re going Zealots. Lasers are prettier.”

[Fleet Member]: “Why?”

[Captain Nina]: “Because gold pen.”

It was an explanation that explained nothing, but it was Horde, and that was enough.

Within twenty minutes, the Maelstrom fleet had become a tangle of mismatched Zealots. Some plated, some not, some accidentally armor-tanked and shield-tanked, all of them eager and slightly terrified.

Gallente Citizen fit one with leftover modules and prayed the lasers would at least fire.

When they undocked, the void was chaos. The R-AG camp still burned with hostile bubbles, but Captain Nina’s voice was steady.

[Captain Nina]: “Keep me at 1,000 range, We’re breaking out.”

They warped as one. Or close enough to one. Explosions bloomed in the dark, a dozen Zealots vanished instantly, vaporized mid-warp, but the fleet punched through.

Against the odds, they reached MTO2-2. The two waiting fleets cheered as the ragged Zealot gang arrived, smoke still trailing from their hulls.

Three fleets now stood united: two proper, one improvised. It was messy, loud, and very much Horde.

Their next jump brought them into HD-JVQ, where the Goons were waiting.

Ravens. Dozens of them. Sleek, expensive, smug.

[Captain Nina]: “Primary the Raven Navies! Burn!”

Beams lanced out. Explosions followed. A few Raven Navies popped gloriously — but then local spiked.

[FC]: “How many more of them?”

[Scout]: “Yes.”

It was not the answer anyone wanted.

The sky filled with missiles and bombs. Horde ships melted under the barrage. Pandemic Horde tried to hold the line, but the enemy numbers were obscene.

[Captain Nina]: “…Stand down. Pull out if you can.”

The silence that followed was almost reverent. A few typed “???” in fleet chat again. One Zealot posted a sad emoji.

But the order stood.

The fleet warped off in tatters, their victory limited to a few smoking Raven wrecks and a lot of existential confusion.

Gallente Citizen’s Zealot didn’t survive the retreat. Their pod awoke in R-AG, the familiar sound of station alarms echoing in the background.

From the observation deck, they watched the system burn, the dual Keepstars glinting against a backdrop of wrecks and bubble fields.

Someone in local typed:

“We killed a few Raven Navies tho.”

Gallente Citizen just leaned back in their chair, coffee in hand, and muttered,

“Gold pen, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”

Then they opened a fresh notepad entry and typed the title for their next report:

‘The Breakout at R-AG: A Study in Improvised Zealotry.’

[EVE Online] Moving (Again)

I know I said nullsec blocs were not for me, but I do have a single character who has been a member of Pandemic Horde (one of the nullsec corporations) for the past year and a half. It started as an experiment, I was looking for simple ways to make ISK and there was a YouTube video promoting Pandemic Horde and how they would supply you with ships, and you could just spin a vexor (and later an Ishtar, and eventually a Praxis) and make money in their nullsec systems. I had never belonged to a nullsec corporation before so I made a brand new character on a new account and started from scratch.

Back when I joined, things were different than they are now. A lot has happened since then. It took me a lot of time to get over the basic atmosphere (a lot of ‘bro’ type chest smashing, some not-so-polite conversations, etc) I don’t know if it’s the same for all nullsec corporations as this is the only one I have any experience with, but there’s a lot of misogyny in EVE to begin with. It can be incredibly uncomfortable and I’ve definitely had some moments of “why am I even here”. Anyway. I’m not really sure why I never wrote about it much, a lot of covert ops stuff goes on and I suppose I was slightly worried about that, but life’s too short, so expect an onslaught of posts – though I will do my best to keep things paced as ‘events that have already happened’ and not ‘down to the second releasing potentially important intel’ though to be honest I’m a tiny bean on a long pole of more important beans, so nothing I know about is important news anyway.

The point of this post? We got word we’re moving staging – again. We just moved in the summer from our longtime home of MJ-5F9 to E8-432 and now we’re off again. Moving is a huge complex event with a lot of parts. During the first move I actually took it as an opportunity to shuffle 90% of my stuff back to a safe NPC station in highsec (we were not at war at the time, thankfully) and so now I have limited ships to move this time. I’m glad that’s the way I decided to do it. I also moved all of my clones, which was a bigger issue because they’re quite valuable. My preferred method was of course to use wormholes. I scouted out a wormhole close to MJ (where my clones were stored previously) and followed the chain until it jumped out into highsec. Found an NPC station, dropped off the clone and a ship, self destructed back to MJ, rinse repeat.

This time around I have even less ships to move, because I’ve been leaving my PVE ships in the systems I hang out in, so I think I only have some expedition frigates to move, if I even decide to do that. I do have a bunch of NBI gifted ships but those are not worth much at all and I won’t bother moving them.

There are a bunch more posts I want to make, and I may even share some spoof posts I’ve made in the past on another site, but for now I’ll leave it at that. Life in nullsec is very different than other places I play, but I think I’ve done OK with it.

As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself.

A Wormlife Truce

I mentioned in a previous post that there was some drama going on with the Wormlife freeports, and true to my impartial nature, I stayed completely out of it and just waited for things to either escalate, or pass. I temporarily left the channel for the wormlife freeport that I had been using as my base of operations with my signal cartel character, and was very pleased when a few weeks later this diplomatic cease-fire was announced.

Life in my wormhole returns to normal, and I continue to tend caches and explore about on my own – there have been some new people who moved in, which includes a new structure for industry minded folks, but I have mostly kept to myself so that I didn’t inadvertently break some part of the credo while there was a war going on in system.

I did take some time this week to move my huffing ships back, I left my PI ships in system as I had a pilot for each so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

As always, fly your way! o7