Got Serpentis in my Research!

On my way out to the edge of the galaxy I ran into one these abandoned research outposts in 6RCQ-V a Cloud Ring system. It was an Amar research facility when I arrived at the facility I found a few Serpentis ships hovering over the facility:

The info window on the amar research station had this to say about the site:

In-space research laboratories are often established to circumvent planetside laws and oversight. As a consequence, an entire research industry has slowly emerged among the stars, often leading the planetside economies in space-related research. One inevitable by-product of this relentless expansion has been the downfall of countless outposts and laboratories, whose empty, pilfered husks now lie discarded and forgotten.

A nice little find on my way to the edge of the Galaxy, I'll keep you posted anything else I find interesting.

Rice.

The Coliseum

After yesterday's adventures in the Vale followed by a quick trip to Jita with a now emptied out cargo hold I headed up toward the Cloud Ring region to the aim to go and visit "Assilot". Assilot is a tournament ground like the gladiator pits of ancient Rome except in EVE and fights are broadcast on federation TV from PPG-XC. After reading up on Mark726 post on the land mark I was keen to go take a look!

On my way up to the site I found that local was absolutely choc full of pilots, there was a big gate camp in the low sec to high sec system gates which I was able to nimbly sneak past with my trusty cloak. I found bubbles everywhere and numerous pocos all under reinforced. The area as fraught with danger and large groups of pilots were flowing in and out of local.

A quick search on eve news 24 shows that the region has been highly unstable since Imperium alliance announced is withdrawal from the area back in July of this year. The majority of the pilots I saw in the area were from "Pandemic Legion", "I Whip My Slaves Back and Forth", "SpaceMonkey's Alliance" and "WAFFLES".

As there was too much activity going on in the region, it was not safe to work the local signatures so I carefully threaded my way through each system from safe to safe avoiding bubble after bubble until I reached my destination PPG-XC and I received the below message:

The famous duelling tournament, ‘The Legends Trial’, has moved to PPG-XC, to escape various expenses associated with having its tournament inside Federation space. Also by staging the tournament here, it can choose from a larger variety of competitors, such as criminals and members of outlaw organizations which would be immediately arrested in Federation space.

The Legends Trial is a popular show on Federation TV, it is broadcasted to billions of screens across many regions. Huge money is at stake, and gambling on the events is extremely popular. It is therefore not surprising that various criminal networks are working hard to ‘influence’ the outcome of the show and rig fights. The organizers of the Legends Trials have hired a sizable mercenary fleet to protect its assets, but even so it has become extremely vulnerable to pirate meddling, especially due to its new location outside of the protective embrace of Federation space. Certainly a freelance merc pilots dream come true.

 The tournament ground was awesome, there was large stalagmites set in formation of a circle and connected to two arena stations where the I can only assume is where spectators stand to view the battles:

While I was floating about the landmark site I got a shout out from a Pandemic Legion pilot "Sayori Mishi" I was actually away from my key board when she flew through system so I didn't get the chance to reply her but she sent me a wave due to my affiliation with the Signal Cartel. 

Another cool site down, my cargo is empty but so I'm off to the next landmark before heading home to Thera. Not sure where I'll be heading next but for now my course has been plotted toward Deklien I've never been to the edge of the galaxy before so I'm going to see what it looks like over at UJY-HE.

Fly Safe,

Rice.

Get Off My Lawn Seargent Hakiro!

After finding my way to Thera and dropping off a few modules in my new home station, I had a look at what worm holes were currently open in Thera and found one that was connected to the Vale of the Silent. There is one landmark site located in this region, in the G5ED-Y system called "Seargent Hakiro's Lookout". This would be the first landmark I went out to visit, it was located out in null sec. I'm running fairly low on ISK at the moment I only really had just enough to put my current ship together with a little left over to replace it 2 or 3 time should I get popped so the prospect of scanning down null sec systems for the better exploration loot was appealing.

I headed out and found the region populated by the "Get Off My Lawn Alliance" my route on the way to the landmark was fairly quiet. I scanned down each system on the way finding a number of relic and data sites here and there. I was able to amass about 60M ISK worth of old circuit boards and other valuables from the Gurista sites I uncovered and I was only about 3 systems away from G5ED-Y. I was in B-E3KQ, there was 1 other pilot in local so I set up my safes here and there and I scanned down the sites and waited for the other player to leave. He didn't leave, so I stayed AFK in the system for about an hour when I came back that other player was still in system. His name was Q Sertorius from "The Graduates" a corp that is part of the local alliance in the area. With the naivety of a new exploration pilot I assumed after waiting around doing nothing for an hour that Q Sartorius must be AFK, so I jumped to the only data site that I had scanned down in the system and started hacking the first container...

Next thing I new, I was locked and scrammed. He had been cloaked and waiting in the site for over and hour for me to arrive! Well I lost my cheetah and about 60M worth of hard exploration work in about 5 seconds. I was lucky enough to get out with my pod, we exchanged a few friendly parting words (he did deserver the kill after patiently waiting for over an hour) bid each other the common and ironic farewell "Fly Safe" and off I went. I was considering heading back to high sec from here to re-ship but I was only a few jumps away from my land mark site. I was gutted to lose my ship and all that loot but I wasn't going to let it stop me from getting to that land mark, Seargent Hakiro is expecting me!

I flew my rickety little pod over to G5ED-Y and found the land mark, this is the message I got as I got close to the system:

The Caldari State have found something significant in G5ED-Y. The State military has set up a huge base of operations in that system, and its presence there is thick as sour milk. The Guristas on the other hand are extremely curious as to what their arch nemesis has discovered, and have set up many bases in the surrounding systems to oversee reconnaissance missions into G5ED-Y. A division from the Serpentis has also been sent to the constellation on behalf of the Smuggler Cartel, led by the infamous Black Jack.

I wasn't quiet sure what they actually found there, all I was able to see were a couple of broken  asteroids that had been mined out and some broken structures of what Mark726 describes as antennae. The site was impressive non the less and there was a fairly decent sized number of Caldari navy ships floating about with Seargent Hakiro watch over the site in the middle.

Alright, it was time to find a ship. I was glad to have reached the landmark but now it was time to get back in a ship. I had enough ISK to put together my Cheetah again but not so much ISK as to but the over priced parts for it from the local systems. I wasn't too far from Jita, I always hate going to Jita the Cartel had a war dec and it's never a good idea to visit trade hubs during war time but I didn't have much of a choice. Thankfully I was able to fly all the way back to Jita in my pod safely to re-ship I undocked and used the cartels insta undock bookmark to get away from the trade up and quickly as possible.

With no loot in my cargo, I didn't need to go back to Thera I decided my next stop will be to the Cloud Ring Region.

Until next post, fly safe!

Rice.

My story so far

When I first started playing EVE back in 2010 I thought the idea of being a space pirate would be fun so that's what I did. I geared my self up with a Rifter fitted it with some T1 auto cannons and pack in a copy of "Piracy 101" by Skira Raynos and headed out to low sec. Mostly I just kept getting blown up, I remember almost getting killed by a hulk once he set his drones on me chased me away. After having a few more experiences like that I decided it might be time to go join a university to see if I could actually learn how to do this PVP thing.

I joined a university called OUCH, the open university of celestial hardship I took all my classes and learned all the basics of EVE PVP in T1 frigates. After graduating from OUCH I introduced the game to a real life friend who also decided to become a pirate. We set off on our own into my first real home station in EVE of Otou located in the Sinq Laison region and a close neighbour to a major trading hub system, Hek.

This is where our lives as pirates really kicked off, we were still very low on skill points and I had only just had enough to fit T2 auto cannons. Getting more and more proficient with the D-Scan and working together to narrow down prey. We got a lot of traffic coming out of Hek and Otou is a small system with only 1 station so it was easy to track down prey. Occasionally we would head out to null sec but there were much larger fish out there and it most of the time it was better to leave that area of space alone. It was a hard life as a pirate, we would amass a small amount of loot from our prey which was only just enough to keep us going day to day. Then one day we blew up a few too many Rifters and my partner in crime decided to call it quits.

I floated about on my own for a little while, not really sure what to do with myself. Of course being a local pirate in the area I did get to know some of the other locals but they were mostly busy running their own businesses. It was at this point I decided to give up my life as scavenging pirate and I went out in search for a more peaceful lifestyle. So I hit the belts and beat on rats for weeks to grind my sec status back up. It was funny to be on the other side of the coin this time, occasionally I'd see one of other local pirates try to catch me in a belt. When I saw them on d-scan I'd warp to a safe perch and wait till they got bored then continue ratting again. After grinding up my sec status I joined a Black Thorne Corp (BTC), who operate out in the Syndicate region and base themselves in lovely little high sec island with the main offices located in Maire.

I participated in the PI scheme and joined the odd mining op every now and then. BTC's main business is in the production of capital ships most of the corp participated in their production by making use of the various buy back programs. I mostly helped on the PI side of things it was a much slower paced lifestyle in eve and a lot less stressful on the financial side of things. Then one day the "Horse Killers" arrived in Syndicate and declared war on BTC. Mining operations stopped happening and taking my Mammoth out to pick up PI goods was a lot more risky than it was before. Our pocos were constantly being attacked but we were able to fight the Horse Killers back with swarms of T1 frigates. Eventually the war ended, medals were handed out and things settled down again. At this point, my real life got a little more busy and stopped playing EVE for about a year.

I came back to the game about 2 weeks ago and I tried to get back into BTC but I found that the old corp mates that I used to play with during my AU TZ had all moved on and things had gotten pretty quite within the corp for my play time. So that brings me to today, I decided to start a new chapter in my EVE life. I didn't want to be stuck in a single region of New Eden, I wanted to see the sites and get to know the galaxy a little more. I had always heard of the huge alliances that BTC was selling capital ships to way out in null sec and I would read on eve news 24 about wars out in whoop whoop but from my small sheltered homes of Otou and Maire I had never really seen anything. So I used what cash I had left to pay for my licensing fees fitted up a Cheetah, packed it with probes and off I went.

My plan was to not really have a plan but to follow in the footsteps of the great EVE traveler, Mark726. I would head out to really see New Eden, I had never even gone out to see the EVE Gate (I still haven't actually) but it's something I've always wanted to do. I was also going to use some of my exploration skills to see if I could find any hidden relics on my way to each land mark and hopefully make a few isk along the way. I also joined up with the Signal Cartel a peaceful exploration and scouting organisation who are based in Thera. The Signal Cartel are a true haven for all explorers in EVE, the home base in Thera is connected to all of New Eden through a large and ever changing network of worm holes and the cartel's exploration loot buy back program makes the conversion of loot to ISK simple and easy without the need to expose ourselves to dangers of Jita while at the same time supporting the cartel.

So that's the story so far! more to come of my endeavours in New Eden!

Fly safe,

Rice.