“o7”
“fleet up in standing fleet dude”
“but i haul and mine”
“yeah standing fleet saves ur butt bro”
Remember me saying I wanted to take it in slowly and that I wanted to see the game changes and the mechanics I missed out during my hiatus? I found out Cloud Ring just seems to be the right place for this. Although its overall security status is relatively low for a Nullsec region it provides a lot of fun and opportunities and Shadow Ultimatum [SHADO] surely put a great effort into making the region feel alive and cool to live in.
I realize the old POS (Caldari Control Tower & Friends) aren’t that attractive anymore and have mostly given way to the Upwell structures and only recently SHADO constructed the ultimate of these structures available: A Keepstar - A gargantuan spaceport that is able to support the docking of even the mightiest ships New Eden has to offer, Titans and Supercarriers. This now means even Titan pilots can relax with a drink at the local bar. They will finally know what Quafe Green Apple tastes like. Apparently CCP heard the players’ pleas for just such a thing. Simply ‘wow’!
So while admiring the Athanori, Athanores, Athanoresses or whatever that dotted the Nullsec landscape in an encouraging number it took the greater part of a week to haul up ships, modules, fuel, coffee (yes, absolutely another type of fuel) and some amenities the stage was finally set and conveniently, one day later a moon extraction happened. Another of those “new” mechanics I was eager to see and play around with. Once again, I remember a rather dull and boring “moon goo” experience from way back and again CCP surprised me in that they actually turned it into an engaging and more often than not dangerous endeavor.
Dangerous, because of course all our “friendly neighbors” know, too, when those moons are going to plop and they know that miners cannot resist the allure of fresh ore for long. So they come around and try to say hello to their “content”.
It’s good to have a standing fleet around at all times and it’s even cooler that SHADO actively encourages everyone to join, even (or especially) the industrialists so reaction time can be reduced as much as possible.
So we sat there one evening chatting about a number of things while enjoying the relative peace of a mostly quiet Saturday.
But EVE is EVE and on the next day, war was announced. Well, that didn’t last long.
I know, I know, I didn’t want to talk big and start small but in the grand scheme of things a number of annoying factors led to coalitions colliding and egos being hurt. And you still have very familiar names: Goonswarm, Pandemic Legion, some necromanced Northern Coalition clone’s clone and of course “ze Russians”. The usual.
All of a sudden, but still chill and smooth, an alliance’s war machine kicked in. That was VERY interesting to see. So mothball your Hulks and change your blue collar jumpsuit for a SHADO uniform and “get your shit” to the staging system. Things can change quickly in EVE.
Since I have been a resident of Tenal in the past I know the motto “the North will burn!” and of course the internet is now full of all kinds of Winterfell and Game of Thrones memes. It’s also still a (hilarious) part of EVE.
I mentioned LXQ2-T back in 2010. More than 3,100 players in one system alone, countless battles all around, server nodes crashing and CCP being forced to implement massive anti-lag mechanics that seem to have lasted until today. It was the battle of that time.
I now hope there’ll be another.
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