The Solo Skyhook raid of an (EVE) lifetime

So, a second post in a day, I'm frankly spoiling the four readers I have left.

When I left off last time, I mentioned I was about to try out Skyhook raiding, specifically after watching this video by Span Matsutake. I fitted myself up a Squall in Jita, warped out to a safespot, and lit a noise filament to Null. Nothing like diving in head (or hull) first!

To cut a long story short to get to the meat, I spent about two hours pottering around NullSec getting ignored by ratters trying to work out how to raid a Skyhook without making a tit of myself, until I finally found a Skyhook with a decent size "loot bar".

Despite two people in Local with me I thought screw it, free PvP, and started the link after knocking the silo's shields down to 10%.

As I was warned to expect, a 10 minute timer system alert went out to everyone in Local Chat, but there was no reaction from the locals.

Weird.

5 minutes left. Another alert. Still nobody coming to shoot me

2 minutes remaining. Nobody moves. Nothing on scan

Unironically tabbed out on my alt for most of this

1 minute...

20 seconds...

5 seconds...

Complete.

Well okay. That was easier than I expected.

I warp out to my ping and warp back at zero to the spawn container, expecting 200-300mil in gas:

Oh shit

I think my reaction in Discord speaks for itself:

I was uncloaked the whole time I was typing on Discord, definitely not thinking straight

Luckily, Span Matsutake had prepared me for this. Once I got the theft shakes under control, I warped to my safe, dropped a depot and refitted for travel with probes, interdiction nullifier and a warp core stab, before lighting a filament into Pochven.

Now I've never really been to Pochven before so I have no clue about mechanics, like how local works, where you land when warping to wormholes etc. Unfortunately I took basically no screenshots at this stage because I was busy panicking, so you'll have to deal with my wall of text to describe the scene.

One Triglavian system, covered in the light of a corrupted star

One Squall, poofed into existence in the middle of space

One pilot, absolutely shitting bricks as he spams the cloak button

"Oh fuck", I realise I didn't launch probes before I cloaked, and D-Scan is showing literal hell (10+ Golems or some shit, a Legion, a Stabber Fleet Issue and two Erises... Erisi?), but no combat probes yet. Feeling like I'm firing off a flare that shouts "COME SHOOT ME I'M AN IDIOT!" I decloak, launch probes and wait out the sweat inducing re-cloak timer. Hopefully nobody caught me on scan during that...

Yeah right this is EVE, surely I'm dead meat?

Busy imagining T3s speeding towards me, I check the signatures in system, knowing I need a wormhole out into regular HighSec. Only four to check, thank god, I don't want my probes out for long enough the locals realise it's not one of them. I start scanning the first, struggling a little after spending so much time in an Astero with a Virtue set (first world problems am I right?).

First is a... Combat site - not ideal

Next one is a... Combat site again - uh oh

Third time's a charm?...Combat site - fuck

At this point my internal panic meltdown is going nuclear. I had/have no clue about Pochven mechanics, I assumed they always have a static wormhole out but I didn't actually know that. I also had no clue if I was able to dock in Trig space, I've never bothered to farm standings but I know that some things like gates and services don't work unless you're at certain levels. Clicking show info on the stations showed nothing obvious blocking me docking, but I really didn't want to find out I couldn't dock with nearly 1bil in cargo and lots of hungry locals around. 

The thought of trying to safe log with at least 12 other people in system with me who almost certainly had combat probes available made my teeth itch. This last signature might literally be do or die. Here we go.

30% scanned... 

58%... 

Wormhole!

The relief is like I've jumped in a cold pool, but then a new anxiety hits me. Technically two:

1) What if it's not to HighSec?

2) What if it's a deadspace pocket and I need to slowboat 80km cloaked at like 80m/s?

I figure I can't do much about the first problem; I'll just have to go look and deal with the outcome. The second problem can be solved by Google surely:

Christ I'm about to trust 900mil cargo to an AI overview, EVE 2026 things

Well that sounds promising, but the referenced EVE forum post just states "All Pochven WHs use the Drifter WH mechanic of being deadspace", so...?

I don't really have many choices besides 1) die or 2) maybe die. I'll warp to the signature at 100km and pray I can bookmark and warp directly to the wormhole after bouncing to a safe.

"Shit, I guess this is it" I think. One last D-Scan check. Legion and SFI are still around, but outside 5au. Nothing in the direction of the wormhole, unless it's cloaked. Probably best to not worry about that.

Deep breath.

I uncloak, spam Warp to 100km.

My Squall, painfully slowly, lumbers up to warp speed. I cross my fingers and grit my teeth as I fall into a warp tunnel.

I land on grid, 158km from the Wormhole, Gallente NPCs are surrounding it (didn't even think about that problem). Show info says HighSec!

YES!

Trying to not let my hands shake I start to save it as a bookmark, then I realise.

I'm at 158km.

The warp to button is lit.

Surely not?

I click warp, and hear probably the best audio notification in years:

Warp drive active

Holy fucking SHIT

I land on the hole and spam jump

Infinity takes me, and spits me out in...

I spam dock on the nearest station and finally celebrate once I'm in the hangar on Discord

I courier contract that shit straight to Jita, and then a wild idea hits me. Why not again? Maybe another billion haul? ISK dancing in my eyes I launch myself back into NullSec with another filament.

However after two jumps:

Ah... shit

Well nevermind I guess

Brutally podded back to my base in Derelik by a Northern Coalition gatecamp that seemed to form literally just for me, I sit and laugh. 

47mil loss for an 898mil gain? I'll take that any day.

Anyway, that was my first experience Skyhook raiding. I might try again in a few days, but first I need to buy and fit this suitcase carrier, as well as load all my ships for a nomad life. See you in the next post, where I'll discuss my ship choices and my first holiday location in my shiny suitcase carrier!

The 2026 EVE Addiction Relapse

 Damn it's been a while!

There's something every year or two that pulls me back to EVE for a week. Typically I'll log in, buy the weekend Omega pack, check out what the latest update is, potter around doing some Abyss content or a little exploration for 3-4 days, then I'll lapse into Alpha again and repeat each year.

This year has been a little different and more sustained, mainly due to the fact I've had a second child!

Insert celebration gif etc

Since I've had nearly 2 months off due to both my employer's relatively good paternity policy and some tactical use of owed holiday, I've found myself with a lot of "free" time. Anyone who's had kids knows they don't really do much for the first few months, just sleep, eat, and cry. So I often found myself sat at 3am many nights feeding a baby and needing something to keep myself awake (falling asleep holding a baby is very dangerous, other great parenting advice available on request).

Obviously, my thoughts turned to a video game of some kind, and as you can tell from the fact I've made this post, that ended up being EVE. 

So all that said, what have I actually been doing?

The Vision

Before I won EVE last time, I had the idea of living a nomadic lifestyle through LowSec/NPC NullSec by using a suitcase carrier and a plethora of PvE/PvP ships in the SMB. I never actually actioned this besides doing a little research on how to actually fit a carrier for this sort of task. I only ever used ratting-fit carriers in Null and I suspected that wouldn't be suitable (shockingly I was right). However, before I actually tried putting any of this into action, my attention lapsed as did my Omega status.

When I came back this time around, I was determined to test out my nomadic dream, but there was a small issue:

I sold my ratting carrier when I left NullSec in 2021 and the only capitals I have languishing in stations for the next Null dream are a Rorqual, a Naglfar and a Minokawa, none of which are suitable for this task. 

"Well Seraph" you say "that's no problem, just buy one, they're actually cheaper now after the rebalance"

Well it is a problem because:

Zendrak is mostly poor

Seraph is poor

"Okay but what about those capitals you said you had? Or your old ships? Sell them surely"

No no no, forget all that, what we need is a new goal! A project to keep me interested at 3am! What we need is:

The 5bil Nomad carrier fund

Okay, a lot of words so far to say basically nothing (very on brand for me).

So obviously to make this money I started with what I knew, Level 4 mission blitzing and Abyss sites out of Umokka, a 0.6 Caldari system near Jita.

For those wanting to run CN level 4s, this is a great location!

However I basically stopped after the first hour, I was burnt out from doing this so much last time and was immediately bored. My next thought, well maybe if I'm going to be doing NullSec life, I should get back into the NullSec mindset and shake off the rust. So NullSec exploration farming was the next choice, and this actually kinda slapped:

420mil in a few hours farming, not bad

Unfortunately I was doing this in Scalding Pass (Goonswarm space) and I was frequently chased and hunted by local residents, or I'd have to pause for random roaming solo PvPers/gangs that had combat probes. I decided to fuck off to Curse instead, mostly because it was dead during my timezone, but also because it was still in range of the Sov upgrades that give "Detected" exploration sites that can escalate. While I was in Curse, I had a little fun bullying other explorers too:

Didn't even tackle him, just rammed him with MWD to mess his align

However, my fun was cut short by the discovery that my favourite constellation (and access to the outer edge of Scalding Pass, where Goons often didn't run any sites) was usually camped by the same corp each day, as recorded on my Discord messages to my old corpmates:

It turned out I was fully incorrect, Goons did not come slap them because they didn't really give a shit about the access to their space. Understandable since they were already in it, unlike me who was trying to sneak back and forth between Curse and Scalding Pass to steal their sites. 

Me micro-blogging on Discord to friends who are working and not reading my messages

After a few days in Null where I raised around 3bil and managed to evac my loot through a convenient set of wormholes (C3->C2->HS in Lonetrek), I decided to test out another part of my plan - Nomadic living. For this phase I decided to use an Orca and head to Derelik. My plan was to have ships for numerous situations and ISK making opportunities that may arise, namely:

• Gas mining
• DED escalations from farming combat anomalies
• Besieged Covert Research Sites (BCRS) in adjacent LowSec
• Combat signatures

Ideally the ships for these would fit in an Orca's SMB to simulate what I would be doing with the suitcase carrier in the future, but I quickly realised the number of cruisers I wanted rapidly outstripped the space in the Orca, so I ended up with:

1 x Stormbringer - Escalation farming Sansha Refuges and Dens, completing 3/10s and 4/10s

1 x Muninn - Specifically for completing the Sansha 5/10 (final room is brutal)

2 x Ventures - Gas mining fit (there's a surprising amount of gas spawns in Derelik)

1 x Buzzard - For scouting the Stormbringer into LowSec and scanning for gas sites

2 x Manticores - For duo boxing BCRSs in less than 5mins

So a pretty potent farming fleet, but you'll notice, basically no ability to defend myself in terms of PVP. This was mostly by design, my planned nomadic lifestyle isn't really supposed to pick fights and stand ground, it's more a sneak in the back door and take all the food while everyone is looking out the window.

Anyway, I've been pretty successful so far farming out Sansha 3/10s, 4/10s via scanning and 5/10s, here's the current loot including some BCRSs I've done, some gas and a few random faction spawns while doing anomalies: 

Netflix and farm refuges

Also a confession to make: while I did hit 5bil, I spent 1.4bil on a Vargur.

Oops.

This was because I did a quick side quest farming Angel Refuges next door in Heimatar for the Angel Red Light District 5/10s. Ironically I gave up on this after about a day. I had basically no good drops, didn't enjoy the autotargeting Orthrus I was using, and the 5/10s took ages to run unless they were in HighSec (and I could use the Vargur that I'd purchased for this exact reason).

Also, I got killed taking a LowSec shortcut and couldn't be bothered to replace it:

Also got my pod smartbombed, managed to rip out most of my implants first

I'm not coping, stop looking at me like that.

Anyway.

At this stage I was looking for a decently priced carrier that I could bring close to HighSec for fitting and loading up with a ship roster until I got distracted on another sidequest:

Skyhook raiding.

But that story will have to wait until next time...

See you in space o7