Wandering New Eden: The Basis of Soul

Crimson flames tied through my ears

Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now
Bob Dylan - My Back Pages

Period Basis and Paragon Soul

Again the trip was rather uneventful, I dodged a pirate gate camp... if by dodged I meant ignored them completely and kept going.

This Blood Raider Oracle had no idea I was there, which is probably for the best, considering their reputation.

I bet that Lava planet used to be temperate too.

Knowing I was going to Paragon Soul, I decided to add a little caveat to my trip, since I'm visiting every region anyway, why not visit the tips of eve? There is a northern, western, eastern, and southern system that represents the furthest you can go on the map, and I've decided to visit those systems. The west one is back in Fountain, but since I'll be going back there at the end of the trip anyhow, it's still on the list. South is a system in Paragon Soul called LX5K-W. So away I went.

I took just a little bit of time warping around and making safes to get this picture for you, but I think it was worth it.

Just let it happen. The eclipse that is.

This is what greets you when you enter the system. Shoulda just used this.

And that's Paragon Soul. There's an index page for this now, it's below the banner. You're welcome.

Next stop Esoteria and Stain!

Wandering New Eden: Index

This index is brought to you by sexy girls in pirate costumes.

1. Fountain
2. Delve and Querious
3. Period Basis and Paragon Soul
4. Esoteria and Stain
5. Catch and Providence
6. Impass and Tenerifis
7. Feythabolis and Omist
8. Immensea and Detorid
9. AND THE REST.
   

Wandering New Eden: Deep Questions

Starry nights city lights coming down over me
Skyscrapers and stargazers in my head
Are we we are, are we we are the waiting unknown
This dirty town was burning down in my dreams
Lost and found city bound in my dreams
Green Day - Are We The Waiting?

Delve and Querious.

I decided to do a bit of digging, and found the place where KenZoku lost the war to the goons. I can provide a short bit of backstory here.

You guys know most of the story(and perhaps all of it): Basically, when the BoB director went crazy and disbanded the alliance, they reformed under the banner of KenZoku, and reclaimed all their space. Of course, this led to capital warfare in systems that were no longer cyno-jammed. Goons came to town and the two sides fought each other to a stalemate. Then the Bob guys had the bright idea to dock up their carriers/dreads in a station. Almost all of them. Goons bottled up those capitals, and the war shifted in the favor of the goons. That station was the end of the old BoB.

So of course in passing by Delve, I decided to drop by.

Welcome to PR-8CA III - Blood Raiders Logistic Support

Kinda grey inside, like a graveyard...

The blood red color of the system cannot be a coincidence...

Of course, I also took a little side trip into Querious, to ensure I could tick it off my list of null-sec regions. I stopped by an ice belt in K4-RFZ and snapped a few pictures...

A few different kinds of ice in this belt.

That's a plasma planet in the background.

The sun is always rising in New Eden.

Next stop, Period Basis, and Paragon Soul.

Wandering New Eden: Here Be Dragons

Although I laugh and I act like a clown
Beneath this mask I am wearing a frown
My tears are falling like rain from the sky
Is it for her or myself that I cry
The Beatles - I'm a Loser

So I've been a bit bored in Eve, and decided to pick a new project that gives me some incentive to get back into the groove. The new project had been code named Project Ahasuerus since I first thought it up, and now that it's moved into reality, I suppose something a bit less subtle would be in order.

I've been meaning to try out a T3 cruiser for a while, but I've really been short on funds and incentive to fly one. With the Cynabal I've managed to acquire in the Foxfire Rocket game, I had almost half of the isk needed to buy the design I wanted. I put a bit more isk in it myself, and bam. I've got a ship.

Now I'm not going to go into to many details of fit until I'm done, but yes it's cov ops capable, and yes it's got interdiction nullification.

So what's the goal of all this? A complete circumnavigation of new Eden. Not some speed run either, I aim to visit each null sec region in turn, and have a whole post devoted to at least once system in it. I will take pictures, and they will be posted here. I started in Jita, and decided to head to Fountain first. I began in Serpentis Prime, and I intend to end in Serpentis Prime. I'm pretty sure I can avoid empire altogether in this route, and so I will. Unless I actually see some serious scares, you're not going to hear much about my trip, since it's nearly impossible to catch me.

First Stop: Serpentis Prime

The path into Serpentis Prime was actually pretty clear, I did dodge one gatecamp on the way in, a small gang of folks probably pretty angry that I wasn't caught by the sucking 'dictor bubble they deployed. They sent a 'ranis after me, but I was long gone before he burned back to the gate. I also cross jumped a small/medium sized Wildly Inappropriate gang, which didn't even try to turn around and catch me. After a few more jumps, I made it to my destination.

I am fortunate enough to be in possession of a much better graphics card than I used to have, so I was able to take some pretty nice screen shots of this System.

Lets take a look at the surface of one of the lava planets:

Now lets zoom out a bit:


This temperate planet has some serious storms:



But sometimes it's just cloudy.


Inside the rarified atmosphere of a blue giant:

You can actually see my ship slightly in that last one. I am starting to see why people are so impressed with the graphics this game offers, now that I can actually see them that is.

I'll leave you with one more parting shot from Fountain, which I took for a desktop image.

Next Stop, Delve!

Who Wants a Cynabal?

Check it out!

Making Low-Sec More Attractive: Pirate Gates

No, not that way...

I've decided to flesh out(teehee) my smuggler gate idea a bit more thoroughly this week. Lets dive right in.

Derelict gates would sit in the middle of nowhere, and need to be probed out. I think this should tie into the developmental index ideas that people want to institute for low sec, but could stand alone as well. The concept is simple, once a certain threshold of kills per day is reached, the abandoned gates in a particular system activate(in addition to the gate it's connected too, of course), and get manned by the local pirate faction. There would be gate guns that are just as deadly as normal gate guns, with a major difference.

These gate guns would treat outlaws like normal gate guns treat normal players. In addition, those who aren't outlaws would be treated to a face full of hurt if they fire on an outlaw in range of the guns.

So basically, we're taking the old gate gun rules and flipping them around for the new pirate gates. These pirate gates would allow shortcuts across low-sec, into null-sec, into a few wormhole systems, and even into and out of high sec. Anyone could gain access once they'd bookmarked them. Only the gate gun rules would be different.

Now, onto the ultimate question, would something like this bring more people from high sec to low sec? The answer is simply: Not enough to be a solution for the terribly low population most of low-sec suffers from. The presence of hidden gates from high to low-sec would of course bring the occasional curious care bear, and a few more seasoned ones looking for a fight or a profit. The vast majority of care bears will stay in high sec though. This alone will not solve the many problems facing low-sec.

What this would do, however, is offer some benefit to the lifestyle choice of low-sec living. It is in dire need of some true motivation. If you don't enjoy the lifestyle for it's own sake, the concept of being a space pirate, or the friends you've made... the game itself has no real incentive to play as a low-sec resident.

Making it more fun for the outlaws would be a fantastic start.

Two Very Nice Changes In The Patch

• The diplomat corp role has been added which allows the corp member with the role to manage the corporation standings on behalf of the corp. This means the person with the assigned role can add new standings from their corp to some other entity or adjust existing standings.

• The align to bookmark command was added so you can so align towards bookmarks in space.

Just thought I'd point those out, since they're pretty cool.