Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

Hey everybody, consider this a postcard from 0.0 space, Tribute region.

In all my EVE life so far, I’ve only been to 0.0 twice; once in an Ibis when I was young with a load of guns to sell at an open outpost (which worked but was very exciting and not worth the trouble), and once in a Faction Warfare fleet under RapidTaco; we camped the gate back to low sec for twenty minutes, blew up a few random and innocent victims, said “Yarr!” and then boogied before the natives could smush us like the bugs we were.

I’ve considered solo expeditions, being sneaky and patient and careful in a slippery ship — but until now, my sense was that any ship I could hope to survive in (think covops frigate) would be too puny to be useful. What’s the point of going just to see, unless you know somebody who will pay for intel?

My new Prowler tipped the balance in my mind. With the covops cloak, it’s slippery enough to have some hope of getting there and back again; and the missile launcher gives me one very blunt tooth to chew on small rats with. But most of all, the cargo space makes it worth going, because if I find anything worth salvaging, there’s some prayer of getting it home again.

So, last night I came down the pipe from Jita, which is still only about a dozen jumps away, into Tribute. I stopped in Taisy (.3) at the last station before 0.0, to put up a load of goods for sale. Then, very late, I jumped into 0.0 through a desultory gatecamp (they didn’t try to lock me). The sovereignty is Morsus Mihi, but I haven’t yet seen anybody anywhere except at the gate back to Taisy.

The big questions in my mind were:

1) Can I get in? Answer: Yes.

2) What’s it like? Answer: Very empty. Most systems are not loaded until I try to jump into them.

3) Are there rats I can kill? Answer: Yes. However, as expected, I don’t have the firepower to kill the big valuable ones.

4) How rare are the special spawns, like the ore haulers and Dread Guristas? I have good luck finding these in high sec; I’m curious if I can survive long enough to find some in 0.0, and will be doubly curious to see their drops. I’m told the haulers, at least, have much higher volumes of ore, and sometimes higher value ores, than their equivalent high sec spawns.

5) Will I find unclaimed salvage? Answer: Still too soon to tell. I’ll have to find some more populated / contested areas.

In the long run, this is intended as an adventure, and I expect to lose my Prowler. If I manage to find a shipload of salvage worth taking home, and then get it home, I’ll count the trip a success. I don’t have any real hope of making the venture worth my time in hard terms, but I’m exploring and learning and having fun.

Today’s marvel: An empty 0.0 system, with one other character present: MyGirlsLife. MyGirlsLife is four days old,
State War Academy. I immediately assume she’s a spy alt, watching a gate to make sure nothing sneaks up on her peeps on the other side.

Then I found her. Ninja mining a Jaspet asteroid. In her Ibis. Three jumps from the nearest station (the other side of a Morsus Mihi gate camp) and six or so from high sec.

I was (and am) impressed. I said so. Sadly but understandably, this made her nervous, so she left. But I’m sure she’s still out there mining merrily away somewhere.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Today In Ironfleet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.