Getting back into EVE after more than two years is an enormous logistical challenge. I found many dozens of my own ships scattered across a handful of widely-disparate locations I’ve worked out of; and Jim had caches all over known space that were asset-evac points from the many alliance moves and changes during his time in nullsec. Jim’s corp and alliances were always good about asset evacuation, but every time an alliance failed or there was a new war order, the drill was “pack your shit, we’ll jump it out to safety, proceed directly to [destination] in one ship and refit when you get there.” Jim says this happened at least a dozen times in the year or two he spent down there.
So what Jim and I found in his asset list was a bunch of stashes of fully-fitted, fully-rigged ships (mostly ratting and fleet battle cruisers, he generally sold the fleet battleships when he moved). When Jim wasn’t at war, he did a lot of ratting and a lot of salvaging for his alliance mates who didn’t care about salvage, and he’d use the proceeds to buy fittings (mostly high-meta or T2). So these stashes (which are mostly at staging areas one jump into lowsec or one jump away from these staging ares in highsec) also have a lot of valuable and expensive fittings, plus a smattering of the best rat loot and piles of salvage.
Normally these widely-distributed piles of assets would not be an issue; in the past when I’ve gone from EVE and returned, I just moved what I wanted and ignored the rest. But this time, there have been so many fitting changes, none of my ships will fly right. Every last one of them needs to be refitted. For convenience and best fitting availability, it makes sense to concentrate all the assets in one place, where the ships can be efficiently refitted using available fittings out of a single fitting hangar.
So that’s been a big job, with Orca and Bustard. It’s mostly done now. But I was astonished at just how much stuff we (especially Jim) had accumulated. In one staging area alone, Jim had more than six billion isk (using the in-game estimates) of ships and loot. The whole time Jim spent in nullsec, he felt poor and stressed for cash; but it turns out that’s because he kept dumping all his assets out to staging areas and starting over with nothing but the ISK in his wallet.
Anybody reading this and plotting to come for our iskies, don’t bother. Ironfleet retains its firm policy of flying the cheapest ships that will do the job, and we aren’t recruiting new members. Besides, billions in the low double digits isn’t real money in this game any more; there’s clearly been quite a bit of ISK inflation. Quite honestly I’m planning to siphon it away in plexes to pay for my game time in the foreseeable future; it’s not an especially fun way to spend it but real world, it’s the best use of this internet funny money for me.
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