I’m noticing as I am moving around these newbie systems that there are people on my block list in local. I don’t make a habit of blocking people unless I am (relatively rarely) in Jita or Amarr – and even then I only block people who are spamming or scamming too hard in local. It appears that the type of people who plague the market hubs with unsavory behaviour, also troll the newbie areas causing grief.
I am also kind of surprised at how populous the systems have been. I’ve lived a reasonable amount of time in 4 regions during my EVE life, 3 Empire and 1 Null Sec. It is uncommon to have more than 20 people in most of the systems I frequent, yet moving around the Arc missions I am commonly seeing 100 to 200 people in each station system.
I managed to clear another 15 missions. The rewards after 32 missions totaled 9.0M ISK (6.1M mission rewards and 2.9M salvage, loot and bounties). I did however have to hurriedly spend 3.4 M in overpriced fittings to get through a couple of them. (There was more salvage that I did not collect this time round, mainly from Drones.)
In Mission 18 I came across Guristas for the first time since their boosting. Against 4 small NPC frigates I spent over 90% of the fight jammed. I came up with a couple alternative fits and collected the required modules. The first drops the T2 Heat Sink for a T2 Radar Backup Array. That increases the ships Sensor Strength from 12 to 17.8, but reduces DPS from 113 to 93. The second swaps the Afterburner out for a T2 Radar ECCM. That change also needs the T2 Salvager swapped for a T1. That increases Sensor Strength from 12 to 23.5, DPS remains unchanged, but ship speed drops from 876m/s to 327m/s. The second fitting proved effective, but the slow speed offset the benefits.
The very next Mission required 150m3 of cargo space – so I had to temporarily remove the T2 Heat sink for a T1 Expanded Cargo Hold, and got through that one with 0.6m3 to spare. I didn’t mind this requirement to be flexible with your fits.
The next kill mission was somewhat confusing – the text suggested you would find something in the ruins or wreckage, but there was nothing there. (I even take out the most obvious structures, just in case.) It completes happily without anything. Mission 21 involves 7 jumps back to the starting point. Mission 23 is an 8 jump round courier mission. There seems to be a lot of moving around.
Mission 24 gives you a choice of paths to follow. The text makes vague references to your choice impacting your standings to Gallente or Caldari, so I go with Gallente as my standings cannot afford to take a hit. However none of the subsequent missions seem to have any effect on faction standings.
Mission 25 throws up a little bit more of a challenge for a newbie – a 30K ISK NPC Frigate and 3 x 17.5K ones. That would require a reasonable tank and DPS to clear safely.
Mission 28 also ends in a somewhat confusing state – your target is destroyed by this mysterious “Society of Conscious Thought” Cruiser which then flees. You return to your agent to explain, and they seem to have a leap of faith and refer to the mysterious pilot by name.
Mission 29 is a 14 jump move. Blah.
One of the last combat sites has 30 odd red battleships and the like in it. I consider going to grab something bigger than the AF, but figure I would just follow the plot. I warp out unmolested. Next mission you move to a new system – and subsequently return to the same combat site. It seemed to have miraculously moved.
Still finding it amusing to do – appreciating the different scenery, and intrigued about where this is taking me next.
Evehermit 