Data Centers

There were two reasons I wanted to run the Minmatar COSMOS sites – first for the interest of it, and second to help repair my Minmatar standings. If you are not familiar with it, you can read about the Standings mechanics on the EVE wiki:

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Standings_mechanics

I traditionally maintained a high Amarr standing so that I could anchor POS in their Hi-Sec regions. This left me with very low Minmatar Standings, and locked me out of most of their Agents. With the changes to where you can anchor your POS, I’ve been thinking I should rectify that.

I started the process with an Amarr Empire standing of around 8, and Minmatar Republic standing of -2. (All references in this post are the unmodified values, not adjusted by the Connections or Diplomacy skills.) If I could maintain standings for both above 5, I would have access to all their Level 4 Agents.

The EVE Wiki provides an overview of the Agent system here:

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Agent

Now, (I think) outside of faction warfare, faction standings are only positively modified by Event or Storyline Missions. Every 16 normal missions you run for a Faction (all of the same level) will trigger a Storyline mission. The higher the level of mission, generally the higher average standing increase you will get per storyline. As you can imagine, making noticeable changes to your Faction standing can require a very large number of missions to be run, particularly if you have to start off with low level agents as I would with a negative Minmatar standing.

Again the EVE Wiki gives a good overview of Storyline missions:

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Storyline_mission

There are thankfully quicker ways to increase your Faction standing (again, outside of Faction Warfare), but they tend to be one off options. The more interesting method is to run COSMOS missions – hence why I am in Minmatar space. Most COSMOS missions give a Faction Standing increase.

I used the EVE Wiki COSMOS entry to get a list of Minmatar Agents and their locations – which saw me move to near the Ani Constellation in Metropolis.

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/COSMOS

That page also lists the standings required to run each mission. While I had a poor standing with the Minmatar, I did have positive standings with Republic Fleet and Sisters of EVE, so I figured I would be able to make some headway with missions, which would hopefully open up access to a few more, and so on.

I hit my first stumbling block when I found I had – sometime in the distance past, run some of the missions. They were not available to me (remember they normally can only ever be run once), and I had a small standing value against the agent, indicating I must have used them before.

I then hit my second issue when I found, even with Corporation standings high enough, agents would not give me their missions. Reading the COSMOS wiki page over again I found this little bit of information “COSMOS Agents only accept Faction standing for access”. So I needed at least a +2.0 for the Minmatar Faction, but I had -2.

As I flagged above though, there is a second method to quickly increase your Faction standings, and those are Event Agents found in Data Centers. Once again the Wiki covers these:

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Data_Centers

These are basically in space agents that you can use once each, hand over a number of NPC tags (in this case Angel), and get an instance boost in your Faction Standings.

I used the wiki to get a shopping list of tags, and used eve-central to check their prices and availability. You need between 3 and 20 of the various types. I ended up buying them all from Rens.

I made my way to the Republic Data Center beacon in the Arlulf System, and ran the two agent event missions. (I’ve noted the standing changes just as an indication of the sort of impact they have. I forgot to follow the Amarr standing decrease for the first couple.)

Albedur Vatzako – 1 jump to pick up a Minmatar Graduation Certificate
Increased Minmatar Standing from -2.15 to -2.09
Increased Sebiestor Tribe from 0.00 to 0.17

Jackael Menson – 3 Angel Copper Tags (1.5M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -2.09 to -1.87
Republic Fleet Standing to 1.43
Amarr Empire Standings decreased to 7.68

 

I then made my way to the Republic Data Center beacon in the Engosi System, and ran the two agent event missions there:

West Ludorim – 1 jump to pick up a Minmatar Graduation Certificate
Increased Minmatar Standing from -1.87 to -1.81
Increased Sebiestor Tribe from 0.17 to 0.33
Decreased Amarr Empire from 7.68 to 7.64

Apheta Zenakon – 3 Angel Copper Tags (1.5M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -1.81 to -1.58
Increased Republic Fleet Standing from 1.43 to 1.89
Decreased Amarr Empire from 7.64 to 7.47

 

Last I made my way to the Republic Data Center beacon in the Emolgranlan System, and ran ten of the elven agent event missions there:

Rilbedur Tjar – 1 jump to pick up a Minmatar Graduation Certificate
Increased Minmatar Standing from -1.58 to -1.52
Increased Sebiestor Tribe from 0.33 to 0.50
Decreased Amarr Empire from 7.47 to 7.43

Hakno Lekan – 3 Angel Copper Tags (1.5M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -1.52 to -1.31
Increased Republic Fleet Standing from 1.89 to 2.32
Decreased Amarr Empire from 7.43 to 7.26

Altan Uigot – 20 Angel Bronze Tags (7M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -1.31 to -1.19
Increased Republic Security Services from 2.86 to 3.08
Decreased Amarr Empire from 7.26 to 7.17

Frera Elgas – 20 Angel Silver Tags (5M ISK(
Increased Minmatar Standing from -1.19 to -1.03
Increased Republic Security Services from 3.08 to 3.36
Decreased Amarr Empire from 7.17 to 7.05

Adari Jammalgen – 20 Angel Palladium Tags (1M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -1.03 to -0.88
Increased Republic Security Services from 3.36 to 3.62
Decreased Amarr Empire from 7.05 to 6.93

Sanderi Ualmun – 20 Angel Gold Tags (2M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -0.88 to -0.54
Increased Republic Security Services from 3.62 to 4.18
Decreased Amarr Empire from 6.93 to 6.67

Habad Rokusten – 20 Angel Electrum Tags
Increased Minmatar Standing from -0.54 to -0.45
Increased Republic Security Services from 4.18 to 4.32
Decreased Amarr Empire from 6.67 to 6.60

Skia Alfota – 20 Angel Crystal Tags (2M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -0.45 to -0.33
Increased Republic Security Services from 4.32 to 4.51
Decreased Amarr Empire from 6.60 to 6.50

Eget Skovilen – 20 Angel Platinum Tags (2M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -0.33 to -0.13
Increased Republic Security Services from 4.51 to 4.82
Decreased Amarr Empire from 6.50 to 6.34

Osidei Esama – 20 Angel Diamond Tags (1M ISK)
Increased Minmatar Standing from -0.13 to +0.15
Increased Republic Security Services from 4.82 to 5.22
Decreased Amarr Empire from 6.34 to 6.12

 

I started at the lowest level agents and worked my way up – gaining access to the higher level agents as I went.  So the end result was that for less than 25M ISK and about an hour effort:

. I took my Minmatar Standings from -2.15 to +0.15.
. I dropped my Amarr Empire standing from around 8 down to 6.12.

It also impacted my Caldari Standings negatively, but my Gallente Federation and Sisters of EVE Standings positively.  I believe the drop in Amarr standings should slow a little, as the negative changes at the higher scale are more dramatic, the same as with your security status.

Now if you remember, my goal was to get my Minmatar standings to 2.0 to give me access to the second tier of COMOS missions. With my skills, I got up to 1.72.  Damn.

I still have one more Tag agent available to me – Frie Tasmulo. He wanted 20 Angel Brass Tags – but at the moment that would have cost around 140M ISK in Rens, or 96M ISK in Jita. I will probably resort to that, but I couldn’t be bothered running to and from Jita. In the meanwhile I am trying to zerg 16 level 2 missions to see what impact the resulting storyline mission will have.

Funny the sort of tangents EVE can send you on, and how complicated simple ideas can turn out.

 

Edit – as was pointed out by Foo in the comments, you can also gain Faction standing by running the starter missions.  It is also an option to run Events or Storyline Agents for Allied Factions for a smaller standings gain, such as Gallente or Sister of EVE agents to boost Minmatar.  His comment also jogged a memory – I forgot about the EPIC Arcs which also give Faction gain.  These can be repeated – the documentation suggested every 3 months, although I thought it was longer.

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Career_Agents

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Epic_mission_arcs