Summer project: Settle a C2

As the majority of my two handsome and intelligent readers may remember, I have been bumming around EVE for many years but my true love is Wormhole space.  It all started in 2009 when I was a nawt but a podpole flying in one of those high-sec corporations that people read about. You know, the ones that get wardeced constantly, awoxed and are the buttjoke of EVE.  Yep.  That was me.  Anyway.  My friend Oreamnos and I decided we had it and applied together to Z3r0 Return Mining of Jadecougar’s fame (lost in EVE, used to be one of the better podcasts).  At that time we owned “Fred”, a lovely C2 hole with a low sec and a C2 static.  I.e. easy to get in, easy to find people and not so easy (albeit not impossible at all) to get evicted from.  Many adventures happened in and around Fred and my old tales all start here.  But as Z3r0 grew up, we moved into “Shirley” (C4 with a static C4.  Puke) and then into our current home “Tim”, also a C4.  “Fred” stayed in the alliance for a while, first as an academy for new pilots and then later as a general hole.  But all good things must come to an end, Fred was abandoned when our last permanent residents fizzled out. As it is in Wormhole life, the connections closed and Fred floated away like a soap bubble into the sunset during a hurricane in the desert on Mars, never to be seen again.

Until last week…. Here follows the account of the great Settlement of Fred.

Summer is here and with it the doldrums, nothing much is going on in EVE other than massive ISK making in Goonland for the benefit of later wars.  Z3R0 is no exception, many of our numbers are busy taking their children on vacation or making new ones.  Either way, its quiet and I was contemplating what I could do as a solo project when a random ping came from one of my (unnamed, Opsec!) corp mates.  He had found Fred!  The C2 where everything had started, where we trained ourselves into the elite mercenary wormhole dominating fighting force that we are aspire to be.  A wave of nostalgia washed over me. Fred!  Of course, I logged in an alt from my useless highsec corp and placed him there. Just for sightseeing purposes. Surely.

Turns out, not only is Fred uninhabited, it has been for many weeks. There are literally 30+ signatures and only Bob knows how many anoms.

ISK waiting patiently for me

No POS, no ‘hus, no nottin’.  And then two days ago, my low sec access connected directly to a backwater in highsec.  One jump.  Dead quiet.

The temptation was too great.  I could Make Fred Great Again.  MFGA!

I raced to Jita, and did one of my completely nuts woman-inspired shopping sprees.  (I will go to hell for that comment).  Basically, I bought an entire “live in a Wormhole by yourself outfit” including a fully armed Astrahus, many defensive mods of which I had scant knowledge what they do, 2 site running drakes, many gas mining ventures, a few Covops and a Ghetto Noctis (i.e. Catalyst).  Oh, of course, an Occator to stuff it all in.  My credit card creaked, heated and then went up in flames, basically, I depleted my nest egg that I had set aside for – well I don’t actually know what for.  I jumped into the Occator, undocked the damn thing with billions of ISK worth of stuff in Jita 4/4 and raced to my entrance.  “Fortes Fortuna Juvat” as us old and decrepit classically trained Europeans say.

Fred greeted my hot entry with a warm, loving embrace (ok, ok, I’ll calm down).  I had scouted a nice planet (Lava) to set up my Astrahus but the asinine mechanic thwarted me.  I had no idea why I couldn’t anchor the ‘hus where I was and hanging out in a decloaked Occator with tons of gear in the hold fudzing with an incomprehensible game mechanic is not a good idea.  In desperation, I made a random safe spot somewhere and dropped the ‘hus in no particular direction.

Sorry, NPCs you won’t have a grand view.  I had never set up a Citadel, so I was surprised to see a 24 window to anchor.  I assume its vulnerable?  No clue.  But that means it is hanging there for everyone to see until Saturday night, prime time. Great.  Maybe I get evicted before I even finish anchoring?

Then Saturday rolls around and my timer counts down to zero.  I can not lie, I am excited.  I had occasionally monitored the progress and took screenshots; the nanites had been at work and the process of building a structure is eerily mesmerizing.  The small details, the lights that come on are are really beautiful.  However, if anyone had attacked it, I would have had any defense whatsoever (2 Stratios don’t count…).  But unlike some newb, I had made my peace with the old Wormhole wisdom that “if you bring it in, declare it lost”.  All things in Wormhole space will be killed.  They are not assets, they are consumables.  Including the ‘hus.

When the build ended, a 15 minute window opens where the thing “onlines”.  Through a fluke and a little bit of wormhole-fu, I had a very good idea that both static holes were still closed and the frigate hole to NS had not opened yet.  It was pretty safe but nothing in EVE is certain.

Well, now its the weekend and I am getting settled. I brought in yet another alt who knows how to hack the cans and managed to get ISK 70mil out of all the data and relic sites.  Next step is to formally scan the place down and start gassing it to make money and reducing the number of sites.  After that, I will bring my main characters back to our home C4 and leave Fred in the completely incompetent hands of my alts.

There will be updates…