Back To Low Sec

I set a goal for my week of vacation to work on my scanning and finish setting up a second base in low sec.  With three days to go I'm doing pretty well and just need to bookmark the new constellation I'm moving to.  As simple as this sounds I've had a bit of an adventure over the past few days.

My first task was to acquire a set of Sisters' scanning gear.  I had already run the level 4 missions to get the loyalty points and all I needed to do was purchase them.  But purchasing the gear required having the base versions of the equipment.  No problem right?  All I have to do is go to a trade hub, buy the stuff and bing, bang, boom I'm done.  The only problem was I wanted to manufacture my own gear as much as possible.

Making the items isn't really difficult.  I just needed to go and purchase the blueprint originals from an NPC and then put the items in a factory.  I had all the minerals mined and refined that I needed already except for some strontium clathrates I needed to make the combat and deep space probes.  Easy right?  Just go out and mine some dark glitter, get about 7 or 8 cycles and I'm done.

Did I forget to mention that the Minmatar Republic only has one ice belt containing dark glitter?  But I decided to go for the challenge and mine dark glitter instead of going off to a more remote system and mine glare crust.  So I loaded up a Procurer I hadn't unpacked yet, picked up some ice mining modules and Wandering Rose headed off to Todifrauan in my Prowler accompanied by Rosewalker in his Hound.

Things went well and I mined three units of dark glitter before a German player in a Hurricane decided to try to gank Wandering Rose.  She got away easily and with Rosewalker keeping an eye on the ice belt watched the Hurricane warp off.  I saw the pilot leave local, waited a few minutes and then tried to begin mining again.  The Hurricane came back and once again I warped off.  I don't think the Hurricane pilot realized I was watching him.  I decided to take the ice I had already mined and started manufacturing a batch of combat probes.

I have to give that Hurricane pilot credit for patience.  I played cat and mouse with him for maybe an hour until a birthday fleet of about 100 ships rolled into the system.  They were having so much fun spamming "happy birthday" that while the German docked up I sped out to the ice belt and mined six additional cycles.  I guess flying a cheap ship like the Procurer made me less risk adverse than the Hurricane pilot.  So with having more ice than I needed I finished making the last of my items.  Once made I went to the nearest Sisters of Eve station and purchased my goods.

My Inventory of Sisters Scanning Equipment

Of course once I had the good gear I had to go out exploring.  I found two wormholes and decided to enter my first wormholes since leaving Eve University.  The first wormhole I entered was populated with POCOs from a Russian corporation.  That explained why I see so many Russian pilots flying around my system.  In the second wormhole I entered I broke one of the cardinal rules of wormholes: I forgot to bookmark the wormhole before warping off.

I did want to use my new gear but I didn't really want to do so trying to find my way out of a wormhole.  I scanned down two wormholes pretty quickly.  The first wormhole I found led to Gallente low sec 22 jumps away.  I reentered the wormhole and went to the second one which led back home.

Exiting To Gallente Space

The second goal is to set up a second base in low sec.  The first part I needed to accomplish is to get the standings with the Republic Fleet for the station so I can have perfect refining.  During the standings grind all the storyline missions I did were for The Leisure Group and I wound up getting my standings up to 7.3 with that corporation in addition to standings of 6.7 with the Republic Fleet.

After finishing the grind I realized that I now have perfect refining in at least one station in every .1 and .2 security system in the Minmatar Republic except for Todifrauan.  To get that the easiest way is to grind faction with the Pator Tech School.  If I want to run level 4 missions I either have to go to high sec or go to a couple of places I really try to avoid: Amamake and Molden Heath.  Do I dare venture into the pirate stronghold of Molden Heath?  I might cheat and do the faction grind in high sec so I can explore wormholes in relative safety when I get tired of running missions.  I understand that high sec spawns class 1 and class 2 wormholes which should prove easier to operate solo in.

So all I really have left to do is bookmark the constellation where I plan to set up a second home.  I may not finish the entire constellation but I should manage to get enough bookmarks made to begin operations.