The Quest For The Great White Battleship - Megacyte

Sometimes I have to choose between blogging and playing video games. Right now I switch between EVE Online and EVE: Gunjack. Even then, I get distracted when I play EVE Online. After the release of the Ascension expansion I spent six weeks playing on an alpha account. I also decided to upgrade my data entry setup for my RMT research, including adding in some additional graphs.

My own illicit RMT graph porn

Top that off with trying to keep track of the CSM this year and I stay busy.

Checking Evemon reminded me of a goal I set myself a few months back. Rosewalker was halfway to learning Amarr Battleship V. Oh yeah, I needed to start mining again in order to build a Nestor. I was down to only needing two more types of minerals, zydrine and megacyte. I decided to go into null sec and mine some arkonor.

NPC null sec really isn't that dangerous when flying a Prospect. Or perhaps the region I chose just doesn't get a lot of traffic. I slipped past the delusionary bubble camp in the entry system and headed deep into null sec in search of a quiet system.

What I found wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I saw a lot more traffic at my destination than I expected. I did find a quiet spot, but about 10 km before an asteroid would have uncloaked me, an interceptor buzzed the belt. I quickly stopped and waited to see what would happen. The interceptor left, followed shortly with a Bantam appearing. After 30 seconds or so, the Bantam lit a cyno and in jumped two carriers, an Archon and a Chimera. I decided to get a closeup of the carriers and that's when I noticed the Astrahus. I switched tabs on my overview and confirmed the presence of the citadel. Just then, another interceptor showed up and destroyed the Bantam. 

Needless to say, I quietly left and warped to the next belt. I spent some time making a couple of bookmarks to use as observation perches and taking a close look at the locals. My first thought was, what's a Provibloc sov holder doing in the middle of NPC null? My second thought was, aren't Provibloc sov holders NRDS?

For those who don't play EVE, NRDS stands for, Not Red, Don't Shoot. Which means if a player isn't at war with the alliance, have a history of shooting other players, or actively shooting them, they won't attack other players. And a 2000+ character alliance that described itself as "an Anti-Priate community of players" had set up multiple Astrahus in the constellation. Woot!

I spent three play sessions over three days mining the arkonor I needed to build a Nestor. Now I just need to mine enough ore to get 8100 units of zydrine. I'm not sure I'm going to do that, though. I have 97,000 units of zydrine sitting in a station in low sec. Do I really want to spend a few more hours mining, especially in low sec? Low sec is getting a bit crowded. But then again, part of the quest to build the Nestor was to acquire everything fresh. I'm really close to the end now, one way or the other. I guess I'll decide what I'll do the next time I log in to play.