A Surprising Roundabout Flight by iProphet2k

Some background…

Early in my EVE journey, looking at the map of the EVE universe, I wondered many times if it would be possible to circumnavigate it. But alas, the newbro-fear of the unknown, was way above the stress-levels I could bear at the time. My very first SoE mission happened to be during the Triglavian Invasion. Being new to the EVE story, I didn’t know who these Trigs were, why they were there, nor where they were. Trying to get to the next SoE agent halfway through the mission – what should have been 5 jumps – turned into 200-plus jumps, just to get around all the contested systems. And then I was killed by a gate camper on the last jump. If ever you saw a panicked-newbro, that was me. But the experience taught me how to use the in-game map, as well as the ever useful Dotlan.

Hanging out with the friendly E-UNI and participating in its many events helped me overcome that initial fear and showed me there is more help available than I thought.

Beginning to feel more confident, an event by the Desert Oasis corp caught my eye: a challenge to circumnavigate the cluster. It got me thinking. I decided to map out the route for myself using the rules as they had them set out. Although some jumps could have been shorter or quicker, I stuck to the most outward perimeter route. According to Dotlan this amounted to almost 230 jumps. Starting in Stacmon, going clockwise via Cloud Ring, all the way back to Cloud Ring and my dearest home-sweet-home.


Some estimates…

The competition was limited to 4.5 hours. So, unless you fly something faster than a shuttle, you can expect this route will take about 4 to 5 hours to complete. I did it over 2 days but adding up all the in-game time, it was almost 5 hours. When I started, I thought if something IRL happened I could always dock-up somewhere quickly. However, I saw no “friendly” stations anywhere. The only NPC stations (Blood Raiders) were in Delve. So this was a do-or-die race, with the only option to be prepared to make a quick deep space bookmark if I needed to be afk.


Some challenges…

I decided to use the cheapest shuttle I could buy, Minmatar, because I did not expect to survive the trip and being an Alpha, cloaking wasn’t an option for me. You just never really know who is out hunting and a simple shuttle doesn’t have any meat-on-the-bone worth chasing. I also did the run on a weekday to minimise my exposure to too many other players, any bubbles or gatecamps. As proof of my trip, I took a screenshot every time I came through a gate, while still cloaked and before warping off to the next waypoint. The longest warps I experienced, and there were a few that were quite long, were in Outer Passage, 8-AA98 to HZID-J (3 warps) and Archavoinet to Algasienan (2 warps). Just too far for my poor shuttle. I don’t know if someone following me for 10+ jumps qualifies as an actual chase – but that only happened once (in Fountain somewhere). He tried, but never caught me.

Some observations…

With no statistics to back it up. The ship type I saw most often was an Ishtar. Although I didn’t check every pilot in local, the profiles I did check showed very few players were pre-2019 (the oldest employment history date can tell you a lot about the pilot’s possible skill levels). But then it may have been just “that time of the day”. Most of the veteran pilots I saw though were in the southern and western parts of the universe (I’m not sure why). Sadly, I didn’t hang around long to fully absorb the wonderful views , but the most beautiful parts were in Cobalt Edge, where the purple and blue haze is amazing, and the ring in Cloud Ring seems so close you can almost touch it. Seeing all the beautiful nebula vistas en-route, I wondered if a pilot could circumnavigate one? The closest I got to a nebula was in Fountain and another in Cloud Ring – the routes start to go close then unfortunately go the other away.

Some conclusions…

I could provide you my planned route but strongly suggest you plan your own so you may discover the beauty of this universe for yourself. This was my first trial run to see how this works. So, take this as an invitation to join me for the next race around our circus arena.

One of the many great things in EVE Online is overcoming our inherent fear of failure. Know this, even if you get blown-up halfway through your venture, it is still an amazing experience and you will live to tell the tale. And best of all, fly again!

Fly unbounded!
o7

EVE University Loses A Friend

On September 18th, 2022, the members of EVE University commemorated the passing of a fellow corp member, Ergan Eto.  He had been battling stomach cancer for some time, and passed on September 3rd, 2022 at the age of 70. 

Ergan joined EVE University on January 31, 2019, and quickly became a prominent member who was well-known for his kindness, patience, positive attitude, and commitment to helping others.  He was a fixture of the High-Sec Campus, always willing to give advice and share his knowledge of EVE, all the while chatting about life and sharing his puns and unique sense of humor.  For many, he was a significant part of their first steps in EVE University and New Eden, and left a deep impression on their experiences within the game.  To those who knew him well, he was a mentor and dear friend. 

Ergan was posthumously awarded the EVE University Professor Medal, and was made an Honorary Member of EVE University in perpetuity.  The corporation refinery in Brellystier was also renamed the “Ergan Eto Library” in his honor.

To celebrate his life and commemorate his passing, a fleet set out from the EVE University headquarters in Stacmon on September 18th, at 18:00 EVE Time, and traveled together to the player memorial in the Molea system.  Comms were fairly quiet and somber as the group made the forty-three jumps from system to system.  After arriving in Molea, the fleet set up at range from the memorial and took turns speaking about their friend.  They spoke about the impact he had on them, and told stories about those moments with Ergan they cherished the most.  Many were unable to hold back the tears, and their voices frequently faltered as they tried to express how much he meant to them, and how much he would be missed.  Even those who didn’t know Ergan well were deeply moved by the experience.

The Molea Fallen Capsuleers Memorial was added by CCP in July of 2020.  It was initially a role-play site where players left in-game corpses, but over time it became a place where players left messages attached to cans to commemorate their friends and family members who had passed away.  The monument consists of three large earthen columns which surround a sculpture of two figures leaving a pod in a ray of light shooting toward the heavens.

Also in attendance were Ergan’s two sons, who are not EVE players themselves, but created an account just for this occasion.  They spent the previous day in-game with a member of EVE University learning the basics of fleet travel, so they could join the procession and be with those who wished to honor their father.   His son Drewzy spoke at length about how much the EVE community meant to his father, and how touched he and his brother were by the in-game ceremony and the outpouring of support and emotion.  He also talked about the positive influence his father had on his own life, and shared his own stories that reinforced what everyone already knew; that Ergan Eto was a kind, caring, and deeply compassionate man.  He will be greatly missed by everyone who knew him.

Fireworks filled the sky, and then the fleet moved to a low-sec system to light cynos in remembrance of Ergan, and all our EVE friends who have been lost.  


Eyes forward, capsuleer, the cyno is not yet lit.
Consider your modules, your rigs and ammo before you undock, for the cyno is not yet lit.
Break free of the station and witness the universe before you, for the cyno is not yet lit. 

Set your ship to fly through the vastness while you wait, for the cyno is not yet lit.
Pay attention, capsuleer, for those who have gone before you call for you to join them.
The cyno is now lit.
– Poem by Dranchella

And so it begins…

EVE University is going to war against RvB today!

We do have our fair share of experience with highsec wardeccers, as anything else, we use these always as an opportunity to teach our members about safety protocols, such as using voice coms and standing fleets as well as organising QRFs when targets show up around our campus locations. Of course, these wars are also a great opportunity to organise bigger fleets to take out the enemy’s war HQ as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This war is going to be a different beast altogether though. RvB and EVE University have taken up their old tradition and agreed to a mutual war with some specific rules, with the most important one being: keep it classy! We are looking forward to a week full of fun fights around the clock and constant opportunities to learn for all involved parties.

Of course propaganda and banter is part of any good war in EVE, so our Communications Department (now War Propaganda Department) has created some dashing media you might have seen pop up around various channels already. Most notably this animation by Fudster:

And these amazing posters by Marcel en Distel:

We are also holding an ongoing internal propaganda competition which has already yielded some gems as well:

Throwback to the Battle of Aldrat

We are lucky that Jalxan – a seasoned veteran who led the battle of Aldrat against RvB almost a decade ago – has recently returned to the Uni and found some time to share his thoughts:

Back in 2013, we were facing a war with RvB, with their intention of taking down the Eve University Player Owned Station (POS) in Aldrat. At the time, we were in a transitional phase, where the Ivy League Navy (an ancient predecessor to our now existing FC Team) was leaderless due to real-life commitments from its leadership, and we had no organized defense against them.

I decided at the time that I wanted to defend the POS, and requested permission from Kelduum Revaan (Eve Uni’s then-CEO) to help run the defense of the POS. In the end, I was given the temporary rank of “ILN Commodore”, to oversee the war.

From there, I got the ball rolling; after RvB put the POS into reinforced, I knew I needed to drum up interest to defend it once Reinforced Mode ended (old POS mechanics worked differently than today’s reinforcing of structures). I wrote up a lengthy heroic-style speech via Evemail, and hoped that I would get the numbers. I was blown away; by the time the fleet formation was done, we had enough to fill one fleet of 255 members, and the remainder which added together to about 450. It was – and may still be to this day the biggest fleet Eve University has ever fielded.

Leading such a fleet would not be easy, but thankfully I took the time to prepare. One of the things I organized before the battle was to split up my fleet into wings of 50 (which was based on how Eve Online handled fleets back then as well), with each one having their own individual shot-callers (to spread out the damage and make it harder for enemy logistics to protect their fleetmembers). I had most of my Wings hold at the Aldrat gate – this is where I wanted to hold them for the duration of the battle. I also had one Wing as a “firefighting” unit where they would respond to any escaping RvB members attempting to re-ship in-system (and oh boy did they try!). If I recall correctly, I was able to let logi set themselves up in their own squads, allowing them to do their jobs independently.

Separately, an RvB spy reached out to me, and helpfully provided me the name of the enemy FC; this was pivotal in the early minutes of the engagement, as their FC’s had to keep rotating for quite some time until they switched to out-of-corp ships. Eventually, RvB arrived.

At the time I thought they had numbered 150, but recent days I learned that they had at least 250, based on newly dug-up footage of the battle I found from the RvB side. Equipped with decent ships versus our kitchen-sink fleet of whatever we could pull together (back then we didn’t have doctrines nor SRP), it wasn’t going to be an easy fight.

I mostly-silently oversaw the battle, and allowed my Wing Commanders to make their shot calls, while I listened in carefully, giving boosts to the entire system in my Vulture 350km off-grid but within visual range of the battle (back then boosts worked system-wide). Occasionally I would interject with special orders (ie. “Spread your points” to the tackle, giving orders to my “firefighting” squad, giving priority targets against the enemy FC’s, etc). The battle raged for quite some time.

That being said… don’t be afraid to take risks either; after all, when I led the Battle of Aldrat, I had never FCed any fleet with more than 50 members before, and I was honestly going by the seat of my pants. I may have led the Battle of Aldrat and some other battles to victory, but I’ve also lost some as well. And that’s okay! We’re all here to learn.

If you’ve never done PVP before, this is a great time to learn it. This is also a great opportunity to sign up for the FC Team! It is not often when we get to fight a war with terms, instead of having to defend ourselves in a war with none. Expect lots of good-fights, and expect lots of explosions! Don’t forget the SRP program, which means your losses will be covered if you follow doctrines.

CSM 16 Elections

The candidates for the CSM 16 have been announced yesterday on CCPs stream.

EVE University would like to wish every candidate good luck for their campaign! As always, we remain neutral and therefore do not endorse or field any candidate for the election.

Read the statement to our members by CEO Jilokari Kurvora below:

CSM stands for Council of Stellar Management. It is a group of players who are voted into the position, liaise with CCP as advocates for the player base. CCP consults the CSM on game features and takes their input into consideration. 

Every player has their own interests and biases, which is good when providing feedback to CCP from a wide range of playstyles. But it does mean that it is in your interests to ensure your own playstyle is represented by someone on the CSM. This is why I would really encourage members to read up on the CSM candidates and cast their vote when the voting opens. 

A lot of the major nullsec blocs do bulk voting by asking all their members to vote for a particular candidate. While a few alumnus of EVE University may be running for CSM this year, as always EVE University does not endorse, or ask our members to vote for any one candidate. We think you should make up your own mind on the best candidates to represent you and your individual playstyle.

Campaigning will now take place until the 4th June 2021. Take a look at this year’s candidates and what they stand for

Voting will open on 8th June 2021 for one week (closing on 15th June 2021). 

Voting is done by a Single Transferable Vote. This means you can select up to 10 candidates, in order of preference. Your vote is transferred to the next as the candidates are either elected or eliminated. 

Before the voting period opens we recommend that you do some research into the candidates – read their forum threads, listen to any interviews they do over the coming weeks and most importantly when the time comes, go out and exercise your space democracy.

EVE Uni’s Curious Expeditions: Swarming Nullsec with F.U.N. Inc. Interceptors

Originally posted on our public AAR forum by Arin Mara, newly adapted for the blog.

Consume the World! Alliances of New Eden, hide your Pods, hide your Ships for the Interceptor swarm has come to devour you all!

Get Your Fleet On! by Razorien EVE

The goal of this report is to showcase the F.U.N. Inc. community, prepare prospective capsuleers and set expectations for their events, lavishly praise, thank and show gratitude towards others’ hard work and analyze the Event and its Fleet Commander in hopes of replicating and improving the same.

If you want to try out the Event for yourself, check their NPSI calendar, where you can also find fleets by various other NPSI groups.

Background

Every month or so I go out into the wild carrying the Torch of the University in an attempt to shake hands with different communities in New Eden. Fellow Unistas Marek Holmberg and Tolerin Escipion told me about the ShrinkWrapped Event, where everyone flies an Interceptor, run by Fleet Commander keacte of F.U.N. Inc.. Marek had nothing but praise for the Event and its Fleet Commander. He described keacte as “one of the best”, “professional and pleasant” and “fearless and relentless”. 

I approached F.U.N. Inc. via Discord about attending the ShrinkWrapped Event and was immediately warmly welcomed.

F.U.N. Inc. is well organized. I had no problem finding all the necessary information about the Event: goal, duration, Ship Fittings, form-up location, how to connect to F.U.N. Inc. Mumble. They had everything from an in-game channel “EBWF public” to a Forum post on our own EVE Uni Forums. 🙂

All the loot belongs to F.U.N. Inc. and is given away during festivities. There is no Ship Replacement Program.

Ship Fittings are designed for full fitting skills Level V skilled capsuleers and the ShrinkWrapped Interceptor costs about 70M ISK. I struggled to board the Ship because I didn’t have enough Powergrid to support all the Modules. I had to buy an Implant and turn off a Module to get the Ship to work.

Form-up

As we were fitting our Ships, the Fleet Commander told us to quickly fill out two forms, lest we wanted to be kicked from the Fleet. One of them had a table titled “EWAR” that lists “… Track, Paint, Logi, Probes” in rows and a scale of 0-3 in columns. I had no idea what that meant. Marek pointed out it was asking “How many EWAR Modules of each type do you have fitted?”.

The Fleet Commander explained to me that the purpose of the forms is to expedite form up and balance EWAR. The hurry was meant for the capsuleers who already had a Ship, not for those who are yet to board one. By filling out the forms, the Fleet Commander was able to better allocate EWAR to capsuleers who still didn’t have a ship.

A very verbose capsuleer in Mumble couldn’t fill out the forms because, to them, they appeared in Czech. We had a good laugh as, according to the Fleet Commander, this was the first time that happened in more than fifty Fleets. 😀

Travel

When we undocked the Fleet Commander set the destination over Mumble as “Nourv on the Tama Gate”, but posted “Oinasiken” as destination in Fleet Chat. Because the Fleet Commander pronounced only the first five letters of an unpronounceable Caldari State System, because I was taking notes for this Report and because it was my first time attending the Fleet, I got lost. Thankfully, another fleet member wrote what was said over Mumble in Fleet Chat and I recovered my bearings. 🙂

As we travelled to the Wormhole leading to Thera in Oinasiken, with the intention of jumping into Null Security Regions, the Fleet Commander instructed us on who to include on the Watchlist, delegated intelligence gathering tasks, forbade the premature destruction of enemy Capsules and reiterated the dangers of not adhering to Standing Orders.

From then on, we consumed every single Ship that failed to run away…

Timeline 

  • 18:30 – Discord ping reminds everyone the Fleet will form in an hour in Jita
  • 19:30 – Fleet forms, Xs go up in “EBWF public” in-game Chat Channel
  • 20:05 – Destination set as Thera Wormhole in Oinasiken
  • 20:10 – Watchlist and Message of the Day set, D-Scan and Local Chat intelligence gatherers assigned
  • 20:20 – Two Wormholes inside Thera collapse after Scouts went inside them, but before the Fleet could enter; Scouts recalled
  • 20:23 – First kill was a Bustard inside Thera; due to the Gala Event, it dropped 90% of the loot
  • 20:30 – Took the third Wormhole from Thera into Null Security Region of Catch, loot has been stashed away successfully
  • 20:46 – Contact made with a hostile Battleship, but it aligned, used the Micro Jump Drive and warped away
  • 20:48 – Fleet Commander authorized the use of a Micro Jump Field Generator to prevent a Battleship from escaping, but the target jumped through the Stargate; Fleet movement orders around the pair of Stargates were confusing; we did destroy the Apocalypse in the end
  • 20:50 – Fleet Commander immediately acted and divided the Fleet into three equal Damage Dealing Wings, assigned Wing Commanders and ask the Fleet to remember their Wing number 
  • 21:00 – In GE-8JV System I’ve found a Level 1 HZO Refinery, Amarr Empire, COSMOS Mission Agent Galhar Lahara flying an Impel 😀
  • 21:05 – Fleet of fifty three members failed to overwhelm a Saber’s spatial distortion field
  • 21:15 – pulverized an Orthrus and their expensive Capsule before it could jump through the Stargate
  • 21:20 – Criminal Gnosis, Sabre and Oracle escape through the Stargate; Fleet Commander relentlessly pursued the Oracle; I thought our engines would give up 😀
  • 21:27 – Smashed a Cerberus, but their Hugins and Sabre companions escaped
  • 21:28 – Moved from the Catch to the Providence Region
  • 21:30 – Dismantled a Jaguar who dared approach us
  • 21:32 – Atomized a Drake and their expensive Capsule for fun
  • 21:44 – Set a Cerberus ablaze, but not before they retaliated against Otto Deitrich, killing them instantly
  • 21:48 – Fleet Commander asks how we are liking the Event; I state that the only thing that could make it better is a break; Fleet Commander responds to me directly and grants me my wish, yaaaaay 🙂 🙂
  • 22:03 – Break over, Fleet undocks 
  • 22:16 – Vanquished a Malediction that was slightly too brave
  • 22:20 – Took apart two Exploration Asteros because they gave us the evil eye
  • 22:30 – Hostile capsuleer ejected from their Jaguar and escaped in a Capsule possibly because they had expensive Implants
  • 22:41 – Landed on a large Fleet and scared to death two Exequrors and a Manticore as at least six other ships escaped because we failed to scramble their Warp Engines
  • 22:50 – Sunk two smartbombing Typhoons without a single casualty; Fleet Commander thought the Fleet was splitting damage, but the Typhoons were smartbombing each other 😀 Fleet Commander apologized for criticizing the Fleet
  • 22:53 – Cruor send into the oblivion from whence it came
  • 22:56 – Fleet Commander offered Fleet Members to leave the Fleet through the Stargate to an adjacent High Security System; I left, but not before thanking the Fleet Commander, the Logisticians, Scouts and the Fleet for a great night 🙂 

And as soon as I left a multi-billion ISK Marauder appeared in the System. For Yto and Marek’s Nullbear Hunt regulars, this occurrence will be par for the course. 😛

Assessing the FC and Fleet experience

keacte of F.U.N. Inc. came highly recommended. They swore twice and no more than ten bad words were uttered during three hours of intense combat; the Fleet Commander assures me that they are seldom PG18. They insisted, twice, that there are no dumb questions and encouraged Fleet Members to speak their mind. 

D-Scan and Local Chat intelligence gathering, Scouting and making a novice Logistician speech to Fleet Members were all delegated. Align, Jump, Warp and Kill command were repeated thrice.

They withheld the ultimate Null Security destination until we jumped into the Catch Region from Thera.

Letters were spelled out in English, rather than phonetically.

The fleet used many tactical bookmarks the FC had prepared around Null Security Stargates to catch idling ships.

They were relentlessly bloodthirsty and wanted to kill everything from exploration Frigates to smartbombing Battleships.

The FC regularly reminded Fleet Members to repair their Modules and reload Charges, generally emphasizing the importance of tight, precise and clear communication and made a habit of praising Combat Probers, Scouts, Logisticians and other Specialists Fleet Members.

F.U.N. Inc’s keacte organized a public 50+ Interceptor Null Security Fleet and made it run like clockwork: form-up took 30 minutes +-5 minutes, commands were given precisely and predictably, issues were calmly dealt with on the fly within minutes. We warped to and shot at every ship. When our guns were empty, we took a ten minute break to buy more ammo. There was no bait too big to swallow, no vessel too small to catch.

Being able to join a fleet with keacte as an FC, with fellow Unistas Marek and Tolerin by my side, was exceptionally enjoyable and their corporation, F.U.N. Inc., is truly worthy of the name. 🙂

My experience with EVE University’s 17th anniversary

Originally posted on Hideo Date’s personal blog

Poster by Marcel en Distel

This was the craziest week for me yet in EVE…

EVE University had it’s 17th anniversary on the 15th of March. I really enjoyed taking part and even being able to contribute in some way to the celebration.

Fellow Unistas Auron Delarnu and Psychotic Fickity did a great job getting a week of amazing events off the ground. They involved all our different campuses and those really came through and created a week packed with events and activities.

Sometime during the planning phase, I suggested doing at least one public event for the birthday itself. As I had some memories of Chribba attending the 14th anniversary and wanted to get some celebrity to rouse the crowd, I volunteered to reach out. Chribba obliged gladly to our set time for the event. I was thrilled, but then discovered that many younger players seemed to not even know who he was. So we thought about how we could get some teasers and info out in advance to create a bit of hype. A few weeks before the anniversary, information about a new EVE monument in Amarr dedicated to Chribba leaked and I was even more excited, hoping it would be there for our party. As it turned out, it would go live about a week before.

Celebrating the beauty of New Eden

My first entry to Fudsters competition and one of my favourites todate

For the week of the anniversary, I was planning to attend only a couple events if time allowed. I would be sure to support everything else that was going on with regular Twitter posts and getting people to share pictures of the events, so we had stuff to get out to #tweetfleet via our EVE University account. If nothing else, I was banking on fellow Unista Fudster to take a few of his absolutely bonkers shots…well he came through, but in a very different way than I was expecting: he actually started a screenshot contest revolving around our public eve-in-pictures Discord channel. We were able to hook him up with nice prizes to give out for the winning pictures. He was so inundated, that it was actually hard to decide on how to distribute them. The competition sparked an onslaught of awesome pictures in the Discord channel and will hopefully lead to more competitions and a huge collage by Fudster.

The entry that got me a prize in Fudsters competition

As Razorien (CCP Aperture) is active in our pictures channel as well, Auron got the idea to have him involved in our festivities. So I reached out to him less than a week before the Birthday, thinking he would probably not be able to make time on such short notice. But lo and behold, he agreed to be our Birthday photographer from start to finish on the 15th. That had me even more excited for the celebration!

Plans shattered, plans adjusted

Poster for the final celebration by Marcel en Distel

In the meantime my plans of just being a bystander were crushed as all the wonderful moderators I asked to do the talk with Chribba (and now with Razorien as well) weren’t able to make the time. That left me hatching plans with Auron of how to make the travel fleet and celebrations interesting – I was so worried it would be boring for people and I wouldn’t be able to moderate the talks well. Auron had the original idea of doing the Uni internal fireworks celebration at the Bonfire in Munory. A neat place with a surprisingly dark history, as it was a ritual place for the Blood Raiders. Munory is very close to Amarr, so that was perfect to combine both the more private party and the public event seamlessly.

My anxiety spiked when the official EVE Online twitter account shared the info about the celebration I had put out. At that point, I was thinking this could become much bigger than I originally anticipated. I shared my troubled thoughts with Razorien and Chribba who were both very nice and chill about it. I was really worried to be responsible for enabling the destruction of the Veldnaught. But Chribba just said that that would be an epic event.

So I toned down my expectations on the Sunday before the celebration to not go completely crazy. Which was very good, as we didn’t end up having a huge crowd.

Then I was hit in the guts with our ex-CEO Laura Karpinski announcing her departure from EVE Uni after nine(!) years of dedicated service to our community! That was quite the downer for me the weekend before the party. Nevertheless, I wish her an awesome time in Horde and hope to get to shoot her at some point 😉

The day of the festivities

Finally, the 15th March 2021 rolls around and everything is set. We are starting with a travel fleet from our Highsec Campus to go to Munory. Apart from the travel-ready frigates we would eventually pick up a couple Typhoons as well, which you’ll see making an appearance later on.

When our first guest joined us, as we were forming up, we got to feast our eyes on a rare little ship, enigmatic and kinda unassuming, but more powerful than even the mighty Titans: CCP Aperture appeared out of nowhere in his Dev-ship.

CCP Aperture’s (Razorien) Enigma Shuttle Dev-Ship

We went on our way to Munory, trying out the new formations, talking about the Blood Raiders and getting to see some favourite pics Razorien chose out of our competition entries.

As I do actually play with game sounds *gasp* going through gates while fireworks were going off was often deafening.

Fireworks around a gate while about to jump

Once we reached Munory we were treated with fireworks by some Unistas that had already travelled there beforehand.

Fireworks set off by Unistas while we where landing on The Bonfire

We stayed a while and enjoyed the site and many fireworks, using the dark ritual place for more enjoyable festivities.

Afterwards, we moved on to Amarr, made the fleet public and were greeted by a few people already gathered around Chribba’s Monument. The Veldnaught came in as Chribba joined our public Mumble and CCP Convict also joined our fleet and on my Twitch stream.

Chribbas Veldnaught at his Monument getting blasted with fireworks

Talking to Chribba about his exploits and the (g)old(en) times of EVE Online was thoroughly enjoyable. It is amazing that he has been in the game continuously and such an institution in and of himself for so long – in a way similar to EVE University.

Chribbas Monument under a rain of fireworks

We talked about his obsession with Veldspar – and tried to get some details on the vastness of his wealth, which he understandably was a bit vague about.

Of course we talked about the history of his Veldnaught and I, as a player who hasn’t been around since the dawn of New Eden, was astonished at how back in the day even affording a single Cruiser would have been a huge undertaking. Chribba talked about how he had to work hard for weeks to even just get the few million needed together. The mighty Revelation that was still standing before us was an entirely different beast of course. At the time he had poured pretty much all his accumulated wealth into it and still cherishes it to this day.

He still regularly mines with his Revelation in Amarr and describes it as a subpar mining ship, but a great social miner.

Even before the event started he was around and made a little fashion show, which one of our Unistas was able to capture beautifully:

Chribbas fashion show, by Hikaru Sakai

Most of Chribba’s fame and fortune stems from his brokering of Supercapital trades, and he gladly shared stories from his golden days before the advent of Citadels. I was again astounded at the actual amount of trades he did, as I couldn’t have imagined the volume of Supercapitals being handed around before it was more convenient and safe to do so. He was easily able to do five to ten trades every day, each netting him a commission of 300M ISK. And this was when Titans and Supercarriers were not as much of a commodity as they are today.

We also had loads of great questions from many Unistas coming up and Chribba gladly obliged and happily told his tales of yore.

I was actually planning to do some formation warping around the Monument, but as the talk had me captivated, I only tried a couple of warps at the end. Nevertheless, there were loads of great photo opportunities and a near endless amount of fireworks – though some Unistas ran out halfway through and had to get more from the tradehub. Our two beautiful Typhoons also danced around the Veldnaught in loving embrace and with matching SKINs:

To culminate the celebration, Psychotic Fickity recited her version of “Goodnight Moon”, which I had never heard of, but I guess most people from the US would know.

I was able to snatch a few pictures of her Stratios while she recited.

It was truly heart-warming and a perfect ending of the event for me personally. It was late and my family was waiting, so I had to drop out quite abruptly. Some Unistas still stayed and jokingly attempted to “gank” the Veldnaught with Corvettes to end the celebration on a more explosive note. I won’t have to tell you that they did not manage to kill it:

I’d like to thank every Unista who helped to make the festivities throughout the birthday week a reality and everyone who showed up for the Birthday party as well. Thanks to the wider community for showing your appreciation for what we do and celebrating with us!

A special thanks goes out to our esteemed guests Chribba and Razorien. See you next year again 😉

Razoriens beautiful pictures of EVE University’s birthday can be found on his Flickr:

EVE University 17th birthday

EVE University at the A Band Apart Frigate FFA 2021

This year’s historic FFA in Ouelletta was attended by many pilots of EVE University. Three of them share their own stories and impressions of the event as well as screenshots of pretty explosions (all embedded pictures done by the respective pilots, if not otherwise stated).

Fudster’s story

Low Security space in EVE is dangerous: death awaits you in many ways. Pirates and well trained pilots await your entrance into their protected lairs. The flashing yellow skull of a suspected pirate on a pilot’s name is a badge of honour. You live by the pirate code or you die.

Promotional Graphic by Rixx Javix

There is a myth that many living pirates in EVE become worshiped icons. The gods of Amarr are secondary to these monolithic leaders of looters and vagabonds, and none more so than A Band Apart’s central figure of low security piracy, Rixx Javix. The nicknamed “King of low Sec,” Rixx rules with a gentlemanly efficiency of killing any pilot that ventures into unprotected space without protection. You’ve been warned!

Every now and again, King Javix shows mercy on his subjects. He toys with his fortune and feeds us poor mere mortal capsuleers with events in his honour. To mark the year YC 123 of his rule, Rixx Javix announced his annual frigate free for all in Ouelletta and welcomed New Eden in for spoils and kills. Each pilot would be fed copious free ships for use on the battlefield, where everyone was a primary target until none remained. At 16:00 the lawless feast would begin with fireworks, but end in death.

So here I was, a high security pilot with little solo pvp experience, navigating through copious wrecks and discarded drones, targeting anyone that was untethered and in range. We’d only been at it for 2 minutes and already the battlefield was filling up with aspiring pirates. Many had died already and reshipped while Ouelletta had swelled to over 600 pilots in the system, growing as the word had got out over New Eden. The gates into Ouelletta were flashing with bursts of new and veteran players entering, including the prestigious CCP, looking for targets and killmails.

Within those quick minutes, I managed to get my first target in my Punisher. Brawling them, I swung in underneath, manually twisting and diving to keep range, but also trying not to get hit. I broke my victim’s shields and armour very quickly, but then it became apparent, I wasn’t fighting them alone and I was also now being targeted… by many pilots! As soon as my target went down, I too became fodder and was stripped of my victory dance and left naked on the battlefield in my pod. After having to wait out my naughty pirate person timer, I docked up and was promptly handed another free ship. Like a gazelle, I leaped back out into space and… died before I could even get a reasonable hit on an enemy. Confused and bewildered at how quickly I had died was soon explained when I looked at my screen to see a little circle ⭕️ appear. TiDi (Time dilation – a server slow down mechanism to prevent server crashes) had appeared to curb the pilots in the system and my ability to fight back. Docking back up and receiving a new free ship, I promptly found this event was like no other and I was having one helluva time.

Punisher tethered up at the beginning of the event, ready to engage

With Ouelletta swelling to 900+ pilots, it was time for the King to announce his presence in system. Flying out into the middle of Ouelletta in a Naglfar dreadnought class ship, Rixx Javix ushered in his minions of admirers and objectors to shoot their webs and many weapons at him in his honour. We appeased with gusto, however, our meager weapons were only scratching away at his shields. After a few more pilots arrived, including many from Eve University, Rixx succumbed to Bob and lit up the system with a beautiful orange explosive salute. The first big capital ship in Ouelletta in the event had been taken.

An overview look at the carnage of debris lying on the battlefield within the first two hours.
Rixx Javix’s Naglfar begins to explode after defeat

Meanwhile, CCP members were playing their own part of sacrificial duties by enticing the event’s participants to come and play. Many obliged, including our own Unistas. The glorifying kill of a CCP pilot is one thing, but to scoop their dirty unwashed corpse from the clutch of the void for exclusive bragging rights. Eve Uni’s own Hikaru Sakai was eager to the cause and scooped the CCP corpse from the many other pilots burning to get their cargo bays filled with this prize. Hikaru’s excitement was hard to contain on mumble comms, justified and commended by his fellow envious Unistas. Hikaru had joined the illustrious group of owners of a CCP corpse. The trophy cabinet had its coveted prize.

Even though TiDi was still prevalent in the system, many more capital ships were taken to the slaughter. A sacrificial Revelation capital and Kronos marauder fell in the carnage while almost 6000+ frigate ships had been handed to eager capsuleers. The seismic destruction was relentless in the 4 hour event. The death toll of ships sinking in the seas of piracy kept rising, eventually topping 10,000. Wrecks and abandoned drones littered the battlegrounds in front of the Astrahus Toothpaste Fish like offerings to the monolithic leader.

As the event closed and ship supply ran thin, the seas of piracy still ran thick with the explosive sounds of battle. Rixx announcing the end of the event was endorsed with the salutes of over a hundred pilots and victims alike. The beautiful destruction was a complete success and will be discussed at length in many a corporation’s comms channel for weeks. As a pilot with limited experience in low security, I have a reignited confidence and respect for entering low security. Pirates are dangerous and destructive, but united with chivalry and respect to their enemies; the pirate code seems both welcoming and terrifying in paradox. Rixx Javix proved this within his wonderfully crafted event and I can’t wait to be a part of it again next year.

A Test Alliance Revelation receives damage as it is sacrificed in aid of the event.

Hikaru Sakai’s Story

The Frigate FFA on March 6th was my first FFA and the first time I experienced time dilation. It was a struggle to move around – but I actually enjoyed it. It gave me ample time to pick my targets and maneuver, preventing me from tunnel visioning. Throughout the chaos, I was able to get myself on 35 killmails and only lost 14 ships while also having a 0.5 drop in my security status. 

Rixx’s Naglfar from a distance

It was nice to see so many people in one system, as lowsec tends to be a ghost town. Many Unistas attended the event, and were having fun as well – Mumble was always lively. I arrived in Ouelletta 2 hours early, but there already were more than 100 people in local. It was heartwarming to see new players asking questions on the details of the event, and other players answering them to the best of their capabilities. 

When I first undocked in a Tristan, my client lagged. It was trying to load hundreds of frigates, drones, and wrecks – and I could feel my frames going down. My overview felt like a mess because so many neutrals had clogged up the “combat” tab. While tethered to the Astrahus, I took a look around my ship to find who was close by – and found a Merlin to shoot. After destroying the first Merlin, I found another – but was blown up soon after. The next ship I flew was an Atron, and killed two Kestrels in it. 

Local was an important tool during the event, as intel of ship traders and locations of valuable ships were given. Without that intel, I may not have realized there was a Naglfar or a Providence in system. Somehow the Providence made itself more expensive than the Naglfar by having more than 3 million copies of the Amarrian bible.

Hikaru’s Kestrel engaging Rixx Javix Naglfar

The Naglfar was piloted by none other than Rixx Javix, the organizer of the FFA. The first time I attempted to engage, I warped in about 90km away from the dread – with my prop mod on, I burned as fast as I could hoping that I wouldn’t be shot on the way. There were many others who made the same mistake I did, and we all zoomed in a straight line to Rixx. Unfortunately, my frigate was blown up – but with a quick reship into a Tormentor, I returned to the fight and was able to take some sweet screenshots of the dread explosion. 

Boom!
Boom #2!

Once the Naglfar went down, a Revelation became the new primary target. I shot the dread for a little bit in my Rifter, while dealing with a pesky Punisher that made an attempt to take me out. However, I decided to leave the area for a much more valuable target – CCP. After shooting CCP Convict’s Nergal, I was close enough to take out the pod and snatch the corpse. My hands were trembling as I spammed the warp button. I knew my cargo was valuable and was lucky that nobody scrammed me before leaving the grid. I quickly docked up and stored the corpse in an NPC station before yeeting the Rifter into PvP once more.

Hello there, CCP Convict 🙂

I don’t remember much about what happened after that – according to zkill I had reshipped into a Merlin and blasted a Rifter out of space – but the FFA soon came to an end. I learned later that there were an Orca and Moros that I had missed out on shooting at. There was so much going on, my brain needed a break from constant PvP and I relaxed inside a station. 

I’m so glad that I was able to participate in this event and get to say that “I was there”. The community is what brought me back in 2020, and ties me down to the game. Once again, thanks to Rixx and all of Stay Frosty for the production of all of these ships – from hulls to ammunition – and hope to participate again in 2022. 

Hideo Date’s story

What an event!

I was pretty hyped when Rixx Javix of A Band Apart announced the 7th Annual Frigate Free For All to take place in Ouelletta, just two jumps away from the EVE University Highsec Campus. As more details were published in the week leading up to the FFA, I got more and more pumped. I prepared a stash of ships in the freeported Astrahus as I had loads gathering dust anyway.

When the day came I knew I would only be able to jump in for a little bit at the start and maybe some more towards the end. So the plan was to quickly get all my little frigates killed first and maybe undock a few meme ships later. My first choice was the Atron.

The undock of the Astrahus Toothpaste Fish early in the event

I undocked and marveled at the astonishing amount of ships all over the Astrahus and observed the TiDi kicking in – which never was too bad throughout my time at the event.

Then I scanned around for flashy or criminal targets as I wanted to avoid tanking my sec status too much. I shot at a bunch of other frigates but nobody shot back. For a solid five minutes I was able to basically sit at the undock and kill with impunity. Didn’t get much in the way of last hits, but got on a few killmails. Only after going on to ten minutes was I finally killed. Shame, I was really hoping to burn through my ships faster 😉

Punisher Vs Revelation

After dinner and family time I came back and undocked the Punisher. A Revelation was getting tickled to death on the Astrahus and I joined in. As it seemed to hold for now I decided to try my luck at a couple plexes. Surprisingly there wasn’t much going on. I had really expected there to be more fighting throughout the whole system but it seemed heavily concentrated on the Astrahus and 5-5 station.

But in the end I managed to die. As I reshipped I decided to go directly for my cruisers to get back to tickling the Revelation. A Moros had joined in as well and I was able to see both Dreads break apart. Lost my first Rupture just as the Moros spiraled out of control.

Revelation exploding with Moros in the background

Looking around the huge mess I decided it was time to help with the cleanup, so I undocked my shiny salvaging Magnate and looked around for valuable wrecks to vacuum up. I was mostly ignored – again to my surprise – and seemed to also be amazingly safe within the tether even when salvaging. The only thing worthwhile I was able to get was an elite battleship wreck, otherwise a few elite frigates. All in all I managed to salvage about 10M… sadly no one blew me up in the process.

After tidying up the place for a little bit I undocked a Griffin which I used to annoy a Hecate gang and a few others. Again to my surprise, I was ignored for quite a while until some random frigate finally put me out of my misery of flying a despicable ECM ship.

Smartbombing Thanatos

My second Rupture was used on two Thanatos’s, one of Rixx – who cowardly docked back up, running away from the might of the rust – and one of WER4, our good ol’ wardeccers. After I was able to do the obligatory “cool kids don’t look at explosions” shot I was really expecting to be immediately focused on, as I had the slowest and biggest ship on grid at the time. But I had to beg a Flycatcher to take notice of me and show my dusty arty Rupture how to clean up.

Rupture giving the Thanatos the cold shoulder

To round out the evening I took out a Rifter, a Tristan and ultimately a Thrasher. I was again looking for fights around the system.

My Rifter found a few people engaged around a Plex and there was a lot of flinging of ammunition in all directions.

I generally find the Tristan to be overpowered, but in my hands – as someone helpless with droneboats – I found another pilot who showed me how to dispatch this mighty little ship.

My Thrasher was heavily outclassed by kitey ships, so that I couldn’t actually fight back.

At this point, the local and general activity had died down significantly, and looking at local chat there weren’t any more ships available to give out. So I was expecting most pilots to not be able to continue fighting.

It was a shame I didn’t get my neuting Maller into action or my arty Claw…now I have to find some other way to blow them up gloriously.

It was a great change of pace and a wonderful event, I deeply enjoyed taking out so many ships one after another and experiencing so many different engagements. Though I really expected to die a lot quicker than I did. Maybe I overestimated the bloodlust of my fellow capsuleers 😉

Huge thanks to Rixx and the wonderful ABA crew for organising and preparing this FFA! Looking forward to next year! o7