Hunting and gathering

Yesterday I had a very busy schedule, but managed to find some time to explore space.

The Great Wildlands is an interesting place. The only people you see are generally in transit, explorers looking for wormholes, or people who are just generally lost, confused, and desperately trying to get back to space with more stations.

There is at least one corp I know of living in the small clutch of systems containing stations, but I've never seen them venture far from their docks. I occasionally wander past them, but I have yet to see one in space. I must make a note of greeting them to see what their response is.

I've often heard that all null-sec corporations are violent, territorial and greedy. Also, that warp disruption bubbles are everywhere. I'm working on the assumption that this is mere hearsay, and that the truth is ultimately more complex. It usually is. I'm looking forward to speaking to these more settled null-sec dwellers.

But that's a side project for a later time. 

Over the past few weeks, my depots have been filling up, and I've just added a few more to extend my range. I'm getting into the habit of keeping munitions in my hold down to a bear minimum, so that I can carry back more loot. In terms of actual ISK gained in the last week, that's up to about 70 million. The majority of that is in items and salvage. I'll need Benh to come out and pick it up once he gets over his little incident.

That's not an inconsiderable amount of money, and my actual flying time has been limited to 20 or so minutes a day. I'm finding null-sec to be quite lucrative, and much, much safer that low sec. It's also very peaceful out here. I'm beginning to see the attraction.

Particularly since you can make over 10 million in under 10 minutes. 

Immediately after starting to explore space, I found a Domination Angel battleship loitering around in a belt, surrounded by some cruiser serfs. The bounties alone were worth more than 8 million. Torpedoes flew, and hulls were rent open to hard vacuum. The battleship went down surprisingly fast for such a high bounty.

The drops weren't that inspiring, but that's only relative. Really, 200k modules are nothing to be sniffed at.

Much better than that, someone had clearly been through the belt claiming bounties too, but failed to check the wrecks. That means free loot and salvage! I ended up getting about 2 million in modules and salvage, and it only took a few minutes of picking up someone else's garbage.

The take home message is this: Take everything you can. If you're choosing this lifestyle, you won't have the luxury of a ship replacement program, or a secure place to hoard your findings. Every scrap of ISK is vital for the inevitable day when someone will come to destroy it all.

Practical notes:

I'm getting a better handle on Null-sec mechanics, and the 'true' security levels in particular. Put simply, the lower the true-sec value of a system, the better quality pirates you'll find. You'll need to balance that quality of pirates against number of belts.

Also be aware that these will inevitably be high-traffic areas. If you pitch your tent in this system, expect it to be noticed much more easily. So again, balance true-sec vs. travel time.

Salvage is smaller than modules. It's tight, but fit a salvager. Not only will you make more cash off your kills, but it's easier to transport than modules.

I've also started to refine my depot living techniques, and I'll make the move to sovereign space in two weeks time.