Around New Eden - Day 21

Region: Great Wildlands

I'm still in R-ESG0, but I got this lovely photo of a nice blue planet...

You can probably tell the system was empty at the time, allowing me the luxury of decloaking.

Can you see me waving from the window?

Anyway, while it was nice and quiet I took the opportunity to jump to the next system after making necessary gate bookmarks.

Do you like the new titling I'm using for each system I'm passing through? I got the idea yesterday, and have been playing around with it a little. I think I'm going to have to make the post backgrounds black though, so that they fit in better.

What do you think of it?

When I go to a new system I like exploring the different planets looking for a nice photo opportunity. When I find one, I stop exploring that system, make some bookmarks, and then move on to the next system.

Here's the photo that stopped me from continuing to explore in this system...

Moving right along....

Of course, when I jump into a new system, I look for interesting celestial objects in the overview, but if there's none around, then I move on to the planets.

Can anyone tell me why the red planets are the most photogenic? I love them...

See you tomorrow!

Is it possible?

As I travel the galaxy, one system at a time, I've been thinking about something.

I've been wondering if it's possible to travel the entire galaxy without dying, or even losing a ship.

What do you think?

One of my strengths is avoiding ambushes and gate camps. In fact, I'd say I'm a bit of a master at it, and I've had the experiences to prove it. (It's also why I started OUCH back in 2009, because I was so good at nullsec / lowsec travel and avoiding combat that I ended up teaching others how to do the same.)

But wouldn't that be exciting? Travelling the galaxy, going through over 60 regions and over 5,000 systems, and avoiding death the entire way?

That might be something to write about...

I might write another 'tips' article soon, on how to travel safely. I'm sure I've written about it before, if not here, then maybe in OUCH's original training material, but I'll do it again anyway. There's always someone new that'll find value in it.

Around New Eden - Day 20

Region: Great Wildlands

I was sitting in N-DQ0D all day today, waiting for the 20 or so pilots to go somewhere else. Eventually they did, probably a couple hours before downtime, and I continued on my way.

P1T-LP

Since it was completely empty in here, and I hadn't seen any for quite a while, I decided to take out some aggression on one of the battleship rats in here, to continue my quest to slowly reduce my security status.

You can see me just to the bottom right there, in the background, engaging in a vicious shootout with the rat. I'd already taken out its support ships, a bunch of frigates, and it was desperately fighting for its life.

But it lost.  *chuckle*

I checked the loot in the wreckage, and then remembered why I shouldn't even waste my time.

I moved on to the next system...

Since downtime was coming, I decided to camp here in R-ESG0 for the night. But first I made a gate bookmark before logging out. Here's a photo of me making another gate bookmark.

Well, you can't actually see me, 'cause I'm cloaked. Have you ever seen a Tech 3 cruiser making gate bookmarks in nullsec space? Hell no, because they're always cloaked!

Well, maybe not always... but if you do see one, good luck killing it. The idiot probably deserves it!

Anyway, see you next time.

Around New Eden - Day 19

Region: Great Wildlands

The last 'day' that I spent travelling and documenting my explorations around New Eden was back in November, 2011. Gee, it's been a while.

So I've spent some time today to re-familiarise myself with my travels so far. I've marked off the visited systems on some region maps, and I've printed out my planned path around New Eden.

I've even made sure that I continue where I left off.

N-DQ0D

Average system, a reasonably amount of activity (there were a few people travelling through at most times).

And now I'm going to go get some sleep.

It's nice to be back on the exploration trail! See you next time.

Where did Black Claw go?

Back in January I wrote about how I was 'untethering' from all these things in my life, clearing out 'stuff' and making things simple again. I wanted to try new things and felt that Eve was, in some way, preventing me from doing them by taking up my time. I handed over OUCH to my senior staff. I quit OUCH and moved on, back into my old corp Scorpion's Sting. I gave up www.evebloggers.com to someone else.

It felt great to let go of everything!

I stopped playing. I did the other things and certainly enjoyed them, but recently I've been feeling a pull to get back into Eve. I'd been playing it since the beginning of 2006, and I think there's traces of Eve in my blood or something. It flows within me, and it calls to me. It calls!

After four or five months without it, I'm feeling like it's a good thing to get back into it. It was slowly rising in me over the past couple of weeks, and my post 11 days ago was a somewhat cryptic message about these feelings stirring within me. "My blood is moving. It's like.... I'm coming back to life or something." And I felt that Eve was calling me, like a flame and I was the moth. "Is there a light? Surely there's gotta be a light."

But I wasn't entirely sure at the time I wrote that. I just wanted to write it, and see how I felt about it. But since writing it, the urge to come back has grown.

Today I actually became active again. I created a new thread on the Eve forums, and I reactivated my G+ page.

Honestly? I think I needed the break, but now I'm back. And it feels good to be back into it.

It's nice to have no responsibilities and no 'administration'. It's nice to feel all fresh about it again. I went through my eve mail and deleted close to 100 pages of mail - all of it, gone. I didn't read any of it, and I kept nothing. Everything that I've done before no longer applies. It's a new start.

I'll be continuing my travels, documenting every single system in the entire galaxy, and I look forward to seeing some of you around New Eden. Some of you I'll be dodging! But I'll enjoy all of it.

The adventure continues

I've gone through some recuperation for being in stasis for so long. It did some damage to my eyes, apparently, but they're all better now.

I forgot how to use some of the ship controls. Would you believe that? But after a few minutes I was able to get back into it all.

I've spent some time today getting things back in order. I've been re-working my page on Google+ and becoming sociable again on it. I've also started a new thread on the Eve Forums because someone had locked my old thread. Maybe it was because I hadn't updated it in a few months, I don't know.

I also checked out the map and past blog posts to work out where the hell I was, where I'd been, and where I'm going.

The adventure continues!

I'm going to be hanging out in my in-game channel when I'm online: Black's Travels

It would be great if you could join me there and say hi.

Am I alive?

Something's moving. I can feel it stirring.

What's going on?

My blood is moving. It's like... I'm coming back to life or something.

Darkness. That's all I can see.

Is there a light? Surely there's gotta be a light.

Where am I? Wait... Who am I?

Oh... I remember. Black Claw. That's what they called me.

What happened? Why can't I see?

Around New Eden - Day 18

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

I did a little bit of ratting before heading back to SL-YBS, ratting along the way. My #tweetfleet friend, @EVE_Rhavas, suggested I go back there and check out planet 1 for one of the best views in the galaxy.  So I thought I better do what he suggested, since that's the kind of thing I'm travelling around and documenting!

SL-YBS

Silly me!  I completely forgot that this system was one of the 'shattered planets' that I talked about here.  How exciting!  So naturally I took a few photos...

Very cool...

L1S-G1

So after doing a bit of ratting around some asteroid belts, I headed back to L1S-G1 to do some more ratting before moving on to further uncharted areas.

Interestingly, I found this fighter ship or frigate, of a design that I'd never seen before. Have any of you seen this? Can you tell me something about it?

OPI4-E

For some reason I had a safe spot in this system. I thought I'd never been here before, but after checking the map I saw it was only 3 jumps from Molden Heath, my old stomping grounds from some time ago. I realised that I must have been down this way sometime while wandering around being a pirate. Gee, that would have been maybe 3 or 4 years ago. Ah, memories....

What a pretty photo this is.

9SNK-O

Bored by this system. Can you tell by the photo.

B-VIP9

I'd received a tip from Kaisi13 to watch out for this system, because there were lots of warp bubbles and gate camps.  I'm not afraid of such things, but I was thankful for the tip so I could be careful, but I was hoping to take photos of some bubbles or camps. When I got here, however, it was completely empty of people and bubbles. So I took a photo of the gate to Egbinger instead.

I thought about jumping into Molden Heath, but changed my mind - I'll be in there soon enough as I travel through the regions.  So I headed back along my route to continue on.

6WT-BE

Another boring system, but I quite enjoyed how this gate looked against the backdrop of the nearby planet...

SL-YBS

I know I've been here twice before now, but I decided to have another look at the shattered planet, and wow!  I found something that I hadn't seen mentioned before.

The debris around the planet seemed to have actually been orbiting it. This stuff was moving!  While I was there watching, the debris was slowly moving away from me. I tried MWD'ing after it, but it was actually faster than my measly ~1000m/s.  I decided to take a few photos from the same angle to show how they moved over a reasonably short period of time.

I decloaked for the photos only when I was alone in the system, and stayed cloaked while waiting for the debris to move on.

I'm a bit amazed that I've been to this system three times now and found something awesome each time.

I looked for some battleship rats to kill, but couldn't find any by themselves - if there were any in this system, they all flew in pairs. I didn't want to risk doing anything stupid, so I went to bed instead.

It's been quite an interesting day.  See you next time!



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Around New Eden - Day 17

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

E02-IK

I woke up in the station and saw that there were about a dozen people in local, but with only about 4 in the station with me, so after waiting about 10 minutes I decided to undock and make a station exit bookmark. Luckily there wasn't anyone outside, so I quickly activated the MWD and got out of range of the station and activated the cloak, and then meandered out to 200km so I could make a station exit bookmark.

This is me making a bookmark...

M-MD3B

I did the same thing here as well. With another dozen people in local, I went to a station, waited until I saw someone undock so I could make sure where the exit was, and then made a bookmark before docking and swapping out my warp core stabilisers for some DPS mods. This was the last system with a station before I went into the badlands up north, where there wouldn't be any stations for light years around.

Hopefully that would mean it would be quiet with no one around, allowing me to get some decent ratting in before I moved on.

This is me, cloaked, in orbit around a planet before I head on to the next system.

NIH-02

I entered this system and found myself alone - a good sign!  But spinning slowly in space was poor zz bomba's corpse...

Now, considering that my attempts to return corpses to their owners in the past were met with rejection, I left it where it was, a forlorn and temporary monument to a recent battle that zz bomba had unfortunately lost.

Since it was empty, I warped to an asteroid belt to see what I could see, and found a rat battlecruiser and battleship sitting there. I was about to move towards them and engage, when someone entered the system.  Grrr!  I cloaked and warped to my tactical bookmark and saw it was a Hurricane pilot, sitting there off the gate.

I waited until he warped off and left the system, and then I warped back to the asteroid belt to finish it.  Unfortunately, that same pilot came back and forth through this system a couple of times, meaning that I was only able to destroy the battlecruiser before I got skittish and moved on to a system that had less traffic.  At least the battlecruiser would help improve my security status, even if it was just a little bit.

As I go, I'll keep a record of my sec status, so I can keep track of improvements. At this stage, it's -9.27.

SL-YBS

So I entered this system and was able to engage this battleship rat and two of his rat Dramiel escorts. The drones made short work of them while I focused on the battleship, and then they joined in on the battleship onslaught.

The damn thing kept on getting away from me, so I had to pulse the MWD every now and again to keep it in range of my weapons, but eventually I succeeded. Yay! My first battleship destroyed in the Proteus.

The crew had to have a party, of course.

When everyone settled down again and the alcohol had been cleaned up, I realised there was a 'Natural Phenomenon' showing on the overview.  Naturally I warped to it and had a look.

"The depths of space are home to all kinds of cosmic anomalies, from concentrations of electromagnetic disturbance to dense clouds of rare gas. These types of areas are valued for the scientific knowledge they could impart. Though they are often dangerous, these phenomena are also the subject of frequent research expeditions."

Upon arriving, there was some kind of 'coral rock formation' surrounded by a gas cloud and some shattered asteroids that were exposing their internal crystal formations. Quite pretty...

The crew were itching to be moving on. They just didn't see the beauty in front of them. I'll have to work on that.

Speaking of the crew, I'll talk about them in another post coming soon.

UNJ-GX

I was making a bookmark in here when someone came in and activated a cyno field. I warped to it and watched, waiting to see what might turn up. I sat there for close to 10 minutes but nothing came through. Maybe they changed their mind?

Eventually the cyno dropped, the guy in the Thrasher warped off, and I was left there alone.

I moved on.

L1S-G1

In this out-of-the-way system was another pilot, and an Abandoned Ship Wreck.

"After thousands of years among the stars, the space lanes of New Eden have become littered with countless abandoned ships. The twisted and gnarled hulls of these empty vessels float silently, offering up no explanation as to their lonely fate."

It seemed the abandoned ship wrecks were all the same - an ancient shuttle smashed up against an asteroid like a ship against a reef.

I'd seen it before, so I didn't hang around to take any more photos.

I decided to sign off for the night. I was happy that my security status was at -9.21.  I'll do some more soon. Maybe for long enough to get it down to -8....

See you next time!



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Around New Eden - Day 16

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

M-EKDF

I quickly passed through this system, taking a photo of the star...

AZF-GH

I went to go ratting in here in my nice new Proteus, but then remembered I need to swap fittings before I do that. I need to find a system with a station first.

I found another planet on fire, and I got a distinct feeling that the planet was angry. Angry planet!

I think I've been in space too long....

CRXA-Y

This is the last of the 'southern' systems in this region. I need to go through all the 'northern' systems before heading through the mid-systems to end up at the exit to the Cache region.

Here's a photo of my awesome ship as I make a bookmark... I love how it looks, shining in the star light...

JPL-RA

As I was making a bookmark in here I was looking at the map and then slapped myself in the forehead. Of course it's dead in this region - there's no bloody stations in the entire 'southern' region!

I could see I was heading towards a system with a station, so I expected it to get a little busier in the systems as I got closer to it. And lo and behold, there's someone in local with me...

This planet I found looked pretty amazing with how asteroids had impacted against it, leaving it a wasteland. I wondered if there had been any civilisation on this planet before the asteroids came, but I didn't have time to hang around and look for archeological samples...

NK-7XO

I wanted to zip through this system to quickly get to the station system, so I made a safe spot bookmark along the way. Here's me about to jump out through the gate...

E02-IK

How exciting!  No only can I dock on the station, but it's also got a cloning medical facility.  I moved my clone to this station, the first time I've moved a clone since starting this journey.

I re-fitted my ship for ratting, and then went to bed. I'll start shooting up some of those rats tomorrow instead.

I have to say, it's nice to be out of Curse again. I had to go back in order to get the Proteus, but I really do feel more comfortable being out here exploring the unknown. Curse was too busy for me, even though there wasn't that many people there.

It's going to be interesting to actually go through the busy regions in the future, not to mention when I get to Empire space.

Does anyone else thing my ship looks like an old motorbike body?

See you next time!



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Around New Eden - my new Proteus

It's happened!  I now have an awesome, shiny Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser, the Gallente Proteus.  This is a photo of it, with the subsystems fitted and configured.

Thanks to the donations of some very kind and supportive pilots out there, I've been able to afford the skill books for the ship and subsystems, as well as the T2 fittings.  Thank you so much to all of you who donated.  

Please keep those donations coming though, because it is thanks to you that I will be able to continue travelling around New Eden - I do expect to have to buy new ships every now and again!

I haven't had a chance to itemise the shopping list and the cost, but once I do I'll update the donation page accordingly.  I intend having full disclosure about what money I've received, and how that money is being spent.  

I ended up using the fittings suggestion from Anxiir, so I want to thank him for that, and I hope it will take me safely through nullsec for a long time!

I was able to buy the ship hull and the Interdiction Nullifier subsystem in the nullsec system I was docked at, but there were no other subsystems for me to buy. So I had to use my alt, Alexia Morgan, to buy what I needed in Rens, and then fly them to me.  It was a bit hairy, having to dodge two gate camps with a cargo hold full of T3 subsystems and T2 fittings, but she managed to get there without incident.  I got her to make a station exit bookmark before docking - a necessary task when you're out in nullsec.

So I fitted the subystems and fittings and then took a photo of the fittings image (above). I was considering undocking in my nice new Proteus, but changed my mind when I saw that there was 95 people in local, and only 38 of them docked in the station with me.  There was potentially almost 60 ships out there waiting for me to undock.  I decided to go to bed instead.

See you next time!

Please donate to help me travel around New Eden.

Around New Eden - Day 15

REGION: BACK IN CURSE!


VXO-OM

I jumped in here on my way back to Curse. Because Great Wildlands is so freakin' DEAD, I decided to get my stealth bomber and do some ratting while I'm out here. Funny thing is, it took me 70+ jumps to get to where I am now, exploring each system on the way, but to return to where I left my Nemesis is only 9 jumps away...

So off I go!

As I made my way back to the stealth bomber, I wondered if it would be a mistake... While not as fast as the covert ops ship, I knew I had an advantage in that my Aussie timezone meant that the regions just aren't that active at my normal play times.  This is definitely a good thing for me!

I jumped in the stealth bomber and headed off to another location in Curse where I could do some ratting while waiting for my Proteus skills to get themselves up to a comfortable level where I could reasonably fly it.

But I will still need to buy it, and I don't have enough money for that just yet. If you would like to help then please send me ISK in-game and I will add you to the donation screen.

Help me fit a Proteus

Hi guys!

Thanks to my good friend Giribaldi who donated an amazing 500 million ISK to help me on my way, I've now got myself a Proteus hull.  Yay!  (In honour of the man who helped me get it, I will name it HMAS Giribaldi.)

But how should I fit it?

I open the floor to you guys. Please give me some decent fits to help me get through nullsec safely and to do some ratting along the way to get my sec status up. I don't want to use it for PVP, and I want to make sure I can avoid those who are trying to kill me.

Any tactical advice to go along with your fittings recommendation would also be very welcome.

Now, I don't have any pictures yet 'cause I don't have any subsystems in the hull, so I can't jump in it just yet. But as soon as I get a full complement of subsystems installed, I'll take some photos.

Thank you for your help!



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Around New Eden - Day 14

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

F5-CGW

There weren't any anomalies here, and I couldn't be assed taking photos of planets this time around, so I decided to do something I've never done on this adventure before - take a photo of my ship!  So I found a reasonable backdrop, decloaked, and snapped away.

I think maybe I'll do this more often, but only if there's no one else in the system with me. You can't be too careful these days. You could be happily taking photos of some planet and then BANG! Someone drops a cyno on your ass and you're saying hello to a battle fleet dropping in around you.  I wouldn't like that at all...

H9S-WC

I had a nice chat with a pilot out here who ended up being interested in joining OUCH, so I gave him some instructions, wished him well, and went on my merry way.

I flew back to Y4-GQV and decided to rest here for a few days.



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Help me travel around New Eden

I was chatting with someone yesterday in my in-game channel, BLACK'S TRAVELS, and they suggested that I use a Tech 3 ship to travel around New Eden. Now, with me being a -9.3 flashy red pirate, I laughed at the idea, thinking that using a T3 ship would just make me more of a shit magnet than what I already am. Not to mention losing it when I enter highsec because CONCORD will toast my ass...

But they pointed out a few things that made me think.

• it's not affected by warp bubbles
• it can use a covert ops cloak
• it can fight battleship rats

Overall, it's a better ship to travel around nullsec with AND do some ratting to get my sec status back to normal, so that by the time I'm ready to enter highsec, I can do so without penalty.

In fact, the discussion made me think very hard.  But I can't afford to buy a T3 ship + subsystems + fittings. So my friend suggested I blog about this and get people to donate to help me with my travels.

I thought that's a great idea!  So he decided to donate some faction fittings for me, but that wasn't really going to work - any physical donations would have to be retrieved by me, and I didn't want to have to go galavanting around the galaxy to retrieve stuff for a ship to help me go galavanting around the galaxy.... If you know what I mean.

So it has to be donations of ISK only.  And that's when I came up with another cool idea.

I decided to make a large blank image that's 1,000 pixels by 1,000 pixels in size. For everyone who donates ISK to Black Claw (in-game), I will put a copy of their avatar on this image and, over time, fill it up with the avatars of all those who donated to help me around the galaxy.  

It's a bit empty at the moment, but this is just the beginning....

Those who have donated to help me travel New Eden

Click on image to expand to full size

CURRENT DONATIONS:

645 MILLION ISK

In order to ensure all avatars can be seen, the minimum avatar size will be 10 pixels by 10 pixels (eg. 10 million ISK donation). Of course, I'll accept all ISK donations even if they're only 100,000 ISK, but I will only place avatars on this image if they've donated 10 million ISK or more.

So if someone donated 100 million ISK, then their image will be 100 pixels wide.  If there's ever the unlikely event that someone out there that actually donates a billion ISK or more, then I will add 1,000 pixels to the size of the 'canvas' to allow for the expansion. As avatars are added, I will upload new versions of this image.

Note: if your corp or alliance wants to donate ISK, I would be very grateful!  In this case, I would use your corp or alliance logo as your 'avatar'.

This is my way of thanking and rewarding all those who would like to help me with my travels, who are expressing their generosity in donating ISK to help me buy and fit a T3 ship. Everyone who donates will be recognised and thanked by having their avatar placed onto this image.

When you send me ISK in-game, please have 'Around New Eden' as the reason for your donation, so that I know to place your avatar on this image.

I would also really appreciate it if you share this blog post with your friends.

Naturally, I will provide updates in this blog on the donations, and my progress towards getting and using a Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser. 

Thank you for your support!

Around New Eden - Day 13

REGION: GREAT WILDLANDS

PUC-JZ

After entering this system I made a bookmark, and while I was doing that I did a system scan. Oh, look at that, a new anomaly!

Angel Sanctum

This one seemed to have a huge pirate complex, with 8 battleships and 3 battlecruisers flying around it, obviously protecting it.

There was also a factory complex situated in a broken blue crystal asteroid... Fascinating!

5FCV-A

No anomalies in here, so have a planet instead....

O-OVOQ

No NEW anomalies in here, so have a rat Dramiel instead...

SB-23C

As you marvel at this view, do you wonder if there's anyone on that planet, in this very moment, that's marveling at their sun rising on a new day?  I do.

And then I fly on to the next system...

92-BOX

Ooh, nice... an Abandoned Ship Wreck in this system!

"After thousands of years among the stars, the space lanes of New Eden have become littered with countless abandoned ships. The twisted and gnarled hulls of these empty vessels float silently, offering up no explanation as to their lonely fate."

Here was a sad monument to the hazards of space travel. Some ancient space shuttle smashed up against an asteroid, with debris slowly floating around, surrounded by cloud of gas that had long ago stopped expanding...

Y4-GQV

I was making bookmarks in this system while talking to someone in my chat channel (BLACK'S TRAVELS channel), and they were recommending I use a T3 ship to travel around nullsec. I scoffed at the idea, pointing out that I intend travelling into highsec and a T3 ship is likely to get attacked by CONCORD because I'm still -9.3 and flashy red.

They pointed out to me that a T3 ship will allow me to battleship rat, use covert ops cloaks, and go to warp while in warp bubbles. And with the ratting I can do along the way, I can get my sec status back up faster than I can say... well, faster than I can say some really long words for a period of time...

They even gave me a donation to help me towards getting a T3 ship, and after thanking them for their act of generosity, I got an idea.... but I'll discuss that in a separate post.

I went to the next system and then realised I'd forgotten to take photos of this system, so I came back....

WTIE-6

This was very pretty.... a system just FULL of gas clouds stretching dozens of light years across, filling space as far as you can see....

1L-AED

I found another planet in here that was on fire, and decided to take a photo of the surface of the planet. I love these planets...

1C-953

After taking a photo of a planet here, I again moved on to the next system...

1X8-JB

I found a nice water world here with a few storms active. That was pretty cool.

Y-DSSK

I decided to get a photo of a Customs Office receiving some goods from the planet it was above. I don't think I've been that close to those offices before.  Interesting... for a few minutes.

Next...

B-ROFP

I was able to take a couple of nice shots in this system.

There was also the first lone soul out here that I'd seen for some time. I waved, but he ignored me.  I felt sad.

But I also decided to call it a night. After doing 12 systems, I was exhausted!

See you next time!


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