Hulkageddon II

So everyone has posted on this thing but to be honest it's a big enough event that you kind of have to blog about it.

What is Hulkageddon II you ask. It's an organized piracy event that brings all those pirates you don't want to encounter in lowsec and sends them into highsec (well anywhere) to target HULKS (well any kind of mining related craft). Said pirates (and anyone who has an alt with ~12 hours of skill training) try to pop mining vessels before concord serves them justice. This year prizes were given out for all kinds of achievement based forms of miner gankage for a week long event.

So how did this fair on a highsec mining newbie? I support the event to be honest and posted such (with a small bit about miners being like fat cows) on the site this year. However you look at it, there is good to come from it.

First good I see revolves around bot miners. Honestly I have toyed with starting an Alt JUST to rid my frequented roid belts of them. They are cheating bastards, provide no in game social value and are lousy at googling good information. Hence they deserve to die!

Second good I see revolves around raising awareness of new miners (and old complacent ones) to the fact that there is no safe place in EVE. At any time (other than in a station) you can be blown to shreds and loose your ship. Now there are things you can do to help yourself survive. Fit a tank to the mining barge. Sure a T1 barge is not going to offer much options, but there are plenty of examples on how to fit a hulk with a decent tank while still being able to vaporize veldspar and make tons of cash. Some even boast 300+ DPS. Oh yeah, and align to your warp out point please. Some might argue it's folly, but to be honest every second counts when some one with blasters is trying to shoot you. If they had rubber chickens, bah who needs to align.

Third good I see revoles around the market. How so you might ask. So ore prices for starters. Before the event I was selling tritanium at 4% under market (unless I wanted to haul it 10 hops), now I sell it for 2% over market. WOOT 6% gain baby! I also made a ton (well 40) destroyers out of mined goods and reprocessed goods that made me ~28M ISK while I did some thing else for a week. (TIP: Don't gouge the crap out of the gankers by doubling the price of destroyers. Price them well for a modest profit and make a ton of 'em. They will all sell that week.)

Fourth good I see revolves around me actually taking a break from mining and doing some thing fun. That week I got my mining account into a battle cruiser and up to level 4 missions. That week I scanned down 20+ hacking and 20+ salvage sites and made ~20M ISK worth in sold rigs. That week I took a walk (well I flew a ship...) into W space and killed my first sleepers and started a T3 (long way off for me) salvage stockpile. I could have mined and made more ISK perhaps, but man the energy drinks I would have needed to mine for the play time I logged that week (actually I played more that week than normal.).

So take a moment to take off your blinders and look around you. Look past the system you are in, the bookmarked secure cans, and the industrial jobs you have running. Look past your rage when you get ganked by 4 destroyers in your "safe" 0.5-1.0 system. Look beyond the ISK you could have made. Look to the horizons (all be them filled with folks with your ill fortune at hand) and step into the unknown for a week. Most of all, send Helicity Boson a little thank you. If 1% of us EVE players took the time to organize some thing of this scale. Oh how much more fun we would all have.

Oh and if you are still filled with rage from that hulk you lost or clutching your chest with stress over the Orca that is no more. I suggest you pour a bucket of water into the power supply of your computer and take up yoga or something. It be a game and games are supposed to be FUN people, mkaaay!

Cheers

EVE SOB