Almost a month ago I wrote about joining a player corp in EVE Online. Since then I have been exploiting where they’re based in nullsec. I have to say that I have so far been very lucky in finding a group of people who are willing to share their knowledge and appear to take a relaxed attitude when it comes to what they expect in return. That may change however whenever we find ourselves at war with a different alliance / coalition of players. Unlike other parts of EVE Online, nullsec, also known as sov (sovereignty) space belongs to a group of players who are part of an alliance (a collection of corporations) which a lot of the time, but not always, join a coalition. The more sov your alliance or coalition control the more resources and influence you have in the game. So when war breaks out I imagine it is expected that every player tries to defend and attack objectives in order to survive and continue to be able to exploit sov systems for their natural resources. This is something I haven’t experienced yet.
What I have been experiencing however is the exploitation of resources in nullsec. Planetary Industry (PI) in nullsec is far more profitable than in high security (highsec) space. Each planet has far more resources, plus the import and export tax is considerably less. Because there are a huge amounts of resources PI requires less attention once everything has been set up, making this a really good passive way to generate income without it becoming too laborious. In the screenshot below I am extracting non-cs crystals and heavy metals from the planet which in turn produce chiral structures and toxic metals in 6 basic factories. These then produce consumer electronics in 3 advanced factories which I then export using the new Skyhook structure and Squall hauler as featured in the above image. I then import the consumer electronics along with mechanical parts to a different planet with factories that can produce robotics, which I then later export and sell.
There are also a lot of relic and data sites in nullsec. While I haven’t paid any attention to the data sites, I have now and then hacked relic sites for their salvage loot. This is something I wrote about in a wormhole exploration post I made back in 2020. The difference here is that it is much easier and safer than exploring wormholes. While exploring wormholes you have no idea how many people are in the same system as you. There could be a fleet of ships and you would have no idea until you spot them on your directional scanner or until they decloak next to you. In nullsec you know exactly who is with you in the system and 98% of the time they’re part of your alliance and are therefore friendly. Assuming of course you’re in a ‘blue space’ system (a system which belongs to your alliance).
With the added safety of ‘blue space’ in nullsec, mining is much safer than anywhere else in the game and is highly profitable. Players with expensive industrial command ships will freely participate in mining operations which will increase mining yields and efficiency for every player, by a lot. There is also moon mining which does exist in high security space but only in a limit number of systems which offer only a limited amount of common ore. Some moons in highsec will give rare ores which will turn into billions of ISK (interstellar kredits) on the market. I have briefly participated in some of these fleets but because I began my EVE Online career mining almost 24/7 I find it less appealing than some other activities right now. I have however mined mercoxit (see below image) for the first time. Mercoxit is a unique ore which requires special skills and equipment to mine and according to the Cerlestes Ore Table is found only in nullsec.
Finally and perhaps ultimately the most profitable exploiting I have done is ratting. Ratting is simply destroying NPC (non-playable character) pirates which are nicknamed rats. Each rat has a bounty which generally speaking is higher than anything in highsec. Plus there are many combat sites in each sov system creating an endless supply of rats. This in turn will allow players to create hundreds even thousands of wrecks to salvage which will sometimes contain high value faction modules. It also means there are no shortage of escalations which are usually very profitable but sometimes lead outside of blue space and are more often than not quite difficult to do if you’re not prepared. Occasionally some combat sites and escalations even contain capital ships, such as the Moros below with a whopping 60m ISK bounty. Unfortunately I am not equipped to deal with a rat of this size.
There is still so much more to try in nullsec. Most notably is that I can look forward to using capital ships. As I write this another player is building me a Nidhoggur carrier which after some tests and a little more research I will use to rat. This would probably warrant another blog post dedicated to my experience using a capital ship and carrier ratting. I have also had thoughts about obtaining a dreadnought or two which will help deal with rat capital ships and be a step in the right direction for whatever war will eventually come our way. There are also discussions for expensive BLOPS (black ops) ships being needed for offensive hit and run covert strikes in enemy territory which I find interesting.
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