Attempting the Solo Life

Communications Center My EVE
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I’ve seen in many games where players try playing in an iron-man or solo self-found style. I am going to attempt my own version of that and see how it goes. I’ll (try to) detail what I’ve been doing along the way, a sort of diary.

The idea is not to fully restrict myself (see rules below), but more see how it goes if I have to do the tasks of getting the items solo.

The rules:

  • No buying from the market from players. Buying from NPCs (which have 364 day timers) is fine.

  • No contracts or direct trades.

  • Can use player owned structures.

  • Can loot wrecks of others.

  • Can use items from AIR rewards if tasks to receive them was done by this character.

  • No fleets. The intent here is to not permit mining boosts.

The goal
To be honest, unlike others I’ve seen I don’t really have one. I’m just seeing how far this goes be it until I’m bored or the challenge too great. I know some of the rules could be technically be by-passed but that’s not the aim nor the spirit of this endeavour.

Some caveats

I’m not using a brand-new character. I was training this guy, which is not my main, to mine, and then to rat but I’ve ended up doing neither. So rather than start another alpha account I’m just going to use this character which is on an omega account. I started with just over 9 mill SP. I also started with 1 million ISK as I felt that was reasonable.

With that let’s begin…

Day 1:
I was, luckily, already an Amarr character sitting in Domain. I knew I’d want to aim for lasers and drones as they reduce the need for ammo, and so I did the trick of leaving my corvette (starting frigate) at one station and then going to another to claim a second there. I then stripped the second of its mining laser and gun and moved them over to my original corvette.

I begin thinking of my options - do I go ratting? Do I start level one missions? I need at least some ISK to buy any blueprints I’m going to need. But then browsing The Agency I saw the career agents. A quick Google, and Eve Wiki gave me loads of info about what rewards I would be getting including frigates, a venture, and even a hauler. Amazing!

I made my way over to Conoban in Kor-Azor andset about doing the Industrialist (Producer) ones and was blasting through them in the venture I gained early on. One of the missions had several Kernite asteroids which I knew would normally only be low-sec, so I completed the first part (killing the NPC) but then refitting the venture with two Miner I’s and spending 35 minutes clearing those roids out.

However…I got to the last mission and Eve Wiki was showing me the minerals needed for the frigate I needed to build to get my beloved hauler. It was going to use a signifcant portion of the minerals I’d gathered. I looked at the other Industrialist agent’s missions (Entrepeneur) and you get the hauler for making a gun…a gun! It needed 200 Trit vs 30,000 trit for the frigate (plus isogen which isn’t in high-sec normally). So I began their missions.

So far, between completing the missions and accepting the AIR rewards I got, I’m up to 6.25 mill ISK and have 2 ventures - one of which I shall save for low/null.

I’m going to work on finishing the other career agent’s missions if they’re reasonable.

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Also Planet discovery and scooping NPC loot for fittings.

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Love it - I used to do a lot of Ironman type challenge back in my D1, D2 days. And all of my Eve has been solo; but I’ve never set a specific Ironman style challenge, as it already seems hard enough solo. Anyway good luck with your adventure and looking forward to seeing how it goes…

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More power to you. +1

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Yeah, it’s a pretty nice goal to try to be a good solo pilot. Especially since a lot of EVE is more group and fleet focused. I’m a bit bummed out that there’re not a lot of options for solo pilots. You could do the pretty dangerous abyssals or you could do the easy stuff. Which sucks, because solo play is actually pretty fun. Solo and small groups stuff.

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Agreed. Some mid-range content for solo play would be nice.

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Today I had interactions with a Pilot who mentioned a YouTube video about doing this.

They said that no player trading or any market buy or sell orders.

Sounds actually interesting and doable.

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Good luck OP.

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It’s been encouraging to read the comments, and people have suggested some good ideas that I’d missed.

Day 2:

I finished the Entrepeneur career agent and got the Sigil. One of the later missions requires a Civilian Armor Repairer which turns out are only available on the market - fortunately for me, they were NPC sell orders in the station.

The Sigil will be useful in moving all the assets I’ve so far accumulated to a new home. With the career agent missions I’ve done, I got 4x cargo expanders which help…but not as much as I thought. Looks like I’ll need to add a couple of levels of Amarr Hauler to the skill queue.

I began the Enforcer career agent missions too - handy that they’re all in the same station. I’ve obtained an Executioner and 3x T1 guns with ammo so I’m clearing rats much quicker.

The intention will be to finish these Enforcer missions to get the Punisher. It has the extra turret slot but does not have the bonus to gun damage that the Executioner has, so at level 4 Amarr Frigate the Punisher will be doing less damage…but! It has resistances to armour and that means greater survivability which is more crucial playing Eve like this.

I’m now at 8.9 mill ISK, with a Sigil and an Executioner in my hangar. I also got a couple of skills books from the missions which have been injected.

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So it’s been almost 2 weeks since I last posted; a mixture or IRL and other games have got in the way.

Day 3:

I have now finished the Enforcer career agent line of missions, and have been rewarded with a Punisher. Next on the cards is the Soldier of Fortune ones as there I can get a destroyer which’ll be perfect for Level 2 missions.

I realised, perhaps a bit late, that I’d been given a Civilian Salvager. So I added it to the Executioner and was salvaging the wrecks of the last 2 missions for Enforcer. The blueprint for the T1 version was cheap and available nearby, so that has been my first purchase to use for myself. This more than double the salvaging chance %, allowing me to get materials for rigs.

However, despite it being my first purchase - I’d also (perhaps) made my first mistake…I didn’t check what minerals it needed and alas it needs some Megacyte. So I’ll be desperately searching for pieces through reprocessing loot.

Goals:

Get the Coercer.
Fit Coercer (not yet buying any BPOs for fitting it though in case I get drops).

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OP next post when

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Sorry for the lack of updates here - a combination of real life duties and other games being released both drew my attention away from Eve and any time I have spent online has been on my main. Nevertheless, I do intend to carry this on.

Day 4:

I’ve decided to set up shop in Kador. It seems a quite enough region if I need to dip into low-sec, has a decent amount of 0.5 systems if I ever need to “borrow” someone’s moon mining, has some high-sec dead ends, and some agents that I can begin with.

I’ve had to ferry my assets 7 jumps from Canoban to where I’ll be running missions from in Ghesis, and a bit further for where I’ll refine and build stuff in Chanoun. Sounds not too far but I’ve had to do 3 times so far as the Sigil just hasn’t had the capacity - i’ve only got 4 out 6 cargo expanders (T1) fitted and no rigs.

Since my last update I finished the Soldier of Fortune missions and acquired my Coercer. Supposedly in one of the missions you’re meant to lose a ship, but I warped out just fine and so I have 2 Punishers now along with Excecutioner for running missions. I want to fit out the Coercer as quickly as possible though to simply kill stuff quicker but I need to reacquaint myself with what I have, what I need, and what I can then afford blueprint wise.

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