Idea: Backpacking

This has probably already been suggested under a different name, but it’s something I thought about: Backpacking. Here’s the general idea

Take a Stratios
Fit a hunting/explo loadout, and put a hunting/explo loadout in your cargo hold with a Mobile Depot, an MTU, and other general stuff.
Undock and… do whatever.

Essentially, you just go wherever you want in a ship for a good amount of time (a week, maybe?).

E.g. undock, oh look a wormhole, go though, maybe rat a bit, hunt some innocent explorer, go through another random wormhole, repeat.

Idk, just seemed fun to me. The point is that you leave for a substantial amount of time and just go places without setting a course. Of course, you could try and find a path to Thera, then null, then FW space, or just let the wind take you.

Seem like an idea?

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Here are some examples of how I do nomadic life. As you will notice account count is important.

  1. Take a neuter/scanner ship (legion is good) and a dps ship. Preferably covert ops (T3s). Dive into wormholes. Don’t come back until you kill a ratter. Sometimes I would find a good wormhole (like a solo person who rats in Rattles etc) and camp it for 3-4 days to kill whoever dwells this wormhole. Watchlist changes hit this kind of playstyle hard. I don’t do it since then. PS: You can refit your T3s to do the sites.

  2. Take a cyno hunter (Tengu), Sabre, a Blops, and a fuel truck (blockade runner to carry blops fuel). Go to a drone region. Hunt for DED runners. Meanwhile do ghost sites and data sites. Hunt for juicy ESS’s people might have. Money accumulates good. Come back when you run out of fuel or are bored.

  3. Take same ships as above. Go into a drifter wormhole. A drifter wormhole has 10-20 null connections every time, and at least few hisecs all the time. Hunt in your favorite region. Come back. You can do fuel/loot runs into hisec. Live in it until you are bored. No PvE involved with this one.

I think nomadic life is good. But I think “go wherever” doesn’t work. For a better use of your time, you need to have a broad plan about what you want to do.

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I do the same, except using a Skiff. I believe the Skiff is pretty much the most versatile ship in the game. Same concept. Take along an MTU and Mobile Depot, along with everything you need in the cargo and just roam around. Combat anoms, ice anoms, mining, gas, data, relic, whatever. Come home when you’re finally bored.

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This sort of gameplay is a blast. I basically always keep a mobile depot and keep an extra core probe launcher and a few different reppers for field repairs and stuff. Had more than one wormhole collapse behind me or elite pvpers set up a gate camp behind me. It’s a good life. Use public courier contracts to send your loot to Jita

:purple_heart:

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I spent a little bit of time playing the nomad. Orca alt with a cloak is the best way to go about it IMO. fleet hangar lets you store a variety of ships, acts like a mobile depot for added flexibility and it can store days or even weeks of loot. (if mining is your bag you can bring a venture along and fill the ore hold up as well. if not its still got a ton of space)

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As long as you keep in mind the PVP (you’re “backpacking” through a combat zone - might cut your “do whatever” time from 1 week down to 30 seconds).

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Yeah true. Keeping combat to a last resort if possible. The PvP loadout would be designed to hunt other explorers, not to solo brawl. I’d try and stay faaaar out of that region.

But yeah, true. Could be something that stops the whole thing.

I probably prefer Infinity Zionas method to pure random backpacking.

ie choose and fly out to a target nullsec npc area that has close access to low pop sov npc with a travel ceptor and a probe launcher, burn yourself some undocks/docks for npc stations and gate pings, scan down wormholes till you get a relatively safe path to empire and then bring your content ship(s) back through your wormhole path.

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Sounds like a good plan. I’ll give it a go. I’ll try the Stain region

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Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll definitely try no. 3 asap. Haven’t skilled well enough into a T3C yet, but a Strat should be able to do it, right?

Well, if you play solo with no alts then a Stratios is probably one of the better choices.
Depending on the circumstances you pve in, battlecruisers are usually good choices for C2 wormholes. Gilas should work too.
Of course they can’t warp cloaked, which limits chances to avoid pvp or gank unwary targets.

However, from my experience time is a key factor. It’s always worth to learn about the people living in your current region. For wormholes I recommend anoik.is

Good luck. o7

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Really good plan. I did this in a carrier for a couple months :smiley:

Also check out T3 cruisers.

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And don’t forget to tell everyone where you are, so they can meet you for some “songs” around the campfire. If you are lucky they might even bring some fun friends and give you a laser show.

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Lol will do xD

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If you end up enjoying yourself solo backpacking drop me a line… There’s a community.

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If you ask whether Strat can hunt for blops, then no. But if you ask whether you can hunt in a single Stratios, yes.

Drifters often camp the wormholes at the known space side. Remember to cloak up when they are on grid or they’ll instapop you.

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Backpacking can cover many forms…

I have an alt that uses an orca… Or at least that is his main camper. He travels through hi sec using it. When a site or lead points him to low/wh/nul, the orca docks and inside are lesser ships ready to help. There’s a covert ops prober for finding sites wherever. There’s a cheap vector for heading to low escalations. There’s s t3 dessies for fun and an ishtar if I need to run more serious missions or hi sec sites.

All on one alt, no other help needed.

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Once I’m fully trained into the Strat, and backpack successfully, I’ll send you a mail :slight_smile:

Requesting info on said community. I’ve been doing solo explo on and off since I started back in 2009. Mostly pilgrim solo exploration in southeast lowsec, but when odyssey dropped I moved out to the great wildlands. Also lived solo hole for a while. It’s be nice to chat with others living the life.

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You may remember this Garresh but some of the old ninja salvagers used to take their main and their orca alt into a wormhole with a scanship, a tengu that could run c3s, and a combat ship or two and see how long they could live and if they could escape with the loot/their orca… I’ve done it a few times and its a ■■■■■■■ blast but may also result in PTSD lol.

This is what “backpacking” meant 4 or 5 years ago.