Eve Online....

Before I waffle on, let me say that there's a site to 'educate' Eve online players about in game 'awareness'. New Eden Situational Awareness 101. Well worth a read for anyone so inclined.

Two alts, both Alphas, are characters I've got parked up in a low-sec pocket. Not to PvP but for mining and hauling. Not that they do much of either but when time allows it can be a distraction. 

Both alts are SP maxed out Alphas in clean clones(about 7 million SP). They mine in T1/meta fit Ventures and haul in T1/meta haulers. Nothing fancy, nothing strange, then again it's not meant to be.

The longer your even casually around an area of space you'll get to know it's comings and goings. Times of low and high player frequency. Times of the day and week when camps on the bottlenecks can and will happen. That said, lowsec is lowsec. A free for all royal rumble. Random is random and does happen, from solo players to gangs and more, all there for PvP no matter what ships they find.

Some of the shizz that goes down can get crazy. One group chasing a second runs in to a third and they all end up at another group doing a gate camp.

For my alts point of view, some players are doing the same things as me and so ignore me and I ignore them(scouts honour, once bitten twice shy). Still looking over my shoulders and growing eyes in the back of my head... But ignoring keeping my distance all the same. Others cause concern but in systems that are along a well trodden path you get used to solo players and again eyes on the swivel with DScan etc. Which usually allows ease as much peace of mind as can be possible. Keeping aligned to some safe spots to bounce off helps etc.

Most Corps in such areas keep to themselves(sometimes by being aggressive); So no surprise that they don't recruit locally. Corp Paranoia is real and justified. A snippet of the meme, is real.

It's not casual.

So I've not spent a lot of time to find a corp that would allow more safety in any lowsec region, never mind a more committed null corp/region(alas poor provi), never mind an even more committed wormhole corp. Casual is casual and I can do this all by by self, with no commitments. For fun, minimal profits, but mainly for dangerous fun. Dangerous but safe(safe as can be with a hold my popcorn caveat) fun.

One of my currently unsubbed and out of the game real world friends(that I've mentioned in the past) had a similar alt in a different region than me. He got used to the locals and they him.... But when he showed up trying to get something in system with a hint of cost to it they blew him out of existence, as they would with anyone else. Eve is Eve.

So why all this waffle about alts and low sec? Well I've been looking to setup and get an alt into another lowsec area. So I do keep an eye on dotlan and the loss ratio's(Ships and pods in Eve parlance). There was a massive blip that caught my eye over the last few days.

612 ships and 195 pods in the previous 24 hours(Friday) in one low sec, hi-sec border system..... That's a lot.

Some of the other nearby systems have high(for them) ratios. If Tama had even 20/8 I'd say it was high but 612/195..... 

It has to have been due to the current event? Players after the in system sites that give 'the gud lootz'? 

Looking over the kills there are a lot of players that do not seem connected with each other; Some small groups, but kills, separate over a long time period. That's a lot of solo random traffic going though an easy to setup gate camp, bottleneck. 

So yea my main question is why so many player kills; No matter the ship or fit, to still go through an obvious deathtrap....?

Speaking of which, here's another that popped up.....

It has to be the event right?

Not so much lambs to the slaughter as lemmings..... 

Everyone special and everyone with a chance of success in their own way. Happy participation award to them I guess.

The odds of getting in, running sites and getting out, with the loot.... 

Maybe I'm risk averse but my luck is never that good;  Then again I'm not 'desperate' for said 'gud lootz' content.

Am I missing something? It has to be the event right? Right?

Even contemplating going into low-sec to mine I'm running alts as scouts, getting to know the area and doing as much 'home-work' as possible.... Maybe I'm acting over the top? Maybe, maybe not.... This is Eve and it is internet spreadsheets.... Right? 

Even just looking at Dotlan map info to see the ship/pod kills in the last 24 hours seems too much for those internet warriors, common sense be damned. Nah I'm not that risk averse but seeing those numbers seems idiotic. Lemmings for sure. That's not fun for me in this game and if it is for you then great and good for you. But I like to have the information odds in my favour first before undocking, never mind jump into a lowsec system with no guess to whats on the other side. The warning is there for a reason.