Report from the Front: Ore Anomalies

In the Odyssey expansion released this month, we've seen some interesting changes, particularly with regard to the mining of ice in highsec. As our name suggests, the New Order is always on the cutting edge. Agents of the New Order have discovered that Odyssey has opened up new opportunities. Could this be the beginning of a bumping renaissance?

If you've been around the New Order for a time, you probably know of Agent R0me0 Charl1e. He was one of our very first shareholders. He is trusted and respected by all the good citizens of highsec. The bad citizens have other feelings about him, but they're wrong.

R0me0 sent me a dispatch straight from the front. Let's gather together and hear what he has to say about Odyssey.

Odyssey has changed a lot things in the game, shaken them up and made them look new. One of the new items on the table was the ice belts, changed from a static site with an overabundance of ice to a smaller site that when it depletes, it takes 4 hours of more to respawn in a new location. I had picked up my Not-So-Invincible Stabber Fleet Issue bumping ship to have some fun in the new ice fields when I saw this anomaly in the Foves system.

Of all the times I've probed in high sec (which is not very much), I have never seen a Hedbergite, Hemorphite and Jaspet deposit site, especially a large site. Pre-Odyssey these sites used to be hidden away only to be discovered by probing them down. That takes time and whole lot of patience, something the average miner does not have. So I had to check it out.

What I saw when I entered the site was appalling, so appalling that I forego taking a screenshot and head straight into action. The site had only been up for an hour and it had already been stripped away of all of its jaspet deposit and had only a couple of hedbergite and hemorphite ores left. I skipped the usual welcome as I was not trying to save miners from themselves but to save this rare ore site from becoming extinct.

As usual when the bumping starts, the insults start flying from the miners, after realizing they've been moved to the time-out zone. auldyin mcleod was a little bit more upset, so much so that he brought in a new Dominix Navy Issue to scare me off.

While I was trying to save this mining site, I try not to miss an opportunity to sell mining permits. I laid out the simple version of the function of the mining permit and waited for the response.

That statement is quite true, that is the response I get from the miners. I think I draw in the more stubborn miners when I do my bumping runs. By this stage auldyin mcleod had started to give me the ol' "carebear stare". Unlike most times where you would laugh it off, it made me a bit nervous in the mining site for one reason.

I was bumping miners with a active kill right ready to be activated at any time. Knowing this, I had to make sure auldyin wasn't going to fire upon me, so I used some reverse psychology on him.

Satisfied that it had worked, I kept up my work saving those rare ores from extinction by the miners while auldyin watched me, helpless to do anything about me.

Victory! All the miners had left and I had saved these little rare ores.

But victory is not forever as there's always new challengers appearing.

Sadly I can't play EVE 23/7 so after a couple of hours I regrettably had to leave the mining site. I may have only extended these ores lives for a short time, but it was well worth the work and sweat to keep them around so everyone could enjoy them--not just a small section of the greedy community, not thinking about their fellow capsuleers who can't play right after downtime.

So think about your fellow capsuleer next time you're mining and take what you only need, not what you can get your grubby greedy hands on.

In reading R0me0's report, I'm reminded of the story about a man who was rescuing beached starfish by tossing them back into the sea. He was asked why he bothered, given there were so many starfish stranded on so many miles of beach. Surely one man couldn't make a difference. He smiled, tossed another starfish back into the sea, and said, "It made a difference for that one."

Of course, saving starfish really is pretty pointless, otherwise I would blog about that. But if you join the New Order, you'll make a difference that will echo across highsec for all time.