The Labor Day sun streamed in the window as I squinted at my monitor, twiddling with the menus to turn the brightness up as I couldn’t see a dang thing in this new place I’d filamented into. After 13 months of wartime, I was excited to spend the holiday doing something new for me in the game of EVE Online.
Strange Destinations
After reading a thread on Goonfleet.com, I thought it would be more complicated than this. But in just a few seconds after buying the filament in 1DQ, I was already in this strange Triglavian region called Pochven. The icelandic skies are represented in most systems of New Eden, lending light to the darkness of space. But in Pochven, there was just blackness and a faint red glow. The blackness was more than just visual, as local doesn’t work either. I flew carefully, setting up safes and pings as I prepared for an Am0k. corporation operation planned for that night.
A Superhighway in Space
Pochven is a new region of space the Triglavians conquered from various empire regions of Eve. They created new jump gates between them, and disabled the old jump gates to create a perfect triangle that transverses empire in just a few jumps. The only way in or out is with a filament, but that is much easier than it sounds. In effect, Pochven is a massive shortcut to wherever you want to go. Buy one filament to get in from anywhere you are, and another specific filament to get out in the region you want to go.
Beware the Locals
I warped into the anomaly at range, and waited a few seconds in the darkness as I aligned to one of my safe spots, not sure what to expect. Suddenly drones surrounded my ship. So much for warping at range! I targeted one of the small ones as I watched my shield carefully. It popped just as I spammed warp, getting out before they got me into armor. I wouldn’t be able to repair my ship because, while there are stations in Pochven, all of the services require standings with the Triglavians. And that was what I was here to do, build up my standings in preparation for a corp operation.
I realized the problem as I was warping to the station to dock and charge up my shields; I landed in a bubble. Cursing all that effort to get to Pochven, I watched as my Cormorant exploded. I thought to myself that maybe this was a hairbrained idea like the abyss, and the tales of dank ticks required so much complex setup that they wouldn’t be worthwhile in the long run. But, I bought another cormorant and another filament. I didn’t bother getting an exit filament: this was do or die! Less than five minutes after my ship popped in that bubble, I was back in Pochven and warping to another anomaly. In just over an hour, my standings with the Triglavians was where it needed to be, and I was in the Amok staging system buying a ship from corp contracts. I was ready to go!
Flying First Class
That evening, just as we were about to begin our operation, the ping went out to defend K-6. We logged in our mains and cornered a TEST gang in the constellation. To our dismay, our scout reported that they filamented out rather than take a fight. I knew now that they had probably filamented to Pochven, taking the superhighway back to wherever they had scattered after failscading out of Delve.
We soon turned our attention to Pochven as well, our fleet undocking and moving through that dark region. We had both PvE and PvP in our objectives. Our scouts showed a light out in front of us, searching for both hostile fleets we could engage, and the anomalies for which we had come. The content in this new region is something that CCP has finally gotten right, with NPCs that behave a bit more like players. This interesting PvE, combined with the chance of PvP, is the perfect blend for a well organized corporation.
Regarding commanding a fleet in Pochven, FC Prometheus Hinken says,
“You follow the basic principle of ‘Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.’ Get the lay of the land, make sure your fleet members know that they must contribute with their “inner F2,” and explain the hows and whys of your preparation. You need to understand that at any moment’s notice, you need to hop from being a casual PvE FC to an on-your-toes PvP FC; this isn’t like incursions where the only contest is a DPS race against a fleet you can’t shoot – your contest is against another FC and your farming fleet may become the farm for someone else.”
As a hostile fleet jumped the gate, rather than engaging, someone taunted in local, “Am0k. is recruiting!” I don’t know if anyone could see it with the strange mechanics in Pochven. Our fleet commander patiently guided us through the anomalies and I smiled as we made it through, with all hands accounted for, and those dank ticks came in. The war brought a lot of content and I look forward to the next, but in the meantime, I have found much more to discover in EVE.
