As a newbee, I have enjoyed the Guardian’s Gala for 2021. It represents some unique features that capsuleers should take advantage of, despite the complaints from veteran players who say that the Gala doesn’t stack up favorably with the Winter Nexus event just a few months ago.
It’s a great opportunity to PLEX for Alphas
The Gala has a daily giveaway for both SP and skins for 7 login days of the month (though it runs over two weeks), with gifts for both Alphas and Omegas. If you’re Omega, you’ll be able to double-dip into both. This is available for $5 for 7 days and 250k SP and some SKINS. The normal price is $15 for a month of Omega from CCP. Seven days here will allow you to fully max the Guardian’s Gala giveaway. Note that the Starter Pack can only be applied once per lifetime for accounts.
Use Exploration sites to get the Guardian’s Gala skins
Avoid all the combat sites: these are unfortunately not available to newbies. People have been clearing them, either in gangs (which are hard to contribute to) or solo – in very expensive battleships, such as rattlesnakes.
The Guardian’s Gala Exploration sites (Gala Network Support Centers) are scattered throughout highsec, lowsec, nullsec, and wormhole space, and randomly generated. They can be scanned down with T1 exploration frigates. I recommend a Heron with the typical fits.
Each of these sites comes with cans to hack: you can loot items for the quest. You’ll want to be brushing up on your probing and hacking skills here.
But the notable thing is that there is a bug/feature by CCP that allows the Guardian’s Gala Exploration quest to be repeatable. Therefore, find a site, hack one can, warp out, and then warp back in again. This allows you to finish the entire Guardian’s Gala quest for all the skins and rewards by finding just three sites, assuming you have them all to yourself.
Gank the explorers
There’s a lot of expensive ships in highsec going to exploration sites in various 0.5 systems in highsec – under the illusion of safety. If you get together a gang of newbies, you can easily take out these poorly defended expensive boats, which will drop high tier loot. Typical ships for this are T1 destroyers like the Cormorant. If you’re worried about security status dropping from this CONCORD-sanctioned activity, you should be working this with an alt.
There’s also the Proving Grounds (the 1v1 and 2v2 arenas accessed using filaments) but the rewards haven’t been much for those.
Stay tuned for more tips on how the newbie can fully engage with EVE Online. You’re not stuck just mining. The Gala is an open door for adventurous, if inexperienced, pilots.
