EVE: Worlds Collide

I have been playing EVE Online again. This time a bit more aggressively that before. I’m doing more combat, and only doing mining as an AFK task when I have better things to do. One thing I really enjoy about the game now is that they have added more agent missions to the game since I last played. Before it was either “Do this supply run.” or “Go here and kill a few pirates.” Now the missions have a little story.

One of them, and one of the more infamous ones, is Worlds Collide. Two cartels are fighting and a supply ship has been caught in the middle. They want you to rescue the crew from the disabled ship. And most people will tell you that this mission is nearly impossible. Which is it, if you get it “too soon”.

However, one of the main reasons people find it so hard is that the mission is actually a departure from the usual stuff you do in the game. Even with a little more story, many missions are still of the “take this there” or “kill these guys” types. So when you are told the story of two cartels at war and the disabled ship, most people’s first thought is to kill them all and save the crew of the disabled vessel. But if you read the story, if you pay attention to the details, your contact tells you that concerning the two warring cartels… they don’t care, they’d sooner just sit back and watch them destroy each other, except for that stuck crew.

When you approach the mission point, the first one, you find yourself with two gates to choose from and a half dozen or so fighters on each side. The key here though is that you are between the gates, and while the gates are 45km away, the fighting factions are 90km away. Its a race. You could fight them, but you don’t have to. You can just run to the gate and warp to the next area.

Either gate you take warps you into a shit-storm. One side is admittedly easier than the other, but both sides are still rough. With the frigate that most people are likely to be piloting at the point in the game where they get this mission, fighting isn’t really an option. In fact, surviving at all isn’t that high on the probability list either. But, while you do warp into a hornets’ nest, you also are within 16km of the next gate. Again, you don’t have to fight. Just defend and run.

If you make the next jump, the final area is your disabled vessel with about a dozen fighters flying around… but these aren’t the rough customers of the last area, in fact, these hijackers are the kind that practically explode if you breathe on them too hard. Make your moves, draw them out, fight them, its a fairly easy win.

And that’s essentially what your agent tells you to do… rescue the crew, forget the cartels.

One of my favorite missions so far. Strategy over brute force.

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