I didn't think I'd be returning to these, but I got a bit of a plan. Rather this will help solve a long-term issue I always ran into. While it will take some time, I can at least test things out a bit.

My biggest issue of not wanting to run Abyssal is due to how often I can lose internet. Recently they did a massive network upgrade out here that took things down for a day or so. Since then, other than a couple of lag spikes. I have not had hours' worth of outages.

On top of that they also just rolled down a bunch more powerlines. So, I'm no longer losing power once or more a week either. While Abyssal still carries a lot of risk. Any of these two things can still happen. It at least for me makes me want to head back into these things.

Abyssal as it turns out is amazing for alpha characters. Alpha characters are simply those who are not paying the monthly subscription to be Omega. This could be a fresh account or an old account.

When you stop paying your monthly subscription you simply lose access to any Omega skills and the ships or items that require those skills. For quite a few skills that means level 5 and then the more advanced skills which require level 5 you simply can’t use either.

One of my biggest long-term issues has been my main is the one who always makes all the ISK. Anytime I'd end up in a situation I could not take my main out that would also mean I had very little to do.

I always wanted a proper alt. I also did not want to spend to have two accounts subscribed to the game either. That is where Abyssal comes into play. You can get to a decent point in Abyssal on an alpha. So, I thought I'd put that to the test.

I ended up taking the account that I used to get access to the new player experience that my main could not access. I then started to load up skills onto that character. That character is going to need to grind for it’s own ISK.

While it was tempting to seed that account with a bunch of ISK to get started. I rather like the idea of having an account that is in no way financially in-game connected to my main or one of my other alts. At least for the time being.

The cool thing about alphas is that they can’t use things like tech II ships. They can use the faction's ships. There is also a rather famous faction ship called a Gila that many use to farm Abyssal with. That will be my end-game goal for my new Abyssal alt.

While I could try and rush into a Gila. They are not cheap, and I can kind of test the waters long before that character is ready. As I'm not subscribing on my main either currently. So he only has alpha skills. I however won’t be using him till I hit a certain bottleneck of needing to wait on skill training on the alt.

While an alpha account can only train, till, they have 5 million skill points before they are not able to train any further without using skill injections or being an Omega. That will be more than enough for what I'm doing.

The first steps for this new account are quite modest ones. To pick up a little extra ISK. I did end up going back to running some AIR starter missions. The ones I had not done on this character I did on my main back when I switched over to get him all the AIR points I could.

As expected despite my lack of skills on this newer account. The missions were not that hard. They would also provide me with some much-needed ISK to get the first ship I'd need for the Abyssal. Along with some filaments and skill books.

While it was a tad boring since those are just starter missions and I've already done them before. It was quite an easy and rather brainless ISK to make. It more than gave me enough to get started on my plans.

This account would end up being one where I'd not play it sometimes for a few weeks at a time. As there are clear jumps in capacity with certain skills. Ones that would enable it to use better ships and take on higher-tier Abyssal for better loot in the long run.

Since I'm not funding the account from my main. It would still need to do quite a lot of grinding to get into each of the different ships. That would also mean learning other skills than just the ones I mostly wanted for the Gila.

For the most part, I tried to keep to similar ships. With the expectation early on need to focus mostly on missile damage. Most of the damage from a Gila is from drones and it be a little while before I'd be rocking the Worm which is what many use for Abyssal farming on the lower end which is a drone boat.

Instead, I'd be using a Corax destroyer. Along the way, I'd swap out quite a few tier 1 modules with their tier II variant if I had enough CPU and power grid to do so. While that was mostly done due to my lack of skills. It was also a bit cheaper to be using the lower-grade modules on the ship. I was quite broke after I got the ship and a couple of filaments to run my first Abyssal on the account.

While it would be best if I could have used a frigate for more loot while running tier 0. Due to my character's low skills and my lack of experience in running Abyssal. The Corax was going to bring the DPS and tank I'd more than take advantage of till I could use something better.

This thing is also cheap enough if it does get blown up. I would hopefully by then have more than enough ISK to replace it. I’d also be keeping it as a spare ship as I upgrade to better stuff along the way. Just in case.

The Corax was quite a lot of fun. After looking at quite a few different loadouts for one I ended up getting a microwave drive onto one. Giving me quite a speedy boat. I however do lack the proper maneuvering skills so turning the thing was a bit of an issue.

Final Thoughts

While usually running Abyssal close to Jita is quite stupid. Since I was in quite a cheap ship and docked every so often to drop off loot. I ended up finding a nice little system with a couple of jumps out. It made resupplying and selling off loot quite easy.

I even lucked out after my first couple of runs of being able to fully cover the cost of my ship. While the loot at the bottom of the Abyssal is not that great. You can still loot a million ISK here or their items from time to time. Which I ended up doing.

All of this would also just be one of many things on my long-term plan. First, however, I wanted to make sure I had an alt account that could more than do a few different things. If for whatever reason my main ends up being tied up somewhere with a limited number of things to do.

Information

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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Eve Online.