The Crimson Harvest event is upon us in New Eden, and it shall rain blood from high sec to wormhole space! There are sites in just about every part of space, and that is exciting to see. From combat to exploration. There is a lot of fun to be had.

One rather odd thing about this event that makes it so bloody is that players have a chance of dropping implants when podded. I’ve advised everyone not to AP travel and never undock in only a pod. Each implant has a 50% chance to drop. It’s also a great time to have a buddy pod you with an alt if you have some implants, you don’t ever plan on using again, in hopes they will drop. Might be a good time to buy some implants on the cheap, soon as well!

Unlike some other events this year, where you could miss some days of logging in to get all the daily rewards. This one, you need to at least log in and claim them every day. There is a total for Omega players to get 655,000 SP from the daily login rewards. Along with some skins, boosters, and other stuff.

For those who are only Alpha, you do get some skins and a little SP as well. It’s just not that great. Some of the amounts, like the 5k SP for day two, feel quite a bit too low. So, after all, if you do the normal daily missions, you get just 10k from those. It is, however, free rewards, and that is always nice.

During this event, you need to pick sides. It more comes down to personal preference. The side you pick, you only get points for running the other faction’s sites. Since I'm already quite hated by the Blood Raiders, I sided with the Order of Tetrimon.

I did check the reward track for both factions. They give the same skins. There is a little bit of a difference in boosters. They also both give 100 Plex in total, along with 25k SP. So, for the most part, the rewards are the same.

As always, during an event. The ships that end up becoming popular to use tend to go up a bit in price leading up to and the first couple of weeks of the event. If you were like me and made some guesses ahead of time for what to manufacture. I’m sure your wallet keeps flashing green like mine does.

As far as wanting to make sure I could head out and do some of the basic sites in high security right away, I ended up picking up some ships ahead of time. Some of them worked out, and others not so much.

The first way to earn points and loot from the event is by running class 1 to class 3 sites. For both factions, you need to run sites called Biocybemetic. They appear as beacons. Only classes 1 and 2 appear in High security. Class 3 is in low security and elsewhere.

These sites are rather restrictive in who can enter them. The class one only allows the basic empire frigate ships. No tech two and no faction. While that seems to be a little harsh if these are sites you want to target. There is some good news: where I was, they were everywhere. As most are not flying around in a T1 frigate.

Class two allows up to a T1 destroyer. You can also bring in T2 Frigates into these sites. While the T1 destroyer brings more DPS, you need to use the site to its full advantage to deal with the oncoming waves of NPCs.

Finally, the last site class 3 is for T3 Destroyers. In the early hours, I've seen a lot of these flying around space and landing in high security Class 2 and under Biocybemetic, where they can’t enter. I have a feeling most will be turning to wormhole space for farming with them and the class 3s that can be found in them.

As far as the sites themselves. After you land on the site and use the gate, you need to head towards the Cognitive Calibration Spire. You will also notice there are objects 1k around it. If you leave the circle, the site fails, and you are done.

After a short amount of time, you start getting swarmed by NPCs. A lot of them are junk and don’t drop anything, and deal not a lot of damage with names like Relentless Venture. They, however, end up stacking up a lot over time, and were even able to overrun my dual-repair Retribution.

You will also see Automated Extractors spawn in. They only stay for a short while before leaving. Killing them sometimes gives you loot after the event is over. So, try and take them out while you can.

You will also have things like Ravenous Garmur that capacitor drain, web, and other stuff. They also deal a decent chunk of damage. So, you might as well clear those out quickly.

Since you are stuck in a rather small battle arena. Short-range combat is your option. As a lot of things will end up between 2k and 8k range for you. There is no sniping from afar during this event.

You might also notice there are structures called Unstable Generators. In class 2, you get two of them. Once they take a single hit, they explode, wiping out all the frigates that have been swarming you. It’s best to hold off on using either of these two till you must.

Once you survive long enough and take out the right ships, the event is done. I myself found it took a few attempts and some ship refitting to learn how to do these. The good news is that if things are looking bad, just head off the circle and try and warp off if you can. After a short countdown down the site will fail and all NPCs will warp off.

I personally found my fun and loot in the second way of earning points during this event. That is running the special data sites that appear everywhere. Now these sites, even in high security, are rather hard to hack. Unless you are running with some rather expensive implants, expect to fail cans.

While you can run both kinds of data sites. If you sided with the Order of Tetrimon, you will only earn points from running Crimson Harvest Network Nodes. If you sided with the Blood Raiders, you need to run Tetrimon Network Nodes.

These sites, like any kind of data site, need to be scanned down. If you're in a system and already see a few probes or scan ships floating around. It is advised to just go to the next system.

I ended up landing on one site where four people were rushing to get the nodes. I jumped a system over and found a data site all to myself. By the time I was working on the last can in the site, one of the people from the last system was just warping into the site.

It’s also a good idea if you end up doing the same rotation of systems to fully scan down and bookmark things like wormholes. That way, next time you're in that system over the next day or two. You are not wasting your time on signatures; you already know what they are.

The good news is that in high security, if you fail twice, they can just blow up. No damage to you. It’s a bummer when that happens. You really need to take your time and run these carefully to increase your chances of not messing up. I’m hoping that since these cans are a lot harder to hack than past events, it might keep some people away.

Now, do keep in mind the estimated price of skin and booster drops is going to be way off. Some of them won’t be showing for a couple of days. The market can also be rather wild. The 218 million can I looted is really worth around 180 million. Assuming prices don’t crash for the skin I looted, which will likely happen in the short term.

A lot of the time, when it comes to skins. Unless there is a crazy buy order price up for them. If you just hold onto them, you can get a lot more later.

The same cannot and won’t be true for the boosters. Any boosters you loot will expire. I’ve found it best in past events to just offload boosters while you can. After the first day, the market has a kind of idea of prices. They then tend to go down from there.

While most were still running around trying to get ships and supplies together. I was out getting most data sites to myself. I cleared a cool 400 million in loot in a short amount of time. Some of it sells to NPCs. The rest is up to the market, and I'll end up holding on to the skins more than likely for a few months.

As far as the final way to earn points. You have Crimson Gauntlet for Order of Tetrimon and Tetrimon Base sites for the Blood Raiders side to run. They are in combat and show up as a beacon. They are a lot rarer to find and can be run in bigger ships.

I myself have zero plans of running any for the time being. Once I get my fill of data sites. I’m sure I'll venture over to them once everyone is done fighting over them. Do be warned, if you warp to them to check them out, there are NPCs in the landing area. I’ve seen a few wrecks of people who went to check them out.

Final Thoughts

I, for one, was rather excited to see how many sites were up in a few different areas I've checked out. Granted, they might not be the sites you were looking for. I have a feeling the lower-class combat sites will be abundant with not so many people fighting over them compared to everything else.

This event is going on now and ends on November the fourth. Giving you just under a month to enjoy it. Usually, in the first week of any event, people go crazy. Then, towards the end, it’s easier to find sites. I lucked out and hit that sweet spot where people are still getting ready for them and trying to find out what to do. I’m sure my next run out, I'll see a lot more compensation.

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