It was time to get my grind on in Abyssal sites. They were already turning some of the profits at the lowest of tiers. I slowly wanted to work my up to something a bit more challenging while also covering the cost of better setups along the way.

I ended up having a couple of great runs while in the punisher so it just made sense to start looking into getting a little better of a ship. It’s not like I was returning to Eve Online without a little chunk of ISK to get whatever I wanted to get back into going again. I however wanted to try and at least earn enough for a little while to cover the many activities I wanted to go out and do first.

It was time to upgrade a Retribution. At first, I went for a bit higher of a damage fit. Later on, I decided to play it safer and add a little bit more tank to it instead. You will soon know why I ended up making that personal choice.

One of the biggest things I was rather loving about Abyssal sites was the amount of detail in the background. Eve Online has changed so much from a graphical standpoint over the years. They have always struggled a little bit with places feeling a bit empty.

Not anymore with Abyssal. I started to notice quite a few places around New Eden were starting to look void of anything. It seems like a few different activities they went in and added in some background objects to make the space feel still cold just not as empty. A little eye candy is rather nice.

I even found myself on a few Abyssal runs stopping for a moment to enjoy how the surroundings looked. Once all the things that were trying to kill me were dead. Along with having lots of time left on the site.

It’s rather nice they give you a countdown. That little red decreasing circle in the upper left. When I had my punisher there were a couple of close calls if I had gotten some nasty large pockets. With the retribution, I was tearing things up so hard it was starting to feel like I was overdue for grinding a higher tier of Abyssal.

So I picked up some Calm Electrical filament. It’s for tier 1 of the Abyssal I went for it. While it took me a bit longer to clear then tier 0 did. It felt like I was getting a big enough bump in loot to make it worthwhile.

The biggest thing I noticed was the jump in about of enemies I'd have to take on in each pocket. I also by now was starting to learn the different types I'd encounter. Some of the spawns I'd have to deal with looked far more intimidating than they were.

Such as one type would have a bunch of drones that it was controlling. Instead of needing to fight off all the drones. I just needed to take out the command ships. The drones they sent after me as well were not that powerful anyway.

Certain types of ships could remote-rep each other. While that was not a huge deal down in tier 1 Abyssal. When I'd go up a bit higher in tier it started to stick out a lot.

For the most part, the biggest issues I was running into were anything that casted sensor dampening on me. That would limit the range my lasers could hit a target form. I’d do my best to focus on those kinds of enemies.

I also noticed a few ships would spawn in with quite a lot of damage already taken. Those were the ones I needed to be on high alert about. The Drekavoc and Leshak had quite a lot of tank and high damage. They also had a decent amount of repair.

At least one of those two if I recall the Leshak had me struggling quite a few times. It kind of makes sense any battleship you are fighting with a frigate while also trying to run the site before the time runs out is going to give you some issues.

There is also the Karybdis Tyrannos. Like some of its friends, it wants to get you to the edge of the site. I kind of learned some of these guys you just have to go for right away as long as you can tank the rest of the incoming damage.

I ended up having a couple of close calls where I was right on the edge of the room. With massive red curved bars on one side of me giving me my final warnings, I was about to be out of bounds. I barely got my ship stopped and turned around.

While in a lot of PvE activities in Eve Online you can use things like orbit or keep distance buttons. In Abyssal knowing how to manually pilot your ship can and will save your life. Something I'll admit I was a bit rusty on. I was also enjoying being rather lazy not having to. That was until some near-death experience.

If only the loot was this good for every single cache I'd end up looting. I’d be running nothing but these tier 1s all day long. Some of the highest value in loot ended up being filaments that were for higher tiers. Fierce is a tier 3 filament.

More times than not I was doing enough runs till I had around 20 million ISK worth of loot on me. I’d then go dock up and warp back out to one of my many safe spots. Loot was quite all over the place. I’d have runs where I did not even come close to the 6 million, I looted out of that single cache. There are those kinds of caches on every run.

Along the way, I also looted quite a few limited-run blueprints. At first, I was rather excited. Then I started to notice I'd have a few dozen of them all after quite a few runs. It seems any that I looted were such low value no one wanted them. I even tried to sell some of the blueprints with no luck.

The great thing about this activity is it did not take long before I more than covered the cost of my Retribution. This ended up being a good thing as I did end up having one run where things just went from bad to worse. I then blew up.

Having those kinds of setbacks can suck. This is also why I decided not to tempt myself with tier 2 Abyssal in just a frigate. Yes, I'm sure it can be done. I do have some decent skills after all. I just knew without having to do so that I be more on the edge of my seat than I was looking for in an activity.

Final Thoughts

I must say I was a bit shocked at how challenging Abyssal has been so far. Sure, there are much better ships to be used for them. I’m however not looking to spend an insane amount of ISK on a ship just to lose it if my internet connection has issues. That is the kind of downside to these having such a strict time limit and you not being able to warp out to safety if needed.

I ended up grinding quite a lot of these tier-1 Abyssal sites. I then decided I needed a bit of a break from Abyssal to just roam around the game. I’d return later on in a much better ship taking things up a notch.

Information

New to Eve Online or a returning player? Use my recruit a friend referral link and get 1 million skill points on signing up or logging into your Eve Online account (can only be claimed once per account). Disclosure: I might receive in game rewards.

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