The Gallente Election is underway in Eve Online, where players pick a candidate and complete a bunch of tasks, getting tokens along the way. This year, the developers behind Eve Online are focusing on Faction Warfare, which includes some drama going down with the Gallente and its former President, who is now getting replaced.

For the most part, a huge part of the Gallente Election event is taking place in Gallente space. Thankfully, they have eased up on some things, like allowing the data sites that can be hacked to show up in other regions of space as well. That space only covers a couple of regions.

This has also caused some issues, as one might have expected. From many of the systems hitting TIDI (time dilation, a way to deal with server lag) This has also created opportunities for gankers to focus on just a smaller part of the game in high security. While many pirate corporations have been blowing up anything moving in the low-security systems, many players are trying to run sites in the higher risk areas. As there are only six regions of space that are Gallente: Verge Vendor, Sinq Laison, Essence, Placid, Solitude, and Everyshore,

You have three candidates to pick from. Soraya Roden, Alix Moreau, and Lucas Tenzin. I ended up going with Roden since they seemed to want to advance robotics development and use the Gallente military to get more done. While I’m not flagged for faction warfare. The winning candidate is expected to have a huge impact on that and who knows what else.

I am rather glad they are letting anyone join in at this event. I also would not be shocked if the other main factions ended up having some sort of their own event this year. I might at some point put an alt into Amarr faction warfare if things start getting more interesting in that part of the game.

You have the main event rewards from the event for earning enough points from doing different tasks. These tasks include mining, running data sites, killing rogue drones, buying items, running Gallente missions, defending Gallente faction warfare sites, Gallente homefront sites, and running the campaign trail. I’ve done most of these activities so far. The faction warfare part and the homefronts will be the only ones I plan on skipping over.

This event also includes daily login rewards. The main thing I’m after is getting around 680k skill points for training out of logging in daily from this part of the event. I don’t care too much about the boosters or the skins. While my main might not be so in need of skill points these days. My alt accounts sure would love any skill points they can get their hands on.

There have been hints that further things will unfold as the event continues forward. Such as an expected reward track in the final week(s) of the event. This is kind of a common thing the developers of the game do. For now, the maximum points you can earn for a candidate is 1k. Usually, in events, you can expect it to get extended to 1,500. However, any extra points between now and then are wasted and don’t just roll over.

I myself hit a max of 1k points within the second day. I could have perhaps done it sooner, but I was taking on some longer activities that were more challenging. Since most activities, excluding things like running, give out 500 points each. I’ve since run a couple of alts through the process of farming points as well. Making myself a couple of billion ISK in the process. I mostly just wanted to have some characters ready in case the extended rewards end up being something highly sought after.

Since exploration tends to be an activity, I enjoy the most in Eve Online these days. I focused on going after the Drone iteration Depots. Unlike other events, where data sites in high-security were dropping loads of skins. I did not loot any. Instead, I was just getting Drone Iterations that sold to NPCs for 1 million ISK each. With each site yielding around two to five at a time.

An insane number of other explorers were also after these sites in Gallente. It was kind of fun beating most other players to a site. Working on the container and almost having it looted by the time another person who was also scanning the site down landed in it. I guess all that time I’ve spent scanning signatures in wormholes has paid off.

I ended up just going back and forth for the most part between a set of two dead-end systems. Giving myself about six systems to go through. Sometimes I’d switch locations if I noticed six players all dropping probes to look for the site in a system I was in.

Just finishing off that task took me around 10 hours for the data sites. Then, once I realized Drone Iteration Depots could be found outside of Gallente space, the next day. I ended up running some alts through the task in around an hour. With one system even having 5 of the sites up at once.

Funny enough, while explorers were fighting over the level 2 data sites for the event. I kept finding many Sleeper cache sites up. While some were run particularly badly by those who had no idea how to do them, and failed in a couple of areas of them. They left a lot of loot behind. I ended up pulling over a billion ISK in value out of them. With a decent chunk of it being in BPCs that I have plans to craft myself.

This is an example of one such site I ran. It was, however, not the actual site I ran at the time. You can quickly start to see if you get lucky on drops, and you can make a lot of ISK. You, however, have to know how to run the site in the first place.

It was also rather funny when I’d enter a system and see about ten other explorers all trying to probe down the one event data site. Yet not a single one of them would touch the Sleeper site that was up. In one such instance, I pulled about 200 million in loot out of one. While everyone kept just passing over it. Far more than you would get in loot out of the event data sites, that is for sure.

While I did not get any insane BPC drops. I ended up getting a 3-run ‘Radical’ Damage Control blueprint. I’m expecting to make around 83 million ISK in profit after making the items.

I ended up running the Campaign Trail, which only gave 250 points. It had you visit quite a lot of interesting lore locations. The issue was that many of them were in low-security areas of space. With some shortcuts, saving a lot of time in the heavy gate camped in null-security.

I had some close calls along the way. There were many Praxis set up with smart bombing modules. They would sit at warping in locations or paths and more or less kill anything that flew past them. People who were doing that were racking up insane page after page of kills. Though most were just running this task in shuttles. So not a very thrilling kill for most of the people hunting down players trying to do this task.

Many of the sites were just cool to see. Such as this former Keepstar. A lot of the sites were displaying former battles, honorable players, and other key lore about the game itself.

One of the coolest locations it takes you to is the memorial graveyard in Eve Online. It was started by a player. The game developers ended up making a special beacon for it and stopping the containers from decaying. While players can still deface the site itself, many, out of respect for fallen Eve Online gamers, leave the site untouched. This is quite a rare thing to see in a video game.

Another spot, and one I had been meaning to return to for quite some time, was the Eve Gate itself. Long story short. It’s the stargate that brought everyone from the decaying Earth to New Eden galaxy.

Another thing I ended up doing was just spam running a bunch of easy level 1 Gallente missions. Since I have a bad standing with them, I can’t get a higher-level mission anyway. There was no extra reward from the event if you ran higher-level missions or not. So just running level 1 was the quickest way to get 500 points. As you needed to run 25 missions in total.

I ended up using this as a way of getting some alts the rest of the points they needed as well. I originally wanted to go mining. Something I could do more semi-AFK. However, there are so many mining that the ore types that count towards the event are mostly mined out. I also noticed a few times, even in the quieter systems I could find to try in mine in. Those gankers were just going around and attacking anyone out mining. Which is a bit of a shame, as I ended up hauling out a tier 1 mining ship like 40 or so jumps to get it to Gallente space in the first place.

As you earn points in the event and finish all tiers of a task. You would end up getting two different kinds of tokens. One being the Presidential Candidate Favor token that you got after finishing each task. Along with Political Favour tokens.

With the favor tokens, you could head over to the system of Dodixie and warp to one of three candidate Outreach centers to exchange them. There, you could exchange the tokens for skins, boosters, drones, and even some special modules. Many were asking for insane prices for any of the items from the vendor on the first day. I don’t have a clue why anyone pays those highway robbery prices. Items have since crashed in price.

The issue is that many players don’t know how to exchange tokens. They also did not scope out the situation before going to the site. These sites were covered in gankers. Many lost billions in tokens. The local was filled with a lot of individuals who were not having a good time.

Since the first couple of days. The tokens you get from the event have dropped by 20-50% in value. I offloaded quickly while still trying to be somewhat greedy about what I could within the first 48 hours of the event. Towards the end of the event, I might consider buying special models and ship skins at quite a deep discount compared to what the going rate is right now. As I expect a massive decrease in token value in this month-long event. If, for whatever reason, there ends up being something that spikes the prices, it’s not like I can’t go out and farm a bunch more on my alts.

The only thing I’ve not gotten around to doing yet are the combat event sites. Since they only spawn in wormholes and low-security spaces. There is quite a lot of risk in farming them. I was planning to do this with some corporate members, but they have been rather busy. At some point in the coming week or so, I’m sure I’ll get this part of the event as well.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’ve had a blast so far at the event. Made some ISK along the way. Did some things I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I can only hope that in a couple of weeks, they add in some extra new things. The Gallente Election Event itself ends on April 16th. While I’ve kind of already “finished” it for now. I do have some unfinished business and hope they expand it further.

Information

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