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In EVE no one can hear you scream (because it's downtime)

"You want me to deliver 8000m3 of gewgaws to the low security system of Ingunn, known hideout of murderers, thieves and other undesirables? You do realise that I will need to bring my industrial ship to fit all that junk? The big slow one with paper thin armour and a massive target symbol painted on the side. Have you considered that the miserable 175,0000 isk you are offering me for this mission won't even pay for a replacement clone following my inevitable podding in that cesspit."

You need to run 16 regular missions to get an important storyline mission that, usually, offers better rewards and a significant increase in faction standings. So after 16 combat missions I get my first level 4 storyline mission:a crappy delivery mission to low sec. Random numbers suck sometimes.

By every logical reason I should have declined this mission. Bringing a slow industrial into pirate infested low security space is just asking to come home in a pod and the standings loss I was likely to get from accepting the mission and failing far outweighed the small gain in the unlikely event I could pull it off.

But ... running missions in high sec gets tedious after a while and without doubt my most memorable moments in EVE are those episodes where I found myself in mortal peril with the possibility of losing something valuable. I may be a care-bear but I appreciate the adrenaline rush of a whiff of danger every now and then.  So... I accepted.

The biggest industrial I can fly is a hoarder and filling the lows with cargo hold expanders would easily allow me to carry the 8,000m3 payload but because paranoia is a good thing in EVE  I opted for two warp core stabilisers instead. Darn  ... only 7,500m3 of space left. Never fear a bit of jiggery pokery with Giant Secure Containers allowed me to distort the space time continuum and fit 8 into 7. Off we go to pirate town.

Keeping up with the paranoia theme I  sent an alt in ahead of me to scout. Low skill point alts are wonderfully disposable that way. In something of an anticlimax the low sec route I had to run turned out to be fairly quiet after all. The few pilots I spotted in local were members of assorted 0.0 corps with unblemished security records.Probably just passing through.

Once I established that the route was clear I jumped back to Marb and brought in the hauler. Job done, faction increased. Getting out was an uneventful as getting in.

Apologies for the lack of a climax but  this whole incident made me realise that despite my carebear leanings I quite enjoy taking risks in low security space.It seems to me that low sec is more lawless and unpredictable than 0.0. Unfortunately the the risk versus reward of low security space is completely borked. I wouldn't have minded losing my ship but failing the mission would set my faction grind back far more than I could hope to gain by completion.


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