A surprise in High Sec

I've been taking advantage of the 10,000 free XP for killing one NPC every 22 hours on characters who aren't my mains and so do not have an active skill queue. 

Killing a single high sec NPC every day is not hard and after a little bit of playing with fits for Amarrian frigates I've found a cheap and simple pulse laser fit Executioner. The fit is based on the one I use as a runabout in Curse except it isn't an Interceptor and there isn't a T2 module or rig in sight. 

It works and has allowed me to get at least 150,000 per character over the past fortnight (a few nights I've been busy and not able to login til late or at all). That's great thank you very much CCP :)

I move between a couple of systems in high sec and in the last week I've noticed that someone has built an Astrahus so I decided to go have a look:

As funny as it sounds this is the first one I've actually seen in space myself, all others have been screenshots given to me by others. It's quite the looker and as I approached I was allowed to tether then dock.

Thanks Dark Void Ventures for building and running this as a Freeport in one of my systems so much nicer to look at than a POS and nice not to get shot at.

Free Skillpoints due to Upgrade Woes

CCP have been upgrading their back end systems in February and we had a really good devblog from CCP DeNormalized, CCP Quant and CCP Gun Show. Even better we had CCP Seagull herself present a video that detailed the changes that happened and apologized for the unscheduled downtime which she then used to announce 200,000 free skillpoints would be given to all active and in-training characters.

The video can be viewed here. Two videos in six months from the Exective Producer. Wow, aren't we lucky :)

The devblog however was about ten times better than the video in terms of nerd information and I really enjoyed reading it and finding out more about how the back end systems of EVE Online are setup and work. The graphs were especially nice and I think at least one squeal of delight escaped my lips as I digested them.

The skillpoints were a nice present, I would have been happy just to know the problems were fixed but CCP do have great Customer Service these days. I've put mine to good use, Amarr Frieghter V on four characters is now that little bit closer. Fleet of Ark's is going to be a reality.

Free Gifts from CCP

I ignored the post at first but a short post, on the free gift all active accounts will be getting to celebrate the CSM X election, by the EVE Hermit warranted further comment I thought.

Shuttle

In celebration of CSM X we shall be receiving a new shuttle but wait, its not just ANY shuttle its a Council Diplomatic Shuttle which is a decommissioned, disarmed Pacifier class CONCORD frigate!

This is quite cool and instead of receiving the hull every active account, on the 25th February, will be able to redeem a 10 run BPC of the ship. 

The statistics of the ship aren't very special, seems to be very similar to a normal shuttle with a 5 AU warp speed, 500m/s base speed. Interestingly though it is able to lock up-to two targets (for what use considering it can't fit modules).

Trinkets

CCP Leeloo also added this:

Every account that votes in CSM X election will also receive 10 collectible trinkets one for each council which will contain a list of all council members who served during that term. Just a little keepsake for your fond memories of every single CSM member who has served on the council over the years.

More free stuff! I like collectibles so this will be a nice addition to what I've got saved from previous give aways.

Alliance Tournament Prize

It seems to that this year the winners of the two alliance tournaments (for Tranquillity and Serenity (the Chinese server) will fight it out for another new ship (Victorieux Luxury Yacht) that will only be released on the winners server.