This is one of those activities in Eve Online where it can feel like you have gone forever, not making much ISK. The next thing you know, you have 130million worth of loot. Then you go back to questioning your sanity for even doing it in the first place.

For quite a while now, I've not been taking it that serous of an activity to do. If I notice some combat sites up once in a while when taking a break from other activities, I'll go and run them.

More or less every time, I'm met with the same disappointment. I’ll run an unrated combat site. It won’t escalate, I won’t get a commander spawn. I’ll get like 150k ISK in bounties and that's it.

Well, one night that ended up changing. I was running around in my Anathema scanning down some signatures. I was mostly looking for wormholes, but I was bookmarking anything I could find.

There are quite a few different kinds of combat sites. Some of them show up without having to scan them down. Others, you need to find them. Some can be done solo. Others take quite a few players. I was mostly just looking for the pirate faction sites, if any.

The thing with these high sec combat sites that I can run solo is that quite a few of them have ship size limits. Many of them you can only take a cruiser. Others have no restrictions at all.

There were enough of them up I ended up going and fetching my T2 Retribution. I have it set up with beams for distance and dual armor repair. It’s my old low-tier Abyssal setup from quite a ways back.

Since the sites I was planning to run were mostly frigates, destroyers, and maybe the odd cruiser. I felt this was more than the ship I'd need for them. If nothing else, the pirate faction I'd mostly be fighting, which was the Blood Raider, was not known for using scrams in combat, so I could just warp out and repair if needed.

It’s also a cheap enough fit if I lose it. I couldn't care less. A single good run and I'd be finding that out soon enough would more than cover this ship, let alone getting something a bit more fitting for this sort of thing.

Most of these sites, you jump into them. You fight off a couple of waves of frigates and the like, and that's it. You are hoping to see a commander spawn at the end. These commander ships tend to have in their name things like Dark, True, Sentient, or Domination, depending on the type of pirate faction you are fighting. Once you learn them, it’s easy to spot them. Even if you are unsure, just hovering over the wreck will say Commander on it.

I go out and clear a few of the sites I have bookmarked. As usual, nothing. At this point, I'm just enjoying a break from all the other stuff I've been grinding. Then I fully clear out one of my last sites, and I get an escalation pop-up.

Now, getting one of these escalations does not mean suddenly you are suddenly about to make a lot of ISK from drops. I would after this get somewhere, but I did not even get a million ISK worth of stuff. However, this time that not how this one ends.

Escalations are special DED sites that you get that only last for a single day. Once you jump into one, then if someone were to scan you down, they can also warp into it. Otherwise, as long as you stay within the 24-hour time limit, you don’t have to worry about it.

Escalations can also go on for a few sites or end at any point after clearing one of them. You are hoping they go on till whatever possible end they have, where some big loot could be awaiting you. I’ve gotten so few escalations ever, and it’s been a while. So I kind of forgot that last part that they can go on for a few sites.

The first one I got was not that bad. Only 7 jumps out. I not only had a commander spawn in it, but it escalated onto another one. Sadly, nothing good from the commander. I also had to travel 48 jumps to the next one. A little disappointed about that, but I had to see where this was going to take me.

So I go out to that next one. I get a commander spawn and another escalation. This time, I got a single faction ammo drop, but not worth a lot. Along with the usual tag. Not great loot yet again, but I at least get to keep going.

I was thrilled this ended up popping to the next one before even clearing out the site. I did end up staying to kill all the rats just because I wanted to. The big loot, however, is going to be on the commanders, so I did not even bother wasting time checking anything else.

At this point, I am a bit tired of all the jumping around for next to no loot. At least I felt I was getting more of them. So took the 54 jump trip to the next one. This escalation ended up going all the way to the last one in line. I got to kill the main pirate in it.

I ended up lucking out a lot on the main kill. Four faction drops. While some were only worth a couple of million. One of them was worth closer to 70 million. While it shows an estimate of 131 million ISK, they ended up being listed for around 160 million.

While this amount is not an insane amount of ISK for how long it took me to even get an escalation, let alone one that kept going on and on. I also ran this thing in a T2 frigate. That is some decent ISK for the size ship needed.

Needless to say, this got me so pumped, I decided to keep grinding out some DeD sites. In the past, they were so bad that I did not care much for them. Now seeing the light and hoping perhaps they are not so rare. I started going around.

Not that long later, I ended up getting another escalation. This time, I also ended up lucking out with loot. While not as amazing as the first one. Getting a Corppi A-type repair worth around 50 million ISK for how long it took to get it. Not bad at all.

Final Thoughts

With me being in High Sec for these, after all, the loot is never going to be insane. Nothing like the billion ISK modules you can get out of null sec for running escalations. It was, however, nice to see the poetical being there as a nice alternative to running missions.

Information

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