Ok so having basically failed to get off the ground in Josekorn I had another search around and discovered after a short while that there are in fact things called ‘mission hubs’.  Now that sounded promising, where there are missions there are ships getting popped and where there are ships getting popped there will be wrecks.  “Yum, Yum!”

I found the information here:

http://eve-search.com/thread/839177/page/1

And as you can see these guys have a very nice summary of them for meh:

Alentene, Aramachi, Auvergne, Cistuvaert, Dodixie, Emolgranlan, Frarn, Gulfonodi, Irjunen, Jita (er?), Motsu, Oursalert (?), Penigramn, Rens (?), Umokka

Three of those seemed to be trade hubs and not mission hubs and once more we are back to that – what information can we trust thing.  Some people might have been taking the piss. Anyway the nearest hub was Frarn (which is really difficult to pronouce when you are drunk).  So off I went.  It took the best part of a couple of hours to move so the next evening I decided I was going to give this whole salvaging malarkey a go.  So I sat down for the evening and prepared myself.  The only thing I forgot was the drink! “Feck!”

It was a bit late I had already posted in local in Frarn and had an immediate convo from someone called Aouf.  A bit surprised at this I opened the conversation.

“I am running lvl 4s if you want to come in and salvage them normally I just leave the stuff behind.”

“I am happy to salvage and split it for you – no hesitation, just name how you would like me to do it.”  I had read to be careful about joining fleets so I I asked if he could give me the bookmark.

“All i want is guns that drop for the most part – great way to make money I started off doing the same.” There was a short pause before he replied. But I knew his game!!

“I don’t want to loot – that will get me flagged and I don’t know you as yet. ”

“I will blue all wrecks.”

Woot?  How cool is that?  So I got working with Aouf and within another 10mins had a second job lined up. Mind you the lack of drink did interfere so it was a quick pop out to the off-licence to get a few bottles of wine and some Guinness Export Extra. That was me sorted.  The only thing missing was a Yorkie bar.

After completing Aouf’s mission the next job was with Kristina Lynn and some of her corp mates.  There was quite a discussion about me joining their fleet.  I simply refused to stay in fleet because of the danger to my ship (Softly Sotfly) and she could not be arsed with this.  In the end Kristina stumped up the ISK as collateral for my ship – 6.5million and so I had nothing to lose.  We agreed I would pay this back at the end of the evening.

In the end I need not have worried.  They had me charging around all night – I had no time other than to fill my ship run back to the hangar dump the loot and then back out.  They were running an epic Arc and for the rest of the evening.  I looted everything and split the whole lot at random. By the end of the night (four hours in total) I was a cool 32million ISK better off. Wow!

I am pretty sure others can make more money than this doing other things.  But the key thing is for a nubbins like me I had broken the back of the initial isk problem.  The advantages of doing this were that a) I was starting to get into the style of play I wanted to emulate as a freelancer working with other pod pilots and b) it was busy and relatively risk free for now.

Over the next couple of nights I have got more work with the mission runners.  If I don’t get a reply in local or no convo’s I scan down a pocket and just get busy.  It has been such a success that I am now kind of ahead of myself in terms of ISK and I am now waiting to get my skills up to Cartogropher Standard.  The whole certificate planning business has worked really well for me so far.  Especially as I go from one phase of training to the next.  From the looks of the skills I need I have about two weeks left and then I will basically be ready to train covert ops or even High Speed Helmsman in preparation for salvaging in Low Sec which is on the cards now.

The key thing I suppose is that I am now already out there as a freelancer.  Its a case of consolidating this aspect of the game and preparing for my next steps.  I am in no hurry.  Already in the short time I have been in Frarn I have met some pretty colourful pilots and it has been a lot of fun!