I received some mail recently from a like minded explorer asking about touring all of New Eden. There’s a hand full of us capsuleers who’ve tried this. Some have succeeded and some have failed. It’s a monumental task to be sure, one that is wrought with danger not only from those who would wish you harm, but the internal demons that will haunt you as well.
Here’s their letter. I’ve withheld their name for security reasons.
I was considering doing a tour of every system in Eve…starting with Kspace of course, and was told you might be of some help. I’m not even really sure where to start. Is there an easier way to track systems other than ticking them off on a spreadsheet? Is there an optimal route? What should I stop and see on the way?
I really have no idea how to get started and any advice you could give would be much appreciated!
My response:
Completed! 26.11.yc117 (Nov. 26th, 2015)
I’ve been where you are, so I hope I can provide some useful insights to help you get started. Some of it will depend on your approach. Most of those, if not all, that have done it before, have taken the get it done quickly approach and were prepared for the ship losses that would come with that. It usually takes about 3 months to do all of K-Space with that approach, including Null Sec. There have been a handful of folks who’ve completed it, but most give up. There’s nothing wrong with that approach either, just depends on what your goal is. To see if you can, want to see the cluster, etc.
I took a very different approach. When I started, the new graphic updates of the nebula backgrounds and planets were being upgraded to what they are today. So, I took a much slower, calculated approach, taking a picture of every planet in every K-Space system. It took me 3 game years to complete it and I used every tool I could find, like DOTLAN to help look for game camps, Pirates Little Helper (which I don’t think is around anymore), Eve Who to learn about the folks in the area I was in, etc. Because of that approach, I completed all of K-Space without losing a ship. But it is very slow, tedious, boring, and you have to have a lot of patience and luck.
You can check out my blog here where I documented some of my story going along (unfortunately, I lost the early forum post when I started so it’s not the complete journey). You can also check out my flight log here, where you can see the path I took. As to where to start, I’m somewhat of a roleplayer, so I had written up a history of my character and a home world, Saisio in the Forge Region, and just went from there. I just took it region by region, keeping track via a spreadsheet. The one thing I wished I had done, that I didn’t start doing until I started W-Space, was to drop a personal bookmark in every system. That would have been another way to keep track.
Please feel free to reach out to me again with any questions. I just say go for it, accept the ship loss before you undock, have 2 or 3 duplicate ships sitting in your hangar ready to go. Be bold, plan ahead, lots of luck, and fly clever!
I failed to answer one of their questions which is what to see along the way. Well, that’s an easy one to answer, there’s no better source than Mark726’s Eve Travel.
I do wish the best to anyone that takes on this endeavour. It’s quite the acomplishment when you finally finish all of K-Space. I had no idea, well, I had some idea, that W-Space would be the greatest challenge yet. Over 52% of W-Space explored so far on my own journey to explore all of New Eden, making that over 82% overall.
