It’s been several days since Operation Frostline went active and Eve players from all over the world have been hard at work farming those sweet, sweet drops. Much like The Crimson Harvest for Halloween, this is CCP’s way of celebrating Christmas with a little in-game style. While no Cerebral Skill Accelerator has been offered as of yet, as the holidays stretch on perhaps more and more will be in store.
The sites themselves are fairly basic. They are reached by a beacon, not an anomaly or cosmic signature and will show up right on your overview. Once you warp in you will find 3 waves of 5 Serpentis frigates. Once these are cleared you will be able to take an acceleration gate and 4 Serpentis cruisers will appear to stop you. Each rat has an insignificant bounty on it as the real value in these sites lies in the lucrative drops from the final stage: clearing 3 more waves of these cruisers will spawn a single battlecruiser which when killed will drop a cargo container. Standard drop for these sites is Female ‘Serpentis’ T-shirt (olive/black), Male ‘Serpentis’ T-shirt (olive/black), and a Quafe Zero Booster.
Quafe Zero has historically been a very stable item in terms of cost and supply. The introduction of these sites has increased the supply and thus caused the price to crash. The market price history graph for the past year in Amarr can be seen here:
Since it was announced in late November that Operation Frostline would be coming marketeers liquidated their supply of Quafe Zero, causing a huge drop in cost as they sought to offload their supplies before supply skyrocketed. Currently the cost of Quafe Zero in Jita 4-4 is just over 9 million ISK.
What really attracts players to run these sites is not the chance to get these basic items but rather the drops of PLEX, Synthetic Drug Boosters, Meta Entosis Blueprints, T2 ORE Ship Blueprints, skill hardwirings, Nexus Chips, and the jewel of any find- an officer module.
Given the ease with which these sites can be run it is possible for even a brand new player to run them. This Confessor fit is very effective at both killing rats, moving around and dabbling in PvP when required. With a total cost of just under 80 million ISK it punches far above its weight class in cost, size and skills needed. It is however powergrid intensive so without good skills you may need to drop the Burst Aerator. This should be replaced with fitting rigs if needed or more Auxiliary Nano Pumps.
[Confessor, Operation Frostline]
Small Armor Repairer II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Adaptive Nano Plating II1MN Afterburner II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Stasis Webifier IISmall Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Core Probe Launcher I
[Empty High slot]Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Energy Burst Aerator I
[Empty Rig slot]Gleam S x4
Aurora S x4
Sisters Core Scanner Probe x8
Navy Cap Booster 400 x1
Your DPS and range will be very dependent based on skills. 500 DPS, 8.25 optimal and 591 m/s in Defence mode with all skills at level 5. Try and group your guns so you are able to one shot the frigates and use them all in a single group for cruisers and the battlecruiser. The capacitor booster should not be required if not running the armor repairer. You should not be trying to tank them outright you need to utilize the impressive sig reduction bonuses and agility of the T3Ds.
Avoiding gatecamps in a T3D is generally simple as long as there are no bubbles present. Always jump into a system in propulsion mode. Align out and as you are aligning quickly switch to another mode. The drop in max velocity will cause you to warp near instantly. If you rather would be more PvP capable the stasis webifier can be swapped out for a scram. This fit includes a probe launcher to allow you to venture into wormhole space to find quieter places to run Operation Frostline spawns.
Out of game CCP is offering PLEX and signed copies of The Art of New Eden for the best tweets using the hashtag #frostline. While PLEX are not currently on sale, bundled with their purchase is ORE Development SKINS for the Rorqual and Mackinaw as well as Waschi SKINS for the Garmur, Orthrus and Barghest. Account reactivation specials are currently running as well.
