Security Tags for Security Status

Starwalker had spent a long time as a "red flashy" pilot, whose negative security status was -5 or less. For some that was a status symbol and perhaps part of a desire to achieve -10 but for Starwalker it was simply a result of shooting ships and pods. He had no special desire to be excluded from high security space, he just wanted to kill ships and pods.

It was because Starwalker could not enter high security space that Starstepper was born, to provide a means of purchasing and moving equipment around in high security space and then eventually delivering it to a low security station. Whilst Starstepper offered a level of convenience, it also meant that he had minimal skills (~320k) and could only just about fly a Mammoth with cargo expanders.

This transportation limitation presented a minor problem for battleships, Starstepper could not transport them due to a lack of space in his Mammoth. Whilst Starwalker had not yet flown a battleship he would want to do that at some time in the near future. Indeed, he had recently purchased two Megathrons for just that purpose.

There seemed to be four main options:

1. Increase Starstepper's skills to be able to fly freighters and so transport the battleships
2. Pay for a transport service like Black Frog Logistics (or similar)
3. Take advantage of corporate facilities/mates (if available)
4. Increase Starwalker's security status and occupy his strategic base at Hek (0.5)

All of the options had pros and cons but Starwalker liked the idea of getting to Hek and being able to fit his ships there and to enter low security space from that station:

• Hek held a few billions worth of his ships, equipment and ammunition
• Hek had two simple paths to low security space and entry at Auner or Resbroko
• On the downside - Hek traffic to low security space was vulnerable to a gate camp at Hadozeko on the Resbroko gate. That might be a significant problem

Another benefit of increasing Starwalker's security status would be to avoid transporting ships and equipment on a regular basis, and doing repeat runs because some equipment item had been forgotten.

Starwalker had obtained some security tags from ratting clone soldiers and also one from the cargohold of a ratting Retribution. There were four types of security tag:

1. Clone Soldier Trainer Tag - 4 tags were needed to go from -10 to -8 security status. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 2m ISK
2. Clone Soldier Recruiter Tag - 6 needed to go from -8 to -5. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 6m ISK
3. Clone Soldier Transporter Tag - 6 needed to go from -5 to -2. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 40m ISK
4. Clone Soldier Negotiator Tag - 4 needed to go from -2 to 0. Available from low security asteroid belts or on the market for around 35m ISK

Starwalker took a selection of tags (4 Trainer, 6 Recruiter, 2 Transporter) to a Concord station in Aulbres, Placid and exchanged his security tags for security status and an additional fee of 46m ISK. His security status went from -9.8 to -3.7.

With his new security status of -3.7 he could enter 0.5 - 0.6 high security space with impunity and in particular Hek (0.5):

• Pilots with better or higher than -2.0 can enter any system
• Pilots with -2.0 or worse or lower cannot enter 1.0 systems
• Pilots with -2.5 or worse cannot enter 0.9 systems
• Pilots with -3.0 or worse cannot enter 0.8 systems
• Pilots with -3.5 or worse cannot enter 0.7 systems
• Pilots with -4.0 or worse cannot enter 0.6 systems
• Pilots with -4.5 or worse cannot enter 0.5 systems

Starwalker had noticed that killing the clone soldiers had given modest security status boosts but podding in particular had been a heavy hit to security status. He was unclear as to why there was such variation in security status losses but presumably that related to some combination of location, engaging only, firing on and destroying ships and pods

Whilst he was undecided as to whether he would try to get his security status any higher, he knew that he would continue to pod people when given the chance. He had his collection of corpses where he had recently added Grimmjow Jaggerjaques and Redo Arnes and fully expected to continue to grow it.