Penumbra

"Penumbra" is the Caldari epic arc and as all epic arcs it follows a story that covers some inner dealings of its faction. You are initially hired by an agent of Nugoeihuvi, one of the seven megacorps that run the Caldari State. During the arc you will witness and participate in the power struggle between these megacorps and have the option to defect to the Hyasyoda megacorp.

"In the heartland of State space, inter-corporate tensions come to the fore as Nugoeihuvi makes a move for some quick ISK, and you must choose who to trust and who to betray. The moral ambiguity continues through to the end, as the player begins to unravel an even darker side to corporate self-interest and the ongoing conflict in Black Rise."

Requirements

To start the Epic Arc you must have a standing of 5.0 or higher with Expert Distribution or the Caldari Faction.

These missions have great rewards, but do require some advanced skills and ships to complete safely. Recommended:

• You can easily solo Level 4 missions
• You have a proper PvE fitted battleship or equally capable ship such as a strategic or heavy assault cruiser
• You have the Hacking skill at Level 3 or greater (required to complete "The Breakout")

Branches

During this Epic Mission Arc several choices are presented to you - this guide lists all missions, but a few descriptions are still missing, please add them if you run these missions. The mission numbers are the same as on EVE Survival.

Other Sources

This guide provides tips and suggestions that are not 'the' way to do the mission, but merely one possible way. The mission rewards listed depend on skills and possibly standings so results may vary a bit.

For a detailed description of all branching options and mission briefings have a look at Caldari Epic Arc guide by Jowen Datloran (pdf).

A very useful reference to specific missions is EVE Survival: Penumbra.

The old EVElopedia (fuzzwork) also has a detailed description.

Staring the Arc

Penumbra is started by speaking with Aursa Kunivuri, at the Nugoeihuvi Information Center in Josameto ("Beacons" and "Agents in Space" must be visible on the overview).

Chapter 1: Proof of Intent

Proof of intent is the first chapter of Penumbra. This chapter contains several branching missions and the branch in fourth mission will decide what rewards you can get in the end of the arc. For detailed walkthrough see Penumbra/Chapter 1 - Proof of Intent.

Mission 8: Meet Sinas

Travel to Astoh and check in with Sinas Egassuo at the Caldari Navy Relay Nexus. For the next mission you will need a BS with a codebreaker fitted.

Agent: Katsen Isha

Location: Poinen

Reward: 250,000 + 1,580,000 (Bonus if completed in 6H)

Enemy: None

Mission 9: Right Tool for the Job

Combat Mission.

• Need a Data Analyzer fitted
• Encounter is 1 jump away in high sec
• You can select your warp in range for this encounter - I fitted a sniper BS for this mission, warped in at 100km and kited the NPCs until I killed them all.
• Using this method I didn't take any damage, although the mission will take a long time to complete.
• To blitz, destroy the frigs near the shipyard, hack the shipyard container, take the item and then get out (You will miss out on about 30mil ISK worth of tags and loot)
• Initial there are 12 Frigs and 4 Cruisers
• There are 6 waves, spawning 5 minutes apart (therefore it takes 30min for all enemy NPCs to appear)
• Wave 1: 4 Frigs and 2 Cruisers
• Wave 2: 3 Frigs and 2 Cruisers
• Wave 3: 5 Frigs, 5 Cruisers and 3 BS
• Wave 4: 5 Frigs, 5 Cruisers and 4 BS
• Wave 5: 5 BS
• Wave 6: 1 Cruiser and 1 BS
• The cruisers sensor damp very heavily - if you plan on taking out all NPCs, kill the cruisers first and keep them out of sensor damp range (> 80km should keep you safe)
• Don't bring a salvager in until all NPCs have been killed - the NPCs do retarget and 'warp' back to their spawn point if kited far away.
• Once all NPCs have been killed, hack the shipyard container, take the item and report back to the agent.
• -2.4% Gallente Federation standing loss if comm array is destroyed. This prevents the waves from spawning but is not required to complete mission.
• The Gallente standings hit if you kill all waves is minimal (much less than if you destroy the comm array to avoid reinforcements).
• Killing all ships and leaving the comm array intact, I observed four negative entries in my Gallente faction transaction log:
• -0.02% Combat - Ship kill (x3) and -0.0% Combat -Aggression (x1) -- this is very minor.

Agent: Sinas Egassuo

Location: Caldari Navy Relay Nexus (Beacon) Astoh (System)

Reward: 10,000,000 + 1,350,000 (Bonus if completed in 6H) + ~30,000,000 in loot (mostly tags)

Enemy: Gallente Federation

Mission 10: The Breakout

• • You need to have a Data Analyzer equiped and the Hacking skill at Level 3 or greater to complete this mission (Hacking 2 and 2 rigs worked)
• You need to scan down the "Federation Detention Facility" Cosmic Signature for this mission
• The mission states that this site is somewhere within the Aokinen constellation - I believe that there is one of these sites in every system in this constellation, as I have always found it in the Astoh system where this mission is accepted
• Warp to the Detention Facility. The gate is not locked as long as you have the Federation Navy FOF in your cargo so all you need to do is approach and use it.
• For those wishing to kill the NPCs, the first room contains 17 Frigs, 4 Cruisers and 7 BS
• In the second room, approach any detention facility and hack it.
• Once it has been successfully hacked, grab the prisoner and return to the agent.
• Second room contains 8 Frigs
• After the hack the NPCs will start shooting, but they hit with only 2 damage each.
• It should be possible to catch 2 prisoners in the given time. The second can be sold via contract.
• Blitz: buy the "Caldari Prisoners of War" on contracts.

Agent: Sinas Egassuo

Location: Caldari Navy Relay Nexus (Beacon) Astoh (System)

Reward: 20,000,000 + 1,570,000 (Bonus if completed in 6H)

Enemy: Gallente Federation

Mission 11: Whisper of a Conspiracy

This is a low-sec courier mission. The item is small so it can be carried in a shuttle or covops. You need to travel approx. 6 jumps to a randomly selected nearby low-sec system Warp to the mission objective, approach the damaged radio telescope, retrieve the encrypted data fragment and return to the agent

Agent: Sinas Egassuo

Location: Caldari Navy Relay Nexus (Beacon) Astoh (System)

Reward: 7,500,000 + 762,000 (Bonus if completed in 3H 30M)

Enemy: Nil

Mission 12: Practical Solutions

High sec courier with 3m^3 of cargo. Five jumps to Oipo then back to Sinas Egassuo.

Agent: Sinas Egassuo

Location: Caldari Navy Relay Nexus (Beacon) Astoh (System)

Reward: 2,500,000 + 229,000 (Bonus if completed in 1H 4M)

Enemy: None

Mission 13: Forewarning

Low-Sec courier, take 1 unit of Encoded Message to random low sec.

Agent: Sinas Egassuo

Location: Caldari Navy Relay Nexus (Beacon) Astoh (System)

Reward: 5,000,000 + 165,000 (Bonus if completed in 34M)

Enemy: Nil

Mission 14: The Knowledge To Act (Hyasyoda)

The last choice, select:

• Home In Peace: leads to 25m ISK and Caldari State Faction standing increase as final reward
• Slipping Away: leads to Hyasyoda Mobile Laboratory and Caldari State Faction standing increase as final reward

Mission 14: A Difference of Opinion (Nugoeihuvi)

The last choice, select:

• Home In Peace: leads to 25m ISK and Caldari State Faction standing increase as final reward
• Learning by Doing: leads to 20 Nugoehuvi Synth Blue Pill Boosters and Caldari State Faction standing increase as final reward

Mission 15A: Home In Peace (Caldari State)

Lowsec courier: transport 5000m^3 of Caldari POWs to Malkanen.

Mission 15B: Slipping away (Hyasyoda)

Report back to Arikio Kuretsu in Wuos (Best to arrive in a BS ready for the final mission).

Agent: Sinas Egassuo

Location: Caldari Navy Relay Nexus (Beacon) Astoh (System)

Reward: 250,000 + 1,130,000 (Bonus if completed in 4H 30M)

Enemy: Nil

Mission 15C: Learning by Doing (Nugoeihuvi)

Report to Katsen Isha at Poinen IV - Moon 13 - Nugoeihuvi Corporation Development Studio.

Mission 16A: Across the Line (Hyasyoda)

• Single pocket without acceleration gate. The objective is in the office facility, guarded by a single NPC battleship.
• The following NPCs will spawn when the facility is closer tan ~125km: 9 Frigates, 4 Cruisers, and 6 Battleships.
• Cruisers have very strong jams and range > 170km - expect to be nearly perma jammed.
• Frigates warp scramble (2 warp strength).
• With one meta 4 ECCM (96%) it is possible to avoid most - but not all - of the jams.
• Because of the jams F.O.F. missiles might be effective. With good missile skills you can use FOF Cruise missiles from 200k+ which is well out of range from the NPCs.
• Alternatively, equip a sensor booster to be able to target the jammers from outside their range.
• You can also bring a friend in a fast frigate to draw their scrams and jams while you take those out. If the frigate maintains at least 600 m/s then it should be able to self-repair the reduced missile damage, but there is some more-sophisticated AI in this mission so the NPCs may switch targets anyway.
• Very heavy damage is dealt by the BSs, which fire very long range torps - I had to warp out several times in my Raven.
• If you warp to the facility at close range and get full room close-range aggro, expect in excess of 4000 pre-resistance DPS, primarily kinetic.
• You can warp within the mission to structures. (In fact, since there is no aggression until you start to close the distance to the office facility, you can come in first with a MWD frigate and set up some bookmarks to use during combat. Then you will be able to warp around for awesome kiting, and each time you warp you will break all target locks and cause all the inbound torps to miss you. This method is great for a dedicated sentry drone ship (e.g. Dominix) since each warp breaks their jams so you can relaunch your sentries and assign them to another target before you are jammed again - your drones will continue to attack that target until it is destroyed, at which point you can scoop them, warp to another bookmark, and repeat.)
• Once all NPCs have been killed warp/approach the office facility, get the family and return to the agent!

Agent: Arikio Kuretsu

Location: Wuos

Reward: One unit of Hyasyoda Research Laboratory + 1,740,000 (Bonus if completed in 6H)

Enemy: Nugoeihuvi (deal roughly 50% Kinetic, 50% Thermal damage)

Mission 16B: The Price of Silence (Nugoeihuvi)

Objective: Recover the original hard copies of the mission documents from somewhere inside the Ishukone Watch Facility.

On warp-in, there will be:

• 7 Battleships (Commander & Raven)
• 8 Cruisers (Moa & Rook)
• 8 Frigates (Hawk & Buzzard)
• 8 Cruise Missile Batteries
• 2 Stasis Web Towers

Things to take note of:

• Some cruisers and frigates will sensor dampen
• Some frigates will warp scram. Would recommend burning the frigates and cruisers fast.
• After all enemy ships are wrecks, approach the Ishukone Watch facility and a container will spawn. Loot 1x Ishukone Operational Reports.
• Return to your agent and enjoy your boosters, but not TOO much!

I did this in a passive + active (not recommended) tank Tengu and had little to no trouble with it. I had to warp out once, but was 1 shotting frigates as they closed in. And sensor dampening failed most of the time.

Agent: Katsen Isha

Location: Poinen IV - Moon 13 - Nugoehuvi Corporation Development Studio

Mission Location: Malkalen

Rewards: 20 Nugoehuvi Synth Blue Pill Booster
Bonus Rewards: 1,970,000 ISK (6 Hour completion)