EVE New Citizens Q&A

SoE arc is part of New Player Experience.

So no scram or disruptors AFAIK.

It can easily be done in a cruiser, if you have the proper skills for a cruiser. With minimal skills it might be harder then with a decent skilled frigate.

Low skilled frigate might be hard but not impossible. You might need a dessy at the end then.
High skilled frigate is possible.


Only standings/ISK/LP as a reward AFAIK.

Definitely.

An assault frigate is probably the best ship for it, especially now with the warp speed changes.
The whole arc can be completed in a T1 frigate, if you have excellent support skills. But a new player will need at least a destroyer and likely a cruiser in order to complete the arc. (Although it is possible to do the first 46 missions in a T1 frigate with only the skills you are born with - potentially even the next two, but not Dagan.) Also, for one mission you need 150m3 cargo space - not all frigates have that, so you might need a cargo hold expander.

They do in "Burning Down the Hive". I don't remember disruptors elsewhere, but maybe other things just die too quickly.

No notable item rewards. (There is one civilian analyser, but I think that's it.)

Total reward, according to https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/The_Blood-Stained_Stars is 15 millions ISK. Plus loot & salvage, but that's usually not that impressive.

I've soloed The Blood-Stained Stars in one long Saturday session, using a blaster fitted Harpy Assault Frigate.

Dagan is the only NPC that gives anybody trouble, and he really can't hit a close orbiting frigate, and it takes a good amount of DPS to solo him. I'd recommend a Cruiser for him (or getting friends to help), but a Frigate or Destroyer can be used for the rest.

Did Blood Stained Stars in a Tristan frigate with high drone skills, with the exception of the last mission. Did all the kills with the drones.

There are three particularly difficult missions:

• Burning Down the Hive - the most dangerous mission for new players, especially as it is much harder than anything before it. Suddenly you have to worry about aggro management, warp scramblers, etc. Many newbies lose a ship there. If you know what you are doing, it's easy though - e.g. you can simply fly around the rats in the second room and completely avoid them. Or you can kite and snipe. Or fit a decent tank. Just don't dive in head-first in your crap-fit destroyer, even though that worked in any other mission until now (did that mistake myself).
• Chasing Shadows - a.k.a. Kristan a.k.a. "the mission 2 steps before Dagan" - his heavy neut will destroy your cap rather quickly. If you rely on your cap for your weapons, it's an extremely hard mission. OTOH if you don't need cap (using projectiles, missiles or drones), you can easily dispatch him, even with very low skill points. (And ideally use a ships with a base speed >350m/s, otherwise you'll have trouble keeping up with him.)
• Our man Dagan - he should never kill you, as he can easily be speed-tanked, but he has an enormous tank, which can lead to a stalemate. Many new players struggle to do enough dps to kill him. Get more dps (friends, better fit and/or a bigger ships) and, ideally, do explosive damage. (BTW, it's the second-to-last mission in the arc, albeit the last combat mission.)

This.

IIRC the mission briefing on Dagan even states that you might have to ask for support or something like that.